Chickity China, the Chinese children?

A stroke of luck allowed my dear friend Max and I to find ourselves caught up in one of the coolest tennis environments in the world, but now it's settling down to business. What we missed because of our escapades was thankfully not the first day of classes, but rather the opening ceremony and a campus tour of Tongji: a model of paradoxical China in and of itself, we soon learned. Mandarin classes were in one lou, building, where it seemed everything creaked. And bathrooms are usually a good standard upon which to judge: you couldn't get too close to these unless you dared to go in, and while each stall was divided, instead of pleasantly having your own hole to squat over, everything washed, er, downstream to the hole at the end of the trough. And, as always, the “bring your own tp” rule applies.

Mulling over this with other students led us to conclude that to us, because of the standards of living we are used to, basically everything is really cheap, but nothing is free.


But photos of Mao are free! A statue of the chairman hails to everyone who enters Tongji's gate, one of the few Mao statues left in China as he apparently ordered most of them to be torn down, not wanting to be idolized and all that.









One of the premier universities known for its architecture program in particular, the converse was also readily apparent. Modern, fresh, new: the site of our Civilization class and our culture classes. Mango smoothies for 15 kuai (about $2) in the café on the first floor are an enticing accompaniment to their free internet, zooming up the elevator to the 19th floor gives you ceiling-to-floor windows for a great peek of the city, not to mention nice study spots in this light wood and glass ambience that seems to expect library-quiet.



As amazing as this class building is, Zhao Laoshi, with his wisdom that learning Chinese society happens not only within a classroom, took us on a field trip!




It took us back to our kindergarten days, as we giddily followed our fearless leader… to a kindergarten! A haven for the children of Tongji Daxue professors, I was astounded by the setup. With bright colors everywhere, this clean-cut building with more than enough class space, toys, and resources seemed to be a pretty swanky environment for these munchkins.






If you Americans remember your naptime in kindergarten, you probably received the child-size equivalent of a yoga mat to lie on, right? Not so here. Each child gets to lie in a child-size wooden bed with a mattress!




They did not know what to make of us of course, but they sang songs and did their little gongfu (kung fu) drills for us, and then it was playtime! Although surrounded by niceties, upon getting the chance to hang out with the kids and see if they could understand our zhongwen, these children were not spoiled brats that can result from that kind of environment, but pretty obedient as well as silly and playful.






Thankfully the kids put up with our struggles to think of more things to ask them than "Ni ji sui? Ni xihuan zuo shenme?" How old are you? What do you like to do? Game time made it easier for everyone to get silly and ignore our imperfect Mandarin. The fact that this pose is just a reflex for most Chinese kids whenever they see a zhaoxiangji (camera) somehow never ceases to amuse.


Title: Reference to "One Week," Barenaked Ladies, late 90s. Attempt that raokouling, aka "to entangle, mouth, order," aka tongue twister, only if you dare.

As if the Chinese children weren't great enough, our week will get EXPO-nentially cooler on Friday!