A Great Leap Westward

Standing in his Grays common room, Bing Huang points out his roommates' new "Animal House" poster--showing dozens of actors waving their middle fingers--and gestures in disbelief. "Americans are so casual about everything," he says. "In China, we have posters to criticize, but nothing like this."

But for Bing and his two fellow freshmen from the People's Republic of China, Harvard's first undergraduates from that country, the past two months have been full of such surprises--from adjusting to the "rich" food in the Union to coping with the nonstop "commercialism" of daily life.

In particular, they have had to adjust to a student life far different from China's. In the PRC, until very recently, getting into college was an achievement limited to about 3 per cent of the population, chosen principally by a nationwide exam given to high school seniors. Students not scoring high enough were often "obliged" to take factory jobs or work on farms.

"Everyone wants high grades in China--we have very much competition," Bing says. "Every year after the scores and admissions are published, there are many incidents of suicides among high school students. The newspapers have to publish long articles to convince them that failing on the exam is nothing shameful--that there are other things in life." And once the students get to college, "the pressure's so high that some people go out of their minds."

American students, however, "are always having parties, drinking beer, and chasing girls," Bing says, adding that there are few parties at Chinese colleges like the Foreign Language Institute, which he attended for more than two years before coming here. "We were used to working on weekends to prepare for next week's exams," he recalls.

Lynn Tong, who attended high school in Brookline for a year before coming to Harvard, agrees students here are "less disciplined." But she says she "got used to the American way" and observes, "It's good that you can get friendly with teachers here. In China, you're just supposed to listen."

Bing also notes that "information is kind of stuffed into you," citing that PRC's regular "recitation contests," during which students have to recite long passages by memory. However, the independence here has made him feel occasionally "too disorganized" and "helpless." "I'm way ahead in one course, but far behind in another," he explains.

Though none regret coming here, Bing, Lynn, and Jia Chang all say the transition hasn't been easy. Bing and Jia, who have no family in the U.S., are occasionally homesick, but say calling each other and Lynn often helps. "Sometimes we have to talk Chinese--we get desperate," Bing jokes.

Despite their Harvard peers' laid-back view of academics, courses have kept all three very busy, thanks largely to language difficulties and unfamiliar "in-class terminology." Like many other freshmen, all three are taking Ec 10; Bing and Jia say they may major in Economics, while Lynn leans towards Applied Math.

Looser social norms in the U.S. have also surprised the trio. "In China, there's no sex education. Here, you start learning about it right away. I think that's too early," Lynn says, noting that premarital sex is outlawed in China.

Western "commercialism" continues to repel Bing and Jia. "It was my first impression of America, and it was not good," Bing recalls. "People are too concerned with making money. Walking down the street I feel the pressure of this commercialized society," a pressure he says is generated by advertisements and pushy salesmen. Pointing to the Union's overflowing trash bins, Jia adds, "It's criminal to waste something in China; here, they waste lots of things."

Most Americans, Bing says, have a simplistic view of the People's Republic, largely because of inaccurate media coverage. As an example, he cites a recent incident in his hometown, Beijing, where a man was tried for putting up wall posters. "The foreign correspondents called it a 'democracy war,' and he was called by American newspapers the leader of human rights in China. Most Chinese found that very outrageous--it wasn't true at all. He was just a street agitator." Bing adds, "Newspapers see China from an American point of view, and that's the worst thing they could do."

Attempts by the U.S. press "to dramatize everything," also contribute to the poor coverage, Bing says, adding that this tendency reflects the press' "commercialized motives." Lynn concurs, saying that textbooks here also offer "slanted news" about China.

The three, who insist they speak only for themselves, reserve their sharpest criticism for the Gang of Four, who controlled the Chinese Government until they were driven from power by current Premier Deng Xiao Ping in 1978. "We hate them. They made the country disunited," Jia says. Lynn, whose letters from her father in Beijing "always tell me things are getting better," also assails the Gang's repressive policies and deceptive practices.

"They were just playing games. They were going to ruin the country; they didn't know how to run things," she says. "Our history books would say a person was great one day, and suddenly change the next." For example, Lynn notes, books suddenly began to laud the country's King Ch'ing, an ancient monarch, because "the Gang of Four wanted to set up a ruler just like a king. People didn't know what was going on."

The Gang also savaged Confucius' once-untouchable reputation. "I don't know why they did it, except that he was a scholar and they didn't want people to be educated," Lynn says. In fact, since the overthrow of the Gang, which had drastically deemphasized higher education, college enrollment has mushroomed, and Lynn predicts the trend will ease pressure on high school students.

She speaks of the fear that enveloped Shanghai, her hometown and that of three members of the Gang, during their rule. "Before the smashing of the Gang of Four, you really had to worry about your letters being opened," she says. "We really didn't talk about politics except to very close friends."

"Shanghai was really ruined. They destroyed the whole educational system and rewrote all the textbooks. They tried to put in all this political ideology that wasn't for the good of the country, but for their own good. They had 'students' working in factories and farms--and they called it teaching." During the Gang's reign, she adds, people were expected to dress alike, but now, "you can wear whatever you want."

Since Deng's takeover, the three agree the standard of living in Mainland China has quietly but perceptibly improved. The supplies of meat, oil and other goods have skyrocketed since the new government stopped rationing and emphasized consumer goods, Bing says, adding "Leaders are more concerned with standards of living than with the ideological movements of a few years before. Most people I know think it's a positive change."

One trait that seems to transcend the change of government is antipathy for the Soviet Union. As Bing says, "All hate the Russians. All Chinese hate the Russians. It has a long origin in history."

The People's Republic, Lynn says, "doesn't want to reconcile relations with the Soviet Union." Most Chinese, she observes, believe that "life in the USSR is really hard and their government makes people's life even harder. We hear that people don't get enough food, except for the privileged class." But she adds, "I don't know if it's true."

As a result of the growing rift between the PRC and the Soviet Union, the Chinese have begun to view the U.S. more favorably. "People don't see the U.S. as capitalist pigs anymore," Bing says. "Aside from what they did in supporting Chiang (Kai-shek), the former leader of Taiwan) and Vietnam, the U.S. is seen as the counterbalance of the Soviet Union." He adds that "There's no hard feeling involved" between the U.S. and China, saying many Chinese see America as "a friend who can help in the improvement of our technology."

Many Chinese became fans of President Carter after he formally recognized the PRC last year. "We think he's a very smart guy, but we're just judging him on what he did for Sino-American relations, Bing says. But, he adds, Ronald Reagan--who drew headlines this summer for his alleged "two-China" policy "seems a bit muddleheaded in facing the choice between Taiwan, as a small trade partner, and China, as the great counterbalance of the Russian threat." Lynn doubts Reagan would be able to change the U.S.'s warm-attitude towards China. "It's become such a big thing between the two countries--he doesn't have the power to do it." She adds, however, that "the Chinese Government doesn't like Reagan."

All three students will probably return to China after graduation and say they'll take with them an image of the U.S. as friendly, prosperous, but perhaps not as socially egalitarian as China. "The rich people here are very rich, and the poor people are very poor--the differences are very great," Jia says. "You can see a lot of old people not being taken care of. I sympathize with them. In China, children have a responsibility to take care of old people."

Lynn's mother, who lived in the U.S. in the 1940's told her America "was really an ideal country." But, as Lynn discovered, "there are poor people here. It's not a perfect place, but there isn't a place where you can have equal rights." She addes that she hopes more young Chinese like her "will get a view the rest of the world," saying such visits could "probably make a big contribution to China.

And Bing will also tell his friends back home that "people here are very helpful and very considerate." He says, "It's not difficult at all to be one of them. Americans take pleasure in going out of their way to help others. It's the virtue of this society."

Where Do All the Chinese Go?

Harvard's three freshmen from the People's Republic of China (PRC) constitute about one-tenth of the undergraduates from that country now studying in the United States. Other colleges with more than one PRC undergraduate include Sonoma State University of California (5), Georgetown University (4), The University of California at Riverside (4), Temple University (3), and SUNY Albany, according to rough figures kept by the Committee on Scholarly Communications with the PRC.

The total number of Chinese students now enrolled in U.S. schools--a number which has grown steadily since the early 1970's--also includes more than a thousand visiting fellows and graduate students.

Far fewer American students study in China, Amy Wilson, a professional associate of the committee, explains, because many of the Chinese come in search of a technical education (which is far more accessible here), The rare Americans who study in the PRC go there "as humanists interested in studying China itself," Wilson says. She adds that most of the Chinese students in the U.S. are doing well and are satisfied with their situations, noting "I've heard of very few instances of someone going back to China before they'd anticipated."

Seamus P. Malin, '62, who has directed foreign admissions at Harvard since 1965, says the trips to China made last year by the basketball team and the dean of admissions and financial aids may have encouraged Chinese to apply here for the first time since 1947. He adds that an alumnus now working at the Foreign Language Institute at Beijing, Norman Bock, has also been "instrumental" in attracting prospective students.

"Part of the criteria for choosing these people was that they have a certain amount of adventure and strength," Malin says, adding he expects even more PRC applicants this year.