Military Freshers

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If you watch the video you will get a summary of exactly what we see in all areas of the campus, from dawn till dusk, every day since we arrived, and you will probably be as curious as we were as to who these guys are and why they are training like this. You would assume that it's the army, but after approaching many of them we gradually found out that these are actually the new students, and not just a select few: every single Chinese fresher in every university in China has to take part in 17 days of military training in their first few weeks at uni. Mad. It's their almost completely opposite, communist equivalent of Fresher's Week.

They start at 5.40 every day and carry on until 9pm, with short breaks. Many, including 18 year old girls, carry guns with bayonets, and practice stabbing movements. They can be heard marching to the sound of loud traditional communist music being blasted out from the sports ground. They sometimes have to stand to attention in the blazing heat for two hours, not moving, and people faint. Other times they all learn kicking, punching, chanting, and get punished for arriving late through gruelling physical tasks. It is well known that this is an incredibly tiring few weeks for students, and they all dread it, because many end up seriously deprived of sleep by the end of it. And if you're wondering about how disabled people fit into this... there just aren't any disabled people in the university to be seen. It's a mystery why not.

When we are taking photos, standers-by often ask in surprise 'don't you have military training as Freshers in your country??', because it is such a normal, expected thing for them. They even do the same compulsory thing when starting secondary school, presumably not quite as hardcore. We feel shameful after explaining to these exhausted kids that the first week of uni for British students involves getting drunk, doing fun activities and partying with hardly any rules for seven days.

All the press-ups and discipline can only be a good thing, but we became more and more curious, and sort of freaked out by the whole concept of millions of girls and boys across the country who only intend to learn biology or how to programme computers, having to go through this. What does it have to do with studying? It was explained to us by a foreigner that this is more just a Chinese communist way of thinking that is hard to fully understand unless you have been brought up amongst it: something to do with civilians being viewed as one big united force entwined with the army, rather than our idea of distinguishing between an army and the civilians who have no requirement to contribute to the strength of the country. Over a few days we followed them around, snuck in through back entrances to get as close to them as possible, watched their rehearsals, and talked to as many as possible in their breaks to find out more about just what it's all about.

We learned eventually that it was all building up to one final military show in the sports ground where they would demonstrate their skills. Chinese friends said excitedly that it was going to be a real spectacle and lots of important people were coming to take part. When a row of big heavy artillery guns were wheeled into the uni sports ground one day, the sinister and bewildering feeling of it all just turned into excitement and we made it a pledge to be there when the demos start. The next entry will be about what happened on the day of the show, when we found to a way to get in there and watch it!

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Photos

Freshers sleeping with guns
What a sight.

"Don't take a photo please"
The 'armed' guard at the entrance to the sports field, saying this out of the corner of her mouth as she held back a chuckle and tried not to move. It all looks very official but when you get to know these people in their breaks, you realise that they are just teenagers who have been assigned a random task, who actually find the whole thing just as funny and as we do.

Comments

[Julie Webb]

Birnam Wood
Love the leafy headgear! Looks like Birnam Wood on the move! Hope all well re typhoon. Love Auntie Julie

[AnEnglishmanInNorway]

This outdoes the compulsory military service in Norway!
Nice blog, Peter. It's taken me to now to get round to reading it, but it was worth the effort. What a year you are going to have. I'm not sure I could have handled the chaos! BTW Pretty neat that "pete tupper china blog" into Google puts you at the top of the list.