Epitomizing Chinese Efficiency

Last night at about 10:30 I was walking by the tennis courts. In the darkness, a lone figure trotted through the darkness on the other side of the fence. As he came closer, I heard the sound of rhythmic chanting in time with his jogging. He was Chinese, but the chanting sounded suspiciously Russian. My jaw dropped at the utter efficiency of his time use: simultaneously studying and exercising when most of us are staring at a screen with a bowl of popcorn and a cold beverage. Just think how productive he must be during daylight hours if he has to study and exercise into the night.

That was the first studying exerciser I've seen here, but he epitomized the impression I had of the Chinese before I left for China; the über student, efficient and robotic in actions and results. I had my reasons for this assessment, and still do. When I was at the CTY camps, my unofficial scan of the population showed that it was at least 60% Asian. The first roommate I had was also Asian, and he told me stories about learning his times tables in first and second grade after school, his dad standing over him slapping his wrist for every error.

The story is the same here in China. The Gaokao is the dreaded college entrance exam, literally ruling kids lives from birth until the 'pencils down!' command. The problem is that unlike our poor unimportant SAT, if you do poorly on the Gaokao you're digging ditches or pulling the foul sewage that clogs pipes out of manholes for the rest of your life (both of which I've seen here). If you do anything but ace the Gaokao, your future is in serious jeopardy. Since the university I'm at, HIT, is one of the top 10 in China, every student here certainly aced the Gaokao. This means that every student I'm interacting with was studying for the first 18 years of their life, minus 4-5 hours a night for sleep. I see this, and I think wow; how can we as a country compete with this kind of work ethic? It seems inevitable that before long, these robotic producers will overtake us using their superpower: inhuman tolerance of mind-numbing activities.

But this must have some kind of effect on the personalities of these people. Every hour spent studying is an hour not spent doing something else. What is that "something else" that we do so much of in America? Watch TV? Play with our friends? Fight with our siblings? Do we get intangible benefits from these other activities? I don't have the answer, but that brings me to another point. Fighting, playing, and existing with siblings isn't something the Chinese are doing much of, at least since 1979. That's when Deng Xiaoping implemented the one-child policy, limiting most Chinese families to only one child. Everyone in college here was born after 1979, which means everyone my age and younger are the "only child".

What do we learn from our siblings? I have memories...tempers tested, shoes thrown, bodies pinned to the ground...don't judge me, I was little. Siblings can get under each other's skin like no one else. It may not be fun for the kids, or the parents for that matter, but doesn't that experience have some value? Sometimes adults can get under our skin too, and what if it happens for the first time when you're 20 years old...or 30...or 40? Are shoes going to be thrown, like it happens with kids the first time a temper really gets torqued? Or are the weapons going to be a little more age appropriate?

But it's ok, the Chinese can get the same lessons from playing with their friends, right? So friends aren't quite the same as siblings, as anyone with a big family can attest to, but lessons are still learned. And not all kids here spend their entire childhoods studying, just the one's that go to good colleges and are going to be successful...oops. I guess that means that when this generation comes of age, the college professors, doctors, and scariest of all politicians will be socially underdeveloped, but at least the ditch diggers and sewage muckers might have had a chance at a well-rounded childhood.

I'm no psychologist and I don't know what kind of long-term affects widespread solitary childhood might have on society. I do know it's not the same as back home, and it's not even the same as it was here 30 years ago. Whatever the affects are going to be, China and the world have yet to feel them in full swing. My gut tells me that it's not going to be obvious, but it might make things a little bit...unstable?...to have a president and entire cabinet of politicians who spent their childhoods chained to their desks. Say what you will about Bush, but this is a whole new can of worms.

Don't go getting all scared, because it's probably not going to be that bad. As far as I can tell, all the other students here are fairly normal. Honestly, there's too many cultural differences and the language barrier is still too tangible for me to discern which of the oddities I've encountered could be due to only-childness. For instance, yesterday I met with a Chinese student for lunch. It was the second time we'd met; the first time, he'd randomly approached me on campus hoping to talk to a foreigner and maybe practice his English. Undeterred by my insistence on speaking Chinese, he wanted to meet again so at noon yesterday I was waiting in the lobby to meet this guy. When he showed up, we talked briefly and he introduced me to a friend he had with him. Then, as we were about to head for the cafeteria, he noticed that I was wearing shorts.

"It's cold out. You should wear long pants today," he said. This wasn't too surprising. The Chinese often offer unwanted personal advice for the sake of your health.

"It's ok, I'm used to it. I like the wind, the weather's like this a lot at home," I replied.

"I insist," he said, and indicated his concern with a hand motion. His friend nodded in agreement. "You'll catch cold."

"I'm really not worried about it," I said, starting to get annoyed. I might understand the cultural difference, but it's still annoying to have a guy your age tell you what pants to wear.

"No, no, no...I can't let you do it," he said, and from the level of concern on the two chinese faces, you might have thought they were advising me not to get an abortion or to write my will before I died of cancer.

I changed my pants. What a feeling...the walk of shame. Back up the stairs to the third floor, swapping shorts for jeans so I wouldn't catch cold, and then I had to go back down and have lunch with these guys. Oh where, oh where has my dignity gone; oh where, oh where can it be....

I'm not chalking this episode up to the only child phenomenon. I'm just illustrating that there's a lot to understand about the Chinese, and it's going to be a while before I can categorize the oddities by the multitude of possible cultural/deveolpmental causes. Actually I take that back. There's no way I'll ever do that, and if I met the Ph.D. who said he did, I'd call bullshit before I read his thesis.

If I can't figure out why they are the way they are, I'll have settle for trying to figure out how the Chinese are, period. I guess we'll see how far I can get in the next 11 months.