Intervention

I'm not going to lie, I've got some good friends. If I want to talk, there's an ear listening. If I need help, I just ask. The single nicest thing a friend has ever done for me is throw the best surprise birthday party Pullman has ever seen. Coming back from dinner on my 21st birthday, I pulled the door open to 30 plus friends jumping out from behind the couch and under the table, cake burning like a torch, just like any of the perfect-world perfect-life cliche movies you've seen. I'm a lucky guy and that's all there is to it.

I've got good friends, but my roommate, Jin Chao, has Tony-the-Tiger friends...they're grrrrrrrreeeaaat! They take things to a level totally unknown to the western hemisphere. Jin Chao's friends will stop at nothing to ensure his happiness - even lock him out of his computer, compare his physical and mental condition unfavorably to other students (i.e. call him a lazy fat-ass), and provide a daily schedule to help him shape up.

Let me explain. Jin Chao is what they call a kao yan student, which means he is preparing for the test to enter graduate school. The words "kao yan" are uttered with significance around here. A conversation with a chinese undergraduate will flow along, talk about him, her, this, that, until...

me: "hey, I noticed so-and-so hasn't been around lately"

undergrad: "well duh....so-and-so is a kao yan student"

At the words kao yan, the undergrad will fix his eyes on me, slow his speech, and enunciate. Those words really mean something, but the undergrad is afraid I won't get the full implications. After quite a few conversations like this, I think I understand.

In this country, it's easy to get intimidated by sheer numbers. Word on the street is, getting into grad school is attempted every year by untold numbers of faceless, fanatically hard-working undergrads from all over the country. The odds are not good - I've heard stats like 50, 300, 1000 applicants per available slot. The actual numbers are not important, it's the mystique surrounding the process that strikes fear into those with their sights set on that path, and awe into everyone else. I've had stories like this one delivered to me wide eyed and dead serious: "there are people who prepare for this test by spending 24 hours a day in a room with a table and books, for months. They leave to eat and go to the bathroom. When they get tired, they lay their head down on the book and close their eyes. When they wake up, they keep studying." I have my doubts, but it's plausible. With so many attempting the test, how could there not be people like that? But one thing's for sure, it's not everyone that's taking that path. Jin Chao, for instance.

In describing himself Jin Chao tells me, "My older sister plays the piano. My younger sister plays the violin. I eat as much food as my mom can put in front of me, then go to my grandma's for round two." Jin Chao doesn't group himself with those in China who are super productive, overachieving, model students. That's not to say he's a lazy bum either. After all, he got into the Harbin Institute of Technology, the MIT of China. His major is material science, heavy on chemistry and a real ball-buster even by standards here. But he chalks his past success up to a few spurts of all out effort and a gift for taking tests. Naturally, he's a little worried about the grad school test...it's like a minor league player up to bat for the first time in the majors. How's he going to measure up? He's been studying but it's been in fits and bursts. Everyone agrees that in order to succeed in this test, you need to be organized, get on a regimen of study, eat, exercise, do whatever it is you need as long as it's mostly studying. The toughest part, I think, is the lack of structure. Jin Chao's hardly got any class right now; he's been focused on preparing for this test since September and won't take it until January. How do you keep up your resolve for so long, free from any outside deadlines other than the gargantuan all-encompassing test looming in the far future? As I watched Jin Chao begin sleeping later, watching the occasional afternoon movie, teetering on the brink of ruinous collapse with a couple months to go, I found the answer: Your friends intervene.

I returned to the room a few days ago after class to find Jin Chao slouched shame-faced on his bed recieving a lecture from three of our mutual friends. The only female present was doing the scolding. "...not over? The movie's not over? You didn't get up until 9 o'clock this morning, I can't believe you even turned on your computer. Look, here comes Andy, back from studying I'll bet...he's so hard-working! And his ass is way smaller than yours too!" I couldn't believe my earse. One of the guys chipped in. "Jin Chao, we're changing the password on your computer. No more movies, no more games until the test is over." The scene reminded me of the reality TV show I've seen a couple of times, Intervention, where the family and friends of a drug abuser corner them and get them to seek professional help.

In an American intervention, the interveners focus on the way that the addiction has negatvely affected the lives of others. They are coached by a professional beforehand so as not to cause unnecessary psychological pain to the drug/alcohol abuser. Upon completion, the abuser feels remorse for hurting his loved ones and agrees to go to the rehab clinic on his own. In a Chinese intervention, there are no holds barred. Our friends ripped Jin Chao a new one as I watched in sympathetic pain. They didn't ask, they told. They didn't say he was forgetting the important things like his future and his health, they said he was wasting his time and had a fat ass. They asked me for confirmation a few times, but I put up my hands and shook my head...I didn't want to get involved in that mess. I figured as soon as the others were gone, Jin Chao would be really pissed off. I thought, at the very least, he would rebel against their too-specific orders. We have a schedule posted on our wall now, detailing his studying, eating, and sleeping times and locations.

It turns out he isn't. For the two days since the intervention, he's followed orders to the letter. I won't bore you with the details, but the schedule involves 14 hours per day of studying with the remainder reserved for eating, sleeping, and the commute to the library. Despite the low blow about the big butt, there's no time for exercise. I've talked to him about the intervention, and he seems genuinely ok with the whole thing. He says he's grateful to have friends who care about him so much. I guess I can understand it. He was feeling guilty about not doing it this way all along, and this was just the arm-twist he needed. Plus, that's probably the way his parents dealt with him until a few years ago, unlike the "learn from your own mistakes" American method I'm used to. That doesn't change the fact that if it happened to me, I'd be pissed off and watching movies all day, not talking to my 3 former friends.