Visit to China: Scale
The scale of everything in China is beyond most individual’s experience¾lots of people, lots of buildings, and a great deal of activity. The university world has been the same.
Ten million students take the Chinese college entrance exam each year yet there are only places for 400,000 in good Chinese universities, according to what we've been told. There are 300,000 testing centers across China, all monitored 24x7. Due to the demand for higher education and the lack of enough spaces, many students prepare to study abroad. In China, as elsewhere, the key to a good job is having a college education.
Distance education in China also takes on amazing dimensions. Two million students are enrolled in their distance education programs. The day I visited Beijing Normal University, historically a teacher education institution, they were conducting in-service training for 10,000 teachers.
Our first visit was to Tsinghua University in Beijing (called by many the "MIT of China"). Tsinghua has 32,000 students, all of whom are housed and fed on campus. In addition, faculty live on campus with their children. There are dormitories for undergraduate students, masters students, PhD students and international students. There is also special housing for visitors. Since the faculty live on campus, the university provides education for this children with an elementary, middle and high school. Beyond the massive amount of housing, the scale is brought home by the dining facilities. Dining halls can seat 2,000 or more at a time. The new campus of Zhejiang University, where we are today, can feed 10,000 at once.
We all expected the size of the population in China to overshadow that in the US. However, a comparison brings it home. We were told that there are 9 cities in the US with a population of over 1 million; in China there are 124. The town we’re in today, Hangzhou, is over 6 million people; by comparison the state of North Carolina is around 10 million. While taking a campus tour of one of Zhejiang’s campuses, the students each told us they were from cities with populations over 10 million people. It helps put in perspective a question we occasionally hear from Chinese students on campus: “Where are all the people?”
It isn’t just the size of the population or education that is on a large scale in China¾it is part of their history. We also have had the opportunity to visit the Great Wall which is amazing in its size and the effort that must have been required to build it. Tiananmen Square is even bigger than it looks on TV, as well as the reviewing stands along the Square. Chairman Mao’s picture is prominently displayed amidst the viewing stands. Today the Chairman’s picture not only overlooks the Square, but a great deal of commerce. Street vendors do a brisk business hawking hats and Chairman Mao watches. As we were told, although China was communist for 40 years, it has been capitalist for over 5,000 years.
