Things have pretty much calmed down over the past three days. This is the result of three main events.
First, three nights ago at 9 o'clock, the Henan Department of Education issued a six-part order:
1. The (figurehead) president and vice president (the real leader) are fired.
2. They must make a formal appology to the students.
3. Students who missed exams (presumably either in protest or out of fear of the protesters) will be given a chance to retake them.
4. The new leaders appointed by Zhengzhou University will find a solution to the problems (right).
5. The change to the diploma stands (more on this).
6. The students need to return to life as usual.
Basically, this is a very reasonable order, the best that can really be expected, although it falls a little short.
I had been a little confused about the specifics of the diploma change, but now, through meetings with people form the DOE and the administration (who finally, after five days, deigned to tell us their version what is going on), I understand it. Basically, a law was passed three years ago to close a loophole that allowed students from colleges affiliated with public universities to put just the universities name on the diploma without specifying which college. Given that many of these colleges are almost de facto independant, it seems like an entirely reasonable measure. The reason it is an issue now is it only came into effect with the students who entered college in 2003 (the older students were grandfathered through the loophole).
The students (and several other foreign teachrs) don't seem to fully understand this either. One of the main reasons that they don't particularly understand it is that the college has (intentionally?) mislead them into thinking they could still get the less specific, and therefore more prestigious, degree. The students do understand to a certain degree that they have been lied to: many of them were going around wearing shirts with "honesty" written on the back. Given the dishonesty of the school, my personal position is that the students should be given some sort of financial renumeration, but I think pigs will fly first.
The second thing that made them calm down was a threat to kick out any party members who were seen continuing to demonstrate. Given the degree to which the students have already seen their chances of getting a job severly damaged, loosing any party membership they might have would be an even bigger disaster. Although this doesn't affect all of them by any measure, the party members are frequently the ones who make better leaders (yay! coopting potential opposition!).
The third reason that the students calmed down, and in my opinion the biggest, is that it started to rain on Tuesday and basically didn't stop until today (Friday).
The interesting effect of all of this is that it has started to make it clear who among the students were hard-core on this issue, who will potentially continue to be radicalized (including a good friend of mine who needs to be much more careful than she is being right now), who were along for the ride and who were afraid of crossing picket lines. It was already clear who were running dogs of the administration (it was generally clear a long time before the protests even started; "please respect my China").
The interesting thing about these protests (to me) is that the studetns were primarily being reactionary. They wanted the school to cancel a good (in my opinion) reform that the school had no real power to cancel. True, they were also concerned with overly strict rules, assaults on students as part of the (largely unsucessful) administration crackdown and especially dishonesty, but once the weather changed and the powers that be decreed that the diplomas would stay changed, the bulk of the students, even the bulk of the student leaders, dipersed in disappointment.
The lessons of Tian'anmen are still powerful. The bulk of the students have still not turned away from the promise of prosperity to demand human rights, they were merely protesting the fact that they may have a difficult time acheiveing the promised prosperity in the current job market. We'll see how long it takes for freedoms to become the primary demands, rather than mere afterthoughts. You can bet there will be more student protests. As the worsening job prospects make the carrot harder to reach, more will start wondering why they are still being beaten by the stick when they look for their own ways to get food.
I am packed, bought my ticket to Beijing (8 hours in seats, ugh!), and trying to figure out how to meet my dad given that my cell phone was broken by some overzellous, water-throwing students (celebrating graduation, not protesting diplomas). One last thing about the protests before I move on to a presumably less entertaining travelogue: the best photos I've seen of the riots are here: http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20060619_2.htm.
Friday, June 23
Tuesday, June 20
More Protests
Once again, almost too much has happened in the past 24 hours to remember, but I'll do my best. Please note, there are some reports going out in the Associated Press and in the Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao which are not accurate: water cannons have not been used on the students; there have been no physical encounters between students and police although there are scattered reports of private security personel beating students (which I have not personally whitnessed although I have seen one student and one reporter with injuries); the students did not smash the windows in the library or any of the academic buildings, only in some of the dormatories and shops on campus (they didn't leave campus to destroy things outside); the student demonstrations since the night of the riot (6/16) have been almost entirely peacful...
In any case, I will pick up where I left off:
When I left the library to rejoin the students, they decided to march around campus insulting and admonishing the students who had gone to their exams (a small minority). Initially this was somewhat out of control, although I was able, with some help, to largely stop the students from throwing (plastic) bottles and the like. In the process I also had to keep them from attacking a private security person (incidently one who was trying to keep me from telling the students not to throw things) and several students who had taken exams and who are viewed as traitors. I did not want to become a central figure in this for a number of reasons, but especially because I don't want to open myself or the students to accusations of a forienger meddling in their affairs, but from this point onward I have largely been greeted with cheers and thumbs-up signs wherever I go.
In any case, the students completed their circuit a little after 11, whereupon they all dissappeared into their dorms for lunch and siesta (only in China). I watched the end of game 5 of the NBA Finals (great game, btw). Then I did some grading and took a nap. At about two in the afternoon, the students began to mass in front of the administration building again. Apparently a journalist from Xinhua, the official party newspaper had come to campus and was talking with the administrators. There had been reports of journalists parked outside and not allowed into the college the day before, as well as reports that a photographer had been attacked. The students pointed out a man who they claimed to be the photographer and who did have some nasty bruises around his neck. This, along with the report of an attack on one female student are the only ones that I have been able to confirm at all. Aside from these incidents the protests have been almost entirely peaceful, and even the bottle throwing has all but stopped.
The journalist left without talking to the students, reportedly breaking into a run as she neared the school gate. At that point, seven vans of riot police (who I mistakenly called SWAT in a previous post) and seven police trucks decended and formed a double line in front of the college gate. It was a very strange scene as the students went to the gate to see what was going on and began to taunt the police. After a little bit of bottle-throwing (which I quickly put an end to), the students began to sing songs (including the national anthem) and to say "Smile, one [of you]" to the riot squad. I escorted an older teacher out the gate, at which point the guards stopped allowing anyone to come or go. Along with several other students and teachers, I called the guards to open the gate, but they didn't do anything. Finally I just climbed over, admitedly not the smartest thing to do but the police didn't seem to care as long as things were orderly and the guards seemed to have dissapeared.
Finally, some time later the confrontation broke down. Part of this was apparently because another teacher (the same one I escorted out the gate) was standing and singing songs between the gate and the police. More, I think, was due to the PA announcement that the leaders had someting to tell the students. They all gathered in front of the administration building (at which point, I am told, the riot police backed off from the gate). The vice president started to make an announcement, but the students just started to yell "wrong!" and then the chant started for people to leave. Somehow the message was passed to go to the auditorium for another meeting.
Again, I managed to get a decent seat at the meeting (this time with a student to help translate). The vice president and some other official (reportedly from Zhengzhou University [Zheng Da]) were there but the president was not. They began to tell the students that they needed to calm down, that the administration had listened to their complaints and would respond. The Zheng Da administrator then started to talk about the problmes. First he responded to the accusation of students being beaten, basically by saying they would look into it and punish the guilty party. Then he began to talk about the problem of the diplomas but the students shouted that the first problem was not finished. He waited for the yelling to die down and then started on the diploma issue again. The long and short of it is that the students will not be getting Zheng Da diplomas because of a new law and there is nothing to be done about it. He then tried to dismiss the student complaints about the false advertising of Shengda as part of Zheng Da by claiming some ads only said Shengda College and as far as the others, "a mistake had been made."
The students were having none of this and started calling for a microphone. Their calls were ignored as a professor went to the table and began telling a slow story about his backgroung, presumably as an attempt to calm the students. They continued to get rowdy and call for him to step down. The leaders called for a meeting with student representatives, but the students are afraid (and justifyably so) of scapegoating. The vice president said the students need to find a legal way to air their greivances (protesting is basically illegal in China). This provoked more yelling. Finally one of my students stepped onto stage and began to say something, first into the mike and then to the vice president. Nothing really came of this and the students began calling for a mic again and when they were not given one, to leave.
That night there was a meeting of some of the foreign teachers (15 of the 25 that are left) to try to decide what our position should be, especially since the college told us nothing for the first two days and then sent an email telling us to stay out away from the students without a real explanation. There was a general consensus on final grades (to treat the final exam as optional and let the school fail the students if it so decided), but no real consensus on anything else. We decided not to send a message to the school from the foreign teachers as a group, and anything else was an individual matter.
This morning, I went again to the administration building where the students are gathered with the same purpose in mind (keeping things peaceful). At this point the president of the college confronted me; he said I should go home. I told him that I was only there to keep people from throwing things and from hurting anyone. Again, he yelled that I should leave. My response was to tell him that the students no longer listen to him, but they listen to me, which means that I am able to keep them from throwing things. At this, the students gave a yell and began to crowd around. They appeared to be thinking of attacking some teachers or staff members, so I ran up the steps to intervene.
At this point, Mr. Yang, the new head of the FAO arrived to essentially put me in "time out." I said I wouldn't speak to him unless Mr. Zhao (the old head of the FAO who I respect much more than Yang) came as well. When we got to the FAO I told them what I have been saying all along, that I am only there to stop the students from getting violent, to give them advice if they ask for it and to observe. Mr. Zhao seemed to calm down a bit and told me as a friend that this was a Chinese affair and I should be careful about it. I asked him if he had ever seen a protest or event like this and he replied that he had in fact been in one (presumably during the Cultural Revolution). I told him that I have been in protests too, but the students have not and so they need someone to help keep them in control of themselves. At this point, Zhao had to leave to do something else and Yang had a meeting, so I was given to another FAO worker to look after. I told her I wanted to go turn in my grades, but that I would come back and she let me go.
On my way to the appartment to get my grade books, I encountered a student who was almost hysterical because she wants to take the GRE and is afraid of how it will look if she doesn't take her tests but she is also afraid of her classmates and wants to support them. I told her that she'll probably be OK so long as she can explain the unusual circumstances to Universities. Then I went and turned in my grades and, accompanied by another foreign teacher, went back to the FAO.
In the FAO we were introduced to two representatives of the Public Security Bureau's Foreign Afairs Office. We, later joined by a third foreign teacher and a student, told them our side of the story as we see it. In addition to telling them about our understanding of the student riot and protests, we also mentioned several incidents that have happened to foreign teachers at Shengda (which I detailed several entries ago) and that the riots are being covered in the foreign press. They asked us what we thought about the riots and what should be done to solve the problem. Then we were assured that the police are here for our protection (as of now, I tend to agree, it has only been the private security personel who have been assualting students) and that they will look into what we have told them. They did not tell me that it was inappropriate to try to keep the students calm and in fact agreed that we are perhaps in a better situation to do so. I asked them for a copy of the report that they file, which I will try to post if and when I get it. The PSB also told us that the Henan Education Administrator or some such thing is here and will be making an announcement.
That is all as of now.
In any case, I will pick up where I left off:
When I left the library to rejoin the students, they decided to march around campus insulting and admonishing the students who had gone to their exams (a small minority). Initially this was somewhat out of control, although I was able, with some help, to largely stop the students from throwing (plastic) bottles and the like. In the process I also had to keep them from attacking a private security person (incidently one who was trying to keep me from telling the students not to throw things) and several students who had taken exams and who are viewed as traitors. I did not want to become a central figure in this for a number of reasons, but especially because I don't want to open myself or the students to accusations of a forienger meddling in their affairs, but from this point onward I have largely been greeted with cheers and thumbs-up signs wherever I go.
In any case, the students completed their circuit a little after 11, whereupon they all dissappeared into their dorms for lunch and siesta (only in China). I watched the end of game 5 of the NBA Finals (great game, btw). Then I did some grading and took a nap. At about two in the afternoon, the students began to mass in front of the administration building again. Apparently a journalist from Xinhua, the official party newspaper had come to campus and was talking with the administrators. There had been reports of journalists parked outside and not allowed into the college the day before, as well as reports that a photographer had been attacked. The students pointed out a man who they claimed to be the photographer and who did have some nasty bruises around his neck. This, along with the report of an attack on one female student are the only ones that I have been able to confirm at all. Aside from these incidents the protests have been almost entirely peaceful, and even the bottle throwing has all but stopped.
The journalist left without talking to the students, reportedly breaking into a run as she neared the school gate. At that point, seven vans of riot police (who I mistakenly called SWAT in a previous post) and seven police trucks decended and formed a double line in front of the college gate. It was a very strange scene as the students went to the gate to see what was going on and began to taunt the police. After a little bit of bottle-throwing (which I quickly put an end to), the students began to sing songs (including the national anthem) and to say "Smile, one [of you]" to the riot squad. I escorted an older teacher out the gate, at which point the guards stopped allowing anyone to come or go. Along with several other students and teachers, I called the guards to open the gate, but they didn't do anything. Finally I just climbed over, admitedly not the smartest thing to do but the police didn't seem to care as long as things were orderly and the guards seemed to have dissapeared.
Finally, some time later the confrontation broke down. Part of this was apparently because another teacher (the same one I escorted out the gate) was standing and singing songs between the gate and the police. More, I think, was due to the PA announcement that the leaders had someting to tell the students. They all gathered in front of the administration building (at which point, I am told, the riot police backed off from the gate). The vice president started to make an announcement, but the students just started to yell "wrong!" and then the chant started for people to leave. Somehow the message was passed to go to the auditorium for another meeting.
Again, I managed to get a decent seat at the meeting (this time with a student to help translate). The vice president and some other official (reportedly from Zhengzhou University [Zheng Da]) were there but the president was not. They began to tell the students that they needed to calm down, that the administration had listened to their complaints and would respond. The Zheng Da administrator then started to talk about the problmes. First he responded to the accusation of students being beaten, basically by saying they would look into it and punish the guilty party. Then he began to talk about the problem of the diplomas but the students shouted that the first problem was not finished. He waited for the yelling to die down and then started on the diploma issue again. The long and short of it is that the students will not be getting Zheng Da diplomas because of a new law and there is nothing to be done about it. He then tried to dismiss the student complaints about the false advertising of Shengda as part of Zheng Da by claiming some ads only said Shengda College and as far as the others, "a mistake had been made."
The students were having none of this and started calling for a microphone. Their calls were ignored as a professor went to the table and began telling a slow story about his backgroung, presumably as an attempt to calm the students. They continued to get rowdy and call for him to step down. The leaders called for a meeting with student representatives, but the students are afraid (and justifyably so) of scapegoating. The vice president said the students need to find a legal way to air their greivances (protesting is basically illegal in China). This provoked more yelling. Finally one of my students stepped onto stage and began to say something, first into the mike and then to the vice president. Nothing really came of this and the students began calling for a mic again and when they were not given one, to leave.
That night there was a meeting of some of the foreign teachers (15 of the 25 that are left) to try to decide what our position should be, especially since the college told us nothing for the first two days and then sent an email telling us to stay out away from the students without a real explanation. There was a general consensus on final grades (to treat the final exam as optional and let the school fail the students if it so decided), but no real consensus on anything else. We decided not to send a message to the school from the foreign teachers as a group, and anything else was an individual matter.
This morning, I went again to the administration building where the students are gathered with the same purpose in mind (keeping things peaceful). At this point the president of the college confronted me; he said I should go home. I told him that I was only there to keep people from throwing things and from hurting anyone. Again, he yelled that I should leave. My response was to tell him that the students no longer listen to him, but they listen to me, which means that I am able to keep them from throwing things. At this, the students gave a yell and began to crowd around. They appeared to be thinking of attacking some teachers or staff members, so I ran up the steps to intervene.
At this point, Mr. Yang, the new head of the FAO arrived to essentially put me in "time out." I said I wouldn't speak to him unless Mr. Zhao (the old head of the FAO who I respect much more than Yang) came as well. When we got to the FAO I told them what I have been saying all along, that I am only there to stop the students from getting violent, to give them advice if they ask for it and to observe. Mr. Zhao seemed to calm down a bit and told me as a friend that this was a Chinese affair and I should be careful about it. I asked him if he had ever seen a protest or event like this and he replied that he had in fact been in one (presumably during the Cultural Revolution). I told him that I have been in protests too, but the students have not and so they need someone to help keep them in control of themselves. At this point, Zhao had to leave to do something else and Yang had a meeting, so I was given to another FAO worker to look after. I told her I wanted to go turn in my grades, but that I would come back and she let me go.
On my way to the appartment to get my grade books, I encountered a student who was almost hysterical because she wants to take the GRE and is afraid of how it will look if she doesn't take her tests but she is also afraid of her classmates and wants to support them. I told her that she'll probably be OK so long as she can explain the unusual circumstances to Universities. Then I went and turned in my grades and, accompanied by another foreign teacher, went back to the FAO.
In the FAO we were introduced to two representatives of the Public Security Bureau's Foreign Afairs Office. We, later joined by a third foreign teacher and a student, told them our side of the story as we see it. In addition to telling them about our understanding of the student riot and protests, we also mentioned several incidents that have happened to foreign teachers at Shengda (which I detailed several entries ago) and that the riots are being covered in the foreign press. They asked us what we thought about the riots and what should be done to solve the problem. Then we were assured that the police are here for our protection (as of now, I tend to agree, it has only been the private security personel who have been assualting students) and that they will look into what we have told them. They did not tell me that it was inappropriate to try to keep the students calm and in fact agreed that we are perhaps in a better situation to do so. I asked them for a copy of the report that they file, which I will try to post if and when I get it. The PSB also told us that the Henan Education Administrator or some such thing is here and will be making an announcement.
That is all as of now.
Monday, June 19
6/16 + 3
A ton had happened here since my post three days ago. I'm gonna try to cover it all.
First, the "tutors," (i.e. the lowest official level of student control) called meetings with the classes to try to calm them down. I sat in on one (class 2 to be precise) and the tutor pulled out every trick in the book. She made the students wait for her (to make them nervous), she talked about getting no sleep or food for 24 hours (to try to get their pity), warned them about the iminent exams, cospiritorially asked them to agree with her that they "had not gone out”(wink wink). I thought it worked. The students came in angry and seemed to leave confused if not entirely calm.
On Friday night, nothing happened. On Saturday, nothing happened. The broken windows started to be replaced. The college tried to remove all the stones from campus.
Yesterday, I went swimming with some friends. When we left, students were starting to gather in front of the administration building. When we got back, there was a huge crowd. I went to see what was going on. They had a sign that said "[we] want honestry, [we] want freedom, [we] want human rights." Pretty shortly the administration agreed to a meeting in the auditorium.
Four senior administrators sat in the front, the vice president (the real leader of the school), some guy I didn't recognise (and who didn't really talk at all), the president (a relative of Wang Guangya, the founder, and certainly a sinecure position) and the party secretary. They each gave short speaches (over student yelling). The president basically said "I am the president of the school." The vice president seemed to say something about there being some problems that they might be able to fix and some they cannot. The party secretary caused more trouble by telling the students they were wrong and to calm down. Needless to say this just made them angrier.
After some chanting and yelling, a student (actually one of mine) went down and tried to play the mediator. She made too major mistakes. First, she tried to be reasonable and the students are not ready for that yet. Then, when the students started to yell at her, she called them "children." Good way to make a crowd angry. They yelled at her to step down. She said that she would step down if someone better would step forward. There was some confusion, then she was taken off stage by another student and a microphone was taken into the crowd for students to start to air their greivances. This initially was somewhat disorganized. And there was some response from the leaders (as well as some other guy who didn't identify himself and who basically said there was nothing to be done). The best moment here was when the vice president started to reply and the crowd shouted for the president. He (of course) was unable to say anything of note.
Then, another foreign teacher, who was apparently drunk (and an idiot, if I may say so), approached the stage and yelled at the president to leave. One of the FAO workers tried to remove him, which infuriated the students. He returned to a seat. At this point, the students got a little more organized. One (of mine, I'm so proud!) actually had made a list of greivances (instead of just yelling out whatever she could think of). Among other things, she said that although the students had broken windows, they had not hurt anyone. The campus guards, on the other hand had beaten some students for taking pictures (I didn't see this, but it has been confirmed to me by quite a few whitnesses). She then proceded to talk about the diplomas, the lack of freedom on campus and a number of other things. After her, others continued to air their grievances, including one of the girls who was hit by the guards (she was almost histerical).
The meeting started to break down. Some students started to get up to leave, other students yelled at them to stay. They started saying something (I think) about a hunger strike. At some point, two of the administrators left. There was a call for the others to leave. The two came back. Students started throwing empty water bottles at the stage (there had been some of this from the beginning, but it began to happen in earnest). The drunk idiot of a foreign teacher threw one too. This cause the private security that had been hired to start to go into the crowd and point out people who had been throwing things. THis made the students crazy and they started to charge the isles. I went out and yelled at the security people to leave, recognising that if they continued to go into the crowd, there very well might be another riot (not what anyone wants). The guards left, and so did the administrators. Students started to break seats and lights in the room. I yelled at them to stop, that it just made them look bad.
After the meeting, I councilled some groups of students on what I thought they should do. I had decided that I would not take an active role, but I will continue to council the students on what I think is best, try to keep people from getting hurt and act as a whitness. I told them to stop breaking things and to make sure they don't post any pictures of students on the internet. I also counciled them to make a concrete list of things the school has done wrong and what they think can be done to fix it. Finally, I told them to try to get the newspaper involved (which might be easier said than done).
Even if the newspaper does not get involved, word is still spreading. One of my friends amond the students said she has old classmates who have been messaging her for details after reading about "Shengda 6 16 event" or "Shengda certificate event" on the internet. Also, apparently students are not allowed to bring watermellons onto campus for fear that they will throw them.
Today, I woke up to yelling. The students are again massed in front of the administration builidng. It appears that about half of them are refusing to take exams. An announcement over the PA keeps telling students that it is wrong to skip exams and telling them they should do the right thing even if their friends are protesting their tests. It doesn't seem to be doing much good. Outside the gate of the school are six vans of SWAT (or the Chinese equivalent) along with six other miscelaneous police vehicles. At this point, I'm going back outside to see what happens and to try to keep this from reaching a real confrontation.
First, the "tutors," (i.e. the lowest official level of student control) called meetings with the classes to try to calm them down. I sat in on one (class 2 to be precise) and the tutor pulled out every trick in the book. She made the students wait for her (to make them nervous), she talked about getting no sleep or food for 24 hours (to try to get their pity), warned them about the iminent exams, cospiritorially asked them to agree with her that they "had not gone out”(wink wink). I thought it worked. The students came in angry and seemed to leave confused if not entirely calm.
On Friday night, nothing happened. On Saturday, nothing happened. The broken windows started to be replaced. The college tried to remove all the stones from campus.
Yesterday, I went swimming with some friends. When we left, students were starting to gather in front of the administration building. When we got back, there was a huge crowd. I went to see what was going on. They had a sign that said "[we] want honestry, [we] want freedom, [we] want human rights." Pretty shortly the administration agreed to a meeting in the auditorium.
Four senior administrators sat in the front, the vice president (the real leader of the school), some guy I didn't recognise (and who didn't really talk at all), the president (a relative of Wang Guangya, the founder, and certainly a sinecure position) and the party secretary. They each gave short speaches (over student yelling). The president basically said "I am the president of the school." The vice president seemed to say something about there being some problems that they might be able to fix and some they cannot. The party secretary caused more trouble by telling the students they were wrong and to calm down. Needless to say this just made them angrier.
After some chanting and yelling, a student (actually one of mine) went down and tried to play the mediator. She made too major mistakes. First, she tried to be reasonable and the students are not ready for that yet. Then, when the students started to yell at her, she called them "children." Good way to make a crowd angry. They yelled at her to step down. She said that she would step down if someone better would step forward. There was some confusion, then she was taken off stage by another student and a microphone was taken into the crowd for students to start to air their greivances. This initially was somewhat disorganized. And there was some response from the leaders (as well as some other guy who didn't identify himself and who basically said there was nothing to be done). The best moment here was when the vice president started to reply and the crowd shouted for the president. He (of course) was unable to say anything of note.
Then, another foreign teacher, who was apparently drunk (and an idiot, if I may say so), approached the stage and yelled at the president to leave. One of the FAO workers tried to remove him, which infuriated the students. He returned to a seat. At this point, the students got a little more organized. One (of mine, I'm so proud!) actually had made a list of greivances (instead of just yelling out whatever she could think of). Among other things, she said that although the students had broken windows, they had not hurt anyone. The campus guards, on the other hand had beaten some students for taking pictures (I didn't see this, but it has been confirmed to me by quite a few whitnesses). She then proceded to talk about the diplomas, the lack of freedom on campus and a number of other things. After her, others continued to air their grievances, including one of the girls who was hit by the guards (she was almost histerical).
The meeting started to break down. Some students started to get up to leave, other students yelled at them to stay. They started saying something (I think) about a hunger strike. At some point, two of the administrators left. There was a call for the others to leave. The two came back. Students started throwing empty water bottles at the stage (there had been some of this from the beginning, but it began to happen in earnest). The drunk idiot of a foreign teacher threw one too. This cause the private security that had been hired to start to go into the crowd and point out people who had been throwing things. THis made the students crazy and they started to charge the isles. I went out and yelled at the security people to leave, recognising that if they continued to go into the crowd, there very well might be another riot (not what anyone wants). The guards left, and so did the administrators. Students started to break seats and lights in the room. I yelled at them to stop, that it just made them look bad.
After the meeting, I councilled some groups of students on what I thought they should do. I had decided that I would not take an active role, but I will continue to council the students on what I think is best, try to keep people from getting hurt and act as a whitness. I told them to stop breaking things and to make sure they don't post any pictures of students on the internet. I also counciled them to make a concrete list of things the school has done wrong and what they think can be done to fix it. Finally, I told them to try to get the newspaper involved (which might be easier said than done).
Even if the newspaper does not get involved, word is still spreading. One of my friends amond the students said she has old classmates who have been messaging her for details after reading about "Shengda 6 16 event" or "Shengda certificate event" on the internet. Also, apparently students are not allowed to bring watermellons onto campus for fear that they will throw them.
Today, I woke up to yelling. The students are again massed in front of the administration builidng. It appears that about half of them are refusing to take exams. An announcement over the PA keeps telling students that it is wrong to skip exams and telling them they should do the right thing even if their friends are protesting their tests. It doesn't seem to be doing much good. Outside the gate of the school are six vans of SWAT (or the Chinese equivalent) along with six other miscelaneous police vehicles. At this point, I'm going back outside to see what happens and to try to keep this from reaching a real confrontation.
Friday, June 16
The Last Straw/The First Stone
Just call me Nostradamus.
It's crazy the degree to which this was all forshadowed. My student Tom keeps saying its like a movie.
There were the increasing complaints, the students' professed worries about finding jobs (which I have written about at some length), the rash of abuse and neglect of the foreign teachers. Then the weather got hot. It's been in the ninetees for weeks now and it's over 100 today.
Then, a few nights ago the students began getting rowdy while they were watching Japan in the World Cup (they hate Japan and were very happy to see them loose). Then things were a little crazy with the seniors the night before graduation, and graduation itself was a bit out of control. There were rumors that the students were annoyed about something surrounding their graduation. Then the students learned that their degrees would not feature Zhengzhou University on them and that they would not be accredited. This broke three years of promises to the students and the understanding that they, like previous classes, would have the more prestigious name on their diploma. That's when the riot broke out.
Last night, starting in one of the boys dorms, the students spontaneoulsy got fed up with the continued lies and mistreatment and decided to do something about it. They broke windows in dorms, shops, the administration building and the "school museum"; they smashed one of the pictures of Wang Guangya, knocked over phone booths, street signs and telephone booths; they threw fire extinguishers and trash cans into the street. Somehow I managed to sleep through it.
I woke up this morning to broken glass and trash scattered through the streets along with confetti that still hadn't been cleaned up from graduation. The "tutors" are trying to lie to the students to keep them under control, the riot police have been brought in. In class, I counciled my students that the best way to effect change would be to stay calm and focused, and that further rioting would only cause them trouble. I will say, however, that it must have felt pretty good to just smash things.
There are reports of a similar event from a private university in Beijing. While it is far too soon to say that this is the start of something, it is clear that people are getting scared. The government had already started to pass education "reform" to limit the number of college applicants, presumably to avoid forming a still-larger cell-phone proletariat.
Hate to say I told you so.
It's crazy the degree to which this was all forshadowed. My student Tom keeps saying its like a movie.
There were the increasing complaints, the students' professed worries about finding jobs (which I have written about at some length), the rash of abuse and neglect of the foreign teachers. Then the weather got hot. It's been in the ninetees for weeks now and it's over 100 today.
Then, a few nights ago the students began getting rowdy while they were watching Japan in the World Cup (they hate Japan and were very happy to see them loose). Then things were a little crazy with the seniors the night before graduation, and graduation itself was a bit out of control. There were rumors that the students were annoyed about something surrounding their graduation. Then the students learned that their degrees would not feature Zhengzhou University on them and that they would not be accredited. This broke three years of promises to the students and the understanding that they, like previous classes, would have the more prestigious name on their diploma. That's when the riot broke out.
Last night, starting in one of the boys dorms, the students spontaneoulsy got fed up with the continued lies and mistreatment and decided to do something about it. They broke windows in dorms, shops, the administration building and the "school museum"; they smashed one of the pictures of Wang Guangya, knocked over phone booths, street signs and telephone booths; they threw fire extinguishers and trash cans into the street. Somehow I managed to sleep through it.
I woke up this morning to broken glass and trash scattered through the streets along with confetti that still hadn't been cleaned up from graduation. The "tutors" are trying to lie to the students to keep them under control, the riot police have been brought in. In class, I counciled my students that the best way to effect change would be to stay calm and focused, and that further rioting would only cause them trouble. I will say, however, that it must have felt pretty good to just smash things.
There are reports of a similar event from a private university in Beijing. While it is far too soon to say that this is the start of something, it is clear that people are getting scared. The government had already started to pass education "reform" to limit the number of college applicants, presumably to avoid forming a still-larger cell-phone proletariat.
Hate to say I told you so.
Sunday, June 11
Keeping Up Appearances or Good Things Come In Threes
It has been far too long since I last updated, but in any case...
There is trouble in paradise. It seems like teachers have been dropping like flies over the past few weeks. And honestly, most of it can be blamed on the college.
First, one teacher left because of some pretty extreme fallout from the school. He and his (Chinese) wife had been facing abuse from certain administrators of the college because of their interracial relationship. It appears that these senior bigots had not been told that these two were married and assumed that he had started a relationship with a student (despite the fact that the college had in fact been informed in advance). He was warned to be polite when he tried to correct this "misunderstanding." The abuse went to the point that he was essentially refused medical treatment when he became sick and ultimately lost a lot of weight. Finally, he decided to break contract and leave early so that his health would not suffer further.
Another teacher runs an exercise and martial arts club that is pretty popular with the students. As retribution for repeatedly defeating a local tough/student in organized bouts, he and some students were attacked by a group of mooks/students carying knives and clubs. They escaped with nothing but some nasty bruises and shallow cuts, but the college stepped in and tried to prevent them from either going to the police or receiving proper medical treatment. Some senior admistrators threatened to expell the club members if their teacher tried to go outside the college to the police or US Embassay, protecting the gangsters in order to keep the Shengda's name out of the paper.
Yet another teacher slipped an broke her ankle in a teaching building because the floor was covered in water. She requires multiple surgeries. The college has tried to avoid paying for the medical expenses at every step of the process, generally conceding only when legal action is threatened. Mr. Yang, the new (and much despised) head of the FAO tends to forget how to speak English or to not be in his office whenever things need to be arranged to help her out, but he is very thourough in making sure that her pay be docked if friends don't cover her classes (for free) while she is in the hospital.
On top of this, there are undoubtedly countless problems for the students and innumerable minor problems for the other teachers (my difficulty getting my ticket to England reembursed is quite minor compared to these sagas of abuse and neglect). But all of this is being shoved under the rug. Founder Wang is coming next week and we are expected to wear formal clothes and be on our best behavior. Despite the daily highs in excess of 32 degrees (that's not freezing, more like 90 degrees Farenheight for those of you living in America or Yemen) and the utter lack of heat management in the classrooms, tank tops and shorts are not allowed. I'm debating what form my entirely meaningless protest will take. The formal clothes are a minor annoyance compared to what they represent. Options I'm considering: going as informal as possible - tank top (or no shirt) and the shortest (or longest?) shorts I own, doing the Fresh Prince thing - wearing formal clothes but in an entirely informal manner, or perhpas cutting the sleves off the cheap and enormously undersized polyester dress shirt I was given for Chinese New Year by Founder Wang.
This servicing of appearances over actual progress is absolutely universal in Chinese society. My friends and students have told me countless stories about certain students being asked to stay home from school, books being hidden or taken out and all manner of other rituals being performed the day political leaders arrive. Whole towns will ship beggars off to the countryside and force local businesses to purchase flower displays for inspection day. Every once in a while, the street carts I love so much mysteriously dissapear for a day or two, apparently bribed or threated to leave for the days of a VIP's visit.
In fact, VIPs almost certainly see very little of what China is actually like. At every restaurant, no matter how small, every museum, sports venue, hotel, etc., there is a special area for VIPs, and in many cases several different levels of VIPs. The Swiss architects of the Beijing Olympic stadium were told to prepare special spaces for more than 100,000 VIPs, 20,000 VVIPs and several thousand VVVIPs, whatever that means. Every meeting in China begins with some junior-level Important Person introducing the other VIPs present. In fact, sporting events begin with an introduction of a seemingly endless number of sports and culture administrators who then spend the rest of the game looking bored or even sleeping in their prime seats. They go so far as to broadcast these introductions on CCTV 5 (the main sports chanel in China) whenever they broadcast a CUBA (China University Basketball Association) game.
Keeping this phenomenon in mind, it is no wonder that the Chinese government often makes decisions that hurt their people. The most infamous case of keeping up appearances was a little thing known as the Great Leap Forward, the worst famine in the history of the world and an entirely avoidable one at that. The Chinese know this under a decidedly 1984-esque carefully-chosen understatement of a name: "The Two Bad Years." While there were droughts and crop failures during The Two Bad Years, the primary cause of famine was the almost universal over-reporting of crop yeilds. Some localities even went so far as to replant crops from several different fields in the ones that bordered on the road so that their reports would be visually confirmed when the high cadres passed in their motorcade. The result was that the government ordered the collection and storage of ever-increasing quantities of grain. Millions of people starved just tens of miles away from where cereals were rotting in Beijing warehouses or being exported to help fund the industrialization craze.
And while Wang Guangya is no Mao (he would certainly prefer to be compared to Confucious), he has taken some cues from the revolutionary icon. Wang's picture is everywhere on campus. Every classroom appears to be required to have a poster of him smiling wanly down on it. And there are at least three major murals of Founder Wang on campus: the one by the gate is probably the most expensive, although the least bothersome given that it only pictures Wang and a map of where he has founded schools; the one on the library is in two parts, Wang is on the left surounded by computers and other modern technology, Confucious is on the right ringed by a group of students, and we are left to draw our own comparison; the one in the new technology building is by far the wost, it is a picture of the Statue of Liberty with Wang's face substituted for the nameless French woman who presumably modeled for the original, leaving me unsure of whether I am more offended by the symbolism, the terrible irony or the abject hideousness of the thing.
So yeah, we have three enomous carvings of Founder Wang to offset the three sick or injured foreign teachers left untreated the past three months, or if you prefer, to make up for the three degress cooler it might be if the money had been spent on insulating the classroms instead of trying to build a cult of personality. I mailed my three-piece suit home three weeks ago so to put forth the proper front for Wang I think I'll refrain from doing three things: shaving, wearing a shirt and caring any more about what happens to this excuse for a school.
There is trouble in paradise. It seems like teachers have been dropping like flies over the past few weeks. And honestly, most of it can be blamed on the college.
First, one teacher left because of some pretty extreme fallout from the school. He and his (Chinese) wife had been facing abuse from certain administrators of the college because of their interracial relationship. It appears that these senior bigots had not been told that these two were married and assumed that he had started a relationship with a student (despite the fact that the college had in fact been informed in advance). He was warned to be polite when he tried to correct this "misunderstanding." The abuse went to the point that he was essentially refused medical treatment when he became sick and ultimately lost a lot of weight. Finally, he decided to break contract and leave early so that his health would not suffer further.
Another teacher runs an exercise and martial arts club that is pretty popular with the students. As retribution for repeatedly defeating a local tough/student in organized bouts, he and some students were attacked by a group of mooks/students carying knives and clubs. They escaped with nothing but some nasty bruises and shallow cuts, but the college stepped in and tried to prevent them from either going to the police or receiving proper medical treatment. Some senior admistrators threatened to expell the club members if their teacher tried to go outside the college to the police or US Embassay, protecting the gangsters in order to keep the Shengda's name out of the paper.
Yet another teacher slipped an broke her ankle in a teaching building because the floor was covered in water. She requires multiple surgeries. The college has tried to avoid paying for the medical expenses at every step of the process, generally conceding only when legal action is threatened. Mr. Yang, the new (and much despised) head of the FAO tends to forget how to speak English or to not be in his office whenever things need to be arranged to help her out, but he is very thourough in making sure that her pay be docked if friends don't cover her classes (for free) while she is in the hospital.
On top of this, there are undoubtedly countless problems for the students and innumerable minor problems for the other teachers (my difficulty getting my ticket to England reembursed is quite minor compared to these sagas of abuse and neglect). But all of this is being shoved under the rug. Founder Wang is coming next week and we are expected to wear formal clothes and be on our best behavior. Despite the daily highs in excess of 32 degrees (that's not freezing, more like 90 degrees Farenheight for those of you living in America or Yemen) and the utter lack of heat management in the classrooms, tank tops and shorts are not allowed. I'm debating what form my entirely meaningless protest will take. The formal clothes are a minor annoyance compared to what they represent. Options I'm considering: going as informal as possible - tank top (or no shirt) and the shortest (or longest?) shorts I own, doing the Fresh Prince thing - wearing formal clothes but in an entirely informal manner, or perhpas cutting the sleves off the cheap and enormously undersized polyester dress shirt I was given for Chinese New Year by Founder Wang.
This servicing of appearances over actual progress is absolutely universal in Chinese society. My friends and students have told me countless stories about certain students being asked to stay home from school, books being hidden or taken out and all manner of other rituals being performed the day political leaders arrive. Whole towns will ship beggars off to the countryside and force local businesses to purchase flower displays for inspection day. Every once in a while, the street carts I love so much mysteriously dissapear for a day or two, apparently bribed or threated to leave for the days of a VIP's visit.
In fact, VIPs almost certainly see very little of what China is actually like. At every restaurant, no matter how small, every museum, sports venue, hotel, etc., there is a special area for VIPs, and in many cases several different levels of VIPs. The Swiss architects of the Beijing Olympic stadium were told to prepare special spaces for more than 100,000 VIPs, 20,000 VVIPs and several thousand VVVIPs, whatever that means. Every meeting in China begins with some junior-level Important Person introducing the other VIPs present. In fact, sporting events begin with an introduction of a seemingly endless number of sports and culture administrators who then spend the rest of the game looking bored or even sleeping in their prime seats. They go so far as to broadcast these introductions on CCTV 5 (the main sports chanel in China) whenever they broadcast a CUBA (China University Basketball Association) game.
Keeping this phenomenon in mind, it is no wonder that the Chinese government often makes decisions that hurt their people. The most infamous case of keeping up appearances was a little thing known as the Great Leap Forward, the worst famine in the history of the world and an entirely avoidable one at that. The Chinese know this under a decidedly 1984-esque carefully-chosen understatement of a name: "The Two Bad Years." While there were droughts and crop failures during The Two Bad Years, the primary cause of famine was the almost universal over-reporting of crop yeilds. Some localities even went so far as to replant crops from several different fields in the ones that bordered on the road so that their reports would be visually confirmed when the high cadres passed in their motorcade. The result was that the government ordered the collection and storage of ever-increasing quantities of grain. Millions of people starved just tens of miles away from where cereals were rotting in Beijing warehouses or being exported to help fund the industrialization craze.
And while Wang Guangya is no Mao (he would certainly prefer to be compared to Confucious), he has taken some cues from the revolutionary icon. Wang's picture is everywhere on campus. Every classroom appears to be required to have a poster of him smiling wanly down on it. And there are at least three major murals of Founder Wang on campus: the one by the gate is probably the most expensive, although the least bothersome given that it only pictures Wang and a map of where he has founded schools; the one on the library is in two parts, Wang is on the left surounded by computers and other modern technology, Confucious is on the right ringed by a group of students, and we are left to draw our own comparison; the one in the new technology building is by far the wost, it is a picture of the Statue of Liberty with Wang's face substituted for the nameless French woman who presumably modeled for the original, leaving me unsure of whether I am more offended by the symbolism, the terrible irony or the abject hideousness of the thing.
So yeah, we have three enomous carvings of Founder Wang to offset the three sick or injured foreign teachers left untreated the past three months, or if you prefer, to make up for the three degress cooler it might be if the money had been spent on insulating the classroms instead of trying to build a cult of personality. I mailed my three-piece suit home three weeks ago so to put forth the proper front for Wang I think I'll refrain from doing three things: shaving, wearing a shirt and caring any more about what happens to this excuse for a school.
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