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.