I live next to a traffic jam

After three minutes trying to explain my destination to the taxi driver I finally decide to point the directions to him. The first explanation I tried was in a very pooly pronounced chinese. That got me nowhere. My second try was using the english name. Not much better, but he then accpeted to put aside his pride and accept to be indicated the directions. Good, so we're off to the constant traffic jam. At every hour of the day it takes 20 minutes to cross a 100 meter road junction. Buses, taxis, bicycles, motobikes, cars, vans, basically anything with more than 2 wheels is trying desperatly to gain a meter here or a meter there amongst the 4 rows of vehicules on 2 lanes. In the taxi, I am still wondering why the police officer sitting under a parasol is just plaisantly watching all this with a smile. Does it come to mind to nobody in China that if you just show a bit more patience and wait your turn, things would actually go much smoother ? It doesn't seem so. Traffic is terrible, it's actually the only thing that really gets to me. Overtaking on the left, on the right, in the middle, and if there isn't enough space to get through, they make space. Traffic lights ? Yes they do exist, but you don't see many people respecting them. Bikes just go straight through, sometimes getting hit by cars and sent 10 meters away to die (just imagine then what it is like when a mother is riding the bike with her 3 kids on the back ... it is seen). In Guangzhou alone, every year over 6000 people die on the road to what I've been told. That is basically the same amount than for the total population of France (60 million people). As for those on foot well, if you haven't enough money for a car, you really shouldn't be on the road (how do I cross ?) and so you can't say much to the car owner. Owning a car in China is still something new and often an object of great pride. Many roads are still of very bad quality, badly planned for taffic flow, and people have little respect for any kind of rules. But today only 9 households out of 100 have a car but those numbers are growing fast so just imagine the situation when that number doubles.

The joys of first year university students

After waiting three weeks to start working, I finally was notified that my students would be expecting me on monday at 2 pm in room 311. Hum ... nice, I was starting to feel the need to have some regular events in my week. My first day happened to be the end of the military training for the first year students ... Indeed, once a student has been excepted in a university, they have the obligation to give the 4 first weeks of the year to military training. Marching all around the campus, standing in the courtyard without moving for 3 hours, waking up at 5 am in the morning, shooting, and of course, political propaganda (that goes without saying). From my classroom, I had a view over the main entrance and parade square of the university, and that day it was filled with these poor young students all dressed in military clothes. The inform was often to large, and to tell the truth, if you took each person individualy, they looked rather hilarious. But all together, marching in line and singing, stopping at the sign of the trainer, this block of young and naive children started to look quit worrying. That day, everything was there to please. In front of the main building, a big stage with all the university officials, flags, and a powerfull sound system. Young girls very very lightly dressed came up and sang the popular pop songs, prizes were given out, speeches were held. If university in the west is a place to learn, it is also a place of experiences, reflexions, where slowly by slowly, people become adult and independant. It is in university that most people start to forge there political opinions, where they experience full independance for the first time. Over here, that space of freedom is nearly inexistent. As soon as they enter university, the system that could set the free for once and let them become individuals comes down on them, pushes them to repeat all the old slogans, and forces them to wear the uniform. From my window, probably 800 people, that are shown in the most violent way that "who" that are does not really matter. What counts is their country, their government, what they belong too. Scearing. In the west, the first university years are well know for it's parties, nights of drinking and drinking, having fun, and discovering a freedom that one didn't often have before. Here, all students have to live in dormitories, with 4 in a room, where doors close at 11pm and lights should be off before 12pm. when a student asked me the other day about the difference between european universities and chinese universities, I just couldn't answer her. I couldn't tell her that chinese universities are not universities, but are just higher level highschools, because either she wouldn't really understand, either it would just hurt her, and hurting someone who in any manner has very very little chance of ever going out of the country is just simply cruel. Student unions do exist, but they simply consist of groups of students who's task is to organize events (basketball competition, english speaking corners, ...) and also taking care of the dormitories (telling people to go to bed, to turn off lights, ...). So far from the french unions where you can find communists, marxists, anarchists, far right organizations, ... and who really fight against the university system in order to improve it, and even against the government(think of the student demonstrations in france in 2006, no university for 5 months, streets blocked, ...). Here, all of that is forbidden, and those who do demonstrate are seriously condemned : after studying hard for years and dreaming of a better life with university diploma, they are expelled and will not be allowed to study again. But as always, uncorfortable things and good things can be found here. The university campus is a nice place for them with many trees and lakes, and my students are really nice poeple to teach, most of the time interested in what they are doing and happy to be where they are ... Still many things to discover and understand ...