Last week, I registered as a visiting student at Peking University. Having moved to Beijing at the start of this summer, I didn’t have logistical issues to sort out, like finding housing and opening a bank account. That left me free to observe the madness of several hundred international students crammed into the converted dining hall of a student dormitory complex.
Arriving from my apartment via bicycle, I felt out of place among the study abroad crowd as I took a number and claimed one of the countless chairs. The lax-bro Americans seated in front of me lamented the hangovers they acquired the night before, while others admitted their apprehensions about the upcoming Mandarin placement test. After completing my sign-in, I went to a different room to process my student visa. That’s where I found the Koreans. They were frighteningly organized: an informal leader had a spreadsheet on a clipboard and would occasionally silence the crowd’s excited chatter to give instructions in a stately tone.
In front of me in the visa line were two Japanese men with broken Mandarin. From their excessively deferential body language, I could tell that they had just met but were helping each other understand the convoluted visa requirements. At one point, one man asked the other if he needed to borrow cash for the consular fee, an offer that elicited increasingly theatrical head bows. Outside, I heard Russian speakers mocking the Chinese transliteration of 俄文楼, ewenlou, or “Russian Building,” home to most of the university’s Mandarin classes for international students. It’s amazing how much of spoken language is non-verbal.
Then I realized that there wasn’t a Chinese person in sight. Their registration was in a different building, on a different day, run by a different staff. Despite the respectful treatment from the university staff, I felt a great injustice had been done to me. Would this separation ever occur in America? Why must I live off campus or in the expensive international dormitories? Why can’t I immerse myself in the life of a Chinese student?
The reasoning behind the segregation is the utilitarian choice that characterizes much of Chinese society in the past thirty years. Immediate stability takes precedence over sustainable understanding. A “harmonious campus” is one in which students eat, sleep, and study in the same two-mile radius, but need not ever interact with each other. The appearance of coexistence trumps genuine efforts to understand what feels foreign. Even Chinese students are separated according to their hometown: Shanghai kids room with Shanghai kids, and those from Tibet might live in a different building entirely. The justification? To make sure everyone gets along just fine and nothing gets stolen.
None of that makes sense to me. I want to be in class with my Chinese peers. I want to have a taste of their education. We may not be sharing bunk beds just yet, but swapping ideas after lecture is a promising start.
就在上周我注册成为了北京大学的访问学生。在暑假的伊始，我来到了北京，因为没什么后勤工作去忙像找房子开银行帐户什么的事情，所以我便可以轻松地冷眼旁观着几百个国际学生焦头烂额的挤进学生宿舍复合楼餐厅的景象了。
骑自行车从我家来到学校，找了一个位置坐下以后，让我感觉好像已经远离了众多拥挤的出国留学的人群。坐在我前面的那个美国老兄，还在诉说着他昨夜的宿醉之苦，其他的一些人则在担心着他们即将到来的汉语分级考试。在完成签到以后，我去了另一个办公室去处理我的签证手续。就在那儿我发现了一群韩国人。他们乱哄哄地聚在一起然后一个非正式的像是领导者的人在一个剪贴板上拿着个电子表格，并会时不时地让在人群里的几个兴奋地聊天儿的人安静一下，然后一种很正式很庄严的语气给大家指示着什么。
在排队办理签证手续的队伍里，排在我前面的是两个结结巴巴说着普通话的日本人。从他们过分恭敬地身体语言里，我可以分辨地出他们才刚刚认识正互相帮忙好了解错综复杂的签证要求。 那时，一个人问另外一个，他是否需要借点儿现金来交领事馆的一些费用，一些让很多人都望而却步的费用。在外面，我听到几个俄国人在模仿“俄文楼”的中文音译，或者叫俄文大厦，一个可以说成是很多大学的国际学生的普通话培训班的主办场所。我觉得很惊奇，到底有多少只可会意的口语。
然后我突然意识到，周围没有一个中国人的在我的视线内。他们的注册地点是在不同的地方，也和我们国际生是不同的日期，由不同的人员执行。尽管大学里的工作人员对我们都很尊重，但我还是觉得这对我们很不公平。这种区分对待的事情会在美国发生吗？为什么我必须住在校园内或者在昂贵的国际学生宿舍呢？为什么我不能生活在中国学生周围呢？
隔离背后的原因是一种功利的选择，是能够表现出在过去近30年里中国社会发生的大部分特点的。即时的稳定性优先于可持续发展的认识。 一个所谓“和谐校园”是一个能让学生吃饭，睡觉，学习都可以在两英里半径以内的区域内，但是永远不需要有交流和互动的地方吗？表象上的和谐共存胜过真正地努力创造机会来让学生了解国外的文化。即使是中国学生也会根据不同的生源地来进行划分：上海来的与上海来的孩子一起住，从西藏来的可能会被分配到一个完全不同的地点去住。理由是什么呢？为了确保每个人都能相处融洽，不会有盗窃事件的发生。
所有的这一切对我来说都非常地不合理。我想要和我的中国同辈们一起上课。我想感受他们的教育。我们可能无法共享双层床，至少现在没法做到，但课后交换想法也许是一个良好的开端。