What's the use of learning these rules for you? You guys are probably no longer at the age suitable for primary and secondary school education and there's even less chance for you to attend a school in China. Even if you go to China to study, you will never experience any of these things I'm gonna tell you later because foreign students in China receive special hospitality, in there you will feel just like in Europe, in America or wherever you are now, no difference, you are free, but things are different for Chinese students.
Let me recall my memories from the very very remote childhood....
In pre-school school (a one year education between kindergarten time and primary school time, it's cancelled now), we were not allowed to carry water bottle with us during class, all water bottles were placed on a public shelf in the back of classroom, we could only drink water after class.
In primary school, we started wearing school uniform, which would become a must throughout the entire school career, every year parents have to pay a lot of money to purchase uniform which is mandatory.
When we go to school we had to wear 小黄帽(little yellow hat) and红领巾(red ribbon or whatever it is translated I don't know), and put on 校牌(school ID card which is pinned on your uniform). Yellow hat is supposed to make you more obvious a target for crazy drivers to kill (just kidding, it's supposed to be the other way around), red ribbon is merely a political symbol, teachers told us every red ribbons were dyed into red by our red army soldiers' blood during battle against Japanese army and 国民党(the party were driven to Taiwan eventually and a lot of sensitive issues raised ever since), ew.. now think about that, it's creepy. If you are found not wearing any one of these three, you will be punished, and teachers will appoint some students to be on duty: standing at gate to check if anyone violated the discipline, write down the name and report to teacher.
wait a minute! I'm sure the kid didn't put up his middle finger on purpose, he just didn't know about that yet!Also, for quite a long time, my school invented a special rule, which I'm not sure if other schools have ever applied it too. They drew a line on the ground from the gate all the way to the school building, every morning/afternoon when we go to school, we enter the campus gate (Chinese school campus are relatively big, like a small square), we had to walk along the line to our classroom! Like ants following a path made of sugar or something, well, I can't find any picture for that maybe it's just our school, but you figure out the picture in your mind, it's hilarious!
Other regular rules in school time, generally applied in primary school and middle school and high school: When class begins there's a bell ringing, and teacher walked into classroom, tell everybody, "上课" (class begins), the monitor of class (班长student representative) will shout loudly: "起立"(stand up), then everybody stand up and shout out in a half-dead, slow voice: "老---- 师----- 好！"(hail teacher/good morning teacher), then teacher responds:"同学们好，请坐"(hail students/good morning students, please sit down), then the class begins.
During class, no drinking water, if you want to answer a question or require to go to bathroom, must put your hand up till the teacher notice you and address you.
After two classes every morning and afternoon, we must sit tight at table, then there came music from the speaker in every classroom, a recorded woman's voice softly:“保护视力，眼保健操现在开始”(protect eyesight, eye exercise now begins!), and then everybody starts doing eye exercise with the music and the woman telling us "1-2-3-4, 2-2-3-4, 3-2-3-4, 4-2-3-4, next part!"...
Also, teachers will appoint students to check on everybody, see if anyone is lacking off, people violated the discipline will be warned, reported, and it will influence the whole class's performance which eventually leads to the responsible teacher's bonus reduction, therefore teachers are very strict to us about it... get an idea about how things are run in China? Harmonic society, baby.
After eye exercise, we will be summoned to the campus square to do body exercise, which I've described in my podcast if you listened. Ironically, seems Chinese students have the highest rate of wearing glasses despite that we work so hard on eye exercise every day. The background music of these exercise haunt me till today.
Okay, next stage, college time, many people thought once they enter college they'd be finally free from the suppress of school, NOPE, that's just another start.
About the disciplines I've put in my podcast as well, you may want to check it, and I'm not gonna go into detail about the things I've already talked about.
Early morning at 6 or 6:30 depends on the season, we were all summoned at campus square to do body exercise or running.
A few students are organized by university administration to check everyone's dormitory, first see the hygiene, if it's nice and clean, second check if there's anyone 夜不归宿 (doesn't come to dormitory to sleep, which is a very severe violation of discipline. Hey, the University doesn't want you to play games all night at internet café or open a room in hotel losing your virginity with your first girlfriend/boyfriend, the university is trying to protect you)
Every night the dorm buildings are officially shut and locked at 11:00 or 11:30, again, depends on the season. Once a Christmas part I was invited by my friend Chris to a party held by and for foreign students at my university, we had a great time, and at about 11:30, they planned to go to disco, asked me to go with them. I hesitated, two reasons: 1, disco is a evil place in Chinese students' eyes, when we need entertainment, we go to karaoke, that's for normal people, people go to disco are kind of crazy and really open and dangerous, we would relate that to drugs immediately(not not due to a lot of negative reports by national media), 2.if I go, I won't be able to return my dorm to sleep! what if they checked us that night? I said "I have to go to dorm", they told me "come on, it's Christmas", a korean friend said "there's no have to", well, not for you dude, my mentality was totally disciplined by all those years' education, I was for sure No.1 disciplined kid in China, seriously, there was no one I've known who respect and fear those rules more than I did. BUT, I finally decided, let's break the rule, let's go to disco! First night at disco ever in my whole life, with whole bunch of friends from Germany, France, Canada, Africa, a lot of crazy things happened, let's talk about that another time.
Back to our topic, well... I guess for now that's it, I can't come up with some other funny rules, remind me if you know any, I'll update this blog once I find something in my mind.
Alright, thanks for reading, or listening to this episode of podcast, for now it's just an article on my blog but I'll make a podcast, I'll read it for your ears. Sorry that it's in English not in Chinese, but it's really too difficult to edit something both in English and Chinese, switching between two keyboard input mode is a pain in the neck, I bet you know. Okay, see you next time!
related podcast: body exercise https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxChDYKvZaM
"military training" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nO-xzWlGfM
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