Earlier this week I arrived in Beijing, where I am spending a week collaborating with colleagues on a couple of research projects. Yesterday we spent the afternoon at Beijing University, also known as Beida, where the China Center for Economic Research (now part of the recently founded National School of Development) organized a panel on the 30th anniversary of China’s economic reforms.
In the mid-90s, I studied at Beijda as an exchange student. Though my experience on the campus was enriching, it was anything but comfortable. I lived with a roommate in Dorm Number 4, a gray pre-fab building built like a big cement shoebox. There were bars on the windows, and at night the door was locked from the outside. I don’t remember a fire escape. An elderly gentlemen had the luckless job of guarding the building at night; we had to ring the buzzer to be let in after midnight, which always jolted the poor old man from his sleep. Our guilt at waking him up was surpassed only by our eagerness to go out at night.
At Dorm Number 4 I split a small bedroom with another exchange student, a petite Vietnamese-American who kept her half of the room immaculate. The room was large enough for two beds and a desk; it was so narrow that we had to squeeze sideways between the beds to reach the window. Upon arrival, each exchange student was also issued two items: an enamel bowl, which we took to the cafeteria for meals, and a plastic bucket for washing our clothes (by hand, on the sink scrub-board, with an odd powder detergent that didn’t lather). The whole dorm was lit with very harsh fluorescent lights, and right outside our windows loudspeakers blared Communist Party news and calisthenics exercises starting at 6am. The common bathroom had hot water only twice a day, early in the morning and late in the afternoon.
The accommodations made our college dorms back in the US look like Sheraton suites, but we could hardly complain: our housing was luxurious by local standards. My Chinese friends lived four to a room, piled on bunkbeds rather than twin beds.
Most of our classes were held at a nearly identical pre-fab building, where in winter the heating was minimal. On the coldest days, we could see our breath even indoors, and I wore gloves in the classroom. At break time, most of us huddled outside for fresh air, smoking for warmth.
After class I liked to head to the Nameless Lake (Weiming hu), with its traditional landscaping and solitary pagoda. A group of Chinese students used to gather there at nightfall to practice ballroom dancing, and they warmly invited me to join. Since we foreign exchange students were otherwise segregated from the Chinese students, this was a rare opportunity to make friends with locals, and some of my happiest memories of that time were there at night, learning to tango by Nameless Lake.
Thirteen years later, I barely recognize the campus. As with Beijng in general, the campus has been radically transformed and expanded. Weiming Hu remains, but surrounding it are dozens of new buildings, and very little open space. When we enter a conference hall, I notice that the floor is marble. There is recessed lighting and fancy-looking fixtures everywhere. The dining hall is a well-lit modern cafeteria -- a far cry from the dimly lit, grim assembly line where dining hall workers ladled rice and mapo doufu into our enamel bowls. I peek into new buildings; I see smart classrooms with computers and projectors. There are air conditioning units near the windows and modern heating units at the back of the rooms. No indoors glove-wearing needed here.
The panel itself is held at the university's economic research center; before arriving, I picture a streamlined modern building of glass and concrete. To my surprise, the center is housed in a Qing era courtyard complex that was once an Imperial garden. The buildings, with their red latticed screens, have been meticulously restored in their tiniest details. It occurs to me that Beida is a metaphor of Beijing's urban development: a beautifully preserved core surrounded by a mishmash of modern buildings erected somewhat in a hurry. (Later I decide the metaphor is far from adequate: Beijing has very poor neighborhoods on the outskirts, inhabited largely by low-income families and migrant workers -- and however run-down some of the older campus buildings may be, there is no part of Beida that does not belong heart and soul to the Chinese elite).
After the panel is over and we are back in the hotel, I look up descriptions of current accommodations for foreign exchange students. I land on the following description:
The dorms are equipped with one or two single beds, desk and chairs, TV, telephone, internet access, refrigerator, private bathroom, air-conditioning and 24 hours hot water. The cost of outgoing telephone calls and internet connection where available is to be paid by students. Coin-operated washing machines in the dorm building are available for student use.
Hm. TV, internet access, AC. It's only been 13 years since I was a student at Beida, but I think I am now officially allowed to use the old-fogey expression "Back in the old days, we used to..."
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