Welcome to the New Forbidden City: Peking University

Welcome to the New Forbidden City: Peking University
A university is supposed to have a clean and stress free environment where academic activities are supposed to be taking place round-the-clock. But Universities in China are emerging more of a business convention centre and less of academic activities. The top few campuses in Beijing are most hunted places by domestic companies as well as MNCs to conduct their product launch or HR training centre.
I wonder how Peking university campus is full of Mercedes-Benz and BMW and all the luxuries cars which are rare even on the 2nd ring road. In such a small campus which accommodates more than 30, 000 students, 6000 academic staff and near around 10,000 non-teaching staff where eight students share one room and need to be in queue for taking shower. Where is the place to accommodate CCTV, PHONEIX TV and different commercial ads and new product launching ceremonies?
The security guard will groom you for an hour if somehow you missed to carry your student identity card with you when you went out. The restaurants in the campus will not buy you any food if you are not carrying a special dinner-card issued by the authorities.
One day during the Olympics they could have really starved me if my friend was not there to help me. My card was running out of money and it was Friday evening. Now the next recharge was only possible on Tuesday as the during those days only few students were left in the campus and so the counter for recharging money was open only on Tuesday and Thursday for one hours. I requested them to take any amount of deposit from me and buy me some food because I cannot go out of the campus. During the Olympic days getting in and out of Beida (as popularly known in Chinese) was another torture to undergo at the hands of authorities most of whom used to be drunk in the night hours. Finally one of my Chinese friend helped me out by using his card to pay for me.
How moved I was, when I looked at all the students coming back from their home town to join the next session had to move their heavy briefcase on their shoulders. Beida would not allow any cab driver to drive into Beida and drop the new arriving students at their dormitories. Chinese as well as foreign students all had to carry their luggage by sharing among their friends. University could have arranged a common public vehicle to receive these new incoming fresh students who are not familiar with the surroundings. In the name of Olympics everyone contributed his own share. But the students at Beida were at the receiving end.
I see the campus charging heavy money to the visitors in the name of ensuring their security. The foreign student dormitories (called Shao Yuan) where we live have one of the worst kinds of arrangement. We cannot expect any Chinese guest in our place. You will have to deposit your everything and tell the guard a fix time within which you will move out; otherwise they will come and knock our doors. Now a days, if we expect a gust to come to Beida and meet us we must go in advance and receive them at some far distant East gate or West gate. For me and also to many of my friends, it’s an harassment to fix any appointment inside Beida. The insider part of the story is also horrible. The overall sanitation inside our dormitories is the worst measured form any standard. Now when summer is approaching, none of our room is equipped with some coolers or Air conditioners. When last year President Hu made an inspection tour of Beida, the universities authorities just did a fast white wash of our building and removed some broken windows of the Chinese student’s dormitories for a sound impression. Presidnet Hu interacted with some pre arranged selected students from some particular countries and left the campus as if everything is in right place.
Despite all these difficulties students of Beida are able to perform best inside and outside China. But, they deserve a better quality of life, in terms of better food, better sanitation and most important of all a suitable environment to conduct their research work.

…The writer of this article is a PhD candidate at the School of International Studies, Peking University.