The youth of China is desperately seeking a belief to guide their life and work ethics, but they find no help available in their surroundings and there is a dearth of social guardians as well as well experienced psychologist who can show them the path of enlightenment. I am referring to the population born after 1980s and 1990s, who have either passed the college or currently enrolled into. Due to the current pressure of family and society to succeed and always be in the front row (as no one wants their kid to be just average) has caused a mental sickness and also death for many young and bright Chinese students. It is very painful to hear from my friends that almost every month some or other students commit suicide in Chinese universities, due to the mental problem they face.
There could be different analysis behind their pathetic and quick decision to end their life. To me it seems that, the first and foremost reason is being the single born child of their family, they could not have close and intimate friends in their campus life unlike we have in India. I always find my Chinese classmates to be under some kind of pressure which is not only academic but it may have to do something with their family background or feeling of loneliness. It has been noted by many researchers in China that a single parent child is more averse to mental illness than a normal child. The current divorce rate in China is extremely high and it has a direct impact on the mental health of their child. A boy or girl student is forced to live with the only one of his parents (either father or mother) and thus denied the love of another one. I have known many female classmates in PKU who have never met their father after birth and just depend on their mother. These students decide to start earning money at their undergraduate level so that she remains no more a burden on her mother for everything. This phenomenon is rampant throughout the Chinese universities and in near future I do not see any reduction in their numbers.
The second issue could be the lack of proper guiding from the teachers. Some time teachers at the Chinese universities put extra demand from their students which I believe they cannot even ask from their own child. The example could be the outsourcing (paid in terms of writing recommendation letters for them or inviting them for lunch or dinner) of their personal as well as professional work to their students. It could be translation work, collecting data, or writing email for their networks. Although it may benefit indirectly to these students but indeed it puts extra pressure on them in their campus life. I have known many students hanging all the night in their teacher’s lab working on some particular projects. They find some time like they have lost the way and need someone to guide them to the right path, but no one comes to their help. I hope teachers can play a role of good guardian and not just spoon feeder as these students consider them to be their god fathers who can decide their future.
The third reason for the mental sickness of the students in China is their workload. As China in on the verge of becoming a Superpower by replacing the United States, the students are required to match their American counterparts just overnight in both essence and accent. Thank God, We in India do not have to speak English as some Native American speaks. Those working at various call centers (BPO) in Delhi and Bangalore just act to be Americans although their Indian accent is caught easily. Now, all the senior Chinese students have to learn at least two foreign languages which is another source of pressure on them. Just by speaking several languages does not make one into an intellectually sound person. Therefore the rise of China has put an extra burden on the current youth who are forced to be multilingual and not just bilingual. In China you have to have published two papers in national or international journals before you defend your PhD. To my knowledge, neither in India nor in the developed world this rule is applied. This has forced many Chinese students to leave their doctoral studies in the middle way. Chinese universities are also in a race to introduce all the new courses and disciplines which are taught by their American counterparts, but they never realize that the Americans have developed those new disciplines in a century which China wants to do by a great leap forward (I mean in a decade time). Therefore, many of the Chinese students have developed into a monotonous personality to which they can be just the man of their discipline. Do not ask them anything beyond their discipline. China has overtaken India in many technical studies and realms of natural sciences, including the computer science. But Indian students are still supposed to be an all rounder and can think out of the box.
For the same problems, students facing in Western societies as well as India, there is a team of psychological doctors who are providing 24hrs free clinical services to the victims of current mental amnesia, but the result is known to all of us. We always get shocked to read news stories where a student has open fire in a class room in an American top class university campus. Although Chinese universities such as PKU and others are organizing the same kind of psychological camps (心里辅导) the outcome is not as expected. What I suggest is that there needs to be promoted a kind of amicable and intimate relationship among the students itself. A fellow classmate becomes the best doctor and trusted partner for any private or academic issue he wants to discuss. There is an urgent need in make the university atmosphere more harmonious between students and teachers as well as between students themselves. The second reform will require an overhaul of subject courses taught at higher institutions by cleaning the old structure and replacing them with the new and relevant in the 21st century confirming to the need of the rise of China. An alliance between Chinese universities and Indian universities by mutual exchange of students and teachers can also contribute to create a lively and multi-dynamic talent in China suitable for the 21st century. As the growing trends of many top class university students from China are applying to work (as intern) with Indian software firms and multinational companies such as Infosys and TATA group suggests, the obsession of just working with developed countries and their universities might be set to end from now.
---The write is a foreign faculty @Beijing Foreign Studies University and a PhD candidate @Peking University. He can be contacted at: mr.gaoxing@gmail.com
