A personal view from China in turmoil: Eyewitnesses to revolution

Abstract

We were evacuated from Beijing Foreign Studies University 3 days after the massacre of students and workers in Tiananmen Square. The year began well. We arrived in China in August, 1988 to begin an academic year teaching Library Science and English in one of the most notable universities in Beijing. Our assignment came about through an agreement between the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Hawaii and Beijing Foreign Studies University which sends Chinese students to study in Hawaii for M.L.S. degrees and American faculty to teach in Beijing. The Chinese system of education is very different from ours in America. Chinese high school graduates take national examinations and are usually permitted to request several possible careers. Depending on their exam results and what skills the central government decides it needs, students are assigned to educational institutions that specialize in that subject. There is no concept of a core curriculum. The students we taught had been exposed to very little in the sciences, the social sciences, or the humanities. There is no attempt to create a citizen who is “well rounded” in a number of disciplines. This produces students who have vast gaps in their knowledge and which makes library education difficult. Their level of English, however, was very high. But our students were sweet and wonderful. They all possessed a refreshing innocence, a naivete, that was so different from worldly American students. Female students, for example, would think nothing of coming to talk with male instructors in their apartments in the evenings. Nothing could happen to them; we were their uncles and aunts and were thought of as part of the university family. So our teaching ranged far beyond librarianship. We were asked, constantly, about life in the West. Information, comparisons, discussions with students whose questions would not let us leave until we were hoarse. And then there were the questions on many subjects that students did not feel comfortable asking in public as we were accompanied to our apartment or dining hall.