|
|
【中文标题】中国的后备役－娇惯的常青藤学生们在新兵训练营中的苦日子
【原文标题】March of the Freshmen
【登载媒体】外交政策
【原文作者】ERIC FISH
【原文链接】http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/11/10/march_of_the_freshmen
每年，中国的大学新生都必须参加一项爱国主义军事训练的仪式。这算是洗脑吗？学生们怎么看呢？
在9月阳光的炙烤下，一群身着军装的大学新生走进清华大学的体育馆。170人的连队中，身材最高的年轻人举着一面红旗，他的同学们目视前方、步伐整齐。爱国主义的音乐响起，一个声音在喇叭中高声讲道：“把你们在军训中学到的好思想、好行为和好习惯带到今后的学习生活中来。”
成群的家长和好奇的居民围在体育馆的栅栏外，一睹学生们的站姿列队。清华大学被誉为“中国的麻省理工学院”，是中国主席胡锦涛的母校，它正在庆祝为期20天的军事行进、演练和服从命令活动胜利结束。全国几乎每一所高校都在上演同样的庆典，这是中国政府的一个行为，试图让它的人民更加爱国，或许同时更加顺从。然而，在当今迅速发展的中国，这个被称为“军训”的传统仪式似乎与生长在和平和繁荣中的新一代人格格不入。
从1985年开始，每学年初都要进行这样的训练。所有大学新生都必须参加——男女一视同仁，不好的表现将会留在学生的档案中，伴随他们整个职业生涯。清华大学体育馆的喇叭中传出的声音说，军训是“中国人民共和国赋予公民的一项神圣职责。”
中国与台湾、朝鲜、韩国这些同样执行强制军事训练的邻居们不同，它几乎没有面临任何外敌入侵的威胁。但它依然保持着世界上最大规模的军事力量，志愿军力达230万。保家卫国其实并非军训的主要目的，训练内容几乎没有涉及任何实战内容。
各个学校有各自的军训目标，但根据中国教育局的官方信息，军训的目的是“提高学生的国防和安全意识”。同时提高“爱国主义、集体主义和革命英雄主义情操”，并“提升组织性、纪律性”，以便“发展成社会主义建设者和接班人”。
有些人看到了一些恶毒的阴谋。住在上海的一位美国人Kai Pan在CNReviews上撰文说，外国人通常认为军训“是通过对天真、最容易受影响的年轻人进行‘洗脑’，而培养令人厌恶的民族主义情绪”。北京大学哲学系教授彭国翔说军训的目的是“把（学生）训练成羔羊”。
清华大学往南一英里是人民大学——培养有抱负的政府干部的顶级学校。8月份，一个英文名字叫Rachel的19岁语言系学生正在准备参加军训。她身高不到5英尺，体重90磅，从未参加过任何类似的活动。她说：“我很紧张。”
Rachel在1992年出生于东部沿海省份浙江，那里是中国最富裕的地区之一。她曾经和家人一起到过中国的很多地方，她希望自己的语言能力最终能让她找到一份可以环游世界的工作。这个生长在中产阶级政府官员家庭的孩子像同龄人一样，是个独生子女。她笑着说她的家庭生活“很孤单，小时候很受宠，什么事情也不需要操心。”
Rachel的成长环境与上一代中国人天差地别。她的祖母在9岁的时候就与她未来的丈夫包办订婚，那是上世纪40年代末的事情，中国刚刚结束内战和日本人的入侵。Rachel的父母都生于60年代初，经历过毛泽东文化大革命的冲击，还曾经吃树皮度过饥荒。但随着社会主义意识形态的消亡和经济的蓬勃发展，中国的人均GDP从1990年到2010年增长了14倍，新一代中国人发现他们周围的环境变化得太快了。像Rachel这样在经济飞速发展时代出生的人被（轻蔑地）称为中国的90后。根据中国《环球时报》的报告，这些孩子被认为具备的主要特点是“懒惰、乱交、迷惘、自私、脑残和绝望”。
尽管很多高校都在自己的校园中军训，但Rachel和她的同学们被送到了一个小镇昌平的军事基地，那里位于燕山山脉的脚下，距北京25英里。她和其它9名年轻女孩共住一间有双层床和一个不好使的空调的房间。安顿好之后，他们被带到一个食堂中，里边摆放着几张桌子，但没有椅子。Rachel说：“当教官说开动的时候你才可以吃。菜都很咸，所以你必须多吃米饭。”
刚开始的军事生活让Rachel和她的同学们很难适应。6000名学生只有5分钟时间吃饭，然后就要去领军装，这身衣服将伴随他们未来两个星期，不能洗，也不能换。Rachel说：“我真想回到学校里。”
第二天早晨开始正式的训练。学生们5点被叫起床，先跑步一英里，然后是早饭和接下来的训练。Rachel在她的日记中写道：“今天的训练内容是站立。你需要在太阳下直挺挺地站立10分钟，手贴在身体两侧。我们的脚、腿、膝盖都非常疼，但不敢动弹，否则就会被罚站更长时间。我觉得头晕目眩。”
当天晚些时候，Rachel队伍中的一个女孩晕倒了，这是军训中的常事。新华社在2004年报道，广州一所学校在华氏100度的天气里军训，一天就有30名学生晕倒或中暑。
Rachel写道：“噢，我的眼皮开始打架了。”她拖着疲惫的身躯进入了梦乡。
在毛那场政治运动梦魇过去之后，中国共产党急于确立自身的合法地位，它使用了经济增长和针对在“耻辱世纪”中欺负过中国的国家的爱国主义运动的组合手段。党宣称是它结束了这场浩劫。然而，这种经受住实践检验的观点在90后一代人心目中并没有激起同样的反响。
密西西比大学的政治学教授郭刚曾经致力于研究共产党和大学生之间的关系，他说党通过传统的政治教育和大规模的媒体，努力在新一代人中寻求支持。“中国在很大程度上像后共产主义时代，社会主义的支持者主要是老一代人，不是年轻人。”
当共产党在1989年逃过×××对其统治地位的挑战之后，促生出与中国人民之间的一种默许的协议：如果你接受专制统治，你就可以发财。这样的契约关系持续了二十年，但随着中国经济的炽热发展和人口老龄化趋势所造成的成本积累，这种关系逐渐变得紧张、脆弱了。2010年，5个工作人口养活一个退休人口；到2020年，这个比例将变为3比1。
就业市场竞争激烈的现状更加剧了问题的严重性。目前，有四分之一的大学毕业生无法找到工作。与此同时，中国房价与收入之比为世界之最：北京普通居民26年的收入总和才可以买一套普通住房——是纽约的2.5倍。一些经济学家预测，这种房地产泡沫会随着经济下滑而破裂。
郭刚说，中国政治的未来走向取决于经济体制对待年轻一代人的效果。“受过教育的年轻人失业和机会的不均等因素对中国造成的威胁就如同对阿拉伯国家造成的威胁一样。”
1989年×××事件之前，在中国就弥漫着同样的背景：通货膨胀、不公平的群体迅速致富、对腐败的忍无可忍，以及知识分子们对加速政治改革的呼吁。北京大学是这场运动学生领袖的集中地，在事件被镇压之后，那里的学生进行了为期一年的军事训练。
军训的第二天，Rachel和她的同学们在8小时训练的大部分时间里，都在学习怎样正确地走路。Rachel写道：“别以为这是件简单的事，几百人要按照同样的步伐前进，就像一个人一样。训练非常枯燥，我们练习了几百次。即使我们都觉得走得很完美了，教官还是不满意。”
学生们如果犯了错误，会被罚俯卧撑、跑圈、嘲弄，有时还会被迫向集体唱歌。开始几天的训练结束之后，教官花了半个小时的时间批评学生们的表现。到第4天，Rachel的情绪开始低落，她写道：“今天是黑色的一天，教官说我是个‘随随便便的人’（乱交的俗语），只是因为我穿着睡裤出现在他面前。我哭了，我从没这么想家过。”
一位不愿透露姓名的25岁人民解放军陆军中尉，曾经在南京担任过两次新生军训教官。他说：“这些人都来自乡下，他们不懂规矩，军训可以让他们懂得执行命令。”
这种准军事化的管理结构在中国学生眼中不像西方学生看起来那么奇怪。宵禁和禁止外出在中国大学中很普遍，有专门的指导教师决定学生们学习和生活的地点和方式。郭宝刚是道尔顿州立大学的政治系教授，也是《中国寻求政治合法性》一书的作者，他说：“大学就是一个军事化管理的社会。班级按排编制为30人到40人，由一个推选出来的班长领导集体。”
在未来一年的时间里，对命令的顺从感将是无比宝贵的品质，因为共产党将面临十年一次的权力转换过程。中国最高管理集团——9名政治局常委中的7人将被替换，同样更新换代的还有中国首要行政管理机构——国务院的三分之二席位，以及控制人民解放军的中央军委。人们预期目前的政治局常委委员、副主席习近平和副总理李克强将分别担任主席和总理的职位，其它职位的人选目前还不得而知。
在过去20年中，伴随经济增长的是社会对腐败、不公和环境恶化的不满，北京与公民之间的契约明显无法继续维持下去了。在寻求替代方案的过程中，党内冒出了两种不同的模式。南部省份广东的省委书记汪洋希望通过更大的自由度和推进党内民主进程来解决这个问题。与此同时，重庆直辖市的省委书记薄熙来成为了强化专制队伍的领头人，他推行了一系列普及平等化的措施，比如低收入人群购房津贴和对腐败行为的严厉打击，有些人甚至认为他的行为凌驾在法律之上。薄还使用了一些带有感情色彩的方法，比如用爱国主义歌唱比赛来重现毛时代的集会场面，以及向城市所有手机用户发送毛的语录。
作家郭宝刚说：“如果你用中国人的视角看待这个问题，很多人其实对改革开放之前50年代和60年代都留有美好的回忆。他们认为那时候没有腐败或者腐败现象极少，人们生活水平相对平均。薄希望利用这种柔情来重建党的合法地位。”
薄和汪被广泛认为是争夺政治局常委位置的对手。但是如果薄的派系掌权，它将很难掌控90后一代年轻人的心智。郭宝刚说：“这一代人还是很爱国的，但是他们不愿接受党的教条说教。在新科技层出不穷的当代社会，我认为党无法继续使用监控和思维控制的方式，他们必须要用新方法来处理这一代人。”
但是，90后们对中国的政治未来走向也怀有同样的梦想吗？
Rachel的父亲希望她将来能跟随自己的脚步，成为一名公务员。但她对混迹于“互相背后戳刀子”的政府机构毫无兴趣，她说她崇尚美国的自由，对自己家乡“富足但道德沦丧”的现状感到悲哀。尽管如此，Rachel说她还是爱中国，相信中国。
与此同时，她认为她这一代人永远不会有足够的胆量推翻目前的政治体系。她说：“学生们再也不会做1989年的事情了。即使没有军训，他们的父母也会和他们说不能这样做。”
实际上，当军训临近结束的时候，Rachel的态度已经发生了彻底的转变。她在军训最后几天写道：“我的腿受伤了，但我依然坚持训练。我已经超越了自己，我变得更强壮、更独立了。我为自己感到骄傲。”
在整个军事基地里，新兵训练营已经变成了一个夏令营。学生们玩着游戏，甚至还有一位班长把一箱啤酒搬到男生寝室里。曾经指导过军训的人民解放军中尉说，这样的变化很正常，“刚开始的时候，你要在学生面前建立一个严厉的形象，这样他们才会怕你。但是，后来大家熟悉了之后，关系变得密切了，我们的约束也就越来越少。”
整整两个星期，学生们高唱爱国歌曲——“我亲爱的祖国”、“没有共产党就没有新中国”。军训临近结束的时候，一位教官向学生们讲述了军队中的真实生活。他说他们排里的一个战士仅仅因为不服从命令而遭到殴打，以致毁容。部队有时候会在山区驻扎几年，连一部电话也没有。Rachel在军训之后说：“他们向我们展示了对祖国的忠诚，有他们，才有我们安全的生活。”
“啊，”她突然笑着说，“这就是军训的目的啊。你明白吗？我以前从不会说这些话，现在会说‘感谢解放军，感谢党’。”
但是，几天的操练和行军不足以改变这一代人的行为和思想。回到校园几天之后，Rachel已经淡化了军训作为政治形态灌输的作用。她说：“或许有那么一点吧。军训的时候，他们怎么说，我们就怎么做，但回来之后我们又恢复了自己的思想。你如果现在命令我们，我们肯定不会听。如果这就是军训的目的，效果可不怎么样。”
当被问到军训是否在某些方面改变了他，Rachel的同学李想了想烈日下漫长的几天，轻蔑地说：“改变了我的肤色。”
人民解放军的中尉也承认，军训或许没有以前的效果好了。他说：“我们听到的都是服从，服从党，服从学校。但90后学生们更加收西方影响，有自己的个性。他们比上一代人更喜欢问为什么。”
或许是这样，但中国的年轻一代人似乎对军训并不抵触。对大部分学生来说，这只不过是个必经的仪式。或许的确有些辛苦，但值得回忆。6年前在南京军训的丁伟琼说：“我们这些新生在一起训练、唱歌、欢笑、哭泣，我很怀念那段紧密团结在一起的时光。我们是那么的单纯、无知和幸福。”
回到清华大学的军训总结大会上。学生们的行进检阅已经结束，他们在听最后一段讲话。人群的情绪明显高涨起来。最后教官们起立，向学生们敬礼，齐步走向返回军事基地的汽车。很多女孩（也有一些男孩）哭起来。
美军教官、《终极基本训练指导手册》一书的作者Michael Volkin这样描述这种训练的好处：“从训练基地离开的每个人都怀着他们以前从未感受过的满满的信心和同志友爱，这就是你为什么要接受训练的真实原因。表面上是服从命令，更深层次的原因是你可以有人群中一份子的感觉。”
学生应当接受各种目的的培训，包括国防、纪律、入校指引、针对调皮孩子的震慑疗法、为战士送出祝福，以及灌输对祖国的爱和服从。但是大部分完成军训的人似乎都认为，这样的经历是有正面效果的。
当来自河北省的18岁清华大学学生李浩听到，外国人认为军训就是政府给学生洗脑，以便继续掌权时，说：“这完全是歧视。国家与国家之前有差别，他们看到同样的东西也会得出相反的结论。”
似乎为了证实她的观点，清华大学军训总结大会的最后一项活动是校内官员领导全体学生唱最后一首革命歌曲。李浩面带微笑高声唱着：
团结就是力量
这力量是铁
这力量是钢
向着法西斯蒂开火
让一切不民主的制度死亡
向着太阳
向着自由
向着新中国……
原文：
Each year, China's incoming university students must partake in a ritual of patriotic military training. Is it brainwashing? Do they care?
BEIJING — Under the hot September sun, columns of university freshmen in army fatigues march into Tsinghua University's main stadium. The tallest young man in a company of 170 leads with a red flag as his classmates train their eyes forward, trying to keep perfectly synchronized. Patriotic music blares, and an announcer yells, "Make sure to practice the good thoughts, good behavior, and good habits you learned during the military training in your future study and life!"
Crowds of parents and curious locals try to catch a glimpse through the stadium's fence as the final platoon settles into standing formation. Tsinghua University, considered "China's MIT" and alma mater to Chinese President Hu Jintao, is celebrating the conclusion of 20 days of marching, drilling, and adherence to commanders' orders. Across the country, nearly every university is staging the same pageantry -- part of the Chinese government's efforts to keep its citizens patriotic and, perhaps, obedient. In today's rapidly changing China, however, this traditional rite of passage, known as Junxun, seems less relevant for a generation grown used to peace and prosperity.
Since 1985, every school year has begun with the training. Participation is mandatory for every incoming freshman -- young men and women alike -- and a poor performance can blot a record that stays with them throughout their professional lives. Over a speaker at the Tsinghua stadium, an announcer says that military training is "one of the holiest tasks given by the People's Republic of China."
Unlike its neighbors Taiwan, North Korea, and South Korea, which also have mandatory military training, mainland China faces little threat of foreign invasion. Yet it still maintains the world's largest army, with a 2.3 million all-volunteer force. But national defense isn't necessarily the main concern with Junxun, which tends to include very little practical combat education.
Individual schools list their own objectives for the training, but according to China's Education Ministry, the official purpose is "to enhance students' sense of national defense and national security awareness." It also aims to improve "patriotism, collectivism, and revolutionary heroism" and "enhance organizational discipline" so the country can "develop socialist builders and successors of the future."
Some see more nefarious plots. Kai Pan, an American blogger in Shanghai, said on the China blog CNReviews that foreigners who see the training are often "thoroughly constipated with disgust for the nationalism being 'brainwashed' into the innocent but ever-so-impressionable youth." And Peng Guoxiang, a professor of Chinese philosophy at Peking University in Beijing, says Junxun is designed "to train [students] to be sheep."
One mile south of Tsinghua University is Renmin ("People's") University, a top school for aspiring government cadres. In August, a 19-year-old language student who goes by the English name Rachel was preparing for her military training. Just under 5 feet tall and 90 pounds, she'd never done anything like it before. "I'm very nervous," she said.
Rachel was born in 1992 in the east-coast province of Zhejiang, one of China's richest regions. She has traveled throughout the country with her family and hopes her language skills will one day land her a job that'll allow her to see the world. The daughter of a middle-class government official, she, like most Chinese her age, is an only child. "I'm so lonely," she said, laughing about her home life. "But I was very spoiled. I didn't need to worry about anything."
Rachel's upbringing is a world apart from that of China's previous generations. Her grandmother was 9 years old when her future husband was arranged for her in the late 1940s, after years of civil war and the Japanese invasion. Rachel's parents were both born in the early 1960s and bore the brunt of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, eating tree bark at one point to survive. But with the decline of socialist dogma and the subsequent economic explosion that resulted in a 14-fold increase in per capita GDP from 1990 to 2010, members of China's next generation found themselves growing up in a radically changed society. Those like Rachel born in this booming era are referred to (often pejoratively) as China's post-1990s generation. According to the Chinese newspaper Global Times, these kids are routinely labeled "lazy, promiscuous, confused, selfish, brain damaged and overall hopeless."
While many universities carry out Junxun on campus, Rachel and her classmates were bused to a special military compound in the small town of Changping, nestled at the foot of the Yanshan mountain range 25 miles north of Beijing. She shared a dorm room with five bunk beds and a broken air-conditioner with nine other young women. After settling in, they were taken to a dining hall that sported rows of metal tables but no chairs. "When the drillmaster says you can eat, then you can eat," Rachel said. "The dishes are all very salty, so you'll eat a lot of rice."
The initial transition to military life was hard for Rachel and her classmates. The nearly 6,000 students were given five minutes to finish their meal and were then herded together to pick up their army fatigues, which they wouldn't wash or change for the next two weeks. "I really wanted to go back to my school," Rachel said.
The official training began the next morning. Students were roused at 5 a.m. to run a mile; breakfast and drilling followed. "Today's training was about how to stand," Rachel wrote in her journal. "You should stand under the sun straight with your hands at your side for 10 minutes. Our feet, legs, and knees felt a lot of pain, but we can't move or we'll be punished to stand longer. I felt dizzy."
Later that day, a young woman in Rachel's group fainted -- a common occurrence in the training. Xinhua news reported in 2004 that 30 students passed out and several suffered heat stroke in a single day at a Guangzhou school as training went on in temperatures of over 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
"Oh, I feel so happy that my upper eyelids are going to kiss my lower eyelids," Rachel wrote, exhausted, as she got into bed that night.
Amid the wreckage of Mao's ill-fated political campaigns, the Chinese Communist Party has scrambled to legitimize its rule through a combination of economic growth and nationalism directed toward those who exploited China during the "Century of Humiliation," which the party credits itself for ending. This tried-and-true narrative, however, may not have the same resonance for the post-'90s generation.
Gang Guo, a political science professor at the University of Mississippi who researches the relationship between the Communist Party and college students, said that the party is struggling to hold support among the new generation through traditional political education and mass media. "China in many ways seems to resemble post-communist states, where main support for socialism comes from older generations, not the youth," he said.
After the Communist Party survived the last serious challenge to its rule at Tiananmen Square in 1989, a tacit bargain with its citizens emerged: If you accept continued authoritarian rule, you can get rich. It's a deal that has held for two decades. But a slowdown of China's torrid economic growth and the mounting costs associated with its graying population could soon put a strain on that agreement. In 2010, five working-age people supported one retiree. By 2020, because of the one-child policy, that ratio is expected to drop to 3-to-1.
This will prove especially problematic as the job market becomes more competitive. At present, a quarter of recent college graduates are unable to find work. Meanwhile, housing prices are among the least affordable in the world: It takes over 26 years' worth of an average Beijing income to buy an average home in that city -- two and a half times what it costs in New York City. Some economists are predicting this is part of a housing bubble that could end in financial collapse.
Gang Guo said China's political future may depend on how the economy treats the young generation. "Unemployment among educated youth and inequality of opportunity is a combination that could be as dangerous in China as in the Arab world," he said.
In the prelude to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, similar circumstances plagued China: inflation, rapidly growing wealth inequality, impatience with corruption, and calls by intellectuals for faster political reforms. Students at Peking University, where many of the Tiananmen movement's leaders originated, were subjected to a full year of military training in the aftermath of the crackdown.
On the second day of their training, Rachel and her group spent most of the eight hours learning to walk properly. "Don't think it's an easy thing," Rachel wrote. "Hundreds of people should walk in the same tempo like one person. The training is very boring. We have to walk hundreds of times. Even when we think it's perfect, the drillmasters still aren't satisfied."
Students were punished for errors with push-ups, running laps, ridicule, and sometimes forced singing to the rest of the group. The trainers ended the first few days with half an hour of criticism of the students' performance. By the fourth day, Rachel's morale was sinking. "Today was a black day," she wrote. "The drillmaster said that I'm a 'whatever person' [slang for promiscuous] just because I wore my pajamas in front of him. I cried. Never have I felt so homesick."
A 25-year-old lieutenant in the People's Liberation Army (PLA), who asked not to be identified, conducted the freshman training twice as a drill sergeant in Nanjing. "They're all from the countryside, so they're not used to rules," he said. "It can help them have the sense of carrying out orders."
A quasi-military structure may not seem as strange for Chinese undergraduates as it would for their Western counterparts. Curfews and travel restrictions are common at Chinese universities, while special instructors have control over where and how students live and study. "College was like a military management society," said Baogang Guo, associate professor of political science at Dalton State College and author of China's Quest for Political Legitimacy. "Classes are arranged like platoons of 30 to 40 people, and you have a monitor elected to lead that group."
That sense of order and obedience may be invaluable in one year's time, when the Communist Party faces a difficult once-a-decade power transition. The party will replace seven of the nine members of China's highest governing body, the Politburo Standing Committee, as well as about two-thirds of the State Council, China's chief administrative authority, and the Central Military Commission, which oversees the PLA. It's expected that current Standing Committee members Vice President Xi Jinping and Vice Premier Li Keqiang will assume the presidency and premiership, respectively -- but who will fill the remaining seats remains unknown.
With growing social discontent over the corruption, inequality, and environmental degradation that have accompanied the economic growth of the past 20 years, it seems clear that Beijing's current bargain with its citizens can't last much longer. In the search for an alternative, two competing models have emerged within the Communist Party. Wang Yang, party secretary of the southern province of Guangdong, hopes to address these problems through greater freedoms and intraparty democracy. Meanwhile, Bo Xilai, party secretary of Chongqing municipality, has become the standard-bearer for those who want to maintain a strong authoritarian role while implementing a raft of egalitarian measures such as subsidized low-income housing and harsh corruption crackdowns, which some claim circumvent the rule of law. Bo has also used emotional tactics in Chongqing, like replicating Mao-era rallies with patriotic singing competitions and sending Mao quotes to all the city's mobile phones.
"If you look at it in the Chinese context, a lot of people still have a good memory of those good old days during the 1950s and '60s prior to the reforms," said author Baogang Guo. "At that time they believe there was no corruption or minimal corruption. Everything was kind of egalitarian. Bo's trying to utilize that kind of sentiment and rebuild the legitimacy basis of the party."
Bo and Wang are widely considered rivals for a seat on the Politburo Standing Committee. But if Bo's faction gains greater control, it could have a difficult time holding the hearts and minds of the post-'90s youth. "This generation tends to be very patriotic," said Baogang Guo. "But they may not swallow the dogmatic teaching from the party. With the new technology I don't think the party can use the same techniques of censorship and thought controls. They have to have a better way to deal with this group."
But does the post-'90s generation share the same dreams for China's political future?
Rachel's father hopes that she'll follow his footsteps and become a civil servant. She has little interest, however, in trying to climb the government ranks where "everyone stabs each other in the back." She says that she admires freedom in the United States and laments that her own hometown "has gotten rich but is losing its soul." In spite of its problems, though, Rachel says that she loves China and believes in it.
At the same time, she doesn't believe her generation will ever be bold enough to rock the political boat. "Students will never do what happened in 1989 again," she said, referring to the Tiananmen Square protests. "Even without military training their parents will tell them they can't do this."
Indeed, as all the drilling and marching of Junxun neared its end, Rachel's attitude toward the training turned distinctively more positive. "I've hurt my leg, but I still continue," she wrote during the last few days of the drills. "I've gone beyond myself. I've become stronger, more independent. I feel proud of myself."
Across the compound, boot camp had turned into more of a summer camp. Students played games, and one instructor even brought a case of beer to the men's dorm. The PLA lieutenant who previously conducted the training said that this shift is normal. "You need to give a harsh image to the students so they're scared of you," he said. "But later we get more familiar and have a better relationship, so we discipline less and less."
Throughout the two weeks, students sang patriotic songs like "Our Darling Country" and "Without the Communist Party, There Would Be No New China." Toward the end, one of the instructors told the students about life in the real military. He said that a soldier in his platoon who had merely disobeyed orders was once beaten so badly he was disfigured, and sometimes troops live in the mountains for years at a time without a telephone. "They showed their loyalty to our country," Rachel said after the training. "Thanks to them our country will be safe."
"Ah," she said suddenly as she looked up laughing, "This is the aim of the training. You see? I would never say these things before, but now I'll say, 'Thanks to the army, thanks to the party.'"
But a few days of marching and drills likely won't be sufficient to change the behavior and thoughts of the new generation. Several days after returning to campus, Rachel downplayed the suggestion that the training might be a form of political indoctrination. "There's a little bit maybe," she said. "We'll do what they tell us during the training, but after[ward] we have our own minds. If you tell me to do something now, I won't do it. If this is the purpose, it didn't work so well."
When asked whether the training had changed him in any way, one of Rachel's classmates, Li, thought for a moment about the long days drilling in the hot sun. "It changed my skin color," he said dismissively.
The PLA lieutenant agreed that the training probably doesn't have the same effect it did in the past. "We're told to obey. Obey the party and the school," he said. "But post-'90s students are influenced by the West more and have their own character. They tend to ask 'why?' much more than the older generation."
That may be so, but China's new generation doesn't appear hostile to the military training. To many students it's little more than a rite of passage -- yes, it's a bit difficult, but it's remembered nostalgically. "We freshmen practiced together, sang together, laughed together, and cried together," said Ding Weiqiong, who went through the training in Nanjing six years ago. "I really miss that period when we united closely together. We were pure, innocent, and happy then."
Back at the Tsinghua University closing ceremony, the parade of marching students ended, and they sat down to listen to the final speeches. The mood had visibly lightened. Finally, the drill sergeants stood, saluted the students, and jogged to the buses waiting to return them to base. Many of the young women (and a few of the guys) began to cry.
Michael Volkin, a U.S. Army sergeant and author of The Ultimate Basic Training Guidebook, described the benefits of this kind of training and synchronized drilling. "Everyone is going to come out with more confidence and a camaraderie they've never had before," he said. "That's the real mental reason why you do the cadence. It's to follow directions, but the real reason is so you can feel as one with the people around you."
Students suggested all kinds of purposes for the training, including national defense, discipline, student orientation, shock therapy for spoiled kids, garnering sympathy for soldiers, and instilling love and obedience to the state. But most seemed to agree, after completing Junxun, that the experience was positive.
When told of the common foreign view that the military training is a government attempt to brainwash students and hold on to power, Li Hao, an 18-year-old Tsinghua student from the northeastern province of Hebei, said, "That's a kind of discrimination. There are differences between countries. They see the same thing, but their impression is opposite."
As if to prove her point, the Tsinghua ceremony drew to a close with school officials leading the students in one last revolutionary song. Li Hao smiled and sang along:
Unity is strength.
It's harder than iron,
Stronger than steel.
Toward the fascists open fire,
Death to all nondemocratic systems!
Toward the sun,
Toward freedom,
Toward a new China.
|
评分
-
1
查看全部评分
-
|
狗仔卡
发表于 2011-11-16 17:32
提升卡
变色卡
抢沙发
千斤顶
显身卡
发表于 2011-11-16 17:54
