JISHOU, HUNAN — They certainly do things differently here. Take freshman orientation, for example.
At Jishou University, and perhaps other Chinese institutions, the freshmen arrive after everyone else. As a result, I won’t see any first-year students for another week or two.
Their arrival this week looks much like it would in the US. Students dragging luggage to their dorm rooms. Parents walking around, looking dazed and confused, wondering how they ever got this old and how they’ll pay the tuition bills. Business concerns (cell phones, the local markets) setting up tents and tables to pull in new customers.
There the similarity ends. For, my seniors tell me, orientation here for freshmen is a little like a two-week long boot camp. 
Older students, some wearing paramilitary style uniforms, are in charge of companies of freshmen. They get them up early in the morning for calisthenics by the gymnasium. They march them around in formation, wearing green camo uniforms. They make them stand, for no apparent reason, in formation, have them kneel on one kee, then rise. Order them to sidestep in formation to the right, to the left, forward, about face, etc.
Loud speeches over the public address system greet them in the morning. I know. I heard them starting at 6 this morning until about 10. On my day off. When I wanted to sleep in. Grumble. Grumble.
Once all these military preparedness/group discipline stuff is over — a holdover from the old China, I suppose — the freshmen will spend a week in intensive oral English classes. It’s a wonder they want to speak it every again.
As serious as I suppose China’s leaders take these exercises, the students seem to take it as they would a bitter pill. Swallow the damn thing and get it over with. Life goes on. Unlike ROTC here in the States, the manner of the participants is far from ramrod military. The whole process resembles summer camp for an athletics team. Suit up, guys (and gals — it’s a coed thing here), we’re taking a few laps around the track.
Freshmen talk in ranks, look around at passers-by, and fidget. Meanwhile, their student commanders try to look like they’re serious and in charge, but to me it looks like they are just going through the motions. Walking around this afternoon, I didn’t see any older military types supervising the show. It appears to be all student-run and facilitated.
Oh, and before I forget to mention this little detail. No guns. We’re not preparing for imminent invasion here. I saw no firearms, or any other weapons of mass or personal destruction. Actual military service in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is compulsory for young men once they reach 18, but so many men and women volunteer to serve in the military that conscription is unnecessary. As a result, the freshman boot camp this month is the closest most of these kids will ever get to military service.
From that perspective, all the calisthenics, marching in formation and speechifying serves a purpose. It’s one way to ensure all young people have some glimmer of miltary life, in case someone is crazy enough to invade the most populous country on earth.
From a Western perspective, particularly from that of an older Westerner who remembers when all Chinese wore the same shapeless uniform day in day out, it’s a little discomfiting to see all the freshmen (about 2,000 to 2,500) walking around in green camos.
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