化 境 神 似

A travelogue by Shen Youqian 沈有乾 (previous|first)

10. Coming Ashore

THE PROCEDURE FOR coming ashore was much simpler than expected. Health inspection was no more than a head count. Our passports were issued by the Foreign Ministry and had the stamp of the consulate - they were called "International Exchange Passports". When the immigration official looked at them, he was very polite. Not only did he ask us hardly any questions, he also said that the ship line should not have included us when collecting the head tax. He signed the receipt and advised us to ask for a refund from the company. But after we had arrived at our respective schools, we received another letter from the immigration bureau saying that in accordance with the request of the Washington State Department of Labor, Chinese students entering the country should be taxed. The refund we received was in fact granted in error, and they requested that we send it back. As far as I know most of us complied, but I'm afraid not all of the money could be recovered. Before the letters were received, one of the 29 of us, Ms. Wang Chaomei, had died in a highway accident.

The customs report for our luggage looked at first glance to be rather complicated to fill out, but upon the advice of someone on the inside, we learned that all we needed to do was write "all for personal use". The luggage inspectors were probably quite experienced, and were able to guess which places contraband would be hidden. Most of our luggage merely had the corners brushed in passing, but a few pieces were thoroughly inspected, making an utter mess of things.

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A travelogue by Shen Youqian 沈有乾 (previous|first)

8. Aboard Ship

THE SHIP WE TOOK was the President McKinley, of the Admiral-Oriental Line. According to the commemorative booklet they gave out, this ship had only been in service for one year, and had previously been called The Keystone State. It was 535 feet long, 72 feet wide, and 50 feet tall. It could carry 22,000 tons and could travel at 17 knots (that is, 20 statute miles per hour). There were 252 crew members and a maximum of 760 passengers. Compared with the ships that sail the Pacific today, this kind of ship only rates third class, but at the time we all thought it amazing.

Our ship, the President McKinley, was originally scheduled to depart on 16 July, and in the end, it was on 16 July that we departed. This should not have been anything remarkable, but the day before we were told that departure had been delayed a day, and we nearly missed boarding because of this.

On the afternoon of the 15th, when I accompanied Mr. Xu - the teacher sent by the school especially to take care of us in Shanghai - to the office to pick up our tickets, a clerk told me that because of a schedule error coming in to port, the ship could not leave port on time. They decided to delay one day; the ferry would probably be leaving the new pier in the morning of the 17th. He couldn't guarantee the time, however, and had me come back the next day at around 10 to inquire again.

According to my own experience, there is never any set time for Chinese ferries to depart, and even if there is, it is kept a close secret. As for foreign ferries, it has been said that when telling Chinese passengers the departure time, they set it thirty minutes early. One time a large group of passengers became very worried when a friend of theirs had not yet arrived 30 minutes before the ship departed. When this experienced traveler arrived 15 minutes later, he confirmed that there was still a quarter of an hour left until the ship would actually depart. He said that when inquiring about the schedule, it was important to use English in order to get the correct information.

While I do not entirely believe that company clerks will quote a departure time thirty minutes early, I did not expect them to quote a departure date one day late. But at 10am on the 16th there was a notice posted on the office door saying that the ferry to the President McKinley would be leaving from the new pier at 1:00 that afternoon. Reading this notice, I was struck dumb (the notice was in English, so the company was obviously not moving the time up one day because they were afraid that slow Chinese passengers would not make it on time). I read it again to make sure that I had not misread "today". I was both angry and panicked - angry because the office was closed and I had no way to settle things with the lying clerk, and panicked because I had to go to the Youth Association to tell my classmates, and then come back to the south side to pack my own luggage. When I reached the Youth Association, I learned that my classmates had already received news of the change in dates from the company by telephone, and they in the process of finding someone to help move their trunks. This eased my temper a bit, but I was even more panicked. Yet as flustered as I was, I could still hold onto a small bit of insurance: I wouldn't be the only one left behind on the shore, since the tickets and passports for 29 people were still in my possession, and perhaps the ferry would even wait a few minutes for me. Ultimately I ended up making it with two minutes to spare.

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A travelogue by Shen Youqian 沈有乾 (previous|first)

6. Choosing a School

CHOOSING A school was even harder than choosing a major, in the first place because there were more schools than there were majors, and in the second place because the difference between schools A and B was much less evident than the difference between subjects A and B. Our basis for selecting schools was made up of the following: "School introduction" type literature printed by the schools themselves, Wang's English language A Guide to Studying in the US (《留美指南》), the experience and opinions of instructors in the school, and information from friends in the States. Besides these, there were several American schools that ran advertisements in Qinghua publications welcoming Chinese students. I remember one such school's advertisement read "Men and women of both sexes are admitted" (两性的男女兼收), a joke that to this day I cannot forget. But these advertisements generally had little effect on us.

The school introduction literature was only good for future reference. For students who had no idea, it naturally was no use. But looking through it when one already had a certain school in view, one could avoid making the mistake of going where one should not; a literature student would not make the mistake of going to a tech school, or a male student would not make the mistake of going to a girl's school.

A Guide to Studying in the US would seem to be the most useful since it listed the conditions at each school. Apart from the campus, climate, and departments, is also listed cost estimates, treatment of Chinese students, and other related topics, all of which interested us. Many of my classmates' final decisions, I'm afraid, were made primarily on the basis of this book. But to trust the book too much was to invite deception, since the information in the book was obtained through a survey of Chinese students at the colleges, and their views naturally lacked a common standard. An estimate of living expenses was always a reflection of one's own standard of living, and whether Americans were "friendly" or "prejudiced" was mostly determined by whether one had a talent for international relations or had no grasp of etiquette; it was not necessarily the most objective of facts.

Our instructors could be divided into two groups on the basis of their opinions: the first group advised us to enter a large university, while the second advised us to enter a small school. Schools with few students had many advantages: teachers and students could work closely together, and Chinese students had opportunities for extra-curricular activities. A fair number of students sent telegrams notifying their schools of their arrival times and were granted the honor of having the president or some other official personally come to the train station to meet them. One can see from this how these small schools valued Chinese students. Very large schools were the exact opposite - one classroom could have as many as several hundred students, with the professor's face difficult to make out clearly. If you went to see him outside of class, even after making an appointment, you still had to wait your time, so it fell to teaching assistants to answer most common questions. Large schools had their own advantages, however: good professors, good laboratories, good libraries - these were all things a small school could not match. Fortunately the choice of a small or large school was not absolute; many students chose a "small to large" plan.

Why I chose Leland Stanford Junior University is an interesting story. When I was in my first year of advanced studies, an American woman lecturer came to set up a relationship between us and American high school students. Because a friend of hers worked at a school close to Stanford, we stared writing letters to students of that school. After a while, interest in these new pen pals waned; most people wrote about three letters before stopping. My pen pal was the only one to really take advantage of this opportunity, and by the time he entered Stanford, and I was about to leave the country, we had not yet stopped writing. His letters attracted me to Stanford.

It was the custom at Qinghua for travel fees not to pass through students' hands. The superintendent's office took care of everything for us from Shanghai all the way until we reached our prearranged school. Afterward, however, travel fees when changing schools were not covered by the superintendent's office; we could only save a little from our monthly allowance or borrow against our return trip fund. Thus no one wanted to go to the West first, even though western America had good schools, the land and people were worth exploring, and the climate was warm and enjoyable. In a pleasant turn of events, just as we were about to go overseas the superintendent's office changed their policy - if we changed schools in an easterly direction, they would cover the charges. So out of 29 people, at least four went to California: one to UC and three to Stanford.

(待续)

(originally posted 2005.01.08)

A travelogue by Shen Youqian 沈有乾 (previous|first)

4. Preparations

BETWEEN GAINING CERTIFICATION to study abroad in America and starting off on the journey there was a period of nine years' preparation. My only regret is that there was not a similar period of time to prepare us to return home.

At that time Qinghua was divided into a four-year middle form and a four-year upper form. When eight years of effort were finally coming to a close, a group of us were unable to take final exams due to a strike then in progress by the entire student body. So the authorities added a class at the college sophomore level—changing the upper form's fourth year to a college freshman class—and punished us with an extra year of school. Later on this practice was dropped, so our year had an especially full preparation that no one before or after us received.

An educator had once mistakenly listed Qinghua with the religious colleges in an education journal, to much amusement. But the Qinghua of that time, despite not being a religious college, indeed resembled a religious college in practically every way. The traits of a religious college as commonly perceived are not their religious characteristics, but rather their western atmosphere. Qinghua's western atmosphere was quite strong. Anywhere that English could be used it was not left out, and even in areas where English use was inappropriate, it was not infrequently employed. The school anthem, military exercise cadences, and even, according to rumor, one student's letters home. For nine years under these conditions, using English in reading, taking classes, presenting speeches, writing, one could not help but master it. Apart from this, we also learned quite a bit of American conditions, customs, and etiquette.

At times I almost felt that we used English too much. We had studied it too well. The disadvantage of overuse was an inability to function without it; when talking to people who did not understand English we could not help but insert English into our conversation. The disadvantage of overstudy was an ability to identify Americans' errors, often leading to extreme embarrassment. I remember in one essay writing "Logical analysis as well as experimental observation shows..." A professor struck out the last "s", putting me in a rather awkward position. I could only gloss over the situation by changing "...as well as..." to "Both...and". A classmate of mine once attended a meeting of outstanding students and scholars, and during the meeting one of the participants asked why "a" rather than "an" is used in front of the word "eugenic". The assembly did not know which was correct; my classmate, however, understood. But I ask you: Should he have spoken out or kept his silence?

(待续)

(originally posted on 2004.12.13)

A travelogue by Shen Youqian 沈有乾 (previous|first)

2. Objectives

IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING that I went to America to study. However, when it was convenient, I also visited factories, toured famous spots, attended scholarly conventions, and even lectured on topics related to China; I hope that no one takes from this that my primary goal was propaganda, teaching, representation, or tourism under the auspices of inspection. As for why I left the country for schooling, and why I went to America after leaving the country, that and my "objectives" are unrelated, falling instead under the category of "reasons". But there is no such chapter is this book, because those two questions are not ones that I am able to answer; moreover it is not my responsibility to answer them. After I graduated from primary school, I followed my parents' orders to apply to the Qinghua [Tsinghua] School and had the good fortune to be accepted, that's all. At that time the Qinghua School was devoted entirely toward preparing students to study abroad in America. Once I passed the entrance exam, I dropped all thought of not going to America, since it would have been easier to jump off a moving train.

(待续)

(originally posted on 2004.11.30)