The Grand Tour

It is a special privilege you know, to be totally out of synch with everybody else, to be unable to speak or listen, to be the 'foreign teacher.' So privileged, in fact, that it merits us to be formally introduced, given decorous gifts and then carted around to partake the campus of HIT and Harbin city sights.

Friday morning, for some unknown reason, we met Guodong in the downstairs lobby at 7:40. Why so early? No one could figure it out but there we all sat in the white van at 7:40 sharp, proceeded to wait 15 mins and then drove approximately 2 minutes to arrive at our first destination of the main building (more or less a 5 minute walk away). We were ushered into a lovely conference room, photographed like celebrities, given gifts and formally welcomed. We then spent a mildly interesting time learning about the history of HIT.

In the early 1900's Harbin was a small sleepy town in Northern China, jolted awake to industry by the extension of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. HIT was founded at that time by the Russians to study railway engineering and other such fields. The first president was Russian and so were most of the small graduating class. Later it was handed over to Chinese guidance, expect for the period during the Japanese occupation. Today an expanded HIT boasts of being of the top ten universities in China with campuses in three different provinces of China. (Guodong said the other two places but I missed them, apologies!) Of course, the focus remains focused on technology but they also have departments for different languages, alas there are no International Development, Politics or Art in general majors at HIT. Languages like French, Russian, Japanese and English are studied for the purpose of basically going into business with a multi-national or becoming a professor. An interesting note; being a professor in China is regarded as a most prestigious office and this job is prized above most professions. I find this refreshing and want to pass on their love and respect to the many teachers in Canada and the US that suffer from lack of appreciation.

The rest of our tour was dry and most spent in the van with the soft spoken Guodong explaining each passing building to an increasingly uninterested bunch, I am sorry to say. So I will finish with one last point of interest; it is mandatory for every first year university student to go through two weeks of military training. On second campus we saw sidewalks full of camouflage clad young men and women practicing forming lines and standing straight with childlike nervousness and uncertainty. It appears to me an uncomfortable and unwise sort of union; education to military service, but it is in no way uncommon or unusual. (Mentally, I note it as something to examine if I ever decide to take up my small bachelor's thesis again for a masters.)