A dorm room in Beijing

Ralph Jennings is a journalist and long time resident of China. He currently lives in Taipei. From mid-2000 to 2006, he had an advice column in the 21st Century weekly newspaper in which he answered letters from thousands of students and young professionals. Below is a letter from the archive, with an introduction by Jennings.

The typical low-rise Chinese dormitory looks like a factory block with brick walls and square windows in perfect rows and columns. Three to four wooden bunk beds lie head to foot in each room. Each student gets a bunk and another slab of wood for a desk. Roommates share a phone, a phone line and at better schools an Internet connection for whoever brings a private computer, inevitably sharing it to avoid looking elitist. Windows leak icy air in the winter. Air conditioning is rare. Public restrooms along the cement-floored halls smell like students seldom aim and the staff seldom cleans. Dormitories may face campus construction sites where workers hammer into the night under stadium lights that go off only at sunrise. Through these walls, twice a year, pour 18-year-olds from all over China, lugging cartoon-decorated toiletry bags, clothes for all occasions, celebrity posters, the shock of leaving young beaux behind in distant hometowns and parents trailing along with second thoughts about whether they should have splurged for an off-campus apartment. The results?

Dear Ralph,

Jerry, via e-mail
Autumn 2003