As I sleepily wandered through the University at 7:30 am, en route to my class, I was startled by being cut off by a few squadrons of Chinese military marchers. As miserable as I was about being up and dressed so early, about to start a 4 hour class, watching the marchers reminded me of the silver lining: I was not them.
As the week progressed, I realized that all of a sudden, Dalian had been inundated with soldiers? Marchers? I didn't know who they were or where they came from, all I knew was that everywhere I turned, I kept on seeing these poor people in uniform, doing what appeared to be a hybrid of high school marching band and Prussian military marches. Finally, I asked one of my CTs what was going on, and she informed me that in China, all freshman are required to do three weeks of military training. I suddenly had a flashback to my freshman year of college, back to welcome week, when we were all bitter that we had to do a couple hours of orientation. Every month that I am in China, the thought that Chinese students are the most misfortunate of students is reinforced.
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