After weeks of daily training, morning, noon and night, the freshman students completed their initiation ritual which was marked by a ceremony on the sportsfield.
Initially I had been surprised, and a little shocked to see hoards of students wearing military outfits swarming over the campus. The uniforms looked big on them, petite chinese girls with tiny waists, in camouflage outfits and the equally small-waisted young men, did n’t look particularly daunting in their uniforms. There was not a lot of uniformity to be seen in their marching, limbs flailing out of sync. But as the weeks progressed, the tightness of their formations improved, and at the final ceremony it was clear that they had learned quite a bit.
Hong Rongman, my associate-teacher, believes that these weeks of training are a valuable experience for this generation of kids. This is the I “want” generation, one-child policy kids whom have been the focus of all the attention from parents and grandparents. Spoiled to the bone, you might say, and maybe lacking certain social skills needed when you live and work with others. The period of military training throws them together and they have to not only learn discipline and self-sufficiency, but also to give and take.
The girls certainly aquired some nice martial arts kind of poses:
