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Dorm: A room of one's own
Overprotection of students? The predominant explanation given to school officials is: I need to study for my post-graduate entrance exams in a disturbance-free environment. However, as media reports have revealed, the outside world is scarcely a utopia of tranquility. Many of China's college campuses are situated in the suburbs that have now, due to rapid urbanization, become part of downtown. Farming communities converted farmland into rows of residential buildings, so dense they could make a quick buck from rental revenues, but so haphazard they pose many security risks. But convenience and low prices make them favourites with students. Some of those streets have turned into de facto "student compounds." Crime rates in these areas tend to be high because renters also include a high proportion of the "flowing population." Schools, as a legal disclaimer for incidents that might occur, used to ask permission from parents when they were still accepting move-out applications. . Last June, two college students in Beijing's Fengtai District were found dead in their off-campus unit. Police said they apprehended a suspect, according to the Beijing Times. In Xi'an, 13 members of the local Political Consultative Conference filed a petition in 2003, asking that a ban be imposed on renting to students. That's not a sufficient reason, counter several students, who cite the infamous Ma Jiajue case which took place early this year. Ma, a Yunnan University senior, hacked four of his schoolmates to death inside his dorm room because of a dispute in a card game. But students are not always the victims of off-campus violence. In 2001, a Jiangsu student named Zhang Renyu used his off-campus unit to kidnap and murder an elementary school student. The local court issued a legal direction, asking the education bureau to "enhance management of college students." Parents and school administrators also worry that off-campus students may fall prey to prurient landlords or rental scams. A Shanghai survey shows a quarter of the student renters have not signed rental contracts, thus leaving themselves vulnerable in a dispute. And only 9 per cent have contact with the local police, which may give them an extra layer of protection in case of an emergency. Those in favour of off-campus living turn the same argument around to defend their case: The school may want to build the campus into a glass dome and keep all vices out, but that, in the long term, will bring more harm than benefit to students because they have not learned how to adapt in the real world. College education should not only impart knowledge, but also help develop the ability of performing real-life duties, they contend. Cultivation of self-dependence Living on one's own may not sound like a great burden, but it involves work like housekeeping chores that this generation of students are mostly unfamiliar with. Their parents have been babysitting them all their lives, and now the school takes over, with the same condescending attitude as if they were still babies. "Don't treat us as if we are still elementary or high-school children," write many in online bulletin boards. Is off-campus housing an ideal training ground for self-reliance? Many teachers laugh it off as pompous rhetoric. "As far as we know, most students rent outside for the purposes of dating, watching videos, playing computer games, binge drinking and partying all night long. Some of them have been infected by the bad winds of the society, and some have even become involved in crime," said Zhang Yue, a professor at Yunnan University. "Their rooms are a total mess. Three meals a day depend on delivery. You call that self-reliance?" asked a counselor at Shanghai-based Jiaotong University. School officials in many cities maintain that students generally prefer a free-wheeling lifestyle since they have only recently broken loose of their parents' supervision, but people of this age group are weak in self-restraint. "If you don't keep an eye on them, you don't know what trouble they'll get into," wrote a netizen who claimed to be an employee at a multinational company. "In terms of age, they are grown-ups, yet they are not independent in the real sense. They don't have their own financial resources. They are independent civil entities, yet they have difficulty taking responsibility for everything they do. I believe their behaviour should be regulated to an extent." Some psychologists pointed out that the desire for one's own space should be interpreted in two ways: It is a desire for independence on the one hand, but it is also an escape from reality. School life demands that one get along with a greater number of people than they used to, some of whom may not be compatible in personality or lifestyle, and the living space may be cramped and less than ideal in many ways. Communication and team spirit in this kind of environment takes skill, they observe, and opting out is nothing less than giving up the opportunity to learn the people skills that will show more relevance later in their lives. There are reports of students moving back to campus. But that will not make for a fool-proof regimental life. For one thing, there is a growing market for student rentals by the day, even by the hour. Some students even keep their dorm room, yet live in off-campus housing. "The authorities would never find out. Whenever there is a dorm inspection, my roommate would inform me in advance and I'd get there in time and pretend I live there," said one student. Before the regulation, some schools had developed a set of guidelines for relinquishing the dorm unit: The applicant files a formal petition, stating his or her reason; several levels of school administrators review it and approve it; parents confirm and sign it; schools keep record of the student's off-campus contact information; and finally, the school periodically checks on the status of the off-campus student. It is not clear whether the stricter regulation will achieve the desired result. Some hope the interests of all parties can be taken into account in a balanced arrangement. Taboo or not taboo, that is the question By far the most likely "real" reason for college students to rent their own places off campus is to make dating a bit easier. Dorm buildings on China's campuses tend to be strict in gender-based supervision. When a boy pays a visit to a girl's dorm room, he has to register and leave by a certain hour. "The guard at our building has such a keen eye that even a male fly would not be able to sneak in," joked someone in the women's dorm of a Shanghai school.
But once you rent your own place, you can not only have your boyfriend or girlfriend sleep over, but can move in together and live like a real couple. By one estimate, the dating ratio in the student population is around 60 per cent. Those in the senior year have the highest peer pressure. If one is still "available" in the fourth year of school, he or she may be seen as a "loser." On the other hand, less than 1 per cent of the lovers intend to marry after graduation. Breakup rates, according to a Nanjing University survey, stand at 81.7 per cent. When the pressure of job seeking looms, college romances are particularly vulnerable. As many as 14 per cent of the relationships end in the first two months when lovers go separate ways looking for work. Premarital sex that does not lead to marriage is something school authorities fear, suggest many experts. Both sides dance around the subject, but it is the taboo topic of sex that is at the centre of this issue. Some school administrators worry that domestic life without marriage would negatively affect a student's school work. And facing an uncertain future, both partners could end up with "emotional scars." Most parents hold the same view, but their children usually keep their sex lives secret from the parents. One couple found out they both hated cooking and housekeeping. They parted ways after only a few weeks of living under one roof, but they felt the experience was valuable because "it alerted us to the nitty-gritty of family life and made us aware that we were not ready for it." Some students argue that there is nothing wrong with living together. Now that college students can get married, why can't they live together? It's part of human need. There is nothing shameful about satisfying one's desire, they insist. Xu Xiang, a sociologist at Nanjing Normal University, echoes the point: Most renters do it for sexual needs and to seek the feeling of family. That's the natural result of sexual maturity. Premarital sex is not exactly legal, but has effectively been socially "decriminalized." However, Professor Xu cautions that the most important thing is to set the right priorities and not be carried away by the semblance of family life. Most people of older generations feel it is hardly feasible to balance the life of a "family man" with that of a student. They advocate abstinence. Students, for their part, have become more outspoken in standing up for their "rights to basic physiological need." The line is clearly drawn along generational lines.
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