Eric's Beijing Diary

College Road (Xue Yuan Lu)
The heat of summer is past, and the inexorable roll of time is ushering us into the fall season. This is the nicest part of the year in Beijing. One might wish that the Olympics were scheduled to begin September 8, 2008 instead of August 8, 2008. Then again, perhaps it's best that the world not know how nice this place is this time of year. Everyone would want to move here, and then...I don't know...China might get crowded, you know what I mean?

I took this picture this afternoon looking north up Xue Yuan Road. On the left is the Main (East) Gate of Beihang University. Across the street from Beihang (on the right) is the prestigious Peking University Health Sciences Center. Behind me a couple miles is Post and Telecoms (Youdian Daxue). Straight ahead about a mile, hang a left and head straight west toward Wudaokou. On the right you will see BLCU. Across from it on the left will be the Geosciences University. Keep going, under the Wudaokou light rail station, which spans the road, and you will come to the Wudaokou Intersection. Straight south of that intersection (if you take the shortcut that goes done along the train tracks) is the North Gate of Beihang, where I live. Just past that intersection about a block you can turn right if you want to head up to the East Gate of Qinghua University, which was built with money donated by the Americans from their share of the indemnity paid to the western powers after the Boxer Rebellion. If you don't want to go to Qinghua, keep going straight ahead, and you will run right into Beida (Peking University). Hang a left and head back south a couple miles, and you will see the East Gate of Renmin University on the right.

When I first came to Beijing, a young lady said to me, "The students at Qinghua are boring. The students at Beida (Peking University) are crazy. The students at Renmin (People's) University are liars." Sounds rather harsh if you are not familiar with the classic stereotypes associated with these distinguished institutions, but I knew exactly what she was talking about. Peking University and Qinghua University have been compared to Harvard and MIT respectively. Not entirely fair, because Qinghua is diversifying now, and in fact has a growing MBA program. Still, it is the top engineering school in China. Beida is actually more like a cross between Harvard and Berkeley. Or the way Berkeley used to be; Berkeley has calmed down considerably in recent years. I guess I should say recent decades--man I'm getting old! Anyway, Peking University has always been the seed bed of the radical element in Chinese academia. That, of course, is where the march to Tiananmen began back in 1989. And it was students from the Art department at Beida who built the "Goddess of Democracy" which was carried into the square to the astonishment of the world, and the embarrassment of the Chinese government. Renmin University is the top social science university in China, and is generally assumed to be the training ground for China's future politicians. No surprise that the Renmin University English Corner is probably the largest in China, and very often filled with discussions about politics.