It is a university or is it a prison?

Picture from the Shanghai Art and Design Academy web pages

Jinlin is studying interior design in Shanghai Art and Design Academy ( 上海 工艺美术 职业 学院, Shàng hǎi  Gōng yì měi shù  Zhí yè  Xué yuàn ). It is located near the Shanghai suburb of Jiading, about 20 kilometers from Shanghai downtown. You can see the location in Google maps.

It seems like a modern "western style" university campus and they have nice comprehensive web pages open to the world at http://www.gymy.cn/ describing topics from beautiful sculpture works and nice Photoshop creations to stories of industry co-operation. But it turns out there are peculiar different aspects to the studies there, particularly related to freedom (or lack of) of students.

Already in the beginning of Jinlins studies I was surprised to find out that the university starts with one month of tough military training. Then when planning my trip to Shanghai, it become apparent that the school has lectures on all seven days of the week, no free Saturdays or Sundays. There is not a single day of holiday during the semester between 1.9.2012 and 31.1.2013. I had reserved my trip to include two weekends in attempt to maximize our time together but the school schedule meant that there was no difference in her ability to see me on weekends compared to weekdays.

Just few days before my travel even more weird limitations appeared. I had reserved a hotel for us for nine nights in the centre of Jiading, about 1.5 kilometres from her campus. She then told me she can't stay with me in the hotel overnight. I knew that she lives in the campus in a six-person dormitory with other students. But I only then learned that no student is allowed to stay overnight out from the campus. They must sleep every night in their dorms. If they go out from the campus, they must return latest 10 PM in the evening, no exceptions. Guards will walk around the dorms and check everyone is present. Lights will be turned off 11 PM. All students are adults but it does not seem to me that they are treated with the attitude of freedom and responsibility granted to adult university students in the west.

Final surprise come during the trip. I knew she was busy on classes on most days before 4 PM so I mostly did sightseeing or work on my own during that time. One day I though: I'll go and see around her campus! I did not hope to see her: just the campus area. It looks nice in the pictures, I like architectural photography and it seemed like a nice idea to see the actual buildings she is so closely tied in the current phase of her life. So on a nice day I walked to the Shanghai Art and Design College. I took some photos from the street approaching the campus entrance:

"Shanghai Art and Design Academy"

Well, it turns our those were the only pictures I got. You see, there is only one entrance to the fenced campus area. And it has guards. And the guards stop you when you try to walk in. And when you smile at them and ask "Wǒ  Kě yǐ  Pāi shè  Yī Xiē  Zhào piàn  Zhè lǐ  Ma?" (Can I take some pictures here?) they reply "Bù  Kě yǐ" (No, that is not okay). They don't allow you to enter at all. So I had to go away, no more seeing or pictures of the Shanghai Art and Design Academy.

Seriously, what's the point of being so strict? It's not that they would have some kind of super-valuable secrets compared to, say, Helsinki university and Harvard university that allow visitors to stroll freely on their campuses and even enter freely most buildings on the campus. It's not that there would be some kind of terrorist attacks going on in China and they would have to limit access for security reasons.

One student going out was observing my discussion with the guards and tried to explain to me with bad English and some Chinese that in order to enter the campus I would have to make appointment with some of the teaching staff. It seems that the default mode in Chinese public space is that things are forbidden and only allowed by special permission whereas in western public space things are usually allowed by default and only forbidden for specific reasons in specific cases. I prefer the western way.

By the way, did you know that Chinese are not allowed freely to move within their country? A person living in some town has a living permit, "Hukou" (户口) , to that town and cannot decide to move to another place on his own accord. He must apply for a permission to move from the officials and the application might be rejected. This has led to situation where millions of people move without permission and become "illegal immigrants" inside their own home country, losing many social rights and risking of being arrested and departed to their designated home area. It's a weird place.