Modern Day Chinese Students (Help needed.)

[Barboxacon]

Hello~

I've started learning Chinese at college and for an assignment over the holidays we have a 1200 word assignment on the life of senior middle school students in China. I thought it was going to be easy, and I've completed around 3/4s of it, however, it's very difficult to find information on some of the topics. Some of the best sources I found were written by say, "John" and had no dates, and so I couldn't reference them properly. Therefore, they weren't usable. I've posted on another forum as well, so, hopefully some locals or visitors can help me out ^_^

The areas we need to cover are schooling, family, friends, daily routine, clothing, sports, hobbies.

Information on schooling was fairly easy to find and thanks to a few online blogs of Chinese students, I found out a lot about daily routine. However, there's some areas I'm having no luck in finding solid information on, so, I've got a few questions and if anyone could post some general information about what they've observed in China or know about China, that would be really great. I've scanned through the forums, without much luck, so here the queries are ^^

1. I've noticed that Chinese schools seem to have a lot of small classes run each day... Do Chinese students study lots of different subjects, or do they just study a little bit of all their subjects each day? What sort of subjects?

2. I was asked to talk about clothing. I'm assuming Chinese students wear clothing that is much like western clothing? If anyone could describe the sort of clothing that is popular, that would be great.

3. Dating. Are senior middle school students normally too busy studying, or is it common to have girlfriends/boyfriends?

4. Popular activities. Going to the movies, shopping, arcades maybe? What sort of things do Chinese students do for fun after school / on the weekends with their friends?

I could make some general assumptions about these things, but, I can't reference myself ^^;;

If anyone has time to quickly talk about any of these areas, it would be really appreciated.

Thankyou. ^_^

[Senzhi]

You seem not to have the easiest assignment: there's no way to gerenalise answers to your questions to the whole of China. There are many different cultures in China, some more progressive than others.

I can only speak for the Shaoshan area (around Shantou in Guangdong province):

1. I've noticed that Chinese schools seem to have a lot of small classes run each day...

Classes are about 60 people and subjects would be divided into 2-hour classes.

2. I was asked to talk about clothing. I'm assuming Chinese students wear clothing that ...

Students wear the same kind of modern leisure clothing as young people in the west. In many schools, however, they have to wear a uniform, which is merely a shirt, a sweater and pants. (the 80's style jogging outfit)

3. Dating. Are senior middle school students normally too busy studying, or is it common to have girlfriends/boyfriends?

Students like dating. It's a natural thing as anywhere else in the world. However, here, it's forbidden by the schools: they are afraid that dating will temper their studies. Not that it really matters: because of the hot climate, students tend to be lazy and tired anyway ... to study or to date. And not only the students ...

4. Popular activities. Going to the movies, shopping, arcades maybe? What sort of things do Chinese students do for fun after school / on the weekends with their friends?

Due to lack of anything else than shops, restaurants and KTV here, students focus themselves on watching TV, playing computer games and window shopping. Also sleeping here is considered as entertainment (again because of the hot climate). Those who can afford it, might go to the local KTV.

Again, answers will differ a lot, depending from the area. China is big. Enormously big.

[self-taught-mba]

Students wear the same kind of modern leisure clothing as young people in the west. In many schools, however, they have to wear a uniform, which is merely a shirt, a sweater and pants. (the 80's style jogging outfit)

Little different.

Still haven't seen the thongs sticking out from the low-rise jeans in a deliberate display by the 14 year old girls here yet like in America. Sure it's coming soon though.

[Senzhi]

Still haven't seen the thongs sticking out from the low-rise jeans in a deliberate display by the 14 year old girls here yet like in America.

Here you have. The rap culture does exist ... even though it's the Chinese rap culture, it's a copycat from the U.S. one ... but in Chinese.

Nevertheless, I wish they could appreciate Rage Against the Machine though

[Barboxacon]

Thankyou very much for the comments so far.

I see. It sounds like the schooling system there is very different to the school the student on the blog went to. I mean, this is the case in Australian schools, too. The high school I went to had 75 minute classes, four a day, and the school just down the road had six, 50 minute classes a day. We surely don't spend as long as school each day as the Chinese for certain, though! 60 people! Wow. That's a lot.

Is the 60 people a class an average for middle / senior middle schools? Are primary school classes large as well? (By large, I mean more than 30 !) Australian classes are considered big if they're around/over 30...

Do they only have one teacher in each class...? Because that's pretty amazing. Sometimes to save space we'll have joint classes were two class groups join together, but, then'll you'll have both teachers there to help out as well.

I'll make sure to note down that there's many differences from area to area, and note which areas of China certain information from the forum came from.

Thankyou very much for your help~. That should fill another another hundred words at least and help start patching up the clothing areas. I'm also glad you pointed out the differences with the school there, because, I was under the impression that schooling would be basically the same China wide... how wrong I was! ^_^;;

[Senzhi]

Is the 60 people a class an average for middle / senior middle schools?

I'm afraid it indeed is, at least in my area.

Are primary school classes large as well?

No idea. I never teached primary school students.

Do they only have one teacher in each class...?

Indeed only one teacher per class.

[Barboxacon]

Woah, that must be really hard on the teacher. I'll have to keep that in mind. I want to teach English in Asia, and so have learnt Japanese for a long while and am now learning Chinese. I'm thinking it would be hard to do hands-on activities and such with so many students.

[imron]

The classes are larger, but in general the students are better behaved, so large classes aren't nearly as big a problem as they would be in the west. The problem of course with large class sizes is that it's difficult to spend much individual time with students. The best approach is to divide and conquer - split the students into groups, and have the groups all doing something at the same time, with you going around and visiting the groups in turn. The best way to kill a class, is to take it in turns to do some activity.