Military Training

Early in the morning I witnessed hundreds of young adults marching around the SWU campus in camouflaged clothing while chanting in unison.  Later I learned that these people were the first year students fulfilling their required one month of military training.  It’s kind of similar to one month of boot camp.  They have training early in the mornings, late in the afternoons and late in the evenings.  They learn how to march, stand in ranks and endure intense physical conditioning in the Chongqing heat and rain.  This requirement gives every student in China at least some basic military training that can come in handy if the government calls for a draft.  I don’t know about you but considering that china has the largest standing army in the world (2.5 million troops) and has over 40 million reserve or civilian guards I can’t help but feel a little nervous about being a citizen to a country (USA) that owes such a huge debt to China.

I have talked to many graduate students about their military training experience when they were first year college students and I have gotten a mixture of opinions.  Some had an overall enjoyable experience while others seemed to completely dislike it.  The ones who said they enjoyed it said they had gained several benefits from the experience.  They had the opportunity to meet many people and make many friends, learn discipline and time management skills, were able to get into good physical condition, and gained some vitality out of the whole ordeal.  Of those that disliked it mostly complained about how officers would yell at them or about how hot the Chongqing weather was.  And in defense of the students who complained about the hot weather, in September sometimes the temperature reaches over 105F with over 90% humidity and the military training is never postponed.  The students still march around and stand in ranks for several hours out on the soccer fields regardless of the weather.  I can recall seeing students faint in the heat while standing in their ranks and then being carried away to some shade in a stretcher. 

It is very entertaining to watch some of the military exercises.  One of the most fascinating exercises that I saw was a very large group of young men dressed in camouflage uniforms practicing Kung Fu all in unison on a soccer field.  They all would hold still in some sort of position for a few seconds until an officer would yell “HO!” and then in response the whole soccer field would yell “HO!” and change into a different position all in unison. 

The first year students have just recently finished their military training here at SWU and can now blend in with the rest of the students.  It is kind of scary to think that China has so many of its citizens with some military experience (even the students) especially when much of the world is in indebted to China.  I think it is very important during these hard economic times to learn as much as I can about the culture and language and to make friends here so as to strengthen friendly diplomatic ties between us and China.  This is however “The Asian Century” isn’t it?