Battleship With Water Balloons

Outside the foreign expert apartment building in which I live (I am a foreign EXPERT!), there are twelve full length basketball courts and a large track. Currently the entire freshman class of Blue Sky University, enrollment 46,000, is undergoing military training. It is mandatory and will last for a week. They are wearing camo pants and matching white shirts in the 90 degree heat, but it gets better. Across the courts are rows of seven-storey dormitories, and mounted on top of the dormitories are large loudspeakers which have been blaring the same two patriotic marches unceasingly for the past several hours. One has an operatic chorus. (!)* The tiny stick figures are marching in squares, sometimes stopping with outstretched legs, toes pointed for the drill sergeant’s examination. They are masters at holding still. All of it strikes me as extremely funny. This would not fly on an American campus.

The freshman’s attitude about all of this is indecipherable from my fifth floor window, but I fully intend to ask my four classes on Monday what they’ve thought of the training. For a collectivist culture, I’d imagine that they don’t feel particularly resentful, but then again, it’s really really hot here and although I’ve never worn it, I don’t think camouflage breathes well.

If wishes were fishes to be had for a penny, I would like to open my window, take a giant water balloon launcher, and play real-life battleship with the battalions below.

*rasied eyebrows

Random fact of the day: Almost without exception, there are no clothes dryers in China.