本文仅代表个人作为学生和见证者的看法，描述内容全部为实际情况。如对本文的论调存在不满，请移步校方官网阅读官方对学校的介绍。
The article only stands for the opinions and criticisms from the author as one of its students or witnesses and are all based on reality or the author’s experiences. For those who want to learn about the overall info of the college or are unsatisfied with the tone throughout the article, please move to the official website of the college for the sweet-talks.
一部分文本可能引起中国大陆居民不适；为心理健康着想，这部分内容仅在英文版本中呈现；请谨慎观看。
For the sake of psychological health and well-beings of readers from mainland China, some contents are ONLY available in the article’s English version. Think twice before you decide to read in English.
简体中文版本的文本请点这里。
For English version, please click here.

English version of the article starts here.

My college experience actually began earlier than the majority of other students, as I obtained the admission by the in-advance group from the after-College-Entrance-Exam application system in Jiangsu which in turn makes the letter sent earlier than usual. Senior schoolmates warned that another examination would take place right after our settlement in dormitories, and thanks to the fact that I got the lowest Maths score in CEE among all the entries from Jiangsu to be a member of the college, I have to make more preparations than others for the exam. Fortunately we were also clear at the moment that all problems on the Maths exam paper feature the same knowledge points with those of CEE, so it’s just enough for me to take the done-already exercises again. Consequently, the customized duration of my vacation turned out not as long as expected.

The after-dorm-settlement exam is not as hard as estimated, except Physics - the from-Jiangsu students could not answer problems beyond their academic reach. Everything reversed when the English exam started, as I could easily see a great number of blanks on the papers of surrounding students at any casual glances after I finished - the blanks remain after the test is over. I had made mental preparations for the probabilities that English levels in Northwest China would be low, but such a great ratio of students who handed their paper with such a great area unwritten still shocked me at that time. All of us were informed of the traditions of the college that points we obtained in English would directly send tickets towards different levels of English class to us, as top level features shorter duration for English classes by one year than others. I unsurprisingly gained the top ticket, and the great gap I happened to discover laid the groundwork for everything that followed.

Shift Attempt (2020FA)

The outcome of the after-settlement exam turned out extraordinary in terms of both Mathematics and English, while points of Physics failed me as expected. The year was the first one when the college decides to launch the so-called Outstanding Innovative Talents Cultivation Plan, making it possible for those who are in pilot class to gain direct-access to other colleges in pursuit of master degree after winning the baccalaureate. Entrance to pilot classes was taken as the best chance for me to change my major (and that’s why I have to prepare hard in summer), and I had intended to apply for the Excellence Engineers Cultivation Plan in Telecommunications Department, but I changed my mind after the introductions from my roommates of the Outstanding one. The Outstanding Plan of Computer Science Department features only 30 thrones, but the number of applications reached roughly 300 according to the official stats. The first round of filter took place online via some unknown methods, and I became the only one of the 3 applicants in my dorm that advance to the next round for the Computer Science plan.

The result was shocking for me at that moment, and the feeling remains the same when I look back at that highlight time now. Both of the 2 eliminated should have better quality than me on Computer Science, not to mention the fact that one of them had participated in the Programming Olympics (also called OI) before and had managed to win prizes. The lottery time was followed by information of interview round on the next day, as relevant preparation began. The information emphasized that certificates of competitions can be taken as vital proof to the applicant’s achievements, but I do not have remarkable ones thanks to the pressure from my high school. I have to attempt to counterattack via sincere words and sentences, despite the likeliness that others may also add these sugar to their super-cuisines. Breeze of the cool afternoon on the interview day succeeded in adjusting my status to the best, and when I arrived at the entrance to the office, there had been many people queuing in the corridor. There was a sign-in sheet to make sure you have arrived, and I discovered that there were only 40 applicants who advanced to this stage.

I happened to come across one of a seen-before schoolmates in my high school in the queue - another applicant from the same school with me was chatting with him. They are scheduled to take the interview much earlier than me according to the sheet, and, as I remembered, they are all from classes of higher level than me in high school. The less-familiar come-across entered first and exited soon after the entrance with blue look. Another former-schoolmate asked him details of the interviewers’ questions.

“They asked me why I applied, and I said the application was spelt by personal thoughts that this plan is great.” He shook his head and recalled. “Then they asked me what makes the plan great - I can hardly answer.”

The confession turned out similar with that from other applicants. Many of them were asked to figure out why they apply for the plan or why they want to change their major before taking any classes, and many of them said that Computer Science may bring better promises, which makes them further questioned on what the “better promises” exactly was. They definitely were not supposed to mention salaries or posts, but their twisted excuses could not stand the test of the questions that followed up. Despite the folders filled with certificates on their hands, they held the view that they themselves had been eliminated already.

The applicants are more nervous than before after they heard of these discovered attacks conducted by the professors, making the corridor more silent. I was one of the last 5 interviewees in queue, burdening all the pressures from all applicants who have finished their interviews and left. Eventually my entrance time arrived, and I found that my hands trembled at a terrible frequency after I sat down. Experts then asked me to conduct an oral self-introduction (in Mandarin, of course), marking down the start of the interview on their notebooks.

(Name introduction along with address has been omitted for privacy) I have not participated in any of CS-related competitions, but I’ve heard of the slogans of the plan that reads “Emphasize the foundation, highlight the innovation” - I’m firmly persuaded that I CAN make achievements as well if I learn to walk before run.

—— All sentences of my self-intro, 2020

Maybe this could be the shortest self-introduction among all the applicants, but the experts were not surprised. The introduction was industrial enough to describe the reason why I want to apply for the plan, blocking the experts’ tendency to place the previous obstacles. They then switched to ask me some questions according to the scores of the after-settlement exams.

“We have noticed that your English score is high,” one of the professors asked, “this is quite rare for a MALE student.”

I had heard of prejudices and stereotypes that girls dominate the Arts-related subjects, English involved, long before. Male students, according to the bias, are more advantageous when studying Science-related subjects. Parents of mine hold the view that the discrimination stands in that girls are more likely to be meticulous, which is a vital quality to learn language-related knowledge. I did know that it’s inappropriate to deny the experts’ perceptions right in front of them, so I managed to reply to the étonnement with étiquette.

“Maybe that is because I had traveled to West Europe for exchange studies 3 years ago.” I replied.

“Which countries?” They asked.

“France and Germany in major.” I answered. A positive reply was also given when they deduced that I might have a command in French and German, implying the fact that not all male students are poor in foreign languages. They then finished the interview with a surprised look - it seems that I was the only applicant that undertook a non-computer-related-knowledge interview.

Despite the smoothness throughout the interview, I’m still not sure whether my place on the list of 30 has been secured. Fortunately the result with admission came out at that night, which finishes the shift attempt with a relief - I would have to wait for another year to change my major if the interview failed at that day.

Competition FEVER (2020WN - 2021FA)

Since most students in the pilot class were talents or knowledge-equipped, signs increasingly emerged that I can hardly keep up with the academic pace in the class even in the first year. Policies on direct to-master tickets were still unclear at that moment in that we are the first samples, so I switched to take a place back via some competitions, just as what the common college students would do to earn one ticket.

The COVID-19 pandemic bounced back in the late 2020, as governors always blame the Western countries for their laissez-faire attitude when it comes to quarantine. Competitions, thus, are not as many as before during that time. A senior schoolmate of mine that graduated from the same high school in 2018 recommended that I take part in the MCM/ICM Mathematical Modelling Contest, but the teamwork-required competition seems hard for me to search for proper teammates. Luckily an abrupt invitation bumped into me in a no-moon evening of 2020’s November. A classmate of mine came to me online and asked whether I would like to take the role of interprète on the stage of modelling for their team.

A team for MCM/ICM mathematical modelling was suggested to feature 3 members, and it should include one modéliste to build the model, one programmeur (or maybe programmeuse) to calculate or realize the model and one interprète for the in-text output. Mainstream viewpoints had it that those who are to compose the output in English matter most when it comes to the arranged-by-Americans contest, but I held the opposite one at that time simply because I found it much easier to write essays than to give birth to valid algorithms. The invitation came into my cellphone when I was right on my way to the School Building for English class, and the message’s sender was of high likeliness to be the algorithm-designer. I did know that the inviter himself topped high on the list of our school’s coding club, so I was glad to accept the offer and replied with an immediate positive answer. Roommates, however, had made reservations from me for another modelling team already, and my eat-word behavior annoyed him. I thought the with-god virgin experience could be as great importance before the in-dorm cooperation, so I swore that I would re-group the team within the dormitory next year. This gentleman’s-clause later proved to be the actual starting point of my course of in-college contest.

The MCM/ICM ‘21 was scheduled to take place near the Lunar New Year’s Eve of that year, so there was still abundant time for preparations. As warm-up, I read all top-prized outputs of the contest in previous years and writing skills got greatly improved therefore. An output from the senior schoolmate impressed me most with its close touch with reality presented throughout the article. The output was centered on soccer, which had offered their football-fond team splendid stages for show-off. I knew that such in-real topics could not always exist annually, so it was just taken as a flash of inspiration. The contest began as scheduled, and we refused to follow in the seniors’ footsteps regarding staying up late. My teammates relieved my burdens, submitting untranslated Mandarin version of introductions for their theories and models at noon and what I was instructed to do was just to interpret them to English and add the received figures to the article, taking care of the overall layout. An image of all transmitted to me with a size of 25.6 MB turned out the most troublesome to rearrange, and I have to leave a notice right after the table of content to suggest the judges to enlarge all images within the article if necessary after putting it half the width of an A4 paper.

We finished the output 12 hours before deadline and sent our article to the committee afterward. Result would be announced in May 2021, so online chatroom of our team returned to silence after the receipt confirmation of our work from the Americans. It was during the awaiting period that I received advertisements from the college on National English Competition for College Students (or NECCS), and my parents forced me to participate in the contest like all my roommates.

The contest was held in school in the morning of 24 Apr (which was Saturday), and I rushed to the exam after getting up late. I put on my FM headphones to check whether the frequency for listening section exam works, and everything went as expected. Seconds later volume of sounds from the earpiece gradually lowered and finally it turned the same with mute. The digital silence had lasted for 5 minutes when I noticed that the exam had begun for 3 minutes but the headphone remains voiceless. Obviously an examinee is not recommended to wear the FM device before and after the listening test due to potential skepticism, so I took the headphone off. Afterward I sensed that there was some sound from devices of students nearby.

“Looks like my headphone have run out of battery before the opening whistle. Great, it’s f**king done.” I thought to myself.

It would be, beyond no doubt, breaking news for all examinees but a heartbreaking flash for the involved to hand in the answer sheet simply no more than 5 minutes after the exam began. The idea of jeter-l’éponge was immediately replaced by the desire to complete these multiple choices problems. Suddenly, it popped me that maybe I could recognize the words and sentences only with the help of sounds leaking from other examinees’ poorly-adjusted headphones. The outcome at the extremely precarious minute turned out on my side, and I made a 23-minute struggle to finish the part. The difficulties I had come across determined the heavier burden on me that I have to get more points than others in compensation for the lost 3 minutes during listening test. Luckily the problems themselves are not exaggeratedly hard and the difficulties of the whole exam were mainly spelt by the limited time to finish all problems, as I had been used to the Blitzkrieg after twists and turns in high school. The result with a second prize of the contest turned out better than expected, which may also be attributed to the limited average level of English in this college or throughout Northwest China, and the experience directly shaped my later conventions where battery-check would always be ticked before listening-involved tests.

The unexpected success created an illusion in my mind that the majority of students in the college is quite weak in English, which directly encouraged me to make full use of the gap and to participate in more foreign-language-related contest in the Northwest. Vocabulary contest followed up, as top prize in Shaanxi Province was obtained and qualified me myself to the national final. The grand final was much harder than the provincial one, and almost all examinees from Shaanxi did not get any of the national-level prizes - it was those from Sichuan and Eastern China that stood out.

The end of April also witnessed the first round of trials for National Reading Contest and the Writing one, and I was informed late near the end of the online round by our instructor. The double lazy sleeps of the last weekend before the end-whistle were therefore blown up, as I managed to write 4 essays with the minimum wordcount of 200 and the maximum of 500 for the 2 contests. Each of the contest screened out only 100 participants of all by the first round of qualification trials, and I wrestled to the next stage of the writing contest with the rank #99. The in-college final (also marked as the second round of qualification) took place at the end of May, as all of us qualified-from-the-online-round gathered in a multimedia classroom to participate in another writing contest on the provided-by-officials computers. It was on this day that I had discovered that girls did do a better job in this college in terms of foreign-language, as I was one of the few male students that advanced to the classroom. The reports of results got announced days later, as I advanced to the ultimate round with another 7 participants thanks to the rank #8. This so-called second round only enabled 8 participants (the 8 students also had won titles higher than the First Prize) to advance for further education on writing skills in preparations for the provincial final. The ultimate third in-college round determined which 3 of the 8 could win the ticket to the out-of-college stage. Online lectures from instructors were taken in summer, and practices on writing were also employed simultaneously. The ultimate filter took place in late September, as I happened to be taking lessons at the scheduled time for the in-college final. I asked the hosts whether I could take the exam days later and received a positive answer - they sent the problem to me before the rearranged test started and enabled me to take the contest online, instead of other 7 participants’ offline match. One of the 2 problems instructed me to translate a painting by Jan van Eyck to a story, as I had happened to come across the painting in Louvre. I applied a large amount of Italian words regarding arts to my essay, making it more interesting. Policies on excessive homework for compulsory education were discussed in the second problem, as both of the 2 were designed to my taste, making ideas for writing go smooth. The final result regarding the destination of the 3 tickets was announced a week later, as I advanced to the provincial stage with the rank #3.

The time has finally come. Giovanni, along with his wife, stands straight in the bedroom, waiting for the painter’s output. The new bride turns her face down, feeling tense to look her husband in his eyes, as Giovanni grabs her hand, attempting to pray. Jan van Eyck, the painter, stays focused on every move of the new couple, feeling honored to make a record of such a crucial moment for the wealthy knight in front of him.
Such rapt attention never occurred on the painter’s face before. He’s now even more concentrated than what he was like at the time he had just heard that there’s going to be a Matrimonio here. Upon getting informed, Jan van Eyck cleaned up his palette and returned home, preparing a gift as a toast for his friend’s marriage.
“How can I make the knight surprised and satisfied? He’s never short of luxuries.”
He dropped into thoughts, feeling the lack of ideas and creations. He got on bed late at night, having failed to create something gorgeous for the upcoming couple. He gradually shut his eyes - minutes later, he faintly heard something nearby:
“You’ve heard of it? Giovanni’s going to get married!”
“Yeah, and I was invited. It will be a moment that need to be recorded forever.”
“Need to be recorded……” The painter repeated the words. Soon up he sat, as ideas begin to well up. “Paintings can stand the test of history; why not take this as a present?”
The time has finally come. Dressed in noble garments, graceful figures stood at the gate early in the morning as hosts. Carrying canvas, paint and palette, the Dutch painter congratulated the knight on their engagement, and lowered his voice, asking them whether they can move to their bedroom for some affairs. They smiled at each other and agreed. Upon stepping into the couple’s bedroom, the painter unloaded his luggage, making the bride and groom confused. Jan van Eyck smiled for success in making the knight surprised, explaining his intention and asking them to make an excellent pose.
Everything soon has got ready, and the painter begin to prepare his wonderful gift. Later the couple’s dog passed by, as Jan van Eyck decided to add this special family member to his work. “May the cucciolo bring you good luck.” He prays silently to the couple, and gives the paint to the knight upon finishing.
The atmosphere of the banchetto later on turns lighter, thanks to the surprising and priceless gift the couple have just received.

——Original text on the answer sheet at that time, 25 Sep 2021

A new policy is recently released which eases the burden of excessive homework for students undergoing the compulsory education. For students, school life is an amazing period when they learn how to make new friends, enjoy the growing up process, build a strong body and obtain knowledge. However, excessive homework has always been the main stumbling block for most of them.
Moreover，according to the released data from the National Health Commission, the myopia rate for Chinese students (including both compulsory and high education) reaches 53.6% in 2008. That means one in two students is wearing a pair of glasses. Indeed, myopia can be caused by various reasons but the excessive homework may be the most blamed.
But some may worry about that the new policy will lead to lost learning. A meta-analysis of fifteen years of research on homework found that, overall, there was a positive correlation between homework and achievement. This was especially pronounced in secondary-age students. What is your opinion towards the excessive homework? Do you believe that banning it will lead to lost learning? Or do you think the excessive homework will cause the healthy damage for Chinese students? Please state your points with 300 words (2 sub-points). Your essay should provide enough evidence and logical reasoning.

——The second problem of the 2021 ultimate qualification trial

New policies have been established, removing burden of homework for students in the compulsory education phase, igniting the flame of debate among people.
From my viewpoint, the policy deserves widespread applause, and the reasons are as follows. Initially, the decision emphasizes the balance between work and play. Students attach so much importance on the scores on their answer sheet, making them stressed to do excessive homework in pursuit for higher grade. Students even occur to drop Physical Education lesson simply to finish their homework regarding Science and Art, which was experienced by me when in primary school. Consequently, they have no time for outdoor activities, which in turn gives rise to high likeliness to get poor stamina and more diseases. The rate of myopia among Chinese students, issued by the administrations in 2008, can undoubtedly mirror the point. The policy, by reducing the amount of work, gives students extra choices to spend their after-school time, posing a bonus on the basis of the policy where online games are supposed to be banned.
Moreover, the reduce to happen in the amount of homework succeeded in increasing the demands on qualities of teachers. Nowadays a skyrocketing number of teachers in primary schools prefer to assign homework regardless of the degree to which the problems are difficult, making students repeating to list the formulas and equations meaninglessly to solve such large amounts of easy problems. The release of the policy indirectly instructs the teachers to select problems wisely to make sure that the assignments feature less content but higher quality, making teachers unable to employ tactics named after Mount Exercise.
In short, the policy should be supported, as we should not fix our eyes on the academic performance but take view on students’ health both physically and mentally. It will not only offer benefits to the students, but also the whole field of education in the long term.

——Original text of Homework: ripe for reform? on the answer sheet for the second problem, 25 Sep 2021

La Danse sur le quai avant l’arrivée du dernier train, when being looked back on from now, turned out the eventual academic peak days throughout my college experience. The command of vocabulary among languages had been made to its most, and the over-width linguistic gap in the Northwest succeeded to give me theatres for solo as well as the audiences. Siren songs arrived featuring the lyrics spelt with from-college scholarship, yet side effects of the boosters began to surface when the vessel had crushed on the reefs voicelessly.

Lawless FALL-OUT (2021SU - 2022 Lunar New Year)

CONTENT WARNING
The upcoming contents may be distressing and may include scenes with a lot of abuse, blood & gore, hateful language directed at certain groups of residence, mental illness & ableism, miscarriages & abortion, pornographic content, racism & racial slurs, self-harm & suicide, sexual assault, torture and violence.

Please read with care.

5 days after I got my certificate regarding the second in-college qualification trial for the English Writing Contest spotted a sudden but severe injury near my waist. It was around 10:10 a.m. when I finished my Physics class and, when I go downstairs after exiting the classroom, the steps were slippery enough to make me fall on my back from them. Inertia caused me to fall two bonus steps after the instant 5 steps, and I failed to stand up on my own at that moment. The hospital in college determined that I should take all radiological tests available there, ultrasound, magnetic resonance and computed tomography included. I finished all the tests only to find that soft tissues contusion occurred all over my body. The tomography also indicated a bent spine tail, which had been existing for a considerably long time. The severe injury banned me from getting away from bed for exactly 2 days, and parents implied to me that the incident itself may mark the openings of a fateful year. What I did not expect was that this superstitious deduction turned into reality in the near future.

Yan’an (2021 Jul)

Yan’an (“延安” in Chinese) was widely accepted as the actual beginning of China Communist Party (or CCP)'s revolutions. Located north in Shaanxi Province, the city had made full use of its built-by-CCP reputations and built museums in memory of the spread of communism nationwide. 2021 was marked as the year when National Games of China P. R. was hosted by Shaanxi as well, which therefore had led to piles of policies regarding the revival of these old revolutionary area.

Our college prides itself on being a companion to the republic, and it had been a common practice for the officers to draft the summer social practice on CCP-related red tape. The mathematics department organized a journey to Yan’an in pursuit of the so-called “College History” accordingly, and I joined the social practice time due to considerations that all of us students had been forced to participate in such social practices twice or more. The coach journey turned out not as smooth as expected, as expressways to and from Xi’an and Yan’an stretched up the mountains instead of employing tunnels - the over-length duration on the way to north Shaanxi made the rock-hard seats almost impossible to sit in.

We left Xi’an at around 6 a.m. but arrived at Yan’an at around 2 p.m. Definitely we are instructed to visit well-known museums and tourist spots in the next 24 hours, Baota Hill (“宝塔山” in Chinese), Yan’an Revolution Memorial Hall, Jujube Garden (“枣园革命旧址” in Chinese) included. I was the only student who did not submit the application with other friends, so I shared a room with the coach driver for sleep and rest. The driver checked into the room later than me as he had to park his coach properly. He began to check his messages on his mobile phone and finished the read with a voice call with another man. I guessed that it was a workmate of his.

“A male student shares a room with me,” the driver replied to the another side of the call.

“Maybe it is a chance to teach him something, say, available to adults only.” The another side responded.

“No, no way. They (students) are all from universities.”

The driver switched his head towards me after he hanged up. He then introduced the shadowed side of the revolutionary area, which, on the next day, turned out to be right.

It is typical of a city in Northern Shaanxi to develop charcoals and natural gas with the help of the region’s geological structure, and Yan’an, located even to the north of Tongchuan, is not the exception. Many of the local people became reach in the fossil rush and have had succeeded purchasing the high-rise residential housings with the unit Building(s). CCP, as you know, started its road to domestic domination here, but you may not be clear on how they obtained the incomes - Nanniwan (“南泥湾” in Chinese), the place where the airport of the city locates nowadays, used to be the communists’ botanic paradise where poppies were cultivated before the 1940s. Soil of the loess plateau cannot grow rice and vegetables, so people here can only raise apples or potatoes before. Those who refused to join both the drug rush and the fossil one but dived into ordinary traditional crops remain poor nowadays, living in the caves - the wealthy are still exploiting coals and gas now.

The smuggling of oil, gas and charcoals proved true on my way to the revolutionary area, as I spotted hundreds of bungalows featuring oil lifts along with gasser. I had noticed indecent manners from the restaurants near the tourist spots as well that a dish with the radius of no more than 10 centimetres and covered with diced potatoes can be sold with the price of over CNY 50 (approx. 7 USD at that time). The merged-by-window fact that almost no rooms in a single building showed signs for residence also floated to surface on the next day of trip near Baota Hill thanks to the intense sunlight.

It was Yanhe River that witnessed the real prosperity of socialism in the oriental country in the past century, and it was ALSO Yanhe River that turned out an insurmountable gap between the rich and the poor in the past decades.

Jiangsu Provincial Health Information Center (2021 Jul - Aug)

I got back to Nanjing after the Yan’an visit along with the writing-contest-centralized trainings on the coach back to the college. It was exactly on the day that I arrived home when that day’s CA910 flight from Sheremetyevo (an airport in Moscow, SVO or UUEE for short) was refused by Tianjin Binhai International Airport (TSN or ZBTJ for short) and landed in Lukou (the international airport in Nanjing, NKG or ZSNJ for short). The flight then triggered a brand-new wave of COVID-19 pandemic in Nanjing, as the sanitary workers for that flight got infected. The large-scale population flow featured in the metropolitan brought Health QR Code, a barcode indicating whether its owner had come across the infected via the code’s colour, into a complete chaos nationwide because of the obstacles the platforms have come across when transmitting data across the provincial manipulative regions. To help residents in the city overcome the wave, I applied for voluntary work regarding the coronavirus and eventually got dispatched to Jiangsu Provincial Health Information Center to burden the post of a telephone operator. The contract was signed on 24 July, and I heard from the personnel that some of the former operator had applied for days off thanks to the pressure they had had on the first 3 days of the pandemic spread from residents nationwide, scolds and swears included.

Hateful language directed to all Nankingese occurred minutes after we logged into the query system on the first day, the content of which had been pre-warned to us volunteers by the manager. Not all volunteers feature background as college students - some are dispatched by China Unicom, which had been famous for its bad-tempered query operators. Some of the racists were fought back by these experienced upright girls, which made the manager hesitating whether he should send them back with the reason “improper vocal behavior”. Those who came to Jiangsu’s provincial department for help are mainly transferred by governors in their localities, as the local servants of the people failed to take basic operations within their reach but asked us to meet the residents’ demands. Most of them need help to change the colour of their Health QR Code in their own province, as they are simply red in that they had been to Nanjing days before.

Why you f**king Nankingese cannot handle these? Don’t you know you Nankingese completely destroyed the f**king whole mainland China?

——One of the anxious outlander (From Dalian, memories serving me well), 26 July 2021

The text quoted above was quite common among calls at that time. According to my statistics, basically anxieties from these outlanders burst out right after they felt that we were shirking our responsibilities with their local government. It is hard for them to blame on the governors near their house simply because it is we Nankingese that spelt such problems they had been faced with for such a period. However, it was also a fact that the territory of China has been so big that different provinces can hardly connect with each other in pursuit of well-unified quarantine measures. The majority of these dissatisfied might hang up after the scolds, but there still existed large amount of people who took this chance as an opportunity for total catharsis. It is, therefore, rational for the reinforcements from China Unicom to fight back when faced with such call-makers. Nanjing, the provincial capital of Jiangsu, had been losing its power of control in the province for decades thanks to the multicore developing strategies as well as Shanghai, leading to obstacles for the pandemic-related methods when advancing in the 13-cities province - people in Yangzhou, another city greatly affected by this wave of pandemic, also found it difficult to make their problems solved, as they cannot get through the phone of their servants.

Local officers… (Scoff) They officers even cannot make themselves through. They could NOT get through on the phone. Aren’t you the officer from the capital of the province?

——One of the anxious outlander (From Yangzhou), 27 July 2021

The office was full at daytime with 48 operators standing by. Each of the operators were instructed to stick to the front line for at least 6 hours, and I answered the daily maximum of 53 calls with no unsatisfied complaints returned, breaking the records in the history of the office. The line was 24-hour available and those who made the night dial may have problems of very emergency, so I was asked to attend the night shift post on 9 August.

Working hours began at 11 p.m. on 8 August and ended at 8 a.m. on 9 August. I was informed by the only other operator online at that time of possibilities that it would be common for a patient to dial this number for psychological help at night, but the amount of call may not be as many as that of daytime. I ticked online punctually at 11 p.m. and began this unordinary office night.

The first dial-in arrived at around 11 p.m. from a truck driver. He described his vehicle as a transporter of pandemic-related loads, but had found it hard to pass Huai’an, a city in northwest Jiangsu, owing to the fact that he has to hand out in-paper report that proves his COVID-19-free health. He had to go to one of the local hospitals for that, but hospitals denied his entrance in that he was not a local resident.

Is Jiangsu still in THE charge of communists?

——The driver's complaints

The driver then threatened us that he would refer to Tik-Tok or Weibo for the so-called legal help, which make the call itself transferred to the only other worker near me for further instructions - fortunately the worker is well-experienced.

Roughly half an hour later another call came in - it was from the father of a no-more-than-2-year-old child. The child was sick and thus sent to Children’s Hospital, which was a concentrated nucleic acid testing site for close contacts of those confirmed patients. They arrived at the hospital at around 4 p.m. at that day and finished all tests at 4.30 p.m., having been waiting for reports since then. The report still failed to come out at 11 p.m., the time when the close contacts have arrived. Masks of the kid’s size had not been invented yet at that moment, so the desperate father dialed to us for complaints. The call ended with an abrupt hang-up, as the last voice from the other side was bickering between him and medical experts.

To make sure the trouble this family was faced with can be solved as soon as possible, I dialed to the district’s CDC. However, there was no sound on the other end at all, including even the busy signals.

I confirmed more than twice that the number I had dialed was correct. Minutes later the experienced worker asked me where I dialed to. I replied with the exact destination of the dial along with the reason why I would like to call them for help. The worker answered with doubts that the CDC might have unplugged their hotline’s line in rid of unpleasant noises at nights. The ultra-silence obtained after my dial further proved her guess, making me myself collapsed in the chair, heart-breaking and disappointed. The so-called Servants of the People in the government departments had proved reluctant to voices and advises from the People - what on earth had President Xi Jinping’s idea of streamlining administration and delegating power brought?

It was at this night that I completely dropped my thoughts regarding struggles for a place in the government with the identity of a public servant - I refuse to join such groups of state-raised assholes. The line got through an hour later, as the other end replied to the central government’s call with a quite indolent voice. I described the situation of the poor kid and his father, and the other end answered indifferently.

“So what?” He replied.

“You are instructed by us Provincial Health Information Center to help them.” I responded.

“Well… Okay, I know that. OK, OK.” He hanged up carelessly.

Silence returned the office after this call. I was warned of the possibilities that those suffering from psychological difficulties may refer to our hotline for help after midnight, so I still keep myself on my nerves. At 2 a.m., a call arrived at the office to shut the 2-hour silence down. It was from the head of a concentrated isolation site for epidemic.

The man who made this call had been suffering from pressure and stress spelt by those who were in the concentrated site along with the governor. That day witnessed a family in the site he was in charge of getting out for medical help but having not been back for up to 6 hours. I was wondering whether the family was the same with the one which made the call earlier, but the additional information he offered denied the suspicions. After asking us to check where the family was located, he began to make complaints on how the governors put burdens on him along with how the in-site residents protested. He switched to tell me the story of his lifetime afterward, making the call duration stretched to over 4 hours - scarcely when the sun began to rise had he hung up.

“I know you have been well-educated. Do you hold the view that everything would be better after this 2 months of pandemic?” He asked.

“Well, maybe.” I replied.

“Okay, let’s see.” He hanged up, leaving this sentence.

Suspicions had burst into my mind that whether the quarantine is correct after this stay-up night. The policy undoubtedly proved smart with the help of success in the first year of the epidemic, but it can hardly be taken as the best way to safeguard the overall health of residents after we citizens had been vaccinated - the word health focuses on not only whether something wrong occurs within your body but also whether you are suffering from psychological difficulties. It was a fact that medical courses had taken psychological assistance into compulsory ones. Trend had turned to existence as well that qualities of those who were in charge of the quarantine sites began to be less guaranteed, as abuse of force came into being in order to make all in-site people obey them - it had been more likely that quarantine itself is not limited as a measure to keep citizens safe from the coronavirus but extended as an approach to the ultimate suppression conveyed by Peking. I exited the office after the contract is due 7 days later, and I had never walked into the office later on. I had never come across those who dialed to the office since then as well, but the experience itself did play a critical role in re-shaping my perception regarding the chief executors in the capital.

Failure in the provincial writing contest (2021 Nov)

The new term began soon after the voluntary days. Lessons themselves, however, did not attract me too much at that time - my main focus remained on the provincial English writing contest in that this would be of high possibility to be the last time I could stand such huge amount of tests to arrive at such a phase. The contest was scheduled to be held in Xi’an Technological University on 7 Nov 2021 but re-planned to take place in corresponding college of the participants on that day thanks to the re-burst-out of the coronavirus epidemic.

I was informed a week earlier that we participants should take our own keyboard with us during the contest, as the examination spot would not offer free keyboard for use. I did not possess any keyboards at that time simply because I use MacBook instead of Mac, and I was not playing video games on PC that highlights demands on keyboard outlets. Asking others for a borrowed keyboard, hence, turned out a must. Classmates along with roommates of mine gave me a hand, as they lent their mechanical keyboards to me, but the keys’ switches are too high and the force required for operating position is quite hard, which had scratched my fingers already when I tried fast typing after the receipt. I returned the keyboards to the borrowers with apologies regarding the situation - it is at this moment that one of the keyboards’ owners made a recommendation.

“You should try Female-limited ones. The switches are not high, and you do not need to press with too much force on keys when typing.”

The sentence inspired me upon being spoken. Online stores were referred to for help in that the college was not as convenient as nowadays, and a made-in-Taiwan Female-styled type of keyboard caught my eyes. Black ones and gray ones had been sold out when I came to the purchasing stage, therefore in avoidance from thefts along with emphasis regarding the keyboard’s identity of Female-only, I opted the keyboard’s color of pink.

Roommates displayed an amazed look when spotting the pink keyboard for the first time, saying with the online cliché that “The pinker the keyboard is, the more cruel its owner’s words online will be”.

The contest day came, and all 3 participants arrived punctually. Monitors were installed in insurance that we did not cheat, as the instructors and the hosts will focus on the conditions and surroundings of us examinees. The test asked us to complete both 2 writing tasks with a total word amount of 500 words in 2 hours, and I finished before the end-bell rings.

The result turned out 2 days later, as all participants from our school, Xi’an Jiaotong University (a.k.a. Xi’an University of Communications) and Northwest Poly-technical University did not qualify for the National stage - it was those from military-related colleges that stood out as black horses. The year 2021 was also the 100th anniversary of CCP, which made our instructors along with ourselves suspecting that the unexpected result was rigged. The official accounts posted the results on Weibo with the phrase “chalked up”, making me myself feeling teased.


The post exposed names of us 3 participants to public as well. When I participated in other contests as a member of one team, other teammates always said something like "Ah I know you - you got the provincial third prize in the English writing contest" - it is more like an ironic sentence from my perception, rather than a praise.

The Xi’an Pandemic (2021 Dec - 2022 Jan)

A Pakistan flight landed on the field of Xi’an Xianyang International Airport with a new wave of COVID-19 pandemic. A passenger onboard travelled to the city center where shopping malls, campuses and kindergartens stands, making the virus spreading at an unexpected speed.

Final Exam ahead of Schedule (13 Dec 2021 - 25 Dec 2021)

Rumors about the final-exams’ getting ahead of schedule, instead of the virus, began to spread campus-wide. In the online chatroom of the English course, many students began to spray the horror with the anonymous identities, but I fought back without getting the cloak.

Those who keep the rumors going will be shushed by the official notice.

——I myself, 9 Dec 2021

A classmate of mine dialed to the officers in pursuit of the exact information about the rumor, and the officer replied that such things would not exist. The whispers muted themselves until 4 days later when the office announced that they decided to put the final-exam ahead of agenda, as the earliest exams will take place at Christmas Eve. Those who made cloaked rumors began to taunt on me, saying that it was not a rumor at all - also anonymously of course, - and I fought back instantly.

Please refer to the dictionary. The word rumor is defined as news currently circulating but uncertain. The fact is it that sentences you anonymous guys typed had NOT been verified when they are sent.

——I myself, 13 Dec 2021

This is China. Please do not make excuses with your so-called definitions on English dictionaries.

——One of the anonymous taunter, 13 Dec 2021

rumour　A currently circulating story or report of uncertain or doubtful truth.

——Oxford Dictionary of English

【谣言】　凭空捏造的消息。
【凭空捏造】　没有根据地虚构编造作假。
(rumour　Message that someone made up without references.)

——《现代汉语规范词典》Dictionary of Modern Standardized Chinese

The fact is that the so-called National College Entrance Exam did succeed in filtering out those who performed well academically (or maybe just those who are the luckiest examinees on the exam day), but failed to figure out whether they are morally qualified. I still did not realize the possibility of the Cultural Revolution Ver 2.0 (the concept initially issued by Western mainstream media), but I felt it a shame that the college students just tend to fight back by blackening their on-debate opponents on their preferred languages when they discovered that winners of the major debate has been decided.

The twisted debate got eventually executed by the teacher of this course. The test regarding this course began at the night of 24 Dec, and I handed out my answer sheet a single hour earlier than scheduled - I do not want to see the uncloaked face of those groundless quibblers any longer.

Pandemic, however, turned out worse in the midnight before the Christmas arrived. Surrounding villages had turned highly-hazardous zone thanks to the folk who were confirmed positive in nucleic acid test, and the campus decided to suspend all final exams which had not taken place on December 27.

Voluntary Work during the In-Dorm Stage (27 Dec 2021 - 10 Jan 2022)

Restrictions soon came into effect that all students are supposed to stay in their own dormitories all day long, and no one is allowed to get outside without permission from nucleic acid test. 2 students elected from the 8 in one room are allowed to go to the college’s canteen to bring food for others each day, but with a fixed schedule.

Due to experiences during the Nanjing pandemic, I joined the temporary during-pandemic volunteer team for service, and so as a from-Yangzhou roommate of mine. We were instructed to deliver one single disposable plastic lunch box for each student, and foods from canteen would be packed by the plastic bags - officers instructed all us students to put the filled-with-food bag in the box for the direct eating, implying that a single disposable lunch box will be for permanent use. Some of the stalls in the canteen cannot be open due to shortage of certain vegetables and meat, leaving us very few choices when choosing take-away dishes on a daily basis.

I did learn from news that a single bundle of cabbage, celery and turnips had reached a price of CNY 399 (approx. equivalent to USD 55 at that year) with a brand-new name of Vegetables For Heroes for announcement in the central zone of Xi’an, as they have to buy them due to the shortage they are also suffering. But it’s still something of great exaggeration for a single-use and directly-related-with-digestive-tract item to be used for an inestimable length of time - fortunately stalls in canteen offer bags every day, making the potential hazard decline.

Our team has been preparing for securing fresh vegetables deliveries for residents throughout Xi’an since December 2021. IT’S ALL VIRUS-FREE.
Wealth Red Bundle (CNY 399 for retail)
The bundle contains onion, purple cabbage, enoki mushrooms, pumpkins, courgette, green & red peppers, bean sprouts, potatoes, garlic moss, eggplants, broccoli, tomatoes, ginger, garlic, cabbage, celery and different kinds of mushrooms, 20 kinds of vegetables in total.
We are proud to issue the bundle with a 20-year-old brand in 2022. Delivery service has begun.

——Translation of the advertisement for Vegetables For Heroes

We volunteers are also instructed to take care of psychological health of other students, but it is beyond no doubt unrealistic. Despite the identity of volunteers, we are still unable to get out of the dorm easily - a dormitory has only 2 Quarantine Pass and will be ticked on the specific box if one student of the dorm get out; there’s only 2 boxes for one day.

On January 10 officers in the college announced that they had decided to postpone the final exams to the beginning of the next term, spelling a relief to all students who had been waiting for the notice for so long - other colleges had posted their decision at least one week earlier. The over-rapid amendment on policies and decisions from the college in the past month had begun stealing the students’ confidence and faith in the officers’ judgments, which made what to come in the next 2 weeks inevitable.

The evaporation of winter vacation (17 - 18 Jan 2022)

The atmosphere of happiness and celebration among students did not last long. At 11.57 p.m. on 17 January, the college issued another decision that number of days of winter vacation for all students in this college should decrease in compensation for the additional 14 days of quarantine in school. However, it is also a fact that existing notices from other schools in Xi’an at that moment confirmed that all students from those schools would enjoy delays of the next term’s arrival.

The comparison drove students in a complete madness. The fact was that the advance of the winter vacation would make students busy with preparing both the MCM/ICM contest and the postponed final exam simultaneously. It was also a fact that the winter vacation, should the decision come true, will crop the duration of 54 days (4 Jan - 27 Feb) into 27 days (24 Jan - 20 Feb). Many students even could not fall asleep after the notice got issued - some even just slept for 3 hours, according to the interview. Baidu Tieba, a social media developed by Baidu, the mainstream search engine in mainland China, had witnessed large amount of blogs regarding the dramatic drop in the school’s vacation duration.

The unexpected announcement from Northwest Polytechnical University, the only remaining college which had not put out a single word on vacation duration before 17 January, in the morning of 18 January worsened the overall situation, as students began to ask leaders of the school for excuses and apologies. A counsellor from Artificial Intelligence Department of the school blocked the asks in an improper manner, making everything to the worst.

Those who made such complaints are bound to be exactly those unable to get abundant scores. You (complainer) should be aware of your own identity and position.

——Wei SONG, counsellor of School of Artificial Intelligence, Xidian University

Whether what the counsellor argued is the fact or not, it is undeniably improper for him to add fire to the burning fuel in such occasions. Students completely dropped their imagination and faiths regarding the in-college personnel along with the hotlines and had been determined to refer to the social media for help and counterattack. At 8 a.m., Xidian University topped the list of hotspots in Zhihu, a Quora-like platform in mainland China, and the same name topped the same list on Weibo an hour later.

It is not only students themselves but also officers from announcement department that spelt the top of the college’s name. The officers just spent some money in pursuit of bettering regarding the image of the school on social media, saying that they’ve just offered free foods to sanitary workers and students in need. School then find excuses that the weather would be better for military trainings if the crop comes into effect, as the trainings would take place half a month later which is not as hot. The excuse still did not stand the tests of meteorological statistics from the previous years.

Those who posted their complaints online soon got negative returns. They were called by the officers and got labelled as Foreign-funded Spies, making it reasonable and rational for officers to give them disciplinary punishments.

You (those who made complaints online) should care about what others will take us (the school) as. It is too easy for us to find who you are on the Internet.

——Words from another counsellor

Conflicts kept going, as the public relations kept working. On 5 February the officers finally decided to make the first week of the next term online; the conflict finally came to an end.

Zongkai YANG, the previous principal of our university, had left the college for further career in November 2021. He did leave, but he also did leave a mess among offices. Officers were accustomed to common practice but needed guidance on occasions of urgencies, but there was no one that stood out to take the burdens, which in turn made them panicking and just kept shushing those who made complaints in this series of events. The pandemic itself also left a great shadow of horror beneath the memories of all students who suffered from the quarantine, making them desperate to escape from the largest city in northwest China when faced with similar occasions half a year later.

GOOD Friday (2022 Mar - Apr)

CONTENT WARNING
The upcoming contents may be distressing and may include scenes with a lot of abuse, hateful language directed at certain groups of residence, mental illness & ableism, racism & racial slurs, torture and violence.

Please read with care.

This blog site has not been in existence when the student-officer conflict happened late 2021. In memory of the event, I wrote all details about the event in Mandarin on China Wikipedia. It was in my own userspace, but it somehow rushed into the eyes of those who guard the fame of our school with the identities of students. They decided to make reports to the legislative sections with the reason that my article has displayed my so-called tendency and possibilities of anti-CCP and anti-PRC. To make their calls deliver in a faster pace, they rumored my post as the leader of school’s students’ committee, accompanied by personal private information, hometown and student number involved. Hours after the March 24 spread, the officers from school’s management buildings arrived at my dorm.

You should not write down these words WITHOUT any evidence.

——Words spoken from an attended personnel

In respect for those from the office, I did not make arguments that they had made their own ways to delete all negative words last winter. They then added that most students are not on my side on this event, so I decided to compromise - the page was deleted online and so were all accounts on foreign sites, Wikipedia, Twitter (now X), Instagram and Telegram included.

If I was guilty of anything, I was guilty of fighting for the rights of the Volkepublic.

——My last sentence on the day of interview

It was when the decision and ultimate judgement had taken effect on me when I heard from other of my classmates that those who made the reports were also interviewed by another team of personnel.

If you are to punish us (reporters), just punish all of us. There are 30 people in total.

——Words from one of the reporters

It’s more like what happened in the 1960s in mainland China than ever before. The officer ultimately decided to force me to place a gap year in the college life. On 2 April 2022, I signed on the terms and conditions confirming my guilty of “spreading unconfirmed negative words about the college” and left school at instance.

Aftermath

Internship in Cyber-Shanghai (Jun - Oct 2022)

从此处开始即文章的简体中文版本。