2008 Woodie Awards
Wesleyan dorms reflect development of U.S
Hui (Heddy) Chen
Issue date: 4/6/07 Section: News
- Page 1 of 1
Recently, a friend of mine showed me his photos of a college dorm in China. Those pictures bought back so many memories. I had one year of experience living in college dorms in China, and now I am living in the dorm of Kansas Wesleyan University in America. I want to compare these two different dorm environments.
In the college dorm of the eastern part of China, here are some of the things that you will commonly find: four bunks, eight beds, no full mattresses, no hot running water in the room, four desks for eight people, one closet, and one room-not super spacious. You can find woven bed mats there, and the white object on the upper bunk is a blanket, not a pad. Students get hot water by bringing it in thermoses. There is a public bathroom with shower stalls for the whole floor (12 rooms, 96 people on one floor), and there is no hot water in the bathroom.
In the winter, we would buy 4 hot water bottles to get enough hot water for a quick shower. The alternative was to wait in the cold for two hours before the public shower room (with hot water shower) opens to get in before it closed. We didn't have an air conditioning in summer or heat in winter. We washed our clothes by ourselves, and hung them in the corridor. So it was always crowded in the corridor as well as in the dorm. One more thing: the light was off at 11 p.m. in order to prevent students from staying up, watching TV, or surfing the net. By the way, the price of the dorm for each person a semester was 600 Chinese Yuan, equivalent to about 80 U.S. dollars.
In the dorm of Kansas Wesleyan University, two students share one room.
These are the things that you will commonly find: two beds, two desks, two closets, two chairs, and, unlike in China, we have eight storage compartments (drawers) for personal items. The furnishings are plain but adequate. We have two mirrors, but in China we had to buy it by ourselves. There is a soft pad in each bed instead of the woven bed mat that I mentioned in the second paragraph. We can store our books on the shelf instead of putting them in our beds, which is what I used to do in China. As in China, we have a public bathroom and a shower room. But, the amount of people with whom we share is far less than in China, (12 rooms, and 24 people maximum; some rooms are empty). Hot water is always provided; we don't need to worry about it. We have air conditioning and heat in the dorm, and we can control the temperature as we like. The luckiest thing is that we don't need to wash clothes ourselves. The washing machine and dryer are provided by the school. They don't charge us even a penny. So our dorms and corridor are always clean and spacious. We can watch TV and surf the net all night if we like while a student in China has to be in bed before 11 p.m. Unlike in China, the price is higher here ($1200 one semester) in America. On the other hand, according to the money that Americans get, the price sounds fair.
All in all, the American dorm is more convenient for students. I think that the different conditions of the dorms in different countries have something to do with the development of each country.
In the college dorm of the eastern part of China, here are some of the things that you will commonly find: four bunks, eight beds, no full mattresses, no hot running water in the room, four desks for eight people, one closet, and one room-not super spacious. You can find woven bed mats there, and the white object on the upper bunk is a blanket, not a pad. Students get hot water by bringing it in thermoses. There is a public bathroom with shower stalls for the whole floor (12 rooms, 96 people on one floor), and there is no hot water in the bathroom.
In the winter, we would buy 4 hot water bottles to get enough hot water for a quick shower. The alternative was to wait in the cold for two hours before the public shower room (with hot water shower) opens to get in before it closed. We didn't have an air conditioning in summer or heat in winter. We washed our clothes by ourselves, and hung them in the corridor. So it was always crowded in the corridor as well as in the dorm. One more thing: the light was off at 11 p.m. in order to prevent students from staying up, watching TV, or surfing the net. By the way, the price of the dorm for each person a semester was 600 Chinese Yuan, equivalent to about 80 U.S. dollars.
In the dorm of Kansas Wesleyan University, two students share one room.
These are the things that you will commonly find: two beds, two desks, two closets, two chairs, and, unlike in China, we have eight storage compartments (drawers) for personal items. The furnishings are plain but adequate. We have two mirrors, but in China we had to buy it by ourselves. There is a soft pad in each bed instead of the woven bed mat that I mentioned in the second paragraph. We can store our books on the shelf instead of putting them in our beds, which is what I used to do in China. As in China, we have a public bathroom and a shower room. But, the amount of people with whom we share is far less than in China, (12 rooms, and 24 people maximum; some rooms are empty). Hot water is always provided; we don't need to worry about it. We have air conditioning and heat in the dorm, and we can control the temperature as we like. The luckiest thing is that we don't need to wash clothes ourselves. The washing machine and dryer are provided by the school. They don't charge us even a penny. So our dorms and corridor are always clean and spacious. We can watch TV and surf the net all night if we like while a student in China has to be in bed before 11 p.m. Unlike in China, the price is higher here ($1200 one semester) in America. On the other hand, according to the money that Americans get, the price sounds fair.
All in all, the American dorm is more convenient for students. I think that the different conditions of the dorms in different countries have something to do with the development of each country.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Susan
posted 4/19/07 @ 9:04 PM CST
I am glad to read your essay here, but I do not completely agree with what you have said. I was graduated in China and I knew everything(in China's colleges or universities) better than you did. (Continued…)
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