"Military Week"

One of the things you sortof just have to get used to here is the presence of the government.  Restricted internet, propaganda, etc..  I just try to be interested for the most part, and try not to judge, because it's my understanding that the average person here doesn't usually care too much one way or the other.  They're just trying to live their lives.  So, imagine my surprise when last Tuesday I woke up to uniform shouts, and upon investigation found literally thousands of students, trooping around campus in parade ground unison, led by military personnel in full fatigues.

 

My first thought was that there were two possibilities here:  either A) there is just a very strong interest in the Chinese version of ROTC here (unlikely), or B) I had stumbled upon a secret military training facility.

Luckily, there was an option C).  As it turns out, all first year students here are required to go through (lit.) "military preparation" before school starts each year (affectionately known as "military week").  I have yet to figure out exactly why, but I think it has to do with discipline, or somesuch.  Before I knew that, though, I wasn't completely discounting option B), so while I was trying to take pictures of the whole thing, I was actually a bit worried that some Chinese army official was going to smash my camera on the ground or something else crazy, so I had to be really subtle about the whole thing.  So most of my pictures here come from either very far away, or were shot from the hip.

And they wonder why Chinese students have such a hard time speaking up in Language classes...