College students in the U.S. complain a lot about dorm rooms. “They’re too small!” “I can’t believe I have to share such a tiny room. There’s not enough space for two people!” “You mean I have to share a shower with a ton of strangers? Seriously?” I have seen many a first year college student cast a resentful glare at their RA after being shown to their dorm room, and bolt to Bed Bath and Beyond to buy shower shoes after being introduced to everyone in their suite. I was no exception, either. During my years as a college student I complained plenty about where I had to live. Even when I had a single I thought it was too small and was appalled by the mysterious things that appeared to be growing in my suite’s shower. I hated how loud and messy my suitemates were. Dorm rooms were just awful, and I couldn’t wait until I was out of them.
But when I first stepped into a Chinese university dorm room, I very quickly took back all the complaints I had ever made in college. I also vowed to slap silly any resident of an American dorm room that I should happen to overhear whining in the future.
Emily and I take an evening yoga class with two of my students, Sunny and April. One night after class Sunny and April offered to give Emily and I a tour of their dorm. Their building was only a few steps away from our yoga class, so we agreed to stop by on our way home. The girls led us to a large and cheerful-looking building down the road, which was painted a bright turquoise. From the outside it looked comfortable and homey. Students walked in chattering groups in and out of the front doors, leaned out of their dorm room windows to hang laundry to dry, and bought nighttime snacks from the convenience store situated just inside. How nice, I thought to myself.
As Sunny and April led us up the stairs to their rooms on the second floor, they explained the basics of Chinese dorm life. All dorms are gender-specific, with no co-ed mingling. Students almost always live in the dorms all four years of their undergraduate education, and they do not get better rooms as upperclassman like most students do in the U.S. Each dorm room houses six students and there is one bathroom on each floor. At this point, April gave a little shudder. “The true horror is to use our bathroom,” she told me. “Wait, you will see.”
One of April’s roommate’s was already asleep, so our tour of a typical dorm room took place in Sunny’s room. Although I had been warned that the room would be cramped, I was still shocked by how little space there was. I had thought that a room housing six girls would be of a fairly decent size, but instead I found a room roughly the size of my first double in college. Somehow, someone had managed to cram six beds inside, stacked awkwardly along the walls. Also jammed into the room were two tiny desks that the six girls shared. I couldn’t see anything else, and I tried to figure out where the girls kept their clothes and books.
When I explained my surprise, Sunny and April shrugged. “This is China. There are too many people,” they joked. Emily and I laughed uncomfortably. I think both of us were reflecting on our own college dorm rooms with a deep sense of guilt.
Sunny showing off her dorm room
“Now for the bathroom,” April said, turning to us with a menacing grin.
I smelled the bathroom before I saw it, and Emily and I exchanged a knowing glance. Bathrooms in China are not known for their cleanliness. Generally, toilets are “squatters” that do not flush well, and all toilet paper is deposited into a small trashcan in the corner of the cubicle. The bathrooms are not cleaned very regularly, and a decent amount of experience has also taught me that many people have trouble hitting their mark.
But when it came to unappealing bathrooms, this one took the cake. As we approached and the smell grew stronger, April turned to us and said, “Ready? Take a deep breath. Okay, hold it!” We obeyed and stepped inside.
The main part of the bathroom was a large, hexagonal tiled room lined with what looked like a metal trough and several spigots for cold water. This was where the girls washed, we were told. Several girls were currently engaged in splashing their faces or under their shirts, wincing as the ice-cold water hit their skin. But they waved happily at their visitors and waved us in to explore.
In the center of the room was what could only be described as a pit of trash, where I assumed the girls dumped their own trashcans every day. “How often do you think they clean that out?” Emily whispered to me. I shrugged and wondered how many of these girls I could fit into my apartment. Maybe I could adopt some of them and give them hot water.
“The toilets are in there,” April pointed to a door on the right side of the room.
As I had thought, the toilets were all squatters and not very clean. But on top of that, there were also no cubicles. Girls who needed to “answer nature’s call,” as one of my students always says, had to do it in full view of everyone else. “It’s awful,” April said. “And at nighttime there are no lights in the bathroom, so you have to go in the dark.” I couldn’t imagine feeling my way in this bathroom, and I promised myself to buy the girls a flashlight.
“Are there showers?” I asked.
Sunny nodded and smiled. “Yes, of course! There are two public showers on campus that we can walk to.”
When I got home to my apartment, I wanted to give it a hug. I hoped for the sake of Chinese students everywhere that dorm room conditions would improve in the next few years.
And as for all you American college students out there, you should get down on your knees and kiss your dorm room floor.
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