Priorities of a Chinese undergrad

During the past week that I have spent in the US, a country which I am visiting for the first time in my life, I feel sad for Chinese women _ also a first. Chinese women have all the benefits that a civilization could offer, ranging from high-level education to harmonious family life. However, I have found that in comparison with our US counterparts, we have been too spoiled and do not take up our own responsibilities sometimes.

If you look into the role of women in Chinese society further, you will discover severe problems. There are definitely fewer female Ph.D. students than male ones in China. Many of my friends, studying at Peking University, have said, "What is the use for a girl to have her Ph.D.? I will just do a masters and then marry someone." They see marriage as an ultimate "stop" in their lives, which is something that I can never understand.

Although this may be the right path for some people, when it becomes mainstream thinking in society, I do not see it as a healthy trend. The status of women in academic arenas has been greatly improved in recent years in China, but mostly only in the early years of education rather than in higher educational levels. I think we should have more prominent female scholars in all sorts of fields than we do now. Female students should be trained to think independently and to act in a way that gains respect.

Even in the best university in China, Peking University, I continuously see women who firmly believe that it is better to marry a strong husband than to be strong themselves. I cannot say that this point of view is wrong. But most of the time, women who think in this way spend all their time pondering on how to flatter their male friends whom they consider to be of high potential, and the ways these women better themselves are limited to buying cosmetics, learning how to behave "lovely"_ everything except focusing on education and thinking about broader interests.

Now let's look at the second issue: family life. More and more people are aware of the new trend of concubines in China. A larger portion of male citizens are becoming rich and display unfaithful behavior toward their family. Some of them, including government officials, even show such behavior publicly. When I say "publicly" I do not mean they receive newspaper coverage, but rather every one of his subordinates around him knows the role of the girl standing beside him and each knows that in order to please their boss they should never show disrespect to this lady.

Here the key problem is that a lot of women are left hurt at home, but they do not have the "power" to divorce in the sense that they have no money to live by themselves, and so they go on with their miserable lives: raise the kids, clean up the house, get the money from their husband weekly or monthly, and maybe talk to their friends about how miserable they are. Luckily, more parents today are realizing the usefulness of knowledge, in the most practical sense, and they are urging both their daughters and sons to study hard at school.

Above are only two among thousands of examples you can find in current China and almost under every superficial improvement of the female status you can find underlying tragedies. To better the environment of human development I believe that we need women and men to grow both mentally and physically hand-in-hand instead of one dancing around the other.

Money and material life do not suffice for intellect, and people enjoy more of the world when they explore. I feel truly sorry for all those who are blind and deaf in front of the colorful world surrounding us, and I want eagerly to see more independent female thinkers in my motherland _ China.

Monica Jiayin Sun is a Senior majoring in Finance at Peking University She is participating in the TILIP program.