Written by Lucy Zhang
Description: An article about life of students in China in a university dormitory
Instructions: Read the sentences below and answer the questions or fill in the spaces
Chinese student dormitories usually contain six or eight students in quite a small room. In the southern parts of China, a room can have just four people. They are luckier than in the North. Besides a bed, a desk shared with roommates and a small cabinet for keeping some private articles, no more necessities are provided for by the university.
The author lives in an apartment with eight people to a room. It is quite different from dormitories in universities in the US, Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. From what the author knows, students can live in a house on their own or can share a house with roommates; called flat-sharing with a kitchen, bathroom, washer, refrigerator and other necessities. Most of those who share houses with roommates have their own room as a private space. The author summarizes some advantages and disadvantages of Chinese dormitories.
The Advantages:
Doing things with a companion is obviously a good choice. Roommates are usually classmates, and partners in a group. They usually study and do research together which can help you a lot with your studies. However, we need to think about our companions or discuss with them the issues when we have a change of plans. Remember be good to your roommate, they will help you a lot with many parts of your life; like family members.
If you are a little bit of a lazy person, sharing the burden of housekeeping probably makes you happy. If you a person who likes liveliness, lucky you! The atmosphere in a room becomes excited when most of them go back and talk. If one person has a funny joke, you will wait for another seven jokes that makes you burst out laughing. It is kind of like an everyday get-together.
The most favorable benefit the author wants to emphasize is that it is a good opportunity to make a close friend. We can get closer to other roommates and also to the other roommates next door. We visit the roommates next door a lot and we might find a roommate who is like us. There must be someone we can form a long-term friendship with. Compared with the western way of flat-sharing, we have more time and chances to communicate and remove some of the barriers if you are not so nervous with your private space.
The Disadvantages:
Life is quite inconvenient. This is because we don’t have some electrical appliances so we can’t cook or keep food fresh.
There are always limits to the amount of electricity and water that we can use. The limited power could only support a laptop, reading lamp and other very low electrically powered appliances.
If you are a person of few words or who likes a quiet and peaceful space, it’s impossible for you to have that kind of life in the dormitory.
In conclusion, the author somehow likes the Chinese student dormitories in some ways. However, some annoying things still exist in our normal life. We need to overcome these and find what makes us strong to adapt to any kind of situation in the future. Remember after the compliments, we need to find a way out and a way to become a person who can find “diamonds” lying around us. Life needs to be simple in the end.
