Universities, Beijing

The lotus plant is commonly seen in Chinese paintings, and is a symbol of purity. This Lotus Pond in the Tsinghua University campus has been immortalised in "He Tang Yue Se", a work of prose by Zhu Ziqing. It's a pity we didn't get to see this place at night under the moonlight (which was the setting for that piece of literary work).

This pond is pretty big, there's even a little "island" with a pavillion in its middle.

This university is situated on several former royal gardens of the Qing Dynasty. Together with the Beijing University, it is one of the most prestigious education institution in China. It used to be known as "Tsinghua Xuetang" in the early 1900's.

We visited the Library and the famous Lotus Pond (a famous Chinese writer, Zhu Ziqing, was once a teaching staff at Tsinghua, and he wrote a prose on the night-time scenery of the pond). See my next tip for pictures of this pond.

When visiting Beijing you should also try to catch the atmosphere on one of the University Campuses, like Beijing University (next to Tsinghua University the number one ranking university) or Beijing Normal University, which was founded in 1902. Within the 27 departments in 12 institutes the fields of study emphasize teaching, scineces and humanities.

With 160.000 students enrolled campus spirit bustles of life, ideas, young people and what goes with university campus: caffees, wall-newspapers, sports, recreation, bookstores, cheap food places etc.
The architecture is very modern and the campuses worth a walk.

Just in short - Chinese Universities are really nice! Full of young and nice pople, usually set in a nice surroundings and there is loads of things to do...
Beijing University has some really nice and old architecture, great park around Beida lake (nice for an afternoon stroll), interesting museums and great night life.
Tsinghua University is even bigger, not so interesting in way of architecture (but has a great park worth visiting), but has an even bussier night life.
In both places you can find interesting (and usualy very cheap) art preformances, music events, there is also cinema, lectures and sport events...
It's a really good way to meet young Chinese people, talk with them, exchange the ideas and knowledge...
As a landscape architect, I'd like to recomend again - visit both parks!
It is much easier to see it all if you have a bike...

Tsinghua (Qinghua) was founded to be a preparatory school for selective Chinese youths before they were sent to the United States. Americans used some of the 'penalty' the Chinese government paid them after being defeated to bring brilliant Chinese future leaders to their home, and these overseas students were pillars of modern China! Part of this campus is America-like, other part is typically Chinese (the most well-known is the Lotus Pond that gave birth to the best prose about lotuses under the moonlight). I used to think this campus is grand, wide and long streets, bigger buildings, in comparison Beijing University is smaller but more home-like. Tsinghua is unofficially considered China's MIT. These two campuses are next to each other. They used to have unique strong points, but now both are aiming at comprehensiveness. I read at a scholarly and dainty journal (*Reading Books*) (I also heard from others) that students of Tsinghua are all top-notch and can become top national leaders, but that Beijing Univesity can produce *weird* talents. The picture is the Auditorium Americans helped build (downloaded from http://www.tsinghua.edu.cn/eng/campuslife/xydy/Auditoriu.htm).

By far, this is the most beautiful gate that is often taken by visitors to this century old university. Its called the WEST GATE and if you want to get there, well, take the subway to WUDAOKOU, then a cab there. Best to go enroute to the Summer Palaces....One word of warning though, Peking University is rather strict on visitors and you need a pass to get in; Tsinghua University is more open.

The so-called oldest university of China, the so-called China's Harvard awarded by Pres. Clinton when he visited in 1998. The official founding year is traced to 1898, when some reformists who were influenced by western ideas suggested to the Emperor of the Qing Dynasty that China should have a Capital University. This University was merged with Yanjing (an older name of Beijing) University which was a missionary school. The present-day campus is the site of Yanjing University. The older part of the campus is 'Yan Garden', gardens for high-ranking officials of Ming and Qing Dynasties. (I bought this picture)

Tsinghua University is one of the best universities in China. You can consider the analogy: Harvard is to the United States as Tsinghua is to China. The campus is very beautiful. It has a lot of trees and is like a park. The ponds have lotus flowers in them. The building architecture are very Chinese-like. A great place to visit if you are a college student and want to see what college campuses in China are like.