Letter from a Young Chinese Friend (3)

This is the third in a series of correspondence between me and my new Chinese friend flypig, a university student at Nankai University, Tianjing.

Here is my reply to flypig's previous letter:

"I enjoyed reading your letter yesterday. I was surprised to find that your parents have their own ICQ# and MSN#!!! My parents can hardly use the computer. But of course my parents are of an older generation than your. They are in their 60s and 70s.

I feel relieved that exchanges of email are not controlled by the 'watchful eye.' Now I don't have to feel so paranoid! Mainly I don't want you to be in any kind of risk since you live in mainland China.

Also, I want to tell you that I'm very impressed of the video Omnipresent. I downloaded and watched it today. The production is well done and the editing is smooth. I keep on feeling surprised by what young Chinese people can do nowadays. You are a very creative person, and so are your classmates, I imagine.

The people of my generation were not brought up to be creative--well, at least not in Hong Kong. Everyone was told to study subjects that would help them make a lot of money. And studying was what everybody concentrated on, nothing else. There was very little interest for other creative things in life. But I refused to follow this path, and so I'm doing things that are completely different from what my friends are doing."

Here is flypig's reply:

"Actually, most college students of my generation have the goal of 'study hard and earn lots of money.' Compared with their counterparts overseas, Chinese students still have a lot to catch up with their creativity and ability to challenge existing ideas.

One reason why I could complete shooting the short film Omnipresent is that filming is a passionate interest of mine and the couple of friends who collaborated with me in the production. Another reason is that we got a lot of support from our teachers, who took the unprecedented step of lending us advanced equipment.

But activities like this still concern the minority of students. Most are busy preparing for graduate studies or GRE and TOEFL exams for studying overseas, living very boring and monotonous lives. But faced with the tough employment situation in China, most people have chosen this path.

Perhaps I have not persuaded myself after all, that I can rely on creative work to have a good life--meaning, owning one's own home and car, which is the most common plan of China's university students nowadays. That's why I have also jumped on the bandwagon of preparing for the GRE exam, regurgitating endless English words and killing my brain cells... sigh!

So I am very envious that you have a different kind of profession, and enjoy what you are doing at the same time. I often daydream about going into a profession that I love, but daydream is daydream after all.

I might seem to sound a bit sentimental, as a third-year university student, I inevitably worry about the future. It is also what my classmates are going through at the moment."

To view flypig's short film, click on the image above. Omnipresent has recently received the grand prize of Intel (China)'s DIGGI Award. Congratulations to flypig and his team!

Archive of correspondence: 1, 2