介绍:
John: Recently four canteens in Peking University decide to prolong their business hours. Two canteens will open until 10:30 and the other two will open until midnight. According to one manager, the new rule aims to offer more convenience to their students. So far the midnight snack is similar to regular dinner and lunch food but in the future more dim-sum or 点心 will be added to the menu. But it does seem that, you know I mean if I was a student there I’d be very excited about this because I can just stay up study, do whatever the heck I want and still be guaranteed cheap food, but it seems that it is in fact getting some mixed reactions, why do you think that is?
HY: Well, of course, the students are excited about this and you know enhancing the quality of food or even the variety of the food in a canteen, that is great. I think all students will love that, and now it’s being opened late, which means you can stay up and still get a safe and not too expensive food, that is great. But for you know the opponents I guess anybody but the students, teachers, parents that they worry students would be eating too late is not good for your health, it’s not good for you digestion and its messing up your biological clock. Those are all bad things you know. But I think it’s basically just contrary views coming from, you know different sides. But I think students should be left to decide when they want to eat. They’re adults now, aren’t they?
LY: Yeah, but if you let’s students make decision and they are the final decision-makers, I guess this will be pretty one-sided. They will be all for it. But I still have the side with the parents, if you actually allowed this to happen, this will give students more excuses to actually stay up late and do stuff. So you can say I’m just studying up late. In fact, they’re not.
HY: Well, actually what’s the big deal? Why can’t they stay up late? And why can’t they you know just pull an all-nighter although it might not necessarily regard preparing for the exam or course work? But still you know that should be part of youth when you experiment, explore or stay up late do crazy things.
John: Well, I think it’s really interesting because China right now does seem to be going through a very similar period to what the US’s be going through for maybe a decade or so. And it’s dealing with what exactly… how exactly do we define, you know, people who are in university and people who are just graduating. One research terms them “emerging adults”, and so Zhou Heyang says you’re OK they’re adults. Well, I’m not really so sure if they are actually adults, but one of the markers of emerging adults is that they are trying things out, and they are trying to figure out what works for them. And so yeah, of course, we do need to create a healthy environment, would you need to be able to support them in staying healthy, physically and emotionally but I would argue you know what, this mean being able to make their own decisions about how late they want to stay up, whether it’s studying, whether it’s playing games, when they want to eat, that’s part of the process of growing up.
HY: Yeah, and I think it is part of the process which means that if you are depriving their right to do it now, they will still need to experience it in a couple of years’ time anyway, so I think sometimes teachers and parents should just stay back a little bit and let them do their thing. That’s part of growing up. Of course, it could mean that they’re going to make mistakes or suffer badly from going to bed too late. I mean girls, you’re going get those wrinkles earlier, you’re getting you know, huge eye bags earlier and it’s going to miss up your biological clock, which means bad complexion, you know, are you seriously going to want to go through all those things?
LY: Ok, and there’s one more point that none of us have mentioned here, I think if you actually allow this to have happen, then it means some of the canteen employees they have to stay really late, just to, you know, do this thing, so they might not be happy about that.
John: Well, I mean as long as they’re fairly compensated or as long as there is a fair shift system in place which of course we have no information about that, but I think that actually is a pretty good point. But again I think, it’s just funny to hear that parents are complaining about this. Oh, you’re saying that it’s OK to stay up really late when in fact you know most parents in high school, you know, they make them stay up late all the time anyway, so how would university be any different?
HY: Yeah, also I don’t know how it’s going to play out because almost all universities already have curfew, so I think all lights are out after a certain period of time, so you know, students are going to sneak out, (John: emerging adult) yes, young adults. So they’re going to just sneak to the canteen to get some food, or I don’t know how’s going to work. Because it still seems the school is so heavily involved in the student life.
John & LY: right.
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