Printed July 4,1986 George F. Coulouris and Jean Dollimore, 1986

 

Two Computer Scientists in Beijing

 

George Coulouris and Jean Dollimore of the Department of Computer Science, Queen Mary College, University of London describe some of their experiences on a recent visit to Peking University.

 

The Beginning: "Will you go to Peking to deliver a course of lectures on Distributed Computer Systems sometime next year?" The question raised a hundred others. In what language? How well prepared will the audience be? When shall we go? Where shall we live? How long shall we stay? How shall we survive the Beijing winter? And so on.

 

Some of the questions were answered by circumstance. The course was to be a part of the Chinese University Development Project, funded by a loan from the World Bank to the Chinese State Commission on Education. The Project provides for 'visiting experts' to work in specified Chinese universities for periods of 3‑4 weeks and the first phase. terminates in the spring of 1986. There was no way we could take even a short sabbatical so we had to go in the Christmas vacation if we were to go at all. Fortunately, the semester runs through December and into January at Peking University*.

 

Other questions remained unanswered throughout the autumn term. Professor Chen, our host at Bei‑Da wrote to us, but with so little experience of this sort of exchange on both sides many of the, questions were left unasked and unanswered. We knew that the course was to be 'at graduate level', but what was the level of Chinese graduates in computer science? With misgivings we decided to assume a sound grounding in the subject, but no prior knowledge of the particular field to be covered in our course.

 

The autumn term in London was even more hectic than usual, since we had decided that our students in China should be provided with a a comprehensive set of lecture notes. We managed to produce the required material with our Department's computerised typesetting system and despatch it to Beijing a couple of weeks before our own departure, hoping that the postal service would beat Cathay Pacific. The World Bank had asked us to purchase $500 worth of books to provide background for our course. We had to select and purchase 25 books; no time to organise air‑freight and the risk of loss en‑route seemed too great, they had to be added to the growing mass of baggage with clothing needed to keep us warm and teaching material to ensure that the supply would not run out.

 

The Course: Would it all be worth it? Was the course we had prepared at the right level? Would the students be able to keep up with our lectures and read our notes in English? Would Peking University have academic standards comparable to ours? We began to discover the answers soon after arriving on the second Sunday afternoon in December at Beijing airport. Fighting our way past the jam of returning Chinese at the customs counter with their heaps of Japanese hifi and television sets, we were met by Professor Chen (a lady professor, much to our surprise) and her colleague (a lecturer who was also the 'foreign affairs secretary').

 

Professor Chen explained: the students attending our course would be mainly Masters students, who had first degrees in computer science and had already completed two semesters of postgraduate study. She had taught them a 45 hour course on computer networks, from the same textbook that we use. (How do they afford Prentice Hall's textbook prices? University‑sponsored bootlegging is the answer). Better still, the students had recently done a whole semester of nothing but conversational English with American teachers (in addition to courses in English at school and undergraduate level). Then they had had another semester of training in software engineering by American graduate students. We had expected to have to lecture through an interpreter (most other academic visitors to China had done so) to an audience with widely varying backgrounds. We had thought there would be a severe lack of up‑to‑date experience stemming from a lack of appropriate equipment. None of these fears were justified.

 

Our first lecture was attended by about 40 students and a handful of staff from several universities. We began cautiously, still wondering how well we were understood. Lectures continue for 2‑3 hours in China, with a break for the inevitable glass of tea. By the break we were getting relevant questions. At least some of our students had understood. They were attentive and continued to be so throughout the 21‑hour course. By the end of the course the questions were more probing. We had established a rapport as good as one can get at home

 

Our printed lecture notes had been rapidly reproduced (using the oldfashioned but effective mimeograph process) and were in the hands of the students. To aid comprehension we had prepared copious viewfoils. It took much time and effort to get the room sufficiently dark to make the projected image visible. Then there were power cuts, forcing us to revert to the blackboard. On most days the university is required to limit its power consumption by random shut‑downs in individual buildings. There was seldom a day when we escaped them, but these challenges aided rather than hindered the establishment of the essential rapport. In the department of Computer Science at Bei‑ Da we found equipment that would not be out of place in a European university. Even the laboratory classes were pursuing familiar exercises using well‑known programming languages and systems. The progress that had led to these facilities had taken place in the last two years and was the result of careful investments of money and manpower assisted by substantial support from Hewlett Packard and WISE (a US‑based software company aiming to produce and market software from Beijing).

 

Other Universities: Visits to two other universities in Beijing produced a more varied picture. Computer science is too fragile a discipline to transplant easily or grow rapidly from a small cutting, and in China there are special handicaps. Communication and transportation, even within the capital city, are so poor that the informal links and working groups that one takes for granted in western academic and technical work do not exist. Job mobility is unknown. Little information is exchanged informally. This is severe a handicap for academic institutions whose only source of up‑to‑date technical information may be through exchanges with other countries. Peking University has been favoured by a stream of visiting experts and its faculty have good opportunities for travel to other countries. Other institutions have been less fortunate. The lack of contact with others working in the field has clearly held back the development of practical work in computer science, producing a patchy picture with pockets of expertise in narrow areas. Perhaps the modernisation of China's telecommunications that is currently in hand will overcome this problem, just as the 'open door' policy has already enabled some universities to achieve high standards.

 

Beijing: Beijing's 11 million people are transported by bus or bicycle (there is a metro, but it's route is short and doesn't extend to the outlying academic and industrial suburbs). Car ownership is now officially sanctioned, but it is so far beyond the means of Chinese people as to be unknown in practice. Journey times were long, to travel the 15 kilometres from Bei‑Da to the centre of Beijing by bus takes about 1.5 hours. Although the radius of the city is only about 18 kilometres some journeys take as long as 2 hours. Travelling about the city is a useful way to gain knowledge about it and its people if one allows plenty of time and forsakes the easy but sterile approach of using the taxis that are available only to foreigners. Bicycles can be rented, and the traffic, although unruly is sparse enough to give one a sense of reasonable safety. The buses are acutely overcrowded at most times of day. Techniques for catching a bus that has overshot its stop in order to drop its passengers while allowing as few to board as possible are eventually learned. But the population and even the conductors are delighted to help you. Restaurants, theatres and shops are all accessible given a little nerve and a lot of help from the citizens. English is now so widely studied in China that it is worth asking for help from almost anyone who looks younger than about 25.

 

Peking University has a spacious and pleasant campus. The lake, overlooked by the inevitable pagoda (actually a water tower) is surrounded by traditional Chinese buildings, belying the utilitarian character of the remaining buildings. Most of these are plain to the point of drabness both inside and out, like almost every other building in Beijing. Everywhere is a mass of movement. 12,000 students and 2900 teaching staff live and work in the 1.5 square kilometre area of the campus. Recreation is limited; the single tennis court was occupied from dawn to dusk despite the freezing temperatures. The lake provides the most popular form of recreation ‑ many of the students skate skilfully at every opportunity ‑ before, after and between classes. Beijing has many other lakes that are used in a similar fashion by its citizens. The best is the magnificent artificial lake built by the Empress Cixi at the Summer Palace, a popular spot on the outskirts of Beijing and a few minutes' bike ride from the campus.

 

Which way?: China has embarked on a road of modernisation, not just of industry but of the entire national fabric. The methods include an 'open door' to external goods, services and processes (constrained by a severely limited supply of foreign currency), together with a strong emphasis on the development of the whole educational system. Self‑criticism seems to have been replaced by realistic self. appraisal. For us, many new and more interesting questions have replaced our earlier unknowing ones. Can China avoid the economic excesses and cultural devastation of the consumer society? Will they imaginatively adapt the technology that westerners are teaching them to suit their circumstances, or will they embrace Western and Japanese products lock, stock and barrel with the inevitable industrial colonisation that must follow? Will the strong influence of the past and the maturity that comes from 2500 years of uninterrupted civilisation be maintained? How will the largely peasant population be integrated with the emerging metropolitan culture? We look forward to our next visit with curiosity and enthusiasm.

 

George F. Coulouris and Jean Dollimore March 1986

 

[1800 words]