After nine years, I went back to Tsinghua campus again.
I spent the whole afternoon walking familiar roads – fortunate for me, all the old roads and old buildings are still there, even though the whole campus has had many many changes – mainly additions. Tsinghua now has become a major tourist attraction in Beijing, there’re quite a few organized tour groups just came to Beijing to visit the campus. I’ve met many people asking for directions – I suddenly felt like old and new at the same time.
That is my feeling about today’s Tsinghua – a seamless collage of old buildings and new; an intersection of old tranditions and new style; a clash and reborn of old and new value systems. Being always a testing ground for party leaderships and new thoughts, I’ve noticed subtle signs of reviving old traditions such as the Confucius sculpture transported from His birthplace by manpower, the old Tsinhua mottos on top of the post-liberation communist slogan…as a country, aren’t we all searching for new belief system from our old traditions?
