Not according to the rules but according.

Updates: I have a proper winter coat now finally! That should have happened a long time ago but at least it has happened.
The ground is permanently frozen now, and so there are frozen oysters of spit from all the Chinese men all over the place.
Yesterday I had a mince pie, and it was beautiful. I don't expect that it will happen again this holiday season.

University stereotypes:

Beida (Peking university) and Qinghua

Beida and Qinghua are the two most prestigious universities in China, and as I have mentioned have a similar rivalry to the Harvard-Yale or Oxford-Cambridge ones except that they have clearer special fields and they are both on the same street (the one I live on).

Beida is older being founded in 1898, and was the first modern university in China. It's grounds are part of the old emperors gardens and whole swaths of it could easily be mistaken for a beautiful park with lakes and woods ( one time in between lectures I got completely lost in this area and ended up missing most of the next class trying to get back to civilisation...). The economics faculty is actually the building where the decree abolishing the ancient civil service examination system was signed, which if you know a bit about Chinese history is a pretty big deal. Mao was a librarian here in his youth, and in the nineteen twenties it was the home of all the new literary thinkers in who I've been studying lately. As I mentioned before as well, a lot of protests and free thinking movements have had their origin with Beida students.
Today, Beida is known for its prestige in humanities subjects, which isn't much of a surprise given its history. On the cycle ride up to the university there are words of inspiration intended for students such as myself, such as 不学礼无以立 (if you don't study ritual you won't be able to stand in society) and 美丽原美德 （beauty has its origin in beautiful wisdom). The average beida student won't see this very often though as the Chinese students live on campus and rarely actually leave. The campus is a pretty self contained village with very little need to leave it unless you want to, and most of the students just stick to their bubble rather than venture down the road to see all the other universities.

Qinghua is of equal prestige but the emphasis in Qinghua is more on sciences and engineering, and it is a newer university. The style is definitely an imitation of the American Ivy League style architecture, it's has an even bigger campus than Beida and it has lots of beautiful tree lined boulevards. The most famous department is the engineering department, because it is where most of the major politicians of recent times studied, and it is a well known networking centre for the communist party. If you are an engineer in Qinghua you have a bright future ahead of you.
I have become friends with a group of Qinghua guys over the past few months by meeting them for dinner every Tuesday night with some friends at a fast food restaurant on campus. They are former students of my friend who she got along well with and started meeting up outside class with last year. They are a group of five physical engineering majors who are all good friends, because they know us and each other so well, they act normally with us rather than it feeling formal or overly polite, and they are so funny. I have learnt a lot about Chinese student life from them.
A few weeks ago my friend and I went to watch them take part in an annual kind of cultural/ talent show run by their department which was hilarious. We were literally the only two non Chinese people in the entire auditorium and our presence was pretty confusing to a lot of people, we really stuck out. Just before the programme started a girl awkwardly announced in English that there would not be any translation of the programme, and the whole audience started laughing at us, the clear target of this notice. I have never felt so self conscious as a member of what should have been an anonymous crowd, and never shrunk so low in my seat...
The show had different sections each organised and performed by different grades and classes, some were prefilmed videos, some were choirs, dance routines, plays or an eclectic combination of all multiple media. The content of the performances and the jokes spoke volumes about the type of people who studied in the department, which were mostly slightly socially awkward but well meaning guys who would like a girlfriend but mostly just play video games. I will illustrate this with an example: in one story a guy has a girlfriend but doesn't pay her enough attention because he is always playing video games, she leaves him and he realises his mistake. He then chases after her and finds himself in a parallel world where he has to battle through various popular video games to reach her, such as angry birds where people are running around actually being the targets and birds. In the end she still leaves him. In other ones there are a lot of geeky protagonists developing an obsession with a girl that doesn't notice them, and stressing out about how much physics work they have to do.
Something else you really noticed was the gender ratio, which in Qinghua is 3:1 guys to girls, and probably higher than that still in the physics department. There were very few girls on stage at all, and when one did come on the audience audibly gasped. The Qinghua guys I know have found their girlfriends in the nearby universities or from their hometown, a popular girl hunting location for Qinghua guys is the forestry university which has a 4:1 girl to guy ratio I have been told. Beida has an equal ratio apparently (the Qinghua guys clearly made it their business to know these things) and two of them are dating girls from there too, despite the fierce university rivalry. It's all very Romeo and Juliet.

The Forestry University

The forestry university is definitely where all the cool, arty students go. All the most alternative and creative Chinese people I've met so far are all from the forestry university, and there is a strong emphasis here on art, interior design, woodwork, fashion and so on. I've only just started getting to know people at the forestry university but I am intending on spending a lot more time here (in the vain hope that some of their cool will rub off on me).
I'm actually writing this entry in the forestry university, at a cafe which is a perfect example of how cool the people here are.
The cafe is called Nian cafe, and it is run entirely by three final year students of the university who fit in keeping it open for twelve hours a day on top of their degree. The whole interior decor was designed and built by the guys themselves and it looks incredible. One of them specialises in woodwork and built the tables and lights, the sign has the cafe name characters carved out of wood and there are cool objects all over the place, cute ornaments like a mini model piano and a retro radio inside, and a giant wooden pencil taller than me by the gate. They rent the building from a teacher and fund it from the profits they make, they have two white cats that just wander round the shop, one called little nian, and her daughter is called little little nian. They also make great, cheap coffee.
I was introduced to the place by my friend Bethany who had an art show here last weekend which I was helping out with, her paintings are still on display now and they look awesome. There was a massive turnout and on the second day some of the forestry girls came to show her their own art, and ask her about the meanings in hers which was awesome.
Then another student called Warsaw (after the original band name of the joy division) came and played some of his own songs for a while, and engaged us in a discussion on psychology and musicians who became icons through dying young. So edgy.
Bethany's website is bethanyeden.com
and one of the forestry university student's website is:
http://xiaoheiyuben.diandian.com/ , I highly recommend you take a look!