Today was graduation at Lanzhou University.
Apparently everyone was graduating today - undergrads and grad students - all at once. I don't know how many that is, but it sure seemed like a lot. People have been wandering around campus for the past several weeks wearing caps and gowns for photo shoots, at least some of which were officially sanctioned by the school. Today, though, everyone was wearing them for 'real'.
It started at about 7am, out in the stadium right next to where I live, with some kind of ceremony. I can't tell you much about this part because I tried to sleep through it (does anything official start before 9 back home?). I can say that it was loud and lasted several hours. I think it was speeches from various school administrators.
The actual graduation ceremony took place in front of the library. There's a decently big space there, and they'd set up a stage and bleachers. Students congregated, donned caps and gowns, with hoods colored or designed to indicate major, and waited for hours in what seemed a lack of serious organization and good amount of boredom (I came across many card games). Cross the scene to the stage, though, and there was an orderly, efficient processing of graduates. The department and degree was announced, followed by a series of names as students filed across the stage, bowing to the head of the school so he could turn their tassels and hand them cased diplomas (see video below). The new graduates lined the bleachers behind the president, and one class after another was photographed, achievement in hand.
Sounds fairly normal as described, but in reality it seemed a strangely warped version of graduation as I know it. Most significantly, there were no spectators. Not a single parent was there. There were a few people watching, probably a mixture of people happening to stroll through the campus 'gardens' which spread out just past the scene and a smattering of friends. The area was roped off, but you could cross it to greet somebody if you wanted to. The few security guards looked bored and hot, and didn't seem to be paying much attention. The students started lining up on the right of the library, then filed around in front of the stage to eventually go up on stage from the left, finishing on the right where they had started. This is to say, spectators didn't have a really good view anyway (see photos) because people waiting to graduate were in the way. Finally, the names were read much faster than the procession to greet the president, and so would end a while before the line of graduates. Consequently, names didn't match up with faces. And in the interest of efficiency, the next group of graduates would start being called while the previous was just starting to get off the stage.
Math majors who have just donned their gowns, loaned to them on site by the school for the few hours of the ceremony.
Students pause as they cross in front of the stage from the right, waiting their own turn to walk up on stage from the left.
Waiting to graduate. I have no problem getting this close, though I am still behind the tape barrier, which is marked as 'limitline.'
Does an official ceremony lose meaning without the crowd there to support and celebrate and appreciate it? I asked friends what they thought they were dressing up for, and though a bit puzzled the answer seemed to be for the school president. Maybe for the photos. Maybe just because it's graduation. Nobody seemed to think it was a big deal, and maybe even this much ceremony was a bit overdone. The school is funny too, I don't think many of the graduates knew for sure what day the ceremony would take place until this week (I have a friend at another university who still isn't sure when hers will be), and they've been finished with everything for longer than that now. I don't know how they used to celebrate the end of schooling before this western-influenced kind of event, but I get the feeling that though some surface elements transfer over, little if any of the deeper meaning we attach to our graduation made the trip. Graduation isn't just about finally having diploma in hand but is about marking and celebrating the personal and intellectual growth students have achieved by working hard over the course of years, in the presence of people who care about them and who have contributed to their achievement. Isn't it?
