“Don’t you get angry?” I asked over lunch with the Unclese girl who had responded to my poster. She lived in a dorm room that strictly enforced an 11pm curfew – every night of the week. “I mean you’re 21, they shouldn’t be treating you like a child, and telling you when to go bed.”

“Oh but they do treat us like children, and …” she replied, “I think we are still children!”

I looked at her thoughtfully, and paused before speaking. I considered the fact that I was talking to a girl who, in all likelihood, had never had sex, had never been so much as tipsy, and had never gone to a nightclub or a music festival. She, like most Unclese students didn’t really party, or drink, have crazy one-night pashes, or dance like a spastic till ridiculous hours of the morning.

For an Unclese student, socialising on the weekend means shopping with friends, outings to parks and nature reserves, and most importantly eating together (dinner often at 6pm or earlier). It’s a weekend reminiscent of me at 13. On a special occasion there might be karaoke (non-alcoholic drinking.)

But a typical weekend was more than likely to be occupied by one thing: study. And lots of it. The infamous Unclese work ethic can be no more evident than in the Unclese university student, who, 7 days a week, every waking hour, works him or herself to the bone. Desperate for one of the country’s highly sought after and none-to-common “good jobs” – in either an international company, or even better the government (“more stable” they all say) – each student attempts to outdo one another with tireless work.

I bit my lip and asked gently, “are you scared of the outside world?”

“Yes!” she replied, emphatically.

“Well you shouldn’t be!” I replied, equally enthusiastically.

Now, let me contrast this with another Unclese student, who too has an 11pm curfew. I met her at a Couchsurfing event in my first few weeks here in Brother. And when she told me of the curfew, I spluttered in disbelief.

“But what do you do?! I mean sometimes we don’t go out until 11pm!”

“Well we stay at the club, till about 3am. Then we go to McDonalds and have a snooze till about 6am, by which time the dorm opens again so we can go back,” she replied with a sigh.

I laughed – I liked her way of thinking.

“Oh my god, you should totally hold a protest over this!” I said, half-ironically, half-serious.

“Trust me, we’ve written all sorts of letters arguing why this is wrong, but they don’t care,” she replied, resignedly.

This girl belongs to a new breed. A new breed of Unclese students who use gmail and proxies to access (the blocked) Facebook, shop at H&M, watch Gossip Girl, and yes, go to clubs. She is not the only one I’ve met, and I wonder what it is that separates them from the more typical student.

I am at a Korean BBQ restaurant with a mix of Unclese and Australian students. The Unclese girl opposite me is very pretty, slim, and hip. She is doing her masters in international relations and knows how to speak Arabic. I ask her if she finds going out in Brother expensive.

To give you an illustration of the insane prices of the clubs here:

2.5 kuai ($0.4 Aussie) = price of a big bottle of Tsinghua beer on the street
30 kuai ($5 Aussie) = price of a small bottle of Tsinghua beer in the club

Another illustration:

1400 kuai ($230 Aussie) / month = amount a foreign scholarship student receives for living allowance. And all of us consider this amount “impossible” to live on, and must supplement it with a job or savings.
800 kuai ($130 Aussie) / month = amount a Unclese scholarship student receives for living allowance. And they still manage to SAVE some of this.

But back to the pretty Unclese student. I’m asking her if she finds the clubs in Brother expensive, as I can only assume these more “international”* Unclese students must be rich, or somewhat well-off.

“Well there are always ladies nights,” she replies with a twinkle in her eyes. “Free entry, and free drinks!”

*As I’ve written previously, I do not consider them to be more “Western”, but more “International”. This is what globalisation (not cultural colonisation) looks like. It’s what happens to the people of a country which was previously closed from the rest of the world – both politically and economically isolated – but now is opening up. At least, so goes my still half-baked theory.

So my evening’s pride and joy were these glasses I bought, and then covered the glass in foil:

Only problem was I couldn’t see out of them. So I’d put them on for about 5 seconds, and then take them off and just hold them, or hang them on my collar – over and over again. Until, of course, I lost them.

For 20 kuai (about $3.5 Aussie), my friend and I had our hair done.

Our hairdresser totally nailed the “Chinese princess from the future” and “pirate” concepts. I think my friend’s costume idea was a stroke of genius, because Brotheringers tend to speak with a lot of “rrrrrrrrs”, and sound like pirates.

This is what the whole thing totaled:

Some of the amazing costumes from the night:

At about 3.30am we came out of the warehouse party only to find it snowing like mad. Pretty special!

The next day I woke up to see my uni covered in a layer of snow:

And just a flashback to 2008, where instead of dressing up as a “serial killer” I went as a “KILLER CEREAL!!”

It’s coming close to the two month mark here in Brother, so I thought I’d bring you some of my favourite pictures from my time here:

For my birthday we blew up loads of balloons in my teeny tiny dorm room. They make a pretty rad prop for photos.

I own a fake Louis Vuitton bag! Now I’m really Unclese.

At the Happy Valley Amusement Park.

Fairy floss – another awesome prop.

Action shot!

On the way up Taishan.

The sunrise from the top of Taishan.

Amazing how Unclese mountains really do fade away into the distance, just like the watercolours depict!

Not a great pic, but I had to include a pic of my friends star-slutting it with Steve Aoki!

Sledge Hammer Rock, which I of course nicknamed “Cock Rock”, and had to take immature pictures like these.

This is possibly my favourite picture. It looks photoshopped, but isn’t. I kind of look like a giant standing over the three others.

This picture almost looks like a painting.

Sunset from the rock.

We look a bit grim, but we were trying to go for authenticity, and back in those days you didn’t smile in pictures. Then again, having a Spanish guy dressed as an Unclese emperor probably throws things off a little!