Researching China's future at the library

BEIJING -- Every morning, long before the glass doors swing open at 9 a.m., a crowd of young men and women gather outside this mammoth, colonnaded building in hope of getting a seat inside.

At 9 a.m., everyone dashes in with an intensity akin to the frenzy of determined shoppers at a red tag sale -- a quiet mob rushing to find a place to read in the nearly silent vastness of the National Library of China.

The library, China's largest, stands as a monument to a young generation's hunger for opportunity and advancement. A generation after Mao Tse-tung mercilessly hounded intellectuals and closed universities in his war against class distinctions, these teen-agers and young adults, spending their summer vacation in the library, view education as their best entry to the country's emerging middle class.

Wu Yanyan, a junior studying finance at Beijing Technology and Business University, arrived at the library at 8 a.m. and stayed until 5 p.m., poring over books on finance.

"I'd like to go to Shanghai to find work in a bank, insurance company or securities firm," she said. "I want to be a white-collar employee, and in the long run, I want to be a boss for myself."

Liang Langbo, the son of farmers, arrived at 7:40 a.m. after an 80-minute bus ride from the city's northern suburbs. He hopes to enter the business world, where he can reasonably expect to make more in one month than his parents earn in an entire year of farming -- about $500.

"After what I've learned in college, I can't go back to farming," said Liang, 20, who would stay in the library until 7 p.m.

Wu and Liang are among tens of thousands of young people using the facilities on any given day. The National Library, established inside a temple in 1909, has grown to become the fourth-largest in the world, commanding 1.5 million square feet of space holding more than 23 million books and other materials, 38 reading rooms and seating for more than 3,000 patrons.

Full house

By 10 a.m., every seat is taken. People sit in comfortable chairs at long tables and sip bottled water, soda or mugs of hot tea while reading books from the library's collection or materials they bring from home.

Latecomers are consigned to searching out dimly lighted floor space among the stacks of books.

The library's holdings range from contemporary literature to ancient carvings made on animal bones, plus a small number of Western books touching on sensitive subjects such as the 1989 demonstrations in Tiananmen Square.

An average of 12,000 people a day enter the building, most of them university or high-school students preparing for graduate or college-entrance examinations, or young adults who have just entered the work force and are anxious to read about developments in their fields.

The students wear the international uniform of young people -- jeans and black T-shirts -- but represent the small fraction of young Chinese who either attend college or have a realistic hope of doing so.

Education hurdles

Students who pass a national entrance examination to attend college face the additional hurdle of having to pay fees that can exceed $1,000 a year, more than many families earn in a year.

Students in the library say they will not squander their hard-won opportunity.

"Everyone, especially youngsters, should learn more and more to meet the demands of society," said Zhao Ziqiang, the 23-year-old son of former farmers in Heilongjiang Province in remote northeast China, on the Russian border. "It should be my top priority now."

Zhao and others echo the government's exhortations about education's importance in improving society. But the students also endorse another, totally human motive now widely accepted in China -- they want to make money.

Whatever the goal, the pursuit of higher education has almost become a social obligation, less than three decades after condemnation of the educated was government policy.