taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor) (11/12/86)
This article is from Joel Bloch via the CRTNet Newsletter
EDUCATIONAL COMPUTING IN CHINA
by Joel Bloch
Carnegie Mellon University
In the four years since I last taught in China, the biggest
change I noticed in the educational system was the proliferation of
computers, especially personal computers (minis, as well) in Chinese
universities. Every Chinese I talked to knew the story of how An
Wang came to America, designed a computer, and became one of the
richest persons in the world, and so the computer, like the abacus
before, seemed to be part of the Chinese heritage. But like many
things in China, all was not quite what it seemed.
On the surface there seemed to be computers everywhere. In major
cities like Shanghai, there are computer stores all over the main
shopping area. Besides the locally manufactured Great Wall
computer, an IBM-compatible with a high resolution screen for
Chinese characters, there are a variety of IBMs, Apple II+s, and
Lasers, a Hong Kong-made computer that has just been introduced into
North America, prompting a law suit by Apple. China is in effect a
nightmare for pirated Apples. While the IBMs look authentic, the
Apples do not. They are made in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China, and
they carry names like the ApII and the Apple. Unlike books, pirate
editions are not cheaper. A 48K imitation Apple costs between
$2,000 and $3,000, depending on where it is pirated from. This is
in a country in which top university professors earn $60 per month,
so computers are not likely to appear in anybody's home soon.
Software, too, is pirated and sold in government stores openly,
unlike pirated books which the authorities usually try to hide from
foreigners.
Despite the costs, universities have lots of computers. One
university, in a small town in southern China, has sixty Apple look-
alikes in one room, and these computers are given the royal
treatment. Because of uncertain electric supplies, they often have
their own electric supplies, and they may have the only air
conditioner in town cooling them. They are often covered with an
expensive piece of felt. The unfortunate side is that they
frequently sit there unused since there are few people who know how
to use them. One survey showed that between 60% and 80% of the
computers in Shanghai and Beijing were never used. The department
where I taught had an IBM locked away. Nobody knew how to use it,
and only one person had the key for the room. This is a quirk of
the Chinese system which encourages people to buy as many of
anything as possible because tomorrow the authorities may change the
policy. Obsolescence, like privacy, is a vague concept in China.
Computers are being used in computer science courses, and they
are being used to develop Chinese character word processors. Typing
using Chinese characters is a major problem. Chinese typewriters
have the equivalent of thousands of keys. Seeing one puts the
debate between Qwerty versus Dvorak keyboards into perspective.
Universities have developed a variety of inexpensive and copyable
word processors, on disk for the IBM and on chip for the Apple. The
one word processor I saw used the pinyin or Roman system of written
Chinese characters (each morpheme in Chinese has a large number of
other morphemes that sound alike). On another, the operator entered
a four-letter code, with each combination standing for another
character. Both systems were cumbersome but were an improvement
over typewriters.
As in probably every other country of the world, education takes
a back seat to computer science, but here too, things are changing
slowly. One university in central China has set up a computer lab
dedicated solely to education. I was invited to give demonstrations
of word processing at another university, with the promise that they
would allow their composition students to have access to their
computers. I often received inquiries from teachers about CAI.
For anyone planning to teach in China, a computer is more
indispensable than it is in developed countries because there are
fewer alternatives. A recent article in the TESOL Newsletter
(Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages Newsletter)
detailed the horrors of reproducing teaching materials in China, and
while I never heard of such difficulties personally, a computer can
save the enormous amount of time it takes to have materials
duplicated. In a pinch, you can duplicate the materials on your
computer yourself. Computer paper is cheap although you can't tear
off the edges. Since electricity, especially outside the major
cities, is unpredictable, a backup power supply is almost essential.
I used to watch my file fade and reappear four or five times an
hour, but I never lost a file, and the computer never blew up.
Computers are one of the reasons that China has opened up to the
West; there is a deep belief that they are essential to making
China an economic power. As a result, there is little or no
computer phobia that computers will one day replace teachers. What
is needed are dedicated people to demonstrate to authorities the
practicality of educational computing.