You're listening to Roundtable with Steve Hatherly, Nyo Hong Lin, and Yushin.
Coming up, school's back.
And you know what that means.
Time to trade in those summer vibes for shiny new backpacks, crisp uniforms and a serious supply stash.
But it's not just about the shopping spree.
It's the great September shift.
How do you flip that switch from beach mode, vacation mode, back to brain and study mode, from late nights to early alarms?
We're talking about mindset resets, routine remixes and gearing up for that confident start after that.
Motivational monday will give you some motivational kick to get your week going and i'll give you a little teaser.
A few months ago on the show, i wrote a poem for motivational monday.
The audience feedback was outstanding.
Today I've got more award-worthy poetry coming up for you.
Don't forget, you can find us at Roundtable China on Apple Podcasts.
And also, don't forget, we love to hear your voice, so please do send a voice note to us with any of the thoughts that you may have on any of the issues that we discuss on the show.
How do you do that, Steve?
Here's the answer.
RoundtablePodcast at QQ.com.
One more time, RoundtablePodcast at QQ.com.
And now...
In China and other countries.
Actually, the arrival of September signals the beginning of a new academic year, ushering in what is widely known as the back-to-school economy.
It's a major surge in consumer activity during the late summertime and early autumn time.
Families around the country they invest in essential supplies for the school term, including textbooks and uniforms, and stationary and digital devices.
Yet beyond those material purchases parents and students.
It's a tough task, isn't it?
Because you have to prepare for those less tangible challenges.
Adjusting to a new sleep schedule, for example.
Reinforcing study or homework habits, for example.
Then you've got the academic pressure, the emotional pressure of transitioning from holiday freedom to the demands of classroom discipline.
And as much fun as it can be getting back into the classroom and meeting new friends, it can be a challenging time for for students as well.
All that you said.
I still really miss my school year.
I was going to say, yeah, and all of that can be true at the same time, right?
You miss those days.
Of course.
If you think about it, especially the start of a new semester, you have a lot to look forward to.
You can go hang out with the friends you haven't seen for several months.
And for some students, those freshmen of university, they have a finally passed the college entrance examination they have been preparing for for so many years and hearing the nag of their parents and teachers for so many years and they've passed that milestone and they are in their dream university or, you know, any university and they are making the transition.
And when they are preparing themselves for the new life, the new social life, new academic life, their parents are also helping them prepare with a lot of new gadgets they can bring to their new dorms.
And that's the exciting part.
That's really exciting.
And we see that with multiple discount measures from the National Subsidy Program.
We see a lot of e-commerce platforms sellers.
They are rolling out different types of digital devices for sure.
Because, for these days and age, if you are going to school and starting your new school year, of course you're getting new laptops.
Some of you are getting smartphones, earphones, tablets.
And some would also want to decorate their dormitories a little bit with new products, sometimes new projectors, even.
And for those new students, especially this year.
Action cameras have rapidly gained market share, especially among young students, thanks to their lightweight, easy to use design and suitability for sports and travel.
Young kids would like to record their lives and also cut those or edit those short videos and then upload them on social media platforms to show off a little bit to their peers and also practice a little bit editing.
So in the future, maybe they can work for us.
I've just got so many questions for all that long speech, to be honest.
Are you guys like fantasizing?
Is that the word?
The school life?
Aren't all of the students are thinking about what the summer...
Summer holidays gone, just a blink of time.
And then they get back to school.
Of course, they got to buy all of these devices.
Action cameras, seriously, are all of the students' vloggers to record their school lives.
But anyway, of course we know that their life has been enriched and they have so much more time to spend at the weekends or enjoy their life.
I mean, it's an expensive time of year for parents, right?
Not everybody's going to get a new smartphone and a new tablet and a new computer, right?
Of course not.
But it is still an expensive time because students need new clothes backpacks, pencils and pens and things like that.
And all those costs add up.
I looked it up in Canada.
The Retail Council of Canada says that the average student they spend meaning their parents will spend or their caretakers will spend about 650 to 750 per student.
That's about 3,000 to 4,000 yuan, I guess, which is, that's the average price.
So it's not cheap, that's for sure.
Yeah, action cameras.
I don't know what students are bringing those to the classroom.
But that's for the university students.
But for the younger students, they're going back to school as well, right?
So a lot of students and parents, of course they go buy items such as exercise books notebooks pens, correction tape and storage, pencil cases and pencils boxes.
Do you?
You shouldn't you know?
Yeah, that you know.
Homeland just loved that stuff, like new pencil cases and stickers.
And oh yeah, My kid is entering kindergarten this year and I have already bought him a new suitcase.
No, no, no, tiny little backpack, and also new clothes, and also notebook.
I don't understand what a three-year-old would learn, but nevertheless.
Is that for him, or is that for you?
Who's getting the enjoyment?
It was fun for me, too.
Yeah, I know.
That's cool, though.
Congratulations on that.
Thank you.
That's really exciting.
How's he feeling about that?
He does not know how to feel about that just yet.
He's only three years old.
He doesn't know what it is.
Does he even know how to grab a pen?
No.
You've already prepared a notebook.
Wait, was today his first day?
No, it's going to be several days later.
Oh, so he's... Oh, that's going to be emotional for him.
No, it's not.
He doesn't understand.
Well, it's going to be emotional for you then.
A little bit, but I kind of understand the mentality starting of a new phase, a new chapter in life.
It's...
It's for kindergarten goers.
It's for primary school students.
It's for middle school students.
And it's definitely for university students, freshmen.
You are starting something completely different.
Well, not completely, but really different from previous years.
Days when you're in middle school, your every day is basically designed by the school, by the teachers, and you know what you're doing.
Yet for university, you have a lot of free time and you can decide on several courses you are about to attend.
You can decide on certain social activities.
And with that freedom of choice, definitely there's a lot of preparation to do.
On top of the physical or the material preparation, some psychological preparation is also very important.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, let's talk about that then, because it's yeah, it's the purchases, it's the economy of going back to school, and this is true in so many different cultures around the world.
But it's also true That for freshmen at school and this could be middle school or high school but for university students, that can be a challenge, because when they're entering university, I guess we'll go through some of the challenges.
It's definitely something that needs a little bit adjust to, in both the sense that I am no longer supervised by my parents.
I can do whatever.
And, you know, skipping class a little bit that needs to be adjusted.
But also in the sense that for some relatively sentimental kids it's going to be I'm away from my parents.
I definitely would miss them very much.
I do not know how much is too much to video chat my mom.
And I do not know, maybe when I'm in a vulnerable period of time, when I'm feeling sick, am I supposed to let her know and worry her, or these, all these kind of preparation needs to be, you know, done.
That is something that I realized, you know, because I talked to some of my friends and they were like older than me.
And some of them were clearly say that when i was choosing my university, i intentionally choose a university that's really far away from home.
Get as far away as possible yeah, but um, i think probably that's probably that's also because of like, different people from different regions.
They have different men.
Yeah, they're like homesickness, it could just be.
It could be the circumstances yeah right, but at this age I, like almost with people around me, will all say that I will like figure out our.
I need to think about what to deal with the relationship with my new classmates or the life that being alone or living in a dorm, that kind of thing.
I wanted to talk about that.
I wanted to ask that question because when I went to university, I went to St.
Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
And in my classes I didn't know Any of my classmates.
I remember going to my economics and accounting classes and sitting there with strangers.
I didn't know anybody.
And nobody really talked to each other either.
Oh, Steve, Steve.
That day is gone.
Oh, really?
Those days are gone.
Everybody talks to each other now?
They talk to each other even before going into the classroom and meeting each other in person, because they have freshman social media groups.
They would attend the group when they know they're enrolled and they start talking to each other.
And not only will your classmates be in the group chat session.
Young or students one grade above, you would also enter it so that they can answer questions about the campus.
They give you tips about where you can enjoy the best barbecue around the campus and they will even give you certain tips about how to choose your courses in terms of getting you know finding the best teachers.
Which teacher like to engage with students more, which teacher is good with academic research.
If you follow that teacher, you can go into a certain research group in even in your freshman year.
We have that in Canada.
We have something called it's a casually called frosh week, which means freshman week, which officially is orientation week.
So the freshmen will go to the university a week before the other students do.
And they do all the things that you just did.
You meet up with seniors in groups and they'll give you a tour of the campus.
Here's how you use the library card.
Here's how you use the canteen.
Here's how you get around to your classrooms and things like that.
But there's no meeting of other students in your classes or things like that.
It sounds like it's quite social.
It's quite social.
And nowadays, here in China, the universities are competing with each other so fiercely when it comes to welcoming young freshmen.
Oh, like what?
They would have different types of activities, and previously it was only that different university would roll out different activities welcoming young students, giving them souvenirs like a designated backpack or a mug with the um, with the sign or the logo of the university on it.
And now the competition is so fierce that it's down to each college in the university instead of just the university.
So college would compete who can give the best gift and impress the students more.
They're creating that loyalty, that university loyalty from the very beginning.
And it's really fun.
Some of the activities would even involve a scavenger hunt in the campus.
They would hide little items and little clue of riddles in the campus so that when young freshmen come to the campus they can team up with either their classmates or their dorm mate and go around in the campus.
It's a new way to welcome them, to make them feel like they're part of the university.
It's a nice introduction, isn't it?
Yeah.
All right, Yuxin, I've got a list.
This is from a psychology website, and they talk about the difficulties that freshmen have.
When they go to university for the first time.
I'll just read down the list and you stop me.
When you had a similar difficulty when you were going to university for the first time.
Anxiety depression, financial problems homesickness, roommate issues sleep, social problems, staying healthy, stress and time management.
Yushun is adjusting really well.
He doesn't have any of the problems.
Oh, you didn't stop me once because that was fast and and i was thinking about oh yeah, i do, oh yeah, i do.
That's probably like half of them really, half of them, half of them really.
So when?
Because when you get into a new environment, it's as you said, it's campuses are more like little societies.
You need to interact with people and you need to interact with different types of people from different um backgrounds.
You know when you are talking with, let's say, in like society, you need to get in, you need to try to get in.
It's more like a job interview.
You know when you're trying to get into one of these things and when you like get roommates classmates, and you talk to them.
That's a new socialization activity.
That's all it's going to happen in the future when you're getting to the society and when and that is, i think, also one of the biggest points that people attend to universities to get adjust to environment of this is 100 in time.
Management on this, I think, is a is a legit concern for new students because they're often on their own for the first time.
Right, they're meeting new friends.
They're hanging out outside of the classroom.
Oh wait, I'm supposed to do course homework.
Oh yeah right, you know, you got to figure all that out too.
I didn't have any of those problems.
But I wouldn't mind Having a robotic dog carrying my suitcase, which is provided in one university here in China.
I wouldn't mind having a little handmade fan with a little seed in it.
So after using it, I can plant it in the campus, have my own very cute customized plant.
I also won't mind having a little tutorial including a psychological checkup assessing my situation.
So all of these services are provided in different universities here in China.
And that is part of the reason I miss my school years.
I bet teachers just loved you.
Yeah.
Right.
You sound like that kind of students that will use your book covers, that paper wraps, that perfectly and neatly prepare all of your new books.
Oh, you sure you don't know me?
You don't know me at all.
But...
I would not mind talking to the AI avatar telling me all the secrets about the campus.
I think you should go back to university.
It sounds like you'd have a really great time.
I would.
Well, to all the students out there headed back to school, good luck in your new semester.
You're listening to Roundtable.
I'm Steve with Yushun and Yeohong Lin, and we have Motivational Monday on the way.
Motivational. motivation what do you have for most motivational monday today yeah so now although the weather is still quite hot but um the china's 24 solar terms is showing that once liqiu which is the start of autumn arrives obviously autumn has officially begun but um summer feels just begun right yet autumn has quietly arrived that's what i'm trying to like illustrate the the feeling, the temperature right now.
So autumn is more like a second spring when every leaf becomes a flower.
It turns red, turns orange, and looks so beautiful.
A gentle reminder that growth and beauty don't always follow our schedules.
So I was thinking about that kind of state of mind when we are having all of these solar terms, but maybe some of the time, in some regions, The weather, the temperature is not always sync with all of these terms.
So we can also give ourselves some time, in the sense that what we are doing right now, what we are pursuing, not necessarily need to sync with everybody else or everything according to the plan.
Yeah, good point.
You're on your own schedule, just like nature is on its own schedule.
Yeah, you have your own pace and follow your own pace.
Thanks for that, Yonglin.
Well, mine is a little bit special because well, these days we have been, or.
This year actually marks the 80th anniversary of the victory of Chinese people's war of resistance against Japanese aggression and the world anti-fascist war.
And we've been preparing for special events marking the occasion.
We've been doing research and I am revisiting that part of the history.
And recently I've read so many different stories of Chinese people fighting against fascism at that period of time, people working here with Chinese people to help Chinese people and also Chinese people helping those who are here in this theater, in the Asian theater.
And we see that Well, there have been so many stories.
Many anti-fascist fighters from various countries directly took part in China's resistance.
We see the Soviet Union provided China with large quantities of weapons and equipment.
We see the American Flying Tigers risk their lives to open the Hum Air Route.
And there are so many individual stories.
For example, there was this one...
One fighter in the jet and he could well.
When there was this accident, when he was shot, he had the chance to just jump with the parachute.
But he couldn't because if he jumped he would lose the control of the parachute jet, so that the jet would hit a populated village.
So, in order for the jet to land on a not populated area, he risked, not risk, he sacrificed his own life.
And so many of these stories and when revisiting this part of the history, I was reminded again of how people with a true belief in fair and just and peaceful development can work together and can do remarkable deeds to achieve that goal.
And it is motivating to me in a certain extent.
It also is a reminder of how important it is to stay close to that belief, for not only us, but the entire world.
It's powerful, isn't it, to go back and revisit those?
I mean because that's something, that That's a part of Chinese history that everybody's aware of, right?
Very, very aware of.
And it's something that people know about, but maybe not at the forefront of people's minds on a daily basis.
But when anniversaries come, it's time to revisit those moments and appreciate those who sacrificed their lives so that we can be where we are today.
Yeah.
Well, this seems like such an awkward transition to my poem now, but I'm going to do it anyway.
Kids going back to school.
Wait a sec.
Outstanding.
Where did you get that word from?
What do you mean?
You were saying that our audience or listeners are saying your poems were outstanding.
You haven't even heard this poem today.
Can you mute his microphone, please?
Run, run.
This is a poem by Steve Hatherley entitled Back to School.
Part of this, by the way, is from Dr. Seuss.
After the first line, I wrote it myself.
You're off to great places.
Today is your day.
Your mountain is waiting, so get on your way.
Find a teacher you love.
They'll help brighten your day.
Find a friend you enjoy, and together you'll play.
But don't forget, and it's important, so please write it down.
School is for knowledge, and without it you'll drown.
Because the world is awful, and people are too.
And in life, there's no gym class, no recess for you.
There's debt, and there's taxes, and so much regret.
So enjoy school, kids.
It's as good as it gets.
And with that... Slow pause.
A reality check.
Enjoy school, kids.
Thanks, Yusha and Yonglin.
I'm Steve Hatherley, and we'll see you next time.
