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At China’s Top University, an Old Gate Reveals the National Psyche
Where east meets west and pride wrestles with humiliation.
Once, after sharing a photo showing the Old Gate of Beijing’s Tsinghua University (see above), I received an unexpected comment: Did you choose the image for its irony? How could Western architecture feature so prominently at the entrance to China’s most prestigious institution?
The question caught me off guard. But I was pleased to be given the chance to offer a history lesson.
The truth is, Tsinghua, my alma mater, isn’t very old. While China has ancient academies teaching Confucian classics that date back over a thousand years, they didn’t evolve into modern colleges. A handful of precursors to today’s universities emerged at the end of the 19th century, but Tsinghua was not among them.
Instead, Tsinghua had an unlikely and painful birth. In 1900, the Boxer Rebellion, a violent anti-foreign, anti-Christian uprising, was suppressed by the Eight-Nation Alliance including the United States, Britain, Japan, and five other powers. Foreign troops looted Beijing, torched imperial gardens, and killed thousands of people. Despite being devastated, however, the Qing dynasty was forced to pay massive indemnities.
