Word: wen
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...Sons and daughters of intellectuals are getting into P.U. these days and people from worker-peasant backgrounds can't get in," Wen explains. "Under Mao only worker-peasant kids got in, and lots of people, many intellectuals, were sent to the countryside as part of their education...
...Wen's parents fled China in 1949 because her grandfather was a high official in the Kuomintang. "He taught six years at Hartford and then changed his mind and decided Communism was good," she says, "sort of a Confucian thing, like the mandate of Heaven changed. So he returned to China to work for the foreign ministry on U.S.-China and China Taiwan relations...
That connection helped Wen, an East Asian Studies major, get into P.U. as one of a handful of foreign students. Today there are about 50. Wen wants to return to China for a little while after graduation to see friends and travel around, but she says she prefers life in the U.S. overall...
Politics still counts, however, "A very high percentage at P.U. are at least Communist Youth members if not Communist Party members," Wen says. "But some of the Party members I've met are among the least revolutionary in their thinking. It doesn't mean as much about your politics as it did before...
When they take the test, students list four or five colleges in China they would be willing to attend, and officials assign students who pass to specific institutions. "It's incredibly nerve-wracking--the prospects of not passing are so dismal," Wen says. "I had a roommate at P.U. who was just 20 and had an ulcer already...