Graduation Ceremony

One of my coworkers graduated from graduate school today, and I attended the ceremony with another colleague. I can report that there is absolutely no difference between a commencement service in the United States and China. Except language. And my inability to speak Chinese didn't seem to made it any worse.

The campus was beautiful. It was built 80 years ago by the Catholics and operated as a Catholic university until Mao's reign when it was confiscated and used for various purposes. It has operated again as a university for a number of years. The buildings are traditional Chinese, well maintained on the exterior and surrounded by well tended gardens.

The administration managed to find the one eyesore on campus to serve as a commencement hall. Thankfully it was scorching hot, and there were only 500 or so students graduating. The doctoral candidate's names were read individually, and each student was presented with a diploma. The administration spared us the pain of individually recognizing the graduate students which made the exercise more tolerable.

My colleague was thrilled by the event, as she should have been. She is young and bright and well educated. I know she will do well in life, and I'm very happy for her.