Military Training in China

Well, this I'm seriously looking forward to.

Me too, ^JB^. Do be sure you won't create problems for yourself.

^JB^ - With the training then do you become part of a militia group? Or is it like being drafted?

What roger said, ^JB^. You be careful, now!

Wow, the armed forces have always fuelled my curiosity.

I wish we had compulsory military training in India too.


I look forward to your posts, JB.

Hi all
I have sensed certain amount of misunderstanding here. Well, originally written in the law, every citizen of the country must serve in the army when they reach the certain age (18). While I was reading this in my politics textbook I felt a bit odd----Why I didn't have any memory of knowing that PLA has 100 million soldiers at on time? So, as I later learnt, the 1-week military training became a substitute for the overall joining.
And, I will have slight, very faint opportunity of being drafted if I don't join the army in the future, apart from the case that China was under all-out offensives from every direction pointing at the territory and on every section of the border
Because it's jus crazy to think about mobilizing an army of such astronomical number.

Dudes, I understand your concerns about me. But I do think they are a bit exaggerated. I don't find any sense here for my government to keep close eyes on or even home-arrest a very moderate adolescent citizen who, neither has done any harm on its security and stability, no has said any insulting words on it, and quite the contrary, who, on numerous occasions made every effort to defend and vindicate it. Just things can't be that insensible and crazy right?

From my point of view, the currents events have strongly revealed that the political situation is likely to go on a right route. Remember the commemoration of Mr Hu Yaobang's birth? That means at least the party understand the need for a reform. But it has to be stable and balanced, which is crucial for a country like China who has already been enduring deep social problems and imbalance and which I agree with.
Things will be better after all, believe me. :wink:

Just caution based on lack of knowledge, I suppose.

So, what DO you do in a week of training? My 40something year old recollection tells me it took that long at Ft. Jackson to be issued uniforms, get started on immunizations, and make it to the mess hall without anyone getting lost. That was just the reception center.

Well... ^JB^... as for my concerns, they are not that you might get in trouble with your government as I cannot imagine your posting anything that would be detrimental or "classified" as a state secret. I do worry that you might join the military. My 21-year-old son had me in a tizzy for the last couple of years with his talk of joining the army. (I am glad to say he seems to have come to his senses and is now working at a hotel and studying at the university.)

Of course, China is not actively engaged anywhere as we are in Iraq, but I noticed you seem to leave the door open to possibly joining the military as a career. Did I read that right? I'm sure you would be good at this but I have learned to see you more as an artist and writer. You'd probably be great in politics, too.

You are right that the mobilization of such a huge army boggles the mind. For me, the size of China is also mind-boggling... and its history and antiquity. China and the Chinese culture are amazing to me!!!



I didn't remember this. I have been on a news "fast" so I did a little internet research here. :wink: How'd it go from your standpoint? This one quote after the event was the most I found while "Googling" the news:



I am glad you have such a positive attitude and are willing to put up with the questions of your a2k friends. S'good! You're a wonder.

The boot camp is actually situated in the outskirts of the city. And it is actually only a militia camp.
( a brief summary of China's armed forces composition: People's Liberation Army, People's Armed Police, and militia)
The site which is by a nice hill, is pretty good-looking.

THis is the scene when our legion is marching to occupy the camp.

Changing clothes. You can see how excited we were at that time right?
I am not quite sure of why is the excitement---Perhaps virtually all the boys universally share the desires to show their courages, and muscles.

What's it like? Do you fire live ammunition, go through hand to hand combat or learn survival techniques?

Ceiling fans? You had ceiling fans? We didn't, and Ft Gordon, GA gets mighty hot and humid in the summer.

The training was indeed not that serious.

None of the students had touched the gun loaded with ammunition marching here and there except one day I accidentally spotted an abandoned bullet in the grassland...and lost it amid the boisterous crowds while I was boasting.

What we really did was just standing to attention, at ease, march, various types of marching. Yes, we practice these kinds of stuff every day. But our class bore an additional training mission. It was a kind of kung-fu which was used to arrest and capture the enemy with overall 8 types. Quite stirring. :wink:

I was one of the prime members in our school's Photography Society. And this time after harsh dealing and wheeling, we finally got the permission of bringing cameras and DVs inside the camp. (It was hard not because that they feared the leak of secrets since it just doesn't have anything secret, but the high value of the equipment and also the absence of precedent since nearly all the bureaucrats tend to deny new things at first hand.)
And we even made a quite semi-professional documentary.
Btw, yesterday I didn't go to school. Instead, several colleagues and I went to have a speech in city's students' societies contest on behalf of our organization. And we won it, in a narrow sense, Nanjing Foreign Language School Photography Society was the best one in our city now.

Well sure, you find something you're good at, you stick with it. Bureaucrats are very good at sticking to precedent.

Ammunition. Yes, we did all sorts of things with unloaded weapons - like cleaning them, and presenting them for inspection. When we finished a day at the range, each of us had to declare, individually, that we possessed neither brass (casings) nor ammo.

On cameras, I was a little surprised when I visited an Air Force base. This was in 1963, I suppose, but there warning against loitering or taking pictures around the actual airfield. Like, maybe there was a foreign nation, somewhere in the world that didn't know what a B-52 looked like?

We even didn't have chance to handle an unloaded gun. We just watched officers one after another dismantling as well as analyzing some of the most classical CHINESE weapons.