The parents of the chicken baby all their lives are also rolled up at the University of the Elderly

New Weekly

2024-05-20 12:03Published on the official account of Guangdong New Weekly

Author | Flower cake heart

Edit | Su Wei

  Title Picture | "Little Days"

Sending their parents to a university for the elderly, observing their whereabouts, an inverted family relationship, is quietly growing up on the Internet, half-jokingly and half-seriously - young netizens ridicule that they want to hold a "family cub party" for their parents, and still "hard" to go to school at the age of sixty or seventy is also one of the cheapest and fastest ways for these elderly students to get out of the empty nest situation.

The clip of supervising parents going to school is trending on the Internet. (Photo/@罗西和十樱)

A course for three years, only costs 300 yuan for half a year, and even has a cabbage price of 98 yuan.

But if it is said that the university for the elderly is suddenly popular, it is actually biased, and the demand for it has been around for a long time.

In 1983, China's first university for the elderly was established in Shandong, and no one expected that as of 2023, this number has soared to 76,000. There are various reasons for choosing to go to school, some elderly people frankly said that "at least they have something to do when they open their eyes", and some netizens who sent their parents to school said, "(Parents) don't need to be a certain family member in that ward anymore."

Behind the popularity of jokes about parents going to school, more and more children and parents are taking the university for the elderly as a compulsory course in old age and a solution to the problems of old age.

The mother shared by netizens took pictures of the water droplets on the window frame, which resembled an ink painting. (Photo/@哄哄可以哄吗)

"Going to college" is a compulsory course for old age

Did you know that senior colleges also repeat grades? It's just that for this group of older students, there is no shame in repeating a grade, and many of them prefer to never graduate.

In fact, there are not a few elderly people with educational complexes.

Some of them, by virtue of the college entrance examination, distribution, correspondence, and self-examination, have earnestly changed their fate, packed up their burdens and "went to a wide and bright place", while the other part is accustomed to "eating the loss of academic qualifications" on their lips, and over time, the word academic qualifications represent a certain regret, a certain hope, and a certain possibility in life.

As a result, an old Chinese man's thirst for knowledge is usually both simple and utilitarian, and they feel in their bones that "learning" makes people down-to-earth. Even in old age, life expectations gradually narrow, and the meaning of pursuing "progress" decreases little by little, but maintaining learning can still provide a sense of fulfillment.

As a result, the elderly students can truly learn endlessly.

Dozens of courses are all rotated, Tai Chi for three years, Chinese painting for another three years, three years and three years, the name that has not graduated is still in the register, the impulse to pay for learning is burning, calculating the class schedule, calculating class activities, calculating after-school homework, busy for a lifetime, the end of the universe is still school.

The accumulation of students staying in school has become a common problem for many elderly universities, a radish and a pit, unless the enrollment is expanded, it will become a problem for new students to enroll, and this phenomenon has even appeared on the hot search of social media.

In 2015, Shandong University for the Aged was a hot registration site. (Photo/Visual China)

For example, 50,000 people grabbed 6,000 places, and occupied a seat at 11 o'clock in the evening the first day, in relevant media reports, the classrooms of Nanjing Jinling University for the Elderly were crowded with old people who could not book a hotel and were reluctant to book, and the skyrocketing number of applicants could not be digested even if there were 320 classes.

Learning something, sometimes very important, learn how to operate the Android system, how to type, or learn traditional calligraphy, bamboo flute, vocal music, erhu, ballroom dance, sit in the classroom, and make up for the interests that could not be cultivated well in the year; Sometimes, what you learn is not so important, "it's too lonely", and sitting with so many peers is enough.

The China Association of Universities for the Elderly has released such a set of data, among the 76,000 universities for the elderly, there are more than 20 million students. It may sound like a huge number, but if we take the 250 million people over the age of 60 in the 2019 economic census data as the denominator, the enrollment rate is only about 8%, and the news of the senior university rushing for courses may not shock us so much. As a comparison, the proportion of elderly people in this age group who live alone, widows, and empty nesters may be more than half.

(Photo/"Days and Nights in Tin Shui Wai")

"It's hard to find", this is almost the norm of the university for the elderly, the enrollment season, the old people have to squeeze into the single-plank bridge, to be the first few thousand people in the meritocracy to fight for speed, for example, in the CCTV financial report, Beijing Dongcheng University for the Elderly, the lucky to become a freshman of the old people only accounted for less than 10% of the students.

The elderly who pushed their children and ran forward when they were young also stood on the edge of the single-plank bridge one day, which was a little fun and a little helpless.

In the university for the elderly, there are also invisible walls

In the 70s of the 20th century, the French had the concept of "third-stage university", which specifically referred to schools for the elderly. The term "third stage" has a myriad of possibilities to allow older people to escape a repetitive old age without having to "always think the same things, say the same things, and do the same things."

In China, the establishment of universities for the elderly was first accompanied by the standardization of the retirement system.

In the early 80s of the last century, "exert residual heat" is a word that retirees often hang on their lips, which is the high consciousness of post training, and it is also the inertia of perennial work, like the old man Fu Ming in "I Love My Family", "Although there were many things before, but it was very fulfilling, and now I opened my eyes and worried about how to live today", so, for them who have nothing to do, the first batch of universities for the elderly appeared.

(Photo/Stills from "I Love My Home")

The earliest universities for the elderly had a high threshold, and they were either under the name of colleges and universities, and only retired faculty and staff could enroll, or they were opened by units with financial resources and ability and were only open to retired workers. The results show that 79% of the elderly still have high school and university degrees, and their educational background and work status are very concentrated, of which 90% are retired cadres and only 9% are workers.

As for the elderly living in rural areas, more than half do not know what a "university for the elderly" is.

This segregation of identities is sometimes explicit, and some universities for the elderly in the central areas of first- and second-tier cities have hukou requirements; Sometimes it is invisible, for example, when recruiting students, applicants are required to have "skills" and "foundations", and the group with a blank sheet of paper is excluded. Of course, from another point of view, for retired workers who are already very hands-on, and for self-employed people and farmers who have no concept of retirement, life is full of opportunities for self-learning.

So, unreasonably and unexpectedly, the old university has also grown a chain of contempt.

Some netizens shared their observations that the parents who came back from the university for the elderly added a bit of mysterious pleasure or displeasure, and only after careful questioning did they know that those who study photography look down on those who learn piano, and those who learn calligraphy, vocal music, and cooking are ranked lower. "I went out for activities, and I drove a total of 7 cars, and the worst was more than 800,000 yuan", outside the classroom, the competition continued.

There is no burden of going on to a university for the elderly, but there are more things to compare, talking about the unit, the community, children, marriage, everything is a score.

In 2018, people were vying for admission places at Hefei University for the Elderly. (Photo/Visual China)

Just like choosing a school for children many years ago, private ones are usually not as good as public ones, and the mood of the elderly is reflected in the school selection stage. Public universities for the elderly are backed by competent units, and the tuition fee is usually only a few hundred yuan per semester, while private universities for the elderly carry the burden of water, electricity, rent, manpower, and teachers, not only the tuition fees are higher, but the students are also more chaotic and diverse.

This is bustling, and no one cares about it, which is not difficult to understand, most of the above-mentioned cases of piling up registration occur in public universities for the elderly.

The university for the elderly is not the only answer

In "The Legend of the Hulan River", "grandfather" appears like this:

"When I was born, my grandfather was in his sixties, and when I was four or five years old, my grandfather was almost seventy. I hadn't grown to twenty years old before my grandfather was eighty. ”

As the background board of the family, in the greetings of "whether you are in good health" day after day, only the age keeps rolling, which is the situation of many elderly people in the past. Of course, when the problems of life have not been solved, it is always a luxury to talk about the spiritual world.

According to the search results of the China Judgments Network, among the more than 20,000 cases of elderly maintenance disputes nationwide, only 0.52% are related to spiritual care.

(Photo/"One by One")

The common situation is that there is a basic life without worrying about food and clothing, but there is no excitement of spiritual life, wandering between the living room, kitchen, and bedroom for many years, as if he was born an old man, and their desires are condensed into descriptions such as "sunset red" and "twilight love", and no one asks him "what he plans to do", because the possibilities of the future have been compressed, and it has little to do with social progress.

The Jewish philosopher Jean Emery observes that society forbids the elderly to do self-planning to some extent: "It demands that we understand that we are spiritual scrap metal, walking downhill." ”

The old people are widely protected, but they lack the right to imagine the future – you won't be a detective or a writer anymore, you'll just be a few beds.

On April 23, Chizuruko Ueno had a nearly one-hour conversation with Hong Huang, mentioning the issue of aging, "If you are old, you don't have to work, you need someone to take care of you, not medical services", in other words, the elderly are not the same as patients, and care is not limited to material care and medical care.

(Photo/"Back to Back, Face to Face")

The investment of universities for the elderly only accounts for a small proportion of the annual education expenditure, and there are basically provisions of "50-80 years old" in the enrollment brochure.

If you can't throw students to school, you don't care about anything - similar words, helplessly occupy one end and one end of life.

Proofreading: Zou Weiyun

Operation: Lu Zirui

Typography: Sweet

[1] "Research on the Supply of Education Services for the Elderly in the New Era", Zhang He, 2021.05[2] "Is Active Aging Really Happening? Huang Hui, 2020.06.30[3] "A Comparative Study of Lifelong Education in China and Japan", Lizi Chutou, 2011.04.16[4] "The "Spiritual Hunger and Thirst" Behind the Explosion of Enrollment in Universities for the Elderly", Banyuetan, 2014.05.07[5] "University for the Elderly: The Public One Dominates, and the Private Sector is in an Embarrassing Situation", Shenzhou Pension Institute, 2019.10.18

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