The students
also find challenges in their studies.
"The cou rse was a little difficult at the beginning. The texts we use are in the original form.
The characters are in their original complex form, the one used before they were simplified. And we have to read them from right to left," said Wang Ying, a senior.
"It's taken me several months to get used to this."
Reciting the texts is even more challenging. "It's our homework to recite all the parts of the Four Books, and some of the Song of Chu. It was hard for me to memorize them at first. But it got easier," Wang said. In fact, she can now recite almost all of the "Dream of Red Mansions" (Honglou Meng) from beginning to end.
Changing majors In fact, students majoring in Chinese traditional culture were not asked to enrol in the major based on their scores in the college entrance exams. They transferred into it after taking exams during the second half of their first year of study of other subjects.
Some of them have given up a popular majors, such as Wang. She was in law in her first year of study; others are science majors and now find themselves in a relatively new field. Ye, for example, started university life as a maths major. And not all of them are convinced of the merits of this new course.
"The job prospects for the major are not promising. It may be hard for graduates to get well-paid jobs," said a sophomore named Song. But the students doing the new course have their own reasons.
"Our motivation is not money but interest. What we've learnt is far from enough. Many of us hope to pursue postgraduate studies," said Tian Fang, a junior. The students' enthusiasm for the new major has impressed the teachers.