Beijing, CHINA  Is it a sign of the early onset of second childhood when many celebrities, politicians and business tycoons of the world  who once tended to dislike and often flunked their academic studies  are scrambling to get back to school by hook, by crook, by huge donations or via honorary doctorate degrees?
I confess to the same sin  though I’m no celebrity, politico or tycoon but rather just a typhoon  that after not taking too seriously my studies at the Ateneo de Manila University years ago, I’m now a very excited new student starting April 8 at Peking University, also known as Beida for short  listed by the The Times newspaper of London as Asia’s best and the world’s 14th finest university, and also the same school where Mao Zedong had to work as staff librarian in order to enroll.
Once called the Imperial University of Peking in 1898 and now still spelled using the old-fashioned "Peking" to distinguish it from Beijing Normal University, it was founded by the reformist but short-lived Emperor Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty. In 1919, Peking University students trail-blazed an epoch-making nationalist movement called the May Fourth Movement by publicly protesting Japan’s illegal takeover of former German semi-colonial concessions in Shandong province of the then-fledgling Chinese republic.
Today, Peking University is the preeminent school for China’s future leaders, and also where celebrities such as Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Russian President Vladimir Putin, the United Nations chief and Nobel Prize winners have made historic speeches. I’m now here for a short course on economics, finance, business and Confucian-style management with 36 young business and some political VIPs from all over the world, upon the special invitation of the Chinese government. Allow me to again clarify. This columnist is not a VIP as we understand the term, but perhaps a Very Impertinent Person or (more accurately) a Very Impossible Person, but I believe the Chinese government leaders have impeccable good taste, and that they subscribe to and have a high regard for The Philippine STAR.
Also here on the first day at a formal inaugural ceremony attended by top government leaders and university officials, I was asked to represent the international students by making a speech in Mandarin. I wish to report that I survived that difficult but exciting task. Wow, this is the same prestigious Peking University where global celebrities from former US presidents Clinton (televised live by CNN in 1998) and Carter, Russian President Putin, to many Nobel Prize winners have made speeches. Later, at Hou-Hai Lake, my new Indonesian friends Burhan Tadjudin, Victor Heryanto and Martin Agustinus Wilamarta jokingly announced that they would elect me as President of the "United States of Asia." I joked in Mandarin to the Malaysian delegate Norbert Su of Kota Kinabalu, Sabah that one of my first decrees would be to return Sabah to the Philippines!
That was the second time in my life to deliver a speech in Mandarin; the first time was last year at a dinner of the Thai Young entrepreneurs Association led by the scion of Bangkok Bank’s Sophonpanich clan. I was informed that after our short course, at our graduation ceremony in the historic Diaoyutai State Guesthouse to be attended by top Chinese leaders, I would be asked to also make another speech on behalf of the international students. I think our gracious hosts forgot that I write my columns here in the English-language Philippine STAR, not in a Chinese-language daily! Whew!
This will probably be one of my most unforgettable summer vacations ever. I enjoy studying economics and business in the ancient capital city of the world’s fastest-growing major economy, provided by the government with an interpreter in all my classes (a master’s degree student) and brushing up on my Mandarin in an intensive language experience. The beautiful vast campus of Peking University is also located right smack at the south of the Old Summer Palace (famed for the Yuanmingyuan or "Garden of Perfection and Brightness" built by European Jesuits in the service of Emperor Kangxi but later looted and burned twice by British, French and other Western powers in the Second Opium War in 1860 and in another attack in 1900) and at the east of the existing Summer Palace.
Peking University’s sprawling gardens are so elegant, with peach and apricot blossoms and all kinds of other lush trees and flowers, and ancient architecture. Every morning before breakfast, I would take a brisk walk or jog near the Unnamed Lake or Weyming Hu. I miss my Labrador Retriever, Duchess, because it would be ideal to jog with her here daily through such greenery and the most exquisite, ancient Chinese-style landscaped gardens!
The site of this university was once a famous resort during the Ming and Qing dynasties. The school authorities were last year already planning to build a golf course here to train their business students, but only stopped the project when the news created an uproar and spawned criticism against perceived elitism in a still developing society. This university is not only cool in its ambience and diverse facilities, it is also springtime cool but sunny in weather at 10 or sometimes seven degrees centigrade right now. Whew!
When a young official of Peking University earlier told me that their institution had 30 colleges and 12 departments, 216 science research institutions and research centers, etc., I almost fell into the Never-Neverland of daydreaming (as was a habit when I was stuck in a boring class at the Ateneo). However, I woke up immediately when she mentioned that their university library is the largest of its kind in Asia and has eight million books! Wow! Can I just spend the rest of my summer classes in the delightful smorgasbord of books in that library, in the same way that one of my favorite hideaways at the Ateneo campus was the air-conditioned, quiet and well-stocked Rizal Library?
Being among so many of China’s brightest young students and also being classmates with a select group of top international young business/political/intellectual leaders from Europe, North America, Australia and Asia, this former teenager is not only humbled by the galaxies of new knowledge I have yet to learn, but I’m grateful for having discovered some secrets of how to be forever young.
Harvard University President Lawrence Summers in 2002 said in a speech at Peking University: "As I said in my inauguration speech at Harvard, our most enduring tradition is that we are forever young, forever committed to renewing ourselves. That must be the work of universities around this world." Allow me to rephrase some of his thoughts. Here, this born-again student has also learned these seemingly simple but infinitely priceless lessons  zest for life, indomitable hope, the endless capacity to dream and the pursuit of non-stop learning are the true fountains of eternal youth!