SHANGHAI, PRC --- Changes in press freedoms have come slowly as Chinese society evolves through reforms instituted in recent years.

Graduate students at Shanghai International Studies University have grown up in a country much different from that of their parents and are called the "post-1980" generation. 

They explained how their lives are different than those of their parents, who worked hard to provide a better life for them.

They and their peers at SISU are taking advantage of their good fortune to study graduate journalism. The curriculum covers theory, as opposed to practice, and involves writing thesis papers instead of news articles.  

As undergraduates, many of them majored in English at SISU. With English language skills, these Chinese journalism students are able to watch to U.S. and British media and accomplish one of their subjects that deals with the portrayal of China and Chinese media in the West. 

Lisa Li, a graduate student at SISU, said one of her assignments was to look at how Western news outlets translate certain words contained in Chinese broadcasts, such as "harmony" or "harmonious society."

She added that some of the translations are skewed to reflect the Western media bias against their Chinese peers.

For instance, Lisa said U.S. and other Western media include terms such as "official" or "state-run" and sometimes stronger terms, such as "mouthpiece" and "propaganda machine," in front of Chinese media organization titles.

"These kinds of words give Americans the impression these types of agencies are not reliable," she said. 

Li Yan, who goes by the English name Lynn, is a journalism graduate student at SISU. She said she understands that Westerners question the Chinese press and offered other insights.  

"We think the Chinese press is not very free, but actually it's more free than we think," she said.

While learning abstract concepts consumes their coursework, some of the best practical experience for graduate students such as Xu Ming, or Catherine, came from working at the school newspaper. 

Catherine, 21, served as editor of SISU's university-wide publication, the name of which directly translates to The Youngster of SISU, but is called The SISU News in English.

She said roughly 40 to 60 students work for this completely non-commercial paper, which is fully funded by the university. Published monthly, The SISU News is circulated to 3,000 student on campus, with an additional 2,000 copies sent to other universities.

Another periodical is the JC Express, the Journalism College's newspaper.  

Catherine said this paper is staffed by 60 to 100 students and sponsored by a local coffeehouse. She explained that students who work for this publication must also do PR for the coffee house, but noted that they do not cover the coffeehouse.

In contrast to The SISU News, which exclusively covers campus news, the JC Express covers a great of news from other universities--- there are seven other schools in the area. 

Like most newspapers, The SISU News has a news, opinion and entertainment/culture sections.

One noticeably absent section is sports, though the university does have teams, such as baseball, which won first place for the sixth time. Catherine said their coverage of this went in the news section. 

She and other students attributed the lack of sports section to the low number of male students at SISU.

"Some classes don't have a boy at all. I think the biggest ratio is 1-to-1," Catherine said, estimating the typical ratio is usually the ratio 5-to-1 or 4-to-1. "Male students are very precious at SISU." 

A similar situation is present at the Communication University of China, which is touted as the preeminent journalism school in the country. One graduate class of Professor Wushuiping had a ratio of about 8-to-1.

At CUC, besides working the school paper, much of their practical experience comes from internships, which many students do in their second of three years in graduate school. 

Students at both universities, when meeting with students from the U.S., were interested in similar topics. For example, they interested in what American students think about China, Chinese media, how China is covered in the U.S. and what Americans know about China versus what Chinese know about them.

Out of these two classes, some expressed a desire in visiting the United States, either to work or simply see the country. While California was high on the list, other destinations of interest include Utah (because one student has friends there), Michigan (for the Great Lakes) and Louisiana.

Though Chinese journalism students study the U.S. and Western media, they question why the same is not true of their American peers. Perhaps more American students should visit China and tell them why.