Day 1

On the first day, we arrived at camp at around 12 pm in the afternoon meeting our new instructors and meeting my fellow recruits. Almost right after arriving we were commanded to change our clothes and figure out our dorm rooms and we had 30 minutes to change, wear our combat boots and choose our beds. We lived in a very small room which was the same size as my bedroom with 4 bunk beds cramped inside. And the first roll call came and we were taken to the front of the dorms and we got sorted by height and had to remember our positions and start marching forwards to the canteen and  were told that if anyone talked, everyone would stand up and eat; if it happens again- we would have to stop eating and we would go march outside again. But they had more orders-to shout out a slogan  ：军井未掘、将不言渴；军灶未开，将不言饿；雨不披蓑，雪不穿裘；将士冷暖永记我心！

Which translates to: 
‘Before the army well is made, we don’t talk about being thirsty; before the army fire is lit, we don’t talk about being hungry.
In the rain I wear no straw raincoat; in the snow I wear no fur coat; the cold and warmth of the soldiers are forever kept in my heart!’

Lunch tasted good for military standards and after eating we were taken to our first activity we went to our running track across the entire campus where we did some “team bonding” activities where we did some races in teams and did some standing still (T-T) staring into one of our colleagues’ eyes, and if anyone laughed, they added time…5 minutes of standing became 45 minutes !

The rest of the day was very uneventful as it started raining so we went back to the dorms and sat in the corridors and sang some war songs. We were also taken dorm by dorm to learn how to fold out blankets perfectly into cubes and how to set up our luggage and then we went to shower which was awkward as our dorm had to wash together and sleep.

Overall I enjoyed the disciplined life of soldiers, it was like a fire was lit in me; I quite felt like a soldier myself!