Students return to campus with PCs
( 2002-09-04 10:11 ) (8 )

A personal computer becomes an indispensable part of their luggage when large number of college students returns to campus in Nanjing at the beginning of September.

According to railway authority over 1,000 computers have been consigned daily at a station in Nanjing, capital city of east China's Jiangsu Province, since students began returning to Nanjing-based colleges and universities in late August.

In addition, many students have carried their computers with them during the entire train trip to avoid potential damage, said a source within the station.

While some students have brought their newly-purchased PCs to school, others are returning to school with their computers which they had taken home for the vacation.

"It was not easy to carry the two heavy cartons all the way to Nanjing," said a student who gave his name as Hu, "But it's worthwhile. A computer is very useful in campus life, both for schoolwork and entertainment."

Hu's Pentium 4 was purchased in his hometown of Kunshan City, an industrial powerhouse in east China's Jiangsu Province, where overseas-funded high-tech enterprises abound.

"Actually my parents suggested I keep this one at school and buy a new one for home, but I'm so used to it that I'd rather take it back and forth each time I have a long vacation," he said.

Likewise, Xu, a student from south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, has returned from a trip home with his computer at his side.

Xu said that, from the time he gathered enough money last to assemble a computer in Nanjing, he had dreamed of taking his computer home to show his parents and teaching his teenage sister some basics. "We live in a remote mountainous area where no one has ever seen a computer before," he said, "Besides, I was the only one in my village to enter college in years."

Throughout the summer, Xu's house was crowded with villagers eager to see what a computer was like and how it worked. "Some even came from the other side of the mountain to see the novelty," he said