Standing in his Grays common room, Bing Huang points out his roommates' new "Animal House" poster--showing dozens of actors waving their middle fingers--and gestures in disbelief. "Americans are so casual about everything," he says. "In China, we have posters to criticize, but nothing like this."

But for Bing and his two fellow freshmen from the People's Republic of China, Harvard's first undergraduates from that country, the past two months have been full of such surprises--from adjusting to the "rich" food in the Union to coping with the nonstop "commercialism" of daily life.

In particular, they have had to adjust to a student life far different from China's. In the PRC, until very recently, getting into college was an achievement limited to about 3 per cent of the population, chosen principally by a nationwide exam given to high school seniors. Students not scoring high enough were often "obliged" to take factory jobs or work on farms.

"Everyone wants high grades in China--we have very much competition," Bing says. "Every year after the scores and admissions are published, there are many incidents of suicides among high school students. The newspapers have to publish long articles to convince them that failing on the exam is nothing shameful--that there are other things in life." And once the students get to college, "the pressure's so high that some people go out of their minds."

American students, however, "are always having parties, drinking beer, and chasing girls," Bing says, adding that there are few parties at Chinese colleges like the Foreign Language Institute, which he attended for more than two years before coming here. "We were used to working on weekends to prepare for next week's exams," he recalls.

Lynn Tong, who attended high school in Brookline for a year before coming to Harvard, agrees students here are "less disciplined." But she says she "got used to the American way" and observes, "It's good that you can get friendly with teachers here. In China, you're just supposed to listen."

Bing also notes that "information is kind of stuffed into you," citing that PRC's regular "recitation contests," during which students have to recite long passages by memory. However, the independence here has made him feel occasionally "too disorganized" and "helpless." "I'm way ahead in one course, but far behind in another," he explains.

Though none regret coming here, Bing, Lynn, and Jia Chang all say the transition hasn't been easy. Bing and Jia, who have no family in the U.S., are occasionally homesick, but say calling each other and Lynn often helps. "Sometimes we have to talk Chinese--we get desperate," Bing jokes.

Despite their Harvard peers' laid-back view of academics, courses have kept all three very busy, thanks largely to language difficulties and unfamiliar "in-class terminology." Like many other freshmen, all three are taking Ec 10; Bing and Jia say they may major in Economics, while Lynn leans towards Applied Math.

Looser social norms in the U.S. have also surprised the trio. "In China, there's no sex education. Here, you start learning about it right away. I think that's too early," Lynn says, noting that premarital sex is outlawed in China.

Western "commercialism" continues to repel Bing and Jia. "It was my first impression of America, and it was not good," Bing recalls. "People are too concerned with making money. Walking down the street I feel the pressure of this commercialized society," a pressure he says is generated by advertisements and pushy salesmen. Pointing to the Union's overflowing trash bins, Jia adds, "It's criminal to waste something in China; here, they waste lots of things."

Most Americans, Bing says, have a simplistic view of the People's Republic, largely because of inaccurate media coverage. As an example, he cites a recent incident in his hometown, Beijing, where a man was tried for putting up wall posters. "The foreign correspondents called it a 'democracy war,' and he was called by American newspapers the leader of human rights in China. Most Chinese found that very outrageous--it wasn't true at all. He was just a street agitator." Bing adds, "Newspapers see China from an American point of view, and that's the worst thing they could do."

Attempts by the U.S. press "to dramatize everything," also contribute to the poor coverage, Bing says, adding that this tendency reflects the press' "commercialized motives." Lynn concurs, saying that textbooks here also offer "slanted news" about China.

The three, who insist they speak only for themselves, reserve their sharpest criticism for the Gang of Four, who controlled the Chinese Government until they were driven from power by current Premier Deng Xiao Ping in 1978. "We hate them. They made the country disunited," Jia says. Lynn, whose letters from her father in Beijing "always tell me things are getting better," also assails the Gang's repressive policies and deceptive practices.

"They were just playing games. They were going to ruin the country; they didn't know how to run things," she says. "Our history books would say a person was great one day, and suddenly change the next." For example, Lynn notes, books suddenly began to laud the country's King Ch'ing, an ancient monarch, because "the Gang of Four wanted to set up a ruler just like a king. People didn't know what was going on."