You may wonder why I work so hard for the students here in China - well, I do know some of them work very hard AND life is not piece of pie in the dorms either.  From today's Shanghai Daily English newspaper:

City students risk fires rather than freezings

Created: 2008-12-15, Author:Liang Yiwen and Paul Traynor, Shanghai Daily

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2008/200812/20081215/article_384481.htm

AS the temperature falls, desperate university students are using banned appliances like electric blankets and electric hot-water bottles to keep warm on campus.

Some bring electric rice-cookers or electric stoves into their rooms to make porridge or hot-pot to help them warm up.

While the fire that killed four students in the Shanghai Business School last month has made some students abandon these appliances, others are still using them.

The fire started in their dormitory, near Zhongshan Road W., close to the Shanghai Stadium. The four students fell from a balcony as they tried to escape the flames.

Electric hair dryers, hair straighteners and electric water heaters of the kind that triggered last month's fire have once again become popular among students with the arrival of the cold weather.

Local schools have increased checks on banned electrical appliances after the tragedy, but students can always find ways of hiding them.

Hannah Yu, a student at the Shanghai International Studies University, told Shanghai Daily that she, along with many of her classmates, uses forbidden electric appliances to keep warm.

Shanghai Daily visited some stores near her school campus and found the banned appliances were all selling well. Shop owners said sales had not been affected by the fatal fire and were as good as ever for winter.

Street vendors are also doing good business selling appliances to students. The price and appearance of the appliances are the most important concerns for the students - only a minority care about the quality certificate.

Much cheaper

An electric hot-water bottle can be picked up from street vendors for about 10 yuan (US$1.46), considerably cheaper than the 30-yuan price tag for the cheapest hot-water bottles in supermarkets.

However, supermarkets usually offer guarantees with their products whereas street vendors do not, making quality hard to confirm.

"I bought one over a year ago from a street vendor and it exploded," said Yu. Most students are aware of the dangers of the banned appliances and do not want to violate school regulations. But they said they need them because the temperature in their rooms is unbearable, especially those facing the north.

"There is no air conditioning in our dorms," Yu said. "When we're working at night, we need to use heaters."

She said many students use banned appliances to boil water because their dorms only supply hot water for eight hours a day, with none available at night.

"There is no hot-water machine in our building, so after the doors are locked at 11pm you have to use something if you want to get hot water," she said.

Though schools have repeatedly asked students not to use the appliances and have stepped up dorm checks, the persistence of their use may lead local schools and colleges to take other measures.

"The dorm buildings were all built decades ago," said a teacher surnamed Shao, who is in charge of logistic services at Fudan University. "What students expect from their dorm is changing as people's quality of life at home improves."

She said the electric wiring in the old dormitories was installed decades ago and could not handle large loads of electricity and this adds to the danger.

She also told Shanghai Daily that circuits are hard to replace and there is little time available to renovate buildings because all the dormitories are full