Opinion: UT life analogous to South China Sea

Opinion: UT life analogous to South China Sea


Across the world, in the South China Sea, lay eight uninhabited islands that will have a lot in common with our own UT campus in the coming months. China and Japan (and peripherally, Taiwan) have been locked in a territorial dispute over the islands since the 1970s. China claims the islands are part of their ancient heritage and have always been Chinese. The Japanese claim to have found them uninhabited. After ten years of exploration, they claimed sovereignty over them in 1895. They have different names for the little archipelago—Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. Why do they matter to the Chinese and Japanese? They offer access to key shipping routes and natural resources.

But what on earth do they have to do with life at Tennessee? If, since your arrival on campus you have tried to return to an old favorite spot, you already know. The window tables at the Golden Roast cafe have been occupied by incoming freshman "hipsters" and their parents. Sorority women inhabit most of the study rooms on campus. Your favorite corner in Hodges is a construction site, and your usual computer is now downstairs in the cold and practically silent reference room. The Class of 2015 has already said their goodbyes to Presidential Court, but little did they realize that they were the last class to eat waffles at two a.m. at Ihop. Come mid-October and the first round of tests this semester, your favorite table on the third floor of the library will likely be occupied by someone else actively Facebooking on their laptop.

Over the next few weeks, our campus community will be making adjustments similar to those which the Chinese and Japanese have been avoiding for forty years. This adjustment will be most acutely felt by the sophomore class. Last year, we had a foolproof excuse for our strange behavior. Our obnoxiously large groups carrying huge backpacks and spouting pseudo-intellectual mumbo jumbo in the Morrill cafeteria were unapologetically claiming someone else's favorite place as our own. As freshman, we were the Japanese. We found these campus corners uninhabited and claimed them as our own. Now we return as the Chinese, with a new perspective informed by our whole year of experience. Upon our return to school, those places felt like they were always ours.

So many of our memories from the last year are of our first time doing something quintessentially collegiate. It's about the moments when you realized you were finally dipping into the adult world. The first sentences of the next chapters of our lives were (melodramatically), written in those old haunts. The best way to take ownership of the new experience was to subconsciously claim space as our own—it made this campus home.

For the dispute in the East China Sea, there are plenty of activists boating to the islands to claim a series of barren rocks. Superficially, the issue is about access to key resources. The root of the dispute is an old battle for primacy between two economic powerhouses.

Since we recognize our territorial claims as sophomoric at best, at UT the role of activists is hospitality. Sure, we will return to our favorite places and reminisce with our friends. Though we might silently chastise the Class of 2016 for being overly enthusiastic, pathetically confused, or for simply just being naive, we should recognize it as their privilege. They are claiming whatever spaces we have abandoned and making them their own. Instead of working to make this campus home, this fall the rest of us have the privilege of simply returning to it. Welcome back to Rocky Top, ya'll.