Almost everyone in college has had a roommate who slept on the top or bottom bunk. And if you were on the top bunk, congratulations—you may have already climbed the equivalent of two or three Mount Everests. Yesterday, a netizen calculated that if the top bunk is about 2 meters high, and you climb up an average of 3 to 5 times a day, you’d climb approximately 1,400 to 2,400 meters in a year. Adding the floor level of your dorm, students on the top bunk climb an average of about 4,800 meters per year, which means they could have scaled two to five Mount Everests before graduation. This Weibo post quickly garnered nearly 30,000 reposts and over 4,000 comments.
Climbing the top bunk
Climbing the height of two Everests
In a Weibo post titled “This is absolutely interesting,” a user shared a calculation showing that climbing the top bunk adds up to the height of Mount Everest. “The top bunk is about two meters high, and you climb up an average of 3 to 5 times a day. With about 8 months or roughly 240 days spent at school each year, you’d climb around 1,400 to 2,400 meters annually. Add the floor level of your dorm—taking the minimum height of 4 meters and climbing 3 times a day for 12 meters—you get about 2,880 meters per year. On average, that’s around 4,800 meters a year. Students on the top bunk can climb the equivalent of two to five Mount Everests before graduation. Those who’ve slept on the top bunk are all pretty awesome.”
Yesterday, reporters from Modern Express learned from multiple universities in Nanjing that the typical height of a top bunk ranges from 1.5 to 2 meters.
If calculated at 2 meters, based on this netizen’s formula, over four years of undergraduate study, the cumulative climbing height would be 19,200 meters—equivalent to 2.2 times the height of Mount Everest.
“So you’re actually a mountain climber too.” “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Netizens joked about their own top-bunk roommates during college.
Sleeping on the top bunk
The early bird catches the “moon”
With a top bunk about 2 meters high looming right above you, have you ever felt hopeless or helpless? Does the daily hassle of climbing up and down make you want to give up? Although Xiao Deng had stayed in dormitories during high school, she always slept on the bottom bunk. But when she first moved into her university dorm, she still struggled with the top bunk. “In the summer, right after washing my feet, climbing the ladder was especially slippery. I slipped several times and ended up with bruises all over.”
But soon, Xiao Deng found a trick. “Actually, you shouldn’t push off with the balls of your feet. You should step on the rung with the sole of your foot, then kneel onto the bed.” She also bought a pair of thin slippers specifically for going up and down the bunk.
Now, Xiao Deng is preparing for postgraduate exams and has to get up at 6:30 a.m. every day to study. The “location advantage” of the top bunk also gives her a head start. Originally, the dorm had unified power supply, and to avoid disturbing her roommates, Xiao Deng would leave the fluorescent light switch on after lights out. When the power came back on in the morning, the light would wake her up. After waking, she’d turn off the light and open the curtain slightly to get some light to tidy up her bed.
Xiao Wan, who sleeps on the bottom bunk, often gets unexpected surprises from Xiao Deng. “There are a lot of books on her bed, and those by the wall often fall down, so I just pick them up and read them.”
Remembering the top bunk
Brotherhood fondly remembered
“The brother who slept on the top bunk above me, the brother in my lonely memories, the words you carved on the wall are still clear, no one has been able to erase them since then.” The camaraderie of college roommates was movingly portrayed in the campus folk song “The Brother Who Slept on the Top Bunk Above Me.”
Xiao Hou, who studied at Nanjing University’s Pukou Campus as an undergraduate, has particularly fond memories of the brotherhood between top and bottom bunk mates. “Back then, almost every time I climbed onto the top bunk, I’d poke the student below me or kick his blanket. Sometimes, when he was asleep, I’d suddenly take a photo to mess with him.” When they first started college, the students weren’t very familiar with each other, and sometimes they’d even turn over cautiously at night. “Later on, when we got really close, we’d just shake each other awake.”
“Nowadays, the bottom bunk is all bookshelves, not as fun as it used to be.” Xiao Hou fondly reminisced.
In the undergraduate dormitories at Nanjing University’s Xianlin Campus, the design with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves connected to the beds has essentially placed all students on a “top bunk” nearly 2 meters high. This layout has also led some students to adopt a more homebody lifestyle. “In the winter, studying at the desk below is too cold, so I set up a computer desk on the bed and keep my food and drinks there,” said classmate Xiao Wang.