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New Coke posted:Jesus christ, the comments. Who are those wierd diehard recruiter defenders that keep coming out of the woodwork whenever some disgruntled ESL teacher posts something like that? Maybe they actually found a good recr....aahahahahah GuestBob posted:Regarding scams: it must be said though that it takes two to tango. Alot of good people get caught out because they assume that "large business = security" or "university = well intentioned employer with public sector values" and fail to do enough background research. Some folks, well, some folks are going to get themselves into trouble regardless of whether they they know what quotation marks do for a search function. I almost went for a bullshit university job in Harbin; I backed out when I started talking to someone else there who was talking about paying me half what the person who I initially spoke with said, and having completely different duties. The thing about lying is you have to keep your story straight. THEN I ENDED UP AT BEST LEARNING...but for all the bullshit there, at least I was making 13k a month. The language mill where I work now...we used to have a lot of good foreign teachers; but this summer the HR lady really dropped the ball despite my warning her about visa changes and how she wouldn't be able to hire FTs so easily any more. Now I'm the only full-time FT at my center, and I think one of only 5 still in the company. Classes are being taken by part-timers, most of whom aren't native English speakers (but are all white so I guess the parents are mostly fooled!) Meanwhile I've been given a lot more low-level classes. Put these two things together and something I've suspected has been rendered crystal clear: I am wasting my loving time. I am accomplishing absolutely NOTHING by teaching 5 year olds that couldn't be done at least as well by a Chinese teacher, it is all a show for the parents, who don't know poo poo about poo poo. Now the higher level classes, the ones who've been at it a couple years, yeah, maybe I'm still there just for show, maybe the school and the parents wouldn't care if it were a Finn in the classroom instead of an American, but at least I know they're able to get something from me that they can't get from a non-native speaker. The kindergarten kids, though, complete waste of time and money, the school and/or parents could easily get at least as good an education spending 2/3 as much on a good Chinese English teacher (or 1/4 as much on a green one). I need to Quit My Job.
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Jan 26, 2014 02:57
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goldboilermark posted:If you sign something, you've signed something. I don't really side with her on this issue. She may be right that this lady is taking her for a ride. If your employer is making you work illegally, they probably are, of course. Yeah, though if the document isn't legal in the first place it's not binding. Does tell you a lot (everything, really) about the intentions of the person who wrote it. I think what troubled me most about the whole thing was the apparent police corruption. The garbled posts of the people trying to defend the agent (probably her under different accounts or her employees) were pretty bad too.
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Jan 26, 2014 03:05
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Yeah I meant more in theory. You put your signature next to something, stand by it. Or don't sign it in the first place.VideoTapir posted:The kindergarten kids, though, complete waste of time and money, the school and/or parents could easily get at least as good an education spending 2/3 as much on a good Chinese English teacher (or 1/4 as much on a green one). But then they wouldn't be learning FROM A FOREIGNER!!! The Great Autismo! fucked around with this message at 03:09 on Jan 26, 2014 |
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Jan 26, 2014 03:07
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drat VideoTapir, sorry to hear about your current situation. Too bad you are not as mobile or else you can ask for a bigger raise. Honestly, employers, and teachers, and agents, and everyone else are dicks. Work problems. Bringing in some random new guy across the globe is a very risky venture. It's always a balance of work satisfaction/pay/benefits. Finding the right fit is actually pretty hard. blinkyzero posted:Yeah, though if the document isn't legal in the first place it's not binding. Does tell you a lot (everything, really) about the intentions of the person who wrote it. Pretttttttty much. Just because you signed a trade contract doesn't mean you can sell your liver. Pretty sad that back in the day Woman and slaves were considered chattel. And loan sharking? gently caress those guys, they make up whatever poo poo they can think of to guilt trip you into paying.
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Jan 26, 2014 03:16
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caberham posted:Honestly, employers, and teachers, and agents, and everyone else are dicks. Work problems. Bringing in some random new guy across the globe is a very risky venture. It's always a balance of work satisfaction/pay/benefits. Finding the right fit is actually pretty hard. Yeah, I agree. I think sometimes of your job and what you probably have to deal with -- sizing up the foreigners who want your company to make stuff for them while they're sizing you up, both of you probably thinking: are these people gonna screw us? I'd get weary of that in a hurry, if that's the reality. Pretty much the only reason we came back to China this year was the great relationship we have with our boss. He trusts us and we trust him, and that's been profitable for both parties. Sometimes he has to make a few sacrifices, sometimes we do. It all works out because nobody's trying to screw anyone over. I guess that's fairly uncommon (anywhere in the world; I've had plenty of American bosses that were just straight-up pricks), so we attach a lot of value to it.
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Jan 26, 2014 03:25
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VideoTapir posted:The language mill where I work now...we used to have a lot of good foreign teachers; but this summer the HR lady really dropped the ball despite my warning her about visa changes and how she wouldn't be able to hire FTs so easily any more. All of the problems with recruiters, agents and illegal working really begins with unqualified staff who don't know how or where to advertise a position in English and don't want to take on the responsibility for a difficult task. Much better that they pass it off to a recruiter so their rear end isn't on the line in any way. That and occasional laziness.
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Jan 26, 2014 03:34
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Goddamn let's just start the Greater Goon Language Institute: Haven of Better English Learning and Happy Laowais.
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Jan 26, 2014 03:36
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goldboilermark posted:But then they wouldn't be learning FROM A FOREIGNER!!! This is really the crux of it, and why most ESL training centers can be completely terrible institutions for actually learning the language and still make oodles of money. When I taught the big boss of my school would regularly invite me and another Chinese-speaking teacher out to banquets and parade us around as her Chinese-speaking white people in some sort of weird guanxi thing. She'd always bring a couple of white people to these dinners for whatever reason. She even referred to us as "我的老外" when she spoke to other people at the banquet. My company recently took part in a thing with a pretty large international school here. The principal of the school, a foreigner, was talking about how recently she has more Chinese students than non-Chinese, and many Chinese parents are complaining they aren't getting their tuition's worth because of their classmates predominately being Chinese.
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Jan 26, 2014 03:39
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Some of the non-native part timers don't even speak English as well as the best 3 or 4 Chinese teachers in my office. UGH. But they're mostly teaching levels low enough where it doesn't make a drat bit of difference. And at least one of the native speakers is not as good a teacher as they are. blinkyzero posted:Pretty much the only reason we came back to China this year was the great relationship we have with our boss. He trusts us and we trust him, and that's been profitable for both parties. Sometimes he has to make a few sacrifices, sometimes we do. It all works out because nobody's trying to screw anyone over. I guess that's fairly uncommon (anywhere in the world; I've had plenty of American bosses that were just straight-up pricks), so we attach a lot of value to it. Worst boss I ever had was an American, in Japan. If I hadn't had her as my boss, though, I wouldn't have come to China, and I'd therefore not have met my lovely wife (or for that matter any of the awesome Japanese people I met when I was backpacking across central Honshu between that job and China; gently caress Tokyo forever basically). I wouldn't speak as much Chinese as I do, for that matter. caberham posted:drat VideoTapir, sorry to hear about your current situation. Too bad you are not as mobile or else you can ask for a bigger raise. It's gotten a lot better since I threatened to quit (apparently I'm a bigger deal around here than I thought) and they brought in more part-timers, and I'm getting a raise. But scheduling is still generally hosed, I'm down to maybe 20+ ongoing classes that I don't see enough of instead of over 35, and the part timer situation just proved to me a bunch of poo poo that people had been telling me about the language mill industry all along. It is all a show, you do just need to be a white face with English coming out of your mouth (or in more progressive institutions, a non-Asian face; my housemates' kid has a black South African teacher); no one will object to getting more than that, but no one cares either way. If I'm not in school or back in the states this fall, goldboilermark, I think I might take you up on jumping ship to Tianjin.
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Jan 26, 2014 04:05
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VideoTapir posted:If I'm not in school or back in the states this fall, goldboilermark, I think I might take you up on jumping ship to Tianjin. I'm sorry I wasn't here to meet you when you came to Tianjin. We are opening a new center/IB international program at a local high school this fall, and this summer I think I'll be in the States for a few months doing things with some kids, but anytime you come this way and want to meet up let me know.
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Jan 26, 2014 04:27
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http://www.51labour.com/zhuanti/2007ldht/html/Pagel1-8.asp Here's a good English translation of labor law so you guys can see how many times your employers have been breaking the law (hint: a lot)
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Jan 26, 2014 04:34
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goldboilermark posted:I'm sorry I wasn't here to meet you when you came to Tianjin. We are opening a new center/IB international program at a local high school this fall, and this summer I think I'll be in the States for a few months doing things with some kids, but anytime you come this way and want to meet up let me know. I didn't go; my wife never wants to do anything, we just sat around and played video games. Not that that's a bad thing most of the time, but I can only take so much. Eh, I can't get too pissed about it right now. Her siblings are all in the same town for a few months, the first time they've ever been in one place at the same time for more than a couple days, and one is going back to Anhui soon, and another is going to Japan, so it might be a long time before she gets another chance to hang around with her family like this.
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Jan 26, 2014 05:04
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drat Handy posted:An Employer may not terminate an employment contract pursuant to Article 40 or Article 41 hereof if the Employee: This explains literally half of the security guards in China. Also, what's this "Trade Union" I keep reading about?
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Jan 26, 2014 05:05
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Arakan posted:http://www.51labour.com/zhuanti/2007ldht/html/Pagel1-8.asp Thanks for posting this, it is pretty interesting. I think it's a little premature to assume everyone's employer is breaking the law, but I am sure some of them are.
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Jan 26, 2014 05:15
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goldboilermark posted:
100% of my paycheck came from this line of thinking. Don't knock it, it got me a pretty comfortable life.
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Jan 26, 2014 05:32
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I wasn't knocking it, nor am I knocking you. I know you did a good job while you were there, you took it seriously, and every day since you left I still wish you were here buddy. I will openly mock that way of thinking, because it is absolutely idiotic, but it doesn't mean I was talking poo poo about the job or talking poo poo about you.
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Jan 26, 2014 05:41
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GuestBob posted:Also, what's this "Trade Union" I keep reading about? I guess this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-China_Federation_of_Trade_Unions Maybe we should get a bunch of foreigners together and try to join
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Jan 26, 2014 05:50
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The more I read about Rebecca Tang from ChinaESL the more I want to apply for a job with her and go to Beijing to meet her just to see what she is like in real life.
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Jan 26, 2014 06:45
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Arakan posted:Maybe we should get a bunch of foreigners together and try to join. Darling, the notion of you joining a union is just precious. goldboilermark posted:The more I read about Rebecca Tang from ChinaESL the more I want to apply for a job with her and go to Beijing to meet her just to see what she is like in real life. Do it. Wear a wire. [edit] Ugh, image formatting: http://www.acftu.org.cn/template/10002/file.jsp?cid=63&aid=156 How does it even do that? GuestBob fucked around with this message at 08:08 on Jan 26, 2014 |
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Jan 26, 2014 07:24
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Arakan posted:http://www.51labour.com/zhuanti/2007ldht/html/Pagel1-8.asp Thanks for this. Here's my favorite part The Motherfuckin' Rules posted:If an Employer uses violence, threats or unlawful restriction of personal freedom to compel a Employee to work, or if a Employee is instructed in violation of rules and regulations or peremptorily ordered by his Employer to perform dangerous operations which threaten his personal safety, the Employee may terminate his employment contract forthwith without giving prior notice to the Employer. That's what I did. I split upon my boss threatening to harm us and call the police, as well as her using threats if i didn't do overtime against my will. Hooray.
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Jan 26, 2014 10:21
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GuestBob posted:Darling, the notion of you joining a union is just precious. My cousin worked a case once that involved the ACFTU. Apparently the phrase "puppet of the CPC" doesn't adequately convey just how far the central government has its metaphorical hand up the union's metaphorical rear end.
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Jan 26, 2014 11:27
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blinkyzero posted:My cousin worked a case once that involved the ACFTU. Apparently the phrase "puppet of the CPC" doesn't adequately convey just how far the central government has its metaphorical hand up Corrected for the dictatorship of the proletariat.
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Jan 26, 2014 11:32
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I've installed this chrome plugin: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/downworthy/pkaoiecplgdldkfihclpndbakokopjde Now I get to see this: 
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Jan 27, 2014 02:23
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I forgot to center the text on all of those and it bugs me every time I see them.
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Jan 27, 2014 03:42
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bad day posted:I forgot to center the text on all of those and it bugs me every time I see them. It's okay. The subsequent posts attached to the avatars are usually worse.
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Jan 27, 2014 03:45
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blinkyzero posted:It's okay. The subsequent posts attached to the avatars are usually worse. 
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Jan 27, 2014 04:21
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Serious tourism question: Has anyone been to Tibet recently? I have a ton of vacation time after Spring Festival and I figure I should go there since I'm pretty close and Tibet seems neat. I'm wondering about those different restrictions on foreigners going there requiring special visas/guides/groups and the internet is full of conflicting information about what is/isn't required outside of that special visa. Does anyone know what the deal is right now?
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Jan 27, 2014 04:40
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I don't know. Sorry!
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Jan 27, 2014 05:01
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Magna Kaser posted:Serious tourism question: I think Magna Kaser went to Tibet once you could ask him.
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Jan 27, 2014 05:09
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Arglebargle III posted:I think Magna Kaser went to Tibet once you could ask him. No I haven't, only western Sichuan next to Tibet.
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Jan 27, 2014 06:47
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If I have a residence permit for Shanghai and am visiting the in-laws for 2 weeks over Chinese New Year, do I have to register for a temporary residence thing where I'm staying? I tried asking the locals but I don't trust their all too casual "不用"...
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Jan 28, 2014 08:09
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Calyn posted:If I have a residence permit for Shanghai and am visiting the in-laws for 2 weeks over Chinese New Year, do I have to register for a temporary residence thing where I'm staying? I tried asking the locals but I don't trust their all too casual "不用"... A Manchurian guy we know who is a U.S. citizen told us he has never reported his residence to the PSB while moving around the country in over 20 years of coming here. One of his coworkers tried to once out of some desire to be law-abiding and the police had no idea what the hell he wanted. I'd say you're okay not bothering.
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Jan 28, 2014 08:51
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It's a load of forms and hassle and after doing it two times as a good tourist, I stopped (because I ran out of passport photos)
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Jan 28, 2014 08:56
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I have some questions about customs. My 2-month trip to Suzhou for work is coming up and I have some things I need to bring with me. 1) I'm diabetic and have medications I'll need to bring - a couple of bottles of pills, insulin pens, needles, etc. From what I've read, I should just stick them in my carry-on, have a note from the doctor saying that I need them, and have their original prescription labels on them (which match the name on my passport and letter from my doctor). Is that pretty much good? Any other precaution I need to take? Additionally, could I ask my stewardess to store the insulin in a refrigerator for me for the duration of the flight? 2) I have to bring some samples for work that are used to calibrate electron microscopes - a line standard with divisions of known length, a metal standard with very small bits of pure gold, copper, iron, etc. They would all be in a box that's about 3 by 2 inches. Looking at the list of things that have to be declared by customs, it doesn't seem to fall under anything there - except for the distance standard, which is purchased from a metrology company in the US and is worth a few thousand dollars, so more than 5000RMB. Should I declare that? For the other standards (gold, copper, iron wires, gold nanospheres on a carbon planchette), would I need to have Material Safety Data Sheets for all of the components they contain or anything like that? Sorry, I know these are sort of niche questions but I was wondering if anyone had any experience as I do some googling.
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Jan 28, 2014 18:11
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Are you shipping or carrying them in? Chinese customs is usually pretty laid back; I carry prescription medicines through the airport all the time and it has never been commented on if they even noticed.
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Jan 28, 2014 18:33
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Yeah, carrying them in. Reading random comments on forums and things online seems to suggest that people go through with medications in their carry-ons all the time, sometimes they'll ask for the prescriptions and to see that the tags match but that seems to be it.
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Jan 28, 2014 18:34
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If you're not self-employed, can your company's lawyer check some of this out? Not that you can't figure it out yourself, just if the company legal says "do this" and you do it, they've pretty much got to have your back should anything go wrong. When I took prescriptions abroad, I kept some on me, and the rest in hold baggage in a box with the name of what I was taking them for, my doctor's name and address, and a copy of the prescription linking it all together. Just in case.
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Jan 28, 2014 20:02
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Customs forms often have a little box to check about carrying "samples" but I think that's more like multiple identical products for display or give-away like trade show stuff...
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Jan 28, 2014 23:16
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Yeah, that was how I read that as well. If I do declare that one sample, I basically just go through the red area instead of the green area, pull it out and show it to them and just say what it is, what I need it for, what it's worth, that kind of stuff? And maybe have to pay a tax on it?
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Jan 28, 2014 23:21
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I don't remember how to do it, since I have not for a while, but declaring it as a sample prevents you from paying taxes or duty since you will be bringing it back out with you. At least that's the idea.
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Jan 28, 2014 23:48
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