Taiwan Number 1

The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > Taiwan Number 1

mrbotus: Apr 7, 2009; Patron of the Pants

The Great Autismo! posted:

instead of poorly made in china, we should write poorly educated in china

i have to deal with parents a lot more, which is even more infuriating, because they are under the impression that because they are paying for the service, they are the ones that should be making the final decision, and that doesn't work well when they've already decided what the final decision is going to be before they even listen to you. for example, take kid A, who showed up at our company in July after they graduated HS. they had bombed the gaokao, so the parents decided to send the kid to the states, because they thought it would be easier. i don't know why parents think that the USA will be easier than China, considering American universities are in a foreign language for starters, and require a different skill set that kids in china don't get a lot of experience with. either way, i met with the kid, gave him the run through, and suggested he take two years of foundation classes and meetings every day, and then if he wanted to do a year of college classes before he went to the usa, we could probably get 4 or 5 AP exams done. and the mom was like "well, he needs to go next year", and i said "we could probably find some bum college for him to attend next year, but he won't be ready, and he won't have the foundation to be successful" more or less, and the mom was like "well he really needs to go next year" and i later found out that the kid's parents had told everyone he was going to the usa this year, to a top 20 college, so he was going to hide at our center and get prepared before he left.

so the kid worked his rear end off, and got into cal-santa cruz and iowa and michigan state, not bad schools but not what his parents wanted. he ultimately chose IU and went to IU next fall. less than two months later, i went out to the nice hot pot restaurant and i saw the kid there, he was working as a waiter. and he was like "you can't tell anyone I'm back" and i was like "dude wtf" and he was like "the classes were so hard i was failing all of them, i didn't understand anything" which is like the least surprising thing in the world if you knew his level and where he was in the educational scope of his development. it's the last time i ever saw the kid, which is a shame because he was cool, but like, if his parents had been like "ok, two years of foundation sounds great, let's do that", the kid probably could have gotten into like berkeley or michigan or something and been ready to go and get a good education, instead they were like "we told people he was successful and already going to a great school, so he has to go ASAP, so just find one for us, that way, he goes abroad, so that's a success"

i've had stories like this time and time and time and time again. it's happened so much it isn't even remotely surprising.

the very idea of getting the kid abroad is like the end of the success. my kid has left china, therefore, he is successful. it's not "my kid is going to the united states to succeed in college and get a world class education", it's "my kid has gone to the united states, so he's succeed". it's weird. i try to explain this to people and they just don't get it. like the idea of failing out of college in the united states never cross anyone's mind. i guess that's because people don't fail out of chinese colleges, in china the high school and the gaokao are the super difficult part, and the colleges are a joke. it's a bit different in the USA, but a lot of parents don't care or even bother to think that things may be vastly different in the USA. the kids usually get it. the parents are embarrassingly clueless.

A lot of people in China I've talked to seem to think life in America is nice and easy. They also seem to think school is easy because we don't do mindless drilling in our own schools. Even in America schools I was routinely told how stupid, pathetic and lazy we American students were compared to the superior Chinese/Japanese students studied AAALLLL day and took SOOOO many tests, blah blah. Maybe they were told the same thing and believed it?

# ? Dec 30, 2016 15:40

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# ? May 14, 2024 03:54

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

In my experience they all believe that Chinese school is much more difficult and the easy path is going to the US. In my observations Chinese high school is a ton of hours but easier than American schools as long as you can memorize well. Chinese university is a complete joke.

It's extremely common for parents to think "my kid is a bad student so he should go to school in the US or Canada since that'll be easier" which there aren't enough :psyduck:

s in the world for. The bad students tend to also, y'know, not speak a goddamn word of English so I have no idea what they think is going to happen? I guess they just assume that US universities are guaranteed graduation with zero work like Chinese ones? And they refuse to believe us, the teachers who all went to American universities and therefore actually have a lot of knowledge with how they work.

The American universities don't help either. They're happy to fleece the Chinese out of as much money as they can. Sure, send your kid over and let us drain your wallet for six years before we boot him out without graduating. What's the downside?

It's bizarre that so many of them, parents and students alike, think we're all idiots yet will spend literal hundreds of thousands of dollars to be educated by us, the idiots.

# ? Dec 30, 2016 15:45

Outrail: Jan 4, 2009; www.sapphicrobotica.com

ladron posted:

go to korea they are so kind and have four seasons

also

*That Simpsons episode with an assembley line worker coughing into a box*

# ? Dec 30, 2016 15:54

Atlas Hugged: Mar 12, 2007; Put your arms around me,
fiddly digits, itchy britches
I love you all

I have some friends who work in the international schools out here and it's a similar story. The schools pride themselves on being able to say they send students to universities in the United States and UK. They call themselves college prep schools, but the teachers that they're really college entrance prep since nothing they do actually prepares students for the reality of life in a foreign country or what a western university is like.

# ? Dec 30, 2016 16:01

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

I do my best. I will say we have some success. Last year's graduating class are all adjusting and doing pretty well, they were good kids anyway. I get occasional messages from a former students saying we actually helped them a lot.

Probably the single most valuable thing we do is writing practice. Going into a US university with zero experience ever writing an essay would be killer, at least with our school they've gotten three years of us hammering it into them so they aren't completely unprepared.

# ? Dec 30, 2016 16:05

Haier: Aug 10, 2007; by Lowtax

Not really sure what's going on with that facial decoration.

# ? Dec 30, 2016 17:40

Universe Master: Jun 20, 2005; Darn Fine Pie

Haier posted:

Not really sure what's going on with that facial decoration.

Look, the Silver Surfer was a little too excited that time; normally he has more control.

# ? Dec 30, 2016 17:54

Pirate Radar: Apr 18, 2008; You're not my Ruthie!
You're not my Debbie!
You're not my Sherry!

Atlas Hugged posted:

I have some friends who work in the international schools out here and it's a similar story. The schools pride themselves on being able to say they send students to universities in the United States and UK. They call themselves college prep schools, but the teachers that they're really college entrance prep since nothing they do actually prepares students for the reality of life in a foreign country or what a western university is like.

This even goes for some of the international schools here, but the bigger name ones are solid, and some of the smaller ones are too. It's hit and miss.

# ? Dec 30, 2016 18:01

Blistex: Oct 30, 2003; Macho Business
Donkey Wrestler

This last page has triggered me pretty hard, as I can relate to all of the educations/prep stories and hitting your head against a brick wall when it comes to trying to explain how things work in western education.

Teaching the Teachers to - Essay Boogaloo: At the place I worked at in China I got farmed out to a lot of high-schools for bonus pay, and occasionally to adult education centres as well. My absolute worst experience was having to sit down with the entire English department of a high school ~15 teachers and give them a lesson (actually teach the teachers) how to do an essay. The principal's son went to the US and told him that he was woefully unprepared for writing essays. While his spelling was great, as was his grammar, his essay structure and ability to make points and explain them was pretty weak, and he thought that the kids from his dad's high school should be better prepared if they were thinking of going. The principal and his son were some sort of mutants, because they both freely admitted that kids were not being prepared for overseas education by the Chinese system, and the knew that something should be done about it.

Emperor Palpatine's voice: (this is where you see the full power of face culture)

So I've been contacted through my boss, by this school to get their English teachers up to snuff when it comes to creating lake high school to early university level essays (not full on research papers). I haggle with the principal over the price and number of classes, and get him to agree on 4 one-hour classes, for ~800 RMB per hour (I think it was 70RMB per teacher per hour that I sold him on). So for the next week I'm getting my stuff ready. I have created about an hour of PPT content to show them over the 4 classed, I have handouts, I have tons of good/bad examples, common grammar and spelling issues, lessons on sources, persuasive and research essays, . . . suffice it to say, I was well prepared, and had created a total of 4 hours of content that was not only informative, but also engaging as it had lots of cool multimedia examples (videos, pictures, slides, etc) and even group activities.

Day #1: I open with an introduction, start talking about foreign University requirements and expectations, how there are slight differences between the Chinese and Western ways of writing papers (all put very diplomatically to prevent face loss) and then I boot up the PPT. 3 Seconds after I load it up, hands start shooting up. Three people ask me for the complete print-out of my PPT. I assume they probably have vision issues, and ask if anyone else wants a print-out. Everyone's hands shoot up so I sent the secretary who was there to assist me to print out 12 copies from my USB drive.

I continue the presentation, and start moving into basic essay structure. Right away two teachers decide that I'm wrong about how the essay should be structured (Intro, body, conclusion) and there is a 10 minute derail. I'm explaining that there is literally no other way to do this, and it is even exactly how Chinese students write essays., but these two guys have already decided that this is where they get their face back. The powerpoints arrive, and I say we will take a 10 minute break so that everyone can get their copy, and some of them can use the bathrooms/get a smoke. When the ten minutes are up, half of the teachers are gone. I wait 5 minutes and continue on without them. After the end of the first hour's presentation, I've already figured out who is going to actually listen and learn (4 female teachers, the only female teachers). The male teachers have gotten too butthurt from face-loss that they have either skipped, or decided to outright cause trouble the whole time or ignore me.

Day #2: I start class with 3 students. I wait 10 minutes and nobody else shows. I talk to the principal, and he calls the rest of English teachers to come back to the class. He berates them for not coming, and asks them why they did not show. They respond that they have a full print-out of my PPT presentation, so there is no reason to come. I point out that there is only 1 hour of PPT content for 4 hours of class, so they will only be getting (at best) 1/4 of the content. At this moment one of the teachers decides to play his ace and tells the principal that his son is enrolled in a US university, so he obviously knows how to teach essays, and does not need to be here. The principal accepts this, as denying him would be much face loss for himself and the teacher. I continue the lecture and start moving into some source validity (trustworthy) exercises that are structured as an interactive Jeopardy style game on the smart board. I split the class into two groups (left and right side of the class) and we play the game. There has intentionally no score keeping mechanism (I didn't want more face loss) and everyone is having a blast. The game takes about 10 minutes, and they are actually doing really well on it. At the end I congratulate them on being able to very accurately tell which sources are appropriate and which ones are not. One of the guys gets up and walks out. Later I found out he was mad because his team had lost (he was not the only one keeping score in his head apparently).

Day 3: The guy who walked out the day before can never come back, as there would be too much additional face loss. Not only did he lose the game (his team), but he walked out in front of everyone, so coming back would admit that he was wrong about walking out. Even the principal could not intervene, as that would be an unacceptable amount of face loss for his teacher. I continue the presentation, and start handing out bad examples of essays. It's just the first page of an MLA style essay, and I gave everyone yellow highlighters so they could point out all of the obvious mistakes I inserted into the first page. After 4 minutes we took it up and half-way through what should have been a 10 minute review (talking about all of the mistakes, and how to correct them, and why they are wrong) the teacher points out that "colour" has a "u" in it. I explain that "colour" has a "u" in it, and that the US is the only place which doesn't use a "u" in it, but every university in Canada and the US will accept either spelling.

Cue a 15 minute derail, where one of the male teachers exclaims, "he's not even teaching us English, he's teaching us some sort of weird dialect, he is WRONG!!!!!" (+15 face points). I explained the history of the spelling differences, and explained that the letter "u" in something like 10 words was literally the only difference in spelling between US and rest of the world English, and just because I added a "u" to the word colour, doesn't mean that the previous 2.75 hours of instruction are all now moot. The principal allowed him and two other male teachers to be excused from the rest of the class and the last one the next day because they could not accept learning some someone who doesn't even know English.

Day 4: I actively ignore every remaining male student in the class and have the 4 female teachers sit in a semi-circle with me and we continue on with the lesson. Half way through the lesson, I reach the point where I assign them each to make a 2 page English essay on a topic of their choosing. They all pick really formal topics, and I tell them to stop, and think of something fun that they enjoy doing. They all mention a hobby or skill, and I tell them to write a persuasive essay on those topics. (because they can't very well copy and paste a wiki article on why they love cooking with their grandma, or planning a vacation to Australia). I also tell them that every completed essay that has no copying, and meets all of the requirements will earn them a prize. They all "ooohhhh", and get to work. The remaining 2 guys hear about the prize, and insist on doing an essay. I say, "whatever" and tell them it's due tomorrow at that same time that class would have started. (I pick up my red envelope which was supposed to be around 3,400 RMB, but contains 4,000 and a letter of apology from the principal).

Day 5: Technically there is no class, and I didn't have to show up, but I was interested in seeing how the teachers did on their essays. The 4 female teachers made pretty decent essays. There were a few awkward sentences which I pointed out to them, and showed them how to avoid them in the future. They were very appreciative, and I gave each of them a light knit scarf and some face cream that I had picked up in Korea a few months earlier. They were shocked, and squealed with delight. The two male teacher was now just the one, as the other didn't bother to write anything. The male teacher hands me his essay, and without looking at it I take my highlighter and strike a random sentence with it. He looks confused, and I turn to my laptop and start typing that sentence into google. He grabs his essay and walks out. The girls asked what his present was going to be, and I told them I never bothered bringing him one because I knew what was going to happen. After about 6 words google (and g-ladder) were already pointing to a wiki article as their first results. The girls asked how I knew, and I pointed to the first paragraph with had 3 or 4 examples of Wikipedia citation in it. (ex. [7][8][Note 1])

That was the first and last time I ever tried teaching teachers in China.

# ? Dec 30, 2016 19:32

Power Khan: Aug 20, 2011; by Fritz the Horse

Keep em coming!

# ? Dec 30, 2016 19:46

crazy cloud: Nov 7, 2012; by Cyrano4747; Lipstick Apathy

Blistex posted:

This last page has triggered me pretty hard, as I can relate to all of the educations/prep stories and hitting your head against a brick wall when it comes to trying to explain how things work in western education.

Teaching the Teachers to - Essay Boogaloo: At the place I worked at in China I got farmed out to a lot of high-schools for bonus pay, and occasionally to adult education centres as well. My absolute worst experience was having to sit down with the entire English department of a high school ~15 teachers and give them a lesson (actually teach the teachers) how to do an essay. The principal's son went to the US and told him that he was woefully unprepared for writing essays. While his spelling was great, as was his grammar, his essay structure and ability to make points and explain them was pretty weak, and he thought that the kids from his dad's high school should be better prepared if they were thinking of going. The principal and his son were some sort of mutants, because they both freely admitted that kids were not being prepared for overseas education by the Chinese system, and the knew that something should be done about it.

Emperor Palpatine's voice: (this is where you see the full power of face culture)

So I've been contacted through my boss, by this school to get their English teachers up to snuff when it comes to creating lake high school to early university level essays (not full on research papers). I haggle with the principal over the price and number of classes, and get him to agree on 4 one-hour classes, for ~800 RMB per hour (I think it was 70RMB per teacher per hour that I sold him on). So for the next week I'm getting my stuff ready. I have created about an hour of PPT content to show them over the 4 classed, I have handouts, I have tons of good/bad examples, common grammar and spelling issues, lessons on sources, persuasive and research essays, . . . suffice it to say, I was well prepared, and had created a total of 4 hours of content that was not only informative, but also engaging as it had lots of cool multimedia examples (videos, pictures, slides, etc) and even group activities.

Day #1: I open with an introduction, start talking about foreign University requirements and expectations, how there are slight differences between the Chinese and Western ways of writing papers (all put very diplomatically to prevent face loss) and then I boot up the PPT. 3 Seconds after I load it up, hands start shooting up. Three people ask me for the complete print-out of my PPT. I assume they probably have vision issues, and ask if anyone else wants a print-out. Everyone's hands shoot up so I sent the secretary who was there to assist me to print out 12 copies from my USB drive.

I continue the presentation, and start moving into basic essay structure. Right away two teachers decide that I'm wrong about how the essay should be structured (Intro, body, conclusion) and there is a 10 minute derail. I'm explaining that there is literally no other way to do this, and it is even exactly how Chinese students write essays., but these two guys have already decided that this is where they get their face back. The powerpoints arrive, and I say we will take a 10 minute break so that everyone can get their copy, and some of them can use the bathrooms/get a smoke. When the ten minutes are up, half of the teachers are gone. I wait 5 minutes and continue on without them. After the end of the first hour's presentation, I've already figured out who is going to actually listen and learn (4 female teachers, the only female teachers). The male teachers have gotten too butthurt from face-loss that they have either skipped, or decided to outright cause trouble the whole time or ignore me.

Day #2: I start class with 3 students. I wait 10 minutes and nobody else shows. I talk to the principal, and he calls the rest of English teachers to come back to the class. He berates them for not coming, and asks them why they did not show. They respond that they have a full print-out of my PPT presentation, so there is no reason to come. I point out that there is only 1 hour of PPT content for 4 hours of class, so they will only be getting (at best) 1/4 of the content. At this moment one of the teachers decides to play his ace and tells the principal that his son is enrolled in a US university, so he obviously knows how to teach essays, and does not need to be here. The principal accepts this, as denying him would be much face loss for himself and the teacher. I continue the lecture and start moving into some source validity (trustworthy) exercises that are structured as an interactive Jeopardy style game on the smart board. I split the class into two groups (left and right side of the class) and we play the game. There has intentionally no score keeping mechanism (I didn't want more face loss) and everyone is having a blast. The game takes about 10 minutes, and they are actually doing really well on it. At the end I congratulate them on being able to very accurately tell which sources are appropriate and which ones are not. One of the guys gets up and walks out. Later I found out he was mad because his team had lost (he was not the only one keeping score in his head apparently).

Day 3: The guy who walked out the day before can never come back, as there would be too much additional face loss. Not only did he lose the game (his team), but he walked out in front of everyone, so coming back would admit that he was wrong about walking out. Even the principal could not intervene, as that would be an unacceptable amount of face loss for his teacher. I continue the presentation, and start handing out bad examples of essays. It's just the first page of an MLA style essay, and I gave everyone yellow highlighters so they could point out all of the obvious mistakes I inserted into the first page. After 4 minutes we took it up and half-way through what should have been a 10 minute review (talking about all of the mistakes, and how to correct them, and why they are wrong) the teacher points out that "colour" has a "u" in it. I explain that "colour" has a "u" in it, and that the US is the only place which doesn't use a "u" in it, but every university in Canada and the US will accept either spelling.

Cue a 15 minute derail, where one of the male teachers exclaims, "he's not even teaching us English, he's teaching us some sort of weird dialect, he is WRONG!!!!!" (+15 face points). I explained the history of the spelling differences, and explained that the letter "u" in something like 10 words was literally the only difference in spelling between US and rest of the world English, and just because I added a "u" to the word colour, doesn't mean that the previous 2.75 hours of instruction are all now moot. The principal allowed him and two other male teachers to be excused from the rest of the class and the last one the next day because they could not accept learning some someone who doesn't even know English.

Day 4: I actively ignore every remaining male student in the class and have the 4 female teachers sit in a semi-circle with me and we continue on with the lesson. Half way through the lesson, I reach the point where I assign them each to make a 2 page English essay on a topic of their choosing. They all pick really formal topics, and I tell them to stop, and think of something fun that they enjoy doing. They all mention a hobby or skill, and I tell them to write a persuasive essay on those topics. (because they can't very well copy and paste a wiki article on why they love cooking with their grandma, or planning a vacation to Australia). I also tell them that every completed essay that has no copying, and meets all of the requirements will earn them a prize. They all "ooohhhh", and get to work. The remaining 2 guys hear about the prize, and insist on doing an essay. I say, "whatever" and tell them it's due tomorrow at that same time that class would have started. (I pick up my red envelope which was supposed to be around 3,400 RMB, but contains 4,000 and a letter of apology from the principal).

Day 5: Technically there is no class, and I didn't have to show up, but I was interested in seeing how the teachers did on their essays. The 4 female teachers made pretty decent essays. There were a few awkward sentences which I pointed out to them, and showed them how to avoid them in the future. They were very appreciative, and I gave each of them a light knit scarf and some face cream that I had picked up in Korea a few months earlier. They were shocked, and squealed with delight. The two male teacher was now just the one, as the other didn't bother to write anything. The male teacher hands me his essay, and without looking at it I take my highlighter and strike a random sentence with it. He looks confused, and I turn to my laptop and start typing that sentence into google. He grabs his essay and walks out. The girls asked what his present was going to be, and I told them I never bothered bringing him one because I knew what was going to happen. After about 6 words google (and g-ladder) were already pointing to a wiki article as their first results. The girls asked how I knew, and I pointed to the first paragraph with had 3 or 4 examples of Wikipedia citation in it. (ex. [7][8][Note 1])

That was the first and last time I ever tried teaching teachers in China.

lol this is a wonderful story wonderfully told tyvm

# ? Dec 30, 2016 20:08

raton: Jul 28, 2003; by FactsAreUseless

When I first got to China I offered to teach a class about English poetry to the Chinese English teachers and the first day they showed up and demanded I change the topic of the class to something more useful. I told them I would consider it and never scheduled a second class.

# ? Dec 30, 2016 20:14

Invisible Handjob: Apr 7, 2002; by FactsAreUseless

surprisingly that principal sounds pretty chill, the rest of the story was not surprising but still funny

# ? Dec 30, 2016 20:23

The Great Autismo!: Mar 3, 2007; by Fluffdaddy

Blistex posted:

This last page has triggered me pretty hard, as I can relate to all of the educations/prep stories and hitting your head against a brick wall when it comes to trying to explain how things work in western education.

Teaching the Teachers to - Essay Boogaloo: At the place I worked at in China I got farmed out to a lot of high-schools for bonus pay, and occasionally to adult education centres as well. My absolute worst experience was having to sit down with the entire English department of a high school ~15 teachers and give them a lesson (actually teach the teachers) how to do an essay. The principal's son went to the US and told him that he was woefully unprepared for writing essays. While his spelling was great, as was his grammar, his essay structure and ability to make points and explain them was pretty weak, and he thought that the kids from his dad's high school should be better prepared if they were thinking of going. The principal and his son were some sort of mutants, because they both freely admitted that kids were not being prepared for overseas education by the Chinese system, and the knew that something should be done about it.

Emperor Palpatine's voice: (this is where you see the full power of face culture)

So I've been contacted through my boss, by this school to get their English teachers up to snuff when it comes to creating lake high school to early university level essays (not full on research papers). I haggle with the principal over the price and number of classes, and get him to agree on 4 one-hour classes, for ~800 RMB per hour (I think it was 70RMB per teacher per hour that I sold him on). So for the next week I'm getting my stuff ready. I have created about an hour of PPT content to show them over the 4 classed, I have handouts, I have tons of good/bad examples, common grammar and spelling issues, lessons on sources, persuasive and research essays, . . . suffice it to say, I was well prepared, and had created a total of 4 hours of content that was not only informative, but also engaging as it had lots of cool multimedia examples (videos, pictures, slides, etc) and even group activities.

Day #1: I open with an introduction, start talking about foreign University requirements and expectations, how there are slight differences between the Chinese and Western ways of writing papers (all put very diplomatically to prevent face loss) and then I boot up the PPT. 3 Seconds after I load it up, hands start shooting up. Three people ask me for the complete print-out of my PPT. I assume they probably have vision issues, and ask if anyone else wants a print-out. Everyone's hands shoot up so I sent the secretary who was there to assist me to print out 12 copies from my USB drive.

I continue the presentation, and start moving into basic essay structure. Right away two teachers decide that I'm wrong about how the essay should be structured (Intro, body, conclusion) and there is a 10 minute derail. I'm explaining that there is literally no other way to do this, and it is even exactly how Chinese students write essays., but these two guys have already decided that this is where they get their face back. The powerpoints arrive, and I say we will take a 10 minute break so that everyone can get their copy, and some of them can use the bathrooms/get a smoke. When the ten minutes are up, half of the teachers are gone. I wait 5 minutes and continue on without them. After the end of the first hour's presentation, I've already figured out who is going to actually listen and learn (4 female teachers, the only female teachers). The male teachers have gotten too butthurt from face-loss that they have either skipped, or decided to outright cause trouble the whole time or ignore me.

Day #2: I start class with 3 students. I wait 10 minutes and nobody else shows. I talk to the principal, and he calls the rest of English teachers to come back to the class. He berates them for not coming, and asks them why they did not show. They respond that they have a full print-out of my PPT presentation, so there is no reason to come. I point out that there is only 1 hour of PPT content for 4 hours of class, so they will only be getting (at best) 1/4 of the content. At this moment one of the teachers decides to play his ace and tells the principal that his son is enrolled in a US university, so he obviously knows how to teach essays, and does not need to be here. The principal accepts this, as denying him would be much face loss for himself and the teacher. I continue the lecture and start moving into some source validity (trustworthy) exercises that are structured as an interactive Jeopardy style game on the smart board. I split the class into two groups (left and right side of the class) and we play the game. There has intentionally no score keeping mechanism (I didn't want more face loss) and everyone is having a blast. The game takes about 10 minutes, and they are actually doing really well on it. At the end I congratulate them on being able to very accurately tell which sources are appropriate and which ones are not. One of the guys gets up and walks out. Later I found out he was mad because his team had lost (he was not the only one keeping score in his head apparently).

Day 3: The guy who walked out the day before can never come back, as there would be too much additional face loss. Not only did he lose the game (his team), but he walked out in front of everyone, so coming back would admit that he was wrong about walking out. Even the principal could not intervene, as that would be an unacceptable amount of face loss for his teacher. I continue the presentation, and start handing out bad examples of essays. It's just the first page of an MLA style essay, and I gave everyone yellow highlighters so they could point out all of the obvious mistakes I inserted into the first page. After 4 minutes we took it up and half-way through what should have been a 10 minute review (talking about all of the mistakes, and how to correct them, and why they are wrong) the teacher points out that "colour" has a "u" in it. I explain that "colour" has a "u" in it, and that the US is the only place which doesn't use a "u" in it, but every university in Canada and the US will accept either spelling.

Cue a 15 minute derail, where one of the male teachers exclaims, "he's not even teaching us English, he's teaching us some sort of weird dialect, he is WRONG!!!!!" (+15 face points). I explained the history of the spelling differences, and explained that the letter "u" in something like 10 words was literally the only difference in spelling between US and rest of the world English, and just because I added a "u" to the word colour, doesn't mean that the previous 2.75 hours of instruction are all now moot. The principal allowed him and two other male teachers to be excused from the rest of the class and the last one the next day because they could not accept learning some someone who doesn't even know English.

Day 4: I actively ignore every remaining male student in the class and have the 4 female teachers sit in a semi-circle with me and we continue on with the lesson. Half way through the lesson, I reach the point where I assign them each to make a 2 page English essay on a topic of their choosing. They all pick really formal topics, and I tell them to stop, and think of something fun that they enjoy doing. They all mention a hobby or skill, and I tell them to write a persuasive essay on those topics. (because they can't very well copy and paste a wiki article on why they love cooking with their grandma, or planning a vacation to Australia). I also tell them that every completed essay that has no copying, and meets all of the requirements will earn them a prize. They all "ooohhhh", and get to work. The remaining 2 guys hear about the prize, and insist on doing an essay. I say, "whatever" and tell them it's due tomorrow at that same time that class would have started. (I pick up my red envelope which was supposed to be around 3,400 RMB, but contains 4,000 and a letter of apology from the principal).

Day 5: Technically there is no class, and I didn't have to show up, but I was interested in seeing how the teachers did on their essays. The 4 female teachers made pretty decent essays. There were a few awkward sentences which I pointed out to them, and showed them how to avoid them in the future. They were very appreciative, and I gave each of them a light knit scarf and some face cream that I had picked up in Korea a few months earlier. They were shocked, and squealed with delight. The two male teacher was now just the one, as the other didn't bother to write anything. The male teacher hands me his essay, and without looking at it I take my highlighter and strike a random sentence with it. He looks confused, and I turn to my laptop and start typing that sentence into google. He grabs his essay and walks out. The girls asked what his present was going to be, and I told them I never bothered bringing him one because I knew what was going to happen. After about 6 words google (and g-ladder) were already pointing to a wiki article as their first results. The girls asked how I knew, and I pointed to the first paragraph with had 3 or 4 examples of Wikipedia citation in it. (ex. [7][8][Note 1])

That was the first and last time I ever tried teaching teachers in China.

When people say China is a nation of literal children, this is the type of thing they are referring to

# ? Dec 30, 2016 21:18

Dissapointed Owl: Jan 30, 2008; You wrote me a letter,
and this is how it went:

Blistex posted:

Teaching the Teachers to - Essay Boogaloo:

That was the first and last time I ever tried teaching teachers in China.

Amazing.

# ? Dec 30, 2016 21:27

Blistex: Oct 30, 2003; Macho Business
Donkey Wrestler

Invisible Handjob posted:

surprisingly that principal sounds pretty chill, the rest of the story was not surprising but still funny

The principal was not your typical administrator who got to the position by being friends with some official. He was smart and qualified, and an original thinker with actual meta-cognitive abilities and a level of self-awareness that surpassed 99.9999% of the mainland population. His biggest weakness was looking at the character of his colleagues through 4' thick rose coloured glasses and then setting out with a plan that was doomed to fail because of their retardation.

The Great Autismo! posted:

When people say China is a nation of literal children, this is the type of thing they are referring to

I seem to be able to get through to, and reason with about 80% of the females or better, but Chinese males who specifically go into Education are the most dense motherfuckers on the face of the earth. If you had an argument about whether or not the car was on fire, and the guy took to the line of reasoning that it wasn't, he'd sit in that thing until his skin started to crisp.

# ? Dec 30, 2016 22:36

Ceciltron: Jan 11, 2007; Text BEEP to 43527 for the dancing robot!; Pillbug

Blistex posted:

The principal was not your typical administrator who got to the position by being friends with some official. He was smart and qualified, and an original thinker with actual meta-cognitive abilities and a level of self-awareness that surpassed 99.9999% of the mainland population. His biggest weakness was looking at the character of his colleagues through 4' thick rose coloured glasses and then setting out with a plan that was doomed to fail because of their retardation.

I seem to be able to get through to, and reason with about 80% of the females or better, but Chinese males who specifically go into Education are the most dense motherfuckers on the face of the earth. If you had an argument about whether or not the car was on fire, and the guy took to the line of reasoning that it wasn't, he'd sit in that thing until his skin started to crisp.

I always got the impression a more appropriate analogy would involve them locking some innocent third party into the aforementioned fire-car.

# ? Dec 30, 2016 23:00

Blistex: Oct 30, 2003; Macho Business
Donkey Wrestler

Ceciltron posted:

I always got the impression a more appropriate analogy would involve them locking some innocent third party into the aforementioned fire-car.

I like your version better! It's much more accurate.

# ? Dec 30, 2016 23:04

mrbotus: Apr 7, 2009; Patron of the Pants

I don't understand why so many people seem to think their english is better than a native speaker's or why they think they can argue grammar points with one who is specifically educated on the subject. I feel like this is something I've heard from other people too not just chinese.

# ? Dec 31, 2016 00:57

Lollerich: Mar 25, 2004; The little doctors are back,
they want to play with you!

Way back somewhere in this thread or the previous one, there was a video of a china accident and I'm asking if anybody could repost the link to it.

It was a guy on a vespa or similar motorcycle, who crashed into a lorry or small van head on - then while the driver of the van or lorry was getting out to complain or possibly gently caress him up, he slowly backed off and turned left, restarted the motorcycle and crashed head on into another similar sized van/bus.

As the owner of the second vehicle was also getting out as well he slowly backed off did a 180� and crashed head on into another van/bus.

Then he got up, backed off, turned slowly to the left again, restarted the motorcycle and crashed through a fence into a gully and the video ended.

It was beautiful.

I need this video, I have to show it to a colleague at work who is super stocked that he is going to be travelling to China frequently

# ? Dec 31, 2016 01:05

raton: Jul 28, 2003; by FactsAreUseless

Lollerich posted:

Way back somewhere in this thread or the previous one, there was a video of a china accident and I'm asking if anybody could repost the link to it.

It was a guy on a vespa or similar motorcycle, who crashed into a lorry or small van head on - then while the driver of the van or lorry was getting out to complain or possibly gently caress him up, he slowly backed off and turned left, restarted the motorcycle and crashed head on into another similar sized van/bus.

As the owner of the second vehicle was also getting out as well he slowly backed off did a 180° and crashed head on into another van/bus.

Then he got up, backed off, turned slowly to the left again, restarted the motorcycle and crashed through a fence into a gully and the video ended.

It was beautiful.

I need this video, I have to show it to a colleague at work who is super stocked that he is going to be travelling to China frequently

First result for "china scooter hole" on YouTube

https://youtu.be/6ldalpCTXHU

# ? Dec 31, 2016 01:10

Blistex: Oct 30, 2003; Macho Business
Donkey Wrestler

Lollerich posted:

Way back somewhere in this thread or the previous one, there was a video of a china accident and I'm asking if anybody could repost the link to it.

It was a guy on a vespa or similar motorcycle, who crashed into a lorry or small van head on - then while the driver of the van or lorry was getting out to complain or possibly gently caress him up, he slowly backed off and turned left, restarted the motorcycle and crashed head on into another similar sized van/bus.

As the owner of the second vehicle was also getting out as well he slowly backed off did a 180� and crashed head on into another van/bus.

Then he got up, backed off, turned slowly to the left again, restarted the motorcycle and crashed through a fence into a gully and the video ended.

It was beautiful.

I need this video, I have to show it to a colleague at work who is super stocked that he is going to be travelling to China frequently

You're going to have to be more specific. That's your average scooter rider's morning commute in China.

# ? Dec 31, 2016 01:11

Lollerich: Mar 25, 2004; The little doctors are back,
they want to play with you!

Sheep-Goats posted:

First result for "china scooter hole" on YouTube

https://youtu.be/6ldalpCTXHU

That is it, it's different from what I remember but it's still beautiful

Lollerich fucked around with this message at 01:15 on Dec 31, 2016

# ? Dec 31, 2016 01:13

Drunk & Ugly: Feb 10, 2003; GIMME GIMME GIMME, DON'T ASK WHAT FOR

that is the first thing to make me really laugh in a long time

I'll assume he drowned in 3 inch deep concrete

# ? Dec 31, 2016 01:32

raton: Jul 28, 2003; by FactsAreUseless

Probably hit his head so hard there's a dent in it now but other than that there's been no noticeable effect on his life.

# ? Dec 31, 2016 01:34

GoutPatrol: Oct 17, 2009; *Stupid Babby*

The Great Autismo! posted:

When people say China is a nation of literal children, this is the type of thing they are referring to

This is also why foreign teachers are not supposed to watch the other ESL teachers, it will be too much face loss.

# ? Dec 31, 2016 02:59

ocrumsprug: Sep 23, 2010; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

The best part of that video was everyone that got out of their vehicle to help, yell or punch that dude, just nonchalantly hop back in after watching him drive off into the void.

# ? Dec 31, 2016 03:16

Invisible Handjob: Apr 7, 2002; by FactsAreUseless

Do any of you guys drive in China? It must be terrifying. I was scared enough just crossing the road.

# ? Dec 31, 2016 03:17

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

lol
Emperor Palpatine's voice: (this is where you see the full power of face culture)

# ? Dec 31, 2016 03:20

Pirate Radar: Apr 18, 2008; You're not my Ruthie!
You're not my Debbie!
You're not my Sherry!

Does China have the face thing going on where, in order to appear good, people never say "no" or "I can't do that" outright? Where instead, if you're asking someone to do something, it's your responsibility to know if they can, or if they want to, because they'll always say yes even if they're not gonna do it?

# ? Dec 31, 2016 03:30

Outrail: Jan 4, 2009; www.sapphicrobotica.com

Drunk & Ugly posted:

that is the first thing to make me really laugh in a long time

I'll assume he drowned in 3 inch deep concrete

You can see mud/wet concrete splash up. The time delay between him disappearing from view and poo poo splashing up makes me think it's deep and deep...

# ? Dec 31, 2016 03:40

Vesi: Jan 12, 2005; pikachu looking at?

Pirate Radar posted:

Does China have the face thing going on where, in order to appear good, people never say "no" or "I can't do that" outright? Where instead, if you're asking someone to do something, it's your responsibility to know if they can, or if they want to, because they'll always say yes even if they're not gonna do it?

Not really, only if they have a serious reason to try to please you.

I'd say it's more common that a completely trivial task is claimed to be impossible because it might present a slight inconvenience.

# ? Dec 31, 2016 03:56

nomad2020: Jan 30, 2007

Invisible Handjob posted:

Do any of you guys drive in China? It must be terrifying. I was scared enough just crossing the road.

I've driven scooters and motorcycles here, I've felt safe doing it exactly 0 times. There are a handful of intersections I refuse to take as well.

# ? Dec 31, 2016 04:00

mrbotus: Apr 7, 2009; Patron of the Pants

Little known fact, America has no fresh vegetables: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1dih4az-WI

What do you tell Chinese people when they ask about "American" food? I always seem to be at a loss for words, since I mostly cook for myself when I'm at home. They talk about how all the food is bad, and fattening, and icky. But I feel like a lot of Chinese students who come to the USA to study severely limit themselves in what they're willing to try and eat. Of course the food is going to be bad when you only eat at the cafeteria or get a Big Mac at McDonald's.

# ? Dec 31, 2016 04:46

ladron: Sep 15, 2007; eso es lo que es

nickmeister posted:

Little known fact, America has no fresh vegetables: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1dih4az-WI

I hate this couple more and more every time someone links to one of their videos that I haven't seen, yet I am compelled to watch.

# ? Dec 31, 2016 04:53

mrbotus: Apr 7, 2009; Patron of the Pants

ladron posted:

I hate this couple more and more every time someone links to one of their videos that I haven't seen, yet I am compelled to watch.

My favorite part is when the white says he's "part Chinese" now.

# ? Dec 31, 2016 04:58

Invisible Handjob: Apr 7, 2002; by FactsAreUseless

ladron posted:

I hate this couple more and more every time someone links to one of their videos that I haven't seen, yet I am compelled to watch.

Same except I only make it a few seconds in

# ? Dec 31, 2016 05:00

Haier: Aug 10, 2007; by Lowtax

Since I don't really care about holidays I never make any plans. I decided to ask about 30 people on my Wechat list what they were doing tonight, seeing if someone was willing to hang out, after deciding on who was thinking of doing something more interesting than playing phone. I was hoping for "Go to the hill and watch the fireworks" or something, anything, but instead:

"Watch a movie."
"Sleep"
"Watch a movie and then sleep."

No exaggeration at all. Two said they will go to some NYE concert and asked if I wanted to go, but I'm not into crowds here or watching people play phone in public for hours. I was thinking of going skateboarding much of the night, but the sidewalks, despite many being new, are not something safe without good lighting to see all the chabuduo wheel-stoppers that are obvious in the day time.

I'll probably go out and binge on snack foods and then walk all night. It's sunny and 85F/30C here and will get down to 62/16 tonight and that's just fine.

As I am typing this, two people appeared with a speaker box on the street corner next to my building, and are now doing KTV for some reason and it's awful.

# ? Dec 31, 2016 05:46

Ailumao: Nov 4, 2004

nickmeister posted:

Little known fact, America has no fresh vegetables: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1dih4az-WI

What do you tell Chinese people when they ask about "American" food? I always seem to be at a loss for words, since I mostly cook for myself when I'm at home. They talk about how all the food is bad, and fattening, and icky. But I feel like a lot of Chinese students who come to the USA to study severely limit themselves in what they're willing to try and eat. Of course the food is going to be bad when you only eat at the cafeteria or get a Big Mac at McDonald's.

To be fair I know a non trivial amount of western people here who eat almost entirely at subway, McDonald's and Starbucks so I can see why it's a common misconception of what American food is. Though honestly with how many Americans eat it's probably pretty accurate.

I ride a bike daily here in china and it's not much scarier than riding a bike in the US, except it's scary in a different and surreal way. When I was in Ohio I'd constantly have giant SUVs coming way too close/being actively antagonistic towards bikes because they had no idea how to drive around bikes and almost nowhere had dedicated bike lanes. It was a very understandable danger.

In China the roads I'm on at least have big bike lanes so it's less cars that are the issue as much as other people on scooters or bikes. Once I saw this cart overloaded with like a 20 foot stack of styrofoam to be recycled collapse and that caused chaos with bikes trying to get out of the way and some just powering through the avalanche.

Last week I saw something I'd ever encountered before. I was behind a bike that had raw meat hanging from hooks on the back of it and I have never pulled over and waited for something to get away from me before, but I sure did that time.

# ? Dec 31, 2016 06:06

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# ? May 14, 2024 03:54

Modest Mao: Feb 11, 2011; by Cyrano4747

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

nah Deng Xiaoping was the only that had a way with words, the rest of them were poo poo.

what

# ? Dec 31, 2016 06:09

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