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Apr 9, 2017 01:03
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Jimmy Little Balls posted:You can get a uni teaching job working quarter of the hours for almost the same pay and not have to deal with any of this poo poo. the pay is almost never the same as what you can make in the private sector. In Tianjin I made like four times what the university professors made. They get like 5,000-7,000 rmb a month. They can obviously use their free time to teach on the side but it's not gonna end up being as much as what you can make in study abroad/IB or AP programs
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Apr 10, 2017 10:18
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I'm at a university now though and I'm happy I don't have to deal with all of the poo poo I used to, because I am actually in charge of the program so everyone answers to me, instead of me just being in charge of the international department and education and I still had to answer to HR and the head of everything. It's a lot of bullshit like the story posted here. I'm so not stressed out now thank God
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Apr 10, 2017 10:21
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I have all kinds of stories of crushes but none of them are that interesting. I did receive a text from a student asking if I would sleep with her and another student tried to kiss me after I helped her prepare for an interview. She also invited me to a private KTV which I declined.
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Apr 11, 2017 02:09
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Fleta Mcgurn posted:Private KTV is always a come-on. Give us a story, TGA! I hope you are thin enough, that is very important for storytelling. It's not much of a story, I helped her prepare for her interview to get into college. She was really excited she got in. The day after they had their ceremony where they become adults she said she booked a private KTV room for me and her to celebrate. I told her I didn't think it was a good idea and she was really hurt. I said if she really wanted to do something we could go do something in public with one of her friends. I ended up taking them to Harry Potter 7 and then her friend snuck away and she tried to kiss me and I told her that wasn't a good idea. She's modeling in Toronto now. I went out with a few buddies after the incident and my two local buddies from Tianjin were like "dude have sex with her" and my German buddy and I were like "absolutely not under any circumstances". The girl that texted me asking if we could sleep together technically asked if I would "lay with her sexually" and it was spring festival and we were all drinking and I just deleted the message and pretended I never saw it. She never mentioned anything about it so maybe it was a friend or something joking around, IDK
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Apr 11, 2017 02:16
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I was specifically taken to the police station in 2009 and put in a private interrogation room without a translator and told if I talked about religion I would be arrested, so I haven't mention nary a peep for over 7 years now.
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Apr 11, 2017 11:49
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Vegetable posted:This is gonna sound pretty random, but have you heard of students memorizing TOEFL tests so they can tell people who take the test later on the other side of the world? 新东方 does this all the time, for other exams besides TOEFL as well
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Apr 13, 2017 11:25
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The articles about how bad the American education system aren't necessarily wrong. There's a ton of things the United States needs to do to improve their education system. The system that was run in the United States was created for teaching people to get ready to work in factories in the early 1900s. It is 20fucking17. We are living in 2017 using a system that was developed to educate people to be successful in 1917. It's no wonder we are falling behind. But yes, China's educational system is far, far worse and is based on the civil service exam (keju) that people used to take literally CENTURIES ago to decide who could serve the imperial courts. If you think the American educational system is bad and couldn't be worse, China is the dude that says "yo check this out, hold my beer".
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Apr 14, 2017 06:20
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green chicken feet posted:So, it sounds like critical thinking skills are being largely ignored in Chinese education (not that American education teaches enough of this, but better than nothing). You should read "Catching Up or Leading the Way?" by Yong Zhao. He has an entire chapter on China and really does a good job of laying out what the American education system does well. Looking back, where I learned most in high school wasn't in the classroom. I was one of the senior captains on the hockey team, I did Student Government for four years (senior year I ran the pep rallies), I did drama and theatre for four years and I was in the Spanish and National Honor Societies. These activities taught me so much more than I can remember any class teaching me. I was a decent student (had a 3.6 on a 4.0 scale) but it was all of the extracurriculars that the school offered me that helped shape who I am as an individual. And it wasn't purely competition based. It wasn't always about being first or winning. In NHS we did all kinds of volunteer stuff. Working with the school to put on pep rallies was about working together. Playing hockey and helping to organize the team and stuff was about working with students from all grades. There is a large amount of a communal ethos that you are taught in school simply through osmosis that you 100% take for granted. Furthermore I had numerous part time jobs. Senior year I was night manager of a video store. Reffed soccer games for four years. Was a lifeguard in the summer for three years. China has none of this. Absolutely zero. It is focused on being number 1, the students are all ranked, literally every single thing the students do is with the goal of winning a competition or being 1st. They pit the students against each other and they spend 14 hours a day studying for exams to beat their classmates. Some students do have hobbies, like their parents make them practice the piano, but again it is to enter a competition to win to put on their resume. Some kids will try to play soccer but their parents will claim its a waste of time and make them go back to studying. I can not express how bad the rat race is in Chinese education. I'm speaking in generalities, of course there are individuals that are different and on the micro level you will find students who do not fit into the race at all, but the entire culture is toxic to the core. It is the Prisoner's Dilemma on a scale of 1.6 billion people that all deeply are obsessed with education. If everyone just took a step back and spent a little more time shaping who they were as individuals, the country and the world would be better off. But the .01% that did not would gain "an advantage" by having extra classes for stupid exams that do not mean a single poo poo, so no one will do it. China, as a culture, cares so deeply about education. And that's great. It really is. It's an amazing field to be in because it is just overflowing with money. The money never stops, which is great. It's much, much better being in education in China than in the United States from a financial point of view. I say that having hired American high school teachers to come to China that stay in China and do not go back to the United States, either with my former company or new jobs that they move on to in China. It's just that, by and large, what students are learning in Chinese schools is unhelpful and dumb and there is zero focus on trying to develop a well-rounded child. Again, I'm speaking in generalities, so apologizes if there is a Chinese individual here who takes this as an assault on who they are or who they have developed into. The Great Autismo! fucked around with this message at 02:02 on Apr 15, 2017 |
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Apr 15, 2017 02:00
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The Slaughter posted:I taught chinese students how to fly in Phoenix, AZ before they went back to their respective airlines. also, there is a book written by a few pilots called "Flying Upside Down" and it is about flying in China for a few years. It is supposedly a super harrowing read and I refuse to read it while I live in China. Here it is. https://www.scribd.com/doc/273231452/Flying-Upside-Down-pdf I will say that I will only fly Korean Air or Japan Airlines or Air Nippon or Hong Kong flight in China. And I'm usually flying them out of the country, mainly to Seoul, to catch a connection to Japan or the United States. Pretty much everyone says "DO. NOT. FLY. CHINESE. AIRLINES."
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Apr 15, 2017 02:12
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Let us English posted:For those interested: This book details the history of, and the numerous problems with the Chinese education system in more depth than we could do in the thread. I didn't get this one signed the first time I met Yong (didn't have it with me) but I did get World Class Learners signed. All of his stuff is really good.
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Apr 15, 2017 12:09
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Fleta Mcgurn posted:Last year, Florp and I both read a speech at graduation. The kids did a musical performance; they learned how to play the ukulele just for the event. There were proud parents everywhere. I cried like a four-year-old and had to force myself to leave the room so that I would stop hugging everyone. this is what happened to my company when i was on my way out this past winter. it means it's time to leave your job and find a new one
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Apr 19, 2017 05:48
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I'm hoping to come through Chengdu before y'all bounce would be cool to meet y'all before you go. Might be late May if people are around.
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Apr 19, 2017 05:57
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Teriyaki Koinku posted:I'm really enjoying the thread, thanks for making it. smoking is pretty prevalent and the idea of "underage" doesn't really compute. like 7-11 will sell middle school kids alcohol all the time. i taught a "fun with literature" class in 2012 and it was a group of 7th graders, and three of the girls went and each bought two Rio drinks, they are like mix fruity drinks. they drank one before class and i saw they each had another one so i took them away. the girls were super chatty and actually did a really good job in class though. i didn't know what to do with the alcohol after class so i gave it to the receptionist and she just gave it back to the girls on the way out. most students pick english names so learning names isn't too difficult. even then learning their chinese names isn't that difficult, but i've been here for a while, so maybe it actually is and i'm just used to it. come with an open mind. don't look up pictures on the internet or expect it to be a certain way. you'll find everything interesting and fascinating then. (ideally) if you don't mind me asking what company are you applying for in beijing?
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Apr 22, 2017 00:11
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I'm interviewing with a company based in Beijing for English teaching either in the summer or fall this year.
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PT6A posted:I've heard that many Chinese people prefer English speakers to use their chosen English name, because the odds of a non-Mandarin-speaker actually pronouncing their name correctly is next to nil. Is that true in general, or just with some of the people I've dealt with? (I had a professor say, "my name is such-and-such, but you'll probably pronounce it wrong, so just call me Steve"). i think when people are learning English, not having to code-switch when using their names makes it easier for them. there's probably some data or theory about this but i don't know it. i do think some people do have really difficult names for english people to pronounce (like this girl Xie Derui that i work with now, she chose the name Bella, which is infinitely easier). so i'd guess it's true in general. chinese names are difficult to pronounce correctly if you aren't a pretty high level speaker imo. i'm only a decent speaker and i muck them up a fair amount of the time.
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Apr 22, 2017 01:34
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Let us English posted:All of them, and they're all screwed when they do. I wish I could see my best students succeed in university, but I also kinda want to see the gently caress ups wash out after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of their parent's money. they aren't screwed. the universities are just passing them through and giving them the diploma because they like the pure hard cash, and the kids are going back to china to flaunt the degree and it doesn't really matter if you suck or not in china, if you have the degree and the money you won't get fired
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May 3, 2017 07:38
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Grand Fromage posted:Chinese students get expelled/fail out a ton in the US. The universities are happy to take you(r money) but it's way better for them to string you along in English bridging programs and stuff for six years then give you the boot than give degrees to undeserving students. a diploma mill is still a degree from the united states. i guarantee half the graduating class this year isn't learning poo poo in the US or preparing themselves to excel in a global economy, but i'd guess almost all of them get diplomas from somewhere or another.
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May 3, 2017 07:52
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Grand Fromage posted:Well, a good third of them weren't able to get accepted to any programs whatsoever in the US and a good bunch of those are going to Singapore. A small number didn't even graduate Chinese high school and aren't getting a diploma at all. And a bunch are going to the fake University of Toronto English program that is basically college purgatory, you can't get a degree from it and you can't get into actual U of T without passing the program. they should have applied to Indiana
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May 3, 2017 07:57
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Fleta Mcgurn posted:I really just don't want to be here anymore. you guys are almost done. just enjoy working with the kids as much as possible and enjoy the craziness around you.
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May 4, 2017 05:18
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Fleta Mcgurn posted:I know. You're right. I shouldn't whine. But I'm just so angry because last year this was a fantastic place to work and this semester has been hell on wheels. ya my company in tianjin took a pretty impressive nosedive in the 6 weeks that my co-director and i were not in china (he was back stateside after his grandmother passed, my son was being born in japan). came back after that 6 weeks to a shell of what it used to be, it was when i started looking for a way out lol i really wanna come hang with you dudes in chengdu before everyone peaces out, don't know if it will happen tho 
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May 4, 2017 06:44
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Grand Fromage posted:I expect a lot of the nouveau riche here are going to lose their money. There is no old money in China because of the revolution, so every fortune began with the privatization of property in the late 90s. People got lucky and managed to get control of their work unit housing, then when the market happened suddenly they had a bunch of property worth a bunch of money and hey, I'm rich now. In China, owning property is still considered the only real investment/form of wealth by most people. There have since been web entrepreneurs and stuff but the money all started with real estate. China has a gigantic real estate bubble which will trash an obscene amount of wealth when it goes. The next generation will be alright. It's their kids that are properly hosed
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May 4, 2017 12:57
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Choco1980 posted:So, all these stories about kids that just come in and trash the place and don't pay attention to the teachers or anything, and how they have pretty much zero parental presence or supervision at home...I have to wonder, why do they even show up to school in the first place? Are there like, serious truancy laws there? Are the kids just too dumb to realize they could get away with not coming to school? I mean, I realize that in a good number of cases it's a boarding school and they're kinda locked in mostly, but I'm hearing stories from ones where the kids don't live on campus too... the classrooms have wifi and their friends, where else would they go
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May 5, 2017 01:01
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Grand Fromage posted:I have been asking myself this question for years. I have no idea. you guys are overthinking this. think about why you skipped school in high school. i used to skip all the time senior year to go to jimmy bing's house, we played N64 in his basement, and would go to lunch off campus like it was this huge deal, usually going to taco bell or wendy's. life in 2000 was so good. kids can go to lunch off campus if they want and they can play video games on their phones with their friends in the classroom using the wifi. they have no where else to go. are they going to skip class and go to a karaoke bar at 1:30pm on a tuesday? how many of your kids have super interesting hobbies like "i'd love to go climb a mountain" or "i love doing taichi"? i'm guessing not many. they all want to sleep and play video games. they can do that in the back of your classroom, surrounded by their friends, using their mobile phones, and they don't risk the chance of getting in trouble for not arriving at school in the first place. they are going to go where their friends are, which is in the classroom as well. they are mentally skipping your class, but physically there, which allows them to say something like "i was there in school" and on the surface what they are saying is true, so their parents, the admin or anyone else isn't going to give even half a poo poo. in fact they'll just think you're being the annoying foreigner by bringing your western ideal of education to them and making extra problems, that Wang Jinbing wasn't being the ideal student and spent a little too much time sleeping or on his phone. there are definitely truancy laws at the schools, though they are unevenly enforced
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May 5, 2017 05:31
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Teriyaki Koinku posted:Do schools typically have a/c? How is teaching in the winter/summer versus spring/fall (especially around Beijing)? yeah they do, pollution sucks but people will still open the windows. Even on bad pollution days the kids have to do exercises outside. Usually kids get 4-6 weeks off for Spring Festival and 6 weeks off in the summer, more or less. That's my experience at least. It's been a few years since I've worked in the public sector, so I may be misremembering. I'm at a University now and I have 7 weeks off this summer and usually 4-5 weeks for Spring Festival.
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May 7, 2017 23:49
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yaffle posted:I'm at a big fancy international school in a tier one city and I'm pretty sure we do SATs. Not in China, you don't, at least not with the SAT that most HS students take. And if you do, the SAT board isn't accepting them. SAT 2 may be a different story, I can't remember. It's been a while now since I've had to deal with that. Go ahead and try to register for the SAT in China. See if anything comes up. edit: It may be restricted to Mainlanders, and maybe foreigners can take it in China. Boy, wouldn't that be a hoot and a half, lol
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May 9, 2017 06:17
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The more I look into it, the more it seems that anyone other than a Mainlander can take the SAT in China, as long as they are at an International School that has the ability to offer the test there. However, it seems that even if the Mainlander goes to the International School, they still are not allowed to take the SAT in China. That sound you just heard was me giggling. How are Chinese discriminated against in China? I am really surprised I never knew about this, but I guess I would never have needed to know about it, because all of the kids that go to the International School of Tianjin were super shitheads and they were always drunk as poo poo at the foreign bars being totally and utterly cringy and everyone hated them. So I would have never really talked to any of them about this, I guess? I dunno.
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May 9, 2017 09:22
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yo chengdu goons i got my ticket to chengdu i will be there from the evening of june 1st to the afternoon of june 4th. hope you guys are free that friday night or saturday to do something, if not, at least tell me cool stuff to do. i'm p excited to go to chengdu, another one off ye olde bucket list
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May 10, 2017 05:07
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Fleta Mcgurn posted:bweeeee! ya as it gets closer I'll reach out ThomasPaine posted:Lmao that book is hilarious but super loving racist. idk I haven't read it, I'm always a bit skeptical these days about everything being "super racist" but this has seemed to get a lot of backlash so maybe it's really bad. I dunno, do people think poorly made in China was super racist?
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May 10, 2017 11:23
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fart simpson posted:Seems like if you wanted to figure out which country's airlines are more dangerous you should be looking up statistics instead of reading a book by a pilot what if you just wanted to read a book by a pilot who flew for chinese airlines and actually don't care about statistics? because i honestly could not care less about flight statistics but i am often quite intrigued by human experiences. you know, like people who actually understand how to function in a society are
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May 10, 2017 14:59
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fart simpson posted:So read the book I don't care. I'm just saying making decisions like that makes more sense when they're based on stats instead of entertainment how many people in this thread do you think make decisions of what airlines to fly based on the booming industry of "chinese commercial airline review and entertainment"
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May 10, 2017 15:32
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ThomasPaine posted:'The hospitals in China are loving scary. this is true, i was waiting at the hospital in line to get my ear looked at and there were people spitting on the floor and smoking next to me and and it was just insanely unsanitary and it was actually the moment, i can pinpoint the exact spit where it happened, that i realized i could not raise my son in china ThomasPaine posted:Besides the fact that there is a heavy element of “ooga booga” to their practice of medicine this is true a decent amount of the time, from my experience. sometimes it takes me a few times to get a proper diagnosis when i have ear infections. ThomasPaine posted:they are also a bunch of dirty pigs. this is deplorable and really bad. ThomasPaine posted:So, from dried lizards on a stick to eggs boiled in urine, you run the gamut of half-baked remedies and plain- ol’ down- home crazy-rear end poo poo. Have fun with all that.' (p.255) i usually just get antibiotics but i know sometimes people think this. like idk, i've had some hilariously bad hospital experiences in china. but calling people dirty pigs is pretty loving reprehensible. thanks for posting, like i said, i haven't read it.
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May 11, 2017 00:36
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fart simpson posted:Well, you're the one that said it so I'm talking to you. i was just saying there's a book here you can read that is supposed to be pretty crazy about pilots in china, after a guy mentioned pilot training with chinese students. i wasn't saying "please use this book as gospel for making decisions about traveling in china"
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May 11, 2017 08:05
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why do i even bother responding to you
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May 11, 2017 08:05
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i actually really like fart simpson, i had a wonderful time with him at Beertopia in Hong Kong last winter and then we watched sports together and i decided if he ever runs for public office i would vote for him
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May 11, 2017 08:11
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ntan1 posted:Do you all have any context into how good or bad the undergrad programs at top tier universities in China are, ie Tsinghua, Peking, or Fudan? All of the Chinese immigrants who do end up working in the US always originally went there. they are trending up for sure, which is really good for china and important as the country continues to develop and become a player in a globalised world, but they have a long way to go. the entire system needs to be torn down and started over from scratch, but that won't happen while the party is in power.
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May 11, 2017 09:26
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JaucheCharly posted:Hotpot is the 5-piece suit of fondues. lol Warbird posted:Is that from Poorly Made in China or the Flying Upside down book? I listened to the former fairly recently and it doesn't fit the general tone of the book as best I can recall. Can't remember him talking about anything health related either. it's apparently from flying upside down, i was too lazy to check but i have no reason to assume the poster is lying about the quote
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May 11, 2017 23:00
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fart simpson posted:Don't sign tga's posts excuse me, racism is power plus prejudice, i am a minority and thus have no power, so i can not be racist
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May 12, 2017 02:59
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PT6A posted:so if you're going to bag on Chinese pilots there's probably a good bit of confirmation bias going on. who is bagging on Chinese pilots?
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May 12, 2017 03:27
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The Slaughter posted:I taught chinese students how to fly in Phoenix, AZ before they went back to their respective airlines. oh, i guess this guy was
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May 12, 2017 03:30
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JaucheCharly posted:Why did you guys go to asia? Aren't there jobs in Europe or EE? i was hired as a director of a company in madison, wisconsin and really wanted to do it so i could stay with my girlfriend, who was in madison at the time, and the company was helping chinese kids come to USA and hire people to go to china. i was there for like 4-6 months and then they brought me to china for about 6 months, then while i was in china our office in madison went under and crashed and i broke up with my girlfriend. so i had no real reason to go back to USA, and i had already traveled in china some and gone to korea and was like "gently caress it i guess i'll run it back another year" and then i started learning chinese and every year staying here became easier and easier because i could read menus and get around and backpack all the time and i got higher and higher at my company and got a good raise every year i stayed, so it was kinda like, poo poo. then i got married and my wife had been here for like 7 years as well so we had kind of set up our lives here. then we had a son and needed an escape plan. teaching in china is cool though, although i think if you mapped a spectrum i am at the very, very far end of the positive end of goons on the spectrum. idk, i really like it. that's my story thanks for reading
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May 12, 2017 11:07
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