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Wow, I remember reading your post about teaching in Korea, way back when I was teaching in Korea, and now I'm teaching in Sichuan and reading your posts about teaching in Sichuan. I guess what I'm trying to say is, please stop following me. TIA.
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Apr 9, 2017 03:23
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 17:40 |
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Fleta Mcgurn posted:
I'm in Chengdu just outside the second ring road. I'm not sure how cagey to be with the details. When I hear people talking about their school problems I feel like I've gotten off light with the places that I've taught. The first school that I taught in after coming to China was way out in the country. It was a little isolating to be the only foreigner for miles, but other than that it was a pretty good place to work. They didn't really know what to do with me, and pretty much let me do my own thing. I don't really know what the rest of the classes were like, as I was a little kingdom all of my own and didn't really get to see the whole picture, but from what I saw they seemed to generally want to provide a good education for the students. But this was a school attached to the teacher training college nearby, so it may have been the exception not the rule. I work at a university now and I really like it, but it's definitely not a way to get rich. I will say this though, it's really nice only teaching 20 hours a week, and the management is all from the UK so there's less of a culture clash between labor (labour?) and management which goes a long way to making things go smoothly. I've had both Chinese bosses and foreign bosses, and, while I wouldn't say that the Chinese bosses are worse per se, they definitely have a style of management that is very different from back in the states. Although like anywhere some bosses are just assholes. Well my 2 and a half hour lunch is almost up, so I have to get back to work. Enjoy life in the trenches.
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Apr 10, 2017 07:05
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Fleta Mcgurn posted:
We definitely should. I don't know where the Meat Factory is but, it looks like you are west side. I'm east side, and before that I was Far East side (practically 龙泉驿) so I don't really know anything west of downtown. I'm supposed to go with one of my English co workers to watch a cricket match this Saturday at around 6:30, probably at Hugo's, if your interested in joining.
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Apr 11, 2017 13:47
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The city that I live in seems to have slightly more security than most Chinese cities. For example each subway stop has an x-ray machine and metal detectors. I used to always stop when I set off the metal detector and wait for the guard to wand me (being a good boy from the states) but after a while I noticed that always seemed to look confused. Eventually I realized that they all knew me (I was probably the only foreigner to ever get off at that station) and that I could just smile at them and walk through. The only people I ever see get stopped are either minorities (not white ones but non Han Chinese ones) or people who look like their from the countryside (i.e. poor), whenever I go through security I just smile at the guards and they don't seem to care. When I used to work in a kindergarten in a nice suburb in China the security guards were generally pretty nice. One of them used to try to talk to me in his very limited English (which was cool since I spoke no Chinese). The thing about him was that he was about as tall as me (I'm about 6'4") and built like a brick shithouse. Again, he was a really nice guy, but the kind of nice where if there was genuinely a problem I would like to be on his side of the issue. They seemed to be there mostly for show, but the did lock the gates after all the students were in, at which point their jobs seemed to be doing, what I like to call "tall people jobs" like changing light bulbs and getting things down from the top shelves. The guards there had all the accouterments, including the helmets and stab proof vests, but all I ever saw them do for security was tell the grandmothers dropping off their kids to leave their tai chi swords at the gate, which on the one had I thought was a bit silly because they're not actually sharp, but on the other hand, they're swords. Ooh, the one of the guards at the less posh school I taught at had a cool electric cattle prod/the stun baton from Half Life 2 type thing. But he was mostly there for crowd control during pick up and drop off, which quite frankly, made perfect sense once you saw how the parents behaved when the gates were opened. Overall most of the guards here are very poorly paid and don't give a poo poo, except for the guys outside the embassy, those guys are adamant.
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Apr 27, 2017 11:27
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Sorry but I wanted to add my two cents to the hospital chat. I remember going for a health check so I could extend my visa here in China and not being too impressed with the hospital, for me it was waiting in a sort of breezeway watching a man holding up his five year old son so he could pee into a trash can. The buildings can be really dirty if you go to a hospital outside a major city, but they're not all horror stories and the the staff were pretty good. I had to get blood drawn and the woman opened a kit with new needle and gloves and all the things that I would expect to see at a hospital, it's just that the waiting room looked like a bus station. Which is a big contrast from the health check I had in Korea, which was in this gleaming immaculately clean hospital, with a woman at a big table who alternated drawing people's blood and dipping the litmus paper into the urine samples with no gloves on whatsoever. Personally, if I could only pick one, I'd rather be in a dingy building where the staff put on new gloves for each patient.
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May 11, 2017 05:59
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Hotpot is good and delicious and anyone who says otherwise is wrong and bad. My personal recommendation is to go for the Chuanchuan (the one with everything on sticks) if you don't have a big group because you get to try a wider variety of different things than the ones that bring you a plate. recommendation 2: always get the red pot. Also if at all possible go with a local Chinese person, you'll end up eating things that you'd be afraid to try otherwise. Just don't wimp out, it makes us all look bad. Warning: Those cubes aren't Jello... they were congealed blood
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May 12, 2017 01:50
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 17:40 |
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I work at a Chinese university. My contract expressly forbids me from having an "intimate relationship" with a student. I can't imagine this is acceptable anywhere but the most poo poo tier school. That or it's a private tutor/student situation. Either way that's really bad.
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May 23, 2017 16:05
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