Job Discussion Forums

[nomadic_meow]

I'm finishing up two years of university teaching at Longdong. I searched these forums before I came here (and again now), and found very little about it. So I'd like to provide a few impressions for the curious.

I suspect - and have actually been told - that many of the details are not unique to this location. They may be common to many university jobs in China, or at least the lower-ranked schools. Nevertheless, I think it is good to have some report on each particular location from someone who's been there recently.

I am not writing this to whine, well at least not primarily - I'm less than thrilled with some of the administrative practices and that will be very obvious. I know from browsing these forums, some of you think working overseas means one should be a perfect masochist or else some brawling tough negotiator, or shut up. I don't agree, but that isn't the point. I am simply sharing my experience for those who may wonder what can happen here.

The apartments we had were on the Old Campus, which is being phased out. Word is, the New Campus apartments may be available next fall or spring. Teachers are beginning to decorate and furnish their rooms. However, some say there may be still more prep before New Campus apts are available for everyone. I have no idea honestly. What I can say is, the Old Campus apts are aged (think peeling paint, breaking faucets). They were also far from clean when we arrived. I have no idea how to clean tile, but another teacher arrived with his wife who hails from Inner Mongolia... He reported that the two of them spent a week cleaning the place, and she declared that the cleaning implements provided were mostly useless! Naturally, though, Foreign Affairs is insisting that I must clean perfectly or they will withhold a deposit. Though this can happen all over I grant... It IS certainly happening here.

There is a lot of bureaucracy here: You may have to negotiate with three different Deans (for academics) plus the Office of Foreign Affairs, which includes at least two people (for anything to do with housing and salary). I was not really prepared for all this, but often when there is a serious problem, someone will tell you to go talk to someone else - preferably face to face in their office. I am told that not all Chinese universities have three academic deans! The deans are generally actually quite good, but it is still a lot of trouble to have arrange so many visits when typically enough, you need a quick solution because someone has just informed you yesterday and the stuff is due very soon.

Foreign Affairs has a representative who speaks fairly decent English, but he argues and negotiates more like a shrewd marketplace person. Here are some examples:

The contract says the university will pay airfare - I asked before I arrived in email, does this mean if I don't fly off I don't get it, he said oh I think we will pay... I asked again during the first year, will you pay 6000 like many universities, he said oh I think we will "probably" pay 8000 (and he said this very enthusiastically!) - the week before departure is planned, he says we can pay 6000 - four days later, he says oh we can only pay what we have receipts for that you bought personally - finally in desperation, I spoke with his boss and they agreed to 8000, minus 500 for the apt deposit which is still a maybe he's fussing over but that is nowhere mentioned in that section of the contract either. I did advise them that it would make sense to add numbers and any requirements to the airfare/exit bonus portion of the contract. Yes, I was silly to sign it but it's another thing when they keep changing their tune for two years until the very last moment.

Another one: He sat in his office and told me verbally that he would either find some way to get a commercial internet landline in my apt or place me in another apt where the teacher had installed one themselves. He said "You have my word," but insisted that I had to sign a contract so he could get it processed. In fact, he said he was "certain" that he could convince his boss to agree to this. Later he says he asked his boss and the boss decided I had to stay in the same apt, not his fault you see, and he asked the company again and oh sorry, no more room for internet lines in the apt at all (which is same as what he said earlier). So you may conclude for yourself how trustworthy this man's word is.

He also told me early on that I should NOT connect my laptop to the campus internet landline, and he would not assist me in getting a password for the application that I was shown to access it. However, much later one of the deans told me that in fact, you do not even have to have that application and it's perfectly fine to take the given desktop off and move one's own computer on and off... Knowing this might have saved me some money, and having a commercial landline could have saved me LOTS of money.

He also promised to give me another office chair to replace the very rickety old thing in the apt... I stayed for over a year after, and they never did.

While I was here, two keys to my door have broke in these past few months. The second became lodged in the lock. The Foreign Affairs rep seemed annoyed that I would dare to ask him "how long" the repairman would take to arrive (he barked "Just wait!" on the phone). It actually took about an hour, but then he felt the need to lecture me on "how lucky" I was that it didn't take longer. Well, I was the one sitting in the dark in the parking lot, and he was the one who "didn't know" where the guy even was coming from. He said that surely in the US this job could take a whole day, but really? Keys don't often break in the US; I had the same one for five years no problem at one sublet. Okay it was Saturday night, but I had just wondered if I might have time to go eat while I waited outside. He seemed to feel I had insulted him with such a foolish question.

Moving on to other areas...

Teaching here you get few resources, immense freedom...

... And a lot of hassle the last few weeks of each semester (exam time) unless you are one of those people who somehow does what you want regardless and makes a fait accompli of it. I have heard of some teachers digging in their heels and doing so successfully. I have tried to follow instructions, but often found that I had very little time to produce things in particularly with all the constant changes.

Telling them you already bought a plane ticket and CANNOT change the schedule at the last minute, actually seems to be a useful excuse to have. Otherwise, practically ever semester, I have been given one set of guidelines about exams a few weeks before - and had it changed/postponed completely, sometimes repeatedly, during the last week or two.

I have also had check-ins and requests, including for whole designs of exams, sent to me the night before things were wanted. I hope the university has begun to understand this is not kosher, and the current supervisor seems to be much more communicative and flexible. However, I still have the impression that the general culture here is one of calling people with requests at the last minute.

This semester has been horrible not because of the immediate supervisor (the new one is actually great), but because there are plans for a sports festival taking over the entire institution. Both regular classes and exam dates were constantly rescheduled (classes often moved into the evening on almost no notice) and even the best sources became clueless until the day things were supposed to happen. Hopefully it will not be THIS bad for you, but it really is common for people (students if not supervisors) to try to contact you at all hours and request stuff at the last minute.

You will probably not get audiovisual rooms, or even a room with many power outlets, unless you 1) are teaching a Listening class or 2) make friends with the deans and specifically request it in advance. Even then, each AV room is slightly different and the computers in one are currently plain slow and horrible.

Your advertisement may say you get a co-teacher. I think this is standard in China, but these people do NOT teach with you at all. (I have no idea why they chose the word they did. In other parts of the world, people with that title actually do team teach!) Instead, they serve as an informal liaison who may help you with logistical things like banking, filling in online grade forms for you, setting up medical appointments, and generally doing everything that Foreign Affairs does not (which is most everything). Mine have been a couple that were very nice and speak very good English... But they have also sometimes been quite busy and overworked. It would usually take a few days at least to schedule anything before it could actually get done. I believe they are charged with helping more than one of us.

On the upside: There IS a lot of room to teach what you like. You can do pretty much whatever in the classroom. Deans have told me outright that they are more concerned with students being in the classroom, "safe" and accounted for. Whatever they are doing is up to you - although the more rebellious ones sometimes only really want to work on their TEM-4, or be left alone to do work for other classes (they do have a lot of time spent in classes if it's any excuse), or even goof off. There are always a good few who think nothing but the exam matters, although it's understandable when the school keeps the exam at 70% of the course grade (the admin has wisely fudged this lower this semester, but probably because everyone is totally drained by sports fest prep and had like NO time to study).

It is still a lot of freedom. It's very nice to have the flexibility to interpret and shape the direction of the courses as you wish. It would be nice to have more than one textbook to work from to begin with, but hey there it is.

To qualify that: The Listening text can keep the students pretty busy, and it has been improving rapidly. The Writing text would work better as a reference book of "guidelines" than a classroom activity sourcebook, but some sections may be handy for inspiration. The speaking courses use New Inside Out, which is fairly good and has some nice audio resources (but you probably won't get a room with AV for speaking, so you may just have to read them aloud, ahem) - it's short on exercises when you have 15-20 students imo. The Magazines and Newspaper Comprehension book has some good articles, but it's over some of the 2nd year students' head and it has very few exercises of interest.

That said, you really can do much of what you want. You can ask the class monitors to photocopy articles or bring in your own games and exercises, whatever you can find or have in your files. The students are generally decent about at least trying new things (and they need variety imo).

And you can design exams from the texts and/or from scratch, if you can find the time and energy... Though I must admit, students have generally made very weak showings on my more original exams. They don't process the question portion of comprehension or vocab tests quickly enough, and they don't always study that well even if the material is review or memorization of fixed lists of data. Add in a very wide range of ability levels in each class, and the grades can turn out brutal.

Just look out for those weeks when TEM-4 is on and half of them can't be bothered, and those weeks later in the semester when the only question they want to talk about is, "What's the exam going to be like?" (My suggestion from experience: Tell them, who cares, the leadership will change it in the last week anyway! Because they probably actually will, unless you blatantly defy their final orders and do your own thing in regular class time first.)

By and large, the students are quite good. They act polite and decent. (They do fuss WAY too much about being precisely on time, taking breaks on time sometimes without regard for the lesson, and generally appearing to follow orders regardless of what's actually getting done.) They'll appreciate most anything you can do to make it all "amusing," while the typical bare reading/writing classroom has very little visually going on...

Now I'm not a big disciplinarian; perhaps this is my weakness, but I'd rather teach to those who will try if the others will just stay quiet? Some will try to listen for a while and most will at least sit there in an orderly manner even if their faces are busy doing something else. It's just difficult to convince quite a few to really study, when they know the exam is the majority of the grade and they expect the rich families to steal the good jobs. And I imagine they know the school has ruled that no more than 30% of them can fail any given course, not that it's a serious likelihood anyway. It would be if these were American-style college courses, but then everyone would warn you about how they were way too difficult for a low-ranked school to begin with.

The town doesn't particularly appeal to me for architecture or cleanliness (boring, dusty, way too much construction lately)... But the people here, both around town and the other teachers, have generally been quite pleasant. If I didn't have the administrative fuss of exam period and housing issues, really I would say this is a very laidback place to live.

Teaching 14-16 hours of class, you do get a LOT of free time. Provided you don't provide QQ tutoring or 10pm phone convo to every student who asks, that is! Some of that time will be lost to logistics, negotiating issues, and things that break down (like in the apt every so often - and no water on Fridays generally) or just never seem to work like they should (e.g. terribly slow software on the campus-provided computer). All the same, you do get to chill out a lot if you like.

The regular office staff, a couple of whom speak very good English, are magnificent and the saving grace of the whole "operation" of the place. They are not responsible for so many big decisions, but they do tell you whatever they know and do their very best to make things easier if you ask them. Once in a while even they get confused by sudden changes, but generally they are really very good!

A little Chinese goes a long ways around town, as this is definitely not the most internationalized area (and you WILL get constantly stared at, until people bump into electric poles). There are some pizza joints (the Crystal Plaza buffet is actually quite good), I advise against KFC as the quality is horrendous and I can't even recognize the stuff, naturally for the north there are a gazillion varieties of noodles but say 90% of them are spicy through the roof -- much of the food around here seems to be!

I will stop there. Hopefully this gives a realistic sense to those hardy folks who are considering bussing up here on the plateau.

[Janiny]

Thanks for sharing NM. Well written, genuine and all very much on the mark.

[OhBudPowellWhereArtThou]

There's nothing odd about your experiences. They're commonplace at many public universities. Only a few things are outside the realm of my experience:

1. Office of Foreign Affairs is usually just called the FAO. Many actual Foreign Affairs Officials are incompetent. Many are apathetic. Some wouldn't have any job at all if their uncles hadn't secured the job for them. Some are prone to extorting FTs. (Example: cleaning your apartment or else. I've experienced worse). Some of them aren't really the FAO! They are titular FAO's because they speak English but the real FAO's don't (or can't) speak English coherently because they didn't finish primary school and/or have a drinking problem.

2. I've never had to pay a deposit for a school-provided apartment.

3. I've never had a co-teacher at a university.

4. I've never had to deal with more than one dean, though I think when I had a problem with one student, I had to meet with a Dean of Students. Otherwise, I've only had to deal with the dean of the foreign languages department. It's quite possible that the other two deans may have assumed the title to impress you. That's pretty common. One might just be one of those mysterious "work leaders" who usually don't get involved in your activities unless they have it out for westerners. (That has happened to me. One told told my class that no one had to take the final test. Those who showed up took the test and passed. I told them that those who didn't show up failed. End of conversation. I was ordered to give the test again the next day, which I did. To everyone. And it was a different test. Imagine the effect upon the screwballs who didn't take the first test. I was ordered to give another test and have it printed in the school copy center by noontime that day. I did. The real test was printed in my apartment. When I gave out test #3, pandemonium broke out, and I had to call my boss to get permission to flee for my life).

Last minute information given out? Lucky you. At one school, I was NEVER told when there would be a Sports Day, a holiday, or anything that might disrupt the status quo. Holidays and rearranged schedules? Pfffft. The students weren't always informed either, so when my best students couldn't tell me anything, I just texted the FAO to tell her that I sensed that there would be some sort of a craptacular taking place on campus instead of classes, and unless I was informed otherwise, I wasn't going to take a bus across town for classes at the other campus. There was never a response. NEVER. At this university, my students were MY students, so they sided with me. At one school, the administration was so disorganized that we canceled Friday's classes so we could have a three day weekend. The monitor always said that the reason why we couldn't be found in our assigned room was because we had been thrown out of it and told to go find another room. (This happened a lot, usually on Fridays. My excuse for not answering my mobile phone was that doing so would have set a bad example for the students).

Except for the aforementioned points, there's nothing out of the ordinary going on at your school.

One thing: cut your FAO and dean some slack. Sometimes THEY aren't told things until 9:00 the night before that there has been a change in schedule, and students aren't informed until 6:00 a.m.. The people who call the shots always seem to be located in a distant city and aren't heard from until they decide to change a schedule.

Not all schools are as bad as yours, but confusion usually reigns in all public schools. As long as you don't get upset, things will blow over. If you're fined, pay it in coins. Small coins.

[Deats]

Sounds about the norm for unis.

Something it took me two years to fully get to grips with is this:

Whatever you do grading wise, it simply doesn't matter. All the uni cares about is if you turn up and the students don't hate you. Also, they want you to fudge the scores, so the dean doesn't have the hassle of it all. The kids will all pass to the next year - even the ones that didn't show up to a single lesson and got 10% in the final exam.

Working in China you can either let everything get to you (and there's an awful lot of stuff that can get to you) or you can just accept life sometimes sucks and WHATEVER you say or do, it will NEVER change anything.

It's defeatist, but it's also realistic and will save you your sanity!

[Songbird]

Well, well. As today is my final day in China after 10 years, and reading this, this uni being my FIRST, I've come full circle! I am SHOCKED that you didn't write more about the location

I worked at Longdong Xueyuan from 2004-2005, after being told by a recruiter that Xifeng was a great city and just a 4 *cough* hour *cough* drive from Xian! Back then, there was no airport (I believe there is one now) and you could either a. get the public bus, a 12 hour ride, b. get the private oil company bus (who owns the uni) for 8 hours drive, or c. pay for a seat in a private car that would get you there (alive being optional) in 5! Any getaway possible was a welcome respite from that backwater.

I was actually the first salaried teacher at this place. The uni used every possible trick in the book to beg the NGO's to come out there. VSO was there for quite awhile, until the teachers I worked with were telling them that the uni was richer and richer so they threatened to pull their teachers. Then they tried Peace Corps and who knows else. Was Mr Gao the FAO when you were there? Interesting guy....and Ding Xi (Ding Dong) the Dean of English?

The apartments were horrific- you should have seen my bathroom (or toilet). I could only shower actually sitting on the loo, and that was mighty fun during those harsh Gansu winter months (all 6 of them). Thankfully I didn't really have any internet issues and pay was always on time. Surprised out the airfare situation you had, I definitely got 8000.

There's a PIZZA JOINT up there now ?! When I was there the most exciting thing was Dicos, next to the supermarket on that street parallel to the uni. Still there? There was an incredible mum n pop dumpling hole in the wall opposite the front gate that always had lines, loved it! Also a Dongbei (?) restaurant around the corner from the back gate that actually had an English menu made for us FT's, and great food.

Ahhh.....the memories.....!

[nomadic_meow]

Been a bit busy these last couple months, off chasing certificates and the like...

Yes, there is a pizza joint. Actually now, at least two pizza joints if you count the Pizza Hut chain that's recently moved in (expensive as usual, and heart attack level of cheese but very tasty).

Dunno about Dongbei. There was once a lovely jiaozi house with various other solid, if mostly spicy food near the back gate and a picture menu, but it was taken over by some noodle franchise apparently. Businesses have really been changing a lot lately in the area... One of the other teachers, who got out much more than me, was pretty shocked by how fast it occurs.

The pizza place that was there first, Big Pizza in Crystal Plaza, has a nice buffet with various chicken, meatballs, bit of vegetables and touch of salad-style stuff (more bite-sized stuff than lettuce but that's China). And simple but good enough mini pizza slices. You can also get sugary-looking berry choco pizza if you like. It's 50 yuan for all you can eat, last I was there. Nice place to occasionally get some comfort food, or treat a student without busting the bank.

Qingyang has been growing like crazy, although certain areas (ahem, too close to home for me) are still pretty much packed with Lanzhou noodles all along the street. Oh, Dicos is still there - but soon teacher housing should be off on the new campus. For a town with no train station, it has quite a bit although prices can run high. There are some decent local eateries to be sure, but you might have to bike or bus around for some time to get to a lot of it.

They are just starting up with the new Longdong campus outside town actually being populated by staff in addition to the students. The students have been there a while, but yet to be seen how much business of any interest will congregate out there for the staff. It's some 20 min. outside of town and looks to be pretty hemmed in by farms and the like (unless they sell off).

I think there is a very small airport around now - never tried it - but believe the road trip was much cheaper and limited salary was a factor there.

Peace Corps is still there doing half the teaching work, a real bargain for the university. They bring in some really dedicated people.

Mr. Gao is now the overall Director of Foreign Affairs. To his credit, on the rare occasions when I've become desperate enough to call on him, he has been much more helpful than the figure I mentioned above. In fact, the immediate supervising official below him has not bothered answering my emails at all since I left. Mr. Gao saved the day on that documentation hunt also, when I finally prevailed upon people to get on and call him.

[Songbird]

So shocked to hear about not one but 2 pizza places! Wow, that place has really changed! And to hear about how expensive it is.....when I was there it was impossible to spend more than 1000/ month (lucky, the pay is horrid). Teachers would have competitions to see who would spend the most!

Yes, the new campus was there when I arrived in 2004, just with 1 or 2 departments and 1st year students. I was hearing teachers getting good discounts to buy apartments out there too. I never went out there but I imagine it would be even more sucky than the old campus!

Where are you headed to now?

[max71081]

longdong xueyuan......my porn name in china

[nomadic_meow]

You can still get by on relatively low spending out there, if you're really careful or bring much of what you need and don't use more than the campus internet. Peace Corps certainly manages.

I probably spent $400-500 US each month, but almost half of that was ridiculous wireless internet costs for high usage (and slow speeds making it worse). Most of the rest was food (eating out/supermarket mostly).

There are also a lot of downtown clothing shops which aren't so much cheaper than in the US and the quality/sizes are not conducive to holding onto the stuff too long imo. Clothes are both cheaper and somewhat better quality, generally speaking, in Lanzhou (and most likely Xian, didn't go there much). But then you have the long, long roadtrip to make.