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40w2000
Joined: 15 Apr 2015
Posts: 4
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 Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2017 12:11 pm Post subject: Beijing Huijia Private School Review |
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Up to date review of Beijing Huijia Private School. Too long to post the content here, but definitely worth a read if you are considering a job there.
https://beijinghuijiaprivateschoolreview.wordpress.com/ |
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thechangling
Joined: 11 Apr 2013
Posts: 276
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| Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2017 10:26 am Post subject: |
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| Sounds like utter hell on so many differing levels and yet so many similarities are shared with my own college in Wuhan mostly pertaining to ruthless, insane management practices. |
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theoriginalprankster
Joined: 19 Mar 2012
Posts: 895
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| Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2017 12:43 pm Post subject: |
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I'm heading to a school in Guangdong, in a small tourist town,near a beach, but still 90 minutes to Shenzhen.
Our apartments are off campus, but they also have a guest policy. I'm pretty happy to do my own thing, but if I happen to meet a lass that happens to become my girlfriend she WILL be staying over if I choose so. I'm 39 not 17.
I'm not going to have my lifestyle dictated to me by ANYONE, full stop.
Look forward to saving some money and getting out of SH, where I saved nothing. |
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Milwaukiedave
Joined: 11 Jun 2004
Posts: 17
Location: Bucheon Korea
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jim_brava
Joined: 22 Mar 2010
Posts: 55
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| Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2017 1:35 pm Post subject: |
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Wow, this post may have caused me to avoid making a big mistake.
I'd come pretty close to taking a position within a prefecture-level city (4.5 million, with 3.2 million urban), which, after a bit of research, seemed developed enough to be livable for a newbie foreigner with zero Chinese and a preference for large-ish cities.
Of course, a "city" in China encompasses a whole administrative region - perhaps with multiple urban centers - and this thread made me look for the exact location on Google maps.
Unfortunately, it turns out that this school is 10 kilometers from the closest urban center (0.4 million), which is itself a further 30 kilometers from the city's primary urban hub.
I'd made peace with being in a city of 3.2 million - which, let's face it, is quite small by China standards - but not being 40 kilometers from it.
Sure, my plan was to somewhat lie low and save some money for a few years, but not to that extent. Even the option to occasionally "jump on a train" to Shanghai or Qingdao looks unrealistic when getting to that mainline rail station will be a journey in itself. |
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22Yossarian
Joined: 20 Jan 2013
Posts: 68
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2017 8:49 am Post subject: |
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| For the first week the new teachers and I sat around waiting for staff from the previous year to return from vacation. We then sat around for another week waiting for students to arrive and classes to start. I came to learn that the school asking staff to return one or two weeks before students only to sit around doing nothing is a regular occurrence. |
Super common in China. Generally speaking the managment doesn't actually know what good teaching is, so they make very superficial judgements. My last school, which had an 8-5 work day, held it against you if you regularly left at 5. It is odd that they seem to find being so inefficient that one can't get his work done in a 9 hour day (with teaching loads capped at 20 hours a week) is considered a positive trait in an employee.
I generally found the foreign teachers who regularly stayed late to be the definition of mediocrity in action, they were not teaching high quality lessons. |
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22Yossarian
Joined: 20 Jan 2013
Posts: 68
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2017 9:04 am Post subject: |
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| The proliferation of Didi, a cab hailing app, has made escaping campus easier but the drivers always call rather than just follow their GPS and rarely speak English. Learning a bit of survival Chinese will help. Cab drivers can never find the gate because it isn’t well sign posted (despite the school being made aware of this). It’s almost impossible to spot the east gate at night unless you know where you’re going as its bathed in darkness. |
A bit of survival Chinese. First, immediatly after a driver accepts your ride, go to the messanger in Didi and select the first pre-written option. It basically translates to, my pick up point is accurate please follow the GPS. Normally, the driver will then select a prewriten option that basically translates to, okay, I will follow the GPS, please wait. I find that when I select that option, 70% of the time the driver does not call.
If the driver still calls, simply say "Ding wei, Chi fou, ding wei, ding wei" ding wei translates to GPS, and chi fou means driver. Usually at first they will try and ask a quesiton, but as you repeat ding wei in your foreign accent, they will realize that this is basically all the Chinese you know.
Finally, when the driver arrives to the pick up point, you will have 5 minutes to get to the pick up point. If you are not there immediatly the driver will usually call. If he calls, simply say "nei hao chi fou, wo ma sheng, ma sheng". Ma sheng literally translates to I am on the horse, but it really means I will be there soon. If you ignore the call, he may decide that you aren't there and drive away, and your didi rating will get dinged.
The problem is a creative driver can cause all of this to go sideways. I am unsure why Chinese drivers struggle to follow GPS instructions. I recently spent a month in Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam and frequently used Uber. The drivers never called, rarely wrote anything in the in app messenger, and always turned up where they were supposed to.
My previous job in China, my school was a bit of a distance from the subway, and I would usually use a Didi to get to the subway. About once a week, the driver would drive clear passed the school and into the mountains. I'd watch him blow right by, and about 2 minutes later he would call me yelling. My Chinese was not good enough for that. |
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OhBudPowellWhereArtThou
Joined: 02 Jun 2015
Posts: 1168
Location: Since 2003
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2017 5:25 pm Post subject: |
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| I read the website and the OP's experiences and laughed. He may not realize it, but his survival skills are very good and he accepted the situation with perfect aplomb. His experiences aren't too uncommon, though I haven't had students students who were obscenely rich (that I know of, anyway). I've taught in the boonies as well, but I have been lucky. I can count the number of thoroughly apathetic students I've had on one hand. (Maybe on two hands and a couple of feet. Wait. One school is coming back to me. Scratch the previous numbers until I | | |
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