Job Discussion Forums

ilunga · Joined: 17 Oct 2003 Posts: 842 Location: China

Surely you can get around these curfews?
It's ridiculous to expect a grown adult (especially a twenty-something guy) to be home by eleven every night.
My boss is smart enough to turn a blind eye to it. She has asked me to give her the name and address of anyone I bring back though. I can appreciate that because it isn't good for the students to see me walking out with a stranger the next morning.
One of the guards hates my guts. He used to be really friendly, he speaks a bit of English and would always say 'good evening'. Now he just blanks me.
I hate his guts as well since he tried to stop my g/f coming in one night. I was having none of it and said he either let us both in or we were sleeping in his little office. He then preceeded to tell my g/f how I was always bring girls back. I can see his little brain working overtime thinking 'i told her he's a bad guy and she's still with him i just don't get it'. Fortunately that *beep* usually works the days now and there's a friendly new guy on the nightshift.

Chris_Crossley · Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:02 pm Post subject: ENJOY THE COUNTRY?!

Chris_Crossley

struelle · Joined: 16 May 2003 Posts: 2372 Location: Shanghai

Old Dog · Joined: 22 Oct 2004 Posts: 564 Location: China

China is such a varied country. Sometimes the thinking is quite modern. Sometimes it harks to the past - and this is particularly true in smaller, more self-contained places and probably particularly true in the less prosperous provinces.

So often I feel like remonstrating with my bosses about some particular point - but then I ask myself, "Who am I arguing with?" Can I, by a process of logic, persuade to my point of view.

And then I think of Robert Frost's poem, "Mending wall":

ContemporaryDog · Joined: 21 May 2003 Posts: 1477 Location: Wuhan, China

ContemporaryDog · Joined: 21 May 2003 Posts: 1477 Location: Wuhan, China

TEAM_PAPUA · Joined: 24 May 2004 Posts: 1679 Location: HOLE

This is uncredible! I have my own apartment with no gates and no curfew! However, it would be a good idea if someone could lock me in occasionally Shocked

T_P

badtyndale · Joined: 23 Jun 2004 Posts: 181 Location: In the tool shed

I too now have my own apartment and have moved beyond these ridiculous impositions that characterise the Chinese distrust of FT's. However, as an aside, following TEAM_PAPUA's comment, I wonder if anyone has ever been locked in. An extremely vindictive gatekeeper once wired a gate shut after a former colleague of mine invited a CT for dinner. They tried to leave about 9pm only to be confronted by this abomination. The gatekeeper's excuse for wiring the gate shut was that he couldn't find the key for the padlock(!) and that he was 'scared' that some of the students were trying to 'get out'. I don't think this idiot had ever quite got over the fact that we had successfully managed to get the school to change its 'unjumpable' 12ft wooden gates for new metal ones with a separate door to which we all (eventually) had keys (after finally getting them to install a lock that couldn't be jammed from the inside by said idiot). As I've experienced it, there are definitely personality issues to contend with when it comes to gatekeepers. Unfortunately, the one I describe here liked his 'power' too much.

TEAM_PAPUA · Joined: 24 May 2004 Posts: 1679 Location: HOLE

The power of the key holder! I once asked my school for a spare key for a tiny room (empty & used for nothing) in my school where I hoped to leave my bike during work. Impossible!

T_P: May I have a key for the small room that is both empty and used for nothing?

Fool: No.

T_P: Why?

Fool: Because Mr.Fun Guy has the responsibility of the keys!

T_P: I only want one key for the room that is both empty & used for nothing!

Fool: If everyone has the keys...there will...be..chaos! Then, who will have the 'confidentiality' of the keys!?!?!?

T_P: Huh? WTF just happened?

TEAM_PAPUA (keyless in Shanghai) Cool

badtyndale · Joined: 23 Jun 2004 Posts: 181 Location: In the tool shed

The key to the key is necessity!

How strange to think you'd be allowed access to an unused cubby-hole. Shocked

The first time I arrived in China I was (eventually) met at the airport and transported to my luxurious accommodation (I'm being sarcastic, of course) whereupon after about an hour's wait outside someone finally turned up with keys (but no cleaning products, unfortunately). Having several weeks notice of our arrival is not sufficient notice to have had the keys to hand (nor to have had the rooms cleaned).

tigerlily20202 · Joined: 19 Jul 2004 Posts: 40

I have tried several times to get a key to the front door of my hotel and been thwarted several times by China's awesome pew-rock-racy. Our curfew has the automatic sliding doors closed by 10:30PM. There's a normal side door that could be opened with a key, but I can't have one because "what if something happened? then we would have to hold you responsible." They didn't even mention the curfew till after my signature was on the contract. My administrator told me I could always just ring the doorbell to wake up a receptionist and let me in if I came after 10:30 PM -- until I pointed out that the doorbell had been broken (a bunch of wires sticking out of it) since last spring semester! So much for being concerned with our safety (what did they think would happen if we got locked out?) Fortunately they got around to fixing it a week or so after I pointed it out
In addition to getting less than 3000RMB/month, the university song is always stuck in my head. But my students are awesome and do everything to try to make us foreigners feel good here...sometimes when I am just completely ready to bust out, they do little things that really make a difference.

badtyndale · Joined: 23 Jun 2004 Posts: 181 Location: In the tool shed

They're just toying with you...

One of the things you have to remember is that you must make it appear that they have found the solution to the problem (even though you may have anticipated the problem long before it manifested itself). It's the old 'face-saving' BS. In your case, you could tell them politely that a hotel cannot restrict the movements of its guests and that it is simply not fair to keep waking up the ever-vigilant watchdog (perhaps use more diplomatic words). If you have to go through the interpretations of your FAO you can be more punchy with your choice of language (they'll not directly translate) thus making your position 'a little clearer' with your immediate contacts (it's also good to get things off your chest once in a while).

Brian Caulfield · Joined: 14 Sep 2004 Posts: 1247 Location: China

Folks this is China . You buy the guard some baiju and a carton of cigarrettes learn their names and you can come and go as you please . Just be descrete and don't make too much noise and everyone is happy . It is the same all over Asia. The parents want their kids protected . My problem and the reason I left my last university gig was that the curfew meant nothing to the kids . They merely climbed in and out of a window that was beside my apartment . This went on all night and at 5 in the morning the girls would climb out and head to their dorm .
Every place you live in China there is someone monitoring you . Just get to know them and you will have no problems . Chinese are very curious poeple

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

There seem to be two sides to this curfew thing: on one hand one feels being watched over like in a police state.
And this no doubt was the original intention. This curfew practice dates back to the heyday of Chinese socialism. You can read it in novels and biographies told by CHinese emigres in the West; the neighbourhood was always intimately involved in spying on every resident and their various visitors.
Foreigners have to be protected so that the good name of Mother China cannot be sullied by a mishap occurring to those foreign residents. This is why many hotels are not allowed to house us. We still must check in at specially-approved hotels.
And we need special permission to rent premises under state administration, i.e. buildings owned by SOEs.

So, the overprotective Mother China almost smothers us. Curfews apply not only to us but to everybody. Our students lead a heavily-regimented life, being surveilled day and night (why do they have to do "self-study" after dinner until 9:30 p.m.???).
Of course, such strict surveillance eventually breaks down and individuals exploit loopholes. I have seen many secondary school students secretly going out or coming back - with the connivance of their class monitors. The monitors don't report their "friends" to the authorities in place. It is misplaced trust that binds them to their classmates and to the school leadership. With us foreigners, I believe the situation is slightly different: we are not "tusted" to the same degree, and that's why they impose on us more strictly enforced rules. This may also explain why we are always the last to be informed about changes made to our timetables.

But the benign intention is there too: I remember I was evicted from a tenement block once, and the police patiently explained to me I had no permission to stay there; their major consideration was I could come to grief, and thus the reputation of China would suffer...

Where I live and work right now, the administration is taking a far too relaxed attitude; recently, a student told me that in the dorms - strictly segregated by genders! - many boys sleep with their girlfriends in the same bed; in one room, he convincingly explained, 6 boys routinely had six girlfriends in the same room...
While some rent premises outside the uni, many feel it's not worth the extra outlay; dorm occupation must be paid for no matter whether students use it or not.