Job Discussion Forums

[J-Pop]

[Lynn]

[Capergirl]

After my conversation class last night with some Angolan students (mostly male), I am feeling quite appreciative of my ultra-feminist Western culture. Vive les feminazis!

Re: Customer service...I had lunch at a local restaurant today (local=Eastern Canada) and the service was wonderful.

[nomadder]

Restaurant service(one of my jobs right now) is good in N. America(must be the tip system). Sometimes they're too all over you though and I swear they'd do backflips if you asked. In Japan they were proficient but not available enough and what was with those mini glasses of water-they looked PO'd if you wanted a refill. As for other places it can differ. When I came back from Japan I was looking forward to being able to ask the clerks anything but it turned out they all must have turned 16 yesterday as they didn't seem to know anything nor were they interested in trying to find out so I was back to trying to figure it all out for myself.

[jud]

I've been an expat for 7 years, and I feel like an alien when I'm in New York. When I'm in the supermarket I feel like Robin Williams in Moscow on the Hudson and I live in Northern Italy (yes, we have supermarkets here too). There's just too much, and most of that too much is junk. Don't get me started about world ignorance, health insurance (lack of), right wing lunatics, and pounds and ounces and inches (which honestly I don't think I've ever understood, and I'm American).

That said, the class system here is really entrenched in a different way than in America. There everything depends on the money god. Here if you don't look or dress or work a certain way people assume a lot of things about you. Big deal. This amounts to daily annoyances for me. BUT for people born here it can color your future. If you were born in the North but your family's from the South of Italy, you're not Northern, and for many people you're inferior. If your father worked in a factory, you can take his place but god-forbid you try to become a "manager."

So I think I'll reject the Mcworld side of my origins but I'm happy to have my brash, you can't keep me down States side to me as well.

[cafebleu]

Schmooz - re-reading my post I realise I sounded aggressive. I didn`t mean to be and yes, dear Old Blighty is becoming more blighted in various ways each year. I find that civility on the street, for example, is becoming extinct in any number of places.

While Japanese street manners can make me angry, there is a non agressivness there that makes a change from angry strangers who think you`re looking at them and what`s your problem? Although I maintain there is a lot of frustration inside any number of Japanese, it usually does not manifest itself in the threatening ways it can in the UK.

Jud`s points about Italy were really interesting, especially the points about snobbishness. The UK has the reputation for being class-bound but I think a fair bit of that has disappeared with the new working realities (being laid off, many jobs disappearing) and the unemployment that has hovered for a couple of generations over us, leading in some ways to a new `Who gives an f -- about a respectable job and position?` mentality among the younger people.

I find Japan to be snobbish. That might surprise people but it`s here alright. I see it as a symptom of the poor, rural background of the majority of Japanese people. They don`t want to know about their origins but the fact is most Japanese people were poor or relatively poor rural people who were given surnames during the Meiji period. So what? Well, the Japanese invariably insist they are all middle class and don`t like to be reminded that relatively recently they weren`t. There are also `No working class in Japan` according to some Japanese. That makes me smile. It`s all symptomatic of a feeling of inferior family origins. Very interesting.

[arioch36]

Some of the things that bother cafebleu about Japan are the same things that bother me about China (If I read cafe right). The apathy towards the plight of others. towards those with less. The way they treat women. The guy lighting up a cigarette in the room where no one else smokes, and he knows it. In many ways I do not believe the East is as respectful to each other, but as someone said, respectful only to the group of peers to which he feels he belongs.

Some guy will pushing his girlfriend around on the ground, hitting her, and the crowd just watching. Being a cowboy agressive american man, I told him to stop, and when he mouthed off, grabbed him by the throat and pushed him against the car. Believe it or not, some people started clapping, and as I walked down the road people came and thanked me. So everyone else believed it was wrong. but they would do nothing. My Western, American mind still cannot comprehend this.

Of course, this is a cultural bias. The rich and powerful bother me in China. their apathy towards others, their thinking they are better then other people.

I can't believe any one thinks service in general is better in China. True, they some times treat foreigners better because we are foreigners. Watch how they treat the common person. How many times have I gone to a store, and the worker has no interest at all in helping me. Or said "mei you, mei you (not have) when I can see it myself on the table.

Clean air...China is making big steps. I really do believe this. But i miss being able to get in my car, and drive to a quiet lake, sit at a picnic table, have a barbeque.

But in the classroom, I have more freedom then in the US, where every word is watched for PC, some group always ready to pounce on any misword. The students may not have as much information and knowledge, but they are not spending all their parents money getting drunk on every weekend. It is possible to have meaningful relationships with them, as well as the co-teachers. I truly enjoy my interaction with the students...at least here in henan, a poorer province.

And the common people in Henan, you show them respect, they show you great kindness. Though some/much of this is because you are a foreigner.

[Peter]

Compared to the others my list is rather practical/.
I went back for a look see for a house in Christchurch , NZ and landed up buying one., in Kaiapoi, a dormitory suburb
So after 7 years in Shenzhen, what can i look forward to?

A decent newspaper in English
Clean air
A car
No crowds and few loony drivers
Foodpaths without scooters coming at you and without holes
A library
A swimming pool without yells of laowai and hello!
A supermarket that is not a rugby scrum
My own house, not a concrete bunker with bars on the window
Water that can be drunk from the tap.
Being invisible
Driving in the countryside which is safe as compared to China rural road behaviour
Medical service that is not doubtful
Banks that deliver service without hassles
Silence most of the time
You can see birds and hear them too.
No mosquitoes
Finally; No more blazing hot, windless days, gasping for air and getting heat rash at tender places.

I will miss decent money, the local restaurant, Tsintao beer, no grafitti,
the ferry trip to HK,all these gorgeous women by the thousand,the bus service to Shekou seaworld, the cheap pirate DVDs....

[scot47]

I thought NZ was in the South ? You should start a new thread : "Appreciating the South"

Seriously why do we use the shorthand of "West" to mean what we mean. "West" of where ?

Maybe Kipling : EAST IS EAST AND WEST IS WEST

[Dave Kessel]

It seems like every region of the world has something that the other one does not have and lacks something that the other has in abundance. If you are rich enough or enterpirsing enough to spend a part of the year in each region and enjoy what it has to offer, then you will have a complete life.

Settling on only one place and expecting it to give you everything will be very frustrating- you just can't get blood from a turnip.

There was a book called "PT- The Perpetual Traveller" by a W.G. Hill ( you can use your search engine to find info on it). Although it deals mainly with how to avoid taxes it also touches upon living a quality life under " five flags"- that is in five countries/places- each one providing what it is good at providing.

I have so far been able to live in three, more or less " simultaneously" or ,rather, " alternately". It has not been easy but it seems that the author of the book had a great point- the formula does seem to work.

The West has great infrastructure but seems kind of bland to me. The ME has the tax-free money advantage which would be impossible w/o Western citizenship. SE Asia has the exotic quality to it and great people but lacks good infrastructure or money ( at least for me).

Combine those three and you will have it all. Add some more areas and you will be in heaven.

[nomadder]

I like your way of thinking. How do you swing it though? Do you have a job with alot of time off?

[Dave Kessel]

I am in Saudi and have long vacations. Sometimes I work for one year and then take a long time off. Ideally, the best would be to be a free- lance writer/artist/teacher and work on the Internet.

It is possible and if one puts one's mind to it, it will happen eventually.

[Cleopatra]

One of my very favourite hates is the inane term "The West".

I especially grew to hate it during my time in Saudi Arabia, when it was uttered about once every five seconds. "Westerners" this and "Westerners" that...

Why do I hate it? It is basically meaningless and a MASSIVE generaliazation. I've also found that habits and characteristics which are often said to be "Western" are in fact really Anglo Saxon. the use of the term "The West" betrays the disproportionate influence exerted by English speaking cultures, mostly the US.

Also, esp. when you're living in a Muslim country, as I was, it encourages a potentially divisive "them and us" situation.

[leeroy]

Apples are very different from pears

As are cabbages from carrots

But we still generalise about fruits and vegetables, associating all those negative and positive stereotypes accordingly.

Ok, crap analogy - but we have to generalise. "Westerners" have a lot in difference, but we have a lot in common too...

[dmb]

Is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable? i told my students that it was a fruit because the seeds were inside. Cucumber? Fruit or veg