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Margot73
Joined: 16 Feb 2007
Posts: 145
Location: New York City
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 Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 2:55 pm Post subject: My Chinese husband doesn't believe about the ESL |
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| teaching scene in China. (he left about 15 years ago.) He doesn't believe about the broken contracts, people being overworked and all of the other things you read here. Is there a news article on the subject I could point him to? |
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Millerlong
Joined: 21 May 2003
Posts: 147
Location: Shanghai, China
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 9:12 pm Post subject: |
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| How will a news article be more convincing. Here on Dave's there are real people with first hand information. A newspaper article on this topic would be written by journalists with second hand information sourced from teachers like those on Dave's. |
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Worldly
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
Posts: 74
Location: The Cosmos
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| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 12:38 am Post subject: Re: My Chinese husband doesn't believe about the ESL |
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| Margot73 wrote: |
| teaching scene in China. (he left about 15 years ago.) He doesn't believe about the broken contracts, people being overworked and all of the other things you read here. Is there a news article on the subject I could point him to? |
I'd like to respectfully opine on this comment / question.
Perhaps the OP's husband should return to his homeland and see the changes China has made (both good and bad) for himself.
If it's been 15 years since he departed China, perhaps his memories reflect the traditional Chinese attitude and treatment toward members of academia (e.g., respect, a possible role model, only the best become teachers, etc.).
I believe the traditional Chinese attitude and treatment remain in many locales, but the overall profession, as well as cultural attitudes, are rapidly changing.
QUESTION FOR THE OP: Why would members of this forum post misleading or intentionally malicious information regarding their treatment?
This forum provides an invaluable service. However, as with any public forum, you must scrutinize the information, do your own research, and make your own judgments. Certainly, there are some posts that are questionable. For me, I have reason to believe most of the information regarding mistreatment is credible.
IMPORTANT: If you take the time, you will also read plenty of positive experiences regarding teaching in China. |
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Anda
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Posts: 2199
Location: Jiangsu Province
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| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 1:21 am Post subject: Um |
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Hi
Roughly that far back you had a party member in every class. This is today�s China where the party member is not in every class also many places were state run back then. This does not mean that you are no longer being watched / assessed.
I think these days that many schools have had bad runs with our lot as we have had with theirs. This means that you have to earn their respect as a teacher once you start, to be accepted and be treated well.
Times are about to change again as China is closing the door somewhat to foreign investment. By this I mean that they have or are no longer offering so many incentives to set up shop here. |
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Steppenwolf
Joined: 30 Jul 2006
Posts: 1769
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| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 3:14 am Post subject: |
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Tell your Chinese husband that while FTs moan and complain about abusive employers (and not always unfairly), he can scan any modern newspaper for reports on exploitative working conditions in China; of course most victims are Chinese. It goes to show that FTs cannot expect to be excluded from experiencing the downsides of being a wage earner under a Chinese boss.
The biggest problem - and one no doubt being reported on in your country's media - pose the thousands of construction company bosses who abscond with funds just before the spring festival, leaving millions of unskilled contract labourers without pay (often the whole year being kept by the boss).
If such crime can go unpunished, it goes without saying that training centres and schools can shortchange and shaft their teachers from near and far. |
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HunanForeignGuy
Joined: 05 Jan 2006
Posts: 989
Location: Shanghai, PRC
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| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 3:34 am Post subject: Re: Um |
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| Anda wrote: |
Hi
Roughly that far back you had a party member in every class. This is today�s China where the party member is not in every class also many places were state run back then. This does not mean that you are no longer being watched / assessed.
I think these days that many schools have had bad runs with our lot as we have had with theirs. This means that you have to earn their respect as a teacher once you start, to be accepted and be treated well.
Times are about to change again as China is closing the door somewhat to foreign investment. By this I mean that they have or are no longer offering so many incentives to set up shop here. |
Dear Anda,
Thank you for your kind post. As a rule, your posts are great...
But here I just don't agree with you...but perhaps it is locale.
Believe it or not, I still have a p*rty member in every one of my classes. Reports are regularly made to the P*rty about my teaching and I have been commended and commended (I am clean...no Ta*wan, no T*bet, no X*njiang, no F** Gulo**, no s*x, etc., etc., no G**rge B*sh propoganda). In fact, I was just given a HUGE bonus for teaching such dynamic, interactive (read that as sanitized) ESL classes. And I am NOT in the boondocks but in one of the most prosperous cities in China. My classes have been audited by P*rty directly as least four times in addition to numerous other mini-audits.
As for foreign investment, dear Anda, this is China and sometimes one says one thing and one does another...what I mean...is that the biggest foreign banks in the world are currently on a shopping spree for Chinese banks...one of the largest banks in Guangzhou was recently purchased by Citibank and Deutschbank just took a 49% interest in another. The China Daily recently carried an article about the explosion of the Wall-Marts, the Carrefours, the whatevers in China. Heinz, Inc. just bought out one of the largest makers of prepared food.
But there is back and forth. China has joined the world. LeNuovo purchased most of IBM last year; Haier has taken a major stake, if not outright purchased Maytag; The People's Bank of China (the state bank) is the largest purchaser of United States Government securities; and the list goes on and on. QQ has literally run Yahoo out of China, etc.
And yes, China is changing, my God, yes. The city of Guangzhou completely paid for the renovation of Sacred Heart Cathedral here -- the largest Catholic church in Asia. And it is in the process of renovating the Our Lady of Lourdes French Catholic Church. And the renovation was a masterpiece of work -- they brought the best artisans they could find and returned it to its 1868 splendor.
And look, sometimes China works by fits and starts. It's just life here. There is the case of the AIDS activitist, an 80-year old doctor, whom the authorities in Henan refused to allow to travel to the United States to receive an award from Hillary Clinton. It was quite a big kafuffle and in the end Beijing overruled Henan and the august doctor is on a plane to Washington as we speak.
So yes and no. China is not closing the door. Do you realize that this is a huge number of foreign teachers here? Do you think that the United States would grant visas to 40,000 mainland Chinese to teach Chinese in the U.S.?
I have learned to read China very, very carefully, I guess, and I have learned that the "final decision" is very often not the final decision at all.
All the best and keep up the great posts.
HFG
Last edited by HunanForeignGuy on Tue Feb 20, 2007 3:37 am; edited 1 time in total |
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clark.w.griswald
Joined: 06 Dec 2004
Posts: 2056
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| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 3:36 am Post subject: Re: My Chinese husband doesn't believe about the ESL |
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| Margot73 wrote: |
| teaching scene in China. (he left about 15 years ago.) He doesn't believe about the broken contracts, people being overworked and all of the other things you read here. Is there a news article on the subject I could point him to? |
Quite obviously the teaching scene here today is far different to 15 years ago considering the rapid changes seen in China.
There is no doubt that some foreign teachers are the victims of unscrupulous employers in China so your husband should certainly be in no doubt about this. Broken contracts, dishonesty etc are no doubt also prevalent wherever your husband is located now so I am not sure why he would think that China would be some bastion of integrity in this regard.
But fortunately for every bad experience in China there are many good ones, and this is why many foreign teachers are spending more and more time here these days. Perhaps 15 years ago foreign teachers would come in for a six month or one year gig, while these days some foreign teachers are making China their second home. |
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Margot73
Joined: 16 Feb 2007
Posts: 145
Location: New York City
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| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 8:31 pm Post subject: |
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| What he doesn't understand is why the schools bother with all of these games. Wouldn't it just be easier for them to run the schools well and keep the teachers and students happy? It must get expensive to keep replacing the teachers that bolt. |
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Anda
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Posts: 2199
Location: Jiangsu Province
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| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 10:32 pm Post subject: Um |
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I have plenty of friends back in Australia who are or have been in business. Very often they get staff who they want to get rid of but have trouble due to Australian law in so doing. Why should it be any different here. There are bad bosses and bad staff. Throw in good and bad students who don't want to study and can make it hell for a good teacher at a institute where they pay the dollars.
I lived a long time in Korea and I can tell you that Korean teachers fight between themselves so why not us. The same back in Australia, staff fight between themselves.
Look at goverments they are in on the act too. So it's a non issue, that wont change. |
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clark.w.griswald
Joined: 06 Dec 2004
Posts: 2056
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| Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 1:30 am Post subject: |
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| Margot73 wrote: |
| What he doesn't understand is why the schools bother with all of these games. Wouldn't it just be easier for them to run the schools well and keep the teachers and students happy? It must get expensive to keep replacing the teachers that bolt. |
There are a number of schools that appreciate and achieve this. They are the ones that we generally never hear about and that never advertise jobs as their staff stay with them. When they do need to replace staff often this is done through word of mouth.
So pretty much the schools that your husband is referring to, and the ones that generally pop up at places like Daves are really only a small percentage of what is out there.
Overall though I would have to agree that many Chinese do not seem to either understand or perhaps appreciate the value of goodwill among staff. I do think that more and more schools that have foreign staff are however working this out.
Let's take Christmas Day as a holiday. Traditionally it is not a holiday in China and therefore the school is in the right if they insist that the foreign teacher work that day - afterall all the other staff are there and probably more importantly so are the students. However there is a real value in letting teachers take that day off it is important to them and more schools are recognizing this. Slowly they are getting there. |
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brsmith15
Joined: 12 May 2003
Posts: 1142
Location: New Hampshire USA
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| Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 1:46 am Post subject: |
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Margot,
Your post of 2/21 asked the question of the decade: Why?
Would you like the answer?
Because they think it works. It doesn't, but they think it does.
It's the old saw that backward managers all over the world believe: "There's always more (cheap) replacements out there." Although the problem is more prevalent here in China because of a lack of training and understanding, believe me when I tell you that after 25 years of holding seminars for managers and upper executives in the US and Canada, Chinese supervisors are not alone in their misguided attitude about people. |
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latefordinner
Joined: 19 Aug 2003
Posts: 973
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| Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 4:55 am Post subject: |
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| brsmith15, that is possibly the most complete answer to that very good question that I have read on this or any forum. Thanks. |
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Sugarcandy Mountain
Joined: 19 Jan 2007
Posts: 28
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| Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 7:05 am Post subject: |
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I agree with the Hunan guy that the CCP has a mole in every university class, but do think that they are becoming more lenient and allowing different thoughts into the classroom. To a degree.
Just last week, before the holiday, I said "F Hu Jintao" in a private, adult, school class. The next day, I was given a "Year of the Pig" poster and told that I am strong!!
I wonder when I'll be deported?? |
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james s
Joined: 07 Feb 2007
Posts: 676
Location: Raincity
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| Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 7:50 am Post subject: |
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...
Last edited by james s on Sat Nov 24, 2007 1:42 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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patsy
Joined: 07 Oct 2004
Posts: 179
Location: china
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| Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 8:06 am Post subject: |
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| Maybe then it's a good idea to return to the mother land and get a good job. How can you tell anything that goes on here from New York?!!! |
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