Job Discussion Forums

[arioch36]

John China

[Worldly]

[SnoopBot]

Often the Chinese version of doing a good job is a Marxist one. Sacrifice to the state with NO praise, monetary awards or recognition is the ultimate Marxist reward. This reward comes as "more work" and the ability to have some antonymous rule in your classes.

Therefore, using old-style Marxist thinking giving you a class, (more work) and to allow you to "rule the class by yourself" are both the Marxist way of showing appreciation and letting you know you did a good job.

Of course, this method clashes with western styled business models, which usually reward with a monetary reward or public praise.

Remember, public praise was Taboo under Marxism, everyone was equal, and to desire monetary rewards or praise was considered selfish and capitalistic.

The Chinese used other methods of reward (because we all know Communism fails in real-life) possibly a bigger room, a more powerful position, these benefits are all power related.

However, you are the FT, and not Chinese so the power position reward cannot be passed on to you.

You will have to get most of your job satisfaction from your students by seeing them progress and from other small things that indicate you are making a difference.

It is very hard; I have gone thru the same thing after my third year in China. I was tasked with additional classes and given instructions to "do what I wanted to do" with these classes. At first, I felt like a sucker, but later realized that this was considered an honor to be allowed to do this without some controls.

I ended up making my additional class into a movie/culture class. We watched western movies then discussed them in class we even did some role-playing and held a few debates on the movies I have shown.

Within a few months, students from nearby universities were asking my university if they could attend this class and my class was moved into a large modern theater complex that could seat at least + 100 with a widescreen projector and awesome sound system.

The class was a huge success; I changed my original apprehensive," I am a sucker attitude" into a mindset of "I'll make this my best class."

I felt a strong sense of job satisfaction by doing this with a large amount of student appreciation.

Sometimes, this is all you can do. You must try to turn a bad situation into a good one or you will just experience a large level of job dissatisfaction. I had to change my mindset concerning this issue or I would have made myself more miserable feeling the same as you do now.

For your MBA, if you come back to the teaching circuit after you finished your MBA you can demand a higher wage for business related PRIVATE jobs. However, often the Universities will, at best, pay you 300 RMB extra a month over the newbie person with a three or 4-year diploma/degree.

This is another source of dissatisfaction for me that I have had to deal with, and that is the existing pay structure for experienced and well-educated FT�s.

[Henry_Cowell]

[arioch36]

Henry asked

[SnoopBot]

[Worldly]

[SnoopBot]

My MBA was a dual one that had IM/IS flavor since I was employed in the high tech field.

We had very good growth with the dot com boom, Y2K problem, and the fact many companies in the 90's upgraded their IT departments.

Just before 9/11 the dot com's started to fail, outsourcing became a common practice.

After 9/11 the bubble broke with Enron styled corruption, Dot Com Bombs, and complete full-scale outsourcing. This was around the time I graduated. The market was tough and the over age 40 types were shown the door.

I'm sure opportunities exist in banking and financial services and even in IT in the high tech hubs. However, in my state the job base became eroded and has never returned.

I ended up enrolling in a MEd program during this time, I hope your perceptions are correct as we know the business cycles go up and down and new jobs are created in new industries.

I became so disgusted with the job market here that I decided to teach in China and to enjoy a better "bang for the buck" on my current retirement income. I also wanted to explore the Chinese business market and see how I could get involved in the global market myself.

The best way to get the language skills was to pursue some type of "immersion" learning of Chinese. It was easy to find a University position with both a MBA and MEd (specializing in TESOL) I finally was able to get my feet wet. (getting paid a higher wage is another story though)

Now I'm looking past the role of university teaching, and hope the family business we are creating takes off here in the USA as it seems to have done in China.

I enjoyed teaching as I found myself in charge of the training department in my old career, it was not a hard transition to accomplish.

I would rather stay in China, but the wife seems to think the USA is better for her.

[Henry_Cowell]

[SnoopBot]

[Worldly]

NOTE: This is off-topic, but pertinent to the discussion regarding FTs in China possessing advanced degrees.

[SnoopBot]

Thanks for the words of advice.

I wish my Chinese language skills were BETTER, they should be but...I slacked off making an effort to learn the language as some of the other FT's I've worked with can run circles around me.

I'm ashamed about this, I feel the 4 years there I should be much more fluent in Chinese than I am right now.

This will change as I plan to take real Chinese courses to learn both reading a writing skills and conversational skills above yelling "Gan Bei" at one of our graduation parties.

My wife wants to get her Master's degree here in the USA, she might pick either Education or a MBA. She has not decided yet which one she will do.

If she is going to study 2-3 years here, I might look at doctorate studies or another graduate degree or some type of refresher courses.

Then we will return to China = Plan A

Plan B is for me to stay in China while she studies here, our original plan but I do not feel 100% comfortable with this idea. Lucky for me, her mother has a very good business in China and will be our partner for our endeavors in China.

This gives us a large capital base to do our start-up, low risk as our investors are familiy members with the accompanied Guanxi connections to get things done.

For some reason, she thinks having a western masters degree from the USA as some "face issue."

Her cousins, and sister both went abroad for study, and she feels she must do the same thing as them.

So I'm trying to find some method to allow her to study but also to get our business started by next year. If not I'll do plan A or go back to my old university job since they stated that they will hire me back anytime I wished to teach again.

I guess doing a good job in China did pay off in this respect.

I hope all goes well and gets sorted out.

[mandarinstudent]

[shuize]

[mandarinstudent]