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blackwellben
Joined: 06 Nov 2010
Posts: 121
Location: Saudi Arabia
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 Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2011 1:58 am Post subject: |
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| johnslat wrote: |
...but, if you go, make as sure as you can that you have a "good employer" and (preferably) a work visa (not a business visa.)
The Kingdom can be difficult enough for most even with a good employer and a work visa. Without them, it can be intolerable, and it's not easy to leave. If your employer won't get an exit visa for you, you're stuck there. |
Emphasis mine...
I'm not advocating accepting a business visa in lieu of a work visa. Had I been asked to accept a business visa, I wouldn't have.
But on another thread I'm too lazy to look up, it's been confidently claimed an exit visa is not required for a business visa, and asserted that's the attraction of a business visa-- you can leave without notice.
I have no idea if that's true. |
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geela
Joined: 12 Aug 2011
Posts: 14
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| Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2011 3:45 pm Post subject: Some need to apologize |
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John,
You have good point, but isn't fair to say that you all timers have spent 15/10 years there and if it was too bad one should have gone out of it quickly?
I'm not saying we should take business visa or bad deals. Rather, i'm simply saying, its not black and white. There are situations when business visa might be safe than work visa since it doesn't require exit stamp.
If young person doen't have experience they could decide that they need the money and experience and try it first year with busines visa than not. That's all I'm saying.
Its scary,
No hard feelings. You the one being rude every step. That thread you refer to i wrote the lady to be careful with the business visa, but when she was determined to go i told her to "take some medicine for her child."
Is that encouragement?
Below, I'm going to paste what you wrote about the "Saudis in general" on page 1 above, and if there is anybody who owe apology its you -don't be too arogant specially when you made all your money from there.
As a teacher who traveled a lot you should know better.
This is what you wrote -pay attention to the middle and last portions
*******************************************************
| It's Scary! wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Is it an entitlement thing? |
♫Ding!♫, ♫Ding!♫, ♫Ding!♫, ♫Ding!♫, ♫Ding!♫!!! You got it! 
Here's a slight insight from a long-suffering teacher who spent years in the "Belly of the Beast':
"You're either looking for the WORST uni in the Kingdom of Utopia or something that might possibly exist in a desert region on another planet in a galaxy far, far away....
I don't think that any of the old-timers have the time of interest in explaining the psycho-social aspect of the Gulf region, but I'll give it a try. Yer talking about having a Western-oriented idea (forget model!) of education that took the West CENTURIES to develop and perfect coming from students and a native populace who:
-DIDN'T have forests from which they could make books to study and notepaper to write on, therefore developed a verbal-based methodology of communicating ideas using sticks to illustrate their thoughts in the sand. The little bit of wood that could be found in the desert was for firewood or building materials Why do you think that they can't stop talking and rather lose their hand than their mobile or be bothered to read or even bring a notebook to class?
-mostly slept during the heat of the day in tents (as there wasn't much to do) and thrived and travelled at night if they lived in the interior or fished or pearl-dived or traded if they lived on the coast.
-get done at the last possible moment when the last possible cup of tea has been consumed...
-have NO work ethic or pride in themselves as a people that comes from long-held national achievements such as nation-building...
-had commerce that consisted on scraping together what they could or marauding for what they couldn't...there was no industry to speak of.
-were not "colonized" by the various western European powers as they quickly realized that there was nothing to profit from sand or people constantly bickering (communicating) with each other...
The only time that ANY part of this piece of nothingness became ANYTHING close to useful to ANY western power was after the advent of the airplane and the British realized that the lower rim of the P/A Gulf might (and it did!) serve as a place for a few airbases to secure lines of communication to colonies that DID show a profit, such as India and Malaysia. They secured truces with certain sheikhs for these few and far between refueling/refreshing stations and until the early 70's this area was still known as the Trucial States...
FINALLY oil was discovered in this area and money began to flow and infrastructure was developed, but the people were not permitted to progress. Western powers were/are portrayed as a necessary evil and tribal relations/ethos (wasta, majlis, etc...) was reinforced as a way of retaining a false identity. This has allowed cities to appear, industry to develop and transportation links to connect...but only by Western-educated locals or imported labor/brain-power...the vast majority still stay up to all hours of the night talking in their majlises during the evenings, having dinner around 10 p.m. and resenting their Western teachers/bosses who insist that they report to class/work at "ridiculously" early (8-9 a.m.) hours...
Now, EDUCATION! For decades, they brought (and still bring in) Arabic-speaking lackeys from countries that were made by or divvied up by the major European colonial powers, but guess what? Europe had so siphoned off from these peoples that they were near poverty themselves, but the paltry (by Western standards) salaries offered by this region were so fabulous to them as opposed to their domestic standards that they came in droves and stayed. When THEY realized that these folk refused/didn't have the incentive/really didn't want to change and that "change" would only jeopardize their highly-valued paychecks (that allowed them to do things like build their own homes back in their home countries of the MENA and to save for a retirement other than abject poverty), they adapted and underwhelmed by allowing students to come to class when the urge struck them, not assign huge amounts of homework (thereby...insanely...instilling the idea that "education" e.g. going over notes taken in class, ended when the last school bell rang), fashioning tests so that the weakest would pass and changing grades if that didn't work. The locals, on their end, believe that all knowledge comes from Allah and all, as brothers and sisters who have a right to the revelations of Allah have a right...nay...a duty for those who "get it" to share (in the West, "cheat") with others who don't. Inbreeding hasn't helped with the retention of knowledge...
This has been going on at the elementary and secondary educational level since "education" was instituted in this region...
And, now, you want them to come to a university wanting to somehow learn and the mercenaries hired to staff these hallowed halls of education to cover your a$$ when it comes down to yer job or theirs?
Keep dreamin', sister!"
It's downright maddening at times! |
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Again i have no hard feelings, all i wanted to say in my earlier post was that "hey you went overboad and generalized !" |
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blackwellben
Joined: 06 Nov 2010
Posts: 121
Location: Saudi Arabia
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| Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2011 5:41 pm Post subject: Re: Some need to apologize |
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| geela wrote: |
but when she was determined to go i told her to "take some medicine for her child."
Is that encouragement? |
But she hadn't been so "determined to go" had she?
And, yes, I would qualify your response as encouragement.
| geela wrote: |
| This is what you wrote -pay attention to the middle and last portions |
How about just quoting those portions?
I don't want to read through all that information a second time...
Because I can't identify what's especially terrible about it-- some would term it as apologia (though I wouldn't).
What's clear to me is native/non-native speakers misunderstanding another, exacerbated by It's Scary's style of expression-- which is somewhat dismissive, though I'd wager they'd argue is only passionate in its conviction.
And misunderstandings are to be expected on a discussion board with members from so many diverse nations.
Not a bad thing. |
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It's Scary!
Joined: 17 Apr 2011
Posts: 823
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| Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2011 5:53 pm Post subject: Re: Some need to apologize...namely geela! |
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| geela wrote: |
Its scary,
No hard feelings. You the one being rude every step. That thread you refer to i wrote the lady to be careful with the business visa, but when she was determined to go i told her to "take some medicine for her child."
Is that encouragement?
In a word: YES!
Below, I'm going to paste what you wrote* about the "Saudis in general"** on page 1 above, and if there is anybody who owe apology its you -don't be too arogant specially when you made all your money from there.
As a teacher who traveled a lot you should know better.
This is what you wrote***-pay attention****to the middle and last portions
*******************************************************
Here's a slight insight from a long-suffering teacher***** who spent years in the "Belly of the Beast':
"You're either looking for the WORST uni in the Kingdom of Utopia or something that might possibly exist in a desert region on another planet in a galaxy far, far away....
[Unassociated drivel]
Keep dreamin', sister!"
It's downright maddening at times! |
*********************************************************
Again i have no hard feelings, all i wanted to say in my earlier post was that "hey you went overboad and generalized !"[/quote]
*An untrue accusation, It is QUOTED text!
**YOUR quotes, not mine!
***Your second untrue accusation. It is QUOTED text
****Maybe it is you who should pay attention to quotation marks around text and understand their purpose
*****A preamble that lets people proficient in English to be ready to read a quoted text. Only a looney speaks of him/herself in the 3rd person
"-What a quotation mark looks like
It's all about understanding the language and all of its nuiances before heading off on a business visa to " teach"!
Last edited by It's Scary! on Fri Aug 26, 2011 9:48 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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| Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2011 6:06 pm Post subject: |
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Dear geela,
"You have good point, but isn't fair to say that you all timers have spent 15/10 years there and if it was too bad one should have gone out of it quickly?
I'm not saying we should take business visa or bad deals. Rather, i'm simply saying, its not black and white. There are situations when business visa might be safe than work visa since it doesn't require exit stamp."
The reason I stayed as long as I did was that I had a very good employer, a work visa, and I enjoyed my job there.
With a business visa, you may not need an exit visa, but it could easily happen that you'd be paying your own way out of there. You're there illegally, at the mercy (assuming there is any) of your employer, unable to do many things that require legal status.
Oh, you might get "lucky," but I, for one, wouldn't do it (and I've been in two wars and a revolution, but that's too "scary, " even for me )
Regards,
John |
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