Job Discussion Forums

SillySally · Joined: 26 Jul 2005 Posts: 167

Chris,

Actually this is becoming standard in many public unis.

Beijing wants experienced Chinese Ph.D.s to move out of the rich coastal cities and established unis to take up posts in new unis. These newer unis are given mountains of money and encouraged to pirate Ph.D.s from established schools using the money as bait.

This is modernization! When China wanted to populate Xinjiang they simply ordered people to go there. This is progress, financial incentives to move.

There is up to 1.5 mil rmb per science recruit and 600,000 rmb for arts and humanities recruits.

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

Those PhD's lured to the interior of CHina by home ownership schemes and mortgage aide are, or were, not of the run-of the mill variety, Sillysally!
The figures you quoted do not apply to ordinary mainland professors and lecturers - or only those in elite universities. Even there, most teachers and professors make do on far less than the figures you quoted.

I did see some adverts many years back that offered such luxurious terms, even limos thrown in for good measure.
But these adverts were targeted at overseas Chiense, i.e. foreigners of Chinese stock that had quals that hardly any Chinese had.

In fact, the trend these days is away from the nanny state that we have been seeing until now; universities are becoming profit centers. Thus they do not want to be saddled by extra liabilities and responsibilities. Ever more teachers have to find accommodation on their own. Sometimes employers rent entire blocks of flats and sublet them to their staff. They can no longer afford to be landlords!

Besides I doubt it would be in anyone's interest if the universities and other institutions of learning helped foreign nationals acquire property in China, a land reputed to have an acute housing shortage.

FOr example, considering the decrease in the number of births there is soon going to be an oversupply of teaching staff - in parts of the country a facet readily observable. Who, do you think, would the CHinese employers dismiss first?
Of course, the foreign job holders! HOw then could any of us repay mortgages???

Volodiya · Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2005 7:56 am Post subject:

Roger, please, when are you going to give us a break from this relentless negativity? It scarcely matters what the subject or who the poster- you're there with an attack, or a "Yes, but....", just as in this post.

Housing shortage? when there are hectares of new flats standing empty, ready for buyers- in many cases- in every major city. Layoffs? Teachers who can't pay their mortgages? Roger, please, this pessimism is affecting almost everything you write.

SillySally · Joined: 26 Jul 2005 Posts: 167

Roger:

In the past three years Tongji University in Shanghai has built 3 new housing developments to sell to their staff and faculty.

In fact, every Shanghai university is building new campuses in the suburbs and building housing to sell at or below cost to their staff and faculty.

I do not know where you get your misguided information, maybe from travelling alone.

Universities all over China are expanding and with this they are building housing to sell to their faculty and staff at or below cost.

I have been offered housing as part of a package to go North. Too bad I hate snow, and not just yellow snow!!

Chris_Crossley · Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2005 5:30 pm Post subject: No shortage of housing in Wuhan!

shatov · Joined: 29 Jun 2005 Posts: 21

The number of children per family may well be reducing, but there is going to be an increase in demand for teachers rather than a decrease. Just as in Europe and the US, Chinese employers will demand that their recruits have higher and higher qualifications. As families grow richer, but with less children to spend money on, so more children will be able to continue education. And who knows, maybe even class sizes in public schools will one day be decreased, although judging by Japan's example, this might not happen.

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

Dream on folks!

China has NO HOUSING SHORTAGE???
Well, you know best since you are expats pampered by extraordinarily generous packages...
I own a property too, and by gosh, someone had to vacate their homes and land so the developer could build his extravagant housing project on someone's land... the poor buggers then took it out on their village elder, and I do not know what resulted from that.
Why do the peasants start uprisings in just about every province? Yes, because the land on which they tilled until yesterday has over night been given to some greedy construction company boss. The farmers, workers and their dependants have no other resort but to move on... often without compensation. Maybe none of you has ever seen how ordinary Chinese live in their dwelling places!

Those gatede communities sprouting up all over the country are built on the land of people who now have no home, no land and hardly any future. Why is this happening? it is because in the not so distant past the government was in charge of housing for everyone. It was a nanny state; they are now making an absolute U-turn, abandoning the peasants, the poor. Who can buy a Mercedes/ yes, those who can afford to buy a property like you even though they are Chinese. Why can they afford to buy a Merc and a luxury home? Because they are cheats and crooks, short-changing their workers and engaging in what was until around 1980 a capital crime: speculation.
So many of those luxury villas and flats are underutilised or not used or sold at all. At last count, in my estate maybe 40% of residents were overseas Chinese or Hongkongers who secured themselves or their parents a home, or, more often, an object they intend to resell at a hefty mark-up.
What's going on in Shanghai? Why did the local government and the central government have to reign in speculators, banks and developers?

China experienced a GLUT about ten years ago - too many office buildings. Many have to this day remained unsold, or underutilised. In Guangzhou you can see construction sites that have been around for a decade; for example the 40-floor tower next to the GARDEN HOTEL. What happened to COMMERCIAQL HOUSING is about to repeat itself in RESIDENTIAL HOUSING. Only the rich can buy. The majority are poor and will never be in a position to own decent housing. Millions live in illegal structures until their land is cleared to make way for yet more luxury estates or superhighways.
In GUANGZHOU, the city got involved in setting up a univERSITY TOWN - contrary to central government policy and without the green light from Peking. Some ten universities moved campuses out there; it is a sterile though brand-new and clean township. Students hate the isolation. Buildings are functional and quite good.
The irony is that the land on which 30'000 students now study and live was owned by villagers including a Chinese AMERICAN, all of whom were up in arms against the authorities over this construction. the U.S. consulate took up the case of that Aemerican citizen but a final solution is still in the pipeline. Suffice it to add that these villagers cannot afford the expensive alternatives offered them by the authorities with the money the same authorities give them for vacating - involuntarily! - their plots of land.

And a last word on TEACHER numbers: last year some 30% of graduates failed to get a job in their chosen specialty. This includes many English majors. In HONG KONG the government is reducing the number of primary schools and with it is cutting down the number of teachers. The same is soon going to happen in the mainland.

tw · Joined: 04 Jun 2005 Posts: 3898

OK, slightly off-copic here but here's a question:

With the farmlands being taken over and developed, where are the Chinese going to get their food from 10 years from now? I mean, how can people farm when there is no land to farm? Confused

Babala · Joined: 28 Jan 2005 Posts: 1303 Location: Henan

I second Roger on this one. I have watched soldiers in a city kicking people off their land by gunpoint and handing them 100RMB and sending them away. Does this sound like a country that has abundant space?

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

Thanks Babala for your support. Silly Sally is no longer with us. This thread got hijacked by her and her preposterous claims that teachers of her station get 20'000 in monthly pay and the right to acquire a housing unit as their property.
It is time to think of the MAJORITY of us and our Chinese colleagues who earn well below 10'000 a month (in our full-time jobs). Few are offered half of what Silly Sally claimed to be her dues, and I have yet to meet the foreign national who was given the chance to buy a flat at a government-subsidised school (asking price is normally a fraction of what the market could bear!).
I hold it is a comeplling conclusion that Silly Sally was, or is, a bluffer!

SillySally · Joined: 26 Jul 2005 Posts: 167

Roger, Roger, Roger -

What do you mean I am no longer with us?

Just because I was invited to speak at the Russian Language Conference in Harbin and have been without a computer for the duration you jump to an unsupportable conclusion.

That is why I take exception with you Roger. You get a scant little info and you run away with yourself pontificating about that which you are actually ignorant.

I told this forum what a real live Chinese mainland PhD who has never been abroad was given in a contract at Changchun University just last month to entice her out of a major Shanghai university. If you can not deal with that, it is your problem.

I said I wanted parity because the Chinese get much better than we think. That is oh so true.

SillySally · Joined: 26 Jul 2005 Posts: 167

Roger -"This thread got hijacked by her and her preposterous claims that teachers of her station get 20'000 in monthly pay and the right to acquire a housing unit as their property."

When and where did I make such a claim? I can not find it.

Cute trick Rog - make a straw man argument, attribute it to me, knock it down and burn it, leaving the impression I am stupid.

I never made any such claim for myself. I stated what a Chinese counterpart received and lamented that I wished parity.

cj750 · Joined: 27 Apr 2004 Posts: 3081 Location: Beijing

I have other friends who have reported to me that they are being offered 2 year contracts...and I think Raffles has a standard two year contract (this would be one school I would not darken the doorway)...
With the current flux in the education certification process...and the requirements for foreign teachers...the two year contract become more attractive..if and only if they include a clause with a mechcanism for adjustment of salary...
It is my feeling that the changes in the process in which FTs are brought to china and the current changes in the burocratic process that establishes the procedures for paperwork are at ods with each other and the feeling of the professionals (that I know) is that the security of a long term contract will aid in the prevention of conflicts within the structure of the contract. I signed a two year because it does lock in a salary at the old exchange rate (if paid in dollors ..this is something to think about) and provides for a longer period of free time to travel..as you need not worry about the next job as it is waiting.