Job Discussion Forums

[nanchang]

[nanchang]

MALSOL
WHy do you post this
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/job/viewtopic.php?t=39050
and then have the nerve to attack me? Does the guard talk rudely to guests? Does he threaten to hit you with a shoe? Does the FAO say that 1 and 1/2 months from the time mail is stamped at the local PO to get to you is not long? Do they enter your apartment when you are not there. Etc.



OTHERS,
The Internet outages are 100% due to the school.

[Malsol]

Yes - Yes - Yes

Typical of all unis in Nanchang. So what?

This is typical of most unis in China.

Your complaints are nothing new.

I was not attacking you just your attack on Nanchang.

If you do not like it, leave.

I know many FTs who have worked in Nanchang for 5 years. You either adjust or move on.

[HunanForeignGuy]

[Henry_Cowell]

[Malsol]

Hunan Foreign Guy it appears Hunan was no better than Nanchang?

That is my point exactly! This is China and you either accept it or move on. I believe everything "Nanchang" says I just do not think complaining about Nanchang does any good for anyone. It is just another Chinese City.

Henry seems to understand this very well. Thank you for your astute comments Henry. I really like it when you are gentle and rational.

[Malsol]

Frankly, I have worked in Shanghai and also in some dirt poor little farm towns. It does not matter to me. This is China, warts and all.

Each place is an opportunity to learn, as well as teach.

Make friends and aliances as you can. Make of it what you are able. Enjoy what you can and try to overlook the unacceptable.

Bottom line is that your China experience and mine will have degrees of comonality but also some very unique differences.

What I am proposing is sharing information so others will possibly know what to expect but this constant complaining helps no one.

[Malsol]

Maybe I am way off base here but I suggest we try to help each other rather than tear down a school or city.

[no_exit]

[adamsmith]

And to add to what no-exit has said - even the conditions you described will often be found in South Korea - a much more developed country. Having worked there for 3 years, I encountered many of the same conditions that you are describing here in China. In China, I have also experienced them, and that is in Beijing. I think, that a lot of these happening are just a nature of the ESL industry in general. As the teachers who work in this industry become more professional, so will the standards and way we are treated improve.
This is not to say that all teachers here are not professional in their jobs, it is just that there are many still in the industry who are not. If you look at Japan, a country who has been engaged in the esl industry for a much longer time, the conditions there are much improved, as the regulations on who can actually be a teacher have become much more stringent, and they have attracted a much higher level of professionalism in their teachers. South Korea is now on a similiar path and conditions may be improving there, but only time will tell.
There seems to be a lag between these countries of approximately 10 years, and as each one develops, albeit in a different manner, the industry improves. But for now, we as teachers must realize that if we wish to work in this country, we need to expect that there will be things happen that we would never tolerate back home. I really believe that the things we complain about regulary happen to the locals even more. They are just better at using these situations to there own advantage and as we gain the experience here, we learn to turn things to our advantage as well.

[tofuman]

The reason you are having problems with the internet is because the school has you on its LAN. It costs them nothing and they really don't care whether you like it or not.

How many internet cafes near your school have high speed connections?
For a fee, in my previous case, about 80Y a month, your school can provide you with a connection that bypasses their LAN. The improvement is significant. Of course, I insisted that they pay it. Had they not lied to me for months about the internet, I would have been willing to pay for it myself. It came to: Either get me a working connection in a week or I leave. They got it.

If you can't get into your email account or enter secure sights with your connection, and there is an internet cafe down the road full of online gamers, you are being deprived of something that you are entitled to. Internet access that won't allow you to use email is not internet access--it is a violation of the contract. A little box and some downloadable software can transform that annoying machine into a working internet computer.

[Malsol]

Tofuman and No Exit I appreciate your posts and wish we could steer Dave's more in that "helpful" mode.

[lf_aristotle69]

[nanchang]

Please read this
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/job/viewtopic.php?t=41142

First, let me state that in contrast to at least three of my six colleagues who spent several months choosing this school, I chose it on a couple of weeks notice. I left China last Summer and figured I'd go back in a few years or so. For a variety of reasons in early August I decided to go back to China and this was what was availbable. You are not being asked to 'feel sorry for me'. I am simply telling you how I ended up in Jiangxi. Again, my colleagues chose this over other schools after months of searching. And contrary to HunanForeignGuy's experience, in the beginning they seemed accommodating. They agreed to put a set RMB amount (Y13,000) in for airfare with no ticket (I flew on frequent flier miles). They agreed to take the 'tell us where you are going for vacation' clause out of the contract, though they later renegged. They did seem clueless, but it was only during this past year that I learned that not every FAO office in China was clueless.

I did not start this thread to complain. I wrote it to warn. Please note that the title of this thread begins with the word "Beware". Most of you have said I am complaining and that, in Henry's words, "We're not feeling sorry for you." I am trying to help other people.

Do you like improvement or stagnancy? I like improvement. Do things in any situation improve when no one points out ways they might improve? Almost never.

The reason this is my last post is that most of you do not respond to things I said, but to something else which you have confused in your mind. For example (in addition to the above):

Malsol's first reply to me was defending the city (which I had not attacked at that time) and saying of Nanchang's numerous unis, "they are all similar to what has been posted". No they aren't and in a later post I gave him two large uni examples that I could remember the names of. I mentioned there were others. But I can't remember the names of every school of some foreigner I just met once.

Malsol, my OP was about the school I worked for which you know nothing about. I said NOTHING to begin with about Nanchang until you brought it up (and up again and again). If you like Nanchang, great. I don't. Not one of the out of province CHINESE people I have met like it. You don't have to agree with me or them, but when you pull your macho "can't deal" line that is attacking. I can deal. I have lived in four (4) foreign countries for a year or more each. Now some idiot will post that he's lived in 6 or 8, but that's not the point. The point is that surely by this point I have some ability to compare and am not some 'kid' just out of uni, overseas for the first time. I speak and read Chinese WELL. AAANNNDDDD, I left! Ok? I went, honored my one year contract, and I LEFT. What don't you understand about that? It is your lack of respect for your fellow posters that has brought the discussion down.



At my last school the power sometimes went off for a little while. Not this (from my OP)
" 7) On average, once a month you will be without power and water for 12 or more hours, sometimes for up to four days in a row like this. Sometimes you will be told in advance, sometimes you will not; sometimes your students will be told and you will not be! "
Actually, over the whole year, once I got wiser and started to always ask students after we lost power, I found that students were virtually always told and we were rarely told.


7969 said of my "complaints" that "many of them will occur no matter where you are in china. " No, as I have pointed out while these things may be COMMON, they are not UNIVERSAL. My intention in posting this warning OP was to steer FTs away from this school so they can look at better schools.

This seems to bother most of you for some reason. I would think you would be greatful. Do you realy not know that there are schools that are not like most?


7969's reply to my OP:
1. heat in one room is common.
* My last school had heat in two rooms.
2. i lived in the city while my school was located 30-60 minutes outside the city by school us. six of one half a dozen of the other.
* I would love that. All the teachers at my school said in private conversation they would prefer that but weren't willing to go talk to the FAO about it. If you read my OP you would see it's not just a bus ride.
3. repairs in china often take long and are often done poorly.
* No, I know of FTs who tell me their school gets right on repairs. Do you want to settle or succeed?
4. normal.
* Absolutely not. I have never met another FT with this problem.
5. rely on your students to keep you informed. worked for me after i gave up on fellow teachers.
* Well, duh, that's what I did, but at some schools you don't have to.
6. who has to sign in? you who live there or your guests? if its guests i think thats fair enough.
* Of course it's not fair. Chinese teachers live two buildings over from me and they don't have this issue. Same at other schools.
7. no power for hours on end. common everywhere i've been in china.
* 7 am to 7pm once a month? As many as 4 days in a row? Never heard of it. I later learned that some Chinese teachers told the students it's because the school didn't pay the electric bill. I don't know.
8. i hate slow internet as well, and i had no computer at my last school. i had my own laptop tho. they do say they'll provide a computer usually but as to its quality, thats anyones guess.
* Who would for a school without a computer in China? It's virtually unheard of. You ike to settle, I like to succeed.
9. if noone renews or if they cant hire anyone maybe they'll get the hint, but who knows?
* The FAO will lie to the pres and he will believe it. My guess.
10. happened to me too. not right but these people are often nosy. hide behind the door with a stick if they do it when you're home.
* I guess your dictionary defines 'self-respect' differently than mine
11. mail, the problem could be anywhere in the chain. but i dont think many foreign teachers get much snail mail these days. i get one or two packages a year but never have them sent to my school.
* Already answered this in another post. You are wholly incorrect in your assumption.
12. i get my books from amazon or some other online source. or else buy them on a trip to beijing or hong kong. the schools usually have a crap selection in english.
* Already answered this in another post. You are wholly incorrect in your assumption
13. i watched 5 apartment towers go from foundation to their current level of construction right outside my balcony over the past year. i bought earplugs.
* Who cares? What, someone mugged you? No big deal, I watched two people get mugged yesterday so let's just forget about it.

[adamsmith]

well i do have my facts straight. I have taught in both of these countries - japan and Korea.
Japan and Korea both have quite stringent requirements now compared to this particular country we live in. For example [b]and I will bold just for you - Korea now requires sealed transcripts from your uni before you can even get your work visa - whether factory or school or uni. In contrast, any joe blow can have a job here with zero verification of his qualifications.[/b]
A degree - especially a bachelors does not make you a teacher. It shows that you have a certain level of education. Regulations in china as to who can obtain a Foreign expert certifacate and teach english are quite relaxed in comparison to the other countries mentioned. I did not mention taiwan because I do not know the facts there although things seem to be tightening up there as well following SKoreas example.

I did not attack you - I merely made a statement of fact. I did not defend you as I did agree with many posters that you were blowing things out of proportion, while also thanking you for the warning.

So, before you tell someone to get their facts straight - read their post carefully and if you are unclear - contact them privately before trying to flame them. They will most likely clarify what they meant.