Job Discussion Forums

[tofuman]

How do you get along with your FAO? I was hoping for a single woman who loves Westerners (at least this Westerner). Long black hair, almond eyes, and silky skin were a part of the fantasy. Of course she enjoyed meditation, reading sacred literature, and was adept at wushu. Oh, and a vegetarian. I ended up with a buzz cut chain smoker who has a prissy edge.

I find him to be very quarrelsome. When "translating" he says what he thinks should be said, rather than what I say. He also seems to be, more or less, a pathological liar. He is quite unfamiliar with the local proceedures for dealing with foreigners and through his incompetence, has cost me hundreds of yuan in excess and wasted fees. His subterfuge and management methods have also cost me a fortune in ill will with the administration

He is also prone to remarking on my personal appearance in public and enjoys showcasing his "relationship" with me. He frequently assures me of his devotion and concern. He seems to be trying to convince himself that he is not a racist, conflicted by envy, which I don't understand. Anyway, I don't believe him.

Unfortunately, he also authored the textbook I am supposed to use. It is poorly done, written in a style so artificial that it is hardly representative of contemporary English. It contains a number of factual errors, grammatical and spelling mistakes, and outdated information. The conflict of interest is obvious here, since I can hardly ask him to tell the administration that the book he authored is trash.

Is my experience unusual? Do most FTs get along well with the FAO? Will I gain anything by changing jobs?

[limits601]

Ive only been here a few months so far and me and my FAO dont get along either but im not very respected here because of my young age. The FAO respects the older, experienced teachers. Kinda sucks

[smalls]

I have been here for two years, and never saw one, and don't even know what one is. Someone mind filling me in.
Thanks

[peggiescott]

tofuman,

My FAO (for smalls, that's the Foreign Affairs Officer. Essentially, my boss) is overworked and speaks very limited English. In spite of this we get paid on time, part of my pay is changed into dollars, I have a multiple entry visa, broken appliances get fixed in a timely manner and he always answers my phone calls. He also has a sense of humor. There are some things that I need to be proactive on and, honestly, I often don't know what they are until after the fact. But FTs are new at this school and so there's a learning curve for all of us.

Peggie

[Old Dog]

Stop that whining, Tofuman. OURS is the worst FAO in all of China. No matter what your litany of complaints may be, ours is longer.
Ours, to all intents and purposes, is without listening skills in English. Speaking skills are restricted to largely "Do you like Chinese food? It is delicious and nourishing." He graduated from Nanjing University English Department in the middle of the cultural revolution. No one has told him it's over!
Periodically, he suffers from megalomania which affects his relationships with the entire staff, foreigners and Chinese staff alike.
We think he's suffering from diabetes-induced early-onset dementia. But who will believe us.
He lies, misunderstands, mischief-makes - yet he's our only official link with the High School Principal.
The school's problem is to know what else to do with him.
I have some sympathy for you but, in this matter, essentially I'm reserving most of my sympathy for myself.

[Roger]

Most FAOs I have had to deal with were the piece of iron between the anvil and the hammer.
They usually are former English teachers that have been recruited into office work by the principal who herself can't communicate with English speakers. These FAOs often are clueless and get so confused they don't even try to know how their place functions. They obey orders and make themselves as invisible as possible.
Currently I have my best in many years; friendly, amenable, congenial, proficient at English and knowledgeable about the West, with travel experience abroad.
But his boss is a ruthless woman, and thus, he often is incommunicado. This is the easiest way of avoiding conflicts of interests. Some of my FT colleagues said he is a liar; I don't at all believe this!

[echo2004sierra]

Old Dog, you are cracking me up with your oh so "objective" posts, I love them, keep them coming!

As far as the original poster's FAO problems are concerned, keep focused on your job, your salary, your track record for your resume, the end of contract date in mind.

As for the FAO's English book, tell him it is great, make like you are using it for your lessons, but teach proper English to your students during your lessons.

[The Great Wall of Whiner]

I've never had to deal with my FAO.

Never even met him/her.

[Talkdoc]

I think for the most part (with Old Dog's situation perhaps being the rare exception), the FAO's treatment of the foreign staff is representative and reflective of how the school's management views and regards its foreign teachers. These people follow orders - they don't set policy; they enforce it and the means with which they do it are almost always sanctioned (implicitly if not explicitly) by their bosses.

I dealt with two FAOs in my last school and they were non-responsive (in my case, politely so) and both genuine experts at delaying appropriate action. But they were only reflecting the school's unwritten policies: �Stall the foreign teachers long enough and either they will lose interest in the problem or they will resolve it themselves at their own expense.� Almost nothing got addressed unless it was pursued ad nauseam for days by several teachers in unison.

My current FAO is a relatively nice guy. I think what happens, with some FAOs, is that they become cynical and stilted, and adopt an attitude of contempt prior to investigation, as a result of having been burned more than a few times by some foreign teachers. From their perspective, finding competent and responsible teachers is no easy task and they seem to adopt an attitude which suggests we are "spoiled and ungrateful troublemakers" and that it's only a matter of time before we will become problematic. Proving that you are the exception to the rule is no easy feat.

There are considerable resentment and jealously factors too. I recently acquired satellite TV and when my FAO heard about it, his first reaction to the news was "That's illegal!" and I could tell from his face that he was jealous. Fortunately, the deputy director for the provincial foreign affairs office was in attendance and assured him it was not illegal for foreigners (assuming the building is approved for foreign housing); only Chinese (which, of course, was the entire source of his reaction). The deputy director's response, allowing for some loss in translation, was highly revealing; "So now you are free!" Their perception that we have it so much better than they do is not without some merit (in most cases).

The only remedy for this is to attempt to forge a personal relationship with the FAO; although in many cases this may prove to be very cumbersome. But friendship, if possibly attainable, has a way of mitigating jealousy and resentment between people.

My Chinese colleagues are woefully aware of every extra RMB that I am paid as a foreign teacher (I have heard comments in the past week, from three different people, about the 2200 RMB travel allowance that I will receive this month). But some of the jealousy and resentment are based on misconceptions. There was this ubiquitous and erroneous belief that I was being paid considerably more than they are and, yet, the truth of the matter is I am being less than I would be if I was Chinese with the same credentials (which is uniquely true for public universities because Chinese teachers receive overtime pay for all periods taught over 6 - 8 per week). For political reasons, it was in my best interest to dispel the myth and I did; but the perception that I am still, somehow, better off than they are persists, albeit to a far lesser degree.

On the other side of the coin, if I learned that a Chinese "teacher" with a high school diploma and a fake degree was teaching at the same private Western university and earning up to three to four times more than I was, I can tell you that I too would be mad as hell about it and it is highly unlikely that any attempts on his part at conciliation would be warmly received.

For the most part, this discrepancy in remuneration and treatment is a real problem in regard to our relationships with the Chinese FAOs and teachers. There seems to be no easy solution to it other than taking each FAO and colleague on a case-by-case basis. I agree with a previous poster that age, degrees and experience do mitigate the difficulties because we are then perceived as justifiably more entitled to whatever disparities exist; real or imagined.

Doc

[tofuman]

Doc, I doubt that we are truly paid more than our counterparts in net gain. Assuming that the USA Social Security plan remains solvent, we are paying nothing into that plan while we are here; consequently, when we are old and decrepit, we can look back with curses on the time we spent here. It will definitely affect our monthly income.

Are not our indigenous colleagues accruing a retirement for themselves? We are not. Perhaps I came at a bad time in my life, but I am losing a lot of money by being here. I have a highly marketable and decent paying credential, which is earning me monthly what I could make in a day in the USA. When my FAO tells me I make more than he does, I impute it to short-sightedness, not reality

Our educational expenses were significantly higher than local folks.
We pay a higher price for most everything. Prices can easily drop by a third when I am with a local person. Anguish, pain, suffering, and abuse have been quantified by litigants as well with respective indemnity

We earn every jiao of our pay.

I try to explain that to people occasionally.

[Talkdoc]

tofuman - I �hear� what you are saying but I don't know that comparisons to what we could be earning back home are valid nor do I think there is a realistic or practical way of factoring-out costs for "pain and suffering" or the effects of culture shock (and we did freely choose to work here). Yes, we could be earning a great deal more back home but then we would have to assume mortgage, car and other payments. The average American household income is about $45,000 (gross) and that simply doesn't go very far when one�s mortgage payments are $1200.00 per month and the car payments are $340.00 per month and the kids need braces - and most people do tend to live just up to and even over their means. The average American lives paycheck to paycheck, has very little discretionary income (a meal at McDonalds once a week with the kids is a treat) and, at any given time, carries about $8500 in credit card debt.

Regarding retirement, I don't believe Chinese employed by private companies have such plans; only those who work for the government do (someone correct me if I am wrong about this) and it isn�t very much. And, related, most Americans cannot live on Social Security retirement alone. (In 2004, the average monthly retirement benefit for an individual retiring at age 62, the earliest age for retirement benefits, was $963. The average monthly benefit for an individual retiring at age 65 and 10 months, full retirement age for 2004, was $1,198.*) So irrespective of whatever potential losses we are talking about (over 1 to 3 years), it doesn't add up to an amount of money that would make the difference between being able to retire or not. (An exception to the question of significant decrease in benefits would be if the interruption in contributions occurred for an extended time during the five years just prior to retirement, as total benefits are based heavily on contributions paid during this period; assuming a pattern of regular contributions for previous years.)

I agree with you that the viability (if not enjoyment) of living and working in China is highly contingent on where one is in his/her career (wherein it can be argued that it is most viable for recent grads and early retirees). But I think it would be a hard sell to convince the Chinese that we should be compensated for loss of future retirement benefits when, at least in my case, I am enjoying about as much discretionary income here (in terms of purchasing power and given how I was living) as I did back home except now I am working ten hours per week instead of 45+ and, once I leave the school, I don�t have to think or worry about anyone or anything. But the truth is, in regard to long-term planning (including the possibility of future and costly illness), I would not have been able to afford working here if I was not already fully vested in my university pension (as I am not counting on Social Security; if it�s still around when I am 65 � and if I live that long, that would be great, especially in China) but I'm not sure that reality should mitigate the understandable resentment surrounding the fact that most foreign teachers, with (in some instances) considerably less education, are paid significantly more than their Chinese counterparts (almost entirely because they can speak English). Because we are free to leave at any time and they are not.

If you can afford to do so, retiring early in China is a pretty good deal but, I agree, I would not recommend this as a mid-career move for anyone; not unless he had the means to resume his career and rebuild his life back home at any time.

Doc

*Rose, Clarence C. (2004). Social Security Retirement Planning: Considerations for Married Couples in Family-Owned Businesses.
Journal of Financial Planning, August (article 7).
http://www.fpanet.org/journal/articles/2004_Issues/jfp0804-art7.cfm

[Sinobear]

And you can get free psycholgical advice here in China!
Off topic! Um...FAO is really nice here - no experience, no English, but super friendly and congenial.

[tofuman]

"But the truth is, in regard to long-term planning (including the possibility of future and costly illness), I would not have been able to afford working here if I was not already fully vested in my university pension (as I am not counting on Social Security; if it�s still around when I am 65 � and if I live that long, that would be great, especially in China) but I'm not sure that reality should mitigate the understandable resentment surrounding the fact that most foreign teachers, with (in some instances) considerably less education, are paid significantly more than their Chinese counterparts (almost entirely because they can speak English). Because we are free to leave at any time and they are not."


You cover a lot of ground, Doc. I appreciate what you have to say. I would not even be thinking along these lines but for recent difficulties. I am in a gov't school. It may just be the type of people with whom I associate, but they don't appear to be sweating the future.

I'm not an accountant or a financial planner, but it is foolish for the average person to be spending their time in China unless there is another agenda being fulfilled. I think that many of us are regarded as whores of a sort by the people that we work for and with.

Their resentment is racist, not economic. A local with much more formal training than I will never understand contemporary English usage as well as I do. I do not recall all the grammatical rules of English, but I know the goal of grammar--proper usage. That is something that will escape the most astute grammarian here. The idea that there is an injustice in the fact that I receive more than they do with less education overlooks the subject matter, English. I spent a lot of time using and acquiring English in various settings. I've read thousands of pages of 19th century historical writings, as well as authors, in English, such as Luther, Augustine, William Manchester, Solzhenitsyn, Melanchthon and Isaac Singer [I even read some porn in junior high].

This type of background imparts to anyone an understanding of the language that no Chinese, except an ABC, could ever hope to achieve. And to divorce a language from its culture is to strip the oyster from its shell . Unless the culture that spawned the language is understood, people are left with a shell.

Sorry, but they can stuff their racism. We deserve every yuan

[Backchannel Veteran]

The only professional FAO I've ever dealt with was Ms.Wang of LuShan International Experimental school in Changsha. My guess is that she just was new to the job. The rest of them do not know squat about dealing with foreigners and are not aware of the cultural differences between us and them. The best way to approach it is to find either a TA you've already bonded with (i.e. w\worked together for some time) or an interpreter and deal directly with the boss. That's my understanding. Or just use your own Chinese speaking abilities, if you have any.

[Roger]

tofuman,
I am afraid some of your objections to the pay and social status differences sound a little harsh.
I understand your frustrations and I have myself been victim of xenophobic attitudes by colleagues who perceived me as an overpaid laowai. In my case, the pay difference was pretty obvious and impressive to the Chinese, not so impressive to me. The school even treated me as an equal in that they invited me on a holiday trip to Hainan at their expense - a privilege hardly anyone ever gets here.
Currently, I am working at a university and my pay definitely is lower than that of a Chinse techer. However, we are free to make extra dough, and a Chinese colleague of mine helped me get some windfall some time ago. I learnt from her then that some of my colleagues were making "1000 an hour" - clearly nonsense, but nonsense she honestly believed.

The Chinese grew up - until a couple of decades ago - in a rigid society that took care of their every need; they never had to think about their immediate needs, and that's why the quality of things here is so uniformly low as everyone is entitled to the same things.
But over the past years the major change affecting Chinese has been this: some, in fact, ever more, have to eke out a living at their own risk, finding new jobs every so often, not always being paid by their employers; the so-called 'iron-rice'bowl' has been shattered for good, and that makes a lot of them feel at jeopardy.
The market is full of distorsions and dislocations. For instance, we get hired though lots of young university graduates remain on the dole after university.
This all contrasts with the fact that when I had my first job, some of my Chinese collagues wished to quit but were prevented legally from doing this because they had their "iron-rice-bowl' jobs: only if the principals agreed could they leave... and principals used to agree only if the candidate showed some consideration towards them...

Lastly, we are being suffered as holidaymakers that get paid for our performances at local schools; Chinese wish very strongly they could do the same trick in our countries. It is often felt we are being granted privileges and we are not really needed!

I don't think at all along the lines of my Chinese colleagues - but this is how they see things.