Job Discussion Forums

[TheyCallMeTrinity]

Anybody read this?

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2003/02/05/193427[url]

I am all for booting out folks who knowingly, willingly violate local law by forging official documents. They ruin it for those of us playing within the rules, but read the article until the very end. I see a disturbing trend happening.

Opinions, please!

[EOD]

A man of dark complexion was accused of robbing a 7/11 in a similar area of Taiwan, a few years ago. They never found him either. I suspect that the clerk or his accomplice pocketed the money as a little Hom Bou his boss forgot to give him. The police round up a few foreigners for questioning then tell the clerk to give them their cut. It is Lunar new year, a time for the local Chinese to rob cheat and "steal". The steal part is only allowed during the Lunar new year.

[killian]

round up the usual suspects.

[EOD]

The Down Turn is Hype.
These people are no where near as bad as they think. Most of the poor sentiment is generated by the press and opposition, political forces.
The only people feeling any real pain are the managers and administrators who may have to start doing there job instead sitting back and collecting bribes.
You will notice a definite shift in press coverage once the locals start demanding the jobs that the foreign slaves are doing now.

[EOD]

The ESl Market in Taiwan, is just that, a market. ESL is an educational field. It is also a business, but in Taiwan, it is only a business. The impact, if any would be positive for the students. They are what teaching is all about.
I don't see foreign teachers being squeezed out of the market. There are many foreign slaves in Taiwan, I really don't think the Foreign teachers qualify for that title.

[TheyCallMeTrinity]

I'm replying to a few people at once, so roll with me here...

First, it's "hong/hung bao" not 'hom bao.' I just wanted to get that straight.


Secondly, to EOD - the downturn is "hype"? Where are you located? Try Hsinchu, Taichung or Taipei. The downturn is most definitely NOT hype, but a very real thing. I recall, the night before Christmas, not one, but FIVE students from five different companies telling me that their company was laying off people. The biggest one was around two thousand people. This is just one incident.

Do you teach adults or children? I teach both, and my adult students are expressing a serious concern over the economy and job market. I have many students who are unemployed and searching for work. I have many students wanting to change jobs but they are too scared because of the economy. Add to this the very real drama at the MOE when they opened the job information center. On the first day it was swamped with email, calls and walk-ins. This is not "hype." If anything, the media has IGNORED the issue too much.


The job market is still large but it's shrinking; It was huge, before, but in cities such as Taichung, it used to take about a week to find more jobs than you can shake a stick at. This was two years ago. Now, it takes almost a month since only the desperate (read: poorly managed) schools (with high turnover) are hiring. Part of this is the economy, the other factor is that you have refugee teachers fleeing South Korea, and newbies arriving - en masse - on a daily basis. Pay rates have stagnated at around the 500 NT per hour starting point for most jobs and the prices of everything locally are rising while the value of NT is dropping (you'll notice this when you travel).

If you are looking to come to Taiwan for a job hit Taipei or Kaohsiung. Those are the places that still have a "job market" really. One should note, however, that for the last five years the ESL market in Asia has been tightening up. I taught in Japan for two years, Korea for two and a half years, and have been in Taiwan for two years (with one and a half more years to go before I go back to Japan). Outside of the hell of South Korea, the job markets among the big three have slowly shrank. With the whole world in an economic downturn more people will come to teach, but the best time to find work is when western teachers stay in the west because they feel they can make the same, if not more, than in Asia.


I am suspicious and question EOD's rationale, experience and sources which form their opinions.


I recommend folks to read the Taiwanese news papers as well as other Asian newspapers. You'll see that this isn't "hype" but it's very real. As for me, it's only affected the number of classes I teach weekly. Some were combined so I lost a few thousand NT per month, but it could be worse. Students are not enrolling as much as they used to and many chain schools are lowering tuition to keep things afloat. One chain's coordinator (a local) told me that many branches around the country have seen a rise in people asking for their tuition back so they can withdrawal from classes because they are trying to save money (the school won't refund the money, so much for them!). Also, "Academia Sinica" are saying things will get better. Since they are wrong 90% of the time on issues, this is probably a sign that things will get worse.

Food for thought.

Oh - my experiences have been that the locals are not as "friendly" as they used to be. I notice a lot more resentment from students and strangers than I used to. I got over the "honeymoon period" of my stay a year and a half ago, so I'm not imagining things. Read up about the MOE wanting to put foreign teachers in local schools to improve English. EVERY article in the press and report on the news claimed teachers make between US 2-3 thousand a month (a lie, the average, legal pay is around US $1, 400 -1, 600 a month before privates and side jobs). The rally call is going out there and Taiwanese NEVER ask "why" and trust things blindly, for the most part. Just keep this in mind when coming. Research on the net and you'll find the truth.

[Okami]

As far as the story and Taidong, just another horses#%^ story. I agree with EOD, that she probably stole the money as the story changed. Taitung FAP have a reputation as being racist and rude with the local expats. Taidong is a small community and relatively openly corrupt in comparison to Taipei. You can walk down the main street and buy pirated CDs, VCDs and other stuff quite easily. You'll also see the "special KTVs" and electronic gambling machines. It's hard to believe that that many people use them to gamble that much. It's definitely a farming/fishing community. If I ever get my business up and going and I was making enough cash, I would move down there. The clean air is just magical after living in Taipei. Enforcement of laws is an issue though. Its not as civilized, as the Taiwanese accountant put it, as Taipei. In Taipei they make an honest attempt to look like they are fairly and honestly enforcing the laws.

The economy is not good, but it isn't bad either. the difference is what people were getting then and are getting now. 5+ years ago, the Chinese new year's bonus at some places was enough to buy a house(1+ million NT) here. Now it may only be 2 months salary or less, which seems normal, but people have this idea of what they should get. It was also almost all in stock. Have somone familiar explain the Taiwanese stock market to you. It's a woozy , because it is the only retail driven versus institutional driven stock market in the world. They also have about 3-6 channels going on and on about technical analysis(Which is another woozy ) The KMT is also holding back the economy to make the DPP look bad. They are literally swimming in wealth. Enough to make it worth their while to hide it all in trusts in Switzerland. (God, I wish I was making that last line up, but unfortunately it is very true)

You have to know that Taiwanese education has 2 stratifications. In junior high, Students get tested with this big test. The test determines whether they get to go to High school and then onto college/university, or whether they go to vocational(trade) school. When you read those about the rankings of students in high school around the world, well remember only those in high school get tested here(the smart kids, not the dummies in trade school) while in the US, everyone gets tested(including the BD/special classes).

The trade school students become "heishou" (blackhands). Having dirty hands for a living does not get you a lot of/any face, no matter how much money you make. This is why Asia has the 3D's and a lot of imported labor to do the 3D's. Now heishou being relatively unreliable(turnover of 30+% yearly is not unheard of) and expensive compared to Mainland Chinese(more of them and willing to work 1 day what a heishou makes in an hour). You can see why a lot of factories moved to China. What's really impacted is 40-50 year old men who worked in a factory and pissed away all their cash on booze, women and gambling. They have no skills and no savings to get them through. They've lost their jobs and are too stubborn and/or useless to do anything else but work at a food stand or sell there vote for $1000NT.

Business laws here are antiquated and opaque, makes me want to have Hernado de Soto's book, "The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else," be mandatory reading for bueracrats instead of the economically backwards Sun Yat-Sen's, "3 Principles of the People." There are at least 1000 illegal businesses in Taichung alone. There are over 1 million empty houses in Taiwan. New buildings are going up everyday and no one seems to know whats going on. Selling foreclosed real estate is a major headache for the banks in Taiwan. Taiwanese banks use collateral instead of cash flow when making loans. Collateral is great when things are appreciating, but causes a lot of problems in a market with rampant oversupply and deflationary tendencies. Japan has this same problem. So when people can't pay the loan, the bank takes the house and tries to sell it for what the loan says it is worth, but realizes that it can't get enough to cover the loan. So instead of taking a loss they keep the property and hope that the real estate market improves, but it won't because newer cheaper houses are coming into the market all the time. Don't get me started on the fishermans/farmers' credit associations.

English education is a business. Parents are starting to wake up to the reality, but have so little say or choice in what's really going on. The parents want what is best for their child. The problem is they are too lazy most times to research what is really the best for their child. Add into this the pressure of family and face, it becomes one big cluster$%^#. It's starting to change and parents are beginning to realize what schools are good or bad and gravitating towards the good schools with effective programs or slick advertising. There is a lot of money in this. The politicians, MOE bueracrats, and FAP all have their fingers in the pie somewhere. It's very true, when oldtimers tell you the laws were changed because they were universally ignored and the MOE wanted to be relevant(i.e. get paid). If you go to a big schools wei-ya Chinese/graduation show or a fair they have in a big park, you will see a lot of politicians and policemen giving speeches and saying good things about the school. They aren't doing that for nothing. Trimming the beuracracy by 10% would do miracles for gov't expenditures. I know public school teachers and I think other civil servants get a guaranteed 18% savings rate on their retirement accts. It's ridiculous when you learn how many civil servants there really are.

The real foreign slaves are the Fillipino and Indonesian maids. They're regularly abused mentally and physically by the family(pick a memeber any member) and occasionally sexually. Most of this is covered up and I believe anyone who spent too much time researching it would fall down steps, get hit by a car, jump off a building, or "disappear." Read up on the "White Terror" period to cover any that I missed.

Rich Taiwanese mothers are useless. They can't work and have everything done for them. The husband normally has a mistress in Taiwan and/or another wife in China, plus all the KTV whores he can pay for in Taiwan or China. This leaves the mother plenty of time to work on her children and pass off all her neurosies to them. Ask people who work at very rich kindergartens about it like ImaniOU. It makes me glad to work at a middle class kindergarten. If a mother can keep up brown hair, then she has too much time and will be nothing but a hassle for you.

Taiwan is a nice place to live, but you have to be able to not see things. Reading up on Chinese history will help take off the blinders, which far too many people wear when they think about Chinese culture. I'm not saying it's bad, just different. You learn to stop arguing with people that use circular logic(Taiwanese) or refuse to see things as they really are(PC junkies). I just smile keep my mouth shut and go about my business. It keeps the "Harmony" going.

CYA
Okami

[EOD]

I cannot see the point of trying to explain the facts of Taiwan life to someone who argues, their way of Romanization is the only correct one.

[TheyCallMeTrinity]

[Okami]

Stop bickering for a moment you two and check this out seems like someone has the dirt on the Taidong "robbery"

You can read more about it here:

http://segue.com.tw/3/viewtopic.php?t=7643&highlight=

The last post by shr fang tian pretty much explains the goings on and confirms what I've heard about the situation in taidong, though I know nothing of the robbery.

[Paul G]

Okami:

Your lengthy post above seems very insightful about the ways of the Taiwanese. So perhaps you can help me out.

I work for a Taiwanese lady. She is, for the most part, a wonderful lady and a great employer. However, many times, when we get into a disagreement about an issue, she shifts into her "circular logic" mode and I just walk away shaking my head and wondering how to try to reason with someone who is thinking in that manner.

Is there any way to effectively combat the "circular logic"? Keep in mind that I like my job and that the issues at hand, while often important, are not worth ruining our (strictly professional) relationship over.

Any advice you could give would be greatly appreciated.

Paul

[ImaniOU]

[Aristotle]

Foreigner Harassment in Taitung Taiwan!
http://www.3q2u.com/archives/2004/06/16/000400.php

[clark.w.griswald]