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[Ger]

Copyright Independent Newspapers, Ltd. Dec 31, 2005
TRUST -- that's the key to developing and building commercial relationships with one of the world's fastest growing countries, says a New Plymouth man who teaches English in China.

Lester Earl, is home in New Plymouth for Christmas after spending 10 months working at the Practical Education Institute's (PEI) English School in Kunming, China, New Plymouth's sister-city.

PEI formed a co-operative venture with the Kunming Tourism and Vocational High School, building on the existing sister-city relationship, to teach English to students and teachers. The school has about 950 students, including 300 boarders, 85 teachers and is a mixture of a high school and a polytechnic.

"We are there to help them, both teachers and students, with their English."

Mr Earl said the Chinese were wary of Westerners.

"They have had a lot of people and organisations who were fly-by- night, they come in promising everything and end up leaving them with nothing. You have got to work up trust with them," he said.

PEI co-owner Tony Zieltjes had shown great vision to expand on the existing relationship between Kunming and New Plymouth, he said.

The relationship had helped when the school was being developed.

"You cannot do business in China without a co-operative venture," said Mr Earl, who lives at the school.

"It (living on site) helps to get the element of trust and shows them that we are here for the long run. By having someone based over there you could see that they started to trust me."

On September 26, teachers from Kunming, who teach at middle and senior schools, spent three months in New Plymouth gaining their TESOL certificate (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages).

Another bonus for PEI was employing Qing Ning, a Chinese national, as general manager in New Plymouth.

"He is very good working through China."

Mr Earl said word of mouth had helped him gain additional work outside the school.

He has taught English to airport counter staff and division managers of supermarkets chains.

"There are huge opportunities if you have the contacts," Mr Earl said.

Teahouses also held English Corners on a Sunday for people who wanted to speak English to get together.

"They have good training in grammar and vocabulary but they never get a chance to speak it, all they want is a chance to speak it."

China was developing rapidly, he said. It was coming out of the 1970s straight into 2006 and would catch up 30 years in about five years.

During his travels in China, Mr Earl said he visited a city of 36,000 people who had never seen a foreigner before.

"The kids just went crazy. I was treated like royalty. I felt like Prince Charles," he said.

A keen surfer, Mr Earl said he missed the sea.

Kunming is 1891 metres above sea level and you cannot see the ocean.

Despite four or five murders a day in China, Mr Earl said he felt safer walking the streets there at night than he would in New Zealand.

[Mytime]

And...? What was the point of that?

[Ger]

Think about it for a while and see if you can't answer your own question...

[Mytime]

Someone who's spent 10 months here figuires he's got it all worked out. Nothing new there.