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773
Joined: 29 May 2005
Posts: 213
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 Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 2:37 am Post subject: VTC |
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| Is anyone out there working for the VTC? I am looking into them at the moment and was wondering how much holiday time they offer per year, and if the housing is furnished or not. Thanks! |
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matesolstudent
Joined: 24 Feb 2007
Posts: 4
Location: Canada
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| Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 8:13 am Post subject: Give me the scoop on VTC! |
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I'm also looking into the VTC position and wondering if someone could provide more information about it. I've applied for a 2ndary NET position. I sort of understand the difference of position, but wondering if you could help me understand which is the better position....are they comparable with salary, housing, etc? Why would someone choose one over the other? any pro/cons to working with the VTC position? It seems that housing is provided free but you share an apartment with another teacher. correct?
Thanks! |
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Serious_Fun
Joined: 28 Jun 2005
Posts: 1171
Location: terra incognita
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773
Joined: 29 May 2005
Posts: 213
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| Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 3:13 am Post subject: |
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| The VTC is teaching 15 to 21 year-olds in a vocational school setting, while I believe that NET works with primary and secondary school kids. That's one major difference between the two. |
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Shakhbut
Joined: 14 May 2005
Posts: 167
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| Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 7:28 am Post subject: |
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Shared housing? What is this, a language mill?  |
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11:59
Joined: 31 Aug 2006
Posts: 632
Location: Hong Kong: The 'Pearl of the Orient'
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| Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 3:39 pm Post subject: |
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I know of someone who was all set to apply to VTC for the post of Senior English Language Instructor (English for Hospitality & Catering), which, incidentally, is a post they seem to advertise on an annual basis. She did not proceed though. The reason was that she saw the applications forms. If my memory serves me well, there were four or five pages (save the rainforests!) and it stated on the top of the forms that each had to be completed in block capitals (i.e., the whole form had to be filled out in print-style handwriting), in black ink, in duplicate (no photocopies of application forms were acceptable, for some strange, unknown reason). Further to that, and this is similar to IVE, if the applicant is applying to work at more than one actual physical centre (which is very common as most centres will often only have a few hours a week to offer) then separate application forms needed to be sent to each centre! Again photocopies were not acceptable, at least according to the instructions printed on the forms themselves. Since the forms requested information going right back to the applicant's childhood, if not infancy, she decided she couldn't really justify the time such an endeavor would entail (and who wants to sit there and write the name and address of their primary school twenty or thirty times?). I think she calculated that it would have taken one or two days at eight or ten hours of form-filling a day just to complete the forms, which as she (probably correctly) said, would most likely simply get tossed to one side anyway. It is certainly not as if anyone would actually ever read, draw on, refer to, or otherwise use all the information put down on the forms. In fact, I remember that at one point she was considering hiring her neighbour's Filipino 'domestic helper' (read, 'slave') to actually complete the forms for her!
In many instances, I actually believe that there is a concerted effort on the part of the employer to dissuade anyone from applying for a post, or at least to make it as tiresome a task as possible. One thing I have seen a lot in Hong Kong, and which others I know have also experienced, is that someone is offered a position but is told that, for legal reasons, the post has to be advertised first, but not to worry as they have the job. Once they have got the legal requirement of actually openly and publicly advertising the post for a few days out of the way they then get the applicant they originally wanted to sign the contract. That is fine, I suppose, but just imagine all those poor sods who spent all that wasted time completing those specious application forms! One tell-tale sign of this state of affairs is when the advertisement for the post requests that applicants write the title of the post being applied for on the actual envelope. Why waste time opening envelopes which contain applications for posts which were filled months ago? Don't worry about all the photocopied documents and all the time and effort that went into completing the forms, just toss these superfluous applications straight into the bin! (If the applicants are fortunate then the employer might shred the envelope first to prevent confidential and private information falling into the hands of a bin-lady, but only if the applicants are lucky.) |
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bubblebubble
Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 155
Location: Hong Kong/Vancouver
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| Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 7:14 am Post subject: |
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i work at VTC....  for 4 bloody years already
well, yes, you will share a flat with another NET. the council has a building called Knight Court in Chai Wan, Hong Kong for its staff. it's usually for senior staff but since most of them decide to take $$$ instead of living in the quarter, it's mostly vacant. the flat is very spacious but the location is a bit inconvenient. you're lucky if you are assigned to work at Chai Wan Campus as it's opposite from Knight Court. (there are 13 campuses across hk and kowloon). if you are assigned to work at Tsing Yi or Tuen Muen.. it'll mean 2 hr travelling time and extra travelling expense which you won't be reimbursed. |
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articulate_ink
Joined: 06 Mar 2004
Posts: 55
Location: Hong Kong
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| Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 6:59 pm Post subject: |
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| bubblebubble wrote: |
i work at VTC.... for 4 bloody years already
well, yes, you will share a flat with another NET. the council has a building called Knight Court in Chai Wan, Hong Kong for its staff. it's usually for senior staff but since most of them decide to take $$$ instead of living in the quarter, it's mostly vacant. the flat is very spacious but the location is a bit inconvenient. you're lucky if you are assigned to work at Chai Wan Campus as it's opposite from Knight Court. (there are 13 campuses across hk and kowloon). if you are assigned to work at Tsing Yi or Tuen Muen.. it'll mean 2 hr travelling time and extra travelling expense which you won't be reimbursed. |
Does this mean there's also a housing allowance option? I'm looking at relocating to Hong Kong in a year's time, and I'd like to know more about the market. Shared housing, however, falls into the category of Oh H3LL No. |
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jwbhomer
Joined: 14 Dec 2003
Posts: 876
Location: CANADA
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bubblebubble
Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 155
Location: Hong Kong/Vancouver
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| Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 7:38 am Post subject: |
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| no, for VTC, there's no housing option for the NETs. housing option is only available to senior staff and those who'd worked here for a VERY long time. those 'old' conditions are no longer available to the 'new' staff. |
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articulate_ink
Joined: 06 Mar 2004
Posts: 55
Location: Hong Kong
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| Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 4:43 am Post subject: |
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| Has anyone ever simply moved there for a job at VTC then gotten their own apartment, or taken a job there while already resident in HK? I understand it would be more expensive. I don't imagine the employment contract would actually stipulate living in a given location. |
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11:59
Joined: 31 Aug 2006
Posts: 632
Location: Hong Kong: The 'Pearl of the Orient'
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| Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 5:51 am Post subject: |
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| It would be somewhat more than just a tad 'more expensive'! Obviously it is not stipulated in the terms of the employment contract that employees must live in accommodation x,y,z, but it is most likely dictated by sheer economic realities, especially if you are but a bog-standard, entry-level instructor (and who else would take a post that offered shared accommodation?). As I understand it, salaries (or, rather, wages) at VTC are, comparatively speaking, quite low and that this is as a result of the fact that accommodation is provided as part and parcel of the said contract. It would not be all too easy a matter to pay your own rent when you are a basic instructor and thus already on a reduced salary. For all but a few top dogs in old gravy train-style posts, rent is typically between one quarter and one fifth of one's total monthly income. In effect you would be paying rent twice, and not many people in HK are able (or silly enough) to do that. |
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johnco
Joined: 26 Apr 2007
Posts: 21
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| Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2007 10:00 am Post subject: |
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Do you like listening to the clattering of trains;and metal on metal grinding until your ears and head say,"I can bare this no longer!"
Mind you,this happens every five to ten minutes,7 days a week,from 6 am to 12 midnight. |
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11:59
Joined: 31 Aug 2006
Posts: 632
Location: Hong Kong: The 'Pearl of the Orient'
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| Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2007 5:03 pm Post subject: |
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| johnco wrote: |
Do you like listening to the clattering of trains; and metal on metal grinding until your ears and head say, "I can bare this no longer!"
Mind you, this happens every five to ten minutes, 7 days a week, from 6 am to 12 midnight. |
It is 'bear' (as in 'tolerate') not 'bare' (as in 'naked'). Anyway, let's not forget that Rudyard Kipling wrote about Hong Kong in his 'From Sea to Sea' after his visit to the territory in 1888, and that it was he who after this sojourn coined the quip-like expression "Life with a Capital Hell" in relation to HK. This I think was mainly as a result of the sheer amount of chaotic, specious noise in Hong Kong back then. Not much has changed though. Indeed, one of the most salient � and indeed, distinguishing � features of the Chinese race in general (no matter the time or place) is their seemingly innate desire and passionate need for noise. For example, as noted more contemporarily by Jan Morris in her marvellously well-written book 'Hong Kong: Epilogue to an Empire' (final edition, 1997, London, Penguin, p. 118) "Noise is endemic to the Chinese" and is "part of the texture of their lives", and that in her opinion it is "the sound of the jack-hammer" that is the "leitmotif of Hong Kong" (p. 73). She also refers to "the racket of radio music and amplified voices, the half-shouted conversation that is peculiar to Chinese meeting one another in the street, the ceaseless clatter of spoons, coins, mah-jong counters, abaci, hammers and electric drills" (p.39).
I think she hits the nail on the head with these comments. After all, simply observe the sheer volume the HK Chinese 'talk' to each other at. It can often be nothing short of deafening. Sometimes I find myself actually wondering why they bother using their (ever present) mobile phones in the first place; after all, given the sheer volume they 'talk' at they could just as easily stick their head out of the window and contact their friends and/or relatives in Shanghai and Toronto that way. In Chinese restaurants the volume of the (seemingly obligatory TV set) is invariably whacked up to full capacity and people seem wholly unaware of the fact that there are others within earshot (and the earshot range here is exceedingly large). If one inquires with the management as to why the (apparently mandatory) TV is set to such a loud volume they instantly reply that it is as the customers talk so loudly, but if you then ask why the customers talk so loudly you will be informed that it is as the TV is so loud. They give these answers without the slightest outward sign of any recognition of the circular logic employed.
Above I use the word 'innate' in reference to the need for noise on the part of the HK Chinese and I concede that this may concern, if not disturb, some. After all, we live in an age of political correctness that asserts (without cogent argument or evidence) that all cultures and peoples are both identical and equal at least in a 'core' sense, though there may well be some differences on the periphery. Adopting this framework leads people to object that it is obviously the case that the sheer amount and volume of noise in Hong Kong is culturally determined, part of the outer cultural periphery, not genetically set. However, leaving such egalitarian dogma aside, I think the need for noise is indeed part of their genetic endowment and that it has worked its way into the gene pool over the millennia that the Chinese have been on the planet, perhaps in a process similar to the Baldwin Effect (a fairly well established and understood force in the Neo-Darwinian paradigm). Anyway, whether innate or a cultural 'artefact', their need for noise is as real as it is ancient, with it in fact going back to the beginning of recorded history at least.
For whereas in the west in days of old the night watchmen of walled towns and villages would not raise the alarm (i.e., make a noise) unless they were attacked, in China it was the exact opposite: according to the historical record all one could hear in a HK village was the incessant drumming of their bamboo tympani. Their logic here was that constant noise meant that the lookouts had not had their throats cut (of course, as with all instances of Chinese 'logic', this is seriously flawed, for anyone capable of creeping up on night watchmen and slitting their throats is more than capable of continuing to bang their drum so as to give the impression of all being well). In short, noise of a perpetual and irritating headache-inducing variety actually comforts and reassures the extant Chinese, as it did their forefathers: it makes them feel safe and secure. And it was not just HK in which such ridiculous logic was employed, in villages on the Mainland the night watchmen would bang their gong each and every half-hour to inform the inhabitants that they had not been threatened or attacked.
I think this twisted and perverted need for reassuring noise has persisted to this very day, and this is why I believe it is part of their genotype. When they opened the new Exchange Square in Central (designed by the world-class Swiss architect Remo Riva), for example, the brokers actually complained that it was too calm, quiet, and peaceful (as the Swiss tend to like things to be). In response there was a (presumably serious) proposal to play background tapes of the old exchange's ear-shattering racket on a perpetual loop. This is as the Chinese simply do not feel 'alive' unless there is noise � to their mind only dead people and dead things are quiet. If they are not exposed to loud and incessant noise then they instantly begin create some. In the village I live in the NTs for example, it is somewhat rare for a Chinese resident to not keep some form of bird of paradise (such as an exotic parrot) on their balcony and which, invariably, has a mating call (or just a call) reminiscent of a young child crying, whinging, or whining, or of a young girl screaming in utter terror. This brain-penetrating noise is usually produced every five seconds or so at certain times of the day and night. It also seems to be mandatory to keep a bare minimum of 6 of 7 large and loud � and highly territorial � dogs, typically Irish Wolfhounds, German Shepherds, or some yappy little rat-like canine creatures. The slightest thing sets them all off: a car door closing, a front door opening, a key turning in a lock, a window creaking, anything, and once one begins they all join in until there is a chorus � a hideous cacophony � of barking and howling.
These dogs in fact have a somewhat unusual place in the life of the HK Chinese for, although they obviously exist, they simultaneously do not exist (another classic example of Orwellian Doublethink on the part of the HK Chinese). What I mean by this is that the dogs exist in the sense of the locals stating 'I own a dog', or, 'Look! I'm so rich I can have a dog and not resort to eating it', but do not exist in the sense of being a creature � a living, breathing organism � that needs food, water, exercise, care, attention, and, dare I say it, some form of mental stimulation (such as fetching a stick). The couple that live to the right of me, for example, also own a holiday home in Shenzhen and go there most weekends. The problem is that they tend to leave their dogs in a cage on their roof with neither food nor water, and certainly not with shade from the sun or shelter from the rain. Obviously the hounds get hungry, thirsty, bored, frustrated, hot, humid, or soaking wet, (or a combination of all these), and thus grow angry. They express this anger (if you will excuse the anthropomorphic nature of my comments) through barking, howling, and banging themselves against their cage. Without exception, all westerners complain about the resulting noise pollution (not to mention the cruelty to the animals) but interestingly, also without exception, the locals simply do not hear the noise, they seem able to 'filter' it out. Again, we have a clear case of them finding repetitive, ear-splitting, headache-inducing noise acting as a comforter, as a form of reassurance.
Perhaps an anecdote is in order. I once got so fed up with a dog that had been barking non-stop the entire night that I actually got up and decided to track it down, to see where the noise was coming from so that I could complain when the owners returned home the next morning. After all, I did not for a moment think that the owners could possibly be home for, as I discovered when determining the source of the noise, it was at least five or six minutes away from my home by foot. However, to my utter surprise, not only were the owners at home but were actually enjoying a late night game of cards in their courtyard. I was stunned; I really was nothing short of stunned, and for once in my life I was speechless. For despite the fact that this dog had kept me (and others) up all night long from the other end of the village, its owners seemed totally oblivious to its existence, let alone to its vocal productions. In fact, the dog was sitting right at their feet when I complained and pointed out that it was barking, and had been for the last eight or so hours. Now, unless they have the thespian abilities and skills of a classically trained Shakespearean stage actor they were not lying when they showed genuine shock that their dog was making any noise, (despite the fact that as I say it was but a few feet away from their feet). I am utterly convinced that they were wholly unaware of the fact that their hound was, and had been, barking very loudly for a very long time. It was this incident that made me realise once and for all that these people are very different to us. Indeed, I now believe that in the very same way that for example Scandinavians tend to be relatively blond and blue eyed, and in the very same way for example that Nigerians tend to be comparatively muscular and dark skinned, I simply think that the Chinese are relatively and comparatively deaf (in very much the same way they are uncontroversially prone to physical myopia). It is simply a racial trait/characteristic. What to me was an obstacle to sleep (stemming from some four hundred metres away), to them was unnoticeable, and certainly not in any way a disturbance. |
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johnco
Joined: 26 Apr 2007
Posts: 21
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| Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2007 11:10 pm Post subject: |
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11:59,
You will find that the "sheer" (carefull with the tautology as it is grinding on the ears) innate nature of noise creation attributable to the Chinese character is prevalent to most Asians';and the Chinese are not privy to that.The authors you have been quoting in the semi-fiction novels you have been reading lay no claim to aknowledgeing they were first in discovering the rambunctious nature of Asians-Chinese;so what is the fuss all about? And who cares about reading a travelogue-diary of some boring Victorian era author?
Why don't you try staying at Knight Court for a week and report back with your experience of the "Unbareable" din of metal beatings.
You said "bear" right? I said "bare".
You and JB Homer should hook up and become the orthographic detectvies of this forum;I am sure you can become good freinds,that is of course if you are so bored.
bare
Last edited by johnco on Fri Sep 14, 2007 1:34 am; edited 1 time in total |
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