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anonymous
Q: I need advice on working with people who have no business working where we work.
Have any of you ever found yourselves working in ESL/EFL in China alongside people who ought not be entrusted with molding the minds of young Chinese students? I just realized that about half of the men I'm going to be working with are 20-something models from California interested mainly in booze and girls, and that I'll probably have to live with one of them. They do not seem to be the kind who would respect Chinese social norms, let alone other Westerners who do respect them. Yet, Chinese parents are entrusting these men with their toddlers and young girls. I have a feeling that they would probably try to get me fired, actually. Before I decided to be an ESL teacher in China, I had to alleviate my fear of running into American trash like this. Has anyone here faced a similar situation? What did you do? RESPONSES TO THE BELOW RESPONSES: I am from the USA. And, I am going to the other side of the world to one of the only industrialized nations in the world that isn't filled with the sub-class of Americans called "swine." I can easily fit into any new cultural atmosphere quite easily, thank you... provided it's not swine culture. By the way, I am aware of which of the respondents below have stated elsewhere that they hate living in China, and I have automatically disregarded their opinions. FURTHER RESPONSES: The only aspect of Chinese society that I dislike is, of course, those aspects pertaining to urination and defecation. But, it's the Chinese' nation, not mine. So, I don't complain. As for spitting, I don't like it, but I am often around jocks who do that all the time anyway, so I'm used to it. Regarding what constitute cultural and social norms in China, my goodness... I would not know where to begin. You see, most every aspect of Chinese society and culture differs radically from its Western counterpart, as many of these threads have indicated and as many of you have learned the hard way. I am okay with all of them. The distinctly negative tone of this answers forum notwithstanding, I have learned a lot from the many dozens of questions and answers that I have read. I have read just as many of the editorials. With the exception of k*chur's nightmarish classroom experiences that drew gasps from some of you in another question forum and almost justify his apparent hatred for China and the Chinese, all of your descriptions of life and working in China sound okay to me.
12 years 1 week ago in Teaching & Learning - China
One BIG problem we have here is that China is, like many places in the West, more concerned with "image" rather than substance. I too have seen the behavior you allude to, not just young "surfer models" but even middle aged men. There are those who come to China and see the classroom as a place to a) Pick up girls (or boys!), b) Put in a movie and sleep off last nights hangover, c) Clown around, d) indoctrinate, etc.
Yes, there ARE those who take the job seriously (both young and not so young) and with varying degrees of success. some give up, some hold on and some give in.
When I was in Guilin, I was often told that I was too strict. When i failed students, I was asked to "retest them (even though they failed because they NEVER came to class). When i refused, then another teacher would retest them and pass them. For them, image is everything. The 24 year old womanizing-alcoholic-prettyboy? Well, for a large number of schools that is exactly whom they want! Why? Being funny and "cool" will attract more students to that school where he works at. Especially if he is blond and blue eyed. Sad but oftentimes true.
The school I am in Beijing now, is much MUCH better. (I actually have two students in my class that failed last term and were made to re-take the class!)
My question to you is, why are you afraid that the other foreign teachers will get you fired? And have to live WITH one? Usually, these guys will leave you alone if you do not mess with them. And even if you do, what they will mostly do is ignore you directly and talk behind your back with everyone including y our own students. As for living conditions, the only foreign teachers that I know who lived together did so because they actually wanted to.
Last of all, I want to point out a little detail about "Chinese Social Norms". They can be quite fluid. I knew personally three teachers who married their former students but only ONE was Western. And people at the university, both teachers and students thought it was great and "romantic". In the states, those teachers would have been fired just for dating their students.
Also, there are also plenty of middle aged Chinese men who want a young and pretty college age student as a mistress or girlfriend (it is not just the Western men who do this, though we are the ones who get the most grief) and plenty of young college aged students willing to supply the demand. They DO keep it secret from their roommates and it is done hush hush, but it does happen.
What did I do? I chose my friends carefully. Just because we are both American does not mean I am going to be your friend or not. If we get along, great! If not, you go your way and I go mine. There were those expats I would be glad to hang out with, and there were those that if they joined us at the table, I would leave.
Except for my girlfriend, I never had a roommate and as to my teaching standards, I did not lower them. Eventually, I found a school that actually accepts and encourages my teaching policy. It was a long search, more than four years and I had to move to another part of the country, but I did find it.
Finally, there is what we could call a "cardinal rule". No teacher should EVER tell another teacher how to teach his or her class (or how to behave in it) UNLESS you are the supervisor (or, they are doing something dangerous and/or illegal like drinking in class). If you do that, they will react "not too politely". It will also guarantee your enmity between them and you will become a pariah among them, even if you happen to be right!
best of luck!
MissA:
Great response GR, better than was warranted from the nasty tone of the question.
GuilinRaf:
Dont worry buddy. I have seen enough of your posts to know that you dont thumb down unless you have a reason. Besides, I have a good idea who it was.
FYI, even if it was you, we cannot agree all the time (or maybe even none of the time), so if you did, that would be cool too.
problem is your a monkey , LIKE THE REST OF US, only you just dont know it yet, and what exactly are the kind that would respect Chinese norms, by norms you mean spitting everywhere, throwing rubbish everywhere, having the very same kids you want to save pixxing and shixxing whenever and where ever they like, and you dont have to live with them, just get your self an apartment by yourself because thats where you belong, wrinkly old racist hag
nevermind:
Absolutely, i'd like to know what these "norms" are this person is talking about. Is it the scamming? The use of prostitutes and cheating on your spouse? Maybe they mean the theiving.
Welcome to China.
And I hate to break it to you, but as a foreigner, you will always exist completely outside of those Chinese social norms you claim to be upholding but probably know nothing about. And in the eyes of the Chinese, those surfer dudes are infinitely more qualified foreign teachers than what you sound like. They want their children to be around loud white cool dude drunks who act like idiots and if you don't understand why, you clearly don't understand the Chinese social norms you're Don Quixoting.
I'm going to suggest you set very low standards for yourself and others, and have infinite patience for everything, if you want to make it more than a few weeks here.
So where are you from? Because from what it seems like you can't deal with change and other people. If you can't improve them or help them out then there is no need coming on here and crying about your insecurities. 
The thing on 'cultural norms' entertains me a little. Don't you realise that the culture here is for image to be king? The type you describe is so popular here only because of the way the people here act and think.
Pull your head out of your arse, it will help you see the world that little bit clearer.
so your not even here yet,..........and already your bitching.........best of luck to you here then
and why dont you have the guts to post your name like the rest of us.............
anonymous is as anonymous be.
One BIG problem we have here is that China is, like many places in the West, more concerned with "image" rather than substance. I too have seen the behavior you allude to, not just young "surfer models" but even middle aged men. There are those who come to China and see the classroom as a place to a) Pick up girls (or boys!), b) Put in a movie and sleep off last nights hangover, c) Clown around, d) indoctrinate, etc.
Yes, there ARE those who take the job seriously (both young and not so young) and with varying degrees of success. some give up, some hold on and some give in.
When I was in Guilin, I was often told that I was too strict. When i failed students, I was asked to "retest them (even though they failed because they NEVER came to class). When i refused, then another teacher would retest them and pass them. For them, image is everything. The 24 year old womanizing-alcoholic-prettyboy? Well, for a large number of schools that is exactly whom they want! Why? Being funny and "cool" will attract more students to that school where he works at. Especially if he is blond and blue eyed. Sad but oftentimes true.
The school I am in Beijing now, is much MUCH better. (I actually have two students in my class that failed last term and were made to re-take the class!)
My question to you is, why are you afraid that the other foreign teachers will get you fired? And have to live WITH one? Usually, these guys will leave you alone if you do not mess with them. And even if you do, what they will mostly do is ignore you directly and talk behind your back with everyone including y our own students. As for living conditions, the only foreign teachers that I know who lived together did so because they actually wanted to.
Last of all, I want to point out a little detail about "Chinese Social Norms". They can be quite fluid. I knew personally three teachers who married their former students but only ONE was Western. And people at the university, both teachers and students thought it was great and "romantic". In the states, those teachers would have been fired just for dating their students.
Also, there are also plenty of middle aged Chinese men who want a young and pretty college age student as a mistress or girlfriend (it is not just the Western men who do this, though we are the ones who get the most grief) and plenty of young college aged students willing to supply the demand. They DO keep it secret from their roommates and it is done hush hush, but it does happen.
What did I do? I chose my friends carefully. Just because we are both American does not mean I am going to be your friend or not. If we get along, great! If not, you go your way and I go mine. There were those expats I would be glad to hang out with, and there were those that if they joined us at the table, I would leave.
Except for my girlfriend, I never had a roommate and as to my teaching standards, I did not lower them. Eventually, I found a school that actually accepts and encourages my teaching policy. It was a long search, more than four years and I had to move to another part of the country, but I did find it.
Finally, there is what we could call a "cardinal rule". No teacher should EVER tell another teacher how to teach his or her class (or how to behave in it) UNLESS you are the supervisor (or, they are doing something dangerous and/or illegal like drinking in class). If you do that, they will react "not too politely". It will also guarantee your enmity between them and you will become a pariah among them, even if you happen to be right!
best of luck!
MissA:
Great response GR, better than was warranted from the nasty tone of the question.
GuilinRaf:
Dont worry buddy. I have seen enough of your posts to know that you dont thumb down unless you have a reason. Besides, I have a good idea who it was.
FYI, even if it was you, we cannot agree all the time (or maybe even none of the time), so if you did, that would be cool too.
Dude, they will all tell you that they want quality and that they want you to teach them and ALL this other bullshit. The truth of the matter is they don't want any of this. They just want to keep things running and if the money keeps coming in they don't care. So, get used to it and start drinking like the rest of us did.
And as for your "responses" dude. The only swine here is you. F#cking buttlickers to Chinese bosses who don't give a crap about you, your family or anyone else in general and parade around extolling the "virtues" of China can seriosuly get bent. Who the F#ck do you think you are? You're an English teacher, not a professor. I suggest if you want to act like a hoity toity superior human being you get yourself a real job.
hahahahahhaha his edit was the most hilarious thing I've seen in my life. Especially:
And, I am going to the other side of the world to one of the only industrialized nations in the world that isn't filled with the sub-class of Americans called "swine." I can easily fit into any new cultural atmosphere quite easily, thank you... provided it's not swine culture.
mahahahhahahahha You're gonna love China. You know why the parents want their kids surrounded by loud outgoing idiot drunk womanizers? Because Chinese loud outgoing drunk womanizers run the show here. They make every single decision and there is absolutely nothing to limit them whatsoever. And everyone who isn't part of those closed circles struggles to eat three meals a day and desperately longs for the lifestyle I can guarantee you will abhor..
"Chinese culture" ended in the mainland in 1966, when the libraries and universities and historical sites were burnt, and anyone who knew anything about Chinese traditional anything was "disappeared" or "reeducated", mostly sent to pour pavement in the middle of nowhere till they died of starvation.
There's not much culture here for you to adapt to. If you want traditional Chinese culture, head off to the islands. Here on the mainland, what you can expect is a lot of heavy drinking, whoring, pop-culture obsession, fashionable-haircut obsession and a love of iPhones that goes beyond a love of life itself. All propped up by a gigantic (literally very) malnourished underclass that's always too close to death to worry about anything but pure survival. And if they worry about anything other than pure survival, there are "humane execution vehicles" waiting to quickly deal with them with a quick injection. And of course, there's the most prevalent aspect of the culture here: enraged patriotism based on superior Chinese scientist genetic discoveries.
if you can accept yourself as genetically inferior, and dedicate your life to your haircut, getting drunk, and living in "massage parlours", you'll "fit into" this "new cultural atmosphere quite easily", but judging from your posts, you've already set yourself up for failure.
GuilinRaf:
Love to see OP's reaction to the spitting, nose picking, digging of earwax in meetings, taking off of shirts by men at lunch during the summer because it is hot, the ENDLESS drinking and toasting in all school functions, the local colleagues with "second wives", the shoving, the smoking at the table while others are eating, ankle high stockings, littering, shoving, etc.
Good thing this is not Imperial Japan, so we dont need to worry about OP comitting "sepukku"
In response to your second edit: you got me, you win. You are correct, China is a perfect intellectual café society where no one is shallow or uneducated and everyone cooperates to build a progressive utopian society. There's no consumerism, no binge drinking, no party animals, no polygamous behaviour in Chinese history ever, the man never tells you what to do, and everything is eminently tasteful and everyone sees beyond the surface into the very depths of each others' souls.
Sorry about my above posts. Being American white trash and having just crawled out of an Alabama trailer park, it is nearly impossible for me to understand a rare American intellectual such as yourself; all I can ever think about is Guns, Jesus, voting Republican and bad grammar! I just thank my lucky stars that China has discount Walmart muumuus and McDonalds bacon cheeseburgers or else I would go crazy! Also, just to throw this out there: creationism.
But what was I saying? Oh, yes, congratulations on getting out of trashy swine America and finally finding a place where I'm sure people will accept you for you and immediately understand your sensitive artistic disposition, instead of calling you gay for not watching reality television, as they do in that gigantic living snuggie infomercial they call Amerikkka.
gee long answers, all NORMAL men in their 20s pretty much think about one or two things, and i guess we never stop thinking about it, the women anyway,,, it's normal.
But this is a piece of advise. I like working in a big office or place. Then the atmosphere is based mostly on who you are and if people like you. i think it is easier to get along. any small place I have ever worked has too much back biting, usually starting with someone like you, a petty, dired up no fun to be around person, and the back biting just spreads. So my suggestion to you is suck it up, get a sense of humour. If you work in a small place . NEVER TALK to anyone, you will be a disease. If you work in a large place you will be ignored.
China is going to eat you and spit you out. Wow, get a grip man, why do you even care about the thought of working with others, do you really believe you are coming here to enlighten China with your wisdom?
You know, for such an "upstanding person" you certainly sound almost racist. "Surfer California Models"... I am from California, I hold two degrees, I surf... But I'm no model. Nor have I ever been inclined to think I am. But hey, you want to call everybody you don't like a "Surfing Californian" as if we're the scum of the earth. Well dammit, I believe I'll call you an over-generalizing pig and leave it at that.
These people are correct, China is going to spit you out in less than 2 weeks with your attitude. So what if your roomie likes to go live it up at night? It's his (or her) business, not yours. Perhaps you disagree with your roomies social norms? He or she must live up to YOUR expectations? What about the Chinese bosses that INVITED HIM/HER OUT?!?! I've had more booze stuffed in my face by a Chinese boss than any 20-year-old Californian ever thought of.
You are indeed prejudiced -- You have already judged the people you work with before you've even met them. You've judged a culture before you've even lived in it. I advise you to keep an open mind and remember one thing: Why are YOU coming to China? And would you want anyone slamming you for it? So far, I count you've pissed off 7 people in the country (myself included) and you haven't even stepped off the plane.
What are you going to do when you find out your Chinese boss is shagging a 16-year-old girl? Is this the Chinese "social norm" you're so valiantly trying to uphold?
By the way everyone else -- are we sure this is a dude? The OP's post sounds incredibly feminine...
GuilinRaf:
No idea what gender he or she must be. Could go either way or maybe even be gay, bi, transgendered, or any combination...
If you don't like the idea of having to deal with possibly horrible coworkers, why did you get a job there? I work at a college, and I'm the only foreigner here. True, this is a small city, and you may prefer a large one, but there are plenty more jobs like this one. So no, I have not run into "that kind" of coworker. It's true that my job does not require me to be a fantastic teacher. I didn't have any experience before coming here, and I try my best, but I can't say I'm a good teacher. Despite that, I've been told I'm the best teacher they've had here in a long time because I am social and my students like me. I'm not that outgoing, but I am nice to others, and I like to try new things if one of my students asks me to come along. If you don't like your coworkers, then avoid them as much as possible. What else can you do? You chose that job.
GuilinRaf:
Funny thing is that he/she/it does not like the coworkers and yet has not even met them...
nevermind:
Yet the OP disregards US because of our previous opinions despite being here. We're dealing with a total idiot here.
GuilinRaf:
I believe the Politically Correct term would be Alternative Thinker...
If you can not change them, just ignore them. But I am still interested in the so called norms. Can you define it? Even though other respondents have stated the dark side of these norms. If you still feel uneasy, try eChinacities Answer Thread again.
I had similar premonitions but when I got here I found out two things:
1. I've never heard of western teachers having to share apartments, and even the Chinese teachers in my program have their own apartments.
2. Your chinese boss will be so stupid and terrible that you will band together with your coworkers and find true friendship.
because most people that come to china to teach english are social outcasts in their home country and cant find a job basically losers
I have noticed three types of english teachers here.
1. A dedicated teaching professional (mainly found in international schools)
2. the womanisers come to China looking for any girl he can get then saying he is done import/export business but really teaching.
3. the China mad person. Comes to China and thinks he/she is Chinese knows everything from the xia dynasty to the qing dynasty.
Is this a bite? This person cannot be real, surely.
Oh man, this guy/girl is hilarious!
"I am from the USA. And, I am going to the other side of the world to one of the only industrialized nations in the world that isn't filled with the sub-class of Americans called "swine."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. China's got 'em too. May be a different breed of pig, but it's still pork.
I'm an expert on China because I has interwebs!!!11111
We'll be here when you're crying at your computer late at night in 6 months
