Little emperor syndrome, innit? I expected it to be much worse in fact, but on the whole I find them easy enough to manage. I don't teach large groups though. Noooo, no. It's also just teenagers being teenagers though, right? I saw a humorous note of some kind to teenagers once, saying something along the lines of, 'get out into the world now, quickly, while you still know everything'. Yeh, they can be a pain.

maybe because they are young and fresh.............i was a cocky boy when i was young and am sure some of you did the same.......it's not the nationality thing.....it's just the age......................my friend

hmmm, I always heard they were a bit lacking in the male chicken area... 

...maybe one child policy at play here. Spoiled little brats is the result. Nothing keeps you from being cocky as having an older sister to beat you up once in a while

I don't want to go off topic but I will make a comparison if I can.

I worked in Japan before Japan became incredibly rich and so middle-class.  The children in those days were polite, diligent, hard-working and determined to be upwardly mobile.  Then the country transformed itself and the children transformed themselves into arrogant, hard-to-manage, often discipline case children.  I saw it happen in front of my own eyes over the course of the years that I spent there.

Then I came to a relatively poor China and I saw the same thing -- when I first came to China, it was decidedly a third-world country and was not going particularly anywhere.  Over the course of the years as the country changed, or at least parts of the country changed, and as the children became more and more spoiled, indulged, pampered because the parents had the money to do it, I saw many Chinese children change from hard work and humble to troublesome and outright lazy.

I work in a working class district of a Dong Bei city now.  The parents in the school where I teach are relatively strict, to be it mildly, with the children.  There are discipline problems for sure, and indolence, but nothing like or comparable to what I saw when I worked in the greater Shanghai area.

Money, prosperity, one-child police, perhaps all of it together.

There seems to be some proportion between relative poverty <---> speed of increased standard of living <---> disproportionate wealth distribution <----> Only child syndrome. 

Yep, some of these 'little Emperors' are so outrageously arrogant, entitled and self-assured of their absolute perfection it goes straight past offensive into what I call 'hilarious parodies of themselves'.

            I've thought I could create a reality show (xiao juang di?/little yellow emperors?) and follow the lives of a few Mainland Princes,

however,

Nobody would accept it. I'd be accused of creating a ridiculous 'mockumentary' and criticized for the 'over-acting' as obviously no Chinese kids are so over-the-top. 

Have any of you taught teenagers back home? Whole different set of problems, but same basic teenage snottiness. I think it's worse back home, because chances were low that a 16 year old in China was gonna run off and do crack or what have you.

Teenagers have been like this from the beginning of time. Here are some examples  from ancient Rome, the middle ages, and the last two hundred years, plus a psychology study showing not much has changed:

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2177

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4321

All of those "kids these days" rants could have posted on this thread and no one would raise an eyebrow.

To be honest, I found teenagers in China to be marginally more honest and bright than the adults, on the whole. Haven't had all the humanity squeezed out of them yet.

I don't think that's a China thing, I think that's a teenagers-being-sh!theads thing.

Maybe because no one has busted their noses yet

Look how sarcastic I grew up to be.

bigass..yes, arrogant Chinese..both young and old gets REALLY OLD!!!!!!! Many South Koreans are the same! :( It's the fault of the whole society!