Anonymous Foreign Teacher

Back in Black

2005-06-15T06:14:00.000-07:00

The Anonymous Foreign Teacher is back in the game (after a hell-razing bender of teaching the rugrats) with a few months of rants I hope to post over the next couple of days...weeks...months.

2005-02-03T06:13:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while but it is the winter break in the Chinese school system and that means that universities across the land have basically closed down. During the term there are five dining halls open to all now there is just one that is still serving a couple hundred students a day. Needless to say mealtimes are mortal combat. People form perfect lines to pay for their food tickets but once that formality is dispensed with, it is survival of the fittest (Ph.Ds v. Masters v. ungergrads v. foreign students and teachers.) If you don't have a battle plan or are skittish about having to jump in with elbows and knees blaring you WILL end up with the last cold bowl of rice and mush from the bucket of leftovers.

Moreover, all school buildings are closed/locked (which means no access to the T1 broadband they got going in the office) and the dorm staff who are barely existent when school is in session now performing as if they were in a morgue (read: treating those still in the dorm as if we were dead.) All this makes me think that what the school wants to say is that during the break you can either go home, go travel, go to hell...we don't care just get the $%^& off campus or else suffer the consequences. I'll have to remember this next term when I'm teaching...I wonder how they will like it when I teach with the same go to hell attitude.

2005-01-09T06:12:00.000-08:00

Grading exams is one of the nasty little secrets of teaching in China. To put it simply...it sucks. For starters there is never a class where you have just a couple of exams to grade. Rather your average class has between 25-60 students and you generally have between 4-8 of these types of classes. (You do the math.) Seondly, contrary to the diversity you would expect to find in such large numbers of exams...in China the answers invariably are the same boring uninteresting gibberish. After reading a couple your mind just turns to mush.

I dedicated this weekend to grading exams and it started out as quite an enjoyable weekend of "giving it to rugrats." There were the two students that handed their exams in right after another and "surprise, surprise" they were word for word exactly alike (I guess they think I won't notice. Wrong!) Then there was the male student who wrote on this video exam, "I popped in ___ after the kids and my husband went to bed." I can see him thinking I won't catch the "kids" thing (one-child policy in China, dude) or the fact that I told them not to go out and get the DVD but to write about what we saw in class...but the "my husband went to bed" is such a blunder (unless I am missing something and same-sex couples are legal in China) that I just had to ding (fail) him for being a fool (my advice: if your going to plagerize--or in this case--copy wholescale, at least be a little more discreet.) Then there was the student that called me up sunday night--a full week--after the exam wondering if she can take it on monday (my answer: You could take it but that won't help the 0 that I am going to give you for turning it it late.) Honestly, out of 130 or so take-home exams I would guess that only 30 were not plagerized, copied, lifted, stolen or shared in some form or another. At first I felt bad about all the failures I was handing down but then again what choice did I have (smile.)

Well, that choice was changed monday morning when the command came down from on high to all foreign teachers...no Ph.D students can fail audio-visual English. Damn...that means that all those 0s just turned into 60s. I wish they told me a week earlier then I wouldn't have wasted my time, making an exam, giving an exam and grading an exam. I better make sure what the parameters are for the undergrades before their exams next week.

2005-01-05T06:10:00.000-08:00

I just got punked! After publishing my last post, my e-mail alert popped up informing me I have a new e-mail. The e-mail was from the foreign teacher's class scheduler (see my earlier description of this position.) Next term's class schedule is out and, of course, I have class Monday morning at from 8 to noon, Tuesday afternoon, Thursday morning and Friday 10:10-Noon and 1:30-3:20. That means no partying on Thursday night drunkfests, no long weekends and Monday morning torture. I actually sent the scheduler a X-mas card...what I should of sent her was a lump of coal. Damn!

2005-01-05T06:09:00.000-08:00

The next few weeks are exam weeks and my students are beginning to bug me. First, after a recent class a group of Ph.D students approached me and asked if they would be able to pass the final. I wanted to say you sure will especially considering the school policy of not allowing Ph.D students to fail non-compulsory english classes. Naturally, I did not tip them off to this tidbit of info. That would be too easy. Rather I said that the test was going to be difficult and that they need to work hard and diligently in the days before the test in order to do well but that nothing, repeat nothing was guaranteed. Aaahhh, sometimes the power of being a foreign teacher is too sweet to resist.

2005-01-04T06:07:00.000-08:00

While I was on the bus today, random Chinese person no.1 started up a conversation with me...its a conversation (or better an interogation) that I have had so often with random Chinese people that I think every Chinese person was forced, by threat of death, to memorize when they were children. It is a conversation that I've repeated so much I can say it when I'm dead asleep. Many times I have to change it just to keep my sanity (not to mention being bored to death with my own answers). Since I was a captive audience (locked on the crowded bus) decided that today was good day to change it up. I said (when asked where I was from) that I was from China. When this met with a look of incredulity I began to explain how I am an ethnic minority from China's northwestern border and had come to the city as a representative of my people to seek answers from the government at why they have failed to investigate the corruption that was taking place back home. I explained that is why I can speak Chinese but of course not as good as him. Random Chinese person no. 1 was momentarily at a loss for words but seemed quite believing of the tale I told. Fortunately, before he could speak (ie: interrogate again) my stop had arrived and I slipped out the back door vigorously shaking his hand and calling for all peoples Han and minority alike to join together in the battle against corruption. If I'm not mistaken as I turned to step off the bus I saw a tear form around the edge of his eye. As I lifted my head to the cold air I felt good...a job well done (because I know that without a doubt he will relay the story I had just told him to his buddies and family...another lie perpetrated in the cause of boredom.)

2005-01-04T06:05:00.000-08:00

went to a New Year's Eve party at one of the local hotspots (see: bar where assorted foreign teachers ans students often collect) to ring in the New Year and ring out a painfully long semester's worth of teaching (whats up with teaching 18 weeks...China is so frantic about fitting into the world it should consider cutting down the semester to a more manageable western 14 weeks) with a long night of binge drinking and frolicing helplessly. Unfortunately some of my Chinese students showed up too (how did they know about the party?) and so rather then starting out with a couple of pints, the night statred off as an English lesson with my students surrounding me at the bar and peppering me with questions about grammar, pronunciation and various other English student F.A.Qs. In reality the only lesson I wanted to give them was a new vocabulary lesson...as in what is the meaning of "get lost." As fate would have it (or perhaps it was the fact that I said if they kept asking me questions they would have to drink with me) they left fairly soon and I began in earnest my quest to get drunk. Soon though, my efforts were thwarted again by three Chinese teachers from the English department (how the hell did they find out about this party?) Amazingly though, these three teachers, who are about as intersting to talk to in the office as a dead body, were completely different...as if leaving the confines of the university released them from the curse that they had to endure. I mean they were looking hot and were quite active and conversational. One came in a figure hugging (and she had a nice figure to hug) above the knee red dress that just about knocked me out. It was a nice time chatting and dancing with them (note to self: stop by their desks in the office more often) but as fate would have it (or perhaps it was that lusty gleam in my eye) they also left soon after...leaving me less than drunk and (for lack of a better word) horny. Naturally then my night was ruined because rather then drink I spent the rest of the night trying to chat up every lady I could. In the end I went home...neither drunk or with someone...just tired...welcoming in the New Year with a wimper. I bet even Old Dawg had a better time.

2004-12-29T06:04:00.000-08:00

Excuse my frankness but I have never tasted urine before, however I am absolutely sure that it must taste better then Yanjing Beer...not the Extra Fancy Yanjing 12P brew (which is not bad) but the skunked out Fresh and Cool Yanjing 11P brew that you can buy for 2-3 CNY a bottle. That stuff is foul! No matter whether its at room-temperature, cold or ice cold it always tastes nasty. It may be the official state beer of China (which may suggest a thing or two about the quality of the leadership's decisionmaking skills) but heed my words, its definately not the one beer to have when your having more then one.

2004-12-28T06:03:00.001-08:00

I ran into Old Dawg today. Thats not a good thing though because I try my hardest to avoid him at every instance. You see...Old Dawg is just not a pleasant person to be around. He came to China to escape (the law, his ex-wives, the IRS...who knows) but the only teaching qualification he has is...he speaks english. Amazingly he has some advanced degree in mechanics or engineering or something technical and so he teaches scientific english (whatever the hell that is) and technical writing (you got to give props to Chinaese teacher standards and the hard work of our university's foreign affairs office in vetting its teaching candidates.) His teaching method (if you can call it that) consists of telling stories: about life in the US, science fiction and reading articles from the NY Times Tech section. The students love his class because its they can sit down, zone out and be the passive cogs that the Chinese educational system is so good at pumping out. On the other hand, students avoid my classes because I actually make them work, study, do homework and take tests (the things that students are accustomed to do.) Outside of class, Old Dawg has very little interest in China or Chinese culture (in fact I would say that he is straight up racist) except for finding a good place to drink, complaining about everything Chinese and flirting with his female students. Almost every conversation I have had with him has ended in an argument because he knows it all. Anway, I ran into Old Dawg today and he wants to know what plans I have for New Year's Eve (my first thought was to tell him that I would try to be as far away from him as possible) because he was, "READY to party!!" Judging from the alcohol I smelled on his breath (at 2 in the afternoon) it seems that he has already begun the count-down. All I know is that whoever gets stuck with Old Dawg on New Year's Eve will be either really lonely or really drunk.

2004-12-28T06:03:00.000-08:00

No matter what Chinese university I've taught at three departments have always been a pain in my @#$, namely: (1) the foreign affairs department (the usual destination of over-the-hill school cadres that don't know a thing about foriegn or affairs or young graduates that will use there position to go abroad) which is a helpful as a hole in the head; (2) the foreign experts dorm management (usually peopled by uptight, conservative foools that hate all foreigners, refuse to improve living conditions above "minimum standards" and still think that locking the doors at 11pm is the best way to "protect" teachers from the evils [see: drinking, partying, hanging out, dating]of China) who continually treat foreign teachers (employees of the school) as if they were born today and (3) the foreign teacher class scheduler (who never fails to schedule a class monday morning or friday morning/afternoon, thereby killing any chance that you might have had for a long weekend) who I guess don't have a life of their own and so are adamant that foreign teachers do not have a life of their own either. If I had my way all three departments would be rendered powerless, reformed or abolished.

2004-12-28T06:02:00.000-08:00

Sorry to say this but Chinese people have some of the ugliest feet I have ever seen. I really can't complain because my dogs are not exactly the most pretty but then again I don't wear sandals and almost always cover my feet. But in China those with ugly feet (which seems to be nearly everyone) don't care who sees their feet. They wear sandals or slippers at will letting the whole world see what they have.

Crazy

2004-12-28T05:58:00.000-08:00

What am I doing? I must promise myself that unless I find a decent, well paying job this will be my last "long duration" trip to China...especially just to teach. I hate teaching English in Chinese schools. Mei you yise! Like that article said, "most Chinese take English simply to pass a test and not necessarily to speak it. I haven't left the US yet and already I'm tired, dreading another long term gig in China. I mean what is the purpose? What more can China teach me? I need to think about a change of plan. Is there anything left more me to experience? Is there anything left for me to analyze...especially considering how Chinese treat "laowai," and my own views on the whole wierd Chines cultural attitudes, means and practices. I should have thought longer after last summer in Beijing about going back to China again...maybe done it for less time or doing something else besides teaching...but then again what else to expats do in China besides study, teach or "do business." China or going to China at least just isn't exciting of fun anymore...maybe thats a good sign that I need to change...recalibrate...rethink how China and me shall/can connect...needless to say it will be an interesting few months.