Re: China; Why not Come to Work

In response, I am going to expand on the foreign experts role, the DoSs, the great Chinese nation, and the poor Chinese parenting that I have encountered with my son recently.

You mention "a new regulation from a couple years ago which states that foreign "experts" aren't to manage neither the Chinese nor foreign employees ... ." As I've not heard of this, could you give the source of the information?

In past couple of years many educational institutions have brought in their Chinese office "coordinators" that've actually got their academic management role in. However, some centers have opted for foreign Directors of Studies and that especially to keep fts in. The Uni where I have worked at and where we've run a foundaiton program then, tried hard to bring in a young Chinese DoS. Myself organized meeting of Chinese administrators and the foreign teachers turned out successful as we've overturned the decision on a Chinese DoS, although my employer reasoned why a Chinese DoS well enough. Yes, it was due to the new regulations. I even saw the mandate from the local government that was passed on from the central government there. A few months after that (my experience at work) there was a bunch of educational institutions around the country that have either replaced their foreign DoSs for Chinese or brought it the Chinese "coordinators" TO ASS IST THE DOSs. Most importantly, these "coordinators' figure officially as the academic leaders and any litigation in between will end up in favor of the OFFICIAL FIGURE. I hope you rememnber these fine contractual agreements that state if there's any discrepancy in traslation between the Chinese and English language, the Chinese will prevail..but i hope i haven't brought you too far off the topic.

Moreover on the information requested, if you ever attempt to get in the business of education and apply for a licence, you will see the application form as well as its guidelines to what or who you have to put in on the registration form. Yes, rules/regulations are often broken on mainland, but the point it that we, the foreigners whether we are experts or not, are all out of the picture.

I agree with what you wrote, although I can't understand why you wanted to work as a DOS in the first place. I would NEVER work as a DOS in China, no matter how much money I was offered. To your point about Chinese racism, well yes, what do you expect? The Chinese see us as being inferior to themselves, deep down some of them know that the Western education systems, management styles and technology are way superior to their own. However, most of them would never admit this, that silly "saving face" rubbish will come into play, just like you said. Nationalism also has a lot to do with it, along with a certain degree of brainwashing.

The reason behind my opportunistic move a few years back on mainland was the foreign EF English First company. It was in 2002 and things were a bit different then...even in EF :) From my own experience then, Chinese followed our educational system, management styles and technology better. The changes have come with the newly laid foundation to the Chinese system by the new president. This new foundation to this country's system has got the nationalizm as the driving force. The education is a great part of this newly laid foundation and any modernization in the field is supposed to be carefully chosen by locals. Before 2003 or so, we made many locals "feel bad" and yes they "lost faces". So, they want their own to judge them. It wouldn't sound too bad as it is understandable, although why we were brought in then, raises the question now. It sure looks like we've been here to put them on their own feet and once that happened we were to go down. Once having a poor student of mine in the country managing me (bustin'my expert balls :)) now, means exactly that, doesn't it?

That brings me to the logic in the following quote below. The new foundation that's been laid to this fine country comes with creating job opportunities for locals ONLY. And, let's copy anything/anyone from abroad so that we don't have to loose faces!!! It's cheaper too, isn't it? How would the WTO like that kinda idea in 2001?

As for logic in China, well, yeah, there isn't any! I suppose for people like myself with money and resources it is OK to stay in China, now I just stick with the public universities. Sometimes even at these uni's there are times when you just have to shake your head in disgust at the incompetence and stupidity that becomes a daily event. However, sometimes this is amusing. The one thing that has not amused me recently is plagiarism. Recently I have had two bad experiences with this ( among many other problems ) at Chinese
universities.

Frustrating and amusing at the same time in my case. Plagiarism of my students in one class has brought me a missery as I had to resign. I demanded my school allowed me to speak with the students' parents on some the issues and one of them was the fact my students didn't understand how serious the issue of copying the work of other was in western unis. Too bad that my young manager didn't understand that either.

China could truly become one of the great nations of the world, there ARE some very decent, caring, and smart Chinese people. Change will only occur however if people are willing to change and try implementing new ideas, and to start thinking outside the square. The hostile, superior and racist attitudes toward foriengers held by a large portion of the Chinese people does not bode well for the future. The Chinese could learn much from the Thai people in this regard, the meaning of genuine hospitality, although Thai education is in just as big a mess as Chinese education, but that is a different story.

That's a great hypothesis. This is were the Chinese education comes handy. These fine Chinese people are to "stay on the right track"...the 5,000 or shall i say 60 years old track. About a year or so ago, I watch some documentary on CCTV 9 where they talked about some water rafting advanturers and who did it first down the, I believe, yellow river. I mean from the up..the very beginning of the stream. An American planned to do it first and when Chinese learned about this man coming to China to do it, they swiftly organized this event to beat him to it. The CCTV 9 host reported this documentary showed HOW CHINESE WOULD HAVE LOST THEIR FACE IF THIS AMERICAN DID IT FIRST ON THEIR OWN LAND. What a way to approach such a documentary? I was not so shocked, but really frustrated with some local peoples attitudes towards us. Why should it be THEY AGAINST US? Well, it will never change, will it? :)

To finish up, I also feel sorry about that bullying that happened to EG's very young son. That is just appalling. I have noticed that many Chinese parents have very poor parenting skills and do not know how to discipline their kids. As you would know, many Chinese children are spoilt, possibly a result of the one child policy. In my opinion, the Chinese men have much worse parenting skills then the women. Chinese men- useless husbands, lousy fathers.
I can understand if EG feels disturbed abut what happened to his son. If it was my young son or daughter I would not be to happy about it either. I hope that it was a one off isolated incident also.

Don't feel sorry! I won't leave my boy to see this for too long here. I don't think that Chinese kids are so spoilt as there're many western kids as bad or even worse than the Chinese ones. It's the attitude we've mentioned above that's what is really worrying. And, it should worry the whole world as these young kids one day will run this huge country. Mind you this isn't just an isolated incident but a very common occurance if verbal or physical. It happens on daily basis around the country.

Cheers and beers to the 60 years old carefully prepared Chinese educational system as well as cheers and beers to parenting that sure brings a uniformed balance in :)