DOOG
- 2010-04-12
Currently I am teaching in Nantong. If you are offered work here, think carefully. The city is the most boring city I have come across in China, but that is not the worst. Working at Nantong Vocational College has become similar to minimum security incarceration. Everything is now monitored (including internet), by the school. They have cameras in all passageways of the FT accommodation building. You cannot have guests in your room (which are quite nice and well equipped). There are regulations of which you are not told about, until you break them and then you get "warning letters" from the FOA. What would be reasonable place to work has become a mire of authoritarianism at its worst. All FTs are leaving. They cannot keep people here even though it has reasonable standards in other areas. If you don't mind the intrusiveness, it is ok. Me? Have been here 1.5 semesters. Cannot wait to leave.
LNC
- 2010-04-10
How much control an FAO has over an FT can vary from place to place。 At some universities there is no control，at other places there is more。I am not trying to defend Chinese employers，if an FT is married to a Chinese woman or has a Chinese GF then that is none of their business，except maybe if the FT is sleeping with their own students。
The Chinese are nosy people however， they will be that way whether you live on campus or off campus。Gotta feel sorry for them in a way，they lead such dull and uninteresting lives they feel the need to spy on what some foreigners do.
Privacy
- 2010-04-09
There have been significant changes in the attitudes of many FAO's towards their foreign teachers in recent years. The situation re living on campus and the level of control that the school/college chooses to exercise over its foreign teachers will vary from employer to employer.
Control over the private lives of employees is not an employer's business in the West; and the attitudes of FAOs towards foreign teachers also do nor matter in the area of their private lives.
You are referring to what is standard in China and does not apply to most other areas outside!
Get your perspective and your facts right, and do not try to sell us this crap when denying the fact that privacy is not respected in China!
Jeremy
- 2010-04-08
No "updated" experience is needed as far as those circumstances of living in a foreign expert's apartment on campus is concerned. Nothing has changed in that respect,...
A sweeping generalization, if ever I saw one!
There have been significant changes in the attitudes of many FAO's towards their foreign teachers in recent years. The situation re living on campus and the level of control that the school/college chooses to exercise over its foreign teachers will vary from employer to employer.
The issue here is that accommodation outside the campus will cost an FT money, if indeed it is allowed. Each individual FT must weigh up the money lost living outside the campus against the freedom lost living on it. Everyone is unique. Some people rquire complete freedom of movement, while others can tolerate limited or even moderate levels of control and spying re one's daily life.
Some mothers can be very restrictive of what their children do too! I'm amazed that there are so many educated people around lacking in common sense. That doesn't say much for the education system in the West, does it!