FAO's need exposing...
- 2010-11-29
Hunan College of Information, Wangcheng country, Changsha City.
Unsure if it's name has changed...
FAO-BROKEN
- 2010-11-28
Be wary, very wary. FAO's can be just as bad as training centre staff.
Thanks for giving us the heads up. You've clearly been very unfortunate to have had such a total arshloch as your FAO. You richly deserve my commiserations as you've been treated very badly indeed.
I've been through the mill too, thanks to an absolutely vindictive and despicable FAO like yours. The problem is you would never expect that kind of person to be appointed as an FAO in the first place. However, unfortunately for FT's in China, it's a distinct possibility. Would you please name that Hunan college so that all of us can stay clear of there in the future?
Dragonized
- 2010-11-28
For me the smiles now mean absolutely nothing. They will be nice to you up front and then promptly talk crap behind your back. We might as well be swimming in a tank of female sharks!
FAO's are cunning
- 2010-11-27
I can certainly relate to your woes with FAO's.
Neither of us had wanted to stay on, as the college FAO was a buffoon who hadn't a clue how to treat
foreigners properly
At a place in the wilds of Hunan, that poses as a college, but is actually just a front for selling students into servitude, including the female students, there is a slimy,slippery reptile who passes as a supposed FAO. To say he is incompetent staggers belief. If pushed, yes, a review of this place needs to be posted here, but for now I'll contain my spitting vitriol to this racist toad of an excuse for a man:
1) One american teacher who to all accounts had worked perfectly well all year, was threatened with his airfare/bonus money being withheld by this odious individual because he found out he had been late for class on one occasion by 10-15 mins. Granted that is quite a length of time...but to punish him by trying to withhold end of contract bonus for one error...inexcusable and unprofessional.
2) I had to go to Hong Kong to get my work visa and asked him to help me get the train ticket in advance, so I could go directly to the train station to Shenzhen with no worries. Well, of course he left it until last minute, in fact the last afternoon before the morning I was due to go...result, I had a screaming match at him on the phone that he should get a flight ticket, which he did, but still made me out to be the villain, but in the end he promised me I wouldn't have to pay for that part of the journey. Quelle surprise, on my return he said the ticket cost had to be docked out of my salary, I politely stated I had warned him over a week before to make plans....his and the other chinese teachers "plans" were to get me a standing ticket on the train from Changsha to Shenzhen!! Again, a case of incompetence and not listening to his FT's.
3) He was gay, and seemed to have some bias to straight male FT's to whom he took a dislike. It was a case of if your face fits, you belong. He got on well with one american teacher (with a gf), but not with others. My guess is he didn't like the idea of western FT's with chinese girls, why, god only knows. If your gay, why does it even matter?!
4) He displayed open xenophobia to me by claiming baijiu to be better than whiskey, and stating "Chinese people don't like whiskey" I laughed at him, before walking out and muttering various expletive adjectives about him under my breath. He said this outside at a restaurant, so we were not on work time, not that it would be excusable.
5) In the end he had me fired on a trumped up charge, by colluding with the students whom he taught, and forcing them to make false testimonies against me, so he could pocket my airfare and bonus and gain HIM some much needed face with the Dean of this so called "college". He did pay me my final month's salary which was fair considering I did bugger all in the last month, but didn't seem to care when I politely explained he was leaving me homeless in China and without funds for a ticket to go home, but I had managed to get a better job so didnt care. He had the audacity to want to shake hands, but I pushed his hand away, and he put a hurt look on his face to gain crocodile tears from the office staff...but when he was sat with two of the other teachers informing me of the termination of my contract, he had a smug grin on his face as though he was happy I was being fired...snake in the grass.
Be wary, very wary. FAO's can be just as bad as training centre staff.
Cheers.
M L
- 2010-11-26
Don't be taken in by the smile and supposed friendliness. If they hate you, the smile is just a mask. Most of the time you won't even know face is on the table, let alone whose face you are offending and what face it is they have got on. They can be vindictive, in simply not renewing your contract for whatever childish reason, or refusing to give you a release letter.
Not renewing your contract is no big deal. That's always a possibility, and there can be various reasons for not being asked to stay on.
For example, before the days of the poularity of the Net in China. they tried to fool a fellow FT at one place where I worked into giving him the impression all was well while receiving CV's from job applicants as a result of advertising his and my upcoming vacancies. I had been confrontational, so I knew my ass was out the window. By contrast, my colleague had co-operated with them on every occasion, and so assumed he was on good terms with the FAO, who went out of his way to convey that impression to him. But some of his students had made trouble about his teaching methods and English level. Anyways, his attitude later completely alterd to non-co-operative thanks to an unforeseeable development that exposed the FAO's hypocrisy. Luckily for my colleague, the too-trusting post lady's actions led to the beans being unwittingly spilled. How? As he was from the US, he received all applications from there while I received those from the UK, being British. The reason we mistakenly received them was that the post lady at the college wrongly presumed the letters were for us. We opened them, read them, and then destroyed them. When we left at the end of our contracts to teach elsewhere in China, the college had no replacemeants arranged due to our actions. That served them right. Neither of us had wanted to stay on, as the college FAO was a buffoon who hadn't a clue how to treat foreigners properly. We declined belated offers for contract extensions, and had probably done some jobseekers a big favor by ensuring their applications didn't reach him!
Oldtimer
- 2010-11-26
They can be vindictive, in simply not renewing your contract for whatever childish reason, or refusing to give you a release letter.
If they haven't fired you in the course of your contract, I cannot see how they can refuse to give you a release letter. By allowing an FT to complete his contract, they have no justification whatever for subsequently refusing the issuance of a satisfactory release letter. Fair is fair, and you can argue about that very strongly. Best to give them the impression that you're no pushover well in advance of your contract completion date if you feel they might be bold enough to attempt to pull a dirty trick like that on you. Heck, you can even threaten to name and shame them on the Net if they won't co-operate with you! I doubt very much that will ever be necessary if you show them you've got balls at the first sign of trouble. I'd be very surprised if they don't take the very strong hint you've given them and back off.
EU'ER
- 2010-11-26
Such treatment can take the form of being criticized for a shortcoming that was previously overlooked, such as being occasionally a little late for class.
Most definitely. Reminds me of an experience where I refused to put in an appearance at a kindergarten for no PAY, unrelated to the public school I was working at, as requested by one of the fellow chinese co teachers. If you have a mobile number, don't give it out to chinese co workers, better yet, don't have a phone so they can't reach you. The result of my refusal to help them claw their way up the guanxi ladder (which only goes their way, not mine) was any extension of my contract was refused. An american teacher, who also disliked some of the chinese teachers attitudes/racism and was outspoken about it, also was refused to stay on.
Are the Chinese vindictive? My experience tells me some can be, but most are too laid-back to be so!
Don't be taken in by the smile and supposed friendliness. If they hate you, the smile is just a mask. Most of the time you won't even know face is on the table, let alone whose face you are offending and what face it is they have got on. They can be vindictive, in simply not renewing your contract for whatever childish reason, or refusing to give you a release letter.
Dragonized
- 2010-11-26
Yeah, I see your point. If Chinese people judge you as a person, it'll definitely be towards a more generalized context. This can be annoying since you can be put into their "negative" side and in the future no matter what you do you may be subject to discrimination based on some previous interaction that you don't even remember. It can get tiresome if there are several people at the workplace who think about you like this.
Oldtimer
- 2010-11-25
Good advice, Dragon..., If you don't mind, I feel it's worth adding that Chinese co-workers in the teaching profession over here are extremely reluctant to take on extra duties unless they receive extra payment or time off in lieu. Yet those same people will try to sweet-talk newbie foreign teachers into doing extra work for nothing. You are of course entitled to decline such requests, but bear in mind there could be negative repercussions later. I've seen fairly competent FT's being shabbily treated as a result of the afore-said non-compliance. Such treatment can take the form of being criticized for a shortcoming that was previously overlooked, such as being occasionally a little late for class. It can even manifest itself in problems with utilities that were reported by the FT regarding his flat being ignored at first. For example, a flooded floor in the dining area of an FT's apartment due to a radiator leak was ignored by the school FAO for three whole days until finally the occupiers of the flat below noticed a huge damp patch in their ceiling and screamed blue murder to the school's headmaster! Are the Chinese vindictive? My experience tells me some can be, but most are too laid-back to be so!
Working in China can be quite an experience, not necessarily for the better, either. I would like to help and offer some advice on how to deal with people who may want to be stupid to you and make your life miserable. However my experience can be limited and I hope others on this board can also share some experiences with co-workers from foreign countries.
For me the biggest issue has been dealing with others who want to ask me about what languages I speak. I have mostly let off ambiguous answers as I don't think any other language besides English at these schools are needed. I mean c'mon, so what if I can speak Martian, Chinese, or ancient Babylonian? It's none of your business!! This has been the attitude that I've taken.
When my co-workers know I can understand them. Some of them obviously take an antagonistic, jealous approach and try to mess with my head. From which I either give them the cold shoulder or I will be "respectfully sarcastic" and reply to them by stating the point that I DON'T TAKE ANY CRAP. Of course there are infinite combinations that you can use for stating this but in the end people will back off, that's the most important point.
Others like DOS's or co-workers may try to rip you off by giving you little extra tasks which they try to speak as if it's harmless and only a "favor". Be careful of these as agreeing to "favors" can mean an extra couple hours of misery that you will regret. Bosses will also do this by suddenly giving you extra classess. They may want to make the decision for you, just pay attention with how they talk. Even if you're being paid for the extra hours please remember that YOUR TIME IS THE MOST VALUABLE ASSET THAT YOU HAVE, AND MONEY DOESN'T ALWAYS MATTER.
Don't always feel intimidated and beat yourself up by putting ideas into your own head that you're a guest here, that you're supposed to respect the culture, that you shouldn't turn others down, etc. These things can only serve to drag yourself down. It's letting these thoughts go that you can just be yourself, then you'll realize that idiots are the same everywhere, crap is the same, and always sticking up for yourself no matter where you are is the best way to go.