E-ESL
- 2010-12-23
So we just started exams and some funny things happened.
The students also have a Chinese english teacher who teachers them with textbooks. The 1st student was about to come into the room and the teacher said to me "His English is poor, he will fail" I could believe a teacher would be saying that. I told her that I would still administer the exam. She then told the student (in front of me) to say "I don't know", thinking it was some sort of free pass. Of course the student replied with "I don't know"
The best part about this is it happened in another class with another teacher. Almost line for line.
The Chinese English teachers here are awful. They can barely speak english. A week ago a teacher from Australia was visiting and was asked by a teacher "how much chinese can you speak" he replied with "oh, very little. How much english can you speak" "oh very little" "What do you teach?" "English"
True story. These children have actually been taught poor english skills because of this too. There sentence structure is a mess and actually have weird names for certain words.
The Lawyer
- 2010-12-21
Merry Xmas 
Cutting corners to save money, so common in the PRC. Why use 8 when 4 will do, and the construction boss and school leaders/party bigwigs can pocket the leftover cash for expensive meals, ktv whores, gambling junkets to macau, designer shopping for the er nai in HK etc etc...
I'm not an engineer, but do know something about reinforced concrete, having worked with RCP's before, the stress above a pipe or in the case of a building that is load bearing, has to be properly calculated as you rightly say, so what they were doing was cutting corners deliberately, at the risk of peoples lives with the tragic results it inevitably entailed.