Quite right, Turnoi.

I have never claimed to be a highly-qualified teacher but have tried to do my best for the Chinese students. In the main I've gotten on very well with the youngsters I've taught; however, at one university this wasn't the case. I was asked to teach writing and as you will know this requires at the offset a little knowledge of the differences in say parentheses, brackets and braces-so, my first lessons were perhaps hard slog and boring for the students. So, we have a lot of student power (only to be used against FT'S) in China these days, and I was paid a visit from my Chinese boss (several visits) to tell me what a lousy teacher I was. At one point I lost my temper with him and said "I think, Mr Wong, that if I sat down for the entire lesson, chain-smoking and supping baijiu, as long as the students were happy with that then you yourself would be happy! shi bu shi? For once i received an unusually truthful reply "Yes, please go and get some advice and help for your lesson plans from the 'reading' FT" he snapped and departed in a huff.

Off I went to get guidance from the reading expert. I asked to have a look at his lesson plans but he didn't have any. Well, he said, what I'll be doing next week is teaching them how to cook, and he showed me all the eggs, flower, pots and pans and microwave, that he'd be taking in to keep his students happy- so, No Claudius monologue for his students to anguish over. He was a good teacher actually but had long since learned that proper teaching would cut no ice with a system which is completely disinterested in the betterment of their students but certainly interested in their cash value.

My next weeks teaching involved an hour of ting xie for their troubles. I made the decision not to back down-if I did, I felt, the students would always be finding things to complain about.I had a year there. The students stopped complaining after a while, or, if they did I never heard about it. If i had of been into cooking or been a good entertainment teacher, I have to say, I would have complied with the wishes of the university and the students. I don't blame the students, it's not their fault that disrespecting FT's is the order of the day in China.