Tom
- 2011-05-27
Are you living in Nanchang? Have you tried getting a taxi here during peak hours? I think its pretty important that I can walk to most places I need to go rather than waiting for half an hour for a taxi!
dude
- 2011-05-26
City centre, night life, gym and anything else you need
FFS it's Nan bloody Chang, not Shanghai or HK...wtf do you expect or are thinking?
The xenophobia alone is one reason not to work there. Never trust a place that names its beer after the place of revolutionaries, and has a god awful commie statue in a square...
Tom
- 2011-05-26
I know this is a very old post but I feel I should reply as reading this post almost stopped me from accepting an offer from this uni.
First, I should state that I am only working for this university since September so I am in no position to deny or confirm what the OP stated in his post. It may or may not be true but I can only speak about my own experiences I've had here since Sep 2010. I have also taught elsewhere in China so I do have some sort of scale to judge the place on.
Accommodation
When I arrived I was given the choice to live in either the new campus outside the city or live in the city campus.
The new campus apartment is very spacious. It consists of living room, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and a decent size balcony to hang your washing out or relax with a few beers (whatever suits yourself). Personally its a bit too quiet for me, I'm more of a city person.
Regarding the city campus, I will start with its in a great location. City centre, night life, gym and anything else you need all within a short walk or 5min taxi drive. Bad points about the accommodation is the rooms are small. We're housed in the foreign students building so we basically have our own dorm style room. Having said that, its clean and we have everything we need such as our own kitchens and bathrooms.
I will take the OP's bad points individually.
1) Don't know if the OP has lived and worked in other cities in Southern China but most apartments and indeed classrooms don't have heating.
2) Have to agree with the OP about the transport to the new campus. But, as I write this, the new road to the city is currently being tarred and should be finished by the end of the summer in time for the Asian games which are being held here in Nanchang. Once completed I'm sure there will be a regular bus service running to and from the campus. Also the new road will cut travel time to about 30 minutes.
3) This is China, don't know how long you've lived here but most things don't happen in a hurry! Don't know about the new campus but here in the city campus anything that I have needed done has always been seeing to very promptly.
4) Don't know what your on about with two phone cards!! If your talking about your mobile number you simply need to go to China Mobile or whatever your network is and get the right type of card that will let you ring where ever you need to. (including international calls)
5) I don't know the previous Chinese teacher who was in charge of the foreign teachers but I find the current one to be very helpful. He usually lets us know about any change in our schedule a week or so in advance. Also, (like most of the faculty here) he has excellent English skills so there is no problem communicating with him.
6) I don't know about the new campus as I don't live there so I won't comment on it. Here in the city campus do we have no problems with the guards. The foreign teachers and foreign students building is locked at 11 o'clock. But foreign teachers are free to come and go as we please, we simply have to knock on the window if were home later than 11. I have come home at all hours of the morning and none of the guards have said a bad word to me so far.
7) I heard this is still sometimes a problem in the new campus. No such problems in the city campus do.
Totally agree about the Internet, its rubbish!!
9) The school currently has 5 foreign teachers, 3 of us have renewed for another year and 2 will return home to their own countries.
10) As far as I know no one has entered my room without my knowledge. (I don't think any of them would either)
11) Haven't received mail so don't know anything about it.
12) I don't know where the library is and don't really need to know. Bring your own books or buy them on-line would be my advice.
Overall it ain't a bad place to work. If your living in the city the school runs a teachers bus to and from the new campus. One problem I do have is they only offer 10 months contract, (meaning they don't have to pay you summer holidays) all do this is becoming a pretty common thing among Chinese universities.
If anyone would like more information Jiangxi University of Traditional Chinese Medicine feel free to ask.
I am writing a review of Jiangxi University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (aka Jiangxi Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jiangxi U of TCM, etc.). Its Chinese name is abbreviated I have taught elsewhere in China before, so I am not evaluating this school without perspective. I have taught in other countries as well.
I have worked here for the fall 2005 semester and now, as per my contract, for the Spring 2006 semester. I will then be happy to leave. I would be happy to answer any specific questions about the place that you have. Below is a brief outline of the good and bad of the place.
Good
New, spacious apartments. Fresh air, for China, as the new campus is outside of the city. A foreign affairs office filled with people who speak English from pretty good to very fluently. Sixteen 40 minute classes per week. This year all teachers have one weekday off, so they teach only four days per week. The students are nice and respectful.
Bad
1) Heat/AC only in your bedroom. Elsewhere in China I had heat in both my bedroom and living room and heat lamps in the bathroom. It goes below freezing sometimes here.
2) You are very isolated from the city. It is a lie to say, as they will, that you are 40 minutes from the city. Because of the reality of the transportation situation and location of your apartment, it will take you TWO HOURS to get from your door to the downtown area. That will include a 20-30 minute walk and two buses, plus waiting time. This is not so for the Chinese staff because they have buses to bring them here in the morning and take them home after work. You literally live in the middle of pig farms. There is nothing here.
3) Sometimes when I ask for things to be fixed they are fixed. Other things simply dont get fixed no how many times I ask.
4) Your phone cannot dial out at all without a phone card. You cant even dial your neighbor without one. To dial another province you need two phone cards.
5) The English department treats you like yesterdays leftovers. The Chinese teachers all know when class will be canceled because of chemistry labs, but you, dumb foreigner, will show up to an empty room. You can ask your classes when their lab is and your students will ask you why you dont know. You can ask both the FAO and the English department to be notified of such things, but you wont be. Other examples exist. This has improved some for the Spring semester only after vociferous and repeated complaining.
6) You live in a fenced compound with guards at the gate. They want everyone to sign in. We got clear agreement from the FAO on more than five separate occasions that this would be changed, but it hasnt truly. They are even more devious liars than my last school. The guards have been mean to the students; this has improved slightly as we have complained numerous times.
7) On average, once a month you will be without power and water for 12 or more hours, sometimes for up to four days in a row like this. Sometimes you will be told in advance, sometimes you will not; sometimes your students will be told and you will not be!
8 The Internet is very slow. You are on the uni LAN. Take note P2P people: this means you are behind a NAT router. The computers the school provides are ^@%$ quality. You cannot write to a CD and you have CRT monitors. No printer is provided. My last school had one and LCDs. Fine, dont expect me to print anything for class.
9) Next year you will see no improvement and much backsliding as the teacher who has been responsible for 98% of the changes here is leaving. He rallied the teachers together to stand up for their rights, and some important changes were made (or agreed to and not yet made as of this writin). No one else wanted to do this and they wont next year. There are three FTs that will likely renew due to their own issues. One other may renew for legitimate personal reasons outside of the university. If youre happy merely taking what you can get, you might love this place.
10) The school has entered teachers apartments without permission or telling them in the past. Teachers have proof of this. The school denies it.
11) Mail can be up to a month and half late here. Thats both domestic and foreign. Thats going by the arrival stamp made by the post office just ten minutes away by car. Thats not one item that was a month and half late. Two weeks late seems to be average. After talking with the university president recently because the FAO told me she didnt think 2 weeks to 1 and 1/2 months late was all that late this has improved slightly. Again, I am saying late, not total time. Where I was last time in China was ten days for international airmail, as it has been to other countries Ive lived in. Here it is 20 days at the quickest. Domestic mail is also delayed and it makes no difference whether the address is written in Chinese or English.
12) Foreign teachers cannot borrow books from the library. When I wrote (and sent) a letter in Chinese to the two head librarians asking them why, it simply went unanswered. I brought this up in a letter to the uni pres and received no reply.
13) Lots of unruly foreign medical students. More next year and currently 24/7 construction immediately adjacent to the where teachers live.
14) Ive certainly forgotten other things I should add, but at this point I think you get the basic idea.
There are worse schools out there I imagine, but there are better ones, too. The school has little understanding of how isolated the teachers are living out in the middle of pig farms. Weve tried to tell them. They just dont give a poop. They have no interest in improving and next year you will be among returnee refugees who are too scared to rock the leaking boat, though even that number is dwindling as folks who originally planned on staying here are now making other plans.
Yes, there is a nice review of the place by a former teacher. He left for medical reasons but he told me he wouldnt likely renew anyway due to things going downhill.
Youre welcome to email me at jutcm2006@yahoo.com
I will check this only periodically, so my reply may not be quick but I will reply to you.