Concerned Teacher
- 2014-08-22
Secondly, they pay too much attention to our actions in our daily lives, and love to gossip about our preceived failings.
What you have rightly pointed out here, is a major annoyance to any old china hand in ESL in China, and one thing that I resented having to deal with on a sometimes daily basis. It can all depend on the FAO and your fellow co workers. Generally, at a public job, fellow chinese teachers will either be friendly or leave you to your own devices, either out of disinterest or aloof indifference, or a good mix of both.....that never bothered me one jot, I am quite a solitary type and I did not really need or seek their approval or friendship. But generally the FAO can make or break the place for you, and sad to say most FAO's, especially the men from backwards provinces like Hunan and Jiangxi, will be racist, xenophobic and be a royal pain in the arse. Chinese professors also tend to be arrogant arseholes in general.
foxy
- 2014-08-22
You are right Wealthy Laowai. The "managers" are total idiots, and that's putting it mildly. Why is it that Chinese people involved in education always have no brains or common sense?
Well, my take on the reasons the disrespectful and unprofessional way they treat us is that firstly it's caused by jealousy. We get more money than our Chinese co-workers on account of being native speakers of English. That is a bone of contention in their bird brains. They figure we should jump to attention because of our enhanced salaries. Secondly, they pay too much attention to our actions in our daily lives, and love to gossip about our preceived failings. That can result in trouble for ourselves. Culture-wise, no other country admires Chinese culture, and quite rightly so. They think our western culture is silly, and believe that we should adopt Chinese culture when we are in China, ie, telling lies and cheating as a matter of course. When we don't do so, they think we are idiots and look down us. And that means they're out to make trouble against us. I have found that the Chinese I have met outwith teaching, even the poor people, are better people morally. It's sad that the more educated people among the Chimese are the biggest conniving assholes!