In response to Why you should think twice about teaching in China (Clyde)

I want to add a couple more things to the list.

Mindboggling cheapness that would make Ebeneezer Scrooge cringe: Yes, there is a notion, I believe, that Chinese people have of getting ahead at any cost, and worry about the details later. This often shows up in really short-sited business models. For example, lets say a fruit seller sees you walking past every day. One day you stop to buy fruit. They overcharge you ridiculously. You never buy from them again, instead of making them your regular seller. I worked in a school where they refused to buy new erasers for the chalkboards and used rags instead. So I bought my own, and wrote my name on them in permanent marker so I'd at least have an eraser for my classes. They removed my name with solvent. Those erasers, at the time, cost me less than 2 yuan each. They will ask you to return a 30 yuan book at the end of the term. There is no bottom to what is not worth being cheap about. When I lived in the States, anything under a quarter I wouldn't worry about, for example. But they will worry about 1 stinking yuan, or even a jiao. Rich bosses will refuse to spend miniscule amounts of money out of this extraordinary, stupid, cheapness.

Arbitrary displays of power!

It took me years to understand this, and I only got a good grasp of it on the tail end, as I plotted and schemed and finally managed to extricate myself from China without getting screwed on the way out, or at least getting my mind F-d with, and reminded who were the leaders and who was a foreign pile of shit. As I said before, hierarchy is everything (which is also why any asshole in a black sedan will honk at you like you are a pig in the road when you are actually crossing the street, in a crosswalk, when the light is yours), but power used correctly is invisible. Only the misuse of power is conspicuous. This is similar to "kindness." I was once told by a martial arts instructor to be careful because people might mistake my kindness for "weakness." In the same way, if a "leader" does his/her job properly, he or she should be helping and facilitating those beneath him or her. But this could be seen as weakness, and really, Chinese leaders want to display power.

The best way to show power is by being an asshole and getting away with it (like honking ferociously at innocent pedestrians). For example, a boss will show up 20-30 minutes late to a dinner to show he is the most powerful. What an ass. We'd just think that person was a dick in the West. Well, this same mentality can be seen in the daily management of schools. I always wondered why I'd get my schedule of classes the night before classes started. Surely they'd want me to do a good job of teaching, in which case I'd need to make preparations. Could they be so incompetent that they just procrastinated until the last minute? One place where I worked always gave us our schedules, including what classes and subjects we'd teach, one or two days before the term started. We'd all complain and they knew very well that this stressed us out, and they'd promise this wouldn't happen again, but every term it happened again. One time I got my boss to make a call and get me my schedule 2 days before classes started, but nobody told the person that normally gives it to me. He waited until after 10 pm the night before classes started to offer me the schedule, which made me aware the holding on to it until the last minute was deliberate (they did it even if the schedule was ready days before).

So, why do this? Why compromise the teacher's ability to teach, and the students education in the process? Because it's an arbitrary show of power. It is done merely to piss off the teachers and remind them who has the power. Sounds incredibly petty, and it's hard to believe anyone can be so petty. But it's also hard to believe someone would brazenly walk to the front of the line and cut in front of you. The more petty and childish the display of power, the more powerful it is, because it makes you fully aware that it's ridiculous, and there's NOTHING you can do about it. (Unless of course you are smarter than they are, in which case you could coincidentally succumb to illness on the first few days of class, etc. But who wants to play those childish games.)

The two things above are probably the main reason I'm not in China anymore.