-
Beryl OMonkiss
-
agatha
-
Turnoi
-
Robert Vance
-
barefootaquarius
You are currently browsing the Teach Abroad China Alliance as a non-registered user. Please click here to login or click here to register.
TACA Latest Forum Topics Feed
Beryl OMonkiss
Once you begin to feel comfortable in your new surroundings, go to the bus station and say the name of the first Chinese city that comes to mind. Better yet--- make up a city. The ticket lady will sell you a ticket anyway.
Then go to a gate and point to your ticket and shrug your shoulders.
In time, you'll be led to a rickety bus that was once the Chairman’s pre-revolution luxury wagon. To ensure that you get a seat, run to the bus, flailing your arms about you. If you start out alone in the seat, you will remain alone unless the lady standing in the aisle suddenly begins to give birth. Then you'll have company. (It happened to me. The bus didn't stop, and I was pinned against the window and watched the entire drama).
Do NOT sit in the rear-most sofa-like seat. It is intended to accommodate four people, but that's where the bus driver crams the illegal riders after the tour gets underway. Bus drivers have heart. They are also efficient packers.
About sixty miles and four hours into your trip, you will develop a sudden appreciation for western fast food. That's because people who ride these rural route buses have a fondness for hard-boiled eggs, and they break them out as soon as the bus starts, which is okay at the beginning of the trip, but after four hours of riding bumpy roads, the atmosphere inside the bus becomes a bit, um, gassy.
At some point, the bus driver will stop the bus to allow everyone a chance to stretch his legs. Only the men leave the bus because the spot the bus driver chooses is usually---shall we say--- scenic. If you choose to join the crowd, watch your step as you leave your seat. Usually, one is required to exit by the center door (door #2). However, on these long-distance trips, for some strange reason, as soon as the bus stops at what may appear as a killing field to you, all of the men rush to the doors in what looks a lot like reverse musical chairs.
Watch your step or you may regret ever having thought about getting on the bus in the first place.
On my first long-distance bus trip, I chose door #2, and I didn’t watch my step.
I stepped on something, and I heard “BUGGAAAAAAKCrunch.”
It was at that point that I chose to stay on the bus with the women. I didn't want to be killed by a mob armed with pitch forks and shovels when somebody realized that I had killed one -- or possibly more--- of a farmer's chickens. The rural route buses are cramped inside and it is almost impossible to swing anything longer than about seventeen inches, so I figured that my chances of surviving retribution were better than doubled if I stayed inside the bus. This is when it’s good to find a pregnant lady and grab the empty seat beside her.
When the men outside the bus were finished doing whatever they were doing, they returned to their seats. As the bus steadily climbed to the top speed of 1.609344 km x 1 hour, the silence became palpable. The men looked at the women who were all looking at ME. When the farmer opened his bag, three chicken heads poked out. Apparently, a fourth chicken lay motionless in the bottom of the bag. This is when my Mandarin lessons came in handy:
Dui bu qi ! (I'm sorry)
--No answer. The farmer just lifts the limp and bleeding chicken corpse from the bag.
Yi ju li ang de? Ha ha! (Kill two birds with one stone? [Uproarious laughter NOT!])
-- Silence. (These Chinese farm boys sure are a morose lot for sure, I think).
Nǐ shì zhōngguórén ma ? Ha ha! (Are you Chinese? [Uproarious laughter])
-- @#!*%!! (Unintelligible)
Nǐ huì shuō yīngwén ma? (Do you speak English?)
-- Nǐ shì zhōngguórén ma ? Ha ha! (Are you Chinese? [Uproarious laughter])
I was getting a little concerned because I was close to exhausting my extensive knowledge of the Chinese language. I needed to cut to the chase. I pointed to the chicken.
Duōshǎoqián ? (How much?)
---Jiǔ? shí? (I'm not sure what he said, but it sounded reasonable, so I pull out a 100 reminbi note and I hand it to the guy)…
When he saw that big red face, the guy smiled and nodded his head.
---miǎnfèi yīngwén fānyì (Want rice with that?)
I handed the man the note and he handed me the dead chicken. No. Wait. He presented it to me in an elegant, ceremonious manner.
--- miǎnfèi yīngwén fānyì (He’s asleep).
¡Gracias! (Get me out of here alive, Dear God, and I will spend the rest of my life in service to mankind. I mean it this time!).
I thought that the episode had come to an end. No. The farmer shouted something to everyone on the bus.
This would be Part 2 of “Death on a Chinese Bus”. The guy was smiling, but I thought that I heard someone at the back of the bus say something like he had some wire. I closed my eyes and waited.
There comes a time in one’s life when he must find peace and tranquility by going with the flow, not fighting the inevitable but finding joy in the surprises in life. It was explained to me that this is one of the basic tenets of Taoism. Enjoy the uncarved block. Taste the vinegar and smile. Forget about your destination until you arrive. Enjoy the scenery. Sure, you banged your head on the roof of the bus when it hit a bump in the road, but you were going to have that tooth pulled anyway.
I really didn’t want to open my eyes to see the inevitable. I didn’t give one fen if I missed a little of the getting there part. I didn’t want a last cigarette or a blindfold. I had no last requests.
I heard the surviving chickens cluck a bit. (Where I was raised, the sound of chickens on a bus is a bad omen. Or is it an owl in the barn? It didn’t matter. I heard birds where there should be no birds. That was enough).
Yup. I was right. Somebody had wire, and it was being fastened to my right ankle. This is it. The bus driver is at the other end of the wire, and he’s hooking it up to the ignition. I’m going to go out in flames. Yes. This will be wonderful. I love fireworks.
My father, a veteran of World War II, loved to say “There are no atheists in a fox hole.” (What did he know? All he did was chase girls on Guam, probably in fox holes). I wanted to enter my own lexeme into the lexicon of English as it is spoken in China: STAY THE HELL OFF LONG DISTANCE CHINESE BUSES!
When I opened my eyes, I saw that the kindly farmer had given me the surviving chickens, and to ensure that they wouldn’t stray far from me, he wired them loosely about the neck and attached the wire to my leg.
Wow. What a gift. Not only was I flattered, but I was suddenly One With the Universe.You know that feeling? It's better than the way one feels after the whole colonoscopy ordeal is finally over.
As if the preceding wasn’t Kafkaesque enough, from the back of the bus, I heard a voice say what I thought I was “Sing! Sing!” Then I heard a whole chorus of “Sing,sing,sing!”
Geez. They wanted a song. All I could think of was an old Boy Scout parody of “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean”.
So I sang.
My body has calamine lotion,
My body’s as sore as can be.
The flowers I picked for my granny
Turned out to be poison Ivy…
Don’t touch, don’t touch
Don’t touch that poison iveee iveee!
It will
Itch bad,
And it looks worse than acneee…
It got a bit ragged after about two-hundred choruses over the next fifty kilometers, but it seemed to relieve everyone’s anxiety, especially the chickens'. Chickens know stuff.
I love China.
More later.
agatha
This seems to be a really big thing in China and I have been invited to many functions over the years to celebrate. On Monday, the local Government held morning tea, then entertainment tooped off by a buffet meal at one of the 5 star hotels in the city. Many nationalities attended. In the evening our school held a gala night and there were about 20 performances, dance, singers, poem reading, it was a very enjoyable night and everyone looked so happy to be there.
Turnoi
On the personal side, I am happy to say that age my current age of 60 I have retired from earning my money by teaching abroad. I enjoy the privilege to own some property that allows me tio live conveniently on it and to do some unpaidf volunteer work instead (I am the founder & owner of a non-profit college project with 8 schools in different countries worldwide at tertiary educational level with a mission to especially serve those underserved in education with accredited degree programs from Diploma up to Doctorate level - one of these programs is a full English teacher training degree program).
One of the reasons that made me look for such an alternative to my previous professional career was the situation of all deceit, cheat and decadence in the crappy world of ESl, particularly in China.
One of the more recent things I have come across is that there are a numer of Chinese rexruiters whom are selling fake uni degrees for around 4500 RMB to foreign teachers without a degree to enable them to obtain a Z visa and an Expert Certificate when entering China. It seems that there is a triangle - the Chinese recruiters and the FAOs of certain schools, and finally the foreign teacher without a degree involved.
Needless to say that this is another absolutely disgusting part of "business" in the crappy Chinese world of ESL buit it also seems to happen in places like Thailand.
This and other evil practices in the crappy world of ESL can happen because the ESl market is a highly unregulated market without minimum standards for schools and their teachers. There is nothing about helping the Chinese educational system, and particularly foreign language teaching, to improve - it is all about doing business and making a quick buck on the back of others instead. Disgusting.....
I feel a real passion for quality education, and I also have no business mentality nor am I really interested in it, I would describe myself as a simple university teacher. But for someone like that I think that doing a meaningful and rewarding job for the benefit of others is a very important thing and makes their own life rich and meaningful. For this reason, and in the light of all the cheat in the current crappy world of ESL in China; I decided to look for an alternative in my professional life. I think I have found that in my current position, and it is one of the best things I have ever done in my life; the environmen I amk currently living and working in is very postitive and supportive and has nothing of the kind of absolute dishonesty, deceit and cheat
It seems that China's current ESL industry and market is in a kind of wild west state that is counter-productive to quality education that should be freely accessible by all..
Robert Vance
Did anyone see this?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Human-t.html
This is crazy stuff! I had no idea these even existed. Basically, it's a "form of online vigilante justice."
I just hope I am never on the receiving end of this.
barefootaquarius
I have officially been here two weeks today, and so far I feel pretty good about my experiences in China. But, I have been experiencing something a bit strange while sleeping and I wonder if anyone else has gone through it. I have always been an avid dreamer, but since I've arrived in China my dreaming mind has become doubly or triply (that might not be an actual word) active.
My father is a psychology professor, and among other things, specializes to some degree in Dream Analysis & Psychology. So my question is not in reference necessarily to the causes of the dreams or even the interpretation of them. I think I'm likely having them because I miss home, and maybe because I interact with fewer people here than I do back home (in a relative sense; I have more students here but communication moves a bit slower).
Anyway, I tend to dream that I am back home (or in the states at least) and that I am to return to China soon. Usually it turns to what many people refer to as "lucid dreaming" and I find myself trying to comprehend my dream situation while still asleep (or so it seems). A lot of times I can remember thinking, "Wait, I'm not in China now? No, wait, I am." At this point I wake up and often feel more tired than I did when I went to sleep. A lot of times (back home - in general) I write down my dreams for the purpose of analysis, as my father says our dreams can be our minds trying to tell us something.
Most of the dreams I've been having have seemed kind of abstract, so I haven't written them down or tried to analyze them. On the surface it seems I'm just getting used to the idea of being in another country on my own. This is something that often occurs to me when I'm awake, so it just seemed like a given. I'm starting to pay more attention now, though, because I believe I've had such dreams every single night, and frankly it's exhausting.
Has anyone ever experience such brain activity when first arriving (here or anywhere else)? I'm starting to wonder if I'm upset about something I'm not allowing myself to internalize. Maybe it's just something I need to work out on my own, but I often find it helps to hear other people's thoughts.
darkclarity
The woman setting this up is a Chinese national from Texas and using a shell company out of Guangzhou.
A new school can not employ foreign teachers in the first year and that's exactly what's happing here. When they renew their license next year is when the crap will hit the fan, assuming she gets it off the ground at all. Trust me, this one will PHAIL.
Edit: I did some more checking. Alan, the supposed DOS is having a difficult time getting his letter of invite.
tintinxmu
HI,
Does anyone one know this place? I am now working with a teacher who has just left here and is having a dreadful time leaving them. Anyone know this place?
Tintinxmu
barefootaquarius
Being an Academia addict, I have spent countless hours in classrooms, often behind the desk (either as a teacher or as a student presenting to the rest of the class. It's never been any sort of problem. I just plug my flash drive (or flash disc as it's referred to here - I'm sure my word is wrong) and go. Easy. Occasionally I have a problem with animation or web links while using PowerPoint, but nothing big.
Today, I used my portable device to access my files, same as always. When I got home to do lesson planning I turned on my laptop. Since there's no wireless to be leached from around here I have it disabled, and thought I should check to be sure my anti-virus is functioning properly. Some little voice told me to go ahead and upgrade it - no harm in extra protection. As it turns out, I may have saved myself a bigger headache than I already have.
As I started to prepare my lessons for tomorrow, I plugged in my mini flash so that I could get to work. Nope. Laptop says this device is now bogus. What?!?! I'm teaching at the University of Science and Technology and I got a virus from the classroom? Seriously? Naturally I think I should call an admin to report the problem. That's what I would do at my uni back home. Apparently it's no biggie, as his answer was, "oh, yeah, the classroom computers have many viruses."
Speechless.
So I sent a message to my working partner to see if I'm going to be able to buy a new flash drive in the morning. I have an early class of freshman, who are lost enough with the use of the PowerPoint. Without some sort of technological aid, I may as well just take them all out for ice cream. That's actually not a bad idea now that I think about it, although the temp did just dip back down to borderline Winter...
Anyway, she said I may be able to get one at some place by some gate I'm only vaguely aware of. If not, she says, I can just take my laptop to class and connect it. Um, no. That will never happen. I'm glad I hadn't already done that in the first place. I think I'm done whining about it. I hope there's nothing on there I can't live without. So far, nothing comes to mind. I guess I'll plug her back in on campus just to check. I'll have to transcribe it manually if so, but at least I'm only out a piece of minor equipment. Also, I've been e-mailing all of my lesson plans for some obssessive reason. I guess that one paid off too.
Please don't make the same mistake I did. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do in the future though. I just can't believe nobody thinks it absurd to have virus-ridden computers in all the classrooms. Poop.
agatha
It was nice to get back into the saddle as it were. I have new students and this term they will have to work. Last term they did have a FT but it was introductry stuff and oral, now they will have reading writing and comprehesion! Many of my old students are returning to get their forms stamped or whatever, so I have caught up with them, many are working or about to start work. so far students seem quite happy and pleased to be back at school as well. I hope everyone has a good start to the term.
barefootaquarius
Back home I steam lots of rice, but admittedly use one of those silly rice cookers. You know the one, add rice, water an oil, press button and voila! So here in China I have tried just once so far to cook my rice, which came out fine, but stuck to the bottom of the pan. I'm sure I can adjust some things and eventually have the perfect rice.
But, here in my temporary apartment I have something that looks like a cross between a crock pot and rice cooker (as I've described above). There is what appears to be some sort of steaming apparatus that stacks on the top (optional?) and a lid that may or may not actually go with the pot. While there aren't many options, each one is written in Chinese characters, which I am not yet fully familiar with.
Can anyone tell me either how to figure out this device or suggest a site that may help? I'm looking for an electronic translator with the little pen and touch screen so I can draw the character I'm trying to asess, but that will have to wait until my pay starts (also I want to be sure I'm going to make it here before I spend that sort of money).
tintinxmu
HI all,
I am starting at a new job, although I have actually worked for this school before and found it to be fine. I do have a question though. This is the only school that takes income tax out. I think my other schools were after tax salaries. I don't mind paying the tax, its a fact of life. But I am wondering if they are right in taxing my housing allowance of 1500 rmb per month, ( my housing actually costs about 1800 all up per month) and they also pay me 500 rmb a month which is an ongoing payment towards air fares. Rather than one lump sum, everyone just gets the 500 for every month you work. They also deduct tax on this. To me, it seems that the housing allowance and air fare money should not be taxed.
Does anyone have any comments on this? Any experience, and if so where should I go for assistance on this one. Also a friend says that many expenses are tax deductable for foreign teachers. Does anyone know anything about this?
Thanks
Tintinxmu
GetZouing
Hey guys,
I recently put together a free online eMagazine called 'The Chinglish Times'. It contains current news stories from China, Chinese movies and music reviews, travel advice and for anyone trying to learn Chinese...awesome links to free online Chinese resources.
I plan on releasing one of these each month. The first issue can be downloaded at http://www.getzouing.com/about.asp?id=1. It is free to subscribe and I will keep putting them together if I get enough interest! So please have a look, let me know what you think and subscribe to show your support!
I notice that there is a bit of discussion about the Google saga, there is a full report on this in the first issue!
Hope you have enjoyed the spring festival and set off plenty of fireworks!
Matt
turvyc
Hi all!
I'm going to Shanghai for Spring Festival, and I was hoping to get some advice!
What are some things I should see/do? What's a decent budget for 3-4 days? What are some events going on in town?
Any advice will be most welcome!
toverocker
I have been somewhat among the missing recently due to myriad factors - end of term at the Uni, rapid escalation of classes at our own school, a new computer, my stepson returning home for winter breack, etc - so I want to comment on several ongoing threads...
Google - (and intenet access issues) after I got the new computer I decided to sign up for Express VPN so I have completely open access to the internet (yes, I can Tweet or watch Youtube!! And for 70 rmb per month on a one year contract it is worth every rmb!). From reading many reports from America and talking to some techie friends and family members Google's issue is not so much censorship but rather a seemingly coordinated attack on GMail accounts held by activists - an attack that certainly smells like it was, if not launched by the gov, most certainly had to have had government backing.. And, yes, I think it is very possible that Google would pull out of China. This was not the first cyber attack against "enemies" of the gov. and if it continues I wonder what the US and other nations might do to protect sites - maybe surround China with a great wall of the west that would isolate China from the internet as a whole? I think the situation is much more serious that anyone here seems to realize.
Morgan - I, first, welcome you to TACA and second I would echo many of the comments here about going for the longer contract but I would strongly urge you to look at University positions - training centers and private schools are busiest when the kids are not going to the public schools so there is usually much less time off over the winter holidays. I turned in my last grades at the UNI on Jan 4th and will not teach again until March 1st - except for the fact that my wife and I have opened our own school so my teaching load actually increased last week from 10 at the Uni and 12 at our school to 26 at our school We will teach until Feb 7th then I will be free until March 1st. so....go Uni!!
To all the other new members, WELCOME!! It is great to "see" so many new "faces".
Robert Vance
The holidays are almost here and I am wondering what plans our members have for this special time of year.
I, for one, will be returning to America for a few weeks after a 2-year absence. I can hardly wait.
What about the rest of you?
