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Defending your Chinese Co-workers
Written by Robert Vance on March 16, 2008 – 9:41 amOnce you’ve had some experience teaching English in China you will discover that most of your bosses will treat you well. Not only are they bound by the contract but they want to make a good impression on you as well and they hope that their school can establish a good rapport with the foreign community.
Unfortunately, your experience will also introduce to you some of the more negative aspects of boss-employee relationships in China. You will often observe that the special treatment that you receive is a “far cry” from the way that your Chinese co-workers are treated. Chinese teachers are often berated by their bosses and they are expected to work long hours for very little money. Many schools do not provide the kind of support for teachers that you may find in your country. For example, the complaint of just one or two angry parents can lead to the dismissal of a good teacher. Teachers are also routinely “forced” to attend seminars in other cities and usually they will pay for most of the expenses out of pocket. And of course, the most minor infractions, such as not being present at a late night company party or leaving the school grounds to buy a bottle of water can result in fines and other disciplinary action.
There may be times when you feel very angry about the way that your friends (the teachers) are being treated by your boss. You may feel some solidarity with them and be tempted to “take up their cause” to the boss or threaten to quit on their behalf. If you have these feelings, please take a deep breath and think before you act. While I am not suggesting that the plight of Chinese teachers is not important, you should remember that their plight is one that is shared by the majority of teachers and other employees in China. I would submit that it is not your responsibility to try to “change the system.” In fact, complaining to the boss or taking some other drastic action on behalf of your fellow employees could result in dismissals and cause more heartache than you intended. Instead, you should encourage your Chinese workmates to take up their own cause and talk to the boss directly if they have problems. I believe encouraging your fellow employees to stand up for themselves is important but that is where your involvement should stop. Don’t hurt your co-workers and yourself by trying to be a “champion of the working class in China.”
In closing, it should be noted that the system is changing in China. Recently there have been some important labor laws which have been passed. Bosses of large companies that I know are not happy with the new policies and are fighting them with their lawyers. However, I believe that they will stick in China because more and more workers are demanding their basic rights and I don’t believe that there voices can be silenced. So enourage your workmates and be a friend to them. Help them as much as you can but know when you need to stay out of a situation.
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I agree with this article. I have seen that kind of treatment here in China and I don’t like it too much. I think they all need a copy of the Dale Carnegie classic “How to win friends and influence people”
There are options to foreign teachers for assisting their chinese counterparts. When you as a teacher becomes entrenched within a company and have proved yourself to be a quality teacher there will always come a time of contract negotiations. This is a simple task of putting aside personal greed for a minute and putting forth a united front. In our case we had 4 foreign teachers working for a school who all decided that they didn’t need that extra 2000 yuan a month in exchange for all the 8 teaching assistants to get an extra 1000 yuan a month in their salary. The result is we the foreign teachers were all still getting 15000 a month and the local teachers jump from 3-4 thousand. After all whats 2 thousand kuai for us? An extra 2-3 hundred in the bank (on exchange rates) compared to the difference it makes to the chinese teachers. Or maybe i’m just too much a socialist…lol
For Richy,
You have to think not all foreigners like you make 15,000/month in China. Some Foreigners only make 2,500 or 4,000, etc… Much lower than you.
Yes, I agree to the article.
What you should consider is giving a percentage of the salaries to rural teachers. They need it the most. Some of the rural teachers are willing to use a part of the money to buy new books for the students.
In the Chinese society, the husband’s parents are the one to buy the apartment while the wife’s parents are to buy the furnishings. Some people may not have this tradition but most still do.