just a normal guy -- 21 January 2005

The Recruiters? Miss Angelina's cafe or Mr. Fronk Zhang? You'd better answer and write here as you have always done it. I do!

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I do
Mr. Pedersen -- 21 January 2005

> The Recruiters? Miss Angelina's cafe or Mr.Fronk Zhang? You'd better
> answer and write here as you have always done it. I do!

I care. I'm Norwegian and was offered a job teaching Oral in China. I've dedided against it as I do not want to decieve the Chinese students. It's a sad thing that the Chinese are using Whites to cheat their own students.. I will remain where I am and give teaching in China a miss.

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I forgot to mention
Mr. Pedersen -- 21 January 2005

I did come to China with my wife, but after what we saw we dedided not to sign. Instead we took the opportunity to go sight seeing and went back home after 3 weeks. China is a fascinating place. We visited quite a few places Beijing is good, Henan is nice but dirty, Xian's terracotta warrior site is great, Hubei (where I was supposed to teach) is still laidback nothing much. But a far as teaching is concern it's a .....No no no no no.

I just don't want to be a paraded as a White Monkey or Ape to deceive the students. Sorry China, your education system is all wrong.

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To Mr. Pedersen.

I really don't have the time to tell you what is wrong with Norway. However, I do have the time to tell you a few things I don't necessarily like about you.

Dear Mr Pedersen, please tell us why China's "education system is ALL wrong?"

You're using a rather broad brush to paint a picture of incompetence for the Chinese system, are you not?

Why did you come to China. The real reason is obvious, to sightsee.

Most of you people(White English Teachers) are merely whiners. First, you're too damned lazy to do due diligence. You post to this board wanting information on everything from visa requirements to the local weather forecast.

You spend a few hundred dollars, in some cases a few thousand dollars, and someone who is IN IT FOR THE MONEY (another common theme used to denigrate the Chinese) confers upon you a certificate/degree that you earned(?) in a four week crash course and suddenly - KAZAMN! You are a freakin' expert on language, culture, history, government and the meaning of life!

Then, when you have a job (an EMPLOYER), you whine, piss and moan about having to do YOUR JOB by the rules established by YOUR EMPLOYER! This IS a JOB.
You are being PAID to teach. Do what the BOSS tells you to do. You came to China to TEACH ENGLISH. Well, damn it! TEACH ENGLISH! Who the hell told you that you would have any input, say into how the process would work? If you don't like the system, GO HOME! Thank goodness, you are doing the right thing and going back to Norway.

None of you was conscripted, drafted, or shanghaied!
You VOLUNTEERED! Stop trying to change a country, culture, people that has survived more than eight thousand years without any interference from you!

You (Mr Pedersen) could not teach the Chinese ANYTHING. Your arrogance and condescension toward China/Chinese is quite apparent and in no way enables you to teach them ANY subject. Your ignorance and your bias render you totally ineffectual as a teacher.

"White Monkey, Ape" This allusion to the "racists Chinese" is totally uncalled for............. your own racial prejudice and discrimination aside.

Go back to Oslo.

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Thank you
Mr. Pedersen -- 22 January 2005

Thank you, Mr. Inquiring Mind. Thanks for the blasting. The main reason I said no to teaching after I arrived is simple. The agent asked me to help find more whites from around my circle of friends. I find it disgusting. I said to him that there are others who are as competent as us whites. But his appalling reply was that schools need only white people. It doesn't matter, as long as they are white they will get an English teaching job. What he is implying is that any/only whites can teach English. I don't want to be an accessory to cheats.

So you are saying that their system is right. Employ any White Tom Dick and Harry to teach English in Chinese colleges or schools.Will your Education Institutions back home hire illiterate Chinese farmers/vagrants, Koreans,Japanese or any people with yellow skin to teach the Chinese language simply because they are yellow skin?
I do believe you have been in China long enough and know all along what some schools/recruiters are doing.

My apologies for my offending remarks about being paraded as white monkeys and apes. But I do stand by my remarks.

Thank you, have a nice day and enjoy China.

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I appreciate Pedersen's honesty!
Chunping Alex Wu <chunpingwu2001@yahoo.com> -- 23 January 2005

Dear "Inquiring Mind",
I do appreciate "Normal Guy" & Pederson for their honesty.

There are basically two kinds of schools in China, the public ones and the private ones.

In the last 6 years of my experience, I had only been in two private ones only. My impressions were all bad. Of course, there must be some real good one in the private sector, but most of them were only taking advantage of the parents who wanted their children be able to keep up with the trend. These schools never mind what the children might learn. They themselves even didn't quite understand what the teachers taught, as long as the teacher was a White Caucasian or Native. Whether degreed or illiterate was not their concern.

I saw a student¡¯s graded homework signed "aood". ("g" was in a way like the written form of ¡°a¡± in cursive way, a mistake from not being able to tell the difference between the printed capital G and the Capital written A, a ), in a first year class in a school that I was catered to. (All the students in that room were from 16 classes. They paid RMB $190 each for two special periods each week). I reminded a teacher in that school about it; and that teacher, who seemed happened to be the head-teacher of that class level signed the child's homework protested that they used only two ways in teaching the children in calligraphy: The printed way and the ¡°slanted way¡±. He demonstrated the g like a capital C with one short vertical stroke beside the C. I realized that he didn't tell the difference between the printed capital G and capital cursive a. After I reminded him, I was moved from that school.

Another occasion, a colored teacher, claimed from southern US but sounds like South Africa, wrote the word "Education" by starting with the Capital E that looked like the sign for British pound (CTL-0163), and the board writing was awful. He also uses foul language, was hired.

Public schools were more formal. But due to the fact, not many of the HR personnel were English efficient, they depended their chosen foreign officer or other recruiting agents to do the screening, and so were most of them couldn¡¯t do a good job. More over, because the schools usually pay less than most of the global businesses, lots of them didn¡¯t demand not only proper qualifications but also not certified, then the quality of the teaching was not assured. Quite a few so-called foreign teachers came as paid travelers and the majority of the students¡¯ English were no better than the ones taught by the Native English Speaking foreigners before.

Alex Wu

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comments
Felix <manboy_ga@yahoo.com> -- 4 February 2005

I am a colored English teacher here in China and i have read with good understanding some of the professional and unprofessional wrangles among you teachers of ESL here in China.Though not in any way judging, i am in simple vocabulary commenting and stressing on the fact that teaching as a profession is a CALL to duty and shouldn't be mistaken for a hobby.Once you find yourself in this noble profession, you should be prepared to sacrifice, to offer nothing but your maximum effort to realizing what is being demanded from you as a teacher.Being aware of the fact that foreign teachers here in China would want to live life in China as in their native homes,we ought to be aware that once you are out of the womb,life is different.it could be good or bad,but that is it in China.To my view the Chinese are actually doing well in providing a comfortable life to foreigners and they keep improving on those necessary conditions, especially to foreign ESL teachers.It is not the high pay or facilities that makes a good teacher performs his or her duty effectively, (though without these conditions inefficiency will show up somewhere) but a dedicated teacher, who has a sense of duty, who has his or her students at heart.I have been a victim and is still one to most of the embarrassing problems most of you have encountered here in China as a teacher and some other racial problems white teachers can not experience.But i tend to give a passive eye on them as common problems every where on the globe, though teachers as just as every other people have a right to voice and seek solutions to redress their common worries.Chinese are humans just like any other human on earth, capable of writing down and interpreting something (contract) in their own way, which may look entirely different to another people (Chinese inclusive).I think it is preferable to read, understand and interpret a Chinese contract, (though translated into English) in the Chinese way.That will make you live comfortably with your employers.

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Gary Harwell -- 4 February 2005

A good teacher is a good teacher. It doesn't matter where they are from.