1 point of view :
China can be a great enchanting experience if you are on a three week excursion with a group of foreign tourists and you have a well planned itinerary and better yet, if you will be leaving at the end of your tour.
But if you're coming here to teach, come for one year--then never return. It seems that 98% of the foreign teachers here in MF China have always tendered their responses with apologetic rhetoric where they acknowledge the unpleasantness of their experience yet try to balance it out as objective by acknowledging the quaint endearing aspects of China's culture and people. This is usually the case--especially if the foreign teacher is still living there.
Most of the foreign teachers love the internet; for without it, they would had breached their contract and hopped on the next plane out. This you can bet on. They make numerous postings on the ESLCAFE website, and you gather the great sense that they hole up inside their apartment between classes as if the apartment is a cloistered reprieve from the daily degradation that they endure. They would never ever admit the ignorant degrading grind that they endure. Why? I think that perhaps it may be seen as a point of moral weakness. Here are just the tried and true parts of living here as a foreigner:
1. You're not welcomed here. You are only valued for what you can offer. You offer the fulfillment of the requirements of the Chinese government for its public universities and colleges.
2. They don't want to know. This is literally what will drive you crazy. They don't value that you possess information--especially when it differs from the government controlled media and the poor textbooks.
3. Here's the hardest one of all: About 80% of the population is retarded. Yes, retarded from centuries of oppression and corruption. They don't practice proper hygiene because of lack of knowledge. They don't practice it because they don't care about themselves or you. They shit, piss, and spit. The public bathrooms are reprehensible.
4. They will talk and say insulting things about you beyond the banter of "hellos" and "laowai." They have no respect for themselves or you.
5. They lie and cheat like it's perfectly natural.
I think these five points sum up the Chinese experience. I could cite numerous examples and support for them. But I won't. I can't wait for Beijing in 2008. It ought to be real good.
I love the 20% of the Chinese I have met. The rest do a grave disservice, worse than the foreign teachers who post here and make their experience rosily deceptive. I encourage you to come to China, but don't slack off by tendering your criticism. The Chinese need to hear how bad their country and people are, for if they don't, it will continue to be an endurement in misery for foreign teachers.
R. Crumb
July 28, 2003
Shanghai
Posted: July 28, 2003
1 OTHER point of view:
...Ive been here in China for more than two years now and I think Ive had all the bad experiences others have described. And quite a number of good ones, too.
My take on all of this is that only certain people willingly give up the relative comfort of their Western lives to come here to China and teach English. Because Im too stupid to put much thought into this, I broadly divide them into two categories: adventurers and escapers. The former group doesnt care all that much about what theyre getting paid or how horrible their working and living conditions are because its all an adventure to them. Something they see themselves laughing at when theyre back home and comfortable again. The members of the latter group are here for other reasons. Maybe theyre men who cant seem to get much attention from the ladies at home. (Not an altogether bad description of me, by the way.) Maybe they earned a completely useless degree in their home country and cant do anything with it. Maybe theyre 19, fresh out of high school with no skills. Ultimately, theyre not coming TO China, theyre going AWAY from something else. Many of them are actually running away from themselves in the hope that maybe just being somewhere else will solve their problems. Theyre angry at the whole world because their own life didnt quite work out the way they hoped it would. So everything in China pisses them off. But its not China theyre REALLY mad at. Its the man or woman in the mirror.
I get absolutely furious with China at times. But when I calm down I realize that China has been here 5000 years and I aint gonna change it ....
Shantou, Guangdong
February 20, 2004
China can be a great enchanting experience if you are on a three week excursion with a group of foreign tourists and you have a well planned itinerary and better yet, if you will be leaving at the end of your tour.
But if you're coming here to teach, come for one year--then never return. It seems that 98% of the foreign teachers here in MF China have always tendered their responses with apologetic rhetoric where they acknowledge the unpleasantness of their experience yet try to balance it out as objective by acknowledging the quaint endearing aspects of China's culture and people. This is usually the case--especially if the foreign teacher is still living there.
Most of the foreign teachers love the internet; for without it, they would had breached their contract and hopped on the next plane out. This you can bet on. They make numerous postings on the ESLCAFE website, and you gather the great sense that they hole up inside their apartment between classes as if the apartment is a cloistered reprieve from the daily degradation that they endure. They would never ever admit the ignorant degrading grind that they endure. Why? I think that perhaps it may be seen as a point of moral weakness. Here are just the tried and true parts of living here as a foreigner:
1. You're not welcomed here. You are only valued for what you can offer. You offer the fulfillment of the requirements of the Chinese government for its public universities and colleges.
2. They don't want to know. This is literally what will drive you crazy. They don't value that you possess information--especially when it differs from the government controlled media and the poor textbooks.
3. Here's the hardest one of all: About 80% of the population is retarded. Yes, retarded from centuries of oppression and corruption. They don't practice proper hygiene because of lack of knowledge. They don't practice it because they don't care about themselves or you. They shit, piss, and spit. The public bathrooms are reprehensible.
4. They will talk and say insulting things about you beyond the banter of "hellos" and "laowai." They have no respect for themselves or you.
5. They lie and cheat like it's perfectly natural.
I think these five points sum up the Chinese experience. I could cite numerous examples and support for them. But I won't. I can't wait for Beijing in 2008. It ought to be real good.
I love the 20% of the Chinese I have met. The rest do a grave disservice, worse than the foreign teachers who post here and make their experience rosily deceptive. I encourage you to come to China, but don't slack off by tendering your criticism. The Chinese need to hear how bad their country and people are, for if they don't, it will continue to be an endurement in misery for foreign teachers.
R. Crumb
July 28, 2003
Shanghai
Posted: July 28, 2003
1 OTHER point of view:
...Ive been here in China for more than two years now and I think Ive had all the bad experiences others have described. And quite a number of good ones, too.
My take on all of this is that only certain people willingly give up the relative comfort of their Western lives to come here to China and teach English. Because Im too stupid to put much thought into this, I broadly divide them into two categories: adventurers and escapers. The former group doesnt care all that much about what theyre getting paid or how horrible their working and living conditions are because its all an adventure to them. Something they see themselves laughing at when theyre back home and comfortable again. The members of the latter group are here for other reasons. Maybe theyre men who cant seem to get much attention from the ladies at home. (Not an altogether bad description of me, by the way.) Maybe they earned a completely useless degree in their home country and cant do anything with it. Maybe theyre 19, fresh out of high school with no skills. Ultimately, theyre not coming TO China, theyre going AWAY from something else. Many of them are actually running away from themselves in the hope that maybe just being somewhere else will solve their problems. Theyre angry at the whole world because their own life didnt quite work out the way they hoped it would. So everything in China pisses them off. But its not China theyre REALLY mad at. Its the man or woman in the mirror.
I get absolutely furious with China at times. But when I calm down I realize that China has been here 5000 years and I aint gonna change it ....
Shantou, Guangdong
February 20, 2004
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