Fuddland

These entries detail my often-negative experiences teaching English to Chinese students in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China, whilst under the old management. It should be emphasised that the problems I had were entirely due to the ex-manager's management style. It is my understanding that she has now left the language centre to form her own company. I have no knowledge or experience of the current manager[s] of the centre.

This category is a subcategory of Teaching in China.

The rumours were true! After a last-ditch two-pronged-pincer-movement strike, I finally have my year-long Chinese work visa. The last few days of warfare went like this.

Firstly, I called in reinforcements I had been reluctant to fall back on up to now, in the form of an acquaintance I made last year. He’s an Irishman, the boss of a clothing company based here in Sūzhōu (苏州), with several key strengths:

• He’s a very nice man and offered to help me out when I talked to him ages ago about possible visa problems should I resign from my [now former] employer.

• He knows my ex-manager personally, and is as much a fan of her as I am.

• But he also knows, and is on very good terms with, her brother-in-law — a very handy mediation route here.

• By lovely coincidence, he is also good friends with the Irish owner of my ex-company — in other words, he’s pals with my ex-boss’s boss.

All of which add up to some substantial guānxi (关系), the deadliest weapon in modern China’s business world. So he set about talking to the brother-in-law, to find out of there was some kind of give-and-take that would get me the letter of release I so desperately needed to secure my work visa.

He called back later to see what I thought of a peace offering: in return for a letter of release, I would agree to not harm the reputation of the company by going on the record [that is, contacting newspapers etc.] about their recent treatment of me [and other employees in the past]. I agreed in principle to this idea, and the brother-in-law was given the go-ahead to approach my ex-manager.

The very day I set these events in motion, a new hope appeared on the horizon. My new employer told me — and I was highly dubious given the lack of success of their efforts to date — that all I needed to provide the authorities with was a photocopy of my original letter of release — that is, the one I got when I left Běnxī. As highly-organised-person would have it, I did indeed keep a photocopy of that letter before handing it over to the police when I first arrived in Sūzhōu.

It turned out that the photocopy was enough, and it was this that got me my visa. Which is just as well, as the go-between route went rather quiet at my end after the initial contact was made. I’m not sure what transpired between my ex-manager and the brother-in-law, but what I do know is, soon after she was contacted, my ex-manager arranged to have a meeting with my new manager.

She tried to insist that I also attend this meeting — a request that my new manager refused, much to my relief. At the meeting, she demanded that my new manager fire me. She told him I had a habit of breaking contracts early. Unfortunately for her I’d already been open with my new manager about my reasons for leaving Běnxī and her comany, and he sympathised with both situations. It also kind of blunts her point when you know that she asked me, on my last day and in two subsequent email messages, to stay on with her company.

Nevertheless, she clearly didn’t want me working for anyone else, and even went so far as to offer to transfer one of her current teachers to replace me. This says a lot about how much she values the services of her teachers, if she’s willing to send one over to a new employer simply to get back at someone who dared to resign from her company.

But it appears to be all over: I have my visa, and that’s all I really care about. I think a celebratory drink might be in order.

The saga of my visa and my previous company continues. To recap: to secure a full working visa related to my new job, I need a letter from my previous employer stating that I have left the company. That’s all it needs to say: a single line, endorsed by the company stamp [the mark of officialness in China]. After getting nowhere exchanging emails with the manager, [they are now being ignored], I made one last attempt to get her to agree to write the letter for me by going down to the office and meeting with her face to face.

It did not go well.

Read the rest of “Empty threats”…

Having received my last full-time pay-cheque from my former company, the full cost of leaving their employment early has been revealed: equivalent to two months’ worth of rent, plus a passed-on fee for terminating the contract with the internet service provider. This financial loss, whilst pretty annoying, is still worth it to be free of a manager that has demonstrated that she will use emotional blackmail and twisting of the truth in order to try to squeeze as much out of her employees, not to mention her customers, as she possibly can.

Allow me to document some of the occurrences and my experiences involving my ex-manager during the six months that I worked there, so that anyone thinking of working there who comes across this entry will be aware of what I saw. [Please note the date and time of this entry; there may be new management by the time you are reading this.]

Read the rest of “The price of teaching”…

I handed in my notice at work yesterday, which went down like a lead balloon filled with a gas that has the exact opposite properties of helium. [Perhaps it is magnetised and strongly drawn to the Earth’s core? Hmm, can you magnetise a gas? Hello, physicists? Anyone?] The boss reacted in an entirely predictable manner, using her complete lack of management skills to try and guilt me into staying on, instead of, I dunno, mentioning that I’m a good teacher and an asset to the company and other management-speak phrases that anyone desperate to try and hold onto yet another early-departing employee might think to throw out. I gave my main reason for leaving to be feeling that a year is long enough out here and it’s coming up to be the right time to leave [cunningly, ambiguously leaving off the word “China” from the end of that sentence].

Asking her to sign my copy of the resignation letter to acknowledge her receipt of it, and CC-ing said letter to the other full-time teacher were both taken as a sign of distrust — this is partly true of course, but mostly I did it because I knew it would antagonise her. Cruel I know, but there was that aspect of proving I’d informed her of my decision that makes it not entirely vindictive.

The notice period is an unheard-of two months, and I’ve no real idea of how the next sixty days will go — I’m half-expecting my workload to double — but I’m hoping to just keep my head down and do my job until I reach Day Zero. I’ve a feeling that there will be attempts to draw out more detail about my reasons for leaving, but for the sake of an easy life I’ll stick to the official story.

I’ve had a lot of positive feedback regarding my teaching lately; some courses have ended and questionnaires are given out in the last lessons to assess the performance of the teacher and the general service provided by my company. I’ve scored in the very goods and excellents almost across the board. The boss has also mentioned more than once that she’s happy with my work and appreciates the efforts I have made.

So it was something of a surprise that, along with my basic salary this month, I received zero performance-related bonus — it had been my understanding that I would be able to earn up to an extra couple of thousand a month if things were more than satisfactory. So naturally I asked what areas I needed to work on in order to qualify, and was told that it was not my teaching that was the problem, but that I had discussed certain issues with the other staff, word of which had gotten back to the boss somehow [fill in your own paranoid conspiracy theory here].

I’m not going to go into the details of what it was that I had been talking about right now, but it was certainly something that I felt quite strongly about and wanted other people to be clued in to what I had observed, with what I felt was good reason. Now she may have a point — perhaps I shouldn’t really discuss these sensitive matters with anyone, especially when the language barrier means there’s a chance I don’t know the full story, or misunderstood what occurred, and company loyalty is a very highly-regarded quality — but for this to completely cancel out my performance ratings was a bit disappointing. And call me picky, but I think company loyalty only comes when you’re actually proud to work for your company — it’s not simply demanded because you happen to be working for them.

I had to laugh at one of my manager’s closing comments of the discussion, which went — almost verbatim — like this: “I really hate gossip so I don’t think you should talk to any of the local staff anymore, particularly not [staff member] because I heard [very personal information about staff member].” Hmm, the words pot and kettle come to mind.

On Monday morning my roommate and colleague for the last two months hung up his sunhat and headed home to Ireland, after a full year with my current employer and over thirty years of teaching abroad — not just in China, but several places in Africa, and in the Middle East — as well as educating the youngsters of his homeland. This left two full-time teachers at my school.

The same day, my remaining colleague told the boss that, for personal reasons [as well as the outrageously long hours he has been working since he joined the company five or so weeks ago], he must leave China at short notice: Thursday, to be exact. This left one full-time teacher at my school: me.

Erk.

There was a brief conversation between the boss and myself about how much extra work I would be willing to take on to cover this unforeseen situation, in which I stood my ground with an unwavering, “Not much at all.” I went home that day with thoughts about what would be best: to leave anytime soon knowing there is nobody to fill my shoes would seen particularly unfair — to the students — but at the same time, an extra pile of work isn’t really going to be a lot of fun, knowing that there are other teaching jobs with much more sociable hours readily available out there.

Luckily — perhaps the boss needs things to be completely dire before she actually does something constructive? — a new teacher was found, interviewed and employed during the following forty-eight hours, with another one lined up for an interview next week. Moreover, I used some strategic thinking to get myself off the three-month probationary period a month early, meaning I am now on full company pay — result!

I’ll still be keeping some other options in mind — it always pays to network and be nice to everyone you meet, but for now, I’m staying put.

Almost six months in, the last couple of weeks have been the lowest point of my time out here so far, in terms of homesickness. Whether I became ill because I was feeling down, or I started feeling down [in part] because I was ill, I’m not entirely clear, but certainly the two coinciding wasn’t particularly good timing.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget where I am: if I stay indoors, write one or two emails, visit some English-language websites, chat to a few friends over some instant messaging programme or other, and watch a couple of DVDs, then to all intents and purposes I could be anywhere at all in the world. But as soon as I step outside to head off to work or even just to buy a few groceries, then China hits me full in the face once more, and nothing is annoying me more these days than the whispers of lǎowài (老外), a slightly derogatory term for a foreigner that I can hear as I walk past — even in the city of Sūzhōu (苏州), which is home [temporary or permanently] to some ten thousand immigrants.

The teaching aspect is going well, with some new classes to keep things fresh, and getting to know students in the longer-running courses better and better, but I’m getting so tired with the antics of my boss that lately I’ve been wondering if it’s worth putting up with, or if I’d be wise to head off to pastures new before I become completely disenchanted with the entire experience. Up to now we’ve generally had three full-time teachers, but as of this week, due to a contract ending, we’re now down to two. The workload is not back-breaking, but we do need at least one more teacher [preferably two] to distribute things a little more fairly, and herein lies my main beef, having been witness to the so-called recruitment process.

The suitability of teachers can, apparently, be judged on the smallest of discretions: one guy made the mistake of turning up for his initial meet-and-greet in shorts — okay, so he should have thought to smarten himself up a bit, but it was thirty-five degrees outside, so perhaps he could be forgiven? No, it meant he wouldn’t be a professional teacher, even though he had several years experience of teaching in Chinese schools on top of a Masters degree in education.

On another occasion I was asked to explain what an applicant meant in their CV by describing themselves as “gregarious”, so I hazarded that he was sociable, out-going, friendly. This was interpreted as “probably going to be regularly throwing parties at his provided accommodation”, and his application summarily binned! I tried my best to explain that everybody sells themselves in CVs, and his use of that word was likely nothing more than him trying to be original when describing a personality that would be a big boon in a teacher, but to no avail.

More seriously, it seems teaching in China is one place where prejudice is alive and well, and unashamedly so: I’ve been told that people of certain races are not marketable as teachers, and hence will never be employed by my company; to clarify, if you’re not Caucasian, don’t bother applying. And even within this ethnic group, there is plenty of room for discrimination: according to my employer, Americans are generally not to be trusted, but, much to her distaste, she must have at least one on staff for the American-based companies which want to use our services. Luckily for me, British and Irish people are in her good books — which kind of makes me want to screw her over just to level the playing field for the other nations.

So I’ve been asking myself if I shouldn’t make a stand and leave on principle, and at the moment there are two main reasons why I haven’t:

• it’s not financially viable for me to quit right this second and move to another city in China — a couple more months and this won’t be a problem

• sadly, from reading a few things here and there as well as other anecdotal evidence, even when I can afford to hunt around for a couple of months for alternative employers, there’s no guarantee that I wouldn’t be leaping out of one frying pan only to land in another, equally sizzly frying pan, with a serious dent in my finances

There are some seriously good pros to staying put — lovely flat, nice city [once this summer heat calms down it’ll be even nicer], very decent pay-packet — and as I say, the cons could well be cons wherever I go. Of course, there are some enlightened schools around willing to take on foreign teachers from all backgrounds, which might mean a more pleasant employer, but the students I have here are good people and I’ve nothing against teaching them.

For now, I’ve decided the solution is to try and change things from the inside — I always seem to get myself involved when things aren’t as they should be [by which I mean, of course, they aren’t how I think they should be], be it being the postgrad representative or rearranging the kitchen to make it more spacious [last weekend’s task as soon as my soon-to-head-home roommate departed for a week’s holiday], so I’ll be voicing my opinions at every given opportunity, and if they get me in trouble, well, at least it’ll be for the right reasons, and I could well be supping a pint in the Lansdowne before Christmas.

Another first this week: my first being ill enough to visit a doctor. Actually, I wasn’t that poorly — just a standard case of manflu — but upon turning up to work looking suitably pathetic [headache, body-ache, fatigue, distinct “please cancel my classes” look in the eyes], the boss took me to the medical centre on the floor below for a quick check-up. And when I say quick, I mean quick: stick-your-tongue-out, hmmm, feel head, feel arms, feel back, check glands … yes, this boy’s sick. Fever confirmed! Not that that meant I could go back home — not when there’s teaching to do! Rescheduled classes? Impossible, apparently.

Being allergic to aspirin, I was hesitant about getting myself some over-the-counter “Western-style” headache pills, but definitely needed to try something to get me through the morning until I could go back to bed for most of the afternoon. The doctor’s advice was to drink lots and lots of [hot] water and to eat an entire watermelon every day throughout the summer! All well and good, but not the quick fix I was after. So the boss went and bought me some Chinese remedies, which I’m happy to report taste just as vile as Western medications. Firstly, I was given packets of little brown ball-bearing-like things to dissolve in my mouth, to reduce the fever. I hadn’t heard of the “making someone gag” way of reducing a fever, but gave it a go nonetheless. To wash these down I was given a powder [brown, again] to mix with hot water, which tasted suspiciously like highly-sugared gravy.

Neither of these had any noticeable effects during the morning [apparently, I was told afterwards, Chinese medicine “doesn’t work very fast” — thanks!] but I rested between classes — for which I cunningly altered my lesson plans to involve a lot of listening to CDs and reading exercises — and I felt a lot better the next day. I’ve still not quite gotten around to eating that watermelon though.