From Chengdu: newsy post This one's coming from Chengdu folks. It's so nice to be on holidays here (although we did have one of those "China" days - more about that soon). I had no idea just how stressed out I was until I got here. Compared to Shanghai, Chengdu is so relaxed, the people are so friendly and full of smiles - it's something I had forgotten about with all the shit that's been going down. Anyway, before I get into that, I have a new apartment - a real two room apartment (plus bathroom and kitchen) in Pudong near Dong Feng station. It's funny how you just kinda "get used" to things even when they are bullshit - like living in a hotel style room for three months, and it's only when you get out you realize just what you've been putting up with. We're at the Traffic Hotel - cool place, stay there if you're ever in Chengdu, a standard triple room is just 120 kuai per night - that's $20; the only thing that's different is that you use a shared bathroom. Apart from that it's the same as a standard single which goes for 200 kuai per night - which is still prettty bloody cheap by Australian standards. The rooms ae clean, a/c'ed, and the staff speak confident English (most importantly). Caught up with a friend, Darren, from Perth who I had not seen in 5 years or so. It's a small world. Although we had a hell of a time actually catching up. We were going to meet at Qing cheng Mountain (really nice place), which is where my Chinese mate and me were, about an hour and half by bus from Chengdu. Except he caught the wrong bus and ended up in some remote village where probably no one had seen a foreigner before. Anyway, I was waiting for him to call hanging around the Qingcheng bus station. Two mobile phones - but the signal is hopeless out at Qingcheng. There are literally 3 spots in the village where you can get China Unicom's service. 2PM - no call. 3PM, Darren rings my mate's mobile - and after ten seconds, just enough time for him to say he had caught the wrong bus, the battery went dead! I hoped he'd call my mobile, and wondered why he hadn't, but, no call.  I tried to ring back, but the phone he was ringing from had moved out of the service area as well. It turned out later that he didn't realize that because my account is based in Shanghai, you have to put a zero in front of my number if I take the phone out of Shanghai, unless you're calling from another mobile. Which would be pretty hard to realize I guess. Even I still can't always work out when I need a 0 prefix and when I don't. The rules are different for every kind of phone. By 6PM he'd still not shown up so I decided if I were in his place I'd just go back to Chengdu and give up. So caught the bus back to Chengdu. We checked back into the Traffic Hotel but they'd not heard anything from Darren. We were pretty worried by then. Half an hour later we got a call from Darren. He was looking for us: at Qingcheng Mountain! Yep, it sure was a hell of one of those "China" days. In any case, we finally caught up at the hotel yesterday and went out for drinks. Just as we were getting into the conversation this Chinese boy seats himself down next to me. "Hello". "Uh...hi". "What's your name?" "Uh...Daniel". "Where are you from?" "Melbourne, Australia". (Oh no, an "English practiser". God, how do I get rid of him without making him feel like a complete jerk?) "How long have you been in China?" "Ah...almost a year." "Do you like football?" (Ah, fuck it. I don't have time for this.) "Look, I'm sorry but I haven't seen my Australian friend in five years. Do you mind finding another foreigner to talk at? Cheers." "Ok." (Sad puppy dog expression over his face.)

11.7.04 07:46 Permalink / comment

Beware of Shanghai Kongjiang High School I haven't really said much about the school I'm working at. I don't really like the idea of using this blog to whine about bad schools, but I will use this post to tell any one who gets offered a job at Shanghai Kongjiang High School to forget it. As is often the case, the students and teachers are great. In fact, Kongjiang is attractive because the students' English levels are generally really high, meaning you can really work with them rather than just being a glorified baby sitter. The school is modern, attractive and clean. Unfortunately the administration here is so utterly unhelpful towards and contemptuous of the foreign staff, it is virtually guaranteed that you will descend into something resembling hell and a Salvador Dali painting. My first twinges of things not being right was when I saw the accommodation. Now being a single guy and all, I'm not too fussy about it. However, the foreign teachers' "apartments" are in fact something in between a rooming house room and a no-star hotel room. There is one kitchen which is shared by up to eight foreign staff. In the kitchen, there is one portable hot plate, one kettle, and one rice cooker.This is, of course, illegal as it breaches the conditions of the standard contract. However as there were only three others when I got there and I didn't plan on using the kitchen much, I decided to accept it. I should not have - it was a sign, an omen of things to come. The rooms themselves are just ok - air con, colour TV, bed, bathroom etc. The problem is that the floor on which foreign staff lives lies in between the school canteen and two floors of student dorms. This equates to noise. A lot of noise. The insulation is woefully inadequate so basically you're listening to banging (from the kitchen), shuffling and furniture being moved around (from the students) from 5AM til 10PM. I mentioned this a few times, and nothing was done, a sure sign that nothing was ever going to be done. As I was staying for just 8 weeks or so, I decided I could live with it. Well, eight weeks later and I am just about ready to scream and punch someone in the face. In those eight weeks these are some of the things that have happened: Classes and timetables have been changed without me being told anything about the changes. When of course I missed classes, admin was seriously pissed off. Apparently I should have just "divined" from hanging around the place that these changes had been scheduled. An outside phone line and internet connection were promised when I got here. I am still waiting for them. A promise of overtime payment for extra classes I took on has been broken. No money has been forthcoming, indeed the school even refuses to discuss the issue with me. The school owes me 2700 Yuan. I got food poisoning and I am 80% sure it was from a canteen lunch. Four weeks ago the school started renovations on the building in which the foreign staff live, without informing us. Hammering and drilling and banging and drilling and sawing have been going on all day, almost every day since then. The noise pollution is appalling. My stress levels have gone through the roof. I haven't had a good night's sleep in a month at least. Yesterday admin contacted (Wow!) via my agency. This was to ask why I had not moved out of my room. I said what are you talking about, I have not heard anything about this. I'm still running classes, so I still live here. No, they said, you should have moved out two days ago, we need to start renovating the floor you live on. Get out now. Since then I have not been able to contact admin again. The nail that sealed the coffin, the straw that broke the camel's back though came 2 days ago when I was told that I would have to cancel my holidays to work throughout them. This was because the specialist English course I am teaching was apparently begun two months late (I was not aware of this until now). Hence make-up classes would be required during the holidays. A timetable would be forthcoming at some uncertain point in the future. All this came after I had had my farewell class at Pizza Hut with my students. Well, basically I told them, stick it up your incompetent arses because there is no way I am quitting my vacation because of your shoddy planning and besides you have given me hell since I got here. I am leaving for Chengdu on the 5th. See you later. So, my advice, do not teach at Kongjiang High School no matter how good the school may seem, because basically, it is a crap school.

2.7.04 08:39 Permalink / 1 Comment / comment