While on my way back here in Linyi onThursday, I didn’t know when the school term would start for us or what classes we’d be getting. Some say that the term starts on the 14th, others say the 21st. Then you got the real crazy folks that think it’s gonna start on the 8th of October. Whatever the case may be, the teachers here won’t be notified until the night before our classes start because THIS IS CHINA (henceforth shall be referred as T.i.C.)
Oh, like things couldn’t get more interesting, yesterday morning the foreign teachers of the Uni (myself included) were informed of a meeting that we have to attend in the afternoon. That’s notification five hours before the thing started, which is pretty good notice as far as Chinese Uni’s are concerned.
So we get there at 2:00 and waited around for half an hour before the head honcho showed up. Again, pretty good for China. Felix, our boss, shows up. Felix is a gay man who may or may not realize it, while everyone else does. Not that there’s anything wrong with being gay, but the fact that everyone hates him plus he’s getting married to a woman makes it the funnier.
He shows up with 30 20-page packages. Oh, a bad omen for things to come. Worse case scenario, I thought that the term was going to start tomorrow, but apparently my spidey sense wasn’t aiming high enough.
What’s the prognosis doctor? Well, Felix goes on to explain is that the University is starting a new program with the incoming freshman. In lieu of their normal class activities, the freshman will be participating in an eight hour a day two-week intensive English training course starting tomorrow. Great. I thought as I’m zoning away, playing Teeter on my G1. Good for them.
He goes on to say that we will be teaching them…WTF? Thanks buddy, you finally got my attention at this stupid meeting.
My initial reaction is: what is this dude smoking and where can I get some? Because normally a university teacher here in good ‘ol Linyi Normal University (hopefully someone will google this article and think twice before coming here) are contracted to teach 16 hours in a week and not in two days.
So over the course of this two week program, we’ll be teaching an extra 48 hours than what is stipulated in the contract. He assures us that we’ll be compensated for our extra time, and honestly I won’t be holding my breath. Not like it fucking matters. This dog aint gonna roll over this shit for an extra treat.
Anyways, we got these packets containing so called ‘motivational essays’ that is supposed to fill up one of the eight hours a day, and are supposed to get more materials to teach later. Can I get a drum roll, please? Here’s the shocker–it’s the end of day one of the program, and WE STILL HAVE NOT RECEIVED ANYTHING ELSE. However, thinking positively, which is the only way to survive in this place, we’re lucky to receive what we got.
The plot gets even more complicated because each individual department is supposed to have their own methods on how to split up the classrooms. Suppose there are 210 freshman and 3 teachers. They might split those classes up to 70 per a teacher, they might not. Furthermore, the teachers might be switching between classes from day to day or they might not as it really depended on the individual departments, the stars in the sky, and how firm their last bowel movement was. Sounds complicated? Hardly. Well, not here in China.
A teacher had the galls to ask him, “Why weren’t we notified about this earlier?” Felix’s reply, “I actually did not know about this until last night.” Yeah fucking right–well, he may be telling the truth as T.i.C.
We were also assigned some Chinese co-teachers that will be helping us through this program. They know as much as anyone else, which is unfortunately jack shit. I’m assigned to the I.T. department, along with two other teachers. There are 513 freshman in the department, so the other two foreign teachers in my department and myself will be teaching roughly 170 students a day. Yay…
The English and Co-teachers and myself are whisked away to the I.T. department where we sit on the round table of the elders, so are arguing about how the different classes should be split up, because anything that is simple to do is not worth doing as T.i.C. About after 10 minutes of sitting in a room uncomfortably listening to 12 people jabber on in Chinese and not understanding 99% of it , we ask if there’s any point for us to be there while they discuss this mundane point, we got to leave.
As of this writing, it is the end of day one. Did the students know about this training program before it happened? Yes, they were notified on Sunday just like the rest of us apparently.
After a lot of bullshitting and 15 minute breaks every hour, I got through it. Luckily my room is a multimedia room, so we get to play movies or music. John Hughes marathon tomorrow, anyone? I should start with Ferris Bueller and go from there.
1 day down, 9 more to go.
