Slippery Wuxi, Foreigners and Chinese.

I damn near fell down seven times on my way home from work this evening.  Slush on smooth surfaces can be dangerous. 

I was hoping it would be a snow day today.  No such luck.  Pretty well all the students showed up.  The only no show was a trainer who was probably hung over from the night before.  I will have to deal with that tomorrow.  I didn't appreciate have to teach for four hours straight. 

It is a sad fact that a lot of the English teachers here are alcoholics, drug addicts or losers from their home countries and make me ashamed to say I am an English teacher in China.  I heard some come to China to avoid paying child support.  I have had a few tell me that if they went back to their home countries, they would be put in shackles.  Many come to shag Chinese women.  Some come here fraudulently to do some scheme.  I have heard of a girl with no high school diploma coming here to take university courses using false papers.  Many come to travel and just put in time to pay for their vacation.  The teaching for this latter bunch is a nuisance. 

But that is not to say that all English teachers here are fuck-ups.  Some do come here as a career change and this is where the opportunities are in the teaching profession.  In the unionized atmosphere of Canada and America, the door would be barred for many people.  That is why I came.  And I didn't want to drive trucks anymore.  Having visited China a year before I went to teach, I had taken the opportunity to go to a school in China and see what the students were like.  They weren't like the drugged-out criminal element you would have to endure in Canada.

How do I rate myself among the teachers?  I am definitely not of the alcoholic or drug addict ilk.  I could have stayed at my job in Canada and made three times the money I am making here.  So I don't think I was totally fucked up when I decided to come here.  But I leave that for others to judge.

Now, that I have expressed my cynicism about foreigners, I will say that the past week made me more cynical about the Chinese.

Firstly, the Chinese New Year Dinner that was held last night cynicized me.  A big deal was made by the Chinese staff about making a program for the show, games and the prize draws for the Dinner.  They told me that I was to be a M.C. for the Dinner.  They asked me to make a program for the Dinner.  So I typed out a quick program list.  They added more detail and made a program in Chinese.  The Chinese then went through the process of translating it and presenting it to me.  So I went to the dinner thinking I would be a M.C. the whole evening.  It didn't happen and then I noticed that they were deviating from the order of the program they had given me.  It was a case and being told something, and then later having to exclaim "what the fuck?" because nothing that they had lead you to understand was going to take place was actually taking place.  This often happens to foreigners in China.

Not that I really want to be M.C. of the affair anyway.  The last two school parties have been tedious affairs.  At the recent School Christmas Party,  the Chinese staff insisted on having 20 or so performances most of which had nothing to do with Christmas.  That party quickly became tedious.  Instead of letting people relax at these parties, the Chinese have to make people be happy so they have to make them play games or watch amateur musical performances.  And that was what happened last night.  They wanted the foreigners to participate in childish games like breaking balloons.  I found that all the activities took away from the eating.  As well, none of us could relax.

I also have a feeling that the prize draw at the Dinner was fixed.  I was asked to make the drawing for the lower grades of prizes.  Now, the school had a big box from which one could draw numbers.   But instead of being asked to draw from the box, one of the girls, with four cups in her hands, gave me a cup at a time to draw from.  It was like they had sorted the tickets into batches from which each batch or group could win a prize.  Later, the big prizes were drawn for and no one from the back of the room won any. 

Now, I mentioned that I was involved in a Olympic TV spot that will be shown on a local Wuxi News Shows.  I was asked to come up with an idea for it thinking that we were to teach a few English words to viewers.  My idea was to teach about the medals:  Gold, Silver and Bronze.  But then as soon as the TV crew arrived, I was informed that this was not why we were doing the spots.  Instead, it was for the female TV reporter to do a light-hearted comedy skit about the Olympics.   So what I had written was not used and instead the reporter came up with this idea to show that Foreigners were strong but the Chinese were smart.  The Chinese, she said, win Olympic medals in "smart sports".  I played along eager to be seen on TV.  Although now, I hope my spot is not seen by any foreigners.  Thankfully, not many will be watching.  What was done was offensive to them.