Hypocrisy in Chinese University

Ni hao

Both you and Lifen have heard my opinion re study skills and both of you agree. As for the diaries no one has told the students not to do them; but I have told the students exactly what I think of the diaries ...simply doing the diaries does not absolve the students from actually doing the work. So many of them think that once the siaries are completed [and frankly very few diaries are worth reading!] then their study is complete. I have been battling hard against this lethargy. It is a fault of the course itself to have the diaries included.
I have tried to text Zhou Li of my thinking; but my text failed. It is this: As far as I am concerned, the diaries are a total waste of time and if anyone took the time to look at the diaries and was honest they would agree with me. I will not continue this farce, Xu yan and I have indicated my philosophy on this to the students. I will not be hypocritical and go back on my principles. I have engaged the students so far from 803 on an exercise on the merits of English teaching against the merits of Study Skills teaching and the verdict, according to the students of 803, is that English is by far more important to them than SS.

I have examined the diaries to date and frankly they are worthless and they do nothing to improve the study skills of any of the students. I will not take part in this farce any longer and that is my final word on the subject. My wife is also engaged on pathetic bureaucratic nonsense that is taking up so many of her home hours; she works till midnight on material that has not been explained to her and she learns from rejection rather than from explanation. This is not the way to manage academic material.

I don't care what you say, Xu yan. I have seen enough of this college to realise how farcical things are and most of it is pretence and the advancement of the students is a joke.

I have been here in China five times and this time is the joke of a lifetime. If you truly want decent and honest teaching you will not perpetrate dishonest teaching and you certainly will not get me involved in such academic fraud.

Zhou Li intervened in one of my classes and got the students of 804 to write diaries and the result is a joke. The course material was not given to the students before I came and I had to get something for them to work on and still they have no decent written material that can work within a Chinese context and help them to prepare for exams. I have worked from a different angle, inculcating within them a sense of achievement rather than simply writing nonsense that eventually means stuff all.

I will concentrate on their very poor English skills and within this their study skills will improve; but if you need a fool of a foreigner to legitimise the NCC requirements then get yourself someone else. I will not do it.

An Derui
Adrian Keefe MA [Lit]
International College
Hubei Normal University
82 Cihu Road
Huangshi Hubei 435002
People's Republic of China

http://caoimh-analysis.blogspot.com/

DPRK

DPRK to restart nuclear reactor

An Derui 2009-04-15 08:29   It is unfortunate that the Cold War still exists in the minds of these people. And I don't confine my concern to the DPRK; the Chinese way would have been a more preferable path to follow in handling  the psychotic tendencies of Kim Il-Jong and his cohorts.

China is Australia's friend; not its potential enemy

I am a former army officer and have been to China five times as a language and business lecturer in universities over here. It befuddles me to see Australian hyper-ventilation on this matter of China's defence.Taiwan is regarded by the US Administration as an integral part of China, yet its Congress continually authorises sale of large amounts of defence materiel to Taipei. This dichotomy instils within China a sense of wonderment; it is akin [almost but not entirely] to Indonesia's selling weapons to the people of Arnhemland or to Tasmania. It bespeaks of sheer hypocrisy.Australia's cultural cringe to America has not diminished since the days of the Great White Fleet when the neo-colonists of our land wept in fear of the so-called Yellow Peril and treated the US as the Great White Hope. We view China through Washington spectacles and correspondingly whimper when China figuratively steps on our toes, even though our feet may be plodding along in tune with the American beat.China is not our enemy and never has been, and never will be unless we make the same mistake as we did when we followed the US into Vietnam and Korea.We need to rationalise our geography and cease to imagine that anything Asian is foreign; if we are, in fact, Asian-Pacific as we tell everyone, then China is our neighbour. If we look at China from an Australian perspective, we should be embracing Beijing as a friend.

The Australian
12 April 09

Bellamy's testicles on trial

Bellamy's idea is resplendant in Yankee Doodle Dandy.

Yank yer doodle, Dandy, for only dandies would suffer such an absurd notion of giving up another of our Australian traditions in favour of a further erosion of our values.

Even the word 'trial'. formerly exclusively a noun and now a verb, was imported direct from the USA, and replaced what was a perfectly adequate word 'test'. We used to test ideas; now we trial them.

Thanks Bellamy. I would like to trial you and give you time.

DT 10 April 09

Letter to Xu yan of International College HBNU

It is early in the day and it is time to say: Zao shang hao!

We have discussed this predicament over the past fortnight since Qi Kalin left Australia and the many contretemps I have had with you and Wang Quan about failed promises; both of us, Qi Kalin and I have just about entered the great hall of despair!

To talk about chairs has become irrelevant, wo de pengyou.

We need chairs to watch TV and to enjoy a social life with fellow colleagues and friends. But there is no TV. We have no friends. Not one person contacted us over the past three days to be friendly. This is after I have actually asked that we be included in local life, to be included in the China we came so far to be a part of. Many promises were made to the effect that we were welcome as friends but no one has actually fulfilled any of those promises. So we have no need of the chairs while we have no TV and no friends. Perhaps we have become so ugly no one wants to be in our company.

Yet when I arrived I was considered to be a friendly and humourous man. When Qi Kalin arrived not even you had the courtesy of welcoming her as she sat in our office most of the morning, ignored until I walked into your office to remind you of her presence. Even then the introductions were cursory, without real warmth! Slowly has dawned the realisation that everything here is phony, unreal, pretentious.

It is over a week since my meeting with Wang Quan, yet his promises of greater cooperation have not materialised beyond the cursory.

Qi Kalin and walk the streets together and then return to our flat. Then we walk again and return. This goes on day after day. I sent you a message: I am bored to tears.

There is still no sound card in my computer, so I cannot download movies or listen to my music. The setup on Qi Kalin's computer is unworthy of sound as it is hopeless. We have to leave the flat often because the children above us drive their children's cars from one end of their flat to the other so that it sounds like we are under an airport with planes roaring above us. They are children and they are entitled to play in their own home; but it makes life hell for us.

It is almost two weeks since I gave you Qi Kalin's tickets for refund. You promised that by the time you returned from Wuhan the money would have been transferred. This was not true. I sent you another email and you admitted that you had not fulfilled that promise so you made another promise. It is now Tuesday in Australia and the transfer has not happened. It is since mid February that you promised that the refund would happen immediately [within two days] and this applied not only for my flight but for Qi Kalin's. On this basis my poor friend lent me money and now he has been waiting almost two months and despite your promises and in turn my promises to him, he is left without that refund.

You mention that we are the first to have new stuff. What you have grudgingly supplied is par for the course for so-called foreign experts; they are standard fare in just about all institutions in China. You tried to put us into a hovel. Then I stayed in the campus hotel for almost a month, with leaky bathroom and toilet, locked in until I had to awaken the staff to let me out in the morning. I lived out of my bags for that time because the cupboards were filthy.

Six weeks after my arrival we now have two computers, kitchen equipment, a nice big bare flat except for the study and the bedroom. We spend what time we have in the study and once the students' work has been examined and marked and lessons prepared we look at the computer until our eyes go nuts. There is nothing else to do except to walk.

We love to walk but this letter is about more than walking; it is about broken promises! It is about why we are here in the first place, why we left our lives in Australia to come here to try to teach students who do not want to learn, to join colleagues who do not welcome us as friends, to listen to empty words of promise, to wait patiently for promises to be fulfilled, to realise that we are among a vacuous lot of hapless persons who are not in positions to do anything without the imprimatur of a principal who cannot even say Ni hao to us in the corridor.

There are so many things that you personally have done for me and this I acknowledge readily. You are a friendly and warm person and we like you very much personally. We appreciate Liu Lifen's assistance and caring nature and she is quick to help us. Wang Kun is kind, considerate and efficient and is a decent colleague. Zhang Chao is a tireless worker and works far beyond what reasonably should be his purview and we appreciate him very much.

But I feel I have been brought here under false pretences in that I am simply here to fulfil a requirement that a native speaker teach NCC subjects. My academic skills are not being utilised as I stand in front of classes that without question are the most indolent in my many years of academic life. It is no secret that the college operates as a sub-academic venture [already four staff have confirmed this as fact]. Why am I, with eleven years of tertiary background and five years of recent teaching experience, a Master of Arts in English Literature, a published writer and specialist in my language, spending half my classroom time with a mundane subject such as Study Skills? This puerile rubbish is handled by study guides in most institutions!

To answer your question, wo de pengyou and boss [haha], yes, the sofa suite next to Wang Quan's office is most suitable if not just one sofa is chosen, for we still cling to hope that we will be hosting visitors and friends in our hopefully long stay with the college. Just to exchange the present sofa for another is insufficient; we need the full suite. We are in fact trying to make a home here. We are using the present sofa near the front door of our flat so that we change our shoes more easily when we constantly move in and out the door.

If the money has not been transferred by today, if there is no TV and somewhere comfortable to sit, if there is no sound card and reliable Internet, if I have to spend half my time with Study Skills, if we are not recognised for our senior status [we should be referred to as Lao Qi and Lao An by students and junior colleagues, as you mentioned some time ago], then we know we are in the wrong place.

It is time for all this tripe to come to an end and we be allowed to proceed academically for the benefit of the few students who actually care about their progress through college.

Have a nice day, Xu yan

An Derui

New Arrogant Rich of China

Unfortunately your column, though well-written, espouses movement within the financial sphere without realising that aspirants to greater wealth undergo psychological metamorphosis even before they reach the level of what we may describe as being rich.The behaviour of the 'mini-rich' supports my theory. They who drive motor cars have removed themselves from the hoi-polloi and act as if the ordinary pedestrian does not deserve space to move. Rudeness becomes the aspirant to richness. Arrogance is seemingly an inbuilt characteristic of they for whom the street cleaner is an irritant.The behaviour of young 'ladies' and 'gentlemen' gives evidence of a sense of uncaring for their fellow citizens; rubbish thrown at the feet of cleaners as if cleaners do not exist.The students who refuse to buckle down to serious work because their 'rich' parents have the wherewithal to buy entrance to colleges, indicate that China is re-building similar conditions to those that prompted Chairman Mao and others to instigate 'cultural revolutions'.Yes, you may advocate striving toward greater personal comfort and to gain prestige in social 'advancement', but at what cost?I have seen China retard in its social perspective during the past five years, much to my disgust. Walking along the streets of renovating cities tells me much of where this country is heading; and the courteous China that inspired me for generations is fast disappearing.Before the Olympics there was much ado about ordinary Chinese and their 'manners'; people were exhorted to stop spitting, to cease their queue-jumping and loud speaking in public places, yet nothing was directed at the 'new rich' and their spoilt brats.There is not much point in allusions to America or to the West, for that is irrelevant when discussing China itself.Fine speeches during the Great Hall of the People gatherings do not, in themselves, absolve leaders from getting down to grass roots and setting standards of social commitment and behaviour.It was a relief to see that corruption was being treated for its erosive effect on society and the CPC is to be congratulated on this necessary exorcism.Wen Jiabao is to be held in very high jing pei for his own humility and graciousness and the people respond to him in ways that inspire many others to emulate our Premier.But it is not enough!We need to resist the rise in arrogance among our young and upwardly mobile citizens. We need to confront this ever-growing malady of superciliousness that pervades our universities and schools. I smile when drivers and gardeners and common folk are held in esteem and when street cleaners are greeted with warmth by passing citizens.The feudal days are gone but unfortunately the mentality of feudalism not only remains but is increasing with alarming speed and it is up to you and you fellow well-to-do Chinese citizens in positions of influence to safeguard that which we cherish still about Zhongguo.I am an Australian laoshi with a passion for China.

Peoples Daily 6 April 09

Borders are not lines of provocation

I am glad you are not the Minister of Defence, nopeace! China's response is reasonable, given the fact that the Indian President was entitled to be in any part of his country. This applies to China in that our President is entitled to visit any part of China, be it one inch from any border.

CD 5 April 09