David's Big Adventure in China

I actually teach for 2 different schools even though I collect my pay from just one of them. Half my classes are YUFE (Yunnan University of Finance and Economics) classes and the other half are IBS (International Business School) classes. IBS is a special school set up under YUFE for Chinese students whose test scores were not high enough to get into YUFE and for foreign students. There are about 30 French students here under the IBS program and I sit in with some of them in their Chinese class. They are juniors or seniors but they did not study Chinese before coming here. The French students are incredibly lazy. Most classes only about half to 2/3 of them show up and most of the ones that do show up arrive late. It seems they study very little outside of class and don’t work too hard in class either.

The IBS students that I teach are for the most part pretty lazy compared to the YUFE students. The longer students here have been at the university the more lazy they become. In grade school, middle school and high school they were pushed hard by their teachers and parents and constantly monitored. Now that they are in university they are not being pushed or monitored as much and for the first time in their lives they have to employ self discipline and self motivation. They also figure out that the school goes to great lengths to keep them from failing. I failed a couple kids last semester and the school asked me a couple weeks ago if I would give them another chance at the final exam to see if they could pass the class. I said I wouldn’t do that because the class was easy enough to pass and these 2 kids gave very little effort and missed many classes. They will probably find someone else to give them some easy test so they can pass the class. Cheating on exams is also very common. The first written exam I gave last semester I had 2 different answer sheets using the same questions but had the answers in different order. When I did the grading I found a few students that had obviously been looking at their neighbor’s paper for the answers. They actually would have done much better had they used their own best guess at the answer. I put a note on their exams asking did they get their answers from their neighbor’s paper. None of them came to see me to dispute it. Sometimes my principals go against the Chinese way…..lol.

About 3 weeks ago I found that there were 12 more signatures on the attendance sheet than students in the room for my IBS sophomore writing class so I took role and kept the sheet and corrected it before turning it in. One of the students is normally responsible for turning it in to the office. The next week I told them that was not acceptable and that the sheet should only reflect the students present. I also gave them an assignment to write a paper titled “Does corruption start with falsifying attendance sheets?”. The following week a student handed me the attendance sheet to sign and I found that there were 4 more signatures on the sheet than students in the room. I became very angry and I tore up the sheet, threw in on the floor and yelled “do it again!”. It was a rare moment of quiet in the room as the students are normally constantly talking. This week when I was given the sheet it was right. I spent about 10 minutes of the class talking about integrity and honesty. They actually listened but who knows how much impact I have had.

Students here spend about 20 hours a week in classes vs. 12 to 15 hours for U.S. students but do less study on their own than American students. Less than 5% of my students have ever had a part time job. Jobs are scarce and with the demands of school before they reach university working is just not a real option for them. Since most of them are an only child their parents focus on getting them a good education so they will be successful and able to support the parents when they are old. Most of them don’t really get much career counseling before they go to university and once they enter university they are basically stuck in their major as it is almost impossible for them to change. For most of them their major is decided by their parents.

Last weekend the school took some of the foreign teachers and the Chinese teachers that teach the foreign students on a trip to a city about 60 miles from here. It took us (26 in all) over 3 hours to get their on Friday afternoon because the roads were so bad and the shocks on the bus were seemingly nonexistent so we had to go very slow. We stayed at a “resort” on a mountain where we had dinner and then danced around the fire with the local minority people. The rooms of the resort were basic with Chinese style toilet and shower. On Saturday morning we visited the park on the mountain where the overthrown Emperor from the Ming dynasty is said to have gone into hiding. He planted some peony flowers there in memory of a lady and the mountain is famous for the flowers (see pics). We left the mountain at 11:30 then stopped in the town nearby for mushroom hotpot for lunch. They cook many delicious mushrooms (my province is famous for its mushrooms) in a broth in a pot that’s in a hole in the table and then add other items such as chicken, pork, and other vegetables. We then serve ourselves from the pot. It was quite delicious! We arrived back at the school about 4:30. Well that’s it for now……..take care!

School is back in full swing now and I have 17 hours of classes this semester vs. 16 last semester. I have 6 oral English classes and 2 writing classes. One writing class is with freshmen and 1 is with sophomores so I have to prepare different lessons for them. Considering that most of them have been studying English for 6 to 9 years their writing skill levels are pretty low. I have a total of about 315 students this semester vs. about 200 last semester. The evening oral classes are supposed to be limited to 20 to 30 students to give them good practice. Last semester the school limited the enrollment to 20 and I had additional students show up and ask to be added. This time they didn’t limit the enrollment and to my shock I had over 60 kids show up to my Monday night class. The next day I found out that 74 kids had signed up for that class and that on average my evening classes had twice as many students as the other foreign teachers. I haven’t yet determined the reason for my popularity.

This past week was a bit of a struggle for me as I developed a very bad sore throat that made teaching a challenge and took away a lot of my energy. Monday, when my throat was at it worst, I had 6 hours of classroom time. Then on Wednesday my classes were on the 6^th floor (in different buildings of course) so I climbed 6 flights 3 times which really wore me out considering that we are at almost 6000 feet elevation and my congestion due to my sore throat and related symptoms. I didn’t go to the doctor but a friend helped me buy an antibiotic at a local pharmacy (cost was less than $2 for a 6 day supply). I’m now almost back to normal.

Recently on my official government English tv channel they have been talking a lot about the 30^th anniversary of China’s opening up. Reforms began slowly in 1978 shortly after the end of the Cultural Revolution but have accelerated rapidly in the past 15 years. Before the reforms began social order was maintained by forced employment, forced permanent residence in the same place and of course media control. Travel outside the city where you were registered was basically forbidden for all except a privileged few. With the opening up reforms and the improving economy there is huge pent up demand for travel. Listed below are some facts that I have gathered from some reading that I have been doing recently that will help put this and the magnitude of recent changes here into perspective:

– # of tourists visiting Lijiang 1991 – 200,000 2001 – 3.3 million

– average annual income of Lijiang residents 1991 – $60 2001 – $650

– # of visitors to Beijing in 2006 132 million people (equal to about 44% of U.S. population)

– Expressways (like U.S. Interstate roads) none in 1988, now 228,000 miles and growing by about 3000 per year for last 4 years. Now 2^nd in the world behind only U.S.

During my travels in rural areas of China I have been surprised to see how much farming is still done by hand in small plots. In 2006 China had one farmhand for every acre compared to one farmhand for every 140 acres in the U.S. As you can see, there is room for tremendous change in this area. As farming productivity improves there will be many people looking to move to the cities to find jobs. There is already a large “migrant worker” population in the cities that have come from the countryside. The old permanent residence system is still in effect in some ways and makes it difficult for these migrant workers to receive some government services and often makes it easy for companies to take advantage of them. They often have difficulty collecting their wages. The government is talking about reforms that will help them.

China is changing rapidly and sometimes in my travels to out of the way places I can get a glimpse of the old China. If you want to see “old China” you will need to come quick and get off the beaten path!

    On Saturday, February 23, a couple Chinese friends and I took an overnight sleeper bus to Lijiang in NW Yunnan province.  Lijiang is a popular tourist destination and the population is primarily Naxi minority people.   It used to be ... [Continue reading this entry]