David's Big Adventure in China

I was at a western food store recently which is run by an American and overhead a conversation about matchmaking services. The American guy was coaching a Chinese lady about how to operate a matchmaking service and how much to charge. There are many people here who make money helping the Chinese ladies meet foreign men and some of them charge a lot for their services. Some of them are legitimate and do their best to help the ladies find a foreign husband but some provide little more than short lived hope. I have heard of some of these ladies paying more than $1000 USD. Why are these ladies so desperate to find a foreign husband you ask? Some of them think the foreigners are rich and are going for the money, some want a passport to live in a country they think is better and where their child can get a good education, and some don’t want to have anything to do with the Chinese men. The local men have a bad reputation for treating the ladies poorly and being playboys, especially if they have money. It is not uncommon for a man with money to pay the living expenses of a young girlfriend even if he is married. I have mostly been able to avoid people involved in these activities but did have a foreign guy try to introduce me to a lady last year who I suspect was paying him for this kind of service.

Students…….I became a bit frustrated this week with some of my students. I gave a quiz last week and in one of the classes the average score was 73 (this was typical of all three classes). One third of the students had a score of 94 or higher so obviously the quiz was not too difficult. That means that the average for the other 2/3’s was about 62 which tells me that they are not doing any work outside of class. Is this true of kids in college in the U.S.? Is it unreasonable of me to think they should actually do the assigned homework? Most of my students come from families with money and most of them are the only child which has led to many of them being spoiled. Combine that with the culture here of not allowing any child to fail a class and you’ve got a sure recipe for laziness. There was a kid who showed up in one of my classes in week 7 asking to be added to the class he said because of scheduling issues. I talked to someone in the office about him and found out that he was instructed during week 3 to go join my class but apparently he decided to play for a few weeks first. He did the same thing for his other classes. We decided not to allow him to join any classes and I assume he has now gone home and had to explain to his parents why he’s not in school. I was happy that the school allowed him to fail as it sends a message to the other students. One of my best students from last year is taking my accounting class this year. She told me recently that she just found out that her mother is an accountant. I’ve been amazed here by how little the kids know about their parents’ jobs.

I had a nice Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, complete with turkey and dressing and pumpkin pie. It cost me $16 which is about the most I’ve paid for a dinner here in China. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving holiday!