Oh my.

At the time of writing, i.e. August 2011, I’ve been in China four months now. According to Lindsay Clandfield and Duncan Ford, in their short treatise ‘The Language Teacher’s Survival Handbook’ (ITS, 2008), there are four stages of culture shock. I’m not sure if I’m at any particular stage. I’m certainly beyond stage one, the so called ‘Honeymoon/Tourist stage’ which passed by pretty quickly. I was all bowing to deities at Daoist temples, and trying to learn new words in Chinese. I did a year and a half in a Southern Chinese Kung Fu form back home, and was hoping I’d find a regular class here in China. Eventually, high carb food and hangovers have seen my attempts at the fitness regimes I had at home being maintained here in China flounder.

Believe it or not though, what the aforementioned writers refer to as stage two preceded my honeymoon phase. According to the writers, stage two is referred to as “shock”, whereby “all the little problems and frustrations take on bigger proportions”. Given that, upon my arrival, my so called boss, who despite being head of the international office at the college I work at still needs a fucking translator, roared laughing at me when I first met him. I’d just come off an eight hour flight, and thereafter endured another three hour car journey. This dicks understanding of jet lag was “Mwah haw, he looks like he is drunk!” Yep, he needed a translator to tell me that.

Chengde, the town I’m based in, has few foreigners. When I arrived, I didn’t know any, besides the other Irish guy who came over with me. My coordinator, who, like my boss, is also a dick, and a gormless boring one at that, coordinates fuck all. His catchphrase seems to be ‘I harve no ideeer’. When I expressed my need to meet other foreigners, given the potential for loneliness and thereafter possible madness, he did not offer to contact any of the other colleges in Chengde. He simply said “I will arsk Henry”, (Henry being my colleague and friend’s coordinator). “I think he hars a girlfriend in the Medical College. He can arsk her”. Needless to say, I heard nought back from the little shit. Of course, this is the same little prick who took six weeks to actually give me the roll call list for the students I’m supposed to teach. I actually had to chase him down for that, and he didn’t like it. Fuck him anyway. The good news is that I did meet more foreigners, by simple accident of design.

And of course, I was once paid two weeks late because my boss was too lazy to file the correct paperwork on time. During those two weeks myself and my colleague were given a different answer everyday. When I finally got a tad tense and rang my boss for the fifth time, he was so lazy, he hung up and got my gormless coordinothing to phone me back. “You must stop phoning Mr.Mu. He is very impatient with you phoning.”

“I want to get paid when he says I’m getting paid,” I responded, “not return to the ATM machine and still find nothing there despite his assurances to the contrary”.

Of course, even after that, I’d yet another needless wrangle with pay I was to be owed for the summer, which again involved my boss and my coordinothing translating. My boss had lots of Butthead like laughing and pointing out non-existent clauses in the contract. However, they knew they were wrong and I got settled with that too. I’ll spare you, the reader, the details of the whys and whens. I must, however, share an observation from a Turkish American acquaintance. He believes the Chinese to be very clever, but not smart. Clever in terms of making the quick buck, passing the buck, and denying the buck, partly as a result of laziness. Their cleverness will shoot themselves in the foot long term, which ain’t all that smart.

An Italian woman I met recently had a worse tale than I. She’d gone to Nanjing to teach at an Italian language school. What happened to her was another example of “cleverness”. She ended up being owed three months wages, with her dick of a boss constantly stalling her and fobbing her off. She escaped to Beijing, and got immense help from her embassy. The cops there though ended up passing the buck by telling her she should file a complaint with the cops in Nanjing. Lifting the phone was too much effort on their part it seems. This woman spoke fluent Mandarin, so imagine the shit that can happen to other teachers.

Teachers in China are in great demand, but not because their actual skills are desired; this all has to do with face and presentation, more of which I’ll explain further on. Basically, foreign teachers or, ‘Wai Jiao’, are the prerequisite for any college brochure that seeks to wrangle those precious Yuans out of parents that want the best for their kids. A white face on the teaching staff really sexes up a college’s prospectus. Caucasoids are so in vogue; it is common for Chinese tourists from the backwoods to walk up to a (white) foreigner in Beijing tourist spots with a “hala hala hala (ok, ok, ok)” and grab a photo opportunity, whether said foreigner wants to or not. Educated Chinese speakers will give themselves English names, sometimes bordering on the ridiculous. Aside from the usual retinue of ‘Amys’ and ‘Jasons’, a friend of mine has met not only Tom Cruise and Michael Jackson, but also, believe it or not, ‘Shrek’! I kid you not. Shrek was, yet again, a middle aged bozo running a language school and driving a saloon car.

Once a teacher has been hired, the school will endeavour to do as they please with said employee. This could range from anything like basically not caring if you show up to squeezing the life blood out of you. Fortunately, I have generally been pushed into the former bracket, as evidenced by my coordinothing’s inability to provide me with the basic paperwork needed to teach a class. A friend, on the other hand, was told late one evening that he had to be up at six AM because a fucking television crew were coming into his apartment to film him. He was told he had to think up of a two hour lesson to teach outdoors, again in front of said TV crew.

According to the 2011 Global Index on Economic Freedom;

“Investors face regulatory non-transparency, complex and inconsistently enforced laws and regulations, weak protection of intellectual property rights, corruption, industrial policies protecting local firms, and a legal system that cannot guarantee the sanctity of contracts.”

Note the last part; the sanctity of contracts. I recently had my agent who got me the job here back in Dublin tell me over the phone “the contract in China is more of a guideline.” Great love, if I’d known that before I came here…but of course, you and your husband weren’t going to highlight that little anomaly, were ye?

On more mundane level, one needs to watch for greed anywhere one goes in China. Crime is generally low, but robbing foreigners takes places over commercial transactions, not at the end of a knife. One must point to the taxi meter, otherwise some dickhead will be (Butthead laugh) clever, and charge you the equivalent of ten euro for a two minute cab ride. Given that the equivalent of €2 will get you fifteen minutes in a cab on the meter should be proof enough that you’re being ripped off. I once had an aul’bitch who resembled an extravagant brothel madam charge me €15 for a pot of tea, two beers, a plate of dumpling and some other yoke. As all this would’ve come to €5 anywhere else in China, I was pissed off. She too had a big laugh, though a bit more like the Wicked Witch of the West.

Another time, in Beijing, I thought the lady behind the counter had asked for 4 yuan(0.40c) for a lighter. What she’d said was 1 yuan 4 jiao. However, when I gave her 4 yuan, she held onto the money and started roaring laughing. No attempt to give it back. Now, plenty of other Chinese shopkeepers have pointed out I’ve overpaid them when I’ve had occasion to make such a mistake, but it’s worth noting that quite a few little Miss Piggies like the 4 yuan woman exist here.

The Chinese even have a saying for ripping off foreigners “Lao Wei Hai Ping (It’s easy to fool a foreigner).” Obviously, wealthy tourists come to China, don’t know anything about haggling, and pay €16 for a fan that will only cost €1, no wonder the locals are beside themselves with such cleverness. Given that I’m working here for €400 a month, I’m not going to be happy when yet another local fuckwit thinks he’s more clever than me, and tries again to pull some other infantile stunt. The global economy will be fucked if they still have this mentality in twenty years time.

What’s the solution? There are plenty of decent Chinese people who despise the cliché of fooling foreigners itself, and thus will be more than happy to help someone if they do fall foul of a greedy rascal masquerading as a competent middle aged adult. Despite my Italian friend’s experience with the Beijing lazy PC Plods, generally the cops have a reputation of hauling in schools and employers who can’t see beyond their own nose when it comes to greed. Presentation and what not is very important here. That’s why condemned prisoners aren’t only televised in chains here; they’re forced to have their heads bowed by the guard watching over them. That’s why the Beijing Olympics are still celebrated in Beijing for having been there. That’s why they had a fake singing girl during the opening ceremony, who mimed while another less cute girl did the actual voice over.

It’s all to do with face.

In China, and East Asia in general, saving face is intrinsically central to the culture. Tempers must not be lost. Facade borders on the ceremonial, be it the simple matter of taking a swig of beer at a meal or building lavish receptions in hotels whilst maintaining a steady mediocrity in the rest of the building. With regards to the former, you cannot sip your beer without either waiting to toast an individual or the rest of the table, or vice versa. It’s all very pompous. As to the latter, highly expensive and quite large jade sculptures will be in abundance in a hotel lobby built, it seems, entirely out of marble. Actual fun amenities such as swimming pools will be noticeable by their absence. You might get a ‘souvenir shop’ with all the charm of a second hand clothes store in the backwoods of County Cavan.

Please note that I’m referring to Chinese hotels outside of Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. International hotels in those cities have the utilities one would expect. A visiting family member recently got a decent deal at the Swiss hotel in Beijing. In Chengde, though, she was forced to pay an extortionate amount for a room in a place with all the trappings of the lobbies I’ve described, but still – a room with an unhoovered carpet, damp ceilings and broken light fixtures.

Drivers drive like crazy and almost kill each other and passing pedestrians, but you’ll never see their expressions change when hooting the horn like mad. This is probably the reason people like my boss laugh like Butthead when faced with a grievance on my part. “Nothing wrong here, it’s all good.” I once witnessed a bus driver punch a passenger he had suddenly started arguing with twice in the face whilst the vehicle he was driving was waiting in a toll booth queue. A number of other passengers started yelling, then suddenly everyone sat down, and it was like nothing had happened. Face was thus saved for all parties concerned.

Face is something one can utilise to one’s advantage.

Here’s how;
when engaged in a discussion with an employer, have your contract ready. As I mentioned earlier, my child of a boss was citing all kinds of nonexistent clauses to prevent me being given the money I was owed, the contract of course being a guideline. My tactic was to stay firm, point out the discrepancies, ignore his so called ‘compromises’, but most importantly, not lose my temper. Doing so gives them, like anywhere else really, an excuse to walk away.

Once it’s clear they’re going to possibly look stupid and incompetent in front of someone else besides you, they will relent. This could be the police, other foreigners, subordinates witnessing this latest brush with idiocy or, most importantly, their reputation via the grapevine. My friend I mentioned earlier, the one who was supposed to have a TV crew invading his privacy at six in the morning, basically told his boss to get stuffed. That, as well as pointing out the infantile lack of notice and his offence at being expected to ask ‘how high’ when being told to jump. A few days later, his supervisor was ‘so sorry’, but also told him he did not have to worry about what the main boss thought. He responded that he didn’t and never will worry about what any boss thinks with regards to situations like the one bestowed on him.

Basically, the business practice here is seeing how much mileage they can get out of a “laowei” (foreigner). Stand up to them, and they’ll usually back off. China still has a bit of a way to go with its new found openness to the rest of the world.

On a positive note, the Chinese penchant for acting the bollocks has resulted in some nice spin-offs for the visiting consumer, namely in the form of counterfeit goods. One can purchase fake designer clothing, watches, and what not for next to nothing, as well as cameras, iphones and other commodities. The rest of the world is actively walking on egg shells with China for now, and so patent and copyright laws don’t mean shit. So, if you’re in China and are getting mightily upset with yet another sleazy middle aged yoke with a comb over fucking you about, console yourself with a nice pair of Adidas which you’ll only pay the equivalent of €15 for.

Bargain hard always, and you’ll get the pleasure to proverbially kick another eejit who believes in the “laowei hai ping” mantra square in the nuts.

Good luck.