Worldtour in China

What's wrong with Chinese students?

2009-05-01T11:40:00.004+08:00

I should probably preface this with the statement that most students are likable enough on a personal level but what I want to write about today are some of the endemic problems. Today is May Day a national holiday. So I have a little time to reflect on this subject. The first problem is that getting into a university can be a real grueling process. Once they are accepted only a few students proceed with the same vigor as before the final test that gets them to the university. I really don't have any knowledge about the rest of the subjects they take but from the perspective of an English teacher I can say that most of the students I have taught at the university level are mediocre at best some are downright pathetic.

I teach the same book in my sophomore class as I teach to a class of 12 and 13 year old students. Needless to say the level is not that difficult considering they have had ten years of English classes. My new class, the freshmen are quite a bit lower than my sophomore class. This means that 75 per cent of them can't respond to a question, listed in the book with a complete sentence. They are so used to fill in the blanks that they treat an oral English class like a test, responding with a one word answer. This happens time and time again even after instructing them that it is not satisfactory, meaning their listening skills are even worse. This is not difficult to understand as their former English teachers teach English in Chinese. The same backwards logic is prevalent in many aspects of their daily life. In my experience Chinese are the most illogical people I have ever come across.

They don't have much choice as they are required to take English to graduate. One major problem with schools in China is that nobody fails at the University. You pay your money you get your diploma, even if you never come to class. So if you are planning on coming to teach here you should realize that the propaganda you here in the west about how great Asian students are is a total crock of, you know what. For my last classes before this holiday 75 per cent had already left for home or decided to have a five or six day holiday from their classes. I literally have some students I don't know who they are as they have attended one class so far this semester. So in reality they are just shipped away from home and it is four years of play time. I can honestly say most students have more interest in their phones than in learning.

Did you know that the best university in China is not in the top 200 in the world? The sad part, or I should say another sad part about this situation is that the men, boys, will probably get the better jobs and the women will get the left overs. Of course this is a generalization but everyone knows there is preference for boys. Speaking of boys and girls, because that is what they are, 19 and 20 year old children, let me give you a picture of what boys are put through here. The one child law produces a sickening kind of doting from mothers that for most westerners are not accustomed to. The mother don't really seem to control them in one way, discipline, and then totally control them in other ways. Producing what we call in the west, Momma's boys. Everything from hand feeding them to accompanying them everywhere, resulting in no independence at all. Perhaps it is just an example of what is expected of them when their parents get older, total responsibility for them. Thank God, my 80 plus parents are still independent and have planned for their future. From what I see most don't have a lot of contact from fathers.

So, what is the product of this system? College grads who have never had a job, don't know how to do anything, have skated through college and are now totally unprepared for life, love and anything else life may throw at them. They will probably will live with their parents until they marry or even after. Of course the "lucky" ones will have their parents give them a place to live, so they wont' really have it much different than in school as some students bought their way into the universities in the first place. They are easy to spot, they have better clothes, never come to class, and attract nice looking women, who then don't come to class either as they know which side their bread is buttered on. The women will probably be divorced by the time they are through bearing children. You can see that life is not much fun when you walk down any street and look at the etched scowls of women and some men who have not been blessed to be born into the elite. The rest are smiling in blissful ignorance of an over extended childhood where everything is just given too them with little responsibility.

Next post, I will get into what kind of capitalism is in China.

Late Night Post

2009-04-29T22:34:00.003+08:00

As summer approaches I look forward to spending some time on Center Street here in Harbin. Have a few of China's best beer, Harbin Beer and catch a performance at one of the beer gardens. Another simple pleasure of the summer is to have an evening meal on the sidewalks. Another nice aspect of the city is winter has it's IceLights and in the summer there are many nice sculpture of living plant shaped as dragons, pandas. For teachers who chose to stay on through the summer this can be a great time for travel or just to kick back and enjoy life away from the responsibilities of teaching. Or for those that are more ambitious, you can make some extra money if you have the right set up. As long as your paperwork is up to date, you can always pick up work at some of the local schools who usually receive an influx of students during the summer holiday. You know, Chinese don't get much of a break, they are constantly in classes. Too many in my opinion but it does work to my advantage if I want to push for more classes and therefore more cash. Hey the way the economy of the world is at this time I hark back to my roots, make hay while the sun shines.

Time Flies

2009-04-24T16:37:00.003+08:00

It has been a long time since I posted, let's just say that I have been very busy. If you have read much of the blog you know I teach for a couple of different reasons. One, I like it most of the time and the other reason is to make a living. Nobody will get rich on a foreign teachers salary but it certainly is sufficient to provide a comfortable experience.

I guess it is just not in my nature to want to be an employee. It doesn't make much sense when you can build a good following and a good income from teaching. Currently I am doing about 24 classes a week. Which is an extremely heavy load. Most teachers at a university teach no more than twenty hours, averaging around 14 hours a week. So I work over a full 40 hour week. If you can navigate through the culture and get some help you can always increase your income here in China.

I'm currently getting my status from a business university and I have 6 classes freshmen and sophomores each class for two hours a week. Not really enough time for each class but one of the teachers had a mishap and could not continue his contract. So it seems they just adjusted the students schedules to the number of teachers available.

In future posts I will get into some of the challenges that you might face as a teacher. Hope it is not going to turn into just another rant. Ha ha.

Worldtour

Young students for success

2007-06-08T10:25:00.000+08:00

I am now in my fifth year of teaching English in China and during that time my students have become younger and younger. I never really planned this, it is just the way things have developed. Because language acquisition at an early age usually depends more on repetition and drills, you can have a slightly larger class with the younger students. By doing this you can effectively teach up to about twenty students at a time. This means a good income. One of the problems you encounter in China is that by the time students reach middle school their schedule is so packed that they often drop out of English lessons. This is most unfortunate for the student and also for the school or independent teacher. You are always losing students to a busy schedule, right at the time when the students could really be making major strides in fluency. Another aspect that is on a more personal level is that you never really are able to have any kind of intellectual conversation, as the students seldom stick around for the the higher levels of classes. This has been a problem for me as my largest classes have over time become my smallest classes. Sooner or later, you must combine classes, or raise your prices. My highest level classes have about six students. So you are faced with some tough decisions. I want to reward my students who have been loyal but the reality is there is very little loyalty. When you can replace a class that brings in 50 to 60 rmb per hour with a class that brings in up to 250 rmb per hour there is little to consider. This will happen if you become a successful teacher. Getting students at a young age become effortless as word of mouth spreads and if you are independent that is a great thing. But eventually, those classes will start to get smaller as you move into their second or third year of learning.

There will also be some students who cannot move forward for one reason or another and that will make some parents question your ability rather than the study habits or capability of their own child. There is some truth to the saying that there are no bad students only bad teachers, but with some students you can just see the lack of connection inside by the evidence outside. In my experience there will always be three groups within a class, the standouts, the steady learners and the dullards.

worldtour aka Larry Rhoe

Teacher Torture in Beijing

2007-05-30T15:41:00.001+08:00

I don't usually post twice in one day but I just had to today. I frequently search out other blogs and see what is out there on the teaching front. This post is from the front lines of the battle. If you are in the West you know that there are problems in Schools. It probably depends on your age how you relate to this, but surely all of us knew trouble makers or perhaps you were one of them. The behavior that you will see on this video is probably a teachers worst nightmare. What you have is an elderly Chinese teacher showing considerable restraint in a near hopeless situation. I'm not saying that all schools are like this but certainly this kind of problem exists in other parts of China and the world. One university I taught at which admitted anyone who had the money had similar problems but just to a lesser degree.

I don't have these kind of problems at my school but I do see a lack of discipline. I see parents who just let their kids run wild, climb on my furniture, put their dirty shoes on my walls. Chalk it up to the one child system, cultural differences or whatever. They are good kids most of the time but contrary to what we often believe in the west there are lots of young punks who just don't have any respect for their elders. We as teachers or would be teacher hear that teachers are respected in the East. I think this is generally true, but there are some really bad cases too, just like in the west. The difference the punks don't have access to firearms so there aren't as many headlines, like the recent massacre at Virginia Tech. Here are two links that will show it to you as it happened. It doesn't say much for the future of China, but it did draw serious outrage and an interesting reprisal. You can see it here at The Shanghaist and see some comments here at Global Voices online.

To Translate or not to Translate, that is the Question

2007-05-30T08:03:00.001+08:00

If you have taught ESL for any length of time you have probably seen some very interesting translations, or perhaps you have tried to make sense of some instructions for some kind of electronics you may have purchased. That is a real challenge. One reason that I enjoy teaching younger students is that they learn a new language in much the same way that they learn their first language. If a student writes in their first language and tries to translate it into English it surely will be a mangle of bad grammar, word order and vocabulary. Some languages follow similar word order and sentence structure, others do not resemble English, so I always recommend that students do not translate writing from their first language. When a student writes in English they can usually produce a far superior piece of writing. This idea is also true in the oral area of language acquisition. Chinese is quite "flowery" and I'm sure it possesses a very poetic nature, but it just does not translate well without high level skills. So you must insist that the student write from what they know in English.

This brings me to another point that I feel is critical to the development of the students language skills. Many students want to be placed in the more advanced classes, before they have really mastered the basics in the beginning levels. This is really a big mistake. Surely, it is easy to understand that they want to attain higher levels but moving into the more advanced classes is sure to stunt their growth. They frequently cannot comment on the lesson or the concepts. Here in China this is especially true because the system of education does not foster that kind of critical thinking. It does not mean they cannot think for themselves, it only means they are unaccustomed to extrapolating information and forming an opinion, since most of their classes have only one point of view, the teachers. So it is often quite difficult to start or maintain any discussions that require personal opinions. The culture promotes a certain don't talk don't tell attitude. This is quite normal considering the history of free expression. It is not that they can't it just is drilled into them socially. This is changing somewhat as information and ideas flow into their world via the net and other sources. There is a new generation of students who have access to a more worldly view. A few years ago it was practically unheard of to have a student disagree with a teacher. This old view of education, the Greek idea of a discussion between the teacher and the student perhaps is making a comeback. It will certainly be a challenge to the teachers in China as they will have to reeducate themselves in how to teach in this way.

So don't be tempted to place students in higher level classes before they have mastered the easy classes, translate only for vocabulary, and conduct your classes in a way that creates a never ending flow between the text and speaking about it out of the book and your students will begin to think in English and develop good grammar. If you get them at a young age the will be learning in a similar way that students learn in their first language, which translates to accelerated learning.

worldtour aka Larry Rhoe

Why Chinese Children drop out of English Classes

2007-05-24T10:15:00.001+08:00

For anyone who has taught English as a second language, the problem of turn over, or drop-outs, is a never ending battle. There are many reasons for this which include, scheduling problems, learning problems, differences in ability, teaching styles, and the most difficult one to deal with, parents. I continually have problems with parents who for some reason or other think they know how their children should be educated. Perhaps they have a unexplainable faith in the Chinese system of learning, rote learning, or they site inability to understand, or sometimes it is just overbearing individuals who must enforce their will on all around them. These are the worst type. I told one of my classes that had a mother like this that I was not going to let anyone dictate to me how to teach. Logically this should be easily understood. They come to me as an expert, which has been certified by the authorities, but then they want me to be more like the Chinese teachers. "They don't understand you". Well yes, at first they don't understand much but neglecting the oral side of learning and the listening means they will never be able to have a conversation, other than one that is read from a book. It's such a simple concept, language first and foremost is spoken. The majority of high school and even college graduates cannot have a meaningful conversation beyond "where are you from" and "can you speak Chinese". For those people that have a chance to travel to a English speaking world, this becomes painfully obvious as they are not able to talk to anyone, even after studying over a decade. Many schools cater to the wishes of the parents, reasoning that it is a good business practice. This is a fatal flaw in thinking. There is no reasoning with this sort of person. It's just the wrong thing to do. Stick to your guns. You are the expert. There will be drop-outs no matter what you do, so just conduct your classes in the way that will foster all of the skills needed to become fluent. You really can't teach English by teaching it in Chinese! This has been proven beyond a doubt by the vast majority of students who study for ten years and cannot understand a basic conversation or speak about anything beyond the mundane.

If you are a good teacher, you will receive excellent word of mouth advertising. Of course, this may just fill your bosses pockets with cash or if you're smart and willing to make teaching a full time job for yourself it will fill your own pockets. Fortunately, good teaching will be reflected in the marks that your students receive in their schools, if your grammar lessons are effective. Unfortunately, speaking is not yet tested, but that is changing as the Chinese testing system begins to realize it is just as important as being a good test taker.

worldtour aka Larry Rhoe

Where is the theater in China?

2007-05-17T09:13:00.000+08:00

China has a long history of performance, but most of it is traditional. There are fine productions in television and movies, but there is little live theater. I recently received an email from my brothers theater group in Vancouver Washington asking for some help in finding a way to get a tour going in China. A tall order but I want to try and help. I want to reach out to any teachers here in China who may have contacts with English departments who may be agreeable to work with this idea. When I taught at Beida, Beijing University, Peking University, I saw a professional production of Arther Millers "The Crucible". It was a good production and drew some good crowds from the University and the public.

English is such a priority for students, so if you have some contacts, please contact me so I can pass them on to the planners. The picture above shows the name of the repertoire theater group which is headed by my brother Llewellyn Rhoe. You can click on the picture to view some photos from the website. It is The Main Street Theatre.

I would guess that fewer than one or two percent of the students have seen a theater production. Any help in this project would be greatly appreciated and may also help you too, as you may see your stock rise. If you have any contacts who may be interested in helping with this idea please let me know, as it is a large undertaking. Be assured these artists are talented and would love to bring some culture to your school.

worldtour aka Larry Rhoe

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Spring has come and so have the Lilacs

2007-05-16T11:34:00.000+08:00

Spring has finally come to Harbin. That means that the lilacs are in bloom which is the cities official flower. They are everywhere. I must say the city has done a good job at trying to plant trees and shrubs to make the city a little nicer. There are crews out planting new trees every spring and summer. Through out the Northeast of China you will find trees being grown. This is a good thing and probably due to the deforestation of much of the land. Coming from the Great Northwest of the U.S. , I can say that is surely one thing that I miss, the forests and abundance of trees. Where I live in Washington state, some of the forests have been harvested and renewed 3 times. Most of San Francisco was built from the forests where I live on the Hood canal and Olympic peninsula. So it is really nice here in Harbin when it finally after the long winter finally ends and the buds start. There is one thing that is common here that is a little hard to understand. The Chinese are obsessed with trimming trees, so after the first leaves show up they disappear and the tops of trees are whacked off. The effect is a little strange as it creates streets filled with no tops, and the growth of the trees are shaped in a particular fashion.

On the teaching front classes are going well and I'm pretty much booked up to capacity. I want to point those teachers who may be working for around 5k rmb towards a very doable doubling of their salary, with about 4 extra classes a week. If you have a large enough apartment you can easily start some classes during your off time. If you are a university teacher your weekends can bring in an extra 1000 rmb with 4 classes. If you keep your prices below the language schools and are a decent teacher the word will spread and you will not have to advertise. If you are a private language school teacher you will have lots of free time in the week to have some after school classes or just one per night at around 5:30. If you want to focus on young learners you should be able to schedule an afternoon class around 1:30 as many students in that age group have one day per week that is a half day of classes. So it presents a good opportunity to double your income with a few extra hours of work. Most teachers have 14-20 hours of teaching per week so there should be lots of time, unless you are having to do all the curriculum and have lots of testing to mark. Of course if you are here to just to spend money or time on your interests then this model may not be for you.

worldtour aka Larry Rhoe

Work Work Work

2007-05-01T18:40:00.000+08:00

Oh, Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. No the ship is not going down it's just workers day. You know, it's not really celebrated in the States. We do have Labor Day but it is not the same thing. Behold the Glorification of the worker. These vintage posters are always interesting. But since I am not Chinese it really is just another work day. The parents of my students wanted classes so I was happy to crank out another lesson. If you want a jump on the competition just bite the bullet and hold class. It was rather nice this morning, much quieter than usual. No rubber hoses pounding on plastic buckets announcing another collector of recyclables. Not the usual horns honking incessantly, or the chop chop chop of food reducing to chopstick size bites. Oh the joys of the holidays.

Seriously, work is a good thing, it will always be there for you. Your friends and family may let you down but work will always be there for you. It is a bit different here. That kind of attitude is not so common. If you can bring your work ethic with you and focus on what you want, there is more opportunity here in China than most places I have traveled to. I never fancied myself as a businessman, I just knew I could teach well. I don't run my business like others, I offer good value at very reasonable prices. This seems to work anywhere and it has worked well for me. So raise a glass to those who keep the wheels greased.

worldtour aka Larry Rhoe

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The Power of Bingo and ESL

2007-04-29T20:15:00.000+08:00

Teaching English can get a little redundant, especially if you are using the same books for a long time. One way to break up the boredom for both teachers and students is to regularly play some games. Bingo is probably one of the best listening games you can find. It really helps the listeners pay attention as they are usually pretty competitive, especially here in China as the whole of their educational experience is pitted against all other students at their level. So they take to it likes ducks to water. The best place I have found for resources for bingo is Mark's Esl Pages. I have plugged his site before in general but he can never get enough credit for the sites he has put together. Here is what I suggest. Use the flashcards in classes, make some bingo cards, and hand out the handout pages to build the vocabulary, familiarize the class with the word and the image. They will be begging you to play. This is what you aim for. Get them excited and involved in their learning process. It is such a change from their traditional style of class in their Chinese schools that it is sure to be a winner.

Another great game that you can use to improve their listening is the old tried and true "Simon Says" game. I'm not sure which one my students like best but both can really energize and create a lot of excitement in the classroom. You can use Simon Says for the really young kids or the older higher level classes. You may want to do it in coordination with the introduction of commands. These lessons usually come pretty early at least they do in the books I use. The Cambridge for young learners introduces open your books, raise your hand, open the window in the first 10 lessons. You want to try and trick them too as you physically do the action or command without the Simon Says. I also make a buzzer noise vocally which always gets a laugh or two. This game always gets the parents laughing and they pay attention to the class too. It's a great way to demonstrate that their children are learning the language as they respond to your commands.

I just wanted to say a few more words of praise for Mark and his teaching skills and dedication to sharing his work with others, thanks Mark!

worldtour aka Larry Rhoe

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Getting teaching materials

2007-04-28T09:56:00.000+08:00

Often when teaching, you may be required to supplement the teaching materials that you use, or in some cases, you may have to supply all of the teaching materials. The web provides lots of ESL materials. One of the best is "Sites for Teachers". Not all of them are specifically for Teaching English as a Second Language, but most can be used in your classes. If you have not yet discovered the site mentioned above please take a moment and check them out.

One thing that you might find is, that when dealing with websites and the administrators of websites, it can be time consuming. I found that "Sites for Teachers" has a responsive admin and can get listed with them easily. I received approval and was placing the code to the linking in less than 24 hours. That's an excellent response time.

In order for your site to attain a decent page rank and receive search engine traffic you will want to have links pointing to your site. These links are more valuable when the page rank of that sight as high or higher than your own. This is just one way that you can get more traffic to your site.

So if you don't have the time to make your own exercises, or you need some new materials, please take a look at "Sites for Teachers" and some of the other links that I have in the sidebar.

Worldtour aka Larry Rhoe

Travel and Homesickness

2007-04-27T12:14:00.000+08:00

For anyone who has lived outside their own country for any length of time, homesickness is something they are familiar with. I have not been home in over four years. That is one of the reasons why I am so happy to get mail from friends and family. This photo was sent to me by my brother and shows the Tulip Festival in Western Washington where my family lives. Acres and acres of tulips and other flowers as well. The rush of color is awesome and the natural beauty is surely something I miss about the Great Northwest. I have some posts with some beautiful flowers from my vacation in Sanya, Hainan. Now another Chinese Holiday is nearly upon us. Workers day, or May day is a week long holiday for many in China. It holds perhaps more significance here than in other parts of the world given China's history and political structure.

For teachers in China it is a welcomed break, a time for travel, or just chilling out for a while. For me it's somewhat different as the parents of my students want their children to have classes during this time. So it can be even busier than other times. That is good since I have been looking at some real estate recently. So many teachers bemoan the low salaries in China but few take on the steps to insure their own prosperity. I have been fortunate but I also took the risks, so I feel I am reaping the rewards of my labor. Even if you are teaching at another school you could include in your contract the possibility of working on your own. Or if you don't mind being a little clandestine about it, just do it. Many teachers in private language schools have heavy weekend schedules and free time during the week, many receive an apartment as part of their compensation, so with a minimal investment you could easily bank 12-15 thousand per year with one or two classes per week.

Reading is so fundamental to language development and most Chinese students read at a much higher level than they speak, which is normal for anyone studying a second language. In that regard, I just wanted to say how deeply touched I was at the passing of one of America's great writers, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., my favorite author. If you are interested in what I have to say about him please visit one of my other blogs. Worldtour P.O.V. at http://360.yahoo.com/lrhoe

Tempus Fugit (Time Flies)

2007-04-18T09:46:00.000+08:00

It seems like yesterday that I returned from my Spring Festival vacation in Sanya, yet it has been a month since I last posted. Time indeed flies. I personally prefer to be busy rather than bored so I'm not complaining. You just notice it more as you age. In many ways things could hardly be better. I have added 5 or 6 classes and it has all come from word of mouth. Teaching in China has always offered challenges so it also keeps it pretty interesting. One cannot underestimate the value of the person who interfaces with the parents of the student. As English language schools grow this becomes more difficult. Classes are scheduled back to back and it becomes more and more trying to pass on the information to the parents. So if you are only teaching and not doing much in the area of dealing with the parents, consider yourself lucky.

Here is a dynamic you may find useful in your teaching. The age of the student wanting classes is very high at the ages of 5-11. You can effectively control about 16-20 if you have experience. Most have had some contact with some sort of schooling and considering their age they take to the classroom setting pretty well. I recommend a combination of drilling the lesson and then remove it from the book. Get it into the room. It's just the idea of making it more concrete or tangible. This is quite easy as the early lessons are quite simple, such as "what's your name". They tend to respond with more excitement if you can just get it out of the book and demonstrate to the student and parent that it is sinking into their heads. One of the best ways to do this comes in early command exercises, such as "open your book, close the window, clean the board". You can easily slide into "stand up please, sit down please, raise your hands" then make it a fun game of Simon Says. It really breaks up the boredom on both ends, teacher and student. This simple practice is perhaps one of my better areas, getting the lesson out of the book. It's not difficult and builds the skills effectively. Additionally, one must direct a bit of the over the top energy these ages have. Sometimes my biggest problem is the students saying "Teacher me", up on their feet begging to answer. This is of course a good problem to have, so you need to push that enthusiasm in the right direction and not stifle it with your own needs for "order". With the right mix of drill and improvisation within the lesson and classroom you can please the parents and they will beam with pride over their children's progress.

Tigers and Dragons up close

2007-03-06T12:14:00.000+08:00

I don't usually enjoy a zoo, but you can only walk up and down the beach so many times before you have seen it all. If you need an outing for a day you may want to consider the Tiger and Dragon park. There are perhaps 100 tigers and more than 2000 crocodiles. There are also a lot of flower gardens to enjoy too. Now that may seem a little tame for some of you but for families it can be a worthwhile afternoon. Transportation to almost all the tourist attractions can be gotten for very little. If you don't research anything before you get there, you can get information from the tourist authority. They have several tables set up right on the beach where Yinbing street meets the beach. If you are all ready on the beach just walk west until you get to the area that has the walkway and pool area protruding into the sea. That is where you will find several people with information about all the sites you may want to see.

One thing that you notice about China is the lack of wildlife. Of course I live in a large city so one would not expect to see to many species, but there are not even many birds in the cities. Chinese people pretty much eat everything. In Wang Fu Jing in Beijing you can feast on sparrows, snakes, quail eggs, and testicles and all other sorts of bugs and other unidentified animals. There are people in the south who will eat other wild species that show up in markets, this is speculated to be the way SARS crossed from the animal world to humans, through something related to a weasel. I'm pretty brave about trying different unusual food but I don't ever go that far. I'm chicken.

One other thing that you will notice here is the abundance of fruit and vegetables that you have never seen or eaten before. Most of these are quite delicious so be a little adventurous and given them all a try. One of the best things about living and working in China as a teacher is that you get to enjoy the wonderfully varied cuisines. One of the styles of food I enjoy here is what is called "hotpot". You order meat and veggies and boil them in a spicy "soup". Lamb is not a very popular meat in the States but it is very popular here. They slice the lamb very thin and then it is boiled in the pot. You then dip it in a sesame or what is sometimes called tahini, similar to what is used in fallafels. It is wonderfully delicious. I will post a recommendation in my next post on where to get this in Sanya. It was one of the best hotpot restaurants I have eaten at.

worldtour aka Larry Rhoe

Worldtour Busts a Move!

2007-03-05T11:17:00.000+08:00

For those of you that have never been to China during the Chinese New Year, let me describe the "traditional" event. Families get together much like Thanksgiving in the United States. They have lots of food, TV and games such as cards and Majiang. The national television, CCTV, organizes large shows that are seen live and repeated several times. They do these kind of shows all year, they are a little like a variety show. Mostly they have singers and dancers and may have minority ethnic performances too. The pictures here are from the celebration in Sanya on the eve of the new year. After the big show they had a DJ spinning tunes and invited everyone to dance. Well that didn't quite happen. Chinese people don't really know how to party. This is the biggest celebration of the year and other than a few dancers who were part of the show there was no one that was "brave" enough to dance except for myself and my Chinese partner.

So these pictures show the New Years crowd desperate for more "entertainment", namely watching a foreigner dance. There were literally 500 to 1000 people watching us dance. It was impossible to get any of them to join in and cut loose. They are just too self conscious to do that. When you have a party in China it is really just a dinner where people drink and eat. I'm reminded about a conversation I had with one of my teaching peers who was constantly criticized by his Chinese spouse because he liked to have a beer and play pool. She called him an alchololic. You see it is acceptable to drink yourself blind on Bai Jiao and heave the vile stuff back up as long as you do it at a meal. Vomit is a common sight. I know that is a blanket statement and as with all statements like this it is only partially true for some, but it is true for some as well. The point is that going out for a drink is not really done that much where I live. There are very few bars like in the west. There are a few discos which have bars but most people will do their drinking at a dinner. It's just a cultural difference. In Beijing and Shanghai where the nightlife is much better you will find more clubs, bars and such, but for the most part there is not a lot of nightlife here where I live.

So it is a little difficult for the average Chinese to "cut loose". They can do it but usually it is a group thing. It is very common to see boys dancing with boys and girls with girls. Are they gay? Probably not but mustering up the courage to dance with a stranger may not happen much. Sometimes the discos are like one group trance. Mind you I don't do that much even though I love to dance. When I do I always attract a lot of attention, as I did in the States. No brag, just fact. I'm sure it is much different in the more hip cities but I don't have much experience with that scene. But as you can see from the people watching this was quite entertaining for them, and as my background is in the arts as a performer it was no big thing for me and I had a great time. You really can have lots of fun in China and I do recommend it for those of you who are looking for an adventure. All things considered, the Chinese people are very kind and good people, I am happy to be here and most of the time the only thing that makes it difficult is dealing with my own cultural biases. If you realize these things you have a great chance to make lifelong friends and enjoy a fascinating culture.

Worldtour aka Larry Rhoe

Sanya on a Budget

2007-03-04T15:18:00.000+08:00

Sanya hotels are relatively expensive during the Spring Festival or Chinese New Year. I alluded to that in my last post. They are three times the normal price. Most hotels have a peak season but in Sanya they really gouge the tourist during this holiday. It is one of the things that I really don't like in China. If you read other blogs about China you probably have seen some advise on bargaining. Now this is something that few people in the West know how to do. You may not even be aware the the first price you are given may be up to 5 times what a vendor will ask of a Chinese person. We don't have this kind of situation in the west save the flee markets. The only things that we usually bargain for are houses and cars, so our skills need to be developed. It's really quite irritating after awhile, but with a little work and knowledge you can buy things at or near the same price that the locals do. This can be done with almost everything except for items in department stores which are pretty much the price that is posted. You need to be aware that when they see your face a vendor will almost always try to make 3 to 5 times more profit from you than the knowing locals. So get a friend to help you or just comparison shop before you buy.

Before I went I researched the hotel prices in Sanya. Most decent looking hotels ranged from 400 to 800 per night, during the non peak time frame. Every one had triple that price during the Spring festival. So I was looking at 1200 to 2000 or more for a hotel room. Now for people that come from the West this perhaps is an expected price for a decent hotel, but teachers in China make 5,000 to 8,000 rmb per month so you could easily spend two or three months salary on a week or two. I am just not willing to do that. Consider this tact. I payed 480 rmb for two weeks for a small apartment. Just because of my contacts with my students and their families. Sixty dollars for two weeks, you just can't beat that. Let's face it, most of your time there will be to enjoy the beaches and the outdoor activities. It doesn't take that much effort to ask around. If you have Chinese language skills I'm sure you could find one in one of the local neighborhoods. Living like a local is also an experience you may enjoy. The conditions will not be as nice but the streets do get cleaned daily for the most part, they just don't stay clean very long. This is a problem everywhere in China, people just toss all kinds of rubbish into the streets and it is then taken away by workers who collect the trash. It does leave much of the cities strewn with trash. It is quite appalling for most. It is also quite difficult to accept that culturally the Chinese are so totally uncaring about the filth they live in, it is just the way it is. Why something cannot be done about it in an authoritarian society is beyond reason.

I'm not a tidy freak, a anal retentive or a perfectionist about cleanliness either. I have just never seen anything that compares to the litter and garbage that is everywhere in China. That's what 1.3 billion people gets you, I guess. On the other hand most Chinese are quite fastidious about their own hygiene. Even with some of the litter, it is still quite beautiful, but unless you have seen it with your own eyes you may not realize the scope of the problem.

The picture above is in the apartment I rented. It only had a bed and that was it. Everything else we needed was loaned to us by my students grandparents. Chinese people are quite kind and generous to friends. This is one of the good things about the country and the people, the acts of kindness. They are really great that way.

worldtour aka Larry Rhoe

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The Pearl River Hot Springs Resort

2007-03-03T17:52:00.000+08:00

One of the first places we visited in Sanya was the Pearl River Hot Springs Resort. It is about 45 minutes outside of the city of Sanya Hainan. You can catch a free bus ride there from the beach at Da Dong Hai, or Big East Sea. This is one of the nicer beaches in my opinion. Your taxi driver will know how to get there or the 202 bus also will get you there. There are several resort hotels along the beach and you can rent an umbrella, jet ski, windsurf or ride in a boat, or just enjoy swimming or sunbathing. I spent my New Years Eve there and there was a stage with many singers and it was where the local TV was for the celebration. There was a wide variety of entertainers, including an American band from California. There was also a government sponsored fireworks show as well as individuals lighting off their own fireworks. So it's a good place to see. The bus to go to the hot springs leaves from there.

The cost for a day at the hot springs is 160 rmb or about 20 dollars. Quite reasonable for most people with good facilities. There are many pools for soaking and relaxing in with different substances in the water, such as coffee, coconut milk, herbs, flowers, and some Jacuzzi style areas with water jets. All pools have the temperature listed and you can try them all. They also have a play pool for children and a nice swimming pool. Food and drinks are available as well. The picture here is from a pool that had thousands of small fish that eat your skin! A very interesting sensation, quite ticklish. It felt like a low voltage electrical current. Some could not bear the sensation and could not contain their laughter as the fish nibbled away on your legs, toes, and hands. I must warn you about the sun though an afternoon there will result in a pretty nasty sunburn if you have a fair complexion as I do. So be careful, use the sunblock or stay out of the sun part of the time. You don't want to spend the rest of your vacation indoors as the weather is very nice.

Being a tourist city, you have many people trying to sell you everything from fresh fruit to pearls. The pearls that are sold on the beach are not very expensive and you can get a long strand of them for about 30 rmb, just a few bucks. Remember to bargain, you can get the long strands for 30 rmb so don't over pay if they won't sell at that price just walk away and someone else will. I don't know that much about pearls and I'm sure you can find the high quality ones in any department store but the ones sold on the street are nice and they are real.

Stay tuned for more info on the city and the vacation.

worldtour aka Larry Rhoe

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The Sanya Vacation Report

2007-03-02T12:14:00.000+08:00

Greetings, I have returned from Sanya. For those of you who don't know where that is, it is China's largest island and smallest province, located in the South China sea. As you can see from the dates of my posting, I was not able to post during the vacation. Mostly by choice and not due to the availability of internet connections. I will be posting over the next few days. One thing you need to know is that going to an airlines web page and booking flight is not the way to go. You will pay up to twice as much for your tickets. This is one big difference here in China, they don't quite get it in that regard. So if you are here in China ask a friend to recommend an agent. That being said, I got tickets for 1310 rmb, from Harbin to Sanya, via Beijing. My other choice was to go through Chong Qing which was quite a bit longer, so I opted for an overnight in Beijing. If you have to do that I would recommend the Capital Airport Hotel. You can book a room there online and the hotel is just minutes away from the airport. Rooms are clean, not too big and the price is right, 368 rmb a night. There are places to eat in the hotel and the prices are reasonable there too.

I have spoken before about how friends will really be helpful to get you a good deal. Here is a good example. One of my student's grandparents winter in Sanya. They knew a woman who rents out a small apartment. The price is 450 rmb for one day or one month or anything in between. During the Spring Festival hotel prices are triple the normal price, so that means you will pay about 1000 or more per night which is pretty much out of reach for most people here, including me. So after arriving, we went to the address provided and paid our host plus 2oo rmb deposit for utilities, which ended up being only 30 rmb for the entire time. Our friends brought us a wok, a couple tables and stools and we had our base set up. Now mind you, there was not any hot water but there was a shower and with the heat the water is not too cold and with a hot plate you can clean up fine. Assuming you have a bit of the Spartan spirit in you. I have never liked spending too much on hotels but if you can afford 15k on a hotel be my guest.

I hope this gives you a little insight into how to navigate your travel in China. Rely on your friends, students and the people they know and you will save big time. I will be detailing more of the vacation very soon as time allows as classes begin again today.

Worldtour aka Larry Rhoe

A teachers vacation in China

2007-02-13T11:29:00.000+08:00

A teacher may only teach 14-20 hours a week in class, but anyone who has taught knows that usually will be a 40 hour week. As an independent teacher here in China I have been putting in about 40 class hours per week for the past 7 weeks. In short, its time for a rest. Because I'm not at a university I didn't have that 7 weeks off. Now I have decided to see what all the fuss is about in Hainan. Hainan is China's largest island and smallest province. Sanya in the southern part of the island and is known for its beaches and year round nice weather. Currently according to Yahoo's weather section it is 62-82 today. Sounds perfect to me.
Sometimes bloggers and especially expats in China bitch and moan about this and that. Myself included. Sometimes it seems the everyday niceties are lacking, but gestures of uncommon kindness are often more prevalent than in the West. People go out of their way to help you, as they have for me to make this vacation happen. Friends who know travel agents, student's grandmothers who have a friend that has an empty apartment, advice on where the good deals are to buy an apartment. These kindnesses tend to outweigh the daily irritations of Chinese life through Western eyes.

I'm reminded of one afternoon when the skies opened up and the street by my school was running two feet deep past the entrance. I just needed to get home and waded through it onto safer ground, and received an escort from a woman , as I didn't have an umbrella. A complete stranger.

Stay posted for some photos from Sanya. This photo comes from a blog at this address and it will give you an idea about the island or just google Sanya.

A recommendation and how to get a more visitors

2007-01-31T16:20:00.000+08:00

I was looking at some of the comments left by readers and found a comment from Katie. Katie has a TEFL site called TEFLLougue. She left a nice comment and mentioned my blog on her blog. So I want to return the gesture. She has done an excellent job on the layout of the site and the contents are also very good. You may want to check it out, just click the link or the logo above to check it out.

Getting people to read your blog can be a bit difficult but the best way is just to have a decent page rank with Google. The best way to do that is to have good content and get links from other sites that have something to do with your sites subject matter. Content is King, that is what the marketers tell you. Here is an easy way to improve your page rank which will in turn bring more visitors from the search engines. One of the easiest ways to get indexed is to add your own blog to your my yahoo page with a rss feed. This is pretty much a surefire way to get indexed at Yahoo, and it only takes a few minutes. Another strategy is to get links to your site from related sites. The higher the page rank the better. This is not too hard to do if you have a good blog with good content. My blog currently has a page rank of 4 out of 10. Not great but not too bad considering I often have gaps in publishing. Publishing regularly once you do get indexed is also a key element in attaining a higher page rank. It just means you will be listed higher in the searches. Blogger is owned by Google so you may want to host your blog there as it makes sense that they will index all sites they have on their properties. The spiders will return. You should also blog and ping at places like Pingomatic.

Pinging lets several of the directories for blogs and indexes know that you have updated your blog and could get your site spidered, searched, by the big three, Google, Yahoo, and MSN. If you can get one way links to your site they are the best, but reciprocal links are also valuable. Posting in forums and having your site in your signature file is another way to build your page rank. Writing articles and listing them with article directories is another way to build page rank and get your name out there. You can leave a link in the resource box and these may be picked up and used by other sites. I really have not spent that much time doing these things and I saw my page rank rise using these easy techniques so you can too.

So thanks Katie for stopping by and I'll be checking out your blog too.

Worldltour aka Larry Rhoe

More snow and window leaks

2007-01-31T11:17:00.000+08:00

As promised the posting to the blog will be more frequent. It is the end of January and we got the heaviest snow of the season. It really doesn't snow much here in Harbin it's a rather dry winter here, but it is always quite cold. This winter has been quite warm by Harbin standards. I have live in three different places at this latitude, Minneapolis, Seattle and Harbin. They say that Harbin is the coldest place on earth at this latitude. That seems right, but this year it has not been as cold. I really have not been out in the weather that much this winter as I have been building my business. It has been quite a bit warmer though. It fits right in with the lessons on global warming, sad to say.

This is the interior of my courtyard. In the background you can see the piles of coal and a parent who is letting her child climb up to the top of the pile. I guess that is an activity. For a while, the city will look a little nicer as the snow will cover the blackened streets and ice. The winter can cause lots of this dust to be dragged into your home, into the window cracks. Even though most newer homes and remodeled buildings have double glass the workmanship is pretty poor. Gaps, no caulk, bad fittings cause major waste of energy. For those of you who are my age, or don't remember, it's like the days when made in Japan meant, crap. I hate to say it but even in this apartment which is designated as a "model" apartment, the workmanship is quite appalling.

Here are some examples. My kitchen and bath have nice tile, but it is applied over about an inch of concrete to even out the walls. They don't use a trawl with teeth so it does not adhere as it should because it is not done properly. The result? I had ten tiles fall off at the same time when the room was unoccupied. It is not hung either, it is done backwards, meaning they start at the bottom and not the top. Rooms are not square, so floor tiles angle off to complete the floor tiles. So the symmetry of the room is all askew. There goes the whole concept of tiles and aesthetics. The concept of using spacers and grout is also not used here. Everything is just butted up to the next one. When it was done some tiles with chipped corners or damaged tiles were installed too. Just a whole bunch of things that scream, lack of pride in workmanship. A stark contrast to the artistic carvings and many other things which are wonderful examples of skill and pride. Well the work is done by transient workers who are paid a pittance.

It probably bothers me more than most as this is one area of my personality that likes order. I discovered this though my experiences in the construction trade and remodeling and working on my own places in the States. By doing things right you actually save yourself lots of headaches in the future.

Well two more weeks with my nose to the grindstone and then some time off. Most teachers are already off enjoying travel if they are at a university, those of us in the private sector get much shorter breaks as parents have their children's time blocked out with extra classes. It's a bit sad when you realize most of the classes are just lessons in rote learning and will soon be forgotten with little attention paid to the higher aspects of learning, such as deduction, extrapolation, and logic. Is there anyone else who feels the pangs of logic ignored here in China? It's one of those things that I have not yet been able to get used too, very frustrating.

Worldtour aka Larry Rhoe

Taiwan Earthquake shuts down my blog

2007-01-29T20:04:00.000+08:00

I'm sorry that there have been no posts recently. The fiber optics cables between China and Taiwan were severed in the earthquake on December 26, so the net has not been working for sites outside of China. It's good to have the resources back again and I will update more frequently now.

It is nearing the Chinese New Year or Spring festival. Students have a holiday so for me that means I am really busy now. I have classes everyday as parents "must" have their children in classes all the time. Sometimes I pity them. They really complain about it, too much but it is understandable. I have seven books I am teaching from or seven different levels with ten classes. So it means for about a month or so I do nothing but teach, eat and sleep. It is also the most profitable time of the year much like summer vacation in July and August.

For those of you that may just be becoming acquainted with this blog, I'll recap a little. I was offered a job at the best university here in Harbin, Harbin Institute of Technology but after two weeks I decided it was not for me. The extremely low salary of 4300 rmb per month coupled with an administration not to my liking made it a pretty easy choice. I'm not really your average teacher. Not that I am bragging about my abilities but I don't really like working for others if it is not an exceptional situation. So I decided to be a businessman and a teacher. To put into perspective, the 4300 rmb per month offered to me can be earned in 4 days if they are my busy weekend days. So you see it was not a difficult decision to make. Here is one thing that was just totally weird. Many of you may know that any kind of religious work as a teacher is prohibited. This is stated in the standard contracts that come from the central planners, it's in every contract. H.I.T. has for many years had a working relationship with a religious, missionary group. I can't remember the name, or would I post it here, but that is just totally bizarre here in China. I have never heard of this happening anywhere else from anyone else. Here is my take on the situation. It is all about expediency. If they can't find enough teachers they just put in their order and lickety split they get 4 or 5 twenty something teachers.

Now China is full of twenty something teachers and many are bright well qualified people but placing zealots into the best university in the province really boggled my mind. Having grown up as a preachers kid I know how these people operate. These people meaning missionaries. The other part of the equation is the Chinese side. I feel I am beginning to understand that a little too. Many students have similar aspirations. Get a good job that pays a lot that requires little work. I feel the answer lies between these two "realities".

Worldtour

Happy Birthday China

2006-10-05T12:51:00.000+08:00

It is the National Day holiday time now in China. This would be the time you might consider traveling to new and interesting destinations. It's usually around 7 days and things slow down quite a bit and some businesses are closed. For me it means more classes as parents like to have their children attending classes all the time. I have had some students that have 4 or 5 classes on a Saturday or Sunday. It's good for private schools as it crams a few more weeks into one as far as volume. It's always a a bit difficult to get it coordinated with what the majority of parents want. If they have seven days I aim for three classes during that time, but sometimes two is what the parents want. This is one of the main things to consider when you are thinking about a job somewhere. If you are in the public system then you have your time off. If you are working in the private sector, chances are you will not get the full seven days off during this time as they will be conducting classes. Be sure to check the contract for if it is paid or unpaid. It may vary school to school.

This is one of the really nice times of year in Harbin. The days are comfortble and the nights are cool, perfect. Still warm enough for outdoor dining, and a long sleeve shirt is usually plenty for the evening. The local apples are starting to come to market and those lucious Xing Jiang grapes too. When they are good they are as good as any grapes I have had anywhere.

Yesterday, I was taken out to lunch by two of my students mothers. We had lunch at the Shangri-la hotel. This was a very nice gesture. It is probably the best hotel chain in China, certainly it is one of the top 5. It was a buffet style with a few people cooking at stations, for instance the pasta, or entree, it was really good. Lots of wonderful foods with an international flare. I liked the cheese, olives, salami, beef with red bean all top notch. If you want to treat yourself to a wonderful brunch it is well worth the 108 rmb, about 12 bucks. It may have been one of the best buffets I have ever been to and the service was excellent. Thank you very much ladies.

Larry Rhoe aka worldtour

Teaching Challenges in China

2006-09-26T10:42:00.000+08:00

This is Cody. Cody enjoys dancing and was able to travel to Singapore and perform with her dance group. Parents in China devote a lot of time and resources into the child. It is very structured and they don't have much free time. Cody attends with her cousin Linda and skipped part of one book but she is keeping up with the class. Many students want to work in higher level books, there are many reasons, schedule, friends, parents desires. One problem you may run into when teaching oral English is the impact or sometimes lack of impact on the students scores in the Chinese schools. Since this education focuses on reading writing and grammar, your oral classes may or may not raise the students English scores. With good students who are speaking well the grammar usually takes care of itself. However, you do get some parents whose express purpose is to raise the scores in the Chinese system, even though this system spits out millions of students who can not speak more than a few sentences and possess poor listening skills if any. So there is a bit of a problem there, if you concentrate too much on the grammar, they speak less, but the parent may be happier. If you can balance it then everyone is probably somewhat pleased.

It's a matter of wearing two hats for me. As the teacher, I want them to be able to speak and have a decent conversation with someone, but as the school owner I must try to get the school scores up to please the parents. Since the system is not going to change any time soon, that means more grammar. I've started implementing the testing from the books which gives me and the parent some idea as to where their child ranks in my class. Having some that score in the 90 percentile helps show the parents it works. It does go somewhat against the grain for me though, as I prefer a more improvised setting around a defined structure,(the book). I have steered away from too much testing as it gobbles up time in class, and they have so many things to study for it just seems like overload. This sort of cross purposes is prevalent in most schools. The other dynamic you get is, it's a business! So some times sales are more important than verified results. Well, it beats working in the factory.

Larry Rhoe aka worldtour

Day trips for teachers in China

2006-09-25T12:05:00.000+08:00

If it is at all possible, get your days off together when you are teaching in China. There are lots of daytrips that you might enjoy. If you teach for a private language school this should not be a problem. It will likely be during the week. If you prefer teaching English to university students that also is no problem. Some schools have real challenges when it comes to scheduling so try to get your days off together. There are lots of overnight trains that can get you there while you sleep so you can maximize your traveling. This is a picture from Jiang Bei, or North River in Harbin at Sun Island. As you can see it is quite nice and a pleasant stroll . Like chess? Get some exercise at the same time. Sun Island is a tourist hangout but the locals like it too. You can see the tigers and enjoy the gardens as well as many other things. Because it is so cold in the winter here, people try to make the most of summer and all that that brings.

Many foreigners may notice a sort of slow motion in the Chinese. It's not much different from say a New Yorker and a small town midwesterner, one has a very fast paced life and the other may at a much slower pace. Most Chinese here in the North are not out of second gear. You see it all the time on the streets and at places like this the pace slows down even more, except for the kids who are bursting with energy. You may like the layed back pace or it may drive you a little nuts, depends on your background. I do think it is important to slow down and enjoy life whenever possible and there are many lovely places to do that. Enjoy!

Larry Rhoe aka worldtour

Happy Birthday Dad, You're the best.

2006-09-21T19:46:00.000+08:00

Today is my father's birthday. He is 80 years old today and still going strong. He's quite a guy. This picture is when he came to visit me here in Harbin. I was just getting started with the school and this is at my old apartment. I think he is a great example of human being. Dad has spent most of his life as a minister, and he comes to Asia usually once per year at least. He has semi retired and has a nice life working around his place. He also collects some funds from other good hearted people and buys cows and pigs for people in Bali that are quite poor. It's great to see the love of Jesus in action not just as a ritual in a church. There are so many that are pious and don't put their faith into action so I really admire him for that.

Traveling to China is quite easy and not really very expensive. I think anyone can have an interesting time even on a tour. I prefer to be on my own when I travel, but you can always find resonable tours. It's always good to have a friend in the city you are going to visit, and there are many ways to do that too. Well I just wanted to put up a picture of Dad, Michelle and myself on this special day. Love you dad.

Larry Rhoe aka worldtour

Chinese start English classess when very young.

2006-09-14T20:41:00.000+08:00

This is May. May has been taking classes from me for over a year. She was one of my students at the last location and followed me when I dissassociated myself from that school. She is a lovely child, very smart and a good student too. Often you have a smart child that is not a good student. When you get it all in one package it is really nice.

The new class started today. This group is even younger, in the 5-7 year old range. Many can say a few words but the reading skills are not there. They know their alphabet and a few other things. I was not sure if they could do the young learners series from Cambridge press, but I gave it a shot with that book as I have had good luck with it so far. I will probably have to mix in some flashcards and take it a bit slower so they can start to grasp the connection between the letters and word formation. First class pretty good. Michelle helps with Chinese translation and I know a little too. I also am pretty good at the non verbal so that helps alot. Mime is great for verbs, adjectives and adverbs, but not as useful with nouns. It's a great way for me to develop young learner skills, some classes catch on quick, and I always speak English in Class. As I have said before, one major flaw in the English education here is that most of the Chinese English teachers teach in Chinese and that has proven not to work. So by using English only in the classroom, or at least 90% of the time you achieve a better result. They will get plenty of instruction in writing and reading in their schools so having this approach will give a better balance to their overall English Education.

I did my English VCD today as I do every month. I do all of the narration and voices for all the characters on the VCD and book. It is a monthly publication connected somehow to the party. It is quite well done and I work directly with an editor/producer and one computer person to record in MP3 format. It has stories, profiles, holiday explainations and it is completely hyperlinked. When the student encounters a new word, it can be clicked on and then you will hear me saying the word. The book has the Chinese characters for traslation. I usually have one of my students come with me and they perform the Chinese sections. It's great for them to see how it is done and get their first "job" as a performer. Hats off to the production team that does a good job with that. You can take a peek at their website here.

Some of you may have noticed that I took down the posts about Hit, although I felt I was honest, now that my site seems to be able to be seen in China, I thought it best to soften my position. Sometimes a job is just not the right fit for you. This was the case at HIT. I am happy to have had the opportunity but it just was not the opportunity for me. It is an open market now and sooner or later most schools will get with the free market concept of prevailing wage and that should help the teacher, letting those with more experience and credentials to rise to the top. It will also help schools become more well known with the top teachers. Most of us are not here for the money, but let's be honest it is important to everyone, on both sides of the equation.

Larry Rhoe aka worldtour

Feng Shui, Fact of Fiction?

2006-09-13T19:30:00.000+08:00

Perhaps some of you have heard of Feng Shui. It is a Chinese system of organizing your home into a harmonious situation. Since I am here in China I thought I would check it out. One of the newsletters I subscribe to is about that subject. You can find it here. The picture on the left is in my office and that is my schedule. On the left you see three coins tied with a red string. This is suppose to bring you money. I put it up about 10 days ago, my girlfriend incorporated them into the knotted red string that you see. I picked up the coins outside the school where I teach once a week, they don't have any foreign teachers. An elderly man had about twenty of these old coins. You see them quite often, they have a square in the middle of the coin. Now, according to the blog listed above you should get them from a prosperous business or they should have belonged to a rich person. Well this man was not rich but he was dress very well for someone who sold odds and ends on the sidewalk. My thinking was that at some point in time they surely were in the possession of a wealthy Chinese person. Here is what happened after I put them up.

A few days later, two mothers arrived at my home enquiring about classes and said they could probably deliver 10 or 11 students. They wanted two classes per week that is 2000 rmb, I'm cheap, 25 rmb for two hours, so 500 per week. A few days later I got a call from one of my former students at another school, my first in Harbin, and she also wanted classes for adults in business English. That would be 1400 per month. I also have had about 5 other mothers show up with their children wanting classes. Pretty amazing! Who knows, coincidence? Or does it really work. If you are interested then check it out, see what happens. I don't do any advertising at all, this is all word of mouth so if these 20 new students materialize, I will have about 90 students. One hundred was a goal I have had for awhile. Six months ago when I moved my apartment and my teaching location I had 40 students. So things are looking good for the future and I probably won't have to do any other teaching outside of my own. It's great to be the boss and as I was told by Dan early on in my teaching, a small school with an owner, teacher was on of the best models for making money. Low overhead, no payroll, just your own efforts. Well, not just me, my girlfriend does the books and is my assistant, she's great. Now all I have to figure out is getting the resident permit renewed in December. I think I can get that done through my first job here, for a price ofcourse.

So I have just about made up for the low salary I gave up at HIT, once I reach 100 students my income will have risen to about 10,000 rmb per month, which is about 1200 dollars, and that my friend in China is a really nice sum, that puts you in the upper middle class.

Larry Rhoe aka worldtour

New Internet business that is paying

2006-08-28T13:08:00.000+08:00

Sorry it has been a while since I posted as I have been quite busy lately. Here's the latest news. ProwealthSolutions is the newest of my internet businesses. I have kept the posting about that aspect of my worldtour very low keyed but perhaps some of you have been looking for a way to make some extra money. This one has brought in about 200 bucks at the time of this posting which is pretty good considering my small list and it is still in Pre Launch. So I invite you to take a look. It is free to pre enroll, but for those that decide they want to give it a try, I have a special offer just for readers of my blog. If you become a member I will rebate, 20 dollars back to you when my Fast Start Bonus is paid, though Paypal.

Here is the news on the teaching front. I have been hired by Harbin Institute of Technology, the best school in the Province and a tier one University. I will begin tomorrow, teaching oral English, Film, and Writing. So a new challenge new faces and the end of my life of leisure. Well not really, since I have had classes every day during the summer for my own students. I'll be posting more about this experience in the future so stay tuned. This is how you get ahead get money in the bank and build your resume. Just stay so busy you can't spend it. LOL, oh well it's not hard to do if you enjoy your work.

The FOA, Foreign Affairs Officer and the English Dept. Vice Dean are great so that should make for a smooth transition. I also heard that a teacher will be arriving from my neck of the woods, Seattle. So that will also be nice to have a fellow teacher from my home area. Got to go, but I really encourage you to take a look at ProWealthSolutions, it's great to have dollars going into your bank account at home or when you are traveling.

Worldtour aka Larry Rhoe

I really love teaching in China

2006-08-06T20:04:00.000+08:00

It occurred to me after reading brett's post in the previous post that it's been a while since I expressed how much I really enjoy my life as a teacher. You know if you have visited ESL forums, that much of the talk is focused on what is wrong in China, or perhaps the cultural differences. What fails to get mentioned enough is just how much fun it can be to live this lifestyle. Sure, teaching is a lot of work and if you are new to it there are some thing you will have to learn about the culture and there are also things you will have to re-learn. Most of us don't think about our grammar at all as it is our first language, so some prep time is needed. However as you progress your style emerges and you have to spend less time in lesson planning and good schools have the books chosen so you just have to follow the book and then try to engage the students into a new style of learning. Now that is no small task, so the creative types may have an easier time at it than others. Adaptability and flexibility are two main attributes that you need as things can get all twisted and sometimes management can be poor. Remember that for most that own a school first and foremost it is a business, and there are many ruthless business owners in China. There is not the same business ethic that exists in the West. As long as you are aware of that then you are a bit ahead of the game. That is why it is so important to find out everything you can about a school before you commit.

So I just wanted to say that living and working in China has been one of the most enjoyable and unique experiences of my life. I really didn't want to plod along back home, doing jobs below my education level, contributing taxes to the war machine, and I pretty much vowed not to return until we had a change in leadership. Don't get me wrong I bleed red, white and blue, but sometimes we are powerless to affect change. Having started out as a liberal person, I can say that this experience has truly broadened my world view. It's made me more tolerant in many ways, and it has given me an opportunity to affect lives in a positive way. Hey that's all good in my view. So if I sometimes get on a rant or start venting, it's just a cathartic thing we all do in China. It is that way for everyone that is in another country, you might bitch about it all but you will really miss it, and most come away changed for life and most for the better.

Larry Rhoe aka worldtour

P.S. Just a reminder if you are a yahoo user or really any of the other sites such as msn you can add my blog to your my yahoo, so you will always know when there is a new post. Or you can add it to your favorites with a news reader that can get the RSS feed.

Teaching Children in China

2006-08-05T12:18:00.000+08:00

Teaching children in China can be a very rewarding experience for a teacher. After three and one half years of teaching at all different levels and types of schools, I can say for me the rewards are really great teaching the young children. I use the Cambridge for schools books and I find them to be very good books. I usually get a student when they are about 7 or 8 years old. Many are really at the ABC level at that age and that is fine, for these students I use the Cambridge for young learners books. In some ways this is a better book than the Starter book, which usually follows. I now have students who are in book 3, which is really book 4, and these students all speak better than 90 % of my college students did at Li Gong University. So as I said in the last post, if you get them first or early in their learning you can really bring them along relatively fast and most of them should make the top 5 in their classes in English. Many of my students are at the top of their class in English. I was also fortunate to have a student place at the top level in all of China in the national testing by age group. There are 200 private language schools in Nangang where I live and two students received a first place prize, one of them was mine. So that is very gratifying, and one of the perks teaching the young. At this age they are quite eager to learn, the pathways or roads within their brains are not set as with older students, so they learn English just about as well as they learn Chinese.

The types of problems you may encounter at this level are usually connected with the ability to concentrate and pay attention. I conduct classes entirely in English and only have a need for translation sporadically. For this I use my Chinese teacher or my girlfriend whose English level is high enough for the task. The basic flaw in the Chinese system is they teach English in Chinese, so many, after 10 years of English study are unable to really speak and their listening skills are even worse. At an older age they tend to just tune out. With the younger children with the help of pictures and repetition the meaning and usage of the language flow together nicely. Just about everywhere I have been in China for some unknown reason uses "New Concept" English books. Which is really a misnomer as it is old concept and in my view a terrible book. That is why we are here to expose them to Western teaching methods and I can tell you with certainty that it does work. You can't learn English by teaching it in Chinese. You get no skills in listening and the speaking is not much better. In China the teaching style is much like baby birds in a nest, they open their mouths and you regurgitate your knowledge into them. Any teacher in China has heard the phrase "get or gain a lot of knowledge". This is the style the teacher drones on and on with little or no interaction from the students, is it any wonder that the schools have failed in this regard?

To be fair, my last university position had students who could not get into other universities for the most part because of their poor scores and non existent study habits. They had the money, or rather I should say their parents had money. Most of them were just flushing yuan down the WC. Well that is the way it goes sometimes in China, once the student is admitted to a university he will graduate as nobody receives a mark lower than a 60. You could do absolutely nothing and still graduate. Couple this with no work experience and having had virtually no other responsibilities and you get a pretty pathetic picture of what the future holds for most.

Larry aka worldtour

Shenyang, Another city in the Northeast

2006-08-01T07:49:00.000+08:00

Brandon from San Diego commented on my last post and asked some questions about Shenyang. So I thought I would post a little info about that city. Here is a picture of a part of the Shenyang palace complex. Shenyang is one of two cities that have an Imperial palace, the other of course is Beijing. Much of the north's economies are based in manufacturing and Shenyang is no different. My girlfriends comment about the city was there are a lot of factories. This is true. I spent about 5 or 6 days there and my initial impression was that it was a very grey city. Now what I mean by that is that the buildings are like many of the building here in Harbin. Everything is built from brick and then covered with cement, this is common. Many buildings are not painted or it has been a long time since they were painted so there is a general grey feeling to the city. It was not long after I had come to Harbin and it is an overnight train ride so I took off for a while. I had a friend there, a nice gal who invited me to come.

Most of the palace was being renovated so I was not able to see too much of it, but some workers let me in the gate to take a few shots. This shot is taken from the web. I remember taking walks down one of the market streets in the evening, walking around a park that had a lake, a disgusting canal littered with rubbish and green slim. I also remember her sisters 24th floor apartment, which was as nice as many western apartments. This is pretty common in China, 25 year old buildings that are not too nice at least on the outside and in contrast some very nice modern hi-rise apartments that are very nice. One of the highlights of the trip was a visit to the famous market area. Shenyang has the largest wholesale market in China and you could spend several days and not see it all. You can really get some great prices there, for example, I had been looking for a pack, I had priced many of them in Beijing at about 130rmb or about 15-20 dollars. In Shenyang the same packs were 40 and I may not have gotten the best price possible as my bargaining skills are not as good as they are now. Rollerblades in the stores were about 3- 5 hundred rmb, and at the market, 90. So if you want to do a little shopping it's a great place to do it.

Brandon was concerned with the air pollution. Well, welcome to China. It's interesting because it is all relative to your experience, having lived in Los Angeles in the early 70's, and 79- 91, I saw some pretty bad pollution in the early days. It's better now, as it is better in the North of China. My girlfriends son was just here from Yi Chang in Hubei and he thought the air was very fresh here in Harbin. He may have never really known what fresh air is like. When you have heavy industry and millions of people, and cars and buses, that is what you get, bad air. Probably not any worse than it was in LA during the early 70's but that might mean a brown hanging haze. If you want cleaner air take a job in a more rural area. You may be the only foreigner in that place though, so you trade some of the amenities. Hey if you are concerned about it sign a six month contract and then you can move to greener pastures, this pretty much goes for any place in China, you just never know until you get here how you will feel about the city you have chosen. Do your due diligence and research as much as you can on the net, and always try to talk with current teachers that are at the institution you are considering.

worldtour

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Here is a place to spend an afternoon at in Harbin

2006-07-25T14:54:00.000+08:00

If you are visiting Harbin in the summertime you will probably want to visit Sun Island. On the north shore of the Songhua river it's a pleasent way to kill some time. Here you see a beer wagon. Does this remind you of something in the states. Well it doen't have six clydesdales but just like the king of beers it is owned by Budwieser. Let's hope they don't wreck it and turn it into a bud clone. You see alot of horse and donkey carts and wagons in Harbin, which is nice, I think. The are trotting down streets transporting many different things. These horses have had an nice haircut recently. Be sure to try the Harbin Beer, if you are a beer drinker, you can't go wrong with a cold Harbin beer.
Larry aka worldtour

Finding that special someone in China

2006-07-21T20:35:00.000+08:00

Let's face it, everyone needs some love and affection. I have to say that on average the Chinese women are among the most beautiful on earth. I am not just talking about the outer beauty but they are also possess an inner beauty that is very appealing. Now I am an older guy, even though my Chinese name is Yong Bu Lao, never grows old, I'm sure I could get a much younger women. Asian women don't mind being with an older man. I think you will be much happier with a woman that is closer to your age. Here in China there are many women that have divorced and these women sometimes find it difficult to find another man. Plus young women here are just so immature, they have little experience romantically or at least that is what they profess. Chinese men generally don't want a ready made family or even a women who is divorced, they have that old fashioned attitude of "she is used goods". Now that in itself is quite ironic as they might run the streets, and frequent massage parlors or worse, so the double standard is quite pervasive. It's easy to get divorced in China so there are many women in their thirties and forties who are without a man.

I recommend that you never date anyone at the school you are teaching at, especially the students. There are too many predatory teachers breaking hearts and giving the teachers a bad name. It is quite easy to meet a nice woman here. If you can't find one on the streets, meaning you may just happen to talk to someone when you are out and about, then I know you can find one on Asianfriendfinder. You can test the waters a bit and email them and then meet for a lunch or dinner at a public place and ease into it. Chinese women are quite reserved and before you can become close you will need to show them your better qualities. For some that can take quite awhile, for others it is about the same as in the west. It's hard to generalize about this but I have had good luck with the online dating that is available at Asianfriendfinder. Perhaps you may chose to find a partner when you are out and about. This is a bit harder it seems to me. Most don't go out and party and friends or relations may try and set them up. My advise, get a woman and leave the girls alone. You also need to realize that a thirty year old could still be a girl. Many don't mature much until the reality of marriage sets in. In general, both boys and girls are really immature in China. The only thing they know is school and that is their major if not only responsibility, everything else is given to them by their parents. So don't expect them to be like the girls you know at home who have been dating since they were 16, because it just isn't the way it is. Most have no where to go to have any privacy and they are more intimate with their girlfriends than with boys, as they are basically segregated, and truthfully college girls are about the equivalent mentally and emotionally to a junior high school girl, so how fun could that be? Of course if you are a recent college grad yourself and teaching abroad then I'm sure it would be okay for you. The main point is, it's a whole different ballgame here. In many ways I feel it is really sad. Most Chinese young people have little to no life experience until they decide to get married. The only thing they know is school and study, they really don't have the same kind of learning regarding social skills, relationships, as we do in the west. Once they are married that's it, the work life has begun, then the child, and taking care of the folks and that's it. End of story. I know this sounds very generalized and of course that is not a good thing to do, but these things are generally true.

Here is a contrast, by the time I was 19, I had lived in my own house, had worked, had been to the university, had traveled to Europe with two buddies, had 20-30 girlfriends, not all at once, wink, and had been doing summer jobs since I was 12 years old. The average 19 year old in China has never had any kind of job, does not have any responsibilities at home beyond studying, has never been intimate, gets everything from his parents, has never been out of his country, feels he is too young to have a girlfriend, is more comfortable walking with his arm around his male friends than with a girl, has never been on a date, has never kissed a girl, dreams of being given a high paying job that requires little or no work.

I guess that is why we call it a foreign country.

Larry aka worldtour

China Summer Vacation: it's here sort of

2006-07-16T10:09:00.000+08:00

China's school calendar is quite different from in the States. They have two vacation times, one is in the winter, well they call it spring, during the New year or Spring Festival, the other is during the summer time. However, that doesn't mean the children will be taking a break. What I mean is, this is a time for more classes. So for someone like me who is teaching their own classes it means more work and more income.

It's always a challenge to get the schedule to be suitable for all the students parents but most want at least double the classes that they have for their kids. So from the second week of July until near September most private schools will have a busy schedule. This solves one problem that most private schools have and that is utilizing the space at the school during the monday to friday period. Most teachers at a private school have a very heavy schedule on the weekends, and only the better schools can make enough connections to place their teachers into the universities or other public schools, although this can be a major source of the schools income. Being a one man show at my school it's a bit different but it is a time when I can basically double my income for a month, both in the summer and in the winter. It does mean that it is difficult to travel as these times are when many teachers and Chinese family do travel.

Chinese workers don't really earn vacation status like in the states. There are national holidays so most everyone is off of work at Spring Festival and they may or may not receive full pay. There are really quite a few holidays so most people get about 3 weeks during the year when they and their fellow workers on at home or traveling. It does make for a challenging travel scenario as so many are traveling at the same time. Some private schools will give you a week of paid vacations and you should always try to have national holidays paid with your regular salary. If you are at a university you usually will be offered a travel stipend of between 1-2 thousand yuan. That will cover your travel by train but not much more, so save your money if you want to have more of a fling during these times.

I never thought of myself as a workaholic, but I have usually ended up working during the breaks to bring in a little more income. When I was teaching at my first school here in Harbin I did some traveling. I would say to have a good time and a decent hotel you may need your entire months salary, unless you are willing to stay at the cheap hotels which may not be to your liking. In most places 30-40 dollars will be charged for hotels. So around 3-4 hundred yuan. That adds up quickly so ask around or search the web for a decent hotel that has resonable prices. For example, when I traveled to Nanning my first night was at a 4 star hotel and it was quite nice, as it should be, but at nearly 500 rmb per night I would not have the cash to do other things, and who wants to spend all their money on a place to sleep? The next day I found one for only 150 rmb, one third the price with everything I needed. A clean room, a TV and a good bathroom, it also had breakfast included, a restaurant on the first floor, and they were able to book my return flight. Perhaps in the future if I make it big I will opt for the nicer hotels again, but I'd rather spend that money away from the hotel doing interesting thing and seeing the city I am in.
Larry Rhoe aka worldtour

China housing, how much do you want to spend?

2006-07-12T18:16:00.000+08:00

I've written about housing before and expressed my preference to live in my own apartment. Check my past posts for the story behind my last move. There is a wide range of housing. Because I am not at a university at the moment, and I have students, I chose to get a pretty upscale place. This shot is from my balcony window and shows the inside of the courtyard. Most complexes are large, this one is designated as a "model" complex. This is an award given to the best level. Private schools can be rated this way to as well as other things. It has nice flower beds, the bridge on the left traverses the fish pond. You can see the entrance from the street in the center. It is right off a major street, it is not as noisy as most places, so there are a lot of good things including an elevator.

Now don't get me wrong, if you come to China you will not be given a place like this to live as it is just too expensive. However if you team up with another teacher or two you wouldn't be spending that much more than you would be for a mediocre place and 1/3 the size. I rented it to draw in higher end students and to give my current students a nice place to come and study and also for me. You can find smaller places that have been remodeled for about 1000 rmb, and your average 40 - 50 square meter place will be 5-6 hundred rmb. Considering you should make 4-7 thousand rmb that is not to expensive. Right now I'm taking things a bit slower than in the past and I'm in the black so it's a good thing for me right now.

Most complexes have 1st floor businesses on the street side of the buildings. This complex has a large internet cafe on the ground floor to the left of the entrance that you see in the picture. The gamers are having their fun. On the opposite side is a small restaurant. Every thing you want or need is nearby. It's kind of nice to look back at my beginnings here and track my success at least from the housing side of things. I would say that this place is the nicest place I have ever lived in aside from Hancock Park in Hollywood. Remember I have been a starving artist most of my years. Well not starving but certainly struggling. Plus I led a rather simple more rustic life in WA. State living in a converted barn. That may give you a little insight into my past. Well tonight I'm going to have a nice meal on the sidewalk where the night market is and watch the scenery.

worldtour aka Larry Rhoe

2006-07-12T17:08:00.000+08:00

Relaxing in a Chinese Park

2006-07-11T20:46:00.000+08:00

Dancing is something you see often in China. Like everything else here it is slightly different than you might imagine. This shot is in a park in Harbin in the Daoli district. There were actually more dancers but my "date" wanted to take a shot of me. During the summertime some streets come alive with as many as 100 or more people dancing. It is usually the older crowd and the dancing is a group thing. Much like line dancing in Country music. Music might be taped or there may be a drummer and another musician. I think it exemplifies the Chinese mindset. The communal aspect of living, the group dynamic and fitting into the group. I remember the first time I went to a disco. My employers at the school treated us to a night out and we went to a nice hotel, in a busy commercial area that is very popular with the locals. Our host, my bosses husband was most generous keeping our beers coming and there was also a bottle of Jack Daniels. He is a high ranking policeman, way high. There were also several lovely young women who were invited to sit with us. I do mean lovely too, and even though they were probably working, their decorum was very "traditional".

Now, the dancing here, I can only describe as somewhat strange. First there were gogo girls on each side of the DJ area, which was in front of the dance floor, and dancing boys. Now a couple of them were definately boys, complete with that swish swish thing, and an outfit with a plunging neckline, which was definately not purchased in a mens shop. Here the dancing is like one group grope, without the grope. Rather a communal powwow, tuning in to the music and tuning out to everything else. You don't dance with anyone, you just grove to the music, in many cases you could not really say it was dancing. You know like that guy at the sock hop who used to do the Chicken Scratch. It was a little suprising to see the kids tuning out and rocking in solitude. This sort of dancing is common but you will also see more of what you are used to, a guy dancing with a girl, at different venues. It is quite common to also see the boys dancing with each other, as well as girls dancing with each other. It is very common to see older women dancing together in the streets, as there may not be enough men to practice the ballroom type steps you may see. In the discos however you really see alot of solo dancing, and it's okay as there are many that are doing the same thing. It's actually quite the opposite of the way things are in the west, where solo dancers are often seen but it is generally the person who is the freebird of the group. The iconoclast. There are some really great Chinese dancers in many styles, but there are also lots of people who have two left feet. This impediment does not affect their enjoyment. Being a new arrival, I really would have liked a night cap with one of the girls but it was far beyond my means, and who knows it may have been a sort of test by my employer. It was great fun though as it was one of my first nights out in Harbin. We hopped in my bosses Land Cruiser and headed out into the night. Later I wondered just how he was able to drive a 60,000 dollar SUV. Well come to think of it he didn't have to pay for any of the drinks so I'm sure that helps.

Larry aka worldtour

Mask of China

2006-07-10T17:48:00.000+08:00

I'm always interested in seeing what else is out there when it comes to living and working in China. Mask of China is a blog from a Canadian that goes by the name of Dezza. He has spent time in Dalian, which is a nice seaside city. Dalian is a prime destination for many who are teaching in China. It is also very popular as a destination for the locals as well. Dezza has a unique perspective as he is a Chinese Canadian. I think you will find it interesting.

This picture is at Center Street. The Chinese children are really cute and fun to watch. They really got into the band that was playing and also loved the dancers. If you come to Harbin for a vist you must see Center street. If you're in need of some shopping therapy, you can get it here.

worldtour aka Larry Rhoe

Having fun in Harbin

2006-07-06T13:32:00.000+08:00

Teaching can be fun but let's face it, it is also a lot of work. There are lots of things to do in Harbin and one of my favorite things to do is to take a taxi to the older part of Harbin by the Songhua river. There is a street called Center street. As with many cities the river has been and continues to be a vital part of the economy and this is the historic center of Harbin. Harbin was the eastern terminal of the Trans Siberian Railway, so the Russians have been here for a long time. There are many Russian building in Harbin and some of the nicest ones are here on Center street. It is a 4 or five block stretch of shops and wonderful architecture. You have the multi-national businesses here like KFC and McDonalds and you will recognize some of the major labels in clothing too. Basically it's a shopping paradise. There are no cars on this street, it is for strolling, there is only one street that crosses the large cobblestones that the Japanese put in during their occupation.

Many people who you meet might assume you are Russian at first, assuming you are a Caucasian. Although many are now good at spotting the differences between the Russians and the American, Aussies, Brits, or Canucks that populate the teaching ranks. I do frequently get asked if I am Russian, to that I say "Wo shi Mei Gua Ren".

today's pictures are from Center street. It was the 4th of July back home so I was in a mood to get out, cut loose a little, so Michele and I jumped in a taxi. The street is wide and the streets that meet have no cars. The street basically is one block and the cars are a block away from you, so you have side streets that have different shops or in this case a beer garden. Harbin beer is the oldest in China and in my opinion the best, and most everyone enjoys beer. In the summer performers will take to the portable stage. Here we have some beautiful Russian girls doing their thing. You will also find Russian performers at the discos or nightclubs. Chinese seem to love a show and this one is free at Center street. The area was upgraded this year and now has a canopy over the area with a beer station in the center. The outer edges of the street area have single vendor food booths. You may want to try some barbecued lamb, or oysters, noodles, or knaw on some boney pieces of chicken. There is a wide variety of choices. Have a pitcher of beer for 10 yuan and enjoy the show, both on the stage and in the audience.

Be good to yourself and to others.

Worldtour aka Larry Rhoe

Moonlighting while teaching English abroad

2006-07-05T12:38:00.000+08:00

You may want to make a little extra money while you are teaching abroad. If you are a good teacher you will probably have lots of chances to pick up some students on the side. If you are teaching at a university you will have most of your weekend free. In China you can command anywhere from 100-200 rmb per hour for one on one tutoring. The students you have maybe preparing for one of the test they must take to study abroad, such as the Ielts tests, or entrance exams for getting into a college or graduate school. You may also find business people who are looking to improve their English skills. Right now, I am tutoring a 15 year old girl who has been accepted into the student exchange program, and will be leaving to live and study in Great Falls Montana. I charge a little less than most as this student wants a class every day. So for one month, 90 minutes a day I will receive 3000 rmb. She is quite advanced so it is a pleasure to teach her. It also gives you a chance to teach about cultural differences and what to expect when you arrive. With a couple of students like this you can double your salary. So keep your ears open and you can pick up some extra bread.

You could also do some part-time work at the numerous private language schools and for that you should be able to pick up 100-200 rmb for a two hour class. Sometimes the private schools have better students than you find at public schools and universities. So if you feel like you are knocking your head against a wall at your full time job, try branching out a bit and you may find that you will get the satisfaction every teacher desires teaching somewhere else.

Right now I have 70 students in my own school, I teach one class a week at another private language school and I have the private tutoring for 90 minutes every day. I teach 5 days a week with her and on Sunday night we watch an English movie. Sometimes I go longer as the time flies. This student was recommended to me by the teacher who found me for the private school that I teach for. Networking. One thing I can tell you is that if you are any good at teaching word of mouth will bring you many students. You may want to specialize in one on one teaching as this is the most profitable way to make money.

Happy Trails
worldtour aka Larry Rhoe

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Teaching Abroad has its rewards

2006-07-04T22:01:00.000+08:00

Teaching English Abroad can be a very rewarding experience. You can travel, explore new and exciting cultures, make money and gain a lot of new friends. This is a picture of Jack. Jack was a student of mine when I first came to Harbin. He was the kind of student we all want, but he was also the kind of student that other students sometimes resent. Why? Well he just was far superior in his development. This can sometimes be a problem in a classroom. He just put a lot more into it and so he was head and shoulders above the rest. I often face this same problem with my younger students. There are a few that just are exceptional students and progress much faster than others. They want to answer all the questions and when you are trying to involve everyone this sometimes creates a problem in the classroom. I usually deal with it in a humorous way. For example if I call on a student and another students jumps in with the answer, I thank the student who answers using the other students name. This works especially well with students of the opposite sex. Boys don't like being called a girls name. It's all done in fun but gets the point across well and nobody gets hurt.

We all want students like that so having a way to deal with it is a plus. When you see someone getting ahead as a result of your teaching you know you have made a lasting impression on them. Jack, who became my partner when I took over an existing school is a great example of what most of us hope to accomplish beyond the monetary reward. We ran the school together for a year or so and then he decided to pursue other options. I didn't resent that at all as we had become good friends and I wished him well. He is currently working in Wuxi, which is near Shanghai. He is working for a fellow Harbiner in an import export business. He escorts business people who come to China to companies and facilitates purchases and the company exports the products. He will soon travel to Africa where most of their clients are for a trade show to further the companies interests. This is something that could never have happened without his English skills. I'm so proud of him and I'm sure we will remain life long friends. Most Chinese have difficulty traveling as the visas and expense is beyond most Chinese, so this is a really big deal for him, being able to see the rest of the world.

You just never know how your influence will affect someone that you are teaching. This is ofcourse common for teachers, it's just great to see it and is a big part of the reward that is part of being a teacher. So for those of you that are considering teaching in china, you can really have a major affect on the students life, enabling them to fly high. Good Job Jack!

worldtour aka Larry Rhoe

I am the pizza king of Harbin

2006-07-03T18:09:00.000+08:00

I am the pizza king of Harbin. Okay all you wanna be teachers or future teachers in China listen up. If you have read some of my posts about teaching in China you know that your money will go a long way. In fact you will be solidly in the middle class. That's the way it is now. I'm not sure that it will stay that way as much of the Chinese economy seems to be "artificial". What I mean by that is that there are a lot of jobs and workers who really don't have much to do. The supermarkets are a good example although it seems to be a common in most business situations. There are always hordes of "workers" in the stores. They are usually dressed in aprons and may even have a paper crown like they sometimes wear at Burger King. Mnnnn, that sounds good right about now as Mickey D is the only hamburger joint here in Harbin. I'm not a big McDonalds fan. These workers usually are just standing around talking with each other. Perhaps they think I cannot speak any Chinese, so I don't require any help. A small store might have 20 of these workers. They sometimes stock product or they weigh and tag things that need to be bagged by the customer, so you may stand in line several times as you bag fruit or candy or any number of different items as the price is then put on the bag. Most stores have bar code readers, the larger stores, not the mom and pop stores. There are a few stores that have imported goods. Sometimes you can find the same item that is Chinese at a much lower price. Here in Harbin there are three stores where you can find some of the things you may be craving. Case in point pizza fixings. Those stores are Metro, a German Chinese Joint venture, Carrafour, a French store, and Walmart. Now I should say that none of these stores will be laid out in a way that you are used to. Like so many other things here in China logic seems to have taken a vacation. In the States, placement of product is well thought out with the purpose of forcing the shopper to traverse most of the store. For example, the everyday items that you may need such as milk are almost always placed in the back of the store so you have to pass lots of other products even if you only want milk, same goes for bread, it's usually on the wall on the right or left, so you pass by the displays at the ends of the aisle and perhaps you will have an impulse buy. The bargain items are always on the bottom shelf and the more expensive items are at eye level. Most of you are familiar with this marketing scheme.

In China, like items may not even be grouped together, or they will have changed position since the last time you were at the store. Walmart is the worst offender here. They have obviously failed to transfer the corporate culture to China. They do however do a brisk business. You can really only find a couple of types of cheese at Walmart, mostly cheddar, edam. No mozzarella! You will be able to find two or three other soft Chinese cheese. Something you might spread on a cracker, not brei but something akin to that in nature. They are also about 2o percent more expensive than Metro.

Metro is really the best. They have bilingual signs and logical food groups in aisles. In other words, the flour is in the same aisle as the yeast and the baking powder and baking soda. Metro is almost like what you are used to except for all of the strange food that is in China. I thought I had died and went to heaven the first time I went into the section with the cheese. Then when I saw the price I thought I was going to die. The sight of a full wheel of high quality cheese was well, wonderful. The price is too high for most Chinese and frankly they are much more comfortable eating chicken heads and fish lips than cheese. Most would find a nice sharp cheddar or even a mild havarta or jack, awful and there is a good chance that many would spit it out. I have witnessed this with a friend who professed to like everything and demonstrated that at many a dinner.

Carrafour is a French company. I don't shop there, need I say more? Well perhaps I should. I got really turned off to that store in Beijing. It was early in my teaching adventure and the crush of humanity was nearly too much for me. I'm sure you can relate, because I don't know anyone who likes to wait in a line at the grocery store. Now imagine 25 checkers, and 30 people in line at each checker. Be prepared to have the entire contents of you basket or cart examined by most everyone. They are curious.

So I recommend Metro. If you live in a larger city you probably can find one as they have over 25 stores in China now. Now the bad news. 200 grams or less than half a pound will cost you 25 yuan or about 3 dollars. Black olives in the can will cost 16 yuan or two dollars. If you don't know how to make a sauce and opt for a bottled spaghetti sauce add another 2-5 dollars. I just buy an envelope of tomato paste for one yuan, and add a chopped fresh tomato with Italian spices. I got a big container with a mixture of the traditional spices. That cost me about 10.00 dollars. Everything else is cheap and can be found at the street markets, onions, pepper, mushrooms. Metro is the only store I have been able to find Italian style sausages. I opt for the salami, it's made in Shanghai and comes in three different varieties. That's another 3 dollars or about 25 yuan. It is what you expect. It is about 7.50 per pound. If you were to get the whole sausage, 100 yuan for about 18 inches of hard dry style salami. I did also see pepperoni but it was sliced and bulk style and when I turned the back over it was brown on the bottom and the top was a sort of red and 10 dollars for 2 lbs. If you have to have the traditional Italian sausage, and I mean the fat one that is mostly pork, you know the one that comes regular or hot, then you can get it but you have to buy one kilo and that will be about 80 yuan or about 10.00 dollars. You could easily spend 20 bucks. There are some alternatives, such as a certain sausage from Sechuan, but hard to find. There are also some cheap ham type of meats that can work well if you are doing a pizza similar to a Canadian bacon pizza.

I have never really liked the chain pizza, except for Pietro's so I make my own. I found early on that I could not get along with out an oven so I make pizza, I make roast beef, even tuna casserole. There is something that just transports you to your home when eating a roast beef dinner with mashed potatoes and gravy. So I indulge myself a few times per month. There is one independent pizza place here that I know of that does a decent job. You can get four eight inch pizza with 400 grams of cheese and the can of olives and the salami, so that's about 10-12 dollars. Still cheaper than what you would pay at the pizzeria but quite expensive here. You will only be able to bake one at a time as your oven will be just big enough to accept the eight inch pan, oh and I forgot that pan will be about 5 bucks too, but you only have to pay once for that.

You may find the whole process of making the dough and the sauce and putting them together and baking them quite therapeutic if you are suffering from culture shock or just a little homesick. If you are a Midwesterner like myself you may opt for the Land o Lakes brand cheeses and savor every bite, only at Metro. For all you novices here is an easy dough recipe that works for me. 1.5 cups hot water in a medium size bowl, if you take the hot water out of one of the water machines you will have to wait for it to cool a bit or it will kill the yeast. Sprinkle the yeast onto the water and cover the water with yeast, about a half a package if you are buying the individual packets. If not just cover the water so it looks brown. Add a little sugar to get the yeast going and a pinch of salt. You can add a small amount of oil too or wait and add it just before you add flour. Four cups of flour added one cup at a time. You have to work the dough until it does not stick to your cutting board and it starts to show some elasticity. Your hands will know. Let it rise for at least a half an hour. It should triple in size. It should make 3-4 pizza depending on how thick you like your crust. Your oven should be on full blast, 450 degrees and will take about 20 minutes.

Grab yourself an ice cold coke or Harbin beer and your set.

Larry aka worldtour

The Chinese have missed the boat

2006-06-05T23:16:00.000+08:00

Bond James Bond, You just haven't lived until you have seen it in Chinese! I thought I would give you a taste of the television here in China. It's always been a bit of a pet peeve with me. You see they do have western movies but the don't make use of the SAP, or second audio program. You have millions of students studying English. It would be so easy to just put the Chinese on the second audio channel. You lose such a great tool. It's just too logical to be done. Well it's always nice to see it even if James is speaking in Chinese. There are lots of Channels on Chinese TV and everyone is on the cable system, which is in every apartment and cost you about 200 yuan for a year. There won't be much you can understand. There are a few English news programs and the occasional movie that is in English. Some places might have the BBC, some colleges can add that for the foreign teachers. I hear that there is also some kind of box available but I have never seen any.

There are many programs which can give you a good idea about the parts of China you have never been too. Many with great footage and the cultural shows that feature, dance and festivals from other areas are interesting even if you have no language skills. CCTV does have all the best. I saw them out on a shoot in the Gorgali district 0f Harbin. Nice beta cams, and about four trucks and 35 people.

You will always be able to get movies on dvd, the will just be pirated, but I don't think there are any legit dvds here. You will appreciate that but may have pangs of guilt over the stealing of intellectual property.

Larry aka worldtour

2006-05-31T21:47:00.000+08:00

Chinese kitchens and the joy of plumbing. I just had to post a classic chinese moment that you will be sure to run into if you are teaching in China. A few posts back I showed you a different view of this kitchen, rather nice tiles, big with cabinettes. As you can see from this picture the plumbing is not built into the wall. China is modern up to a certain point. I was doing some marketing for my newest program, and went to the kitchen to get a coffee and I noticed water on the floor and on the countertop. Looking up I saw it was coming from the pipe in the picture, the one on the left near the top. I jumped up and looked at it and was pretty shocked. The 90 degree elbow was cracked on the backside, and had been glued back in and the connector at the straight piece was barely long enough to fit inside the coupling. Well needless to say it had to be fix like right now. I hustled out to the mini hardware store. There's one or two in every neighborhood, bought the pipe, the elbow, the coupling and the hacksaw, eighteen yuan, or about 2.12 US. Since I would have to cut the pipe right above the elbow, there would be a slight slant to the coupling. So I made my marks started cutting and hoped the resident above me would not be using her kitchen sink. Well no such luck. It was getting close to dinner so I couldn't have timed it worse. Several times I had to try and catch the outflow with the old pipe and try and aim it at the sink. Once it flowed out on top of my head. I did finally get the pieces dry enough to put on the adhesive, like abs, and got it connected and hoped it would dry properly. It all worked out, but that brings me to another oddity that you have. Since all the plumbing is in a line, you are constantly hearing the drainage. None have proper traps, ie goosenecks so the fumes of the drains will back up. If you have done any plumbing you know that is a good idea, if you don't want your bathroom to smell like a sewer. All drains are hooked up with flexible hoses into an open pipe which goes through the concrete and then connects to the main pipe in the apartment below. Like a v.

When my father saw this method he commented that it made a lot of sense and maybe that was the better way. Perhaps. It was much easier to work on then some of the plumbing nightmares in my barn apartment back home. I could understand my fathers feelings as he had spent many hours doing those kind of things at his place. That is part of what I call the half-assed way of doing things. Somebody just glued that gaping hole on the backside of the elbow with mass amounts of contact adhesive and and hoped it would work. This might have been the worker who plumbed it or the owner. The pipe is much thiner than what is in the west. You will definately have a few pools of water. I have had them in every apartment I have had and replaced something in every place I have lived in. All and all it's a beautiful kitchen with more electric than any other I have seen. It might have been an easier job, if my Chinese was better I could have asked the upstairs resident to wait 30 min. while I fixed it but it's not that good.

Just another day of fun in China.

Larry aka worldtour

2006-05-19T20:29:00.000+08:00

Teachers in China usually live on campus, or are provided with modest housing that is adequate but not too nice. I lived on a campus when I first came to China. It was somehow associated with Beida, (Peking University, or Beijing University), it was basically a dorm room or like a hotel room. It was not near anything except the 5th ring road which meant there was still some agriculture and apartment buildings but it was not near anything. It really was designed to keep the teachers isolated. This is a throw back to the old days in China which had designated living areas for foreigners. It was modern, quite nice but it did not give you a "real" experience in regard to living. After moving to Harbin because of SARS, I have never lived in this type of situation again. The picture here is my current home/school. As you can see it is quite spacious and quite nice. Most Chinese could not afford this. Most teachers could but prefer to save money as this would take about half of their salary. It is not only the nicest place I have lived in here in China but the nicest place I have ever lived in. Well let me qualify that, the nicest place that I have completely paid for by myself. I don't want to mislead anyone as you will never be provided with a place as nice as this. You will be provided with an average apartment that will be about 40 square meters, which will have two main rooms, a kitchen and a small bath which probably will not have a shower in it. You may have to buy a hot water heater. This is the way a large portion of the population lives. They shower at public bath houses, carry their little baskets from their homes to their shower. Well I just can't live that way.

That brings me to another point of culture that is interesting and a bit strange, to the western mind. There are many contradictions here, most Chinese have homes that are very well kept. They may be very nice inside, when the exteriors are very unattractive. Even though most keep a very nice house, the don't hesitate to throw crap out of their windows onto the streets or exteriors of the buildings. Street markets are littered with food, papers, plastic bags, fish guts, donkey dung, you name it it's there. Not to mention the gallons of spit on the streets, which comes from men women boys girls, gramma, gramps. There must be something in the culture that says you should never swallow anything. You see spit in elevators, stairs, restaurants, where ever there are people. So, there are a lot of jobs for street cleaners. They are everywhere, and streets do get cleaned, the debris is cleaned up and there is a short time when it is not littered. It is just a never ending cycle of filth and cleaning up. In the west we have garbage day when the truck comes and picks up your can. Here, everyday people just tie up the trash in plastic bags and put it outside their apartment door, it is then picked up by the workers who will sort through it by hand and remove any recyclable that have not already been saved by the resident. The toilet paper is also thrown out as it is not flushed. Go figure. There are thousands of people who scour the streets pushing hand carts to collect cardboard, bottles, plastic, metal. They carry an upside down bucket of plastic between the handles of the cart and bang away with a rubber hose, starting quite early in the morning and continue to the evening. That and the totally insane use of the car horn are probably the two most annoying aspects of living here. Here's a cultural bias example. I used to live near a sportsman's club in Washington. It was really a rifle range, and starting at nine in the morning the sound of gunfire could go on all day. You learn to ignore it, someone asks what's that and you say, what? I have not managed to do that with the car horns or the recycler's bang on the buckets. You see this the nature of a bias, something you can't forgive in others but do yourself. Another example, the trains don't bother me and I live near the tracks, which run through the middle of the city, but the car horns drive me nuts. I have tried to deal with my own inability to ignore it and I figure it is connected with my attitude towards Chinese drivers. Now anyone that lives in the states has probably commented under their breath, errrr, Asian driver. I could spot them blocks away as we have a large Asian population in the Puget sound area. I know that many of them were born in the states too. Of course this is a sort of prejudice and a generalization, but how many Asian race car drivers do you know? There is a sort of awe and wonder about it here as everyone has the same crazy habits. You wonder how it all manages to function with not just the occasional knuckle head, but 99 percent of the population doing it this way. The police drive as bad as everyone else, there are no traffic patrols, no cruisers waiting to catch you, no stopping at red lights when turning, no stop signs at most intersections. People walk in the streets and drive on the sidewalks, literally!

As an American we imagine our society is very free and we can do as we please, what we don't realize is the intense order of our society which governs our behavior. We do not think of our society as a police state, which it is, in contrast to China. I still don't know what the police do, as most of what they do is not visible to me. We chide China for having the Great Firewall on the net, but don't even blink when it is revealed that there is a database of all phone calls since 911. Chinese people are very patriotic, like Americans, very proud and yet very detached politically. Perhaps this comes from the one party system, but we are only a two party system. It works for them and things are changing fast, but many things that need changing remain. Perhaps this is just priorities. This will probably change too. When I was young, made in Japan meant cheap as in poor quality, this is not the case today. I can remember playing with a very small model car that was made from a juice can. There are some companies that are emerging as leaders in quality such as Haier, or Lenovo. They will flourish but the crap will remain as long as wages are low. As long as you can navigate the system, any decent business man can make a killing here in China. This is what the Germans, Japanese and others including to a lesser degree American companies have done, but it requires a sort of company culture, or re education.

Well that's it for this post, hope you enjoyed it and got some insights. I also want to stress the point that I enjoy living here very much and have a great time teaching my students and enjoy the differences in the culture.

Larry Rhoe aka worldtour

2006-05-13T17:49:00.000+08:00

Here is a very nice Chinese Kitchen. Most teachers in China would be jealous of this kitchen. You may get one as nice as this if you teach at a University, but chances are it will not be this nice. In the last post I told you a little about my big change here in Harbin. No job at the university and so I had to move fast to secure my income. If you have been following along you know that I taught both at a university and at my own school. Since the owner of the license basically screwed me over, I discontinued the rent where I was teaching and got as far removed from this unethical person as I could. It has proven to be a good move and I am picking up new students every week. One thing about North Americans is our system makes it easier to "take a chance" and be more of an entrepreneur. Anyone who seriously wants to make some extra money can do it quite easily as long as they are willing to spend the time. There is still a shortage of foreign teachers compared to the need. So, you can find many ways to do it. Always try to talk to other teachers at the school and hear for yourself how the teacher is treated. You should keep in mind too that there may be some resentment as you will be making a higher salary than many Chinese peers. A little generosity goes a long way. Be generous with your time, take your peers out for dinner or drinks. This can really help you out. They will really appreciate it too. It is not expensive so you can afford to be generous too.

When renting an apartment there are many things to consider. I have to say the most important thing is to be near your work. You want to be able to walk to work as the busses are really crowded and I also feel a little independence goes a long way. You also really get a feel for the culture when you live as everyone else does. There will be some strange things that happen too. For instance, I spent 18 months at my last apartment and it was nice, but getting out was a real pain, due to the pigheaded landlord. When I moved in it had been remodeled and had a hot water heater, plumbed to both the bathroom shower, sink and kitchen on the shared wall. However, the hoses were all cheap and three of them became non functional with in the first month. Within the first week the water heater quit working. I called and asked if the owner was going to replace it and he said no. So I bought one, put it in myself replaced the hoses with good ones and never had a problem again. One thing you will notice with housing is that many things are done in what we in the west call a "half-assed" way. Workmanship is not valued and it's rather irritating. Especially for someone like myself whose only quirk of perfectionism is attached to building and doing things right and once. Like the old carpenters adage, cut once, measure twice. You see this sort of thing everywhere. Painters who slop in on, get it all over the floors, rooms with only one electrical outlet, paper glued over windows to stop the cold air. The list goes on and on and you see it in many things. On the other hand some artist do incredible works in carving, painting, music.

Back to the landlord. When I moved out the landlord tried to make me pay for the defective water heater that I had used for one week. He even sent his two sons to try and batter me into paying. Very irritating and irrational. This is also a general state that works on your head in China. There are so many irrational things, no logic, and frankly downright idiotic customs that go on in daily life, that you may never get used to. It's a cultural thing, I realize that but it does not stop it from bugging you, or muttering under your breath, things like, idiot, ass, putz. So this guy must have talked to the movers, and came to my new home three times. I thought his son was going to break my windows as he banged on them. He seriously thought I should pay for a water heater that did not work after my first week. Finally I asked my girlfriend to take these morons to the police station and we would abide by what they said. The police said no way and that was the end of it.

I should add that most westerners I know here, feel the same way about most of the same things. Such as Chinese speaking. First, to our ear most conversations sound like they are angry and arguing. It is not a pretty language to our ear. A string of mono syllabic words and a sort of whining sing song, especially with the women. You may even choose a woman based on the degree of whining. It is pervasive, and again to most it has an irritating effect. The level of speech is really almost shouting. I could always hear phone conversations on the fourth floor of my apartment from the streets. The Chinese don't seem to care who hears what they are saying, or perhaps they do, I don't know which. There is not a lot of privacy, young people have nowhere to go, don't move out of their parents home until they marry, it is also quite common for young couples to live with their parents. Parents may purchase a home for their children, or buy a new one and leave the older one for the kids. Parents do everything for the child, pamper, coddle, lionize and in return children are responsible for the parents in their old age.

Mostly, living in China is great and it grows on you. People are generally nice, friendly, can be generous and you will make some great friends. You just have to adjust culturally and try not to let the little things, like crazy driving, the noise, and all the rest get to you. If you can do that you will love it.

Larry aka worldtour

2006-05-03T20:18:00.000+08:00

Biting the bullet in China. It's been a while since I updated as my entire life in China has been turned upside down. It's probably for the best, in any case it is what is. Well, I no longer have one of the best paying jobs in China. Boo Hoo. The owner of the license at the school I was running screwed me, and I moved both my home and my students.

Just when you think things are going as they should, ka boom! I knew I had problems with the owner of the school. The problem being, he was a hot head, and I can be that way too, I give as good as I get. I knew that but I didn't know that he would just totally ignore a contract he signed and not compensate me for the year and one half that I put in to the school. Let me explain as to be fair. I bought in with a partner for 30,000 yuan we paid him a percentage of net and rented a room from him, so he pulled out over 60,000. At the end of the contract we, my partner and I would become majority owners. Well that didn't happen even though the contract stated this clearly as a condition of fulfilling the contract's time period. In the end my students followed me so that might be equated to 60% of the business. Perhaps more, so now I have to pursue the license on my own and see if I can muster up enough guanxi to get it done.

I would say that this type of business relationship is not uncommon. I guess until you have the real deal, the personal experience it's hard to judge opinions about this aspect of doing business in China. I recall a peer at the university who ranted on and on about the perils of business in China. He professed that the mind set is, if you get cheated in business it's your own fault as everyone tries to cheat you in business. Of course this screams of stereotype, or generalization, but one does see and hear of it. I thought at the time his comments were painted with too broad a brush, however I am nearer his viewpoint now, having gone through it.

One thing I did right was have the rents on my apartment and classrooms due at the same time. That may sound strange, but it allowed me to get a big apartment and hold my classes at my home, for only a little more. The picture is the outside of my home/school. Thank God I saved my dough from that high paying job I "lost". A good plan pays off. Some of you, if you are thinking about China, might see the opportunity to increase your income and it can be done in various ways. Private tutoring is possible. Moonlighting on your off days, especially if you are a university teacher. There are many ways to do it. As I said before, the university teaching was a real challenge, caused by low level students and general malaise. I taught at "my" school for the more traditional perks of teaching, as felt after the gestalt! Now it is my only source of income as I was informed too late to get another university job here in Harbin.

Basically my lifestyle has completely changed in regard to schedule. I work three days per week, except this week which is the May Day holiday week. Those kids MUST be in classes. Here is a basic breakdown of what it has cost. I think this will illustrate the cost of living quite well. Home/school 2500 rmb per month about 312 dollars. Couch and two arm chairs 1100 rmb about 130 dollars. Four wood tables with 16 wood chairs 600 rmb. Curtains 12 dollars. Two Chinese speaking English teachers, about 800 rmb per month. My partner Michel 1000 rmb for the books and everything else she does. When I reach 100 students that will be pretty comfortable now I have an average Chinese salary after expenses.

There were lots of challenges over the last month, transfer the events in your environment and then double it. I hope to get to some specifics in the following posts about the manic landlord, the classroom search, the scumbag license holder and some of the good stuff too. Hey it's all good if you make it good. Just remember if I didn't like it I'd go home. It's a very interesting life, and many good things to enjoy. Till next time.

Larry aka worldtour

2006-03-13T19:19:00.000+08:00

No Job, but still a smile on my face.

One thing you can be sure of in China is that you will have some ups and downs. First I'd like to say sorry for not updating in a while. I took a break during the spring festival and now I'm on a permanent break. For those of you that are new, I was teaching at a University for a Canadian college. I pretty much bailed them out over the last year. I also got excellent evaluations and was well liked by my students. I however was not re-hired. Apparently they prefered Canadians, even if they are not Native speakers to a red blooded American. My point is that you may think you have everything all figured out but in the end, powers beyond your control may dictate your life.

I was happy to have that job for a year as it will buy me an apartment, so that's a good thing. It also means I probably will take a big pay cut when I return to another school. Lucky for me, I don't have to do that until the fall if I choose not to work right away. You see, even with a schedule of 18 contact hours in the classroom you will be very busy. I chose to be even busier than most and taught on the weekends at my own little school and that is what I lived on. So you should know that living on 2 or 3 thousand yuan per month is entirely possible and it will be fine. I could also get a job tomorrow if I chose to. If you plan ahead and save some of your salary you will always have options and you won't have to worry about those rainy days.

The other reason why I don't have to worry is because every month I still make dollars. Actually everyday I still earn dollars. This is great as it enables me to use my atm card from the States online to further my online businesses. This is my current business that I am building. Check it out it's easy to do and can be done from anywhere in the world. If your a teacher, you can use this as a second income. We do have to spend quite a lot of time on the computer so why not make some money. If you want a guide to how to do that please check out my other blog at Tagworld. For those of you that are not tagging, you really should be if you want to increase your internet exposure, for whatever reason you may have. You can also make money with tagging too. Here is a resource for Tagging. Use it to let people know about your blog. Picture site, whatever!

I'll keep you updated on the work search. I can use my own links from here.

It's all an adventure in China, a bit like working in the movies, you are never quite sure about your next job.

Worldtour

2006-01-28T01:46:00.000+08:00

Tomorrow is the beginning of the Spring Festival and Chinese people are on the move. Scurrying like columns of ants toward the loading platforms to return to their families. Since I am a teacher at a university I'm enjoying some time off and catching up on some things that I have been wanting to do. They keep the trains moving here, I hear them day and night as I live on a street that has the line. It's not bothersome, in fact I enjoy watching the trains pull out and come in. One tradition I enjoy are the dumplings at this time of year. It's part of the traditional meal. They filled with many varieties of food such as lamb, pork, peppers, cabbage, beef, egg, shrimp and pretty much whatever you think goes together well.

Harbin is supposed to have a ban on fireworks. Well at least I have been told that. Which is pretty funny. If there is a ban it is overlooked by the police and there are large displays from tops of buildings and the streets and it will be ongoing for about two weeks. When I was in I Chang it was customary to light off the large string of firecrackers in the stairwells of the apartments. Really loud! Hopefully all the bad spirits will be frightened away and 2006 will be a good year for us all. One thing that you see a lot of in Harbin is the practice of burning yellow paper on the street corners. Nobody seems to know the origins, my guess is that is probably comes from Taoism, where honoring the past ancestors is practiced, Shintuism also has some of these characteristics. The idea is that the paper is money and they are sending money to the newly departed or perhaps long departed relatives. It begins with drawing a circle on one of the corners of the street. First burning some paper outside the circle for those other spirits and then burning the bulk of it inside the circle. Being the smart ass that I am I have asked, if you believe that you should burn real money. Fat Chance.

Another tradition is the red envelopes with gifts of money for the unmarried and commonly for the young ones. Schools will have lots of new children in new coats and other clothing as shopping and marathon games and television viewing will dominate the holidays. For me, I am having fun promoting and working at the computer. Hope you get some red envelopes and have a great new year. Tomorrow I will walk you through a couple of techniques to get your blog seen and listed with the major search engines.

Worldtour

2006-01-23T00:04:00.000+08:00

Digital Cameras have got to be one of the coolest products to hit the market. They have opened up so many ways to document your travel. I like my shots of Icelights but I found some really outstanding shots from R Todd King. I think his photos really capture some of the atmosphere of the Snow and Ice festival. Which attracts artists from around the world. Be sure to take a look at his other sites in China.

There are so many sites to explore when you are contemplating working abroad as an English teacher. I hope I can save you a bit of time and point you to some resources that will help you have a successful working experience in China. Well anywhere really the principles are the same. It's all common sense deligence. My aim with this blog is to give you a feel for the lifestyle. Practical steps for finding a decent job at a good school can be found here. I highly recommend Transitions Abroad. The link is in the right column of the blog.

Let's get down to some of the daily tasks and how to go about them. When I left the states, I used to do most of my banking online, and I still do, but one thing I did not consider that has become a bit of a problem is my bank card. Since I have been here three years and have not been home yet, my card has expired. I arranged to have the bank send it to my school but it never has arrived. Getting mail at your real address is even more sketchy. There really is no mail delivery as we know it. A notice is delivered and may be stuck on your apartment door. Curious neighbors may take a peek or your delivery person may not be able to find it. Whatever the case may be mail is a problem. You may want to get a box at China Post. I do recommend that you have at least one credit card with you for emergencies. If you don't have a card get one here before you leave. Well now would be better. You see one of the ways I am able to maintain my travels is through simple free businesses like this. Believe me the internet will be a big part of your life, unless you have no friends or family to communicate with. You need that card for emergencies. Now, back to banking. Most schools will pay in cash. So you may not be comfortable storing that under your mattress. You most likely will need a Chinese friend to help you with this. It's pretty painless and you should be able to set up an account and get an ATM card in 30-45 minutes. Be sure to bring your passport and resident card. It is very convenient and machines have English, so it is a breeze to use. You will not be able to purchase anything with it online. It is just for ATMs. So if you want to get something online you need to have a bank card or credit card or prepaid visa. So get it now.

I put 1128 people in my Imvite downline and I am going to do the same in this new business. This is something anyone can do that has an internet connection, and as a teacher you will have one. Most likely it will be ADSL. It will not be as fast as Korea's but not to shabby. I urge you to take a look see it for yourself. You will be happy you did. Monetize your Blog. Next post I'll show you a very simple way to make a few bucks or a substantial income, larger than your salary teaching in China in just 30 minutes per day.

Worldtour

2006-01-22T01:15:00.000+08:00

Teachers in China as well as locals will enjoy the worlds largest wild natural animal park. The Manchurian Tiger is the star performer here in Harbin on the northern bank of the Songhua River. Special cars will take you through the park for viewing this spledid animal. Here is a site put up by HIT, or Gong Da, Harbin Institute of Technology, which will show you all of the major attractions in the city. HIT is the best university in Harbin. What I mean is that HIT is the highest rated University in the province. I believe I had heard that it had made the top ten at one point in time. Some of my peers at Sunshine International Language Center in Harbin were working there as part of their contract with Sunshine. As stated before, some private language schools will contract their teachers to the local schools. It may be a middleschool, a university, a private high school. There are all kinds of variations. The bottomline is it brings in money to the private schools. Some teachers don't mind this, as they have a certain amount of hours to be filled, whereas others see this as inconvenient, or perhaps even feel that they are being "used". Each situation could be different. Just remember you are a bit of a commodity, and the more control you have over your work conditions the happier you will be. I didn't like being farmed out much but it was a business decision that I understood. I was always treated well by Sunshine. It also gave me more contacts which helped me to gain a position which was much better. So it can be exploited from the teachers side as well. Chinese culture values relationships and these relationships ultimately may determine your success in China. Cooperation is highly valued and exploilted.

If you want to see some horror stories, you can find them regarding many different countries. China schools are no exception. I have been lucky, or perhaps as some say, luck is being prepared when opportunity knocks. I always checked out the jobs and talked to people, or in my current job had worked there, during my contract with the private school. If you were interested in Harbin as a possible teaching city, you may like HIT. Generally the ads I have seen for HIT are among the lower salaries, but you have a higher level of students there. It is also in a good area. You could do a lot worse than HIT. Here's one tip that will save you lots of grief. When you are going through your process be sure to do some searches on the schools for negative posts from former teachers. You may find different opinions posted about the same school. Almost all of the ESL jobsites have forums that have comments from teachers. You may be able to find a former teacher's email and get some first hand knowledge about the school. Due Diligence!

For anyone who would like to chat about teaching in China or any of my friends, family or peers who might be checking this out, please download this messenger. It's one of the ways I make extra money while I'm on the road. It's free to use so check it out. It will save you lot's of money on phone calls, with the audio and video chat. You can also save some cash when you shop online. Your mother will thank you.

worldtour

2006-01-19T00:15:00.000+08:00

Sofia's church is one of the must see sites in Harbin. Probably the most famous Russian built structures in Harbin. It is not an active church anymore, it now hosts a museum about the Japanese experiments during their occupation of Manchuria. It is also home to some lucky pigeons who have escaped being eaten. It was rebuilt in brick after buring down. Across the street is a store that is typical of many in China, kind of like a mall, or really a small. Stalls for each small businessman or woman. These are the kinds of places you can bargain at. I found my oven there. Gotta have that pizza and roast beef.

Let's talk about workloads in the different teaching positions. The lifestyle is quite different. If you are at a university teaching it will be more like a routine you are used to. Assuming you have a day job and do about 8 hours. You will probably have around 4.5 to 5 hours of student contact in the classroom. So with your prep, and marking you may work more than 40 hours. Especially at first, and the days will fly by. You will have your weekends off. You will probably have to make your tests and record your marks. It helps to be familiar with Excel and Word as all the software here is Microsoft. Some classes are large. So marking can definately be time consuming. You know this if you have taught before, but as many of you reading this may not have teaching experience you need to be aware of this. So when you see the ads that say 16 hours of classes per week, just remember that's probably less than half the job. So you will perhaps be busier for a 13-14 week period and may have 5 weeks off for the Spring Festival. Then you can travel. Many of my peers will be returning to Canada for a month, others have chosen to see Beijing, Shanghai, Hainan, Pakistan. Traveling out of the country is easier now as you don't need a re-entry visa as long as you have the proper documents, which are now in your passport.

Should you choose a private language school, a business, you will have many of your days free, work in the evenings and on weekends. You may teach 16 hours in two days so you could have several days off per week or just one class. Many contracts are for twenty hours of classes per week. So a busy weekend school may load you up on the weekend. In contrast to the university you many not have alot of other duties besides teaching. The occassional event such as Christmas or talent night or English corner at some schools are usually part of the deal and you must be sure at contract time what is expected with these type of events. Usually they're fun and not too time consuming. It's alot easier to get things done working at these type of schools as you are able to move about the city to do your business, or shopping. There are fewer hours overall working for the private schools and you can usually just show up for the teaching. Some schools will offer lunch or dinner if you have classes in the afternoon and one in the evening. My first job here in Harbin was at such a school and they employed a cook and a cleaner. You may find the cook to be a good source for learning Chinese. Handy when you are buying your own food at the market.

I feel either choice can be a good one, ofcourse you also have the age factor for choosing your Chinese teaching job. Well, on a personal note, I have finished my contract and again I don't know if I will be teaching at the same school. I hope so as the money is quite good and it is good most of the time. Now my pressing decision is will I travel during the Spring Festival? My Chinese girlfriend will go, the question is will I. It's required you know, you must go home and eat dumplings and watch TV marathons and play games. It's a family thing.

Worldtour

2006-01-12T19:47:00.000+08:00

Teaching in developing countries is a great way to see the world. I mean that in many different ways. You gain perspective about so many different things. I have to say that, the type of person who is attracted to this lifestyle is usually quite likeable, independent, adventuresome, and looking for more in life than the more "normal" folks. For the most part a very likeable group. It's kinda like being at a party, and there's one person that is just interesting because of the path they took in life. With a group of expats teaching in a developing country you may have a whole room full of them. Now I know most of the world thinks of China as a developing country but I sometimes have difficulty with that idea. Yes, they are developing, at a tremendous rate. My point is that it is developed to the point that soon we won't call China a developing country as it may shoot past many other countries.

If your focus is to see a lot of China while you are teaching the best way to do that is to get a job at a university. For example the fall semester is ending right now, second week of January. The spring festival is coming and my classes will start up again the first week of March. You could have six to seven weeks off. You may want to choose a school in an area close to what you want to see. The travel allowance which most universities offer will cover the cost of any trains and in most cases hotels too. Two thousand Yuan is pretty average for a university travel allowance. It won't cover the cost of a 4 star hotel for very long though. If you have a travel partner you can save quite a lot on hotels. Be sure to find out if you are paying for a room or per person. Some hotels have different prices for more than one person.

Chinese people often travel to parents or grandparents homes during this time and stay with them for up to a month. There are several week long vacation periods in China so short trips are possible throughout the year. Usually you can get a ticket about 4 days before your travel. Long term reservations on the trains don't seem to be possible. The planes are pretty much like you would see in the west, except most are sold out most every flight. If you absolutely are stuck and have to get a ticket, there will probably be "scalpers" if you are traveling during a peak time. They tend to hang out around the station, of course, you will pay a premium price for the ticket and may risk buying a "knock off". You might want the help of a Chinese friend for this part. Foreigners can be taken advantage of if they don't have sharp bargaining skills.

Let's talk a bit about that. Haggling is expected here. Most of us are just no good at it as we don't do it much, save a garage sales or when we buy a home or car. There are certain times when you may be quoted a price that is 3,4, or 5 times more than what they are willing to sell for. It's quite interesting and I feel I have attained a certain level of skill in these type of bargaining sessions. If you keep you eyes and ears open you can and learn a few phrases, you will even draw a crowd when you are bargaining. I have a whole routine, complete with faces and squealing sounds to indicate I think their price is way too high. Okay, here's a short Chinese lesson, raise your eyebrows, bug your eyes, and say gweeela, and then step back a bit and frown at them. This will undoubtedly illicit at laugh from anyone looking on. Believe me, they all want to know what you are buying, that goes for vegetables to electronics. If you have the time, check the other vendors for the same of similar items and come back if you have to. You will instantly gain more respect from the seller with just a few words of Chinese. The small businesses will almost always bargain.

In summary, if travel is what you are looking for, find a university job. You will get a free apartment, with TV, furnishings, bottled water, cooking utensils pretty much most everything you will need. And your salary, be it small by western standards, will allow you to eat out as often as you like and get there by taxi. You will be firmly in the middle to upper class when it comes to spending power. Or just sock it away for a nice long vacation at some nice beach.
Happy Trails

Worldtour

2006-01-10T23:28:00.000+08:00

Working abroad is a great adventure, but it is a good idea to do your research. I think back to the time when I was contemplating the big "move" and recall several months of surfing reading and getting as much information as I could. As mentioned in the previous blog entry, my first teaching position was at the University of Beijing, commonly know as Beida, and historically named Peking University. In some ways I lucked out, as it was a good position at a great institution. One that has opened many doors for me. The mere mention of the name is enough to raise a few eyebrows. In other ways it was totally due to my correspondence and interaction with the contact person for the job. Yes, I also had some teaching experience at the college level in the states but not much. My field is communication arts, in the theatre. There are many related fields that are suitable background for success in the area of ESL. If you aren't confident about your abilities to teach in the area, a small investment in an online TEFL certificate course would be money wisely spent as it will open more doors for you at a higher salary. However, most BA educated people will have the skills they need to get entry level jobs, as there is a high demand for native speakers.

One thing you should be aware of is that a school must possess a license to hire a foreign teacher. Although there are many ways around this situation. Sometimes a school will have a license and a teacher will be hired using that license and used in someone else's school. This may cause problems getting your resident permit. Or some schools will just tell you that you can come over on a tourist visa and then they will have your visa changed to a Z visa. This does happen, but if at all possible you should do it right and go through the process, of invitation, visa application and this will save you lots of headaches.

Another thing to be aware of is the practice of farming you out. Typically, a private language school may have heavy weekend schedules. Classes during the week are usually targeted to an older market or business English. The bulk of students are 6-15 years old. So in order to get those heavy weekend crowds, several teachers are needed, but may not be too busy during the week. So many schools contract with schools to provide a foreign teacher. So you are a money maker for them and not yourself. You may also be placed in a situation that is not that great, and you probably will be paid only for the actual hours. You could spend half your day for two or maybe three hours of pay. Travel time, prep, all come at your expense. I'm not sure what the going rate is but I'm sure that it would not happen if the schools weren't making money at it. In fact I have been told that is where the money is at. So be aware that when you read and add for a private language school that says you may teach at a primary or middle school, the school is really brokering you for a profit. That does not mean that the experience will be bad, but you should understand this.

Try to get the emails of any current teachers at the school you are considering. See if they will divulge their salaries and other important details about the conditions. Telephone them or chat on messenger. Do they have staff or ownership that speak English well enough for you to communicate? This is really important as you will need lots of help at first just to do what you need to do. You may want to start with one of the larger language training schools that have been doing this for a long time. You don't want to find the doors to your school locked up and shut down and your salary gone too. As long as your documents are in order you will be able to find another position. Even if it is not the start of a school year. And the last tip; always get a letter of release from your employer at the end of your contract. Without it you may not be able to secure another position. Use your head! You will learn as you go, but you surely should learn as much as possible before you go.

Worldtour

____________________________________________________________________________

2006-01-08T22:23:00.000+08:00

Travel now easier as a teacher in China.

There have been some recent changes in the visa resident permit area that will make things much easier for teachers and the Chinese as well. This is a good sign. It used to be that you needed your z visa, which enabled you to work, and a resident permit that was renewable yearly. The visa was placed in your passport and the resident card was in a green book. The resident card was the most important document. Your z visa actually doesn't have a expiration date on it. So you had to update the resident card yearly. You still have to update that yearly, but now there is no separate book for the resident card. It is also placed inside your passport. So one less document to carry around. Not that I carry mine. The best part about this change includes the ability to go home on a break and then re-enter the country, effectively making it a multiple entry visa. This is a big step for the Chinese and shows someone is thinking to streamline the process. This really simplifies the process of going back home during the spring festival or the summer break. If you are at a university you may want to do this.

A rule of thumb for documents, make copies! You should always have at least a copy of your passport with you. Especially, if you are relinquishing your passport for visas or resident permits. It always makes me a little uncomfortable to give up my passport but this is the process and it usually takes less than 2 weeks. That is one reason it is so important to have a good school to teach at. They have foreign affairs officers to assist you with these matters. You will need your passport for many things, such as opening a bank account, should you desire one. It is a cash and carry society but many people use the ATM machines. If you are going to be needing wire transfers The Bank of China is where you need to do it. It is one of two banks going through a reform process to upgrade and standardize the banking to the excepted international standards. If you get paid cash and won't be converting any into dollars any bank will do or even no bank at all. You may need a phone if you rent an apartment, and you will need to have your passport for that as well. Checking into a hotel? Bingo passport.

One more tip, make sure you start these things early enough so that you don't try and leave with an expired visa. You might end up paying a fine just to leave. Some people come to China on a tourist visa and then get another when they find a job. I recommend that you do your homework, get an official invitation from a school. Most will send you an preliminary contract, you must then send that information with your passport to the nearest consulate and you will likely not be reimbursed for the initial visa. Subsequent visas should be paid for by the school. If you start off right each teaching assignment could lead to a better one. I have doubled my salary, well nearly triple it in three years. I started at Beida, Peking University (Beijing U.) because I knew I could then teach most anywhere I wanted and have a better chance of getting a top salary at any given institution.

Here's a insiders tip. The high paying jobs are usually jobs associated with a western university. If they are administering a program in partnership with the Chinese school there is a good chance the pay will be closer to the western wage. That's the case with me. I teach at a Chinese University for a Canadian College. So you may want to consider looking at home for schools that have joint ventures with Chinese schools.

Worldtour

2006-01-07T21:36:00.000+08:00

Teaching abroad offers so many great opportunities for to those who are brave enough to explore. You may find lifetime friends along the way. You surely will be seen as a unique person by all of your circle of friends, whether they are at home or in your new home. Let's talk a little about housing in China. If you are teaching at a university you will have at least a one bedroom apartment with kitchen living room area. Most of these places will have most everything you need. Most will offer bottled water, a washing machine, TV, internet. Most schools will post this information on their recruiting materials so be sure to take a look at what is provided. If you are more adventuresome, you may want to have your own apartment outside of your workplace. There are rentals that have some furnishing as some Chinese people invest in another apartment and rent one. So there may be some furnishings, a bed, desk, wardrobe.

Here are a few things to expect. You may have to pay for several months in advance. This is the practice not the exception. Everyone is used to 1st and last months rent, and perhaps a security fee, the idea of having to pay 6 months at once or even a year is surely new for most westerners. I paid for one year in my current place. My advice is to fully concentrate on your teaching for the first few months, save your salary as best you can so that you have the option of finding your own place. The majority of positions offer free housing. As this is a considerable expense for them, you may not get the highest quality place. This is one drawback, contrasting the type of apt. you may get at a university. They are usually quite modern as the building craze here is non stop. I have never seen so many cranes in my life. It's all about what you like and want. Most apartments have small bathrooms and kitchens, they usually share a wall for the plumbing. The bathrooms have a drain in the floor and you shower in the room, there isn't a shower stall in most. The hot water heater is usually in the bathroom mounted to the wall. Kitchen may not have hot water or another heater may be used but this is not common to have two. I have seen on-demand gas heaters in kitchens in Yi Chang.

Kitchens may be very small and narrow in older buildings. You can never tell what an apartment may be like from the outside as some interiors are really nicely furnished but the outside of the building may be less than attractive. Many kitchens and bathrooms may not have an electrical outlet, only a light, in older buildings. There may be only one outlet in your living room or bedroom. So the multi plug market is hot. If you are only signing a contract for six months or a year, your best bet is to take the housing that is offered. You may like your fellow teachers and enjoy the bonding. The advantage of having your own place is experiential, you get a better feel for the culture as you are living the same way as others. You'll know when it is time to make the move into a more independent situation. One investment I recommend is a small oven, if you like to make any of the things you make at home this is very helpful. Sometimes you just want roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, or a pizza with real cheese, or sticky rolls. Oh, be sure to bring the potato masher with you if you come as I have never seen one here in any store or street market. Yes, I admit it! I like potatoes better than rice!

Worldtour

2006-01-05T21:57:00.000+08:00

The International Snow and Ice festival officially opened today. Complete with fireworks and hoopla. Harbin revels in the cold and the people take great pride in presenting this wonderful display of "art ice" to people from around the world. When I arrived home this evening, the news showed some very brave and perhaps slightly waco swimmers in an outdoor pool. It must have been an official function as there was a long line of officials there braving the cold. Now, I'm not sure where you live or if you have ever been in a frigid area, but it can be numbing if you are not prepared. I remember -30 F during some winters in Wisconsin, and Minnesota generally has the lowest reading in the U.S. at International Falls, but somehow the current -25 C seems just as cold or colder. So seeing men swimming in this cold is quite awe inspiring and comical. This current picture is from a previous Icelights festival. This picuture turned out pretty well. Picture this, you're bundled up like a Michelin man with your ski gloves on, down jacket, a fleece vest, a sweater, long john tops, longjohns, thermals and wool long johns; and you have to time the photo so that the exhaust of your breath doesn't hover like a ghost between you and your subject.

The attraction is quite affordable at or near 80 rmb or about 10.00 U.S. per person. I have attended each winter that I have been here in Harbin. Some displays are sponsored by leading Chinese companies, such as TCL, Haier, Lenova, Harbin Brewing, ect., and others are independant artists. Harbin seems to have a large number of artists. The portrait artists are frequently seen on Center street. I have found some art galleries with high quality paintings and other fine items priced quite low. At the Icelights festival it is the sculptures that take center stage. The mix of lighting and ice is really quite beautiful. One could spend quite a few hours there enjoying the sights if you have dressed warm enough.

If you would like more information about life in China as a teacher of ESL, you are welcomed to use an instant messenger, and I would be happy to chat. You can find the best messenger here. It will come in handy ordering a gift for Mom when you are on the road.

Worldtour

2006-01-04T23:14:00.000+08:00

Teaching English Abroad has lots of rewards. I ran across this great article that sums it all up rather nicely. Enjoy! Worldtour

Learn To Teach English As A Foreign Language By John Davison

Perhaps you are at career crossroads, and you are looking for a more fulfilling and interesting way to utilize your skills. If you are interested in teaching and traveling to exciting and interesting destinations, then you might want to consider teaching English as a foreign language abroad. English is the most commonly spoken language in the world today, and desire of those in other countries to learn the English language is growing at a steady rate. Therefore, there is a demand for bright and motivated individuals to teach conversational and written English to those abroad, both young and old.

The benefits of teaching English as a foreign language in another country are numerous. Not only are you providing a service to those who desire it, but you will benefit from those you teach as well. In choosing to teach the English language in one of several locales such as Southeast Asia, South America, Western Europe, and the Middle East, you will learn about new cultures and traditions. You will have the opportunity to shatter stereotypes regarding our own American culture. You will have the opportunity to do a large amount of traveling to neighboring nations. You will become self-reliant and self-assured on your journeys, and you will certainly make many new friends.

Teaching English as a foreign language can have many benefits for your career as well. Your exposure to new surroundings and your experience teaching will garner you excellent communication skills. You might find that your prior work experience coupled with your new teaching venture will provide you with a considerable amount of career options when you have completed your teaching duties. You will have opportunities to change your life and career on a global scale.

Because the demand for instructors to teach the English language abroad has increased, so has the demand for more qualified individuals to apply. Language schools are highly discriminating when it comes to hiring new instructors. That is why it is important to get your certification in TEFL/TESOL (Teaching English as a foreign language/Teaching English as a second language) if you intend to apply for a position with a language school. Certification demonstrates to potential employers that you are serious in taking on this challenging new career. Certification can be achieved by taking courses at a number of campuses nationwide, and there are even certification course programs available online. Receiving your certification for teaching English as a foreign language will certainly prepare you to be a more effective and successful teacher by instructing you on how to teach grammar, how to teach vocabulary, how to teach speaking, how to teach writing, how to motivate your students, how to manage a classroom, and how to construct lesson plans. Receiving your certification will also better prepare you for a move abroad, which can be daunting and stressful. Having the peace of mind in knowing that you are fully qualified to perform your new job will help to alleviate some of the stress in throwing yourself into an entirely new country and culture.

Teaching the English language to students in foreign nations can be exciting, fulfilling, and highly enjoyable. It is a mutually beneficial experience for you and your students. Not only are you representing your own country and culture, and imparting your personal knowledge of the English language and your culture onto others, but you are also learning about other individuals and their various experiences and traditions. While broadening your mind and experiencing something totally unique, you are also embarking on an exciting new career, one that has the opportunity to open many new doors for you professionally.

About the Author: John is a director of numerous Internet companies and is a published author. Many articles have been produced on a variety of subjects with excellent content and depth. All his articles may be reproduced provided that an active link is included to http://www.foreign-languages-school.com

Source: www.isnare.com

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"The roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweet". Aristotle

2005-12-26T13:58:00.000+08:00

The International Snow and Ice Festival

(Icelights)

Teaching English in Harbin lets one see some very unusual "attractions". I had seen ice sculptures before, usually at a reception of some sort. They were beautiful but could not compare with the magnitude of these creations. The building you see here is two or three stories tall. The types of ice you will see are, buildings, pavilions, people, animals, heroic depictions, all lit up from inside the ice. It is quite beautiful. Where ever you decide to teach in China, you will find some local festival or attraction that will be worth investigating. One thing that you should ask yourself is what kind of an experience am I looking for? You can teach in the cities, they have most everything you could find in most other large cities. It will certainly be uniquely Chinese. You could teach in the barest of facilities in some regions. You may want to pick an area by climate or natural surroundings. Or perhaps you have an area of interest and want to be near that. For instance, you like archeology so you want to teach in Xian and regularly visit the terra cotta warriors, all 3000 of them.

Consider carefully what level and age of student you would like to teach. You can choose from kindergarten through university age and above. You may not realize how much you like teaching younger students or vice versa. I find that the best rewards usually have come from the students in private language schools. Most are willing and even eager students. Working in public schools was much more difficult in some ways. You may have a class of 60 or more students so that in itself is a huge challenge. Chinese students are ranked and recorded throughout their academic life. Scores from testing determines which students will be sent to the higher ranked schools. The best of the best end up at Beida, Peking University, or Qingwa in Beijing. Most political types would probably choose the later as 7 of 9 of the top government postdating attended Qingwa. So naturally some schools are populated with students who achieve or test higher. Here is another twist. In the West private schools are often thought to have better educational systems. In China, many of these schools are populated with students who could not test high enough to get into a school that was highly rated. They may belong to families that can afford it so they go to a private school. The teachers may be perceived as better or the class size may be smaller. You still may end up with largely disinterested students.

Private language schools can be a great choice or the worst choice. You will have a heavy weekend schedule and days off during the week. The pay will be better than most public schools which usually is 3-5 thousand rmb. The average teacher with a BA should be able to get 5000 rmb per month in most schools. MA's maybe 6000 rmb. There are plenty of message boards to find out about shady operations. One can also find jobs that pay much closer to western wages. If you are good enough and have the experience you could make 2000 dollars per month. These type of positions always require advanced degrees, certificates and usually experience in China. They are usually joint ventures between foreign universities and Chinese universities and may offer diplomas from the foreign university. The other way to make the higher salaries is to be the director of one of the larger schools, like a kindergarten.

University teaching is another choice you have. You will need at least a BA. Teaching hours range from 14-20 per week. This may be based on a 50 minute teaching period. Always check the details. You will have less classroom hours and more working hours away from the class for prep, and marking. Some schools have tons of off hour activities too, so you should like that age group if your going to teach at a university. You may also find a large degree of lethargy in some schools which may not feed your need as a teacher. Challenges at every corner.

The Chinese classroom have some characteristics that are key to understanding. The one child rules put lots of pressure on these kids. Their system is demanding but seems to be wear these kids down a bit. They school during vacations on the weekend, all day with more subjects than in the west. But there is little focus on varied ways of teaching so the teacher may be teaching what they know will be tested rather than building learning structures that can be used in many learning situations. Couple this with no work experience until after college and you have many who finish school without any real skills. Many will tell you that high school is the time when students really study and once they get to college it's much easier, or perhaps they mean they take it easy. Of course high achievers are rare anywhere. Till next post
Worldtour

2005-12-25T17:42:00.000+08:00

Teaching English in China is often challenging. The students can be great or some disinterested, depending on where you are teaching. The day to day chores that you now take for granted, assuming you are in the West, take forever and a day. Some banks don't have anyone that can speak any English so you must have a friend or someone from your job give you a hand with basic tasks. You will pick up some Chinese as you teach but mostly the familiar questions like where are you from. For sending packages, telephones, paying utilities and the like, you probably will need some help. Many people choose to live in apartments at the schools they teach at. This can simplify things if you don't mind living near your workspace. For instance if you are working at a university, you will usually receive the same apartments that the Chinese instructors do. I choose to live in my own place as I want to live like everyone else does. Just remember even the shopping and many other tasks will be complicated with the language problem. Many choose to just eat out, or at the dining halls that all schools have.

Harbin is in the northeast of China. If you look at a map of China, Harbin is the eye of the Chicken. It seems to be known for several things. This area was the homeland of the last Emperor. It was also where the Japanese experimented with chemical warfare. It was the end of the Trans-Siberian railroad. It is quite unique as it has lots of Russian architecture. The cobblestones were set by the Japanese on the popular Center Street. However, the International Snow and Ice festival is probably the biggest draw in Harbin. It is also known as Icelights. The town has many such areas that have ice scuptures and roadside columns glowing with colored lights. The main festival is near the river. It is quite spectacular in that some of the displays are huge, two or three stories high. I had to move a long way back to get most of this dragon in the shot. Look for more photos from Icelights.

The main qualities that one needs to teach and work in China are flexibility, be adaptive, patient, and positive and everything will work out fine. There are tons of resources online to supply you with all kinds of ideas and techniques. You may as well start with the best: http://www.daveseslcafe.com
You can get most any information there that pertains to teaching English. I'm going to give you more personal information that might help you ascertain if this is something that you want to do. If you're dreading your work and want a change and can actually put a plan into action you can spend a year teaching English in China. In many ways the foreign teachers are like the hit of the parade. If you don't like being looked at perhaps this is not for you. In many places in China you will think that you must have two heads because of the way people are staring at you. In those places, I would just shoot back a little stare with a big smile and that should snap them out of their amazement. Many Chinese people are curious about you and why you are in China. Most will be right if they guess you are a teacher. Be patient and gracious with the attention and you will find many new friends. I have found the Chinese people to be quite friendly, warm, and quite generous, irregardless of social or economic status.

Okay, I thought I would start giving you some examples of cost of living at the end of some of theses posts. Dinner for five or six with beer and juice less than 100 yuan = $12, one beer 2.5 yuan=less than $.30, rent 4 rooms 40 square meters, 600 yuan=$72.00, nice bike like a Giant, 100 to 200 dollars, a regular bike 30 dollars or less. Of course you can always pay premium prices by going to the department stores and buy name brand western goods. All the top brands for the women in makeup and accessories, like jewelry. You can also get any world branded products such as Nike or anything else. This applies to the cities. Sometimes with all the chaos and the crazy driving its hard to believe it all gets done. Believe me the goods are moving and the Chinese are shopping. You see plenty of Audi, Lexus, Bmw, and other fine cars. You know trade and commerce have a long tradition in China and it's always been there. The consumers of China are very active. Worldtour

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2005-12-25T10:32:00.000+08:00

Traveling in China is one of the great things about working in China. Yes, you can ski in China. It draws good crowds even with the small hills. You can see from this picture a rope tow (cable), and the hill is only steep and challenging on the top. I think on that day I was one of three skiers that ventured up to the top. Here I was trying to spray the camera. This was at the end of my contract at the private language school. Schools frequently arrange outings for the teachers and staff. About an hour or two of travel usually in a shuttle style bus. Lots of fun. If you make a good choice about what school you teach in then you will probably enjoy a nice banquet with your peers. Christmas is a emerging holiday. Of course there are Christians in China as well as other religions, Buddism, Daoism, and many Muslims. I hope you all have a wonderful season and please remember the reason for the season. "He that has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree"...

Worldtour

2005-12-25T01:46:00.000+08:00

Happy Holidays from Harbin. One of the nice things about living in China is the great food. And it is very affordable! You can even act like a bigshot. Of course Christmas is always better when you can be with your loved ones. You may not find your traditional turkey though unless you go to one of the chain hotels, such as Holiday Inn, or The Shangrila Hotels. This Christmas eve, we had pigs feet, cabbage and pork, the best salad I have had in three years, and ofcourse Harbin Beer, China's oldest brew. It's the best, lets hope Budweiser doesn't wreck it. Oh, I can here it now, pigs feet? "Well it's good for the skin you know". This is a typical retort to doubts about the ediblity of certain strange foods, such as ducks blood, chicken heads and tendons, mmm, chewy! Hey you only go around once, and I have to admit my father used to like to bring home a bottle of pickled pigs feet back in the day.

It managed to snow just in time for Christmas so it really feels like the season. I am also looking forward to the famous International Snow and Ice Festival. I will post more on that soon. Well Merry Christmas to all from Ice city. Worldtour

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2005-12-22T20:03:00.000+08:00

One of the great things about teaching in China is the chance to work and travel. There are many holidays in China. The school system is set up to have summer and winter holidays. Winter holidays are in late January or early Febuary. The traditional Chinese New Year is based on the lunar calendar so it varies year to year, much like Easter does in the West. Chinese New Year and Spring festival are all rolled up into a week long holiday. So this is a good opportunity to travel to other cities or enjoy some of the great natural sights. The picture on this page is the Chang Jiang river. What we call the Yangze in the West. A mighty river and certainly the life blood of historical China. This shot is just upriver from I Chang which is often called "the throat of Sichuan". It is near the Three Gorges dams. Yi Chang is where the upper and lower Yangze converge. It is also the location of the first large scale hydro-electric system in China, with 12 generators within the dam. The Three Gorges project is the largest hydro-electric project in the world and is further upriver from this shot.

So if you want to get out of your particular city, this is one time that you should be able to do it. If you are teaching at a University then you will have about six weeks off from around Jan. 15 to March 1st. You can arrange to have your pay spread out over the teaching year and most universities will offer you a travel allowance of around 1-2 thousand rmb. Which is about $240.00. Train travel is cheap and there is a wide range of accommodations in many areas. Most contracts also offer a round-trip plane ticket as well, which is given after completion of ones contract. Most will require a one year contract for this, or if you are at a university an academic year. China has many 4 and 5 star hotels and you can find tiny little sleeping rooms, which are little more than a bed with a door, for as little as 5-10 yuan. These cheap places come with your own pets, in the form of that pesky indomitable little cockroach! When I was in Nanning I stayed at a 3 star hotel. It was 150 yuan per night, less than $20.00 and was clean and convenient. It also included breakfast and had a restaurant off the lobby and was able to arrange flights for me and have the a tickets delivered.

There is also a summer break in July and the kids go back to school in September, or some universities have classes starting in October. One difference in Chinese schools at the university level is that different disciplines may have different start dates and therefore different graduation days. If you are working for a private school you should get a week off for Spring Festival (Chinese New Years), a week off during the May day festival, and another week during the first week of October, which is National Day. This is the anniversary of the founding of the Peoples Republic of China. I will write more later on the specifics of teaching, for now I just want to give an overview of teaching and it's benefits and what you might expect should you decide to explore China as an ESL teacher. There is a huge demand for native English speakers and almost anyone can get hired. Those with a college degree are preferred and ESL certificates are also desirable, such as TEFL certificate. Look for more details in upcoming posts.

Just a note on location so that you understand what I mean when I say the Chang Jiang is a mighty river. Yi Chang is in Hubei province, there are many large ships that come up river. Tourist ships, barges all kinds. It is near the center of the southern half of China. The point being ships can travel inland thousands of kilometers. It was probably the first river to be manipulate. Originally it was diverted to provide easy fast transport for the armies of the ancient warlords but also provided much needed irrigation to the flatlands and made the area of Sichuan the richest most prosperous area of China.

So if you like travel have some English skills and would like to experience something completely different, China might be a good place for you. Let me just make a short comment on what I see as differences in the three main choices for teaching in Asia. Japanese culture will expect you to be at your workplace all day every day, even if you don't have a class for several hours. From my current teaching peers who have taught there you may expect and be expected to conform to the Japanese way. You tend to get your butt worked off there. The wages are much higher, in the area of 20K US per year but living expenses are also high especially in the big cities and the housing may not be what you are used to. Korea also has a similar situation. In China you may make as little as 3000 yuan per month in some areas, although you can earn as much as 15,000 yuan per month in the prime jobs. Which is nearly 2k US per month. But most jobs will pay at least 4, 5 or 6 thousand yuan, and you will be able to live well on that salary. Even save money. If you have a prime job, and have a long term goal you could save enough to buy an apartment in about three years. Of course, most teachers like to move around a bit see the country, so if you would rather be a bit of a gypsy you will be able to do that, easily, and see different parts of the country. Most schools will sign you for a half a year if you desire that.

Well I must be off to compose a test for my students so please come back again as I hope to find the time, in between my university teaching, my own small school and my internet ventures to expand this blog into a resource of sorts for those of you who might want to expand their horizons.

Here's a nice way to stay in touch with your friends from all over the world. Speak to anyone in the world over the net, with video chat or the traditional Instant messenger for free. It is also one way I supplement my income online so I can continue on my worldtour.

Worldtour

2005-12-20T20:33:00.000+08:00

I want to share some of my experiences living and working in China. If you have an interest in working abroad you may want to get a feel for the culture here. Of course it will be through western eyes. First, I want to say that I love my life in China. So let me apologize in advance for offense that might be taken, from the east or the west. It is always a battle to escape your own cultural biases and perceptions. After three years of living in China, I have come to understand her and myself better and I hope, you too might gain some insight into your culture and world culture.

Worldtour in China, that's the focus here. Worldtour is my "handle" around the internet marketing community. It is one way I supplement my income, as teaching in China will not make you rich, monetarily speaking. So how to live and work abroad will be one thing I will also focus on. I can tell you that teaching in China is a very satisfying and unique lifestyle, suited for adventurers, culture seekers, teachers of course, or any educated person seeking a new gig, who has a grasp of the English language.

China is becoming something else. It's in another revolution, as in changing fast. Most westerners really have no idea about what it is or what it is becoming. In many ways the cities feel like any cities, vibrant, noisy, and problem plagued. In other ways things are uniquely Chinese. I hope I can open a small window into this culture, this lifestyle, both Chinese and expatriate. Till then till then.

Worldtour