bighairylaowai.com

Time for another update I guesses, I would have sent one sooner, but the first month has been pretty draining, and any leisure time has seen me visit one of the ex-pat pubs, or retreat to fortress Lau-wai for a swift dvd from the knock off shop..

There’s been a little turmoil at the organisation, with one American dude leaving after a week, and an Aussie so p*ssed off at the behaviorial standard of the Middle School he’s been sent to that he can’t speak to the Chinese directors of the company without yelling at them but you lied to me! They respond by retreating into complete ignorance, spurious logic, pragmatic modification of reality (lying then), or even leaving the building, all reactions that the Aussie has compared to the temper tantrums of his young sister. Myself, I found out that I was getting ripped off a little in my contract, so I brought some of the famed Jonny B aggression to the negotiating table a couple weeks back, and threatened to leave that day… It sounds harsh and uncharacteristic but you realise that is the typical pattern of commerce over here, from a fruit and veg stall right up to contract negotiations for a job. Any attempt I made to use logic and describe my teaching qualifications were spuriously brushed aside, so I suggested that I would leave, which brought an immediate improved offer - no further bone of contention.
Read the rest of this entry »

The following was my first attempt to transform wildly disparate, invigorating first impressions into something coldly formal and journalistic.
***************************

Somewhere on the way up to Cairns I met an eternal backpacker, an Irishman who had lived out of a bag over 4 decades and across the span of every continent. He had briefly taught in China, but told me little that was insightful, aside from the most popular joke in China, and suggested it to me as an ice-breaker for my upcoming classes. How many steps does it take to put an elephant in the fridge?
1. Open the door.
2. Put the elephant in.
3. Close the door.
How many steps does it take to put a giraffe in a fridge?
1. Open the door.
2. Remove the elephant.
3. Put the giraffe in.
4. Close the door.
Although the British media was constantly informing me that all kinds of social, political (I refuse to use the term socio-political) and economic (the same with socio-economic) barriers were falling, apparently China was still locked in the tyrannical grip of end-of-the-pier music hall humour.
Read the rest of this entry »