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The Bar Room => The BS-Wrestling Pit => Topic started by: Raoul F. Duke on September 04, 2007, 05:39:08 AM

Title: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Raoul F. Duke on September 04, 2007, 05:39:08 AM
I'll roll the ball with an account of Canadian P...and you'll soon see why I include the nationality in the name. I encountered this beast while working at a Web International franchise in a major manufacturing city east of Shanghai.

One of the first things you noticed about Canadian P. was his fanatical devotion to his home country of Canada. Don't get me wrong...I love Canada too. I love it a lot. I may look into going there to live if I ever leave China.
But this guy was foaming at the mouth. An embarrassment. His posted English Corner topics were always things like (and I swear I am not making this up) "Wildlife Species of Canadian National Parks". He began his ECs by putting the Maple Leaf up on the whiteboard. His regular classes invariably got deformed to turn the topic to "the way things are back in Canada". EVERYTHING the man did at the school got somehow turned into propaganda that had even the other Canadians among us puking. aaaaaaaaaa

His monomania might have been somewhat forgiveable, were it not for his deep loathing of China and everything Chinese...especially the people. He, of course, complained loudly and constantly about everything that happened to him here. He was intolerably self-righteous and condescending to the Chinese staff and students; I can only imagine what he must have been like on the street. He invariably addressed all male staffers as "Boy". After witnessing one horrible ordeal involving the IT guys, I actually went up to the staffers in question, made sure Canadian P. was out of earshot, and told them, "Please allow me to apologize for what has just been said to you, on behalf of all foreigners in China. We all also think Canadian P. is an idiot."

When I was at Web, Canadian P. was coming to the end of his contract. He loudly and gleefully talked about how soon he'd be going back to Canada, and how glad he was to be getting rid of China once and for all. "Good riddance", we all thought. But no, he instead took another job locally, and quickly got bounced from school to school. I encountered him again at the local Westbourne Academy...just before he got fired in the face of vociferous student complaints.

Maybe he went back home already. But if he hasn't, let me be the first to load one into the ol' Saloon Mega-Trebuchet, aim it vaguely to the east/northeast, cut the restraining rope, and watch that mutha fly...
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Con ate dog on September 04, 2007, 08:53:15 PM
Nightmare FT's?  I've worked with a Perv, who leered at and hit on every female who looked 14 or older, including the mothers of my students.

Then there was the big, strong guy with the scary Temper.  Good teacher, but everyone tensed up when he entered the room.

These are both archetypes: Lust and Wrath. But the guy who replaced me at my first school was a case I haven't heard of before.  He was technically a good teacher, and courteous to everyone, but extremely distant.  He never opened up to anyone, had no curiosity about anything, and didn't seem to like (or dislike) the students.  Eventually he claimed his mother was sick, flew home and never replied to any mail.  I came back and taught for 4 months until my school found someone else; even so the kids hadn't had a class in over a month, and their English had atrophied.  Asshole.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: babala on September 06, 2007, 12:30:34 AM
Let's see, there was the guy who thought masturbation was a good EC topic. There was the crazy woman who was 65 and kept trying to get me to invest in every internet scam she read about. She later pulled a runner and stole a laptop from the school. There was the teacher who demanded payment for any little thing. I was busy one day and asked him if he could just a do a quick assessment of a student's level and he told me I would need to pay him 100 RMB for that. I also worked with one similiar to the guy Raoul talked about. He basically went into an EC and told the Chinese how terrible they were asasasasas
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: woza on September 07, 2007, 05:56:41 AM
What is it with the Candaian thing that they really want to make sure that they are not mistaken for Americans.  Years ago I moved into an apartment after 2 Canadians, they had left benind a huge flag draped over the balcony  WTK. One was a whiner and the other, the sensitive type.  I really liked them both but what is it with the flag thing and Canadians.
Teachers that I would love to send back home? It is a waiting game.  Fortunately I don't have to work with them, they are just in the same town.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: AMonk on September 07, 2007, 10:58:08 PM
What is it with the Candaian thing that they really want to make sure that they are not mistaken for Americans. 


Where would you like me to start??

They are too close to each other, and do not want to be identified with the inanities/insanities/stupidities that can sometimes occur "down South", especially in politics. 
They do have a strong national pride, and to be mistaken for a member of another nation can offend some people.
They do not like being deemed to be second best, as some people do comparing them with Americans.

But I will let some of our Canadian Members explain further.  By the way, Woza, what is your nationality?




One should also not confuse Indians with Pakistanis!!!
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: birddog on September 08, 2007, 01:35:33 AM
AMonk, I hear ya!

Many Americans, like me, ALSO don't like being associated with the "inanities/insanities/stupidities" of our politicians. For many of us, Bush (and most of his GOP cronies) is our worst nightmare!

 aoaoaoaoao


Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: dragonsaver on September 08, 2007, 02:00:22 AM
Woza is from Australia.  bobobobobo She is super nice even when she is picking on us WONDERFUL Canadians. bmbmbmbmbm bmbmbmbmbm

Yes, I am proud to be a Canadian.  I did try to immigrate to USAnia when I was 21, but couldn't get into the USAF because I didn't have the required American History course and I didn't have my High School Diploma from Canada. (still don't)  I had 183 credit points and only needed 160 (that was 40+ years ago so the numbers might not be correct, but close) but couldn't get an exam for the History course.  So I came back to Canada and moved to Calgary.

I do have a Canadian Flag on the wall in my apartment.  I do have a small Canadian flag taped to my file box on my desk at school.  BUT, I don't sing the Canadian national anthem in restaurants in Suzhou.   agagagagag
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: dragonsaver on September 08, 2007, 03:28:19 AM
No that was a directed comment about a teacher that sang a national anthem in Suzhou,(with Raoul present).  I just yodel and drive Raoul nuts  bfbfbfbfbf
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: decurso on September 08, 2007, 08:00:34 AM
What is it with the Candaian thing that they really want to make sure that they are not mistaken for Americans.  Years ago I moved into an apartment after 2 Canadians, they had left benind a huge flag draped over the balcony  WTK. One was a whiner and the other, the sensitive type. 

 I hear ya. I recently had dinner with an American who has lived in Canada for the last twenty years. He hit the nail on the head when he said "the major difference between Canadians and Americans is that if somebody of another nationality says "aren't Canadians and Americans basically the same ?" an American will say yes while many Canadians will fly off the handle and cite many trivial differences.

 Do Irish people worry so much about being mistaken for Brits? Do Kiwis fret about being mistaken for Ozzies? Do Belgians freak out about mistaken for French? In my experience...no. Only Canadians have this utterly bizarre sensitivity.
 
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Raoul F. Duke on September 09, 2007, 04:00:51 AM
Once I had a Topic,
made it run,
made it race against time.

Once I had a Topic....
Now it's done....
Buddy, can you spare a Thorazine? llllllllll llllllllll llllllllll
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: gonzo on September 09, 2007, 09:56:27 AM
Marko, a big ...adian, with Yugoslav roots and a mother with a cellar somewhere back in ...ada.
He'd somehow escaped the cellar, and on the back of a physics major and a pile of non-specific TEFL certificates, had been working in Japan. Our FAO thought she'd pulled off a wonderful coup, until he actually showed up. Gross in all his habits, including displaying on the front of his shirt what he had eaten-and that was a lot- over the last week. Cracked on to the most feeble minded and immature student he could find, then introduced her to one and all as "my girlfriend". Usually arrived at class, if at all, so late that the students had mostly given up and left. The few who remained wondered why they bothered. Borrowed money from anyone foolish enough to believe him. Maybe he was sending it home to his sick mother, but hitting on young Chinese teachers getting 1,000 a month, then having no recollection of the deal is a bit low. Even after he was sacked he came back begging.
Marko, for me, mapped the depths of desperation that otherwise intelligent FAO's, at [for China] reasonable schools, will plumb to recruit a white face. This bastard and other psychotics I could detail, unemployable in their own societies, were getting the same base salary as someone with teaching qualifications who takes their job seriously.
And that, also for me, is one of the true inequities of the whole EFL game in China.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: dragonsaver on September 09, 2007, 02:30:50 PM
Don't forget our infamous M Wolff.  The one and only letch, non-lawyer, non-teacher, pervert.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: woza on September 10, 2007, 01:21:58 AM
A FT who moved into my apartment, when I left for Dalain.  He agreed that I could store my things in the spare room and I let him use my kitchen stuff and furniture.  He stole stuff, wiped the hardrive on the computer  which he unpacked form our things without our consent, was so bloody aggrogant.   Good news is, he is leaving Dongguan.  Work has dried up for him, as it does for a lot of people who come here and think they are the best thing since someone decided to put yeast in bread.

Now that I have stayed on topic.

Let me tell you, the only flag that I would display is a white one.
I hate overt nationalism.

DS I didn't know you were Canadian.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: dragonsaver on September 10, 2007, 02:42:29 AM


DS I didn't know you were Canadian.

Hope you still like me as much as you did before you found out I was a Canadian.  However, that is not to imply that you liked me before either. ahahahahah agagagagag agagagagag
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: George on September 10, 2007, 03:45:53 AM
Quote
Let me tell you, the only flag that I would display is a white one.
She surrenders easily!! ahahahahah ahahahahah
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: dali-oh on September 12, 2007, 06:59:19 AM
Does anyone remember last year the guy who was working in Suzhou, part-time, brought something like Ukranian money and fussed about not being able to get it changed into RMB, stole furnishings from the apartment he was put into, ran off without paying for anything? He had run from the US to get out of child support, left a newly bought car at the airport and went to the Ukraine to meet up with an internet-sweetie and arrived here having found a China internet sweetie when the Ukraine didn't work out for him. Tried to make his case on the saloon? Is that the kind of person you speak of? The catapult sounds like just what I wished for him at the time.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: ilunga on September 12, 2007, 08:07:04 AM
I can identify with your post Raoul.  Most of the FT's that have annoyed me have in fact been Canadian newbies, and each one has disappeared back home (breaking contract in the process) long before I could get my hands on a catapult.  I have met a couple of great guys who had adapted to the life here and were just great fun, but with some of them, jeez "In canada...." every fifth sentence.  There was always something to moan about.  I've often wondered why there are so many Canadians in China.  For a country with a population of 30 million.  All of whom seem to deeply love their country.  I would guess that I've met more Canadians than USAnians here.  I would love, just once, to meet a Canadian that didn't particularly like their country.  One that would say 'You know what, life here is great.  Much better than back home'. 
I dunno that's just me.  It depends on my mood, but I often reply 'No, it's pretty ugly actually' to the automated 'Oh England.  So beautiful' response, which always follows on from the preferred opening gambit 'Where are you come from?'.  I'm so bored of it, I've now taken to delaying my response in order to bait them into a guess.  I don't mind going along with being Irish, Swedish, Russian, even French.  Beats me why anyone would get so worked up about being mis-took for another nationality.  What's so great about being Canadian/British/American?  Apart from the passport and the language.  If a taxi driver thinks I'm French then what the hell, I'll be French for quarter of an hour.  It's good fun.  Unless they can speak French.

Weirdest FT?  I don't know.  Probably the Canadian girl who decided after about three weeks of teaching she wasn't going to go to classes anymore.  The Russian guy she was sharing with told me she just used to stay in her room watching porn all day.  I later find out that not only was she an avid viewer, but she had a fair bit of experience in that field herself  afafafafaf
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: cheekygal on September 12, 2007, 02:56:56 PM
Don't tell me after all that information you'd like to send her home.  ahahahahah
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: Lotus Eater on September 12, 2007, 04:12:58 PM
Sounds to me she was a dedicated researcher.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: monkeymind on September 16, 2007, 04:29:51 AM
as a canadian, i gotta say that one of the most annoying things that i find about my fellow countrymen is their dedication to canadian beer, which for the most part really isn't very good. i'd rather have a european beer any day of the week  agagagagag
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Eagle on September 16, 2007, 04:37:38 AM
I very happy with Tsingtao, Harbin, or any number of other local beers.  Cheap, VERY drinkable and in very big bottles. 
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: Mr Nobody on September 16, 2007, 05:35:32 AM
Never had any issues with Canadians, Ozzies, Kiwis, or the English. One Irish girl was pretty cool, but was influenced by a USAnian to see the darkseid of the force in anything that went wrong. The USAnian was just young, nothing wrong, just kept seeing things from a Spoon point of view.

Actually, I have never had any issues with USAnian teachers either. Teachers, that is. (except for the minor point that English is English, not American)

However, Nanning is home to the biggest load of retired USAnians seeking young Chinese wives I have ever seen. Many do kind of an elderly backpacker gig with a few paid classes without z visa, interspersed with private lessons and English corners that they get paid for at 100rmb per 2 hours, but I wouldn't call them teachers. They largely live off their pensions in a life of seedy semi-luxury while seeking some poor bint to marry them. Usually they finally end up with some hardfaced slag who has been around the lot a time or two, but they fail to see it, marry (having paid a LOT in all kinds of hong bao for weddings etc, plus 20,000 rmb for the mail order bride guy who ran the website,  but usually they don't know that), take them home, get divorced in a year or so once the (ahem) girl get a green card and lose a substantial amount in the process to set the girl up with her new life, then they come back to go around yet one more time.

It is sad but true.

I have also seen one English guy and one Ozzie in this category, but they weren't teachers.

I think these guys should be sent to whatever country they are from by trebuchet. Hell, don't aim, it don't matter what country they are from, or going to. Just load 'em in and cut the rope, spray them across the planet. Do it en mass and save rope. It is doing everyone a favour, including them.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Eagle on September 16, 2007, 02:39:31 PM
 bkbkbkbkbk - I love it!  This is sad but true.  You see a lot of this here in Jiangsu province as well.  The Chinese girls are honest about it when you ask them about it.  They are looking for money, not love.  They will almost always choose money.  Age is not an issue nor is appearance.  So you see the twiggy model types perched on the arms of seniors from USA, CA, UK (I even saw an Ozzie with a young bird).  My friend who owns a restaurant that is a favourite haunt for foreigners tells me that I see only a small part of this problem.  (He is youngish and is married to a local lady his own age or perhaps a year or two older at the most).  Slap them up the back of their heads and then cut the rope.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: George on September 16, 2007, 03:26:32 PM
Quote
Slap them up the back of their heads and then cut the rope.
Be very careful, you bastards! I'll sic the Babe onto youse!! asasasasas asasasasas asasasasas
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: Shroomy on September 16, 2007, 07:41:08 PM
This truly is an unfair situation.  Are there any Chinese men who would become so mesmerized by my blond hair that they would marry me and do my housework?  I didn't think so.

If you took a headcount, would more young Chinese girls rather marry a successful Chinese or a sagging foreigner?
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: non-dave on September 16, 2007, 08:25:20 PM
Sagging foreigner.

Hands down.

Yay!
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: George on September 16, 2007, 08:33:04 PM
Yeah! afafafafaf
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: decurso on September 16, 2007, 09:08:13 PM
Does anyone remember last year the guy who was working in Suzhou, part-time, brought something like Ukranian money and fussed about not being able to get it changed into RMB, stole furnishings from the apartment he was put into, ran off without paying for anything? He had run from the US to get out of child support, left a newly bought car at the airport and went to the Ukraine to meet up with an internet-sweetie and arrived here having found a China internet sweetie when the Ukraine didn't work out for him. Tried to make his case on the saloon? Is that the kind of person you speak of? The catapult sounds like just what I wished for him at the time.

Hah!Glad I'm not the only one who was thinking of this guy when reading this thread. Dude demanded to paid weekly and quit his job when they refused. Then he actually had the nerve to be surprised when they charged him the breach of contract penalty. What a maroon!

 I believe some forum members actually knew this guy personally. anyone knwo whatever became of him?
I would love, just once, to meet a Canadian that didn't particularly like their country.  One that would say 'You know what, life here is great.  Much better than back home'. 


That's me. Canada is just a place that issues my passport. To say I "don't particularly like it" is actually something of an understatement.My band once recorded a 27 song anti-Canada CD. It was very theraputic.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: Mr Nobody on September 17, 2007, 01:11:19 AM
I met the guy at the Suzhou mayday gig last year. Yes, he was a maroon. I couldn't understand what he was complaining about. It was all self inflicted and easily avoided assuming he had the necessary tissue to play spot the brain cell.

He didn't annoy me, though, I just ignored him, sat elsewhere. He did however whinge non stop as far as I could tell.

I don't even wonder what happened to him.

No, don't tell me; it can be one of life's little mysteries.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: AMonk on September 17, 2007, 02:01:01 AM
No, don't tell me; it can be one of life's little mysteries.


Thank Heaven for Small mercies.........
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Raoul F. Duke on September 17, 2007, 04:30:51 AM
Is the concept of "TOPIC" really this difficult?

Anyway. The guy with the Ukerainian money is still in town. I'm happy to report that he got his shit together and currently seems very successful. He won some battles that needed to be won, and last I heard was making about 3 times my salary.
So, ya just never know...

Aaand, to make another desperate attempt to wrestle this dog's head back onto its original topic, let's go with a name that came up earlier and elsewhere.

MW became very well-known in the online China EFL world through two channels:

1) Under a swarm of pseudonyms he was long the loudest, meanest, and stupidest troll on Dave's ESL Cafe...a place where "loud", "mean" and "stupid" are already impressive demographics indeed.

2) Under his own name, he plastered the internet with some "scholarly" (in about the same sense that the backs of breakfast cereal boxes can be considered "scholarly") articles loudly claiming that- gasp!- Chinese schools, and in particular Chinese EFL programs, are crooked and low in quality. aoaoaoaoao

Well, a few years ago I had the pleasure of working with MW, at a nasty little Chinese/Australian JV foundation program in Shanghai.

While still unpacking, he immediately started demanding that the school administration, which for several years had steadfastly refused teacher demands to provide soap and toilet paper in the faculty bathrooms, install a high-grade video/satellite system that would enhance his weekly Movie Nights AND allow the students unfettered, uncensored access to international English-language news and other programming.

You can only imagine how well that  one went over... bibibibibi

Once classes got underway, it quickly became apparent that, despite all his moaning about educational programs here, MW was the biggest fraud in all of China. Despite the fact that he was teaching upper-level Marketing and Business classes, he refused to touch a textbook or follow a syllabus. This yahoo was not capable of teaching a real class, even if you held him at gunpoint. His pedagogical method consisted of: showing movies. He would show a movie in one of each week's class sessions, then discuss it in the remaining sessions. His exams consisted of a quiz over the movies he had shown during the term. Again, these were supposed to be classes that would dovetail with a mainstream Australian Business curriculum...

After a few terms of this he was finally given the bum's rush...even this skanky little brothel of a JV college couldn't stoop this low.

Sometime later, his internet career was brought to a halt by a revelation. Someone from the Spoon found and posted the status of his license to practice law in the USA: he'd been barred, I think for several instances of serious perjury. It was also revealed that he'd received official complaints for forcing his errant female housekeepers, probably confused and terrified Latinas and/or Filipinas, to jog naked around his neighborhood.
What a guy.

Last I heard he was bouncing around brief tenures at various colleges.

Let's end this nonsense once and for all. Wind up the Saloon Trebuchet, throw this bozo into the bucket (naked would be a nice extra touch...) aim it vaguely at the obscure Pacific island he last lived in, and let that mutha fly.
Good riddance.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: Lotus Eater on September 17, 2007, 06:30:29 AM
Quote
Yes, he was a maroon.

Bloody NSWmen!  Maroon is NOT moron!!  You morons.  The Maroons are a great football team.  Back off.

Quote
aim it vaguely at the obscure Pacific island he last lived in, and let that mutha fly.

What did that island ever do to you????

Rude, obnoxious FT who figured he wasn't re-employed because I was coaching teams and speakers for comps.  Any day he wanted he could have come and helped - as did the previous Japanese teacher.  But no, he preferred to complain - and then refused to turn up at his goodbye/thank you/here's your gift dinner.  Guys like this give all FTs a bad name.

Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: woza on September 18, 2007, 04:19:49 AM
Have any of those self professed sagging foreigners actually  married these girls?
I think it would be the least they could do.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: Con ate dog on September 18, 2007, 03:51:40 PM
This truly is an unfair situation.  Are there any Chinese men who would become so mesmerized by my blond hair that they would marry me and do my housework?

Actually, given how many Chnese women die their hair blond, and all the rubbernecking inspired by laowai with blond and red hair, I'd think you'd just need to find a guy with enough cajones to come up and talk to you.

No one's ever found any stats that I've seen, but anecdotally it seems the divorce rate of local/foreigner marriages is nasty high.  But I know a ton of happy couples- a few unhappy ones, too.

Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: Acjade on September 28, 2007, 01:43:58 AM
but I figure if you tried to call them Brits - particularly the Northern Irish you'd have a minor problem on your hands!! Same with the Scots.

Aussies tend to think of Kiwis as their slightly retarded young siblings - which doesn't go down too well with the Kiwis (don't know why!).

I think each country has a pecking order of relationship - that no other country accepts! ahahahahah ahahahahah



NORTHERN IRELAND is part of England. Try Southern. And for God's sake don't try to involve the Scots.

I was born in New Zealand. My mother's 7th generation Australian. I'm the only offspring of my parents to be born in NZ.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: Lotus Eater on September 28, 2007, 06:13:44 AM
My BAD!!  cbcbcbcbcb I intended all to lump all the Irish in there.  I haven't met one yet who called him/herself British.  And the same with the Scots - the ones I have met are pretty proud of being from north of the border. And most people with Scottish or Irish (even Welsh or Cornish) ancestors proudly claim that nationality for them, rather than British.

Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: Raoul F. Duke on September 28, 2007, 07:54:06 AM
Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. Definitely NOT part of England. They would feel most emphatic about this. bibibibibi

Can't you Commonwealth types keep these things straight? uuuuuuuuuu

Back to the topic, now, please.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: Mr Nobody on September 28, 2007, 01:47:45 PM
My mum was born in Northern Ireland and calls herself British. My mum isn't a teacher here, though.

Sorry Raoul.Back to topic, or nearly.

I would like to trebuchet some of the Chinese teachers here back to where they came from. Straight up for a long way so they come down in the same place would be fine. One bloody idiot is trying to get my students to mispronounce words the teacher can't say properly, saying they are right and implying I am wrong, so the students are getting confused. So I corrected the grammar in one of their notes to me and sent it back. I was tempted to give it a mark out of 10, but refrained.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: dragonsaver on September 28, 2007, 03:10:41 PM
Ok boss I know I am off topic but I want to add to Mr. Nobody's comment.

I agree!!

Why do the Chinese teachers teach English in Chinese?  I had two of my EFL students take an extra grammar course with a Chinese teacher in her class.  She taught in Chinese and spoke very rapidly too.  I gave them heck for writing in Chinese in their text book.  That is when I was told that she taught in Chinese so they had to write in Chinese to keep up with her comments.  She would say an English word or grammar point and then talk about it in Chinese.  She even had them translate the English stories in the text back into Chinese - WHY??
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: Lotus Eater on September 28, 2007, 03:50:10 PM
How much depends on the level of the students?  I know if my French, German and Japanese teachers had only spoken in those languages, I would have learned even less than I did.  My Chinese teacher makes me translate the readings back so she can see if I have actually understood them - the grammar and tenses (or lack thereof).  My Tan teacher explains the grammar in English to me so I can understand it. 

For low level students sitting in a classroom, I think there definitely needs to be a fair bit of native language explanation.  The higher the level, the less need.  If you are living in a country where you are immersed in the language, then you should quickly need less explanation.

But - giving wrong information is not helpful! That needs to be fixed and soon. llllllllll
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: dragonsaver on September 28, 2007, 03:56:16 PM
Ok LE, I understand.  However, at the Uni level I would have thought they had enough English to not need the class taught in Chinese. 

These students I was talking about had one year of English in the EFL program at my Uni.  They were taking the grammar with students from the Chinese main Uni.  Maybe those students didn't have enough English to understand everything in English or maybe they were taught in Chinese because it was easier for the teacher.   mmmmmmmmmm
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Raoul F. Duke on September 28, 2007, 07:47:17 PM
I know. It's my own fault.

The concept of "Specific Individual Expat Teacher" is not sufficiently clear.

And the price set for starting a new topic is really prohibitive.

Mea Culpa... bibibibibi
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: gonzo on September 28, 2007, 08:45:44 PM
Tres Amusant.
Raoul old buddy, if there's one thing I've learned when trying to teach teachers, it is that it is impossible for them to follow instructions or stay on-topic.
The fact that they complain about the same qualities in their students doubles the irony.
I used up my best teacher story early in the thread. But I'll throw in Oscar [not his real name]. A retired high school department head from the USA. Never married. Catholic, with lots of little plaster Marys hanging up in his flat. Said he was a virgin: don't know why, as no one had even asked him if his next time would be his first anyway.
The reason he came to China? Boys, and lots of 'em. You all know how Chinese college boys fondle each other, bear hug from behind, sit on laps etc. Not gay, just expressing friendship. Well, Oscar was their friend too. Beer parties and dancing at his place for the lads, holding hands around the campus. No problem for the admin. I've never been able to work this out. Male FTs cracking onto female students ["fair yonge skolars"] is disapproved of, and rightly so, but overtly homosexual behaviour was openly tolerated.
Any ideas?
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: Mr Nobody on September 28, 2007, 09:14:20 PM
I think the title of the thread says it all. Trebuchet. Perhaps with a little flaming oil to improve visibility at night.

(Hey, Boss, maybe it's because we are out of the habit of following instructions here. I mean, take a look at the instructions we are given in this place. China, I mean. Following instructions here can lead to all kinds of complications.)
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Raoul F. Duke on September 28, 2007, 10:03:44 PM
Yes, we are difficult cats to herd...
It's almost enough to give one sympathy for the people who manage us and our schools.


Note the strategic use of the word "almost": fuck 'em if they can't take a joke. uuuuuuuuuu
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: abusalam on October 17, 2007, 12:14:16 PM
I'll roll the ball with an account of Canadian P...and you'll soon see why I include the nationality in the name. I encountered this beast while working at a Web International franchise in a major manufacturing city east of Shanghai.

One of the first things you noticed about Canadian P. was his fanatical devotion to his home country of Canada. Don't get me wrong...I love Canada too. I love it a lot. I may look into going there to live if I ever leave China.
But this guy was foaming at the mouth. An embarrassment. His posted English Corner topics were always things like (and I swear I am not making this up) "Wildlife Species of Canadian National Parks". He began his ECs by putting the Maple Leaf up on the whiteboard. His regular classes invariably got deformed to turn the topic to "the way things are back in Canada". EVERYTHING the man did at the school got somehow turned into propaganda that had even the other Canadians among us puking. aaaaaaaaaa

His monomania might have been somewhat forgiveable, were it not for his deep loathing of China and everything Chinese...especially the people. He, of course, complained loudly and constantly about everything that happened to him here. He was intolerably self-righteous and condescending to the Chinese staff and students; I can only imagine what he must have been like on the street. He invariably addressed all male staffers as "Boy". After witnessing one horrible ordeal involving the IT guys, I actually went up to the staffers in question, made sure Canadian P. was out of earshot, and told them, "Please allow me to apologize for what has just been said to you, on behalf of all foreigners in China. We all also think Canadian P. is an idiot."

When I was at Web, Canadian P. was coming to the end of his contract. He loudly and gleefully talked about how soon he'd be going back to Canada, and how glad he was to be getting rid of China once and for all. "Good riddance", we all thought. But no, he instead took another job locally, and quickly got bounced from school to school. I encountered him again at the local Westbourne Academy...just before he got fired in the face of vociferous student complaints.

Maybe he went back home already. But if he hasn't, let me be the first to load one into the ol' Saloon Mega-Trebuchet, aim it vaguely to the east/northeast, cut the restraining rope, and watch that mutha fly...

There comes another rather sad story to my mind about another male Canadian - a pedophile hunted by Interpol. He had internet pics published when raping small boys, and his face was somehow "covered up" so that his real identity may not be revealed. Interpol and some German specialists, however, managed to restore the picture with his real face by some digital manipulation of the pic/s. He is said to be a teacher hiding in Bangkok at the moment, and he suddenly disappeared from his school and went into hiding after his picture was published worldwide. I do not mean to beat down on any decent Canadian people, and to me it is not a question of nationality. But this case makes me think - foreign teachers in Asia and anywhere else should not be involved in such cruel and bad things. There are some who simply go abroad for a teaching job to abuse children. This is terrible!.....
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: jwbhomer on October 18, 2007, 03:07:16 AM
Chris Neil, a.k.a. Peter Jackson. See http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/267707
How's that for being specific!
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: synthette on January 02, 2009, 12:05:29 PM
Does anyone remember last year the guy who was working in Suzhou, part-time, brought something like Ukranian money and fussed about not being able to get it changed into RMB, stole furnishings from the apartment he was put into, ran off without paying for anything? He had run from the US to get out of child support, left a newly bought car at the airport and went to the Ukraine to meet up with an internet-sweetie and arrived here having found a China internet sweetie when the Ukraine didn't work out for him. Tried to make his case on the saloon? Is that the kind of person you speak of? The catapult sounds like just what I wished for him at the time.

Hah!Glad I'm not the only one who was thinking of this guy when reading this thread. Dude demanded to paid weekly and quit his job when they refused. Then he actually had the nerve to be surprised when they charged him the breach of contract penalty. What a maroon!

 I believe some forum members actually knew this guy personally. anyone knwo whatever became of him?
I would love, just once, to meet a Canadian that didn't particularly like their country.  One that would say 'You know what, life here is great.  Much better than back home'. 


That's me. Canada is just a place that issues my passport. To say I "don't particularly like it" is actually something of an understatement.My band once recorded a 27 song anti-Canada CD. It was very theraputic.


Hi Everyone........sorry for quoting the whole post, but this thread is pretty old now, and I'd really like to respond to the Canadian issue.
I'm a Brit, born and bred, but recently became Canadian - why?....because it was a darn sight cheaper to get my Canadian passport than renew my British one here in Canada ($75 v $400............go figure) - plus it's a little safer to travel on a Canadian passport than a British or American one given the present political climate.
But, nonetheless, I don't particularly like it here either (many people are downright rude, arrogant, narrow-minded and insular - maybe I just picked the wrong cities; though Halifax, Nova Scotia is really great - definitely the exception!) - I'd much rather be back in the Middle East or Asia. Why? I don't know - except that I find many expats to be infinitely more open-minded than 'locals' in Canada (and the UK for that matter) as well as loving the experience of discovering a new country and interacting with the true culture. Absolutely no desire to experience life vicariously by watching the 'Discovery' channel - I want to be out there, immersed in it - be it 'bad' or 'good' - it's all a matter of perception and attitude. I went to Saudi when I was in my 20's - my family and friends thought I was nuts! (and still do - because most of them have never even been outside of their own little town!)
Also - yes, Canadian beer is bad - any beer is bad compared to British beer (real ale at room temp, with floaters, from the Trip to Jerusalem Inn in Nottingham). Still - looking forward to trying the local Hangzhou brews!! (and the food......well, except the chicken feet maybe........ aoaoaoaoao)

Happy New Year - counting the days to Zhejiang!
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: George on January 02, 2009, 12:14:27 PM
Somebody said something recently, that made me stop and think. By and large, those of us who travel, live, and/or work in other countries are usually great people. We get out of our comfort zones and create new ones. We generally, are nicer people than those who stay at home and conform. We are more adventurous, have more relationships, have more fun, and have more than one side to us. In general, we are smarter, more knowledgeable, and with way more experience. We also get shafted more often when we get back home, because we are different.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Schnerby on January 02, 2009, 09:07:10 PM
A friend of mine tried to say the same thing, but had trouble. That is a neat way of putting it.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: George on January 02, 2009, 10:25:04 PM
Our pal Marty recently surfaced on ELT World Discussion Forum, calling himself EFL Guru. He was very quickly outed by a couple of us, and subsequently deleted all his posts. His posts were all very long "cut and paste" from his other drivel.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Raoul F. Duke on January 02, 2009, 10:46:08 PM
I wish I didn't  know the bozo.
I have a feeling the teacher he complains about was probably me. Got a link to the "paper"?
But yeah, he's now pimping this "Holistic English" text product (Federal labeling laws prohibit calling that bqbqbqbqbq a "textbook" or a "curriculum") that's actually based entirely on watching movies... aaaaaaaaaa
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: synthette on January 04, 2009, 02:43:58 PM
Somebody said something recently, that made me stop and think. By and large, those of us who travel, live, and/or work in other countries are usually great people. We get out of our comfort zones and create new ones. We generally, are nicer people than those who stay at home and conform. We are more adventurous, have more relationships, have more fun, and have more than one side to us. In general, we are smarter, more knowledgeable, and with way more experience. We also get shafted more often when we get back home, because we are different.


That's been my experience too - and I've been an expat for the past 28 yrs - sad thing is though, I don't even know where "home" is any more!  kkkkkkkkkk  ........'cept that it's not in Europe, nor is it in North America.  Someone should really set up an 'expat colony' for all us old displaced die-hards! bfbfbfbfbf   (maybe like a leper colony, for that's sure how we're treated by friends and employers alike when we deign to go 'home' - over-qualified, over-travelled lepers!).
Hope not to come across any psycho-Canuks like this guy though.......get's all FT's a bad name, no matter what the nationality.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: James the Brit on January 05, 2009, 07:21:14 AM
I'd agree with Synthette.

But do employers really regard ppl like us as bd/useless/lacking the appropriate skills?
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Lotus Eater on January 05, 2009, 03:02:11 PM
No - but they really don't believe that you have the pulling power of a big nose!  If they are promising students (and their fee paying parents) foreigners, someone not looking foreign doesn't have the same cachet no matter how beautiful your English.  It's all in the presentation.

Plus ... as a Chinese Canadian/Aussie etc - you (or your parents) 'escaped' and could therefore be seen as not a good role model for the students. ahahahahah ahahahahah

But it is possible - my uni has 3 Chinese/German/NZ/Aussie teachers - but all in highly specialist fields.  PhD, research type people.



EDIT: Just realised this is in the wrong thread.  Sorry - brain cell got lonely and went on strike. bibibibibi bibibibibi
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: synthette on January 05, 2009, 06:35:19 PM
That's right, actually.
I'm a Ph.D, highly specialized, research person (In Vitro Fertilization/Male Infertility) - and have taught at Faculty level for over 20 yrs......200+ academic publications as well as a textbook.......
but - I love to teach - especially those who love to learn - and this is sorely lacking in "western" kids these days - I know, I'm the mum of a 20 yr old who still figures that life owes him something; and that 'mum' is just a fancy name for an ATM!!.......while he sits on his backside playing X-Box/Nintendo/Playstation!!
The music students I have here in Nova Scotia are all Asian - all highly motivated and driven - best students I've ever had (from ground zero to grade 5 RC in one year??)- hope that the Chinese students attain even just 20% of what these amazing kiddies have done - because, sure as hell, the "civilized western students" never will - not in Canada, anyways.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: James the Brit on January 05, 2009, 10:06:53 PM
I love to teach - especially those who love to learn - and this is sorely lacking in "western" kids these days - I know, I'm the mum of a 20 yr old who still figures that life owes him something; and that 'mum' is just a fancy name for an ATM!!.......while he sits on his backside playing X-Box/Nintendo/Playstation!!

You should dump your kid on tiananmen square with a suitcase full of clothes and 1000 rmb and see what happens. He'll soon figure out that western society has given more than he'll ever be able to give back. 

Thats pretty much what happened to me last year. I learnt a lot.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: fox on January 05, 2009, 10:35:31 PM
Since we are expats here i suppose the following may get some a bit riled however...

It seems to me that a lot of people leave their homeland because they dont fit in. Either they cant make a go of things be it relationships or economic success and being in the minority in another country does attract favouritism and attention that you wouldnt get back home. I know a handful of people that really didnt achieve much in their hometowns but now living in another country have prospered in every area of life.

Some leave to run away from a difficult situation rather than face and conquer it. Im still on the fence about that one for me.

I moved here because i was bored with what was happening in my life and wanted a change and some challenges. My wife had just died and there were just too many sad memories. A few years before, my wife and i had decided we would move to another country once our kids started uni so I cant say i left solely because of her death as it probably would  have happened anyway. 

But then ive always thought of myself as a bit of an oddball.

getting a bit off topic here.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: synthette on January 06, 2009, 05:34:30 PM
LOL!
I think I was the one who essentially derailed this thread when I resurrected it......mea culpa.
But it's really interesting to consider who 'we' are, and what motivates us (it sure as heck ain't money - not in China anyways!) - not many people in the 'small' world consider such things, they just do what they do from day to day, and are satisfied.....we aren't so easily bought and sold. To quote from "Constant Craving"  kd lang's introduction (good Canadian - and if you can catch her Sydney tour on DVD, it's awesome!):
"if you should leave here tonight, feeling unfulfilled, feeling not quite sated...remember, that this is the human condition"
Maybe we're too much in tune with our humanity, its frailness, and its nebulousness.......maybe we're all on our own GrailQuest - and we'll know it when we find it.
 bebebebebe
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: psd4fan on January 07, 2009, 02:55:43 AM
A particular Englishman who used to work at my school. Not a bad guy who was waaaaay smart but complained about how bad everything is in China. Not just sometimes but everyday it was something else pissing him off. If you don't like it get the fuk out and leave those of us who love it here alone. llllllllll
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: BrandeX on January 07, 2009, 05:56:19 PM
Quote
But it's really interesting to consider who 'we' are, and what motivates us (it sure as heck ain't money - not in China anyways!)
Maybe not be true for all... I make 2x-3x more a month here than what I did in the states.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Riz on January 08, 2009, 09:49:50 AM
And there was this old guy, about 67 year, always used to invite young female students to cook, watch movies or cleaning his apartment. He touched them at random and said such things that a sensible person cannot not say. The kids did not mind that due to his old age. FAO and everybody knew what he did and his contract didn't get extended due to that very reason.He's still in this city at another college doing the same shit.He's got 4 kids who are adults and he got divorced long ago. The height of immorality is that he never cares who the girl is. He can be nasty with his colleague's girlfriend or wife. I had shouted at him once in public and gave him hellavan embarrassment. Detestable creature!
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Seth on January 13, 2009, 09:45:07 PM

MW became very well-known in the online China EFL world through two channels:

1) Under a swarm of pseudonyms he was long the loudest, meanest, and stupidest troll on Dave's ESL Cafe...a place where "loud", "mean" and "stupid" are already impressive demographics indeed.

2) Under his own name, he plastered the internet with some "scholarly" (in about the same sense that the backs of breakfast cereal boxes can be considered "scholarly") articles loudly claiming that- gasp!- Chinese schools, and in particular Chinese EFL programs, are crooked and low in quality. aoaoaoaoao


Wow, I know who you're talking about but I can't even remember his various pseudonyms.  I can't believe you met the guy, I figured he was 100% troll.  Or at least lived in HK like he claimed. 

I also met a cranky old Canadian.   She taught at the school I taught at in Luoyang but left due to 'difficulties'.  She was teaching at some other school in the city when I met her.  Her favorite thing to wear was a Canadian flag jumpsuit, she was literally a walking Canadian flag.  Ilunga probably met her if he still posts here.  I never spoke to her much so I can't really say I'd like to put her in a trebuchet, although the other Chinese teachers would tell me stories.  Namely forcing her way into the headmasters office to scream at the man himself. 

Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: solongtinik on January 16, 2009, 12:03:01 AM
me back!
me filipina!
me adorable!

before i left my school (and china), the guy who was hired to take the place of the canadian ft, was of an IRISH-SCOTTISH race. a braggart!

always pretending to be rich only to find out that he always asks advance pay from our headmaster.

the last thing i heard was he made the school's grocery sales lady  (chinese)as his live in partner..hurt her..abused her..then left her...

Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on January 16, 2009, 05:28:09 PM
me back!
me filipina!
me adorable!

And I've missed you so much.  Solong, wo ai ni!   akakakakak

Quote
before i left my school (and china), the guy who was hired to take the place of the canadian ft, was of an IRISH-SCOTTISH race. a braggart!

Those kind of dangerous things can happen if you get the wrong cross with a Scot.
 bvbvbvbvbv
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: jwbhomer on April 13, 2009, 07:43:32 AM

MW became very well-known in the online China EFL world through two channels:

1) Under a swarm of pseudonyms he was long the loudest, meanest, and stupidest troll on Dave's ESL Cafe...a place where "loud", "mean" and "stupid" are already impressive demographics indeed.

2) Under his own name, he plastered the internet with some "scholarly" (in about the same sense that the backs of breakfast cereal boxes can be considered "scholarly") articles loudly claiming that- gasp!- Chinese schools, and in particular Chinese EFL programs, are crooked and low in quality. aoaoaoaoao


Wow, I know who you're talking about but I can't even remember his various pseudonyms.  I can't believe you met the guy, I figured he was 100% troll.  Or at least lived in HK like he claimed. 

I've been away for awhile. Kind of lost interest in China considering I left in the summer of 2006. (Three years was enough.) However, I believe I've tangled with "MW" on Dave's, and eventually got myself barred from there (no loss!) because of it. Can someone refer me to the earlier thread/post that this one refers to?
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: becster79 on April 13, 2009, 01:56:45 PM
I believe this particular thread is open to all and sundry to see so I shall make this very ambiguous to those reading....

The wanker teacher here is leaving!!!!! agagagagag Says he got a job for next year elsewhere, but I don't believe him. Bet he got the boot. Already throwing in a few parting shots- came to see me the other day about a couple of issues and he was fishing BIG TIME!

But yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(I am probably leaving myself but nothing gives me greater pleasure than seeing him out!)
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: paddyfields on April 15, 2009, 03:29:27 AM
but complained about how bad everything is in China. Not just sometimes but everyday it was something else pissing him off. If you don't like it get the fuk out and leave those of us who love it here alone. llllllllll

We got one of those here at our school, not from England tho'. He has been in China more than two years already. But ...... bibibibibi
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: George on April 15, 2009, 03:43:23 AM
Quote
But it's really interesting to consider who 'we' are, and what motivates us (it sure as heck ain't money - not in China anyways!)
Of course it's money! We are on a very good wicket here. Back home I would be eking out an existence on a pension..sure as hell I wouldn't have a teaching job that provides a flat, no tax, free food, and umpteen days paid holiday. I have a reason to be here, in that I am considered worthwhile. I can make a difference. OK, that's a bit more than just money. When I think of the alternative, I shudder. Would any of us like to be in Raoul's shoes, or Babala's?  bibibibibi Oh dear...wandering off the trail again! bibibibibi
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: decurso on April 15, 2009, 12:25:34 PM
Hell yeah it's money. As George said, that isn't the only reason, or I'd be in Korea. But I can save 3000 a month here, which is more than I could save in Canada making 33,000 CAD a year.

 That and the fact that I actually have nowhere else to go.... ananananan

 Sorry to be so  offtopic . A biproduct of checking what recent discussions are about by using the "recent posts" feature" rather than actually reading what the discussion is about. Carry on... agagagagag
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Mr Nobody on April 15, 2009, 02:04:49 PM
I am here for the lifestyle, but that's the money left over after the bills, so money here too.

Not much left over for overseas purposes but that's a sacrifice I am willing to make.

Can we inlcude Local teachers I would like to send home using a catapult? I don't mind that it isn't far... the sound of the splat would still be comforting.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Con ate dog on April 16, 2009, 10:07:56 PM

Can we inlcude Local teachers I would like to send home using a catapult? I don't mind that it isn't far... the sound of the splat would still be comforting.


That made me laugh out loud.  I've had mostly great people working around me, but at Shane there were a few real wenches making life hard.  Granted, the fact that they had overhired and forced the local staff to be there 12 hours a day, 6 days a weak brought out the worst in them- not enough to do, little life outside the office, and surprise! things got catty.  Nonetheless there were a couple of truly nasty bullies.  God help any new hires.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: synthette58 on May 22, 2009, 03:46:04 AM


Can we inlcude Local teachers I would like to send home using a catapult? I don't mind that it isn't far... the sound of the splat would still be comforting.


PMSL too!!  agagagagag
I can think of 1 or 5 - even in gentle, sleepy, Lin'an   aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: ericthered on May 22, 2009, 03:55:01 AM
Me too....
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: synthette58 on May 22, 2009, 04:03:29 AM
Me too....

We should compare notes.......
 NOTES, Eric, notes!!........think 'chords', think 'F'......
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: ericthered on May 23, 2009, 01:42:45 AM
F chords do not exist...they are a myth, told to children to make them eat vegetables, like the boogeyman and Michael Jackson...
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Mr Nobody on May 23, 2009, 02:24:30 AM
That must be that Danish death metal stuff again. I am sure I recall F chords in other music. Or perhaps I was drunk.

(Once, when I saw Lou Reed playing unplugged, he was saying the bastard critics said he only could play three chords. They were referring to Sweet Jane or something. He refuted them very well, showing that it actually has 4 chords.

How sweet is victory.)
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: synthette58 on May 23, 2009, 05:32:44 AM
.....Eric is just miffed at the 'F' chord because, as I told ya before - he has a deformity - now I'm not going into this, because it's intensely personal, and Eric is a sensitive chappie.
Furthermore, we're not allowed to mock the afflicted on this board.

Once we can find a surgeon willing to fuse two of Eric's fingers together, the problem will be solved, and he'll be playing 'F's everywhere, (he'll be 'F'-ing everywhere?) without a by-your-leave...he will become an F-fanatic (or he'll develop a stammer.......). It could go either way right now.
 :wtf:
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: dragonsaver on May 23, 2009, 12:56:27 PM
 bkbkbkbkbk axaxaxaxax axaxaxaxax
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: Con ate dog on June 03, 2009, 01:31:36 AM
There is this tall Scottish lad here in Suzhou that scares people.  He rambles/rants, starting by saying something innocuous, then "f***in' c***s", then tries to tie the two things together, only to lose the thread of what he was trying to say.  Every minute or so he bends forward and slaps his head.  I'm convinced he has schizophrenia, but I have no way to tell whether he's dangerous.  My guess is yes: a live hand grenade that I hope goes off when no one I know is around.  This is a universal opinion.

Trouble is, how does one get rid of someone like this?  There's no way to get him help here, and it will take a nasty event to get him deported.

I forgot to add that is accent is thicker than canal water... and he's an English teacher.  mmmmmmmmmm
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Mr Nobody on June 03, 2009, 01:40:56 AM
are the students scared? They should then complain. The admin will send him packing, I would imagine.

personally, 'run away! run away!' is a good option. It worked for Sir Robin.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Riz on June 05, 2009, 08:26:41 PM
This guy from Canada happens to dislike anything under the sun! Thanks gosh he teaches at the other campus. He talks rudely to Chinese tutors, course consultants and even foreigners. He argues with taxi drivers. He came from Suzhou a year ago and I am sure he must have done something terrible there that he escaped. He had a kinda gf who left him few weeks ago due to his rash attitude. Management is not happy with him. He knows that they will not offer him the next contract. The school hesitates to invite him on dinners or other activities since he's good at creating scenes.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: synthette58 on June 05, 2009, 11:12:44 PM
He had a kinda gf who left him few weeks ago due to his rash

..that's the bit I got to before spraying coffee over my keyboard...... ananananan
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: ilunga on June 22, 2009, 01:11:05 PM
There is this tall Scottish lad here in Suzhou that scares people.  He rambles/rants, starting by saying something innocuous, then "f***in' c***s", then tries to tie the two things together, only to lose the thread of what he was trying to say.  Every minute or so he bends forward and slaps his head.  I'm convinced he has schizophrenia, but I have no way to tell whether he's dangerous.  My guess is yes: a live hand grenade that I hope goes off when no one I know is around.  This is a universal opinion.

Trouble is, how does one get rid of someone like this?  There's no way to get him help here, and it will take a nasty event to get him deported.

I forgot to add that is accent is thicker than canal water... and he's an English teacher.  mmmmmmmmmm

LOL.  I've worked with four scottish lads in the last year, and your description reminds me of three of them.  Particularly the "f***in' c***s" bit.  If you're on their wavelength they're sound, but if they think you're a "f***in' c***", you're probably going to be aware of it  uuuuuuuuuu
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: BubbaBait on June 28, 2009, 06:14:58 PM
...Borrowed money from anyone foolish enough to believe him. Maybe he was sending it home to his sick mother, but hitting on young Chinese teachers getting 1,000 a month, then having no recollection of the deal is a bit low. Even after he was sacked he came back begging...
These are the kind I dislike as well, and, in my experience, they seem to predominate among Americans from southern states for some reason. I have yet to witness any other subgroup of a nationality display the same level of venality. Certainly there are wonderful exceptions. Grand personalities and wonderful scholars often come from the southern United States, but are there any others among us who have developed an instinctive negative and defensive reaction to an American southern accent? I cannot be the only one.
We had a rather large chap who was always having money problems living in our building. For a short period he was also on our English staff. While in our department he borrowed money from almost everyone, including the dean. Once he had ‘conquered’ a colleague, he seemed to forget he knew them, and certainly displayed no interest in returning the purloined capital. He moved on to greater, or at least different, things and has since left China, and a trail of IOUs, behind.
An American/Chinese woman who had been teaching in China, off and on, for many years displayed another lamentable personality type. She was one of those who, because she was an ‘AMERICAN,’ as she too often would remind all within earshot, lorded it over the Chinese nationals claiming the superiority of her pronunciation.  The problem was that she spoke in a dialect of the English language she had picked up on the streets in New York City’s Chinatown. It had the characteristic tongue-tied, soft pattern sound so common to that brand of Chinglish.  While not as difficult for an Englishman to interpret as is South Island New Zealander (Not that it would be proper to salt more than one or two actual Oxford or Cambridge British accents into to any department off the island.), or almost anyplace Australian, her accent was not one that should be allowed to dominate any English department more than a quarter click from Columbus Park. Additionally, she had a look in her eyes that could cut glass.
On balance, I’d have the woman on staff again before I’d hire the thief.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: DaDan on June 28, 2009, 06:43:35 PM
yea, I've noticed that often, for many,

Americans = BaD.

blblblblbl  blblblblbl
cccccccccc
blblblblbl  blblblblbl

yer not the only one....  bibibibibi
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: Raoul F. Duke on June 28, 2009, 10:38:45 PM
I think I know of whom you speak. Barely met him but heard the tales. Once made racial slurs to the gorgeous and brilliant Miss M. that about had ME out looking to kick his ass.

Guys like this are why you should always stop by the F**** G*** booths when you visit Hong Kong, and load up on the literature. Slip the goon a Mickey, stuff his pockets with pamphlets, and calmly call the cops. uuuuuuuuuu

There is this tall Scottish lad here in Suzhou that scares people.  He rambles/rants, starting by saying something innocuous, then "f***in' c***s", then tries to tie the two things together, only to lose the thread of what he was trying to say.  Every minute or so he bends forward and slaps his head.  I'm convinced he has schizophrenia, but I have no way to tell whether he's dangerous.  My guess is yes: a live hand grenade that I hope goes off when no one I know is around.  This is a universal opinion.

Trouble is, how does one get rid of someone like this?  There's no way to get him help here, and it will take a nasty event to get him deported.

I forgot to add that is accent is thicker than canal water... and he's an English teacher.  mmmmmmmmmm
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Day Dreamer on September 08, 2009, 02:28:22 AM
It appears any and all bad Canucks left the land of shinnie (hockey) and came here. I once encountered a fellow Canadian, a young lad from not too far from my home.

About 35 seconds into our conversation, he's telling me how great it is for him to be an English teacher since his only qualification is that, ahem,  

"I talk English real good!"
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Pashley on September 08, 2009, 03:03:03 AM
Some foreigners here seem to have precisely zero consideration for locals, in particular for some of the Chinese women. I can understand wanting the girls & not wanting marriage, and all the usual male/female complications, and some cultural differences and ... but there are things I just don't understand. Two incidents that both took place in lao wai bars:

A British guy here "You're not my girlfriend. You're just somebody I'm screwing." I must admit there have been women I have thought approximately that about. I can even imagine circumstances in which I might say it to her, in private. This does not seem likely, but possible. However, this guy said this in public, in a group of mutual friends.

An American guy here visited another town and greatly enjoyed the local pink shops; apparently the girls were young, pretty, cheap and enthusiastic. I can see telling the other men about this; some of us would like to know and others might enjoy the story. I can also see telling your girlfriend about it, very much depending on the relationship. However, this bozo told the lads about it in public, with the girlfriend and other Chinese women sitting there.

Now it seems possible both guys are just jerks (I'm certain one is, but find the other a fine lad to have a beer with) and also possible they'd treat Western women just as badly.

However, I wonder if there isn't something else going on, Are some foreigners so clueless about "face" that they do not realise that causing the women involved to lose face is cruel, stupid, & unnecessary?
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Pashley on September 08, 2009, 03:06:51 AM
... he's telling me how great it is for him to be an English teacher since his only qualification is that, ahem, "I talk English real good!"
See also this thread http://raoulschinasaloon.com/index.php?topic=4035.0

Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: Pashley on September 08, 2009, 03:24:04 AM
He rambles/rants, starting by saying something innocuous, then "f***in' c***s", then tries to tie the two things together, only to lose the thread of what he was trying to say.  Every minute or so he bends forward and slaps his head.  I'm convinced he has schizophrenia, ...

I am not competent to diagnose and don't have enough information anyway, but that sounds more like Tourette's syndrome. Both the cursing and the head-slapping are common with that. I knew someone with severe, incapacitating, Tourette's in Canada. This guy seems similar, but if he has Tourette's, it is a far milder case.

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/tourette/tourette.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourette_syndrome

Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Lotus Eater on September 10, 2009, 04:02:09 AM
The grotty little man who used to be here has moved on to another uni not too far from here.  Students from there had him for the first time today.  Reports from there say he is telling them the same old stories (although with swine fever around, he has added that he used to have  pig farm!), his degrees now all come from Oxford, and he's told them about his 3 wives.

He told them the "newspaper and Magazine Analysis' class he is supposed to teach them is crap and he won't teach it, he threw out the TA he was given and told him that they would take it in turns to teach the class (ie he won't teach them next week - it will be the TA's turn, so he won't go to class!!).

The students are giving him a two week trial and will then report him to the admin.  The sooner the better!!
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Day Dreamer on September 11, 2009, 04:02:11 AM
told him that they would take it in turns to teach the class (ie he won't teach them next week - it will be the TA's turn, so he won't go to class!!)

Let me know if that works. I keep threatening my TA the same thing. The other day she said OK, she'd probably do better

I chased her down the hall, the little shit princess!
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Turino on September 11, 2009, 10:25:30 AM
Quote from: Day Dreamer on Today at 02:02:11 PM
Quote from: Lotus Eater on Yesterday at 02:02:09 PM
told him that they would take it in turns to teach the class (ie he won't teach them next week - it will be the TA's turn, so he won't go to class!!)

Let me know if that works. I keep threatening my TA the same thing. The other day she said OK, she'd probably do better.
I chased her down the hall, the little shit princess!

At the middle school where my fellow FT and I are employed,we have just asked for a non-English-speaking TA to accompany each of us to class. I guess we each need a Chinese adult present to help us suppress 80+ lively and excitable pupils.

Whenever we ask the FAO for copies of the school rules for pupils and for teachers,he runs away or says we'll get them later.Who knows,maybe there aren't any!However,we did each receive an identical e-mail from him the other day,which I've reproduced below:

What you both said about the assistant to the classroom was reported to the president last year.However,the president refused it.maybe he is afraid to pay more for the assistant.
I shall report this matter to them again next week.


Wow!I've just noticed that my FAO and I have something in common - we both type English the Chinese way!I think he was taught to do so,but in fact I was self-taught.I should mention too,for the sake of accuracy,that,unlike my foreign colleague,I wasn't here last year.A case of dejavu,perhaps in reverse,or something like that!

I'm sorry that my post is kind of off-topic.That's because it follows on from the previous post,which is off-topic too!Never mind?



Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: synthette58 on September 13, 2009, 06:25:30 AM
It appears any and all bad Canucks left the land of shinnie (hockey) and came here. I once encountered a fellow Canadian, a young lad from not too far from my home.

About 35 seconds into our conversation, he's telling me how great it is for him to be an English teacher since his only qualification is that, ahem,   

"I talk English real good!"

Isn't that the truth!!
He wasn't from Alberta or Saskratchewan was he??
We Canuks can be So uncultured sometimes.......especially the Borscht Belt!
Head a tad more south, like SoCal, and you'll even experience folks who combine lower and upper case with gay abandon!!

Canuk, and proud!
(but taught in British schools!! hehehehe....!!) bfbfbfbfbf
 bmbmbmbmbm
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Eagle on October 14, 2009, 03:48:18 PM
It appears any and all bad Canucks left the land of shinnie (hockey) and came here. I once encountered a fellow Canadian, a young lad from not too far from my home.

About 35 seconds into our conversation, he's telling me how great it is for him to be an English teacher since his only qualification is that, ahem,  

"I talk English real good!"

I respectfully have to protest this comment.  I am a "Canuck" and I lived and worked for two years in China.  The missus and I are good people who intend to return.  The truth is, we left more "bad" Canucks in Canada than we met in China.  Contrary to popular opinion, it's not the rubbish that leave home.  Most of the rubbish stay at home and vote for their favourite right-wingnut. Seriously   ahahahahah
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Day Dreamer on October 14, 2009, 04:31:06 PM
Where I live there are a handful of hockey and curling fans  ahahahahah  Canadians. Most of them are ill equipped to teach and lack many traits I'd classify as being civilized. This kid not only upset me with what he said, but also how he said it. There is an exception, a fellow Torontonian who is funny, witty, and can drink as much beer as I can.   bfbfbfbfbf

As for Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult, we have one teacher who I'd like to overshoot her home by a million miles, but I promised my mom if I can't say something nice, don't say anything.   bjbjbjbjbj
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: contemporarydog on October 14, 2009, 05:20:56 PM
It appears any and all bad Canucks left the land of shinnie (hockey) and came here. I once encountered a fellow Canadian, a young lad from not too far from my home.

About 35 seconds into our conversation, he's telling me how great it is for him to be an English teacher since his only qualification is that, ahem,  

"I talk English real good!"

I respectfully have to protest this comment.  I am a "Canuck" and I lived and worked for two years in China.  The missus and I are good people who intend to return.  The truth is, we left more "bad" Canucks in Canada than we met in China.  Contrary to popular opinion, it's not the rubbish that leave home.  Most of the rubbish stay at home and vote for their favourite right-wingnut. Seriously   ahahahahah

To be honest, I always read posts on the ESL Cafe whinging about what a decadent, drug abusing, etc lot the ESL teachers in China are.  My perception wasn't that.  My perception was that they were quite a tame lot compared with my mates back in the UK.  Sure, a lot of those mates have quietened down and evern become very respectable and suburban, but still... You'd think a bit of youthful drug experimentation was some kind of major crime from the way lots of them whinge on
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 14, 2009, 06:33:13 PM
With teachers we want to send home - the aim has to be very careful, otherwise if we overshoot them, they end up right back where they started.  Then - and this is the REALLY hard part - you have to make sure they land somewhere really good, in a job they are super happy with - or they will come back.  aoaoaoaoao

So in essence you have to make their lives wonderful!  ahahahahah ahahahahah
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Day Dreamer on October 16, 2009, 11:04:50 PM
LE, you've been watching too many Bugs Bunny cartoons
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 18, 2009, 04:53:14 AM
Ran into another one today.  The type of FT who tells a table of Deans, Heads of Departments, Education heavies about China and its history.  This fella 'loves Chinese history'.  One of his great 'lines' was "In 50 years China will have taken over Japan."  kkkkkkkkkk kkkkkkkkkk   He was telling the Chinese people sitting next to him the history of "Che le ma?", and other things about 'the Chinese people do...".  One of the Chinese teachers near him pointed that that lunch was nearly finished and he eaten little.   ahahahahah ahahahahah  Beautifully subtle.

But we all had a bit of a giggle when, as he was asking the questions for the comp, he asked one student to explain the "symbiology' of China.  The student was of course, slightly nonplussed!!  The head of the judging panel (and his fellow question master) in her summation speech stated that the students found it much easier to understand her accent!!

I think he managed to miff most people around him.   bibibibibi
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Schnerby on October 18, 2009, 03:30:00 PM
Oh delight, another one.  llllllllll
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: The Local Dialect on October 18, 2009, 06:26:19 PM
Ran into another one today.  The type of FT who tells a table of Deans, Heads of Departments, Education heavies about China and its history.  This fella 'loves Chinese history'.  One of his great 'lines' was "In 50 years China will have taken over Japan."  kkkkkkkkkk kkkkkkkkkk   He was telling the Chinese people sitting next to him the history of "Che le ma?", and other things about 'the Chinese people do...".  One of the Chinese teachers near him pointed that that lunch was nearly finished and he eaten little.   ahahahahah ahahahahah  Beautifully subtle.

But we all had a bit of a giggle when, as he was asking the questions for the comp, he asked one student to explain the "symbiology' of China.  The student was of course, slightly nonplussed!!  The head of the judging panel (and his fellow question master) in her summation speech stated that the students found it much easier to understand her accent!!

I think he managed to miff most people around him.   bibibibibi

Reminds me of a guy I knew back in Kunming who insisted on speaking Chinese using the heavy er-hua he picked up during a semester in Beijing. People in Kunming don't speak using er-hua, and it wasn't as if this guy learned his Chinese in Beijing originally, he went there and came back with the ers. A couple ers here and there, fine, but go overboard, especially down South, and you just sound like a jackass. Linguistic snobbery certainly isn't going to win you any points with the locals.

Same goes for the doofus who my friend brought to our house for dinner and proceeded to try and school my husband, a professional musician, about Chinese opera and Xiang Shen. First of all, foreigners who study Xiang Shen grate on my last nerve (but, admittedly, that is my own issue and I own it), but second of all ... really? Because someone who has been relying on music for his livelihood for the past 15 or so years really needs to hear about Beijng opera from a 19 year old? Come to think of it, he was also an er-hua offender ... coincidence? ahahahahah
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Schnerby on October 18, 2009, 06:32:18 PM
Ah know-it-alls don't cha just want to smack 'em with a big fish. Well, maybe that's just my issue.  ahahahahah

Maybe hubby might have been interested to have a music related conversation and in that pick up bits and pieces about some foreign/whatever music related topic.

Reminds me of a new FT here who tried to instruct me about how the Australian senate works. He's not Aussie and our senate doesn't work like the American one.  llllllllll
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: dragonsaver on October 18, 2009, 06:34:49 PM
heavy er-hua he picked up during a semester in Beijing. People in Kunming don't speak using er-hua, Come to think of it, he was also an er-hua offender ... coincidence? ahahahahah

Ok, I am assuming you mean adding the 'r' sound at the end of words.  mmmmmmmmmm That is how I am being taught.  I think it is 'northern' dialect, or that is what my teacher implied.  Of course, I live in the 'north'.

I will try and be careful if I ever travel to the south  ahahahahah ahahahahah agagagagag agagagagag
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: becster79 on October 18, 2009, 06:41:50 PM
Lotus, does his name start with 'J'?

Eeerily similar to the speech competition at my last university. New FT (same time as me- and yes, the same knobhead I've spoken about previously!) decides HE is the HEAD judge (rest of us FT's scratching our heads- there was no head judge!. He asked the impromptu questions at the end- and I swear, even I had to think about them for a minute. Some of the poor students standing up their nervously really looked close to tears. I deliberately gave the people with particularly hard questions very high marks, just to annoy him!!
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: The Local Dialect on October 18, 2009, 07:02:00 PM
heavy er-hua he picked up during a semester in Beijing. People in Kunming don't speak using er-hua, Come to think of it, he was also an er-hua offender ... coincidence? ahahahahah

Ok, I am assuming you mean adding the 'r' sound at the end of words.  mmmmmmmmmm That is how I am being taught.  I think it is 'northern' dialect, or that is what my teacher implied.  Of course, I live in the 'north'.

I will try and be careful if I ever travel to the south  ahahahahah ahahahahah agagagagag agagagagag

Most teachers will teach you to add an er to certain words, but in Beijing they take it to the absolute extreme and add er to everything under the sun, which is actually Beijing dialect, not standard putonghua. It is ok to put er on some words -- "na-er," "wan-er," "yi-dian-er" etc. Even though down South they'll say "na-li" or "wan," the "er" is still considered standard, and an er here or there won't hurt. What bugs is when people take their fake Beijing accent to places where it isn't appropriate, thinking it makes them sound smarter or more educated. Most teachers won't teach you er-hua, it is more something you'd pick up living in or around Beijing. You're probably safe DS. bfbfbfbfbf
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 18, 2009, 07:35:15 PM
Lotus, does his name start with 'J'?

Eeerily similar to the speech competition at my last university. New FT (same time as me- and yes, the same knobhead I've spoken about previously!) decides HE is the HEAD judge (rest of us FT's scratching our heads- there was no head judge!. He asked the impromptu questions at the end- and I swear, even I had to think about them for a minute. Some of the poor students standing up their nervously really looked close to tears. I deliberately gave the people with particularly hard questions very high marks, just to annoy him!!

Older fella - 62?  Could be the same one.  Came from Seattle.

He volunteered to give the FT speech at the end, and when they asked me, he left as soon as the judging stuff was over.

I told him some of his questions were mean, and his reply was that the answer to one of them was "I don't know" - which would have totally stuffed up the timing for the students and lost them points.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: becster79 on October 18, 2009, 08:17:21 PM
LE-I don't think so, but this guy was a serial liar. From what we gathered he was British/ Australian/ Philipino. Interesting combo.

Sounds like a complete idiot though- poor students!
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Pashley on October 18, 2009, 09:25:14 PM
Ran into another one today.  The type of FT who tells a table of Deans, Heads of Departments, Education heavies about China and its history. ...

...the doofus who my friend brought to our house for dinner and proceeded to try and school my husband, a professional musician, about Chinese opera and Xiang Shen. ... Because someone who has been relying on music for his livelihood for the past 15 or so years really needs to hear about Beijng opera from a 19 year old?

Worst I've had was a fellow Canadian who explained to me, in an obviously condescending tone, that there is no censorship of the Internet in China. They only block English sites because they want to force the companies to build Chinese sites. It has nothing to do with politics.

He was my boss at the time, so I made my reply as mild as I could manage: "You're out of your f---ing mind!"
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: Con ate dog on October 20, 2009, 06:56:54 PM
The same happens back home.  How many of us have been assailed by someone who, upon hearing you live in China, proceeds to lecture you about that country?  This is invariably replete with condemnation of the Chinese as a monolith of ethnic cleansing monsters determined to conquer the world.

It's an ego thing.  Some folks are just smarter and more knowledgeable on every subject than everybody else.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: Schnerby on October 20, 2009, 07:09:19 PM
It's an ego thing.  Some folks are just smarter and more knowledgeable on every subject than everybody else.

You're right. Unfortunately the closer a person is to that state the less likely they are to tell you about it.

Something about empty vessels comes to mind
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: Pashley on October 20, 2009, 08:35:27 PM
It's an ego thing.  Some folks are just smarter and more knowledgeable on every subject than everybody else.

You're right. Unfortunately the closer a person is to that state the less likely they are to tell you about it.

Something about empty vessels comes to mind

From the Tao Te Ching: The ones that know don't talk, and the ones that talk don't know.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 20, 2009, 11:26:46 PM
Totally appropriate for the teaching profession!   ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah

And of course based on the antiquated premise that knowledge is 'power'.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: kitano on October 20, 2009, 11:58:18 PM
Ran into another one today.  The type of FT who tells a table of Deans, Heads of Departments, Education heavies about China and its history.  This fella 'loves Chinese history'.  One of his great 'lines' was "In 50 years China will have taken over Japan."  kkkkkkkkkk kkkkkkkkkk   He was telling the Chinese people sitting next to him the history of "Che le ma?", and other things about 'the Chinese people do...".  One of the Chinese teachers near him pointed that that lunch was nearly finished and he eaten little.   ahahahahah ahahahahah  Beautifully subtle.

But we all had a bit of a giggle when, as he was asking the questions for the comp, he asked one student to explain the "symbiology' of China.  The student was of course, slightly nonplussed!!  The head of the judging panel (and his fellow question master) in her summation speech stated that the students found it much easier to understand her accent!!

I think he managed to miff most people around him.   bibibibibi

Reminds me of a guy I knew back in Kunming who insisted on speaking Chinese using the heavy er-hua he picked up during a semester in Beijing. People in Kunming don't speak using er-hua, and it wasn't as if this guy learned his Chinese in Beijing originally, he went there and came back with the ers. A couple ers here and there, fine, but go overboard, especially down South, and you just sound like a jackass. Linguistic snobbery certainly isn't going to win you any points with the locals.

Same goes for the doofus who my friend brought to our house for dinner and proceeded to try and school my husband, a professional musician, about Chinese opera and Xiang Shen. First of all, foreigners who study Xiang Shen grate on my last nerve (but, admittedly, that is my own issue and I own it), but second of all ... really? Because someone who has been relying on music for his livelihood for the past 15 or so years really needs to hear about Beijng opera from a 19 year old? Come to think of it, he was also an er-hua offender ... coincidence? ahahahahah

the guy on the learn chinese show on cctv 9 does that. he has a really irritating way of speaking chinese that sounds absolutely nothing like the people where i live
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: becster79 on October 21, 2009, 02:47:30 AM
Slightly off topic, but Con, about that....it was funny that over the summer holiday I got acousted by my own GP about living in China (had an appointment anyway, but he deliberately double booked me just so he could chat about China!). Turns out he'd just been on holiday with his wife here and desperately wanted to chat about his feelings etc because noone else would listen to him!

Maybe *I* should have charged HIM for the consultation??!!
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: Con ate dog on October 24, 2009, 04:34:34 AM
 bkbkbkbkbk  "So, doc, will you comp me on the enema?"
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapul
Post by: radiojedi on November 13, 2009, 12:43:47 AM
While I enjoy most of my colleagues I've got a few that, if I never see again, it would be too soon.  Lots of unethical things amongst these few...  Lying, not giving required information to students, not following the basic requirements of the job, trying to pressure students for sexual favors, canceling classes to go on vacation but not "making up the time."  Just amazing these people continue to stay on working here... llllllllll
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: El Macho on February 09, 2010, 04:34:48 AM
One of my course tutors just sent a link to a journal with this article in it...
http://www.hltmag.co.uk/feb10/mart03.htm

The journal also has a section devoted to jokes. (Honestly!)

PS: http://members.calbar.ca.gov/search/member_detail.aspx?x=73211
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Day Dreamer on February 10, 2010, 07:18:48 PM
I got lucky, we just had four teachers (and I'm using this word because I can't find a more appropriate one) leave at the end of their contract.

The first can't teach ANYTHING. Even the students wondered about him
The second can't speak English well enough. Simple spelling mistakes, poor grammar, etc
The third was only here to get laid (to her credit, she did)
The forth was a sour old cunt (at age 21)

But hey, it gets better. Our Teacher's Manager just hired her drug dealer. I like the guy, he's funny and cool to hang with. I'd have a beer with him anytime. He can't teach to save his life. She even made sure I wasn't there to assess him because she knew I'd probably turn him down. She then forced a second trial lesson after the abysmal presentation he gave (his own words). We'd never done this before.

Luckily there won't be cross teaching classes
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: fox on March 26, 2010, 02:07:56 AM
One of my course tutors just sent a link to a journal with this article in it...
http://www.hltmag.co.uk/feb10/mart03.htm

The journal also has a section devoted to jokes. (Honestly!)

PS: http://members.calbar.ca.gov/search/member_detail.aspx?x=73211



hahahhaa   this wolff guy 'forced two female domestic employees to walk naked through the streets'   
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Leon Purvis on March 30, 2010, 05:50:14 AM
One FT whom I nominate for suborbital flight with hard landing is a woman who hails from a mid-continental European nation. When I first spoke to her, she told me that she was "working on" her Ph.D in Sino-European relations. Then, later, she revealed that she had actually been awarded her degree. When I asked about the subject of her dissertation, she said that she opted to take a test rather than to write a dissertation. Then, when the school asked her to meet the school president to present him with a plaque during a school function, she declined, saying that she had business in another city and couldn't change her plans. (She hid in her apartment during the ceremony).

For a two-hour English Corner,we agreed to discuss cultural highlights of our respective countries. Since she maintained that she held dual citizenship, she said that she'd lead a discussion of her two home countries. For this, she was given an hour to speak and answer questions. The other FT and I kept our part short. We conducted the EC discussions for thirty minutes each. When it was her turn , she realized that there was a Chinese teacher present. She freaked out and left. The other FT and I had to cover for her for an hour.

She wanted to be paid to accept a dinner invitation to the dean of the foreign language department's home. I let her know how I felt about that after she agreed to attend, then canceled on everyone's behalf only about eight hours later.

Then, later, she commented that she had been doing some research in "a nearby old graveyard" over the weekend and "got sixty nasty mosquito bites." She was wearing shorts when she said this. There wasn't a bite on her legs. I was terminated from that school on short notice. During that same conversation, she admitted that she had only a BA in drama. (It was known that she was drawing a substantially larger paycheck than the other FTs because the pay vouchers were delivered to us by the apartment attendants, and they enjoyed telling me what they thought about the foreign teachers, including me.

The day before the school took me to the wrong airport, she told me that she was responsible for my termination. Her words were, "The turning point for you was on that fatal day of our discussion about our not accepting the dinner invitation." (She had a, um, "special relationship" with the female waiban (frequent dinners and trips out of town).    

I could go on and on about that nutcase.

The other nominee is from a different school. He is a pixie-ish American guy in his sixties who claimed to have been married five times, twice to Chinese women. He claimed that he had a grown Chinese son who lives in Nanjing. This FT, however, had lived in China for a grand total of 18 months.

The interesting fact about this guy is that he is a compulsive liar. (The moniker that he adopted pretty much tells it all). Like the previous nominee for a total crash-and-burn, his professed credentials changed often: first, an MA in art; then a JD in environmental law ; then an MA degree in TESOL. At first, I thought that his inability to give correct directions to anywhere in the city (including the other campus where he worked)was because he didn't know the city well enough.  

He returned to the U.S.,then returned to China and got married quite hurriedly to one of the Chinese teachers. One term into his second contract, he was told to look for another job at the end of the term. Strange. Nobody ever found out what that was about. The FAO was very clear that he was no longer wanted at the school, so his dismissal was a fact.

As far as I could tell, he usually didn't lie maliciously, except during the week before he left. It was clear that he was spinning out of control and wanted to bring down as many people  as possible.

Wait. When I first arrived at that school, I saw that there was no number on the telephone. The FT in question was there and he volunteered the number. I accepted it as fact. I had not yet bought a cell phone, so the only contact number I had was that land line telephone in my apartment. I gave people that phone number. After I was there a couple of weeks, someone to whom I had given my number saw me in town, and told me that the number that I had given her was wrong. Worse, the Chinese guy who answered the phone called her back several times, trying to extract information from her. He made frequent references to the other FT.

After he left the city, he returned to the city ONCE to see his wife. Another FT and I were approached at various times by Chinese people who asked if we knew him. Most of them were effeminate Chinese men, one of whom described himself as being the FT's best friend. Once, as I was getting off a bus, a woman asked me (in a strangely brusque manner) if I knew the FT. We took a few steps together. I told her that that I knew him. She made a point of telling me that she was a lawyer. End of conversation. She turned and walked across the street. God only knows what that was all about.

Do these people sound familiar?



 
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: kitano on March 30, 2010, 06:08:10 AM
there was an american guy at my last school who claimed to have an MA in education from berkely, we wondered what he was doing at a private school in a pretty small city since the other teachers were generally decent teachers, but not as qualified as him

he didn't really have a clue about teaching, he was one of those teachers who talk all the time and bore students to death. he also asked us for some weird help like how to use copy/paste on word

i just found out that he had been trying to take advantage of quite a few young female students  asasasasas
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: El Macho on March 30, 2010, 08:50:52 AM
The day before the school took me to the wrong airport, she told me that she was responsible for my termination. Her words were, "The turning point for you was on that fatal day of our discussion about our not accepting the dinner invitation." (She had a, um, "special relationship" with the female waiban (frequent dinners and trips out of town).    

I could go on and on about that nutcase.
Go on and vent, I want to hear more. Sorry she (at least claimed to have) knifed you in the back, but at least you don't have to be round her anymore.
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Leon Purvis on March 30, 2010, 10:55:36 AM
Go on and vent, I want to hear more. Sorry she (at least claimed to have) knifed you in the back, but at least you don't have to be round her anymore.

Nah. It's over. There is some satisfaction in knowing that she'll tango with the wrong person eventually.

It's so easy to discuss the headache FTs and it seems that we forget some of the truly wonderful folks in the MK. I have to say that some of the nicest and funniest FTs I've met have been Australians. I had dinner with a couple of FTs from Oz. They were a riot. We hadn't been served but the waiter came to our table to tell us that we would be served no more beer. We hadn't even been served beer! The waiter relented and brought us a few rounds after we promised to calm down and stop laughing. It was a good thing that the waiter brought them all at one time and opened them because our promise didn't last too long!

Sammy Cahn and Julie Styne obviously hadn't been to Oz when they wrote the song "Take an Indian to Lunch Today".
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Day Dreamer on May 02, 2010, 04:36:15 AM
AUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!


Wish I could provide details, but I must endure. eeeeeeeeee





AUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Fozzwaldus on May 02, 2010, 06:35:19 AM
ah go on, go on, go on, go on! give us a few details, I love this thread!
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Day Dreamer on July 01, 2010, 06:12:29 PM
Now she's trying to reach out.     bibibibibi

 kkkkkkkkkk


After having my hand and mouth slapped repeatedly, I ask myself is it sincere, her saving face, her trying to look like the good guy?

Personally I don't argue with things I don't care about. I don't need to win every arguement. And, I learned long ago, never argue with a maniac/lunatic/crazy/whatever, they'll beat you with experience


I know i'm talking in circles, but really I'm sounding off and I'm the only one who can hear this and understand. The only other person who is aware and can help is in no position to render assistance (now)


Someone please prepare the catapult just in case  uuuuuuuuuu
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: AMonk on July 01, 2010, 11:10:34 PM
Someone please prepare the catapult just in case  uuuuuuuuuu

Would that be the trebuchet with the spikes AND the scorpions? afafafafaf :wtf:
Title: Re: Specific Individual Expat Teachers You'd Like To Send Back Home- Via Catapult
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 03, 2010, 08:13:44 PM
Someone please prepare the catapult just in case  uuuuuuuuuu

Would that be the trebuchet with the spikes AND the scorpions? afafafafaf :wtf:

Who you load into the catapult is public.  What you put in the sack you tie over that person's head first is a personal and private decision.  uuuuuuuuuu