Staff Meeting
This post was placed on this blog on Sunday, September 3rd.
Our first meeting was held on Saturday, 11 AM. At least that is when the meeting was called for. It started around 11:30 -- Chinese time.
The players. Staff / foreign teacher (FT) interesting items and/or bios:
Foreign teacher’s names are Erin 20+ (Ohio), Stephen 60 (Canada), Pauline 50+ (Canada), John 60 (Australia), Jeremy 20 + (Wisconsin) , Robert 50+ (Philippines), Karl 20+ (Ireland), Molly 20+ (Philadelphia), Ken 50 + (Boston) & Greg 50+ (Canada).
Erin: 1st year - very bright, easy going – told you about her
Stephen: 4th year – told you about him – liaison for FTs to Fanny
Pauline: 4th year – wife of Stephen, nice. She just arrived from Canada
John: 3rd year – told you about him in previous post
Jeremy: 1st year - taught in middle school. Knows a bit of Mandarin
Robert: 3rd year – seems nice enough and easy going too
Karl: 1st year - easy going, bright – we told you about him
Molly: 1st year - sweet and bright - told you about her
Ken: 1st year - ex-carpenter, writer and musician and just arrived
Greg: 1st year - wife has job with multinational in Shanghai
Chinese Staff.
Fanny: liaison to help teachers with living situational issues
(Christina – her boss)
Oliver: liaison to help teachers with teaching situational issues
(Harry – his boss)
Ashley: secretary for Oliver and for us
Michael wants to know, “Who’s on first?”
(Abbott and Costello reference for those under the age of 40)
The Meeting:
No agenda but there was a lot of information sharing. There are 130 faculty in the language department at this university and of those, 110 are English teachers. Japanese, German, Russian and French are also taught. We were told that there are 45 undergraduate, 33 graduate and 2 Ph.D. programs. Within walking distance of our university there are 14 other universities. This is truly an educational zone.
With this in mind you can surmise that there is a lot of competition for us foreign teachers. That’s why the salaries for our services have increased from about 3000 to 4800 per month in the last couple of years. That is RMB (Chinese currency) and is $603 U.S. We also get a free apartment with a computer, dvd, and fully equipped kitchen, bedding and such.
A Chinese teacher makes approximately 1000-2000 RMB a month and must pay for their own apartment but she or he gets a pension, paid vacation and bonuses. This is their career and they study for years. We, the foreign teachers, don’t usually stay long and might not have the experience they have but we have the accents they want their students to hear. Knowing the Chinese it might not be that much longer that they will need us.
Back to our schedules
In our earlier entry, Tour Around the Place, we spoke of our schedules. Things have changed. After exchanging schedules with John Norman we are now on the same timetable. Although Michael knows his class schedule and student body, Cindy still does not. The biggest change however is that we both now have one class starting tomorrow (Monday.) This one class we will have through our 16th week (week of Dec. 25th.) In 3 weeks we will then begin our other classes (7 classes). That means that we must teach into the 18th week of the term or until Jan 15th and for your information, no matter when your classes begin you must teach a total of 16 weeks (one week off, October 1-7, for a Chinese national holiday.)
With only one class starting tomorrow it means that we will have 6 days off each week for the next 3 weeks. What to do? Where to go? Don’t worry about us as you know we’ll figure that one out soon.
Dinner tonight was with our friends Shirley, William and their lovely 16 year old daughter. We took the express bus into town where they picked us up and then we drove close to West Lake and the botanical gardens. Shirley knew of a farmer’s home (these are three story homes owned by what used to be farmers, hence the name) where they served tea and food. We went for tea and conversation and ended up staying for the dinner as well. Delicious! Crab, chicken soup like mom use to make, eggplant, lotus root with water chestnut, another vegetable dish that we don’t know of but was good and rice. The bill ended up being 150RMB or approximately $19 for 5 people. The best part of the evening was by far the company – definitely!
By the way, Michael found his bicycle. It's a bute at 349 RMB or $42 U.S. It's a ten speed and will definatly carry him anywhere he wants. It's made by a company called Forever, the first bike company to exist in China.
Personal note: Elliott (Cindy’s father) – thanks for the key chain with the flashlight – put it to good use already. By the way, William’s company makes those for U.S. export :)
Answers to those Questions from readers: 1) We have a grocery store 3 blocks away from our apartment. It's what they call a supermart. You can purchase a bike, clothes, cookware, bedding, electronics, everything a student would need and even, upstairs, food. 2) The university is a 15 minute walk from our place. 3) There is an outdoor market about 20 minutes from us and now with two bikes we'll head down that way.
Our first meeting was held on Saturday, 11 AM. At least that is when the meeting was called for. It started around 11:30 -- Chinese time.
The players. Staff / foreign teacher (FT) interesting items and/or bios:
Foreign teacher’s names are Erin 20+ (Ohio), Stephen 60 (Canada), Pauline 50+ (Canada), John 60 (Australia), Jeremy 20 + (Wisconsin) , Robert 50+ (Philippines), Karl 20+ (Ireland), Molly 20+ (Philadelphia), Ken 50 + (Boston) & Greg 50+ (Canada).
Erin: 1st year - very bright, easy going – told you about her
Stephen: 4th year – told you about him – liaison for FTs to Fanny
Pauline: 4th year – wife of Stephen, nice. She just arrived from Canada
John: 3rd year – told you about him in previous post
Jeremy: 1st year - taught in middle school. Knows a bit of Mandarin
Robert: 3rd year – seems nice enough and easy going too
Karl: 1st year - easy going, bright – we told you about him
Molly: 1st year - sweet and bright - told you about her
Ken: 1st year - ex-carpenter, writer and musician and just arrived
Greg: 1st year - wife has job with multinational in Shanghai
Chinese Staff.
Fanny: liaison to help teachers with living situational issues
(Christina – her boss)
Oliver: liaison to help teachers with teaching situational issues
(Harry – his boss)
Ashley: secretary for Oliver and for us
Michael wants to know, “Who’s on first?”
(Abbott and Costello reference for those under the age of 40)
The Meeting:
No agenda but there was a lot of information sharing. There are 130 faculty in the language department at this university and of those, 110 are English teachers. Japanese, German, Russian and French are also taught. We were told that there are 45 undergraduate, 33 graduate and 2 Ph.D. programs. Within walking distance of our university there are 14 other universities. This is truly an educational zone.
With this in mind you can surmise that there is a lot of competition for us foreign teachers. That’s why the salaries for our services have increased from about 3000 to 4800 per month in the last couple of years. That is RMB (Chinese currency) and is $603 U.S. We also get a free apartment with a computer, dvd, and fully equipped kitchen, bedding and such.
A Chinese teacher makes approximately 1000-2000 RMB a month and must pay for their own apartment but she or he gets a pension, paid vacation and bonuses. This is their career and they study for years. We, the foreign teachers, don’t usually stay long and might not have the experience they have but we have the accents they want their students to hear. Knowing the Chinese it might not be that much longer that they will need us.
Back to our schedules
In our earlier entry, Tour Around the Place, we spoke of our schedules. Things have changed. After exchanging schedules with John Norman we are now on the same timetable. Although Michael knows his class schedule and student body, Cindy still does not. The biggest change however is that we both now have one class starting tomorrow (Monday.) This one class we will have through our 16th week (week of Dec. 25th.) In 3 weeks we will then begin our other classes (7 classes). That means that we must teach into the 18th week of the term or until Jan 15th and for your information, no matter when your classes begin you must teach a total of 16 weeks (one week off, October 1-7, for a Chinese national holiday.)
With only one class starting tomorrow it means that we will have 6 days off each week for the next 3 weeks. What to do? Where to go? Don’t worry about us as you know we’ll figure that one out soon.
Dinner tonight was with our friends Shirley, William and their lovely 16 year old daughter. We took the express bus into town where they picked us up and then we drove close to West Lake and the botanical gardens. Shirley knew of a farmer’s home (these are three story homes owned by what used to be farmers, hence the name) where they served tea and food. We went for tea and conversation and ended up staying for the dinner as well. Delicious! Crab, chicken soup like mom use to make, eggplant, lotus root with water chestnut, another vegetable dish that we don’t know of but was good and rice. The bill ended up being 150RMB or approximately $19 for 5 people. The best part of the evening was by far the company – definitely!
By the way, Michael found his bicycle. It's a bute at 349 RMB or $42 U.S. It's a ten speed and will definatly carry him anywhere he wants. It's made by a company called Forever, the first bike company to exist in China.
Personal note: Elliott (Cindy’s father) – thanks for the key chain with the flashlight – put it to good use already. By the way, William’s company makes those for U.S. export :)
Answers to those Questions from readers: 1) We have a grocery store 3 blocks away from our apartment. It's what they call a supermart. You can purchase a bike, clothes, cookware, bedding, electronics, everything a student would need and even, upstairs, food. 2) The university is a 15 minute walk from our place. 3) There is an outdoor market about 20 minutes from us and now with two bikes we'll head down that way.
posted by royben | 11:58 AM
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