The aftermath of exams

Well finally all supplementary exams are completed and graded, and now I can sit back and reflect on my first semester of assessment.

I don't know how Chinese students compare to western students in attitude when it comes to exams, since i've never assessed western students. The only point of comparision i can make is with myself.

I did end up failing students in both my oral and written subjects, though for my oral subjects I eventually had to pass everyone. That's an unspoken rule here in China with most of the oral classes at chinese universities (and especially lower tier uni's like mine). But even after making the oral supplementary exam ridiculously easy with lame ass topics such as : tell me your favourite thing about western or chinese culture, or introduce yourself, I STILL had a handful of students who could barely express themselves or barely understand simple questions i asked. The best i could do was to tell them that if it was up to me i'd fail them, and a stern warning to pick up their proficiency in their remaining years here at uni, lest they remain jobless after graduation.

I happened to bump into the dean of the english dept after all the supp exams were done, and in the nicest and most indirect way he indicated that he would prefer me to pass all the students first time the next time i give an oral exam. all the while saying he respects my decision and my approach to teaching. He explained that if too many students failed the first exam then central administration would require his department to write a report explaining the failure rate. apparently 10-15% is too high a rate from the usual 0%.
It might look great for the department, but i know many of these students are going to struggle to prove their english if they ever manage to land a job.

For the written supplementary exam I made it exactly the same as the original exam, but with the content changed. I even kept the order of the questions exactly the same as the original, sent out the answers to the original exam, and made myself available for consultation at every oppotunity. 2/10 of the students who took the supplementary still managed to fail, and fail badly! It's like they hadn't even looked at their mistakes over the winter holiday! Something I've noticed about the written exam is that many students do this thing of copying the entire passsage if they don't know what to do for the question, somehow thinking that i can reward part marks for practicing handwriting!
Anyway, before i submitted the supp exam results I had to check with the dean what he wanted me to do about these two students who failed by a long shot. Thankfuly i was given the green light to fail them, and fail them i did without any sympathy. tough love.

There was also the annoying practice of some students begging me to let them pass or review their exam results. Obviously I couldn't change their grades, no matter how pitiful or nice they sounded. I figured it was also a lesson in responsibility for ones actions and accountabiltity, something that is probably lacking a bit more in China compared to the west.

The last thing of interest was how the written supplementary exams were administered. My students were bunched together with students from other subjects in an exam room to do their supp. While there i witnessed one student from another major get caught cheating with a small piece of paper with notes. The monitor only confiscated the bit of paper and exam, and made the student sit there for 2 minutes before returning the exam! seems being caught cheating only results in a time penalty at my uni!

The other thing I noticed was that a student finished and left the exam room BEFORE another 'late arrival' walked in, about 45 minutes into the session. I have a feeling the 'late arrival' will kick ass in his supp score.

The types of foreign teachers...

Since a new semester is almost upon us here in China, I thought I'd finally introduce the other foreign teachers to you.All the foreign teachers here are either teachers of English or Japanese, with the exception of one teacher who teaches Business subjects as part of an MBA in English.

They say most English foreign teachers fall into one of two categories:-

A) Old white men looking for young Chinese girls, and/or running away from something back home
B) Fresh graduate students looking to party

I can say we definitely have a few category A and B's at our campus, and you get a variety of accompanying attitudes, ranging from ''i really want to make a difference'' to ''i couldn't really give a shit if they learn anything''.

For privacy issues, I'm not going to use real names here. The following are some of the teachers worthy of note.

First we have Frederick, a 60+ year old American former Doctor. He's a nice and sweet old man, but at the same time savvy and cynical. He's one of those types with an illustrious and colourful history - lived in Canada, Australia, America, France and now between China and Germany, former Economist and then Doctor, properties all over the world. He'll tell you the most amazing and fascinating stories from his past, and seems to know something about every topic. In fact, his life is so fascinating that you begin to question the authenticity, or wonder if he's on every child sex offender list in all those countries he's previously lived in. Certainly China is one place where they don't do much in the way of background check! He luuuves to talk, and I often find myself having to plan an exit strategy after a chance meeting in the dorm halls turns into a 15 minute chat while you stand there in pyjamas and washing in hand.

Next we have Mark, another American 40-50 something. Mark is probably the most cynical person i've ever met. I'm not sure if he was like that before China, or after living here for a couple of years. (China seems to have that effect on all us foreigner). Appart from being cynical he's got one of the most whiniest high pitched voices, which makes for an awful combination when he's tirading and ranting about life in China. Mark also has had a colourful history, and definitely seems to have some skeletons in the closet there. Every time I bump into him theres a good chance he'll be either intoxicated (and the sun will still be out), or i'll smell alcohol on his breath. I can still remember the first time we were asking him for advice about teaching classes in China. He somehow ended up showing us where abouts in the kidneys you should punch the disobedient students and how to get them into headlocks. Not sure if he was just joking but after that run-in we decided to avoid Mark like the plague.

Next, theres the two young american brothers - Brad and Warren., 23 and 24 years old respectively. They're probably the two teachers I hang out with most, since their age groups is closer to me than the 50+ somethings. That's not to say I can relate to them all the time or share all their attitudes and interests.
They both belong to category B, and when i say belong, I mean like a hand fits a glove. Alcohol seems to be the centre of their universe (that and the topic of sex). I don't mind the odd booze up or two, but I'm often declining offers to join them almost every weekend (or even midweek) for a piss-up. Since they're both brothers they're quite close and are on the same wavelength when it comes to humour, interests and way of thinking, however they're attitudes towards teaching and goals here in China are quite different. Brad pays a bit more attention to his students and genuinely wants to learn more about the culture, while it seems Warren is just here to have a good time. Brad would like to make more local Chinese friends, while Warren would be quite content hanging around with foreigners for his entire stay here.

Then we have Sharon and Gregory, a 60+ couple from Canada. Brad, Warren and I affectionately refer to them as 'Mom and Dad'. They're the kindest and friendliest folk you could ever hope to meet, and they're always willing to help you out and share their past experiences in China. They're sociable too, always organizing dinners with the other teachers and inviting us out to do stuff. The Chinese students absolutely love them too, since they feel less intimidated with hanging out with a middle aged couple. I'll often see them having lunch in the cafeteria, with a different student each time. They also treat them like their own children too. It's quite sweet.

Finally theres Aiko, one of the three japanese teachers. When I first arrived I was suprised to find that our university actually has a japanese department, given Nanjing's bloody history during the japanese occupation in World War II. I thought, wow any teacher who comes to Nanjing to teach Japanese must be brave. So when I was introduced to this young and meek looking woman as the japanese teacher I thought to myself, ''wow she's got balls!''
Aiko displays some of the typical characteristic traits you assoicate with japanese people - polite, quiet, and gentle. It's suprising to find a person like Aiko coming to live and work in China on her own, never mind the fact that she's a solo female travelling on her own! Sometimes I wonder how she manages to stay afloat in the chaos that is China, but having lived and studied in hangzhou previously for a year, I obviously underestimate her mettle.

To shout or not to shout

this topic has been in my head since i arrived in china, but has been brought to the fore throughout my vacation last month - Paying for the bill.

it's actually a sticky issue when you get down to the nitty gritty of it, and one you have to consider carefuly.

When I first arrived here in China I vowed i wouldn't let any of the local Chinese pay for my meals, or for anything else for that matter. This was because I knew how low wages were in China, especially for the friends and type of people i would be hanging out with (young and relatively junior in their careers). I wasn't expecting to be dining or hanging out with any fortune 500 CEO's or chinese government officials. Even though i'm not earning fantastic money here vs back home in aus, i'm still earning a decent wage for chinese standards. that, and my financial situation isn't dire. So the idea of having a local Chinese person pay for you just doesn't seem fair or right, well to me anyway.

But then you must consider the concepts of face and tradition. In asian, let alone mainland China culture, if you are a visitor you are not expected to pay for meals or small expenses, your host will happily pay for it all. It doesn't even matter if you host is younger than you or is a student who isn't even earning a wage yet. They won't accept your money. Of course they will also say that when they come to visit you in your hometown, you will pay for their way. But of course, realistically, how many of my friends here will ever have the opportunity to travel to australia?

It was even worse when i was travelling since i was meeting up with friends of friends who lived in my destination cities, whom i'd never met before. So not only had i just met these people, but they were also kind enough to take time out of their schedule to take me around and play tourguide. and they will still insist on paying the bill, every time.

A few times I managed to sneak in and pay the bill before my local friend could get to it, but I later realized it only makes them feel really bad, and in some way makes them lose face. Tradition is tradition. The other option of 'going dutch' or as they term here' A A ' , is also a bad option. If you ever try to pay back your share after they've paid for the bill, firstly they won't accept your money, and secondly they think that you never shout even your family or friends back home. i got that question once after trying to do this.

so you're between a rock and a hard place. try to pay back your share and feel sheepish, or secretly pay the bill before them and make them feel awful. the other option is to just let them pay without a fight and politely say thank you after they've settled the bill, but I can't do that. it is easier to do that when your host is a generation above you though. that, and you would seriously shame an uncle or aunty if you paid for them, creating an akward situation.

the other bad thing about this setup is that you know this dilemma is coming at the end of the meal, so if you are conscious about it you try not to order too much or anything too expensive! which really sucks because i don't like to hold back when it comes to new and exotic dishes!

so what to do? i found the best way is to get them a gift before or after. That or shout them other things on the way, without their consent (cuz they won't accept if you ask). If anyone has their own ideas or thoughts about this i'd love to hear them!

Nobody fakes it like we do!

If you are a cynic one of the first things you might think of when someone mentions 'China', is 'being cheated' (this word is well known to all my chinese students), and 'fake stuff'. Lets examine this last one more closely.

China is the kingdom of fake goods. Someone once said to me, if it can be made, china can immitate it (cheaply!). Think of any electrical product or brand, and you can probably find another local chinese product that looks suspiciously similar in its design and logo. In fact, the only thing that's different will be it's capabilities, and the fact it will konk out well before the original product. Heck, theres even been past cases of fake (synthetic) eggs being made in china and shipped to hong kong! dodgy businessmen here will do anything to make a quick buck.
But even though most citizens can pick the immitation from the real thing (by looking at the ridiculously low price tag), they are still willing to buy the immitation. yes, chinese don't mind a bit of pantomine.

So anyway, getting to the point, my two american collegues and I were asked to take part in the foreign language department's annual variety concert. But you might be asking, what talent does alan possess? Well appart from being able to juggle 3 balls for short stints (thank you grade 8 PE class), and being one of the best english speakers amongst the present company, no concert director in their right mind would ever want to enlist my talents. but this is china, and the people here have a different idea of entertainment.

yep, we were asked to fake perform Rober Palmer's - Bad case of loving you.
Don't ask me why they chose this song, or why we were asked to do it. TIC baby. This Is China. Just accept it.

but then it gets a bit confusing, because some of us were faking it, while some of us weren't. Britton was given the drums, and as its a bit hard to fake playing real drums, he actually did try to play along to the music, half successfuly. Our singer, Deanna, was actually enlisted to sing for real, but because she had zero preparation for it, she ended up half lip syncing half singing. Weston and I were given the guitars, so we faked the whole thing.

Now I'm not sure if the students realized we were faking it, but the organizers were going to great lengths to ensure we looked as legit as possible. We were happy to make it clear we were faking it, to make it more of a joke performance, and also because we didn't wanna come across as being frauds. But the organizers insisted we do things such as plug our electric guitars into amplifiers. Though comically, Weston's cable fell out mid-performance and he had to plug himself back in while the music continued!

I guess if one never heard the original song before theres a chance they might think it's real. but the fact there's robert palmers voice booming over the speakers but no guy singing on stage would surely give it away.

They did this at another performance i watched a few weeks back, and this one was actually being broadcasted on state television. At the end of this other concert, the whole ensemble of performers came back on stage and lip synced 'We are the world' while waving their hands in the air! Seriously, if you are going to fake a song, at least pick one thats a bit more obscure than this one! Not only is it a classic, but even most chinese people would surely be able to recognize the voices of michael jackson, lionel richie, ray charles and cyndi lauper!

anyway, coming back to our performance, the 3 of us teachers were just feeling real awful while waiting for our turn, watching the other performances by students who actually did have talent. But after it was all done the audience still went nuts and loved us. I guess our students in the audience just really enjoyed seeing us up on stage letting lose and pantomining! And it was a lot of fun too, though i must say it's one of the weirdest things I've ever done.

After the performance we were asked a few pre-prepared questions by the hosts. Just simple stuff like what do you think of nanjing, what were you first impressions, ect. bit of PR.
In all, a very strange but fun experience. I still feel like a bit of a fraud though, so perhaps i'll pick up my guitar again when i get back to australia.

Why some students don't care about exams

Now that we've arrived at the business end of the semester, it's time to give the dreaded exams. as like every other aspect about the subjects i teach, i have been given no guidance on how to set my exams. Pretty much it's up to me how i want to assess the students. Actually the only thing admin do ask of me is to let all my students pass (eventually).

This to me has probably been the hardest thing to swallow, since I'm a firm believer in fairness and credit for hard work. I already knew beforehand that things are done differently in Chinese universities, especially the less reknowned ones, compared to western institutions. As with everything else here in china, money and connections are the bottom line, and it's not like i could fight against the system, especially since the final grade can easily be changed by someone above me. But the most i can hope to effect is to give the poorly performing students a bit of a scare, to re-invigorate their study habbits, before eventually, and reluctantly, letting them pass the amazingly easy supplementary exam.

Before I go on I have to explain the system of many universities here in China. My uni is actually made up of two different sub campuses. The two campuses are within the same grounds but are located at different ends. Everything about the two are seperated - teaching facilities, dorms, cafeterias. The only thing they share are the teaching staff, library and admin. Although there are no physical fences or barriers to seperate the two cohorts of students, each cohort tends to stick to itself and it's own side.

Now the difference between the two campuses is that one is for the top performing students in the gao kao (the college entrance exam done at the end of high school), while the other campus is for the lower performing students. all chinese students receive a scale grading from their gao kao exam, ben yi (the highest), ben er, ben san (the lowest). so ben yi kids go to one of our campuses, while ben san kids go to the other campus. Why allow some of the lower performing kids to come to your uni? money of course. a former students has told me that the ben san kids pay 3 times as much in tuition fees as the other campus. So you can think of them as cash cows. Anyway, the reason i'm explaining this is that after giving the same oral exam to both my ben yi classes and ben san classes, you notice not just a clear difference in ability, but also in study attitudes and work ethic. You do have some ben san students who are really concientious and have good ability, but unfortunately on the whole, the ben san class skill level is much lower, and more disturbingly, they just don't seem to care about study.

But you might be thinking, don't these kids care about passing their exams? Even i thought that most of them would perk up when i mentioned the E word, like the students in my ben yi classes did, but unfortunately thats not the case. the only way i can explain it is that these kids know they are guranteed to pass, since their parents are paying a lot of money to the university. Fair enough. So i've tried to use the tact of explaining that graduating is not enough, and that without the skill and aptitude they still won't be able to get jobs in the highly competitive chinese job market. nope, still doesn't raise an eyelid. and i think it's because most of these kids have rich parents, rich parents with connections who can land them jobs regardless of their skill or abilities. that, or these kids are just plain spoilt and short sighted. I mean seriously, I never knew i'd meet chinese students this plain lazy and apathetic when it came to exams. i can't ration their attitude any other way. i certainly hope their parents have damn good connections, because for a bunch of english 2nd year majors (who have probably been studying english for 10 years), they can barely understand or hold a conversation above the sophistication level of a 5 year old.

So as it stands at the moment, one of my ben san classes should see half of the class fail. But because of the scheduling of the supplementary exams and the sheer number of failing students I would have, logistically i wouldn't be able to do supp exams for all of these students. I will probably have to re-scale my marking criteria down so that only the worst of the worst students are forced to sit the supp. I would like to scare the shit out of all of the poor (and invariably lazy) students, but unfortunately i just can't. Hopefully they'll remember the reason why they're in uni themselves next semester. At this rate they have bucklys chance of landing a job without using connections.

mmmm so tasty but so deadly?

I still can't get over how cheap food is here, especially eating out. A decent meal, with rice, meat and vegies will only cost you about 10 yuan at the most for something fancy, and if you wanted just fried noodles or rice, the least you can pay is 5 yuan (around 80 cents). compare that to cheapest meal you can find in australia, a meat pie for $4.50? and you're laughing. Even with my low wages (by western standards) at about 166 yuan a day, food accounts for but a fraction of my daily spendings.

However, after being here for 3 months and talking to a lot of the locals, the issue of food safety starts to play on your mind. To me, chinese food is so flavoursome, but sometimes a little TOO flavoursome. i.e. too much MSG or monosodium glutamate.

I can't expressly remember everything about MSG without doing a google search, but I do know too much of the stuff in excess is not good for you. what was it, some type of cancer, gall stones, heart problems? all i know is it's not good. and you're always drinking buckets of water after a meal in a restaurant.

unlike in the west, you won't find menus proudly advertising 'we don't use msg here'. nope, if a menu in china had that plastered on the cover, first of all the chinese patron would ask 'what's that'? , and then they'd walk out after tasting the dishes.

but it's not just msg that seems to be in excess. every fried dish absolutely swims in oil, and sometime they throw in a large chunk of lard just to flavour it up. The sichuan dishes are especially, bad with their copious amount of chilli oil. but, it wouldn't taste sichuan without all that oily goodness.

they don't go lightly on the salt or sugar in many dishes either. so when you are confronted with a menu board in china, you do sometimes have to think to yourself what do i want today? an increased risk of cancer, hypertension, heart disease, or diabetes? take your pick. but whatever you choose, damn it'll taste so good. I also sometimes wonder what the effect of national diet are on the population. It seems that everyone here in China (especially the students), are always so sleepy. I have this theory that someting in their diets (the msg?), or the lack of (like coffee or diary?), must cuase the chronic sleepiness.

Then theres the issue of where the prime produce is sourced from. Now I'm not sure how credible the following i'm about to tell you is, or whether its stuff reported in the mainstream media or on social networking sites like weibo (the chinese version of twitter). So take the following information with a pinch of salt. (i mean, i'm not thoroughly convinced either).
One of my students adamantly warned me to never eat at the meat skewer places along the roadside. She reckons the 'lamb' meat, is actually dog, cat, or rodent, or whatever mixture they come up with on a given day. I've had my fair share of lamb skwerers already, and no signs of trouble yet. It tastes a bit rubbery, but hey, no less than the stuff you get from doner kebabs. So i'm not sold on that one yet. Besides, you probably face more danger from all the dirt and brake dust coating the meat as the cars whoosh by.

Then she up'ed the conspiracy theory level, and told me to never eat in restaurants around the campus. First of all, she just said they frequently re-use the same batch of oil to cook stuff. Fine, i could live with that. But then she told me stories of some oil suppliers sourcing their oil from dead human bodies! Again, i wasn't really sold on that one, and I didn't believe you could get much oil out of a dead body. Another one i heard from one of the other teachers was that some people collect sewerage water and chemically extract the oil out for re-use and sale. That one seemed a bit more plausible to me. Although i don't believe all these stories, I do believe that the worse of the worse Chinese business men (or women) are capable of doing such things. I mean, if some people in this country are capable of fatally poisoning babies with baby formula, then this ain't a far stretch. anything to cut costs and make a lot of money. an unfortunate ugly side of chinese society.

I also know for a fact that many farmers and agricultrual companies use excessive and dangrerous fertilizers on their fresh produce here. It's common knowledge amongst the people. I've been told by some locals to never things like lettuce or tomatoes raw. The other thing that might make you squirm is that some farmers use 'human fertilizer' on their produce. Notice the well trodden pathway in this picture from outhouse to crops! So just make sure you thoroughly wash your fruits and vegies when you bring them home.


Finally, i've learned to never buy cheap snacks from the grocery stores. many a time i've ventured into the realm of fake looking oreos, or half price cream biscuits, and have ended up bitterly disappointed. but it's not just quality thats compromised, as i found out after trying out a cheap chocolate coated muffin. You know how chocolate is supposed to melt in your mouth after a few minutes? well long after the muffin part had disintegrated, the chocolate coating was disturbingly still present in my mouth. it ended up forming something like a piece of plastic gum, which i had to spit out. So now whenever i pick up an ultra cheap product in the shops, my health and long term survival do flash through my mind. I now end up putting it back and reaching for the oreos.

Foreign language drama comp

The foreign language department organizes a plethora of activities for the students to showcase their language skills. First there was the speech comp, and now we have the drama comp.

As before, foreign teachers like myself are asked to participate as judges. For the drama comp i judged the semi final and final, but in the final most of the performances were the same ones i saw in the semis. they seem to run the preliminary rounds like Idol, where each round only 2 out of the 10 or so acts get knocked out!

Now the normal chinese citizen is not known for their acting or drama skills, let alone drama in a second language. Most students tend to focus more on academic subjects rather than artistic ones, and you could fairly say that the conservative character of chinese people doesn't make for a dramatic performance! I know that whenever I ask my students to do a roleplay in class, most of them rote read from a piece of paper in an inaudible voice like a robot, and usually don't even face the audience. They will avoid public speaking like the plague.

At least the drama performances in the comp were a bit more dramatic compared to my usual class fare. It wasn't exactly academy award winning stuff, but seeing it was in their second language it was still a good effort. They had their hearts in it, but they were definitely still sounding very chinglish with their lines. Unfortunately the poor organization of the event let down some of the performances when it came to sound equipment and props. It all seemed a bit disorganized when a stage hand would fly in and out, sometimes during scenes to grab props or put them in position! and there seemed to be a constant problem with microphones, or a shortage of enough to go around between the onstage actors!

Most of the performances were in english, with about 3 in japanese. fortunately for the final they invited 2 of the japanese teachers to come judge. in the semi final it was just me and another english teacher trying to score japanese dramas which we couldn't understand a word of! we just ended up scoring based on all the other aspects apart from the script. but hell if i knew they were pronouncing the japanese correctly or not!

Most of the english dramas were modern english translations of old chinese love stories. Although the english was a bit stilted, the costumes were quite impressive. And it wouldn't be a drama without a fight scene, so there were a few slow-mo fist fights thrown in for a bit of action.
A few of the dramas also incorporated random outbreaks of dancing and singing (which had nothing to do with the storyline at all ) while one of the love stories ended with a modern chinese love song duet by the two leads. I guess if the drama sucked, they could lean on the dancing and singing.

There was a moment of confusion though when a bunch of cos-play characters came up on stage and started to have mock fights. I was told by the chinese english teacher that this was a performance, so I was trying to score this performance that had no dialogue whatsoever. fortunately one of the other teachers pulled me up before i could hand in my score! Yeah these cos-play affecionados still weird me out. They had a few mock battles with their plastic swords before playing out some gay dance scene for a few cheap laughs. They ended off the performance by throwing out soft toys into the audience. I'm guessing they were cosplay toys.