Dear people who are currently not working for the Chinese government,
Please notice how I did not say the ten worst things I have done in China as I will undoubtedly forget a plethora of painful memories and unfortunate events that have transpired in my 2+ years in China. Also, this is in no way a countdown of worst to best or vice-versa, as I have no idea which of my past misdeeds is worse than the other. Anyways, drumroll of embarrassment please....
1. This Summer while teaching a Business course I convinced my Chinese Monitor to let me read the teacher evaluations. Then after I read the evaluations I changed the participation grades of the students according to how they rated me as a teacher. I am not proud of this, but it just kinda happened and nobody was seriously hurt that I know of.
2. In each class I have a monitor who functions as an organizer and helper for minor functions of my job. Nevertheless, I have changed the job title of each monitor from monitor to secretary, to secretary/oper, and now it borders on like something similar to a maid or servant. I always pick a monitor who is a girl, generally sex-deprived and somewhat infatuated with myself and use this to my advantage. Believe me, I am no Brad Pitt or Leo DiCaprio; however, since I am the youngest teacher at the university by far and dress to impress and seem to be in a position of power the girls are generally quite impressed with me. I have my monitors: setup my computer and get my PPT ready; pickup my dry cleaning; deal with customs if I have things that are shipped, fill out applications for me; and all kinds of other stuff.
3. I have hypothetically violated the teacher-student relationship a couple of times. Both times the students were "former students" of mine, but I am pretty sure the Chinese government would not be happy about it. Furthermore, both times I have ended things by simply not returning phone calls/text messages while pretending that I am working 16 hours a day and other nonsense. This is all hypothetical or course, but in reality I just don't see myself dating Chinese women due to cultural/grooming differences. I am getting too old for this kind of nonsense, but I just refuse to grow up.
4. I have a running turf battle with two rent-a-cops who work outside of my gym. All they have to do is open this gate for me to get into the gym, and well I hate waiting for anything. On one particular day, my friend Kevin Rosenberg's fantasy football team beat my squad on the last game of the week with the little-known Dez Bryant scoring two garbage-time touchdowns to beat my beloved team...I was livid all day...I could barely go ten minutes without reliving the game in the back of my head. When I finally got to the gym I had to wait for at least two minutes for this nimrod rent-a-cop to push a button a few feet away from himself to open up the gate. When he finally pushed the buzzer I purposely shoved the gate so hard that the hinge nearly broke, and it came within inches of hitting his buddy in the head. Afterwards, rent-a-cop Number #1 started yelling at me, and instead of apologizing I put my finger in his face and well...I hypothetically may have called his mother a whore after he insulted me a few times. Eventually, the dust settled and the rent-a-cops backed down sensing that I was seriously about to deck one of them. Nevertheless, every time I go to the gym now I have these rent-a-cops purposely taking forever to open up the gate while cursing at me under their breath.
5. A few weeks ago, I was at this super-shady bar called "The Den" where all these Mongolian whores congregate in the AM. I was stone-cold sober as it was 8AM and I was there to watch the World Series, and the Mongols where uber-wasted. I noticed out of the corner of my eye this huge fight that was about to transpire, but since I did not want to catch VD or get Mongol blood on me I did nothing. Then I watched Mongolian hooker #1 smash a bottle over Mongolian hooker #2's face. I felt horrible for not doing anything and could not sleep well for a week.
6. Last year I had a student who had obviously just crawled out of bed and ran to class as his hair was sticking up in every direction possible. After I caught him text messaging I decided to make an example out of him by cracking jokes about his haircut to the entire class. He was quite embarrassed, here is the email he wrote me back.
Dear teacher:
In China, you should not make fun of others body-organs,
especially hair.This is a very impolite behavior,not humor.
Every Tuesday ,we have to get up early,and reach the classroom in a hurry.So I had forgotten the hair yesterday.
Every day we slept late,because there are too many books to read.
I know you are good-natured joke,so I'm not angry at all.I just want to remind you:do not bother similar mistakes again.
You are a very good teacher,I've learned a lot from you.
Thank you!
Yours,
Mike
7. I caught a student sleeping in one of my classes and I made him stand up and show off his fingernails that were easily a centimeter long. Then I asked the students if these fingernails were sexy, and if they could be used as a lethal weapon. Everyone else in the class laughed besides the Wolverine (my nickname for him).
8. If students show up late to class I make them sing songs of my choosing. Examples are: "Destiny's Child" songs, "Michael Jackson" songs, or my personal favorite "Happy Birthday" (it is always my birthday of course).
9. At least once a week when I go to a restaurant I ask for "xiong mao rou" which is panda meat. When the people at the restaurant ask me about this I tell them that we eat it all the time in the United States, and that it is extremely delicious.
10. Whenever I give students any type of examination I put a picture up of a panda with an AK-47 that says something like: "If you cheat on this test then this panda will surely kill you". I also tell them that if I catch them cheating they will be kicked out of the class (which I am pretty sure that I do not have the right to do).
it would be appreciated if you did not forward this email to the Chinese government.
yours truly,
pandakinson
P.S. I am good out here 99% of this time, and these are some rare exceptions. I do take work very seriously and hope that the people that read this blog do not think that I act like this all of the time :)
Monday, November 8, 2010
Saturday, November 6, 2010
I'm back...
Hello again,
I know it has been a while but I'm finally back to blogging. In defense to the chosen few who continue to read this blog, I live in a city where there are literally two good months of weather for the entire year...September & October. That's it. It's start to get cold & windy come November, and then in December the snow hits the city and everyone runs for cover. Mix Chinese snow with one of the most polluted cities in the world and you get yourself a toxic slushy that is dangerous and destroys my Fake Air Jordans by the week. Chalk up about five pairs of fake Polo socks (for work)and Nike (for regular activity)socks for play, and you get the contents of my weekly dumpster run. FYI- there are no dumpsters in China. There are only these bicycle-propelled trash cans that the entire neighborhood forages through for anything of value. Furthermore, seeing as I consume more plastic/glass bottles than the entire neighborhood, whenever I throw my stuff away the locals run to the trash can. I have mixed feelings about the whole scenario; on one hand, I feel that my privacy is being supremely violated; on the other hand, the people of China as a whole are poor and I shouldn't judge them. Nevertheless, I do judge them and what makes it worse ss that one local woman literally screams and curses at me if somebody besides her is the first to my trash can. WTF! Am I supposed to flag her down? Man, China is so weird sometimes I just can't really put it into words what I feel during these types of verbal exchanges.
Work is good, it is the one constant out here. I have been promoted at the prestigious People's University (Renmin Daxue), as I now teach Undergraduate Students, Doctoral Students, and the Administration. I wear really flashy three-piece suits that distinctly resemble the wardrobe Robert DeNiro wore in the movie "Goodfellas". I top it off with a vast collection of Aviator shades which I buy by the handful whenever it is that go to "The Silk Market" the mecca of counterfeit goods. Last time I went there I came out with a remote-controlled counterfeit helicopter which I promptly crashed into the trees of the courtyard outside of my apartment. I may have scared the hell out of half the neighborhood, but they all look at me like an American ambassador panda anyways so it's all the same to me.
The students all do exactly as they are told, so they behave exactly the opposite of how I did when I was a student. They call me Sir or Professor, and whenever they see me on campus they are "honored". Both the men and the women call me "handsome", which I find awkward at times. I am guessing it has to due with their limited vocabularies. In each class I have a "monitor" and she (it is always a she), does anything I ask...literally. I sent one of them the other day to Chinese customs to pickup my Amazon Kindle with my Passport and Credit Card. I have not heard from her yet, but I'm fairly certain she will return with my documents and Amazon Kindle tomorrow or I will surely fail her.
I give the students a list of mostly ridiculous names to choose from, and when they choose a name such as: Leroy, Kostas, Richie, Caesar, Alejandro, or Grouse (personal favorite), I don't even chuckle since it would ruin my joke. What I have done for two of the classes is take their photos and put them up on Facebook, and then tagged said named friends. Fortunately, the Chinese have put up "The Great Wall of Facebook", and this is what keeps me safe from these students finding out about how I am kindof clowning them. I think I may be the only person in the Orient who is completely opposed to the Chinese taking down "The Great Wall of Facebook". Since I work at the #1 government affiliated university in China I would surely be fired or worse if these students knew about my shenanigans.
On a lighter note, I do feel that I take my job seriously (besides the small pranks). At least compared to the other teachers who mostly resemble stone-age creatures that are still stuck in the chalkboard and ruler days. For my Administration class, they have me teaching with another professor because some of the Administration are highly-ranked Communist Party members and demand the satisfaction of two teachers. One of the guys that I teach with is super-cool, and we get along great. However, this guy I work with on Wednesday nights played a makeshift game of Duck-Duck-Goose using a name game during our first clsas. Subsequently, when I gave my lecture which was comprehensively organized on PPT with hours of effort and due diligence on my part, he acted as if I was messing up his schedule of things to do and what-not. We have a dinner date before class at 5PM on Wednesday which I will surely try to cancel. I have only missed one day of class in almost four full semesters of work at the University, but I have ducked & dodged a multitude of nonsensical meetings as if I was Barry Sanders in his prime.
Anyways, I should probably be getting back to my couch. I caught a Cold the other day, and that is another reason for the return of my blog. Next time I promise to tell more interesting stories, as I have been going to this crazy bar full of Mongolian whores at 7 or 8 AM to watch USC football games and the World Series. "The Den" is the only place I know open 24 hours, and a few weeks back I saw the gnarliest fight of my life which ended with a Mongolian whore breaking a bottle over the head of another Mongolian whore. Seriously, DO NOT MESS WITH MONGOLIAN WHORES.
Additionally, I have made enemies with two rent-a-cops who work the gate outside of my gym, and I may have to ask one of my students who is a real police officer to tell them to leave me alone. I really wish I did not call one of their mother's a whore...hypothetically speaking.
I'm out,
Atkinson
I know it has been a while but I'm finally back to blogging. In defense to the chosen few who continue to read this blog, I live in a city where there are literally two good months of weather for the entire year...September & October. That's it. It's start to get cold & windy come November, and then in December the snow hits the city and everyone runs for cover. Mix Chinese snow with one of the most polluted cities in the world and you get yourself a toxic slushy that is dangerous and destroys my Fake Air Jordans by the week. Chalk up about five pairs of fake Polo socks (for work)and Nike (for regular activity)socks for play, and you get the contents of my weekly dumpster run. FYI- there are no dumpsters in China. There are only these bicycle-propelled trash cans that the entire neighborhood forages through for anything of value. Furthermore, seeing as I consume more plastic/glass bottles than the entire neighborhood, whenever I throw my stuff away the locals run to the trash can. I have mixed feelings about the whole scenario; on one hand, I feel that my privacy is being supremely violated; on the other hand, the people of China as a whole are poor and I shouldn't judge them. Nevertheless, I do judge them and what makes it worse ss that one local woman literally screams and curses at me if somebody besides her is the first to my trash can. WTF! Am I supposed to flag her down? Man, China is so weird sometimes I just can't really put it into words what I feel during these types of verbal exchanges.
Work is good, it is the one constant out here. I have been promoted at the prestigious People's University (Renmin Daxue), as I now teach Undergraduate Students, Doctoral Students, and the Administration. I wear really flashy three-piece suits that distinctly resemble the wardrobe Robert DeNiro wore in the movie "Goodfellas". I top it off with a vast collection of Aviator shades which I buy by the handful whenever it is that go to "The Silk Market" the mecca of counterfeit goods. Last time I went there I came out with a remote-controlled counterfeit helicopter which I promptly crashed into the trees of the courtyard outside of my apartment. I may have scared the hell out of half the neighborhood, but they all look at me like an American ambassador panda anyways so it's all the same to me.
The students all do exactly as they are told, so they behave exactly the opposite of how I did when I was a student. They call me Sir or Professor, and whenever they see me on campus they are "honored". Both the men and the women call me "handsome", which I find awkward at times. I am guessing it has to due with their limited vocabularies. In each class I have a "monitor" and she (it is always a she), does anything I ask...literally. I sent one of them the other day to Chinese customs to pickup my Amazon Kindle with my Passport and Credit Card. I have not heard from her yet, but I'm fairly certain she will return with my documents and Amazon Kindle tomorrow or I will surely fail her.
I give the students a list of mostly ridiculous names to choose from, and when they choose a name such as: Leroy, Kostas, Richie, Caesar, Alejandro, or Grouse (personal favorite), I don't even chuckle since it would ruin my joke. What I have done for two of the classes is take their photos and put them up on Facebook, and then tagged said named friends. Fortunately, the Chinese have put up "The Great Wall of Facebook", and this is what keeps me safe from these students finding out about how I am kindof clowning them. I think I may be the only person in the Orient who is completely opposed to the Chinese taking down "The Great Wall of Facebook". Since I work at the #1 government affiliated university in China I would surely be fired or worse if these students knew about my shenanigans.
On a lighter note, I do feel that I take my job seriously (besides the small pranks). At least compared to the other teachers who mostly resemble stone-age creatures that are still stuck in the chalkboard and ruler days. For my Administration class, they have me teaching with another professor because some of the Administration are highly-ranked Communist Party members and demand the satisfaction of two teachers. One of the guys that I teach with is super-cool, and we get along great. However, this guy I work with on Wednesday nights played a makeshift game of Duck-Duck-Goose using a name game during our first clsas. Subsequently, when I gave my lecture which was comprehensively organized on PPT with hours of effort and due diligence on my part, he acted as if I was messing up his schedule of things to do and what-not. We have a dinner date before class at 5PM on Wednesday which I will surely try to cancel. I have only missed one day of class in almost four full semesters of work at the University, but I have ducked & dodged a multitude of nonsensical meetings as if I was Barry Sanders in his prime.
Anyways, I should probably be getting back to my couch. I caught a Cold the other day, and that is another reason for the return of my blog. Next time I promise to tell more interesting stories, as I have been going to this crazy bar full of Mongolian whores at 7 or 8 AM to watch USC football games and the World Series. "The Den" is the only place I know open 24 hours, and a few weeks back I saw the gnarliest fight of my life which ended with a Mongolian whore breaking a bottle over the head of another Mongolian whore. Seriously, DO NOT MESS WITH MONGOLIAN WHORES.
Additionally, I have made enemies with two rent-a-cops who work the gate outside of my gym, and I may have to ask one of my students who is a real police officer to tell them to leave me alone. I really wish I did not call one of their mother's a whore...hypothetically speaking.
I'm out,
Atkinson
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Final Grades and World Cup Fever
Hello whoever it is that is reading this blog:
From the comments section it seems only a few spammers from China are on the site. So I have now completed two semesters worth of teaching both Spoken English and Introductory Business at Renmin University in Beijing, China. I teach basic English to Doctoral students, which is probably the equivalent of a third-grade English class in the United States. Secondly, I teach an elective course to mostly Undergraduate Business majors that covers: Marketing, Organizational Behavior, Finance, Accounting, and Economics. Therefore, I get to at least salvage a little bit of use from the MBA Degree I recently completed at Pepperdine.
My Doctoral Students are between the ages of 25-40. For those of them who don't already have English names, I give them a list of suggestions which are equal parts ridiculous and culturally-insensitive. Most of the names I have recommended come from "bros" that I went to school with at USC, as those days of glory are still remembered fondly, even though I'm pretty sure due to over a decade of debauchery I have managed to erase a good 90% of these memories. I would bet dollars to donuts that my class is the only one on the continent where Chinese students proudly call themselves: Mauricio, Maradona, Caesar, Grouse, and the list goes on and on. Caesar Orozco you should be proud, in just one year of teaching I already have compiled five future leaders of the country who are enthusiastically calling themselves Caesar. When I say leaders of the country I am partially serious, as the university I teach at is the People's University and it is a hard-core government talent pool. I would say that 95% of my students are active party members, and many are looking to make it big in politics. Hopefully, my association with them will buy me out of any future logjams that I'm likely to find myself in if I continue living in the Orient.
My elective business course is for Undergraduates, and this last semester all of the students in my class were Freshmen who at the tender age of eighteen and nineteen were forced to deal with my reign of terror. They speak English better than some of my friends, and they eat, sleep, and drink homework. Most of them have between 25-30 hours of class a week, and spend another fifty hours doing homework. Sometimes I get up early on Saturday morning to get breakfast and will walk past the library that looks more like a line for the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. I don't know what I was doing at 8AM on Saturday when I was a Freshmen at USC, but I am fairly certain that I wasn't waiting for the library to open. It has been much more rewarding to teach this elective course as these students listen to everything I saw as if I was Moses.
I have also instituted an extremely effective policy for combating tardiness...I make them sing. I have been using this incredibly hilarious technique more for my own personal amusement than anything else, as there is nothing like an embarrassed bespectacled Chinese student with a teddy-bear sweater singing "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer" (I have printed out a copy and keep it in my binder at all times). Speaking of teddy-bears, if Beijing is the worst dressed city in the world (and it is) then Renmin University is its epicenter of cross-dressing. "Teeny-Weeny" is a teddy-bear that a good half of the girls are wearing on their shirts on any given day, and this goes all the way up from Freshmen to Doctoral students. When I ask these girls why it is they love "Teeny-Weeny", there answers are always somewhere along the lines of: "every woman loves a teddy-bear." LOL
To make the dress code even more outlandish, Chinese women constantly walk around with umbrellas whenever it is even moderately warm. When I ask them why they do this they almost always say: "I don't want to be black." Which although culturally insensitive, is the way that women want to look around here, because dating back to the old days of China having lighter skin meant that you were upper-class as you didn't work in the fields. Some of my Chinese students literally have lighter skin than I do. Those women who don't wear "Teeny-Weeny" apparel are likely sporting some ridiculous American phrase in big block letters on their clothes that 9 out of 10 times does not make sense, as whoever is selling these foreign shirts must be even more of a sarcastic bastard than I am. My personal favorite is: "A surfer dreams is wet."
Now that the World Cup has begun I have started mingling more with the locals around here. Since I am abot as lazy as a crippled panda, I have found the very closest restaurant/bar on campus and made it my home away from home. I would much rather go to some of the classier spots around town, but I can walk to this place in five minutes and they reserve a table for me as I come in EVERY NIGHT. I love the World Cup, more than any other sporting event, and add a little bit of gambling and you have absolute magic. The "Water Stone Cafe" got themselves a slide projector; rearranged the seating chart; and now it is the place to be. Out of a good 50-100 people on any night, I am by far the loudest, most annoying, and whitest. To be as politically incorrect as humanly possible, I have chosen to root like crazy against all teams from the continent of Asia. South Koreans, North Koreans, and Japanese, all would love nothing more than to take a baseball bat to my watermelon-sized head...and I don't disagree with them for feeling the way that they do...it's a total dick move.
Nevertheless, the South Africans most definitely hate me the most. During the first match I chose to root for Mexico against South Africa, even though there was a posse of heavily-muscled Africans who let it be known that they were not a fan of my antics. After a little bit of liquid courage I became louder, and progressively more annoying, and as my friend Blake Dirickson would say I was "that guy". When Mexico finally did score I was so excited that I did some sort of a dancing jig that I combined with a fist pump, and after getting yelled at by the Africans I blasted them with the double-barrel middle finger salute. Fortunately, I managed to get out of the bar alive, but I have followed up these antics with subsequent debacles of American travel lore that give our kind a bad reputation in virtually every country we Americans step foot in. However, due to the fact that I am a paying customer and the staff that works there actually like me (I can be charming on very occasional occasions), when I walk into the bar now: a cold beer is poured for me and placed at my table without a word; a bevy of bespectacled, albino-skinned, vampire-fanged Chinese women smile and wave at me; and different crews of Africans, Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese all point and stare as if they have just locked eyes with Lucifer himself. Damn it feels good to be a gangster.
Anyways, that's it for now. I gotta finish grading Final Exams and then submit grades by tomorrow. I hate grading papers worse than, well I can't think of anything worse but I'm sure that there is something worse. Hope all is well back in the States and that USA takes down Algeria in there next World Cup. Tonight is Portugal vs. North Korea, and even though I have a date with a voluptuous Russian girl named Liliya who I managed to convince that the Waterstone Cafe is a wonderful establishment; I still plan on antagonizing all supporters of North Korea and probably everyone else.
go get em' Portugal,
"That Guy"
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Return to Blogging
Hello everyone,
It has been a long time since I last blogged. There are two reasons for this:
So much has happened in the last eighteen months, so I'm not going to bore you with all the details. I graduated from B-School at Pepperdine; had knee surgery AGAIN after tearing another ligament in my knee; moved to China for what I thought would be a vacation; accepted a job at Renmin University (The third-ranked university in the capital city) teaching Business English and an elective Business course; and now I am an employee of the Chinese government and a well-respected member of the Chinese community. WTF....WTF, indeed!
I live inside the campus walls of Renmin University (The People's University), and it is the weirdest place on Earth. I think they must have messed up my housing assignment because instead of moving me into a cozy building with fellow like-minded Westerners I was placed in a building that looks like it was built one-thousand years ago. The university used to have a deal where if teachers were employed by the school for a certain number of years, then in return they would give them free housing fo' life. So all of my neighbors are ancient Chinamen whose average age is 164. In the building I am living in there is only one other apartment with younger people (not that I am that young), and nobody speaks more than a few words of English. My apartment is O.K., with a: living room, bathroom (about the size of a tiny closet), bedroom, and kitchen. However, the bathroom is designed so that the shower head and the toilet are facing each other...I HATE IT! Also, whoever lives in the apartment next to mine must has a piano; and this mystery person plays the piano all day, and all night, and is most definitely the worst piano player on the planet. It's like a blind drunk man has been forced to play piano as many hours as humanly possible or he will be eaten by a dragon, and I am the one who must face his wrath. If I ever get a chance, I'm taking a baseball bat to the piano.
There is a courtyard, where an old Chinese woman has created "Cat City". Since the old Chinese are the definition of Old Skool, they have taken over all of the areas in between apartments that in most societies would be used by the whole instead of the few. It is like I'm living on gang turf, and a tough bunch of rough senior Chinese have become the equivalent of the Crips and the Bloods combined. Anyways, this woman has taken every stray board she could find to create a shanty town for stray cats, all together there are twelve cats in "Cat City" and their numbers are growing. There are Chinese men playing Chinese checkers all day long; Chinese doing their laundry outsideby hand; Chinese playing badminton from the early morning until the night, and Chinese people who look at me as if they have seen a ghost; so in a nutshell you could say I don't exactly fit in around here.
The only group of other young people in my building are these five Archaelogy major girls who live in the apartment upstairs and dance to Lady Gaga music sometimes until late at night. This would be a lot funnier if we didn't share a common wall, and it makes life more than difficult when I hear their pit-pattering feed dancing to the beat at the midnight hour. A few nights ago a piece of the wall celing actually broke and hit me in the head while I was sleeping...not cool. One of the girls bought a rabbit about a month ago from a street peddler and it had been living in a cage not to far away from cat city in the courtyard area. Why she didn't move it into the safer confines of their apartment I still don't really understand, but the rabbit seemed to be a huge hit with the old fogie community that domintes the streets in my hood. Anyways, the girls (five of them live in the same size apartment as me) grew extremely attached to the rabbit, and for a rabbit this white furball appeared to be living a nice existence. This last Friday night I went out to dinner with some friends and around eight P.M. I walked by the rabbit cage and saw this spooky ancient Chinaman with less teeth than I have fingers staring at the rabbit like he either wanted to: make love to the rabbit, or eat the rabbit. At the time I didn't think much of it but when I woke up the next morning the rabbit was gone. I called the girls and they said that they were told by one of the neighbors at exactly 8:15 P.M. last night that the rabbit was not in the cage, and by simple process of elimination I deduced that this old Chinaman must have taken the rabbit to his room for either a one-night stand or to to take a hot bath in a boiling cauldron or water
The girls were sad at first but not manic as they had assumed that the rabbit must have escaped his cage and would come back soon. I explained to them that I was pretty sure this old Chinese fellow I had seen last night had taken the rabbit, and that he most definitely ATE the rabbit. I am such an idiot! For the last 48 hours the five girls have been crying non-stop. Their screaming, wailing, and other random extremely loud acts of sadness have made it so that I have not slept more than a few hours for the last two days. If I see that Chinaman who ate the rabbit I am going to punch him in the face.
I think that's enough blogging for now, but next time I will get into the magnificent mockery I have made of the Chinese educational system. I have taken my role of teacher and designed it around the principle that "The teacher is always right". Therefore, I've been running the show like a young dictator in his prime and have become extremely fond of the omnipotent powers that I now possess. It's way better than invisibility. The students never question me and do exactly as I say. For those students that don't already have English names, I have ruled that it is the teacher's job to also give them American names. In a tribute to many of my friends from the United States I have put together quite an exotic assortment of rather unusual named students. Some people collect stamps, I collect weird names for Chinese students, so far I have: Caesar (four times over), Mauricio, Georgie, Smokey, Grouse, Maradona, Esperanza, and many, many more. I just can't imagine that there are a lot of Chinese people these days calling themselves Mauricio. I also have developed a rather effective policy towards coming to class late...public embarrassment. I make any student who comes in late sing a song of my choosing. I love it when they tell me that they hate to sing, as this is exactly the answer I am looking for.
That's it for now, next time I'll post some pictures of my students and discuss some of the funnier stories I have experienced as a teacher/white devil. The irony is that the university thinks I am a kind and wonderful man and have already offered me a contract extension complete with more money and power.
It's good to be back,
Professor Atkinson
It has been a long time since I last blogged. There are two reasons for this:
- The Chinese government placed a firewall on Gmail Blogger, along with Facebook, Youtube, Hulu, and other sites.
- I am now an employee of the Chinese government and was reluctant to break protocol.
So much has happened in the last eighteen months, so I'm not going to bore you with all the details. I graduated from B-School at Pepperdine; had knee surgery AGAIN after tearing another ligament in my knee; moved to China for what I thought would be a vacation; accepted a job at Renmin University (The third-ranked university in the capital city) teaching Business English and an elective Business course; and now I am an employee of the Chinese government and a well-respected member of the Chinese community. WTF....WTF, indeed!
I live inside the campus walls of Renmin University (The People's University), and it is the weirdest place on Earth. I think they must have messed up my housing assignment because instead of moving me into a cozy building with fellow like-minded Westerners I was placed in a building that looks like it was built one-thousand years ago. The university used to have a deal where if teachers were employed by the school for a certain number of years, then in return they would give them free housing fo' life. So all of my neighbors are ancient Chinamen whose average age is 164. In the building I am living in there is only one other apartment with younger people (not that I am that young), and nobody speaks more than a few words of English. My apartment is O.K., with a: living room, bathroom (about the size of a tiny closet), bedroom, and kitchen. However, the bathroom is designed so that the shower head and the toilet are facing each other...I HATE IT! Also, whoever lives in the apartment next to mine must has a piano; and this mystery person plays the piano all day, and all night, and is most definitely the worst piano player on the planet. It's like a blind drunk man has been forced to play piano as many hours as humanly possible or he will be eaten by a dragon, and I am the one who must face his wrath. If I ever get a chance, I'm taking a baseball bat to the piano.
There is a courtyard, where an old Chinese woman has created "Cat City". Since the old Chinese are the definition of Old Skool, they have taken over all of the areas in between apartments that in most societies would be used by the whole instead of the few. It is like I'm living on gang turf, and a tough bunch of rough senior Chinese have become the equivalent of the Crips and the Bloods combined. Anyways, this woman has taken every stray board she could find to create a shanty town for stray cats, all together there are twelve cats in "Cat City" and their numbers are growing. There are Chinese men playing Chinese checkers all day long; Chinese doing their laundry outsideby hand; Chinese playing badminton from the early morning until the night, and Chinese people who look at me as if they have seen a ghost; so in a nutshell you could say I don't exactly fit in around here.
The only group of other young people in my building are these five Archaelogy major girls who live in the apartment upstairs and dance to Lady Gaga music sometimes until late at night. This would be a lot funnier if we didn't share a common wall, and it makes life more than difficult when I hear their pit-pattering feed dancing to the beat at the midnight hour. A few nights ago a piece of the wall celing actually broke and hit me in the head while I was sleeping...not cool. One of the girls bought a rabbit about a month ago from a street peddler and it had been living in a cage not to far away from cat city in the courtyard area. Why she didn't move it into the safer confines of their apartment I still don't really understand, but the rabbit seemed to be a huge hit with the old fogie community that domintes the streets in my hood. Anyways, the girls (five of them live in the same size apartment as me) grew extremely attached to the rabbit, and for a rabbit this white furball appeared to be living a nice existence. This last Friday night I went out to dinner with some friends and around eight P.M. I walked by the rabbit cage and saw this spooky ancient Chinaman with less teeth than I have fingers staring at the rabbit like he either wanted to: make love to the rabbit, or eat the rabbit. At the time I didn't think much of it but when I woke up the next morning the rabbit was gone. I called the girls and they said that they were told by one of the neighbors at exactly 8:15 P.M. last night that the rabbit was not in the cage, and by simple process of elimination I deduced that this old Chinaman must have taken the rabbit to his room for either a one-night stand or to to take a hot bath in a boiling cauldron or water
The girls were sad at first but not manic as they had assumed that the rabbit must have escaped his cage and would come back soon. I explained to them that I was pretty sure this old Chinese fellow I had seen last night had taken the rabbit, and that he most definitely ATE the rabbit. I am such an idiot! For the last 48 hours the five girls have been crying non-stop. Their screaming, wailing, and other random extremely loud acts of sadness have made it so that I have not slept more than a few hours for the last two days. If I see that Chinaman who ate the rabbit I am going to punch him in the face.
I think that's enough blogging for now, but next time I will get into the magnificent mockery I have made of the Chinese educational system. I have taken my role of teacher and designed it around the principle that "The teacher is always right". Therefore, I've been running the show like a young dictator in his prime and have become extremely fond of the omnipotent powers that I now possess. It's way better than invisibility. The students never question me and do exactly as I say. For those students that don't already have English names, I have ruled that it is the teacher's job to also give them American names. In a tribute to many of my friends from the United States I have put together quite an exotic assortment of rather unusual named students. Some people collect stamps, I collect weird names for Chinese students, so far I have: Caesar (four times over), Mauricio, Georgie, Smokey, Grouse, Maradona, Esperanza, and many, many more. I just can't imagine that there are a lot of Chinese people these days calling themselves Mauricio. I also have developed a rather effective policy towards coming to class late...public embarrassment. I make any student who comes in late sing a song of my choosing. I love it when they tell me that they hate to sing, as this is exactly the answer I am looking for.
That's it for now, next time I'll post some pictures of my students and discuss some of the funnier stories I have experienced as a teacher/white devil. The irony is that the university thinks I am a kind and wonderful man and have already offered me a contract extension complete with more money and power.
It's good to be back,
Professor Atkinson
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