This is what helps me to stay sane in China !

A touch of class:

 And, best of all, AUSTRALIAN TV on the wide-screen !

Oh, yeah, don't forget www.club977.com for top quality streaming audio in stereo, 80's music, of course. 

That's all for today.

Bye !

Yes, there are charlatans with fake post-graduate degrees
in "ripping foreigners off" here in China.  I am currently
teaching in a commercial training centre in Suzhou, Jiangsu.

Our students are not 'students' - they are referred to as
'clients'. This is somewhat disturbing, since most of them
are actually keen to learn English to improve their employment prospects at a Western Multi-National company here in Suzhou.

 Our students aren't hicks.

Whenever I host an English Corner with the topic of :
"How to write a cover letter for a resume that will have your phone ringing within 2 hours" or "Dos and Dont's when working at a Western Company",  need Alsations, teargas, Guards and water cannon to control the crowd. The room is packed, standing room only and I have to ask a student to toddle up to reception to photocopy 40 more handouts.

I did an Intermediate Business Class tonight and had one lady, a co-owner of an International trading company exporting nuts from China all around the world. I explained the word 'turnover' = sales and asked her how much her company was handling each year, then presented her with the whiteboard marker. She wrote : 30,000,000 RMB on the board.

Not bad.

Had another lady student in another class who will head off to Australia for a month of training in August.  She advised that she worked for a Japanese company and would receive a daily cash allowance of USD $500 whilst in Australia.
I queried this. Weekly ?  "No, daily."

I mentioned this over dinner to the other foreign teachers and they droppped their chopsticks on the floor in unison. One said :"Nah, can't be true". Heads shaking all over.

 'Man, I grilled her on the spit for like, 5 minutes, explaining the difference between daily, weekly and monthly'. We tend to drop into slang and colloquial language when out of the classroom - we also swear a LOT amongst ourselves, moan and p**s when the door to the Foreign Teachers Office is closed.

Otherwise we smile, behave and speak like Catholic Priests in regalia in front of our 'clients'.

She was adamant it was daily.

Our "clients" include bankers, barristers, accountants, orthopedic surgeons discussing hip replacements with Titanium hip implants, Yoga practitioners and University students with very well-heeled parents.

I recently had a discussion with a Chinese Doctor student about Dopamine and Seratonin levels, the reasons for the onset and long-term effects of depression, causes and therapuetic interventions, along with Psychological counselling, SSRI medication. He was astonished that a 'Laowai (foreign) Teacher' knew about this stuff and could teach, or talk to a Business English class about this. He was impressed. Breathless.

"How you know about this ? You English Teacher ! Are you Doctor ?" 

Nope.

 Jamieson's Luck.

We even went into research about micro-current speeding bone fracture recovery, about my Iraqi friend at the University of Queensland and his PhD research on cats and deliberate bone fractures with accelerated fracture healing and new techniques.

Jamieson looks and talks stupid, but, honey, trust me, he ain't.

Point is, I suppose, that it's the luck of the draw. You can get a sh*tty gig in China, or you can get a great gig.

Method :

Number 1.
Contact former or current teachers at the place where you want to teach by email.

Number 2.
Contact former teachers at the place where you want to teach and ask them about the apartment standards by email. We have one Australian guy who has to sweat it out until payday because the school declined his request for a salary advance (which is B.S. as I have also requested an advance from a previous school, and received it). He's currently living in shared accommodation with Chinese folk and apparently has 10 RMB (USD$1.20) in his pocket until pay day in a week. Not good.

Number 3.
If you feel you have been abused, let down, ignored, F**ked around, or taken for granted, then GO. Stick it out, get your salary then flee.
Trust me, there are places in China where you can actually have a real conversation with students, re-inforce their English, re-assure them that their English is fine. Suzhou is good. Actually smile, and make a difference. 

It is most important to them that you reassure them that their English is great, but don't overdo-it. Positive feedback is essential for them, despite how bad their English is......Just keep 'em talking, they'll get better eventually.

I taked the dog to the park gets a buzzer.
I love my house: gets a buzzer.   Love is for people, not houses.
When I think about University I am think happy. Gets a buzzer.

The Shanghai Composite Trade Index has suffered a 6.5% drop in trading levels today, according to CNN because the Chinese Government has increased a trading tax to 0.3%, up from 0.1% last night. That gets a tick.

All the best,

Majestic Jamieson.  The best teacher you will ever meet.

TO:

JAMIESON

*** Something Plaza
 * Near some lake Lu (Road)
In a safe place, somewhere in China - oh yeah later.
Suzhou 215021
Jiangsu Province

Dear Phantomus Maximus,

How's it going ?  Sold your house yet ? Wellll, the weather here in Suzhou is ramping up to a lovely 80% humidity and temperatures in the mid 20s. We were supposed to have a thunderstorm here today, but it didn't happen.  Shit, I got a taxi to w**k and back because I didn't
fancy riding the electric bike back home in the potential rain, thunder and lightning at 9 pm.

Rained buckets at 04.30 this morning and is starting to rain now.

Can't sleep without the aircon in the bedroom set at 24 degrees, nice and de-humidified.

I'd be sweating like a pig in a tin shed in the Tanami desert in mid-summer without that aircon.

Lucky we have 4 aircons in this apartment !  It starts to cool down in October ugh, about 4 months away. Great.  Four months of sweating.

Sorry, XXX has a boyfriend and I got sprung wiring up the shower-cam.

Didn't help when I got stuck in the crawl space and they had to call the fire brigade to get me out. I was stuck for 4 hours and the battery in the phone and the torch/flashlight died.

Muffled cries for help with cables and a camera wrapped around my neck in the dark, me covered in crap when they finally got me out was not a good look. (kidding, no crawl space).

ZZZ is fine, even piped up with "Shall we get married next month ?" tonight.

Got another small dilemma, and this time If you elect to aid and abet, there MUST be a transfer to your account.

I signed up for 2 more units at Uni, and they require me to buy 2 textbooks for 1 unit.

Checked www.amazon.com   and the books 2nd hand are quite affordable. Like less than $80 Australian with freight.  I checked www.unibooks.com.au in Adelaide, and since they only deal with new books, it is a rather breathtaking amount of coin to have them shipped to China in the band $150 - $200 Australian.

To which ZZZ is astonished. A thousand kuai or more for just 2 books ? She's from the old school, a quality textbook would cost a mere $3.80 - which would be considered expensive, and treasured.

According to her,a book costing 500 kuai would have to be hand-written, pages embossed with gold and hand delivered by a Palace Eunuch on horse-back, staying at modest inns, all the way from Beijing to Silk City from the court of the Emperor of China.

...And personally endorsed and signed by the Emperor as a suitable textbook.

Whilst amazon, 2nd hand is far cheaper than Unibooks (a non profit organisation my arse) there's a fly in the ointment.  Amazon doesn't ship books to China. How fucking inconvenient.

Ahhhh, maybe the books could be sent to the Club in Australia and re-sent to Sunny, sweaty Suzhou, for a fee of course, since Australia is an approved destination.  I bought books & CDs from Amazon.com in the past and never batted an eyelid, they even accepted a return of a duplicate CD and rebated the coin back to Mr. Visa.

Don't want to stretch the mateship string with my provisional membership at the Club.  Declining is perfectly understandable ( have coin, will transfer ).

ZZZ says "How come they treat you so nicely ? This stuff was sent by DHL and arrived in 3 days from Australia, my University wouldn't give me the steam off their piss, or electricity in our dormitory after 11 pm, heat, give a grudging pass mark without a bribe and they would NEVER, EVER send anything by DHL."

The bribe thing is of course, a joke. ZZZ secured several scholarships from her university and free tuition at times due to her excellent academic performance and improvement.

People in China tend to look down on folks from Anhui Province (Oh, they are just pimps, thugs, thieves and hookers from an impoverished shit-hole dump) but I have received nothing but the most embarrassing, extravagant hospitality, kindness and REAL friendship from Anhui folks. Oh, you ran out of coffee sachets? I'll get the boys to ride their motor bike to get you more.

J waves the offer away, "Mafan, mafan" -  (Hassle, hassle). It is OK.

That's my dilemma.

 Jamieson.

Oh, I love University.

Lined up for 2 study subjects next semester. Paid up, well actually the Australian Government paid up :-) Even though I lurk in China.

Had a phone call from an Australian guy at the International School.

Called him back before I went there to have a chat. Unfortunately, there is no car/shuttle bus from the school back to Suzhou and v.v. I don't want to rely on unreliable buses or trains to get there and back. 

Salary was extremely light for an International school, too - I was expecting about 20 grand, but was offered small change. Even less than at the spider. Of course J declined the chat and went back to sleep. ZZZ was grumbling at the job.

Why don't I listen to her more carefully ?

She knows China, Chinese mentality like the back of her small hand. I can smell dodgy stuff in Australia and avoid it, fast.

The other day, one of the students at the spider was laying a bait for the Laowai (foreign) teachers.

Don't stare Jamieson ! A glance will suffice.

Speaking of staring, have you downloaded Google Earth software ? J can zoom down to his apartment block in Suzhou. His apartment. Hell, I could give you the latitude and longitude of my hut if you need to program a Cruise Missile.

There's something else naughty. Ahhh, there is NO airport in Suzhou, right ?

Silly for a post. But China is totally paranoid about maps. What ? This is secret  ? Not any more sweetheart.Oh, yeah. Zoom down darling, Its public, not pubic.  

I will get kicked out of China as a spy.

Jamieson.

Come and get me.This is SO public. Any more public it would be on flyers in the street.

All copyright of images belongs to the appropriate copyright holders. Distributed in the public domain at the risk of Jamiesons Luck.

 J.