Still in Pingdingshan...
The boss here wants me and Rae to stay. I am flattered, but I don't think I will. This place is really nothing compared to Beijing.. there is nothing to do, there isn't even good shopping. I feel bad for the school. The English teachers can barely speak English and they don't seem to have hired a manager yet. I don't know whether this school will be able to make any money. Even if we stayed, I think we would have to spend half of our time on recruitment and half of our time on children just to bring the school to the break-even point.
On the other hand, I am definately tempted by the offer. I feel that I am very useful here... I feel that I can make a difference here, perhaps make the school into something better than it could be otherwise. Maybe it is just the personal appeals of Mr Zhang. He has been very good to me and Rae in our time here, he is also a very nice, funny and interesting person. But, I should not let the frendship that I have developed over this one week cloud my judgement and make me do something that I might spend a whole summer regretting. Also, Rae would never go for it.
When I tried to read my blog yesterday, I was blocked. I guess blogspot is blocked in China. I find this quite funny because I am perfectly able to write and publish this blog, but not able to look at it. But, then again, from the Chinese government's perspective, it makes sense. It does not matter what foreigners think, even if they are getting the informaiton from people inside the country. What matters is what people in China think, or rather don't think.
Here, in Pingdingshan (PDS), I have discovered many things that I should have realized long ago. The first is that China is still very very closed. Here in PDS people are extremely closed minded. Not closed minded in terms of being racist or homophobic as we might use the term in Canada, but closed minded in the sense that they don't know anything about and don't care at all about the outside world. Even the people who do English majors in university are not at all interested in finding out anything about life in Canada. They do not listen to foreign music, watch foreign movies, read foreign anything or even think about the world outside China's borders in any sort of non-superficial way.
This closed mindedness is evidenced in the way even educated people divide up the world. It is not divided into China, Asia, the West, Africa, the Middle East etc... it is divided into guonei and guowai, that is inside and outside China. They seem to make no distinction between North America and Europe or even Africa. They also seem to have very little interest in seeing the world.
Well I have to go..
Marc
The boss here wants me and Rae to stay. I am flattered, but I don't think I will. This place is really nothing compared to Beijing.. there is nothing to do, there isn't even good shopping. I feel bad for the school. The English teachers can barely speak English and they don't seem to have hired a manager yet. I don't know whether this school will be able to make any money. Even if we stayed, I think we would have to spend half of our time on recruitment and half of our time on children just to bring the school to the break-even point.
On the other hand, I am definately tempted by the offer. I feel that I am very useful here... I feel that I can make a difference here, perhaps make the school into something better than it could be otherwise. Maybe it is just the personal appeals of Mr Zhang. He has been very good to me and Rae in our time here, he is also a very nice, funny and interesting person. But, I should not let the frendship that I have developed over this one week cloud my judgement and make me do something that I might spend a whole summer regretting. Also, Rae would never go for it.
When I tried to read my blog yesterday, I was blocked. I guess blogspot is blocked in China. I find this quite funny because I am perfectly able to write and publish this blog, but not able to look at it. But, then again, from the Chinese government's perspective, it makes sense. It does not matter what foreigners think, even if they are getting the informaiton from people inside the country. What matters is what people in China think, or rather don't think.
Here, in Pingdingshan (PDS), I have discovered many things that I should have realized long ago. The first is that China is still very very closed. Here in PDS people are extremely closed minded. Not closed minded in terms of being racist or homophobic as we might use the term in Canada, but closed minded in the sense that they don't know anything about and don't care at all about the outside world. Even the people who do English majors in university are not at all interested in finding out anything about life in Canada. They do not listen to foreign music, watch foreign movies, read foreign anything or even think about the world outside China's borders in any sort of non-superficial way.
This closed mindedness is evidenced in the way even educated people divide up the world. It is not divided into China, Asia, the West, Africa, the Middle East etc... it is divided into guonei and guowai, that is inside and outside China. They seem to make no distinction between North America and Europe or even Africa. They also seem to have very little interest in seeing the world.
Well I have to go..
Marc
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