David @ 4:13 pm
So ive finally finished the weeks teaching, had a very interesting class today about the difference between broadsheet and tabloid journalism. It took a while to get the students to understand how the tabloid newspapes operate in Britain, or infact what a tabloid paper is! In china there are two english papers, China Daily, and 21st Century – as well as a whole host of Chinese language publications. They are broadsheets.
At this moment I am sitting in apartment at my desk typing away on my laptop, there are 3 cleaners that I have hired to clean out my apartment. It only cost 20kwai for them to clean it for an hoir or so, and I really cant be bothered to do it myself. Also there is so much dust here, and everything quickly gets a coat of grime over it, so i get the cleaners to do it for me – and they do a very good job of scrubbing the wooden floors on my apartment.
I had a 2 hour Chinese lesson yesterday, and I have now arranged to have 8 hours a week of formal one on one tuition with my teacher.This is on top of my 26 teaching hours which i do every week, it is quite a taxing schedule, but I think I will get used to it.
Infact, I have two Chinese teachers, both refuse to take any form of payment for the time they spend with me. This seems alien to me, but one must understand that for them, helping me is helping themselves to learn to teach and that is helping the collective society as a whole. Essentially, the society in China is more interested in collective values than monetary values – which I think is something that quite a few people in the West could learn from.
This morning I was woken at 4.30 by some workmen moving some very long pipes along the road near ro my apartment. In China generally, people start very early, and go to sleep early.
Most of my students are awake at 5am and asleep by 9. There is no or little night-life in any sense of the Western meaning of the word; even on a Friday night most are asleep by 10 or 10.30.
I think this is partly because the Chinese work so hard, my students are final year university students annd they have 24 hours a week of formal lectures, and they get at least 2 hours of homework a night PER SUBJECT!
The work ethic here is something that would be considered mad by many in Britain.
I think that teaching from 8 – 5 is difficult5, but imagine then having to do another 4 hours work on top of that!
One last thing, IF YOU ARE READING THIS YOU CAN COMMENT ON ANYTHING I WRITE IN ONE OF THESE ENTRIES BY CLICKING ON THE WORD Comments BELOW THIS ENTRY.
til next time
Dài Wèi (thats David in Chinese Pinyin. Pronounced Da. Way )
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