Dongbei Park

The kids at my school love Dongbei Park, just across the river from me in Songyuan, so we went exploring the other day.

Saddest, most rundown carnival/zoo/park I have ever seen.

And we almost got in a fight. Some Chinese gangster man (stitches on his face ladies and gentleman) said, "Fuck you" to one of my friends and then proceeded to follow us around all afternoon.

Prooobably not going to frequent this place.

Don't ask, because I have no clue.

This is a monkey enclosure.

Fattest pug ever.

If you can get the basin to land directly on a bunny you get to keep in.

sidewalk dangers

Walking down the street in China can be dangerous in ways you might not expect. When I first got here, I had heard about the girl that unexpectedly fell through the sidewalk and was saved by a taxi driver and the woman who fell through the sidewalk into scalding water and died, but you don't really think these things are common place. Turns out they are.

Sometimes it's the sidewalk that collapses, sometimes it's an uncovered hole, sometimes it's a manhole that doesn't have a secure cover. I took both of these pictures on my 10 minute walk to school the other day, it's a very short distance to see two open holes if that gives you an idea of frequency.

Out of the 20ish foreigners I know in Songyuan, two of them have fallen in manholes. Sounds like a small amount, but think about those odds. One of them fell through the other night on the way to a friend's, he stepped on a manhole cover that wasn't secure. The end he stepped on went down while the other end flipped up and he fell in. Luckily he caught himself when he was about waist deep, so only his shoes and the bottom of his pants made it into the sludge below.

What might be equally scary is that he abandoned the shoes due to the smell, and within 30 minutes someone had come by and taken them.

visa lording pt 2

At my hypothetical friend's school there are four foreign teachers that have been there for at least three years each, all with valid Z visas. There are three teachers on loan from another school in Changchun, all with valid Z visas through their primary school. Then there are six foreigners that have started at various times in the past six months that all are working illegally on tourist visas, my friend being one of them.

Earlier this week, she and two of the others traveled to Hong Kong to get their visas. They were warned by other foreigners in town to make sure they had all the proper documents when they went, even though the school is technically in charge of this, because someone from their school had gone in the past missing a lot of paperwork. My friend checked and everything seemed to be in order.

They were in Hong Kong for two days, to drop off their paperwork one day and pick up their visas the next. They got to the visa office the first day and literally not a single one of them could get a visa. My friend had all the paperwork, but her invitation letter told her to go to an American Embassy, not a Chinese Embassy, so because of this typo  on her school's part she wasn't eligible. One of her coworkers had a physical from a foreign country which is ok when you're doing the visa application by mail, but once you are actually in China, you visa physical must be from Hong Kong or mainland China (turned out my friend also had this problem) and the third member of their group had no physical at all. That one had told her employer as much before they left and apparently he had said she could get it when they returned.

The second day they were there their employer and emailed some paperwork that was supposed to help. He had sent a letter from the school saying my friend was ok (the visa lady basically laughed at her for this), sent forged physical papers for the girl with no physical (she declined to use them) and nothing for the guy with the physical from another country.

At this point it was clear that no one was getting a work visa, but by now everyone at the visa office knew who they were, and the Chinese man from the school that had accompanied them was completely oblivious to the fact that what they were doing was illegal and they could all potentially get in trouble.

This also left the girl with no physical in a bad spot because her tourist visa was only good for one entry, so to return to Songyuan she needed a new one, but everyone at the office knew she really wanted a Z visa, so it was clear she was lying. She ended up going in again without anyone else from the group and successfully applying, but the group did have to extend their stay an extra day to pick up her visa so she could go back to Songyuan.

When the group got back to Songyuan, the school owner informed the group that since they did not get their visas, the trip was actually not for school purposed, so the money for it would be deducted from their salaries. Even though they couldn't get their visas because THE SCHOOL didn't have the proper paperwork and requirements in order. Such bs.

visa lording

For 99% of EFL jobs, a class Z work visa is built into the contract as the school's responsibility to provide. Many foreign language schools like to screw around with these and try to hold them over our heads and/or not provide them. Visas are a lot cheaper to get for foreigners before we get to the country, especially in China, because once we are here we have to physically go to Hong Kong to get the visa, whereas before we arrive, the whole process can just be done by mail.

If you get caught working illegally in a country it's not the end of the world. You'll get fined and likely deported, but not jailed or anything crazy. You will, however, have that stigma against you when you try to work in other countries and you likely cannot work in whichever country you were busted in again. As far as the school you were working for illegally goes, they will get a small fine, a slap on the wrist, and that is all. The chances of getting caught are slim, but still much riskier for the teacher than the school.

Now I want to share a story about a hypothetical friend in Songyuan. She got her job teaching in China last minute, so her employer told her to just get a class L tourist visa to come over and then when she got here he would get her Z visa. This friend arrived at the beginning of February and since then has been bugging her boss about getting her visa. At first he kept telling her to wait until more foreign teachers came so he could send them all at once to cut costs. Eventually he stopped making excuses and just blew her off.

Toward the end of April, my friend told her boss that she would be unable to work in the month of May until flight arrangements had been made for her to go to Hong Kong to get her visa. Within a day, her boss had interrupted a class of hers to tell her when she would be going. He asked her to look up flights, since he was so busy. She had no problem with this, as she was essentially planning a vacation for herself and two of her friends (they were also without visas and she had included them when speaking to her employer).

She sent him the info and asked for confirmation of flights and hotels. She never got it. She asked her boss and he said everything had been purchased and set up by another school admin so she should email him. She did and never got the info.

Then, a week before she was supposed to leave, she received her schedule and saw that she was set to be judging the Happy Songyuan English Speaking Contest. As I have mentioned before, the pay for working the contest is ridiculously minimal, you're basically volunteering. My friend had previously stated that she would not work the contest and hadn't been scheduled to do so since, so she went in to her employer and told him as much.

He asked why, she gave her reasons (low pay, detracts from teaching hours, not in her contract and she'd also had her schedule screwed with when she showed up at 6am one day… don't mess with a girl at 6am). Her boss's arguments for her to work were that it was for charity (not true), the school wasn't making any money (the school is actually calling every single contestant afterwards and using the judges' comments to recruit them to the school), was she so greedy (this is her job?!) and if he let her do this then what about the other teachers (not her problem). Then things got dirty…

He asked her, "If this is your attitude, then why am I paying 5K to send you to Hong Kong for your visa?" She said something to the effect of, "Because it's part of my contract that you are almost four months late in fulfilling." His reply was, "I don't care about your contract. Maybe I don't get your visa." To which she said, "Then maybe I don't work for you anymore." He basically said he didn't care. She asked if he wanted her to come to work tomorrow (so was her going to get her visa), or not, and he said he'd think about it and call her later. He never called, so she didn't go to work the next day.
 
My friend was only so worried, because she had plenty of people to stay with if need be, and the way she saw it, she had three options: 1.) she could easily go work at another school in Songyuan 2.) she could go to Xia'Men early, where she was planning on going in September anyway OR 3.) she could work a two week summer camp in Thailand with a friend and make enough money to travel for a few months without working.

Her only concern was getting her flight money and making her employer pay. Her contract read that if her employer broke her contract he had to pay her three to ten times her monthly salary, depending (on what, who knows). She also wasn't entirely sure how long her tourist visa was good, it didn't say on the visa. All it said was that it was good for multiple entires into the country, but only 60 days each entry, and she had about 10 days before she hit that 60 for her current entry.

In her unexpected day off, she interviewed with another school in town and met with a few of her adult students who are completely awesome and took the day off work to counsel her and help take her mind off the whole thing. Also that day, her school VP asked to meet with her in the evening to get the lowdown. She had texted the VP and her students the night before to let them know she wouldn't be teaching the next day so she wasn't flaking on anyone by not showing up.

Her VP and the school she interviewed with both told her that to work elsewhere in China, she would need a letter signed by both herself and her employer releasing her from her contract early, eek. The VP got her side of the story and then met with the employer to try to smooth things over and get him to be reasonable. She called my friend later that night and said he would still get her visa if she would be flexible to potentially help with the contest in the future. She said no. The VP told her that she does the scheduling, so she would make sure my friend never had to work the contest again. My friend still said no, there's no way she was going to work it, the VP could say whatever she wanted, but if it ever came down to it, she wouldn't do it. The VP said ok.

The next day my friend saw her employer at school and he asked her, "Are you still mad at me?" with a big smile.

random pix: around Crack Den 2.0

This looks safe...

It's fog, not pollution, I swear. I hope...

This old man brings his birds in their cages outside my bedroom window, hangs them from trees and then stands and stares at them. For hours.

rape confusion

I've discovered that when Chinese menus say "rape" they aren't completely crazy. Some of the Chinese TAs at my school tell me this vegetable is called "rape" in English. They don't all agree, but I looked it up the other day and the Chinese for it translates to "Brassica campestris" which is the same "Brassica rapa." Apparently the French call it "rappa." It seems to be associated with canola oil, mustard, or turnips, but none of it is quite exactly this vegetable. Does anyone know what this is?

yep, I'm pretty awesome