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Guide Page
老怪物
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The Old Codger Returns 31 May 2008 A number of complaints have been registered about the lack of a Letter from China. There are, of course, plausible excuses that can be put forth, but it is doubtful that they would be accepted. After all, The Old Codger has repeatedly stated that he doesn't work all that much as a rule, and seemingly is always on holiday or vacation. Hence, that leaves us with the only accurate and acceptable excuse: It ain't easy being The Old Codger. Among the complaints have also been references to the fact that The Old Codger's Blog has not been updated in quite some time. Actually, that is not quite true - it has been updated but due to a corrupted data base, the additions are not showing up. A friend in the States agreed to help fix the data base, given that doing such from China is a very difficult process due to the Great Firewall of China, but the recent passing of his wife from brain cancer has understandably put that project on hold for the time being. Doug was Marilyn's primary care giver during the course of the disease exhibiting a dedication to Marilyn that is often not seen in modern times. Take your time Doug. Doug is a Mac Expert and specializes in web sites. Check out his blog for information and tips. The Old Codger also sends his sympathies to good friends Steve and Mali George of Udon Thani. Mali's mother - everyone just called her Mamma - finally passed away last Thursday (21 May) after a decade of living with Alzheimer's. Mamma was a constant presence at their bar, restaurant and hotel (Irish Clock) in Udon Thani despite the disease. Steve, Mali, family and friends would all take turns watching and chasing Mamma down when she started wandering off in the earlier stages of the disease. For the last few years though, Mali was the primary care giver throughout everything, watching over and caring for Mamma as well as cooking delicious food seven days a week. It was much more than a full time job to say the least. Mamma is finally at peace, and no doubt is in a better place, where she will be much happier. Mali and Steve can also now take a break, and bask in the knowledge that they did everything that they could for Mamma. The school year is now about over and The Old Codger will get a bit of a break before he starts planning for the new school year. Being the "pilot" of a Pilot Program has not been easy for the past year. Not knowing what should be accomplished - and then not knowing if anything has been accomplished - is a great way to induce a lot of stress. Apparently The Old Codger must have "flown" the program pretty good given that he has been asked to stay on for another year and continue "flying" the program. Ultimately, in retrospect, this has been a year of mistakes combined with a bit of blind luck. Next year, the mistakes hopefully won't be repeated. Of course, given the prevalence of Murphy's Law - which is presumed to be a Western "thing" - even here in China, nothing is guaranteed. Old Murphy may well have lived in Asia before writing the laws. It is difficult to teach in a University where failure is expected. It is also extremely difficult to motivate students as a result of that failure expectation. The Old Codger is teaching at a "second tier" university and the students all believe that even with a degree from this school, they will never be able to do much with it. As a result, the students don't believe that they need to work. They believe that a degree is guaranteed no matter what, given their admission and attendance at the school. As a result, very few students will put forth the effort needed to be successful in their studies. The prevailing attitude seems to be, (and this has been expressed by both students and teachers), that the students dedicated a lot of time and effort to get a good enough score to get into a university, so therefore, they no longer need to put forth any significant amounts of effort now. After all, they believe at the end of the day the degree is virtually worthless. The "failure expectation" seems to have also permeated the teaching staff as well. One cannot hear any passion coming out of the class rooms from the teachers. The teachers drone on and on. The students openly sleep in class or text each other on their phones. Or, work on other homework projects not related to the class they are in. And, as seems to be prevalent in Chinese society, when bored, people talk with each other rather than listening to whomever is giving a talk or a lecture. To a seasoned speaker, that type of indifference would be an instant indication that it is time to get the audience's attention again. Not so here. They continue to drone on and on without any changes at all. A variation from what has been planned is seemingly not within their range of oratory skills. Of course, if the students aren't interested to begin with; have no desire to learn anything; there may not be a solution to the problem. Imagine a class of 30+ students who are in a major (course) primarily because their parents told them that was the best major for them - which ultimately means that they don't want to be there. Toss in a healthy dose of low self confidence. Toss in another dose of "attitude" which equates to: "I don't like the class so I am not going to do anything." Then add, for good measure, an attitude of "I already know what is being taught" despite the fact that they cannot get an acceptable score on the "big test." Mix it all together, and the final result is the equivalent of chaos. Frustration. Gloom. Despair. Do not toss anything into the equation that is "different" from what they think life should be. Chinese students seemingly have not been exposed to the theory of doing their best at anything. The emphasis has always been placed on getting the best scores on a test. The test relies on memorization: how much they memorized and totally devoid of practical application. Asking students to "look at themselves" is a new concept. It something that they do not want to do. The Old Codger introduced a Personal Development Program which would allow students to do a self assessment of their strengths and weaknesses, which in turn would assist them in setting goals for the future. Before this program, if students were asked what they thought their three biggest weaknesses were, the answers would typically be along the lines of: "Ummm... Well, I can't sing or dance and I am not very good at sports." After the Program, the answers had a bit more depth and self analysis, but it also demonstrated that the students do not like looking at themselves or planning for the future. After one week of the program, 80% of the sophomore students stopped coming to class. They haven't returned. To be sure, and to be fair, the past year has not been total agony. It has required a significant degree of patience and creativity. It has required changing expectations that the students had, and still have to a certain extent. The sophomore students came into the class with an expectation that the course would be "fun and games." When asked to provide suggestions on how to improve the class at the end of the first semester, the suggestions were few: Watch movies. Play games. Tell us about American culture. None of the suggestions had anything to do with what the course was supposed to be about: Writing and critical thinking. The concept that writing cannot be learned from lectures or reading lessons (written in Chinese preferably) does not sink in. Good writing takes practice. Practice is boring. If things are boring, we do not do them very well. Progress has been seen with many of the students with their writing. It has been slow in coming, and only truly visible at the end of the year. The critical thinking and logic process is much more difficult to see improvement in. Teaching it is difficult as well. After all, it is a boring topic. It is a departure from tradition. For The Old Codger, the school year is practically over. Giving a final exam is pointless. The grades really do not matter as everyone will pass no matter what. Of course, with writing, everything is subjective. That makes grading very difficult. Recently one student handed in a paper and was given a "D" for the paper. After some thought, The Old Codger decided to raise the grade one point thinking that he was being "too hard" on the particular student. He talked to her just before the class. He started to explain to the student that he was going to give her a better grade on the paper. The student stopped him and told him that she didn't write the paper. She had gotten another student to write the paper because she had "more important" things to do. He told her that if she did that in the American university that she is planning on attending, she would be expelled immediately. She replied that she wouldn't be expelled because "her parents had paid the tuition." Her final exam last semester had been a 100% copy and paste. The girl will be in for some rude awakenings when she gets to America. There have been a few "stars" in the classes. A few - albeit very few - are motivated to do their very best. One freshman has received the highest score on the "big test" (TOEFL) of anyone in the school - 108 out of 120. The Old Codger has met the goal of the university to have at least 6 kids ready to go to the states in time for the new school year there, so that threshold has been met. Actually, had more that could go, but the school doesn't have room for them. Surprisingly, all have the fear that the university in the states won't be "good enough" and they will end up with a worthless degree. They have been "programmed" to believe that unless one graduates from the best university, no matter where it is, they won't stand a chance. The Old Codger is planning on doing a bit of traveling this summer. The destinations will be Guanzhou - formerly known as Canton - and Nanning. Guangzhou is about 100 miles (160 km) north east of Hong Kong. Nanning is about 460 miles west of Guanzhou. Nantong to Guangzhou is about 1,000 miles (1,650 km). Airfare is cheap in China. A round trip ticket is equivalent to USD $106.00 Flying beats taking the train or a bus here in China. Intrepid travelers always talk about how one can really get a "feel" for a country by taking the train or bus. The Old Codger has reached the conclusion that he already has a "feel" for the country after being here for almost two years. He took the train one time from Udon Thani to Bangkok to see if he had been missing something. The unanimous conclusion then was that he hadn't missed a damn thing. Things certainly wouldn't be any different in China. Two hours on an airplane clearly beats over 30 hours on a train. Part of the reason for "heading south" is to check out the Universities in those cities. The Old Codger needs warm weather, which Nantong does not offer much of - especially in the winter. Add to that the dirt and dust in Nantong - especially at the university which is now doing a lot of building. The allergies that have been "kicked up" this spring have been less than comfortable. The Old Codger did recently take a weekend trip to Yancheng, which is in Jiangsu Province, about 2 hours or so from Nantong. This was the 'annual propaganda trip and reward for renewing a contract' with the University. After the trip last year to Wuxi, The Old Codger swore that he would never do it again. Another broken promise to himself. Guided tours are not very appealing. The Chinese are always concerned that foreigners cannot do things on their own, so the tours are more like "guarded tours." If one breaks away from the group, someone will come along and try to chase you back to the group. Part of the tour included a visit to the Kia car plant - a South Korean company - in Yancheng. It was on a Saturday afternoon, so production was limited, as were spokespersons from Kia, who were non-existent. The first part of the tour was to watch a movie about Kia Motors. Naturally, the entire production was in Chinese, which certainly impressed all the foreigners on the tour. The irony of the applause and calls for an "encore" and the end of the film was lost on the Chinese. Then, a self guided 'walk through' of one of the production areas of the factory where we could see that everything was automated and required only about five people to run everything. Yes. Everyone was properly impressed and showed the appropriate "awe" at the conclusion of that tour. We foreigners are so easily impressed. The second day of the tour included a visit to a Chinese deer park in the vicinity of Yancheng. "Vicinity" means about 50 km. This park is a refuge for the Chinese deer which have been imported into the park. A very expansive place, with a couple hundred deer roaming around. The tour of the park is limited to riding around the park in an extended golf cart that carries 8 people. There were some other attractions there - such as a bird sanctuary, but the "guards" would not let anyone go and do any exploring on their own. As a result, the actual tour of the park lasted about 15 minutes. Seems like a waste of time... The sad part of it all was that the same weekend of the "propaganda trip" a friend of The Old Codger was having a major birthday party. It started Saturday afternoon at 1:00 and went as long as possible. Then, a second part of the party was scheduled for Sunday. Ah well. Since he missed the party, The Old Codger's liver will survive to see another day. Here in Nantong, things are quiet. Some estimate that the economic recession has taken out about 10,000 of the foreign work force. Hard to tell for sure, but there does appear to be fewer foreigners here. In addition to the recession, some of the shipping companies are moving out of Nantong, which has placed a moratorium on the development of ship yards. Despite the recession though, it does not seem to have affected the building in Nantong. The University is starting construction on new buildings, thus making the campus about two times bigger than it has been. They appear to be so eager to do some building here that they are actually digging holes - using about 20 people - and then filling them in again a week later, presumably with the same 20 people. Nope. You can't make up a story like that here in China. That's pretty much about all that has been happening on this side of the world recently. The Old Codger is still alive, and on most days, feeling pretty good. Getting old isn't for sissies, that's for sure.
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