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Forums > Study > methods employed by foreign english teachers

I really don't mind this sort of thing unless it becomes one-after-another, but I think a simple polite refusal or acceptance is the proper form. As for the appropriateness of the exercise, I think the form ("Hello my name is Joey I'm 7 I live in..." etc.) is a bit primitive, but the fact that real kids get to talk to real English speakers is good - all too many people in China have a nervous kind of feeling about 'foreigners' that is a result of bits of xenophobia in Han culture that stresses a 'They are REALLY DIFFERENT who knows what they'll do or say?' attitude, which often demonstrates or results in inappropriate this that or the other ('Welcome to China!' 'But I speak Chinese and have been here for 15 years.' Never mind, welcome to China!' etc. - after which it begins to be about face rather than real communication). Young kids, especially, can be talked to simply like real kids from anywhere, will respond to kindness even though it comes from a funny-looking guy whom they otherwise might be taught to fear as an ogre, and will be delighted. I really don't have much of a problem with this, unless, obviously, some parent simply uses you inconsiderately for a long period of time. The value of the exercise is not really in teaching method/learning more language, but in learning that people who look different and speak different languages are people too - as good a lesson as I know for people of any age, and a good one to acquire while young.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Is it just me, or?

The ad is simply racist. There are historical reasons for racism, in China and elsewhere, which are very important to understand. Combating racism often (not always) demands patience rather than blind anger or self-righteous posing.

Most important, however, is to exterminate it utterly.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > the second thing-language issue

The dialects in Yunnan are difficult for me too, but I do not notice people refusing to speak standard Chinese when I politely point out that I can't understand dialect, unless they simply haven't learned standard Mandarin pronunciation, so the issue of what they 'should' do does not come up. And it is not simply a problem in China - people speak dialects all over the world. As for leaving people out of communication, this is often regularly done by the foreigners in Kunming whose Chinese is sufficient but whose mutual conversations in English are often carried on in many varieties of slang, which few local Chinese may be able to follow.

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@Tom: My point is that it's all promoted in the name of nationalism, which is the smokescreen, and a necessary one, to cover the kind of unacceptable truth that you discuss.
As for conservative opposition in Europe, and the 'patriotic freedom loving revolutionary spirit' in the US (what might these words actually relate to - the US Democratic Party? Or the Republicans? I think they're all Republicrats), which seem pretty much the same to me, I pretty much see people, or at the very least, their governments, as operating behind the smokescreen too, although there are perhaps more people in Europe who can see a least a little bit through it.
The student who made the speech is deep behind the smokescreen as well. Obviously, no?

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@Haali, I think that's weird too. Note that the English on the sign in the toilets of trains states: "Please flush closet pot" - train cars built & designed many years ago, yet nobody bothered to offer 100rmb or so to some average wandering native-English speaker before they put these signs in virtually every toilet in train car on one of the world's largest RR networks - wtf?
Same syndrome everywhere in China - yet, although I can read and write Chinese, I seriously doubt that I'd design any sign in Chinese characters for exhibition in another country without bothering to find a native Chinese speaker to advise me.
Self-reliance is wonderful.

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No particular historical justice that everybody's got to learn English these days, but that's the international language we have, and that's why foreigners can get teaching jobs here, as well as in so many other places.

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@Peter: All respects to Orwell. However, if you want to jump on somebody for not telling the truth, or what they believe to be the truth, there's no point in concentrating on universities when our entire media environment, from the advertising industry to government spin-PR to other, numerous types of insidious media, the goals of all of which are to bend what is believed to be truth when it is not a straightforward matter of lying, I think the universities come off well - in most places, for that matter - relative to the media environment around them, which is fueled primarily by the desire to gain or maintain wealth and/or power - and yes, academics are subject to this too, but most do not put themselves into the serious acquire-wealth/power professions, where deceit becomes not-yet-quite universal. Competitive-rational arguments in universities are more likely, I think, to expose deceit than asking questions at press conferences or complaining to people engaged heavily in economic competition.
But hey! no guarantees.

Reviews

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Not quite what you'd call a jumping place, but not bad at all for rather standard US-type meals, not overly expensive, and with a really good salad bar that's cheap, or free with most dinner dishes after 5:30PM. You can get a bottle of beer or even wine if you really want to, but I've never seen anybody do it - maybe that's just to take out. Chinese Christian run, and they hire people with physical disadvantages, who are pleasant and helpful. Frequented by foreign (mostly North American) Christians and Chinese Christians - was started by a Canadian couple associated with Bless China (previously, Project Grace), who are no longer here, but no religious pressure or any of that. Steaks are nothing special, and I avoid the Korean dishes, which I've had a few times but which did not impress me.

As a shop and bakery, it's very good bread at reasonable prices, of various kinds (Y18 for a good multigrain loaf that certainly weighs well over a pound. Other stuff too, like granola and oatmeal that is local, as well as imported things, including American cornflakes and so forth, which some people seem to require.

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Large portions, seriously so with the pizza, which is Brooklyn/American style, I guess. Convivial, conversational, good place to drink with good folks on both sides of the bar, especially after about 9PM.

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Really good pizza and steaks. The wine machine fuddles me when I'm a bit fuddled, & seems unnecessary. Good folks on both sides of the bar.