Usher and Ethan
The fifth Chinarchy audio post. This episode I talk about going to an Usher concert, my awesome dancing skills, how my class environment has changed, dealing with a hitting problem, and the authoritarian vs. permissive parenting false dichotomy.
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Note: It’s forty-eight minutes long. Forty-eight minutes of baller. Don’t hate.
Jade Factory and Badaling
This past weekend I visited a jade factory and the Badaling section of the Great Wall. Badaling is the most popular, tourist-visited section and as you can see in the pictures below it is packed with people.
The jade factory was interesting, but it was mostly focused on selling you jade jewelry. We saw about 10% factory and 90% shopping area. Still, a lot of the stuff was pretty cool. A couple of us managed to get some raw jade from one of the workers, so we got a nice souvenir without having to buy some of the overpriced jewelry.
Check out the photos below.
Shanghai Photos
Hey there Chinarchists (what?) I’m back and I’ve got some vacation photos for you. I know it’s been awhile since my last post and that’s because I’ve been busy traveling and having guests. I visited Shanghai and also another section of the Great Wall.
Below is the gallery of the Shanghai photos; I’ll post the Great Wall photos shortly. Also, I’m hoping to have another podcast recorded tonight, so wish me luck motivating myself to do that.
As far as these photos go, I skipped the normal method of describing each one. Because I took so many I just have them in gallery form, so click each one and you’ll get a short description of what it is.
The only thing that warrants explanation is the creepy psychedelic tunnel photos. They are from a gondola lift ride that goes underneath the Huangpu River. It was so weird.
I’ll talk more about what Shanghai was like in the podcast, but for now, just check out the photos.
We’re FAIL Blog Approved
My picture of the Ass Hair Salon has appeared on FAIL Blog!
Thanks to everybody to pointed this out. You can see it here.
Also, I still swear that we will award a winner for the best caption at some point in our lives.
You Look Down But Far From Out
In the interest of keeping this brief: I lost.
Before I explain that further, I just wanted to thank everyone and anyone who listened to the initial podcast and offered me advice or support. It really, really meant a lot to me. Thank you.
Okay, so I did what I thought was most risky, but also had the greatest chance of getting Cathy fired. I called a parent behind the headmaster’s back.
I talked to one of the parents I trusted and told her about what happened. If the headmaster ever found out, I would be immediately fired. She would be extremely embarrassed — it would be a huge loss of face — and she’d feel completely betrayed. But I thought it was my best shot.
Anyway, the parent told me that her daughter, and other children, had complained about Cathy, and other parents knew she wasn’t a good teacher.
Until my phone call, they thought she was just a mean person. I explained that it was much worse than that: she is a violent, terrible person.
We talked for almost twenty minutes, and the parent was very sympathetic and understanding and sounded very concerned. But she didn’t want to call and demand that Cathy be fired. She told me she would pass along the info to the other parents (without my name) and maybe they would decide to do something. But, she said, probably the best thing to do was just wait and see what happened over the next few weeks.
Yeah. Part of me is hopeful that the rest of the parents will decide to take action. But most of me just feels frustrated and defeated. If I can’t even get foreigner parents to take a hard stance on this, what can I do? It’s depressing.
After we talked, the parent sent me an email saying that it might be better that Cathy didn’t get fired. Now she’ll be watched closer and won’t just transfer to another school and do the same things. It just sounded like she was trying to justify her inaction to herself. I didn’t bother replying.
So Cathy is back in the classroom. And the general climate in the school is pretty cold right now.
It’s not all bad. I heard from one assistant that not all of the other teachers are angry about what I did. Some of them know Cathy is terrible but felt like they couldn’t speak out against her. The pressure to protect other teachers is too strong. But they are glad that I did something.
Still, it’s not a victory. It’s a not-fully-crushing defeat. But I guess I’ll have to take it…
Cathy is still here. But so am I.
