Moving to China YouTube Videos
My friend “Ma Wei” who is a frequent commenter on this blog has posted some introductory YouTube videos on China.
In three short videos he covers the basics of living in China, including the economy, standard of living, working, dealing with the state, and the people and culture.
He’s about ten thousand times more succinct and on point than I manage to be, so I’m sure you’ll enjoy that.
My favorite video is the third, “People and Culture Shock.” Pretty much everything he says is right on target. I would qualify his observations by saying that they are less true in the major cities, Beijing and Shanghai, than for the other parts of China, although they still apply.
Anyway, enjoy.
CP5: 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.
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.
CP3: Treatment of Children
The third Chinarchy audio post. This is my general thoughts on the treatment of children. Most of you guys already know this and it’s nothing new, but it can’t be said too many times. And if you’re a reader who doesn’t know me personally or know my thoughts on this, I think this is a really, really important thing to listen to.
As always, leave your comments or email me.
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30 Million Children With Mental Disorders
Handsome reader Will sent me this story today from China Daily. Here’s some excerpts:
Nearly one in ten young Chinese under the age of 17 have some sort of mental disorders, a recent survey suggests.
The Beijing Anding Hospital and the Chinese Medical Association hosted an international conference about the mental health of young people on Sunday.
At the meeting, Chinese scholars said that at least 30 million minors in China are plagued with mental disorders or behavior problems.
By the year 2007, China had 341 million minors, accounting for 26 percent of the country’s total population.
“The number 30 million is based on regional researches in recent years. Since the mental health of children must have worsened over time, the real number could be even higher,” said Cui Yonghua, a child psychiatrist with the Beijing Anding Hospital.
“Child patients have been increasing sharply over the past years. Now we do not have enough beds for them,” said psychiatrist Cui.
This is tragic, truly. But I’m going to make a maybe somewhat controversial statement that this is a good thing. In fact, I’m sure every generation prior to this one has had a higher percentage of mental disorder. These kids acting out and receiving actual psychological attention (and media attention) means that things may get better for them and for future generations.
Still, this is a powerful and sad indicator of the terrible treatment of children.
Reader Will also juxtaposed the mental disorder story with this one from the day before. I think it speaks for itself.
