Wheeling, and Dealing

Wheeling


I bought a bike a couple days ago. This was an adventure on a much higher level than shopping ever is in America. I decided that I wanted to buy a used bike, because that way I would get more bike for the money (so long as I checked it out carefully) and the bike would pose less of a theft risk. To this end, Eric (another teacher, ethnic Chinese but born in America), David and Peter (two Chinese students) and I took the public bus into Zhengzhou. We were assured by these two that we would probably be able to pay the bus driver extra to take our bikes onboard on the way back.

Once in the city, we took a motorcycle taxi to the area where the used bike lot is located. The lot itself was not visible from the street, we had to walk down an alley past two lots where people were sorting two different kinds of trash and packaging it to be taken somewhere on the back of one of the ubiquitous blue trucks. The used bike lot itself was quite amazing. It was home to close to 500 bikes sold by a variety of different personalities (nearly toothless old women, sketchy-looking middle-aged men, young mothers with children on hand). The bikes themselves varied from almost-new top of the line y-frame mountain bikes (almost certainly hotter than the weather) to old FengGuangs and Flying Pigeons, the two classic brands of steel-frame Chinese bicycles, made in Shanghai and Tianjin respectively. After some perusal, I decided to go with a classic. After some further examination of brakes and alignment and some bargaining, I bought a thirty- or fourty-year old FengGuang for 80 kuai (about $10 American). Eric bought a newer, less well-built cruiser-type for 85 kuai.
At this point, David and Peter had a conference and decided that we probably could not bring the bikes back on the bus. Our options were to leave them at Peter's appartment in the city and come back for them later (with a schoolbus), or to bike home. We decided on the latter. Peter stayed at his appartment, which left the other three of us with two bikes. So we got to bike back in heavy traffic, shifting the extra person from bike to bike as we got tired (the single gear was not made for towing an extra person up a hill, even a 2-3% grade was like doing mountains). After an hour an a half, four bottles of water, a pineapple popsickle, a lot of diesal exhaust and two close calls, we made it back to Shengda. David informed me that I am probably the only person at the school riding such a classic. I'm pretty sure it was worth the trouble.





Dealing


The next day (Friday), we finally got our class scheduals. And I was not pleased. Jay, 1/2 of the couple that lives across from me is teaching journalism; Frank, one of the Shengda veterans is teaching movies; pretty much everyone is teaching English majors. I am teaching seven different classes of international trade majors, at 50-60 students a class (as opposed to ~30 for the English majors), plus two classes of "practical writing" (i.e. filling out forms and reading road-signs). I was not pleased.
I made my disappointment known to a variety of Chinese staff, and was basically told that I should sort this out with departmant secratary Wang. It was this conversation (argument) with Wang that let me experiance first hand the way Chinese traditionally deal with arguments. Which is to say they don't. First, Wang's strategy was to pretend he didn't understand my Chinese (which I know is very clear) or my English (which I know he speaks). Then, when this was no longer working, he told me that my shedule was done to make it easier for me. Every teacher, he said, was given two preps, it would be too hard to prepare for more. Finally, I accepted this explaination, if only because I didn't want to make other teacher's lives more difficult by trying to switch my schedule around.
I then learned that this is a load of crap. Some of the teachers have one prep, some of the teachers have three preps, some of the teachers have yet to be assigned any classes whatsoever! Furthermore, I learned that I had essentially been given what was acknowleged as the crap schedule because I was the most junior teacher. This was not just based on age, or on lack of experiance (there is at least one other teacher just out of college, she is teaching advanced oral and advanced writing to English major seniors), but also on the fact that my resume was translated incorrectly. My "bachelor of arts with high honors" was translated roughly as "honorary bachelors degree" ("bachelor of having influential parents"). Ye Dong, one of the people in the FAO had let them know that the translation was incorrect, but they chose to ignore this (just as the chose to ignore the fact that they had spelled my name wrong [Lan instead of Ian] untill I was physically present to correct them, I bet there are still some forms where I am listed as Lan).
So at this point, I have recognized Shengda for what it is. Private university in China does not mean independant non-profit, it means independant for-proft. We are here to print money for the founder. This is why they remove all the expensive stuff from the appartments that former teachers chose to leave there (netting them, in general, a DVD player, speakers, a rice-cooker etc...esentially 1000-1500 kuai less that they have to pay each teacher). This is why they continue to swell enrollment to the breaking point. So I have no more love left for Shengda, at this point, I am here for the students and the other teachers. And like Wang, I intend to ignore (by pretending not to understand) any rule that makes my job more difficult. I am starting to learn how to deal, China-style.

No pictures this time: My internet connection is down again (because they give us cheapo computers) so I'm writing from an internet cafe. Deal.