Simply The Fourth Best!

I know. I tend to write mostly of disaster and depression. This is basically because it's easier to write interestingly about bad stuff than about happy stuff. But last term ended rather well: all my students passed their exams this time (a remarkable improvement!) and one or two said some very nice things which made me think that maybe I'm not doing such a bad job after all.

Nonetheless, I still got messages from others who told me they were 'depressed' by their exam score. Well, not so much by the score as by the fact that they weren't top of the class. That's the nature of the system here: it's so damn competitive that even when they score around 20% better than last time they're still not happy. I felt like telling them to grow up and get a life.

(Others who had kindly given me end of term gifts like tea or Sichuan spices seemed baffled that they too had not scored top spot in the class.)

Sometimes I think I'll never get the hang of China. Exam fortnight fell on the two weeks immediately after my year's contract officially ended. I'd pointed this out at the beginning of the year and had been told not to worry, it'd sort itself out. But sure enough when I went to pick up the two weeks' wages I was told that I shouldn't have worked those days! Then the college said I should talk to the Foreign Affairs Office; the FAO said it was a college matter. It all got very messy and fractious.

Really, it's another case of Yes. Probably. Maybe. - the state of uncertainty that people like to live in here. It's the same story with my visa for next year. It runs out a month before the end of term. Pointing this out, I was told "It'll sort itself out". Hmmm, we'll see.

Many foreign teachers - especially those in private schools - have had terrible problems renewing their visas and quite a few have had to leave China altogether. The authorities have clamped right down on issuing them in the run-up to the Olympics which has caused a bit of an exodus. It doesn't make you feel very wanted or valued! What's more, there are very few new expats coming into Chengdu because of worries about earthquakes. Those of us left should really be at a premium - but it doesn't feel that way at all.

But that's just the way of things. Apart from the wrangle about payment at the end of term, there was no word from my boss to say thanks for the year's work or any kind of review of how things went. Nothing. Not a word. Another teacher, however, came up to me and, beaming, shook my hands saying he had some good news. It turns out that the students are required to assess their teachers at the end of each year and, in his words, I was "the fourth best teacher out of one hundred".

It's great news of course. But I can't help seeing the negative side too: why on earth did my bosses (in either the college or the Foreign Affairs Office) never even mention it to me?