The W.T.O. Comes To China

Spaced Teacher’s Adventures In The Middle Cosmos

This Lady is a ” Sister Of The Jardeen Rose “

The ” Sisters Of The Jardeen Rose ” are the sworn enemies of the HaNazees.

The W.T.O. Come To China

Dear Readers :

Today I’m going to discus ” The W.T.O. Comes To China “. In order for you to fully appreciate the humor in this story a little background information regarding the Chinese educational system is in order.

The focus of the Chinese educational system is rote learning. In order for Chinese students to be admitted into a university they must be able to pass the national standardized entrance exam. To pass this exam you must be able to answer a certain number of questions correctly. The correct answer is the ONLY thing that matters. Why it’s the correct answer or how something came to be the way it is are unimportant considerations. In short creative thought , deductive reasoning and critical / analytical thinking are discouraged. As a matter of fact they are punished. ” Thinking outside the box” will get you into some serious trouble. This raises seven kinds of Hell for lao wai / foreign teachers because we teach exactly the opposite way. It also sells the Chinese students very short in my opinion. Talk about the soft discrimination of lowered expectations!! If a lao wai / foreign teacher has 30 – 35 students in his class which is not unusual at my university or in my experience throughout China he will have 2-3 that will participate fully and maybe another 2-3 that will participate irregularly. The rest of them contribute NOTHING to the class. Couple this with the fact that unlike ANYWHERE else in the world Chinese students believe that when they come to university the hard work is over so it’s time to PLAY and that attitude on their part makes it very difficult for the lao wai / foreign teachers to teach them anything. Also for the first time in their lives they are away from their parents who rode them constantly all their lives to study. They have a taste of freedom FINALLY and they like it. Nobody has ever told them that freedom comes with responsibility UNTIL they meet their first principled foreign teacher. Conflict is the order of the day until they decide to accept that English is OUR language and Western culture is OUR culture and we know how to teach it.

The Chinese educational system does not provide an education at all. They provide indoctrination. It’s the way the system controls the people.

My third year in China I taught at a school in a small Chinese city in S.W. China. I didn’t know it at the time but this school was in the worst category of schools in China. These schools were where you went if you couldn’t get in anyplace else. Usually the reason these kids can’t get in anywhere else is because they are not bright enough so they just go learn a skill somewhere so that they can get a not too demanding job. Sometimes though they are bright but lazy . unmotivated , uncommitted and undisciplined. Those qualities are prevalent in Chinese students throughout China. I would estimate that 80% of them are like that. There were some late bloomers also though. I had four of them from this school. In this school there were 15 ,000 students . Of that 15,000 the government let only 15 continue their education. Of those 15 4 were my students. They were the ” late bloomers “.

It was final exam time. For their assignment they were to speak about any topic of their choosing for two minutes in English in class. I was really dreading having to listen to 45 of these ” speeches ” because by now I knew what to expect. I made them tell me their topic choice in advance and gave them two weeks to prepare. The topics were pretty much what I expected except for one young lady’s. Her topic was ” The W.T.O. Comes to China” . Well a ray of light in this Chinese educational abyss. I was excited to hear what she had to say.

The day of the final exam I chose to have her go last. At least I would have something to look forward to. None of the other students disappointed me. They gave me exactly what I expected. Zero effort and zero participation. Finally it was time for her speech. She stood up and with the confidence and expertise of the accomplished public speaker began her speech. She was discussing why sanitation was so bad in China and what could be done about it. What the hell does this have to do with the W.T.O. coming to China I was thinking? I was tempted to interrupt her speech and ask her. She was doing so well though that I decided to let her continue.

When she got to the part of her speech about how to solve the sanitation problem in China everything became clear to me.It seems that the W.T.O. was indeed coming to China that year to advise the Chinese on that problem. The World Toilet Organization !! LOL

Wow!!! Talent , charm and humor. I was very impressed. Talk about thinking outside the box!!! LoL

I gave her the highest mark of any of my classes. She was one of the ” late bloomers.” Quite a success story too I might add. She has gone on to do quite well in her life.

I often wonder why if this young woman could overcome all the obstacles put in her way by the system why the HELL couldn’t more of them do the same?

For those of you with an unrealistic overly romantic view of China I have some sage advice from a lao wai / foreign teacher with a great deal of experience.

“The Adventures Of Spacedteacher In The Middle Cosmos { China }” are a collection of short stories based upon my actual experiences.They are written from the point of view of an American ” lao wai” { foreigner}. As is the case with all of humanity’s gardens there are flowers AND weeds.The Chinese garden is no different in that regard , they have flowers in the form of the Jardeen Roses and Jasmine and crabgrass in the form of the HaNazees. I try to weed the crabgrass while focusing on and accentuating the Jardeen Rose and Jasmine .

I have taken only the barest minimum of poetic license in an effort to make these stories more enjoyable to read for you. Trust me when I tell you it happened 99 % exactly as I tell it. All names have been fictionalized to protect the guilty from legal action be that civil or criminal and to protect the innocent from the guilty and most importantly to protect the author , yours truly , from the crabgrass in the Chinese garden. Those HaNazee can be vicious bastards!! lol

The HaNazee are well known for having an aversion to the spelling and grammar challenged among us. These guys are in the employ of the HaNazee.

All characters , plot lines , fictional places , and anything else even remotely associated with these stories is the intellectual property of Spaced Teacher D.B.A. Bea Wildered Enterprises and may not be used without the express written consent of the aforementioned Spaced one or Bea herself.