China Cracks Down on TwentySomethings

[mindseye]

mindseye, I'm curious, are you fluent in Mandarin as well?

I wish! I'd say that now I am lurking somewhere around "conversational", whatever that is. My reading/writing vocabulary lags far behind my spoken, but I keep chipping away at it. I think "fluency" is at least two years away for me yet, but at least I can handle most everyday situations now, including those two most important fuctions, swearing and flirting.

[Lord Merciless]

Most stuffs are cheap in China:
For only $50, you can have a full course dinner for 8 in a relatively up-scale restaurant.

A copy of Heroes of Might & Magic IV, English version and non-pirated, costs $6.

The Chinese Civ3 costs $4.

The Cambridge History of China, sold in the US for $150 per volume, costs only $9 in China.

A 30 kilometer taxi drive costs only $4.


But the official version of MS Office costs $1100! The price is completely out of reach of most consumers. No wonder Chinese are buying Linux or committing software piracy en masse!

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Lord Merciless
But the official version of MS Office costs $1100!

In US dollars?!

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


In US dollars?!

Or 9000 yuan, which translates into 1100 US dollars.

[Urban Ranger]

They are completely and utterly out of their collective skull. What kind of morons would do such a thing?

[Seeker]

"More importantly, few have the stamina to teach more than 30 or so hours per week (teaching is a high-energy job, at least if you are a good teacher)."

Tell that to my boss (wang ja neem).

I just got finished 8 40 minute classes, and I work 6 days a week. This is 11th month of my 12 month contract.

$1100: Apparently, they've given up on the idea of Asians buying software legally...

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Seeker
$1100: Apparently, they've given up on the idea of Asians buying software legally...

I bet that if they sell MS Office at USD$1100 in the US, not that many people will buy it legally, either.

[mindseye]

I just got finished 8 40 minute classes, and I work 6 days a week.

You have my sympathy.

A lot of contract jobs are like this. Don't tell me, let me guess - they don't care what you teach, never ask for lesson plans, never monitor your work, etc. All they care about is having that white face in front of the classrom for x hours per week, right?

And let me guess about the class size: fifty students during each forty minute class maybe?

I know that score. I found two private language training centers that actually do care about the quality of the teaching, I do most of my work for them. I often teach courses that have five hour sessions with class sizes of about 18. In that kind of situation, you can actually do some real training.

GOOD LUCK, SEEKER!