Tuesday 22nd March, 2016               2110

Ok so it was a lunchtime rise again followed by a shopping trip. Repetitive I know but necessary.

After I got back and visited the office (during which time a student came looking for advice on interview techniques) I arrived home where Joan was preparing to take a shower.

As she did so I opened an email from the recruitment agency with a sample contract from the school in Xingtai. Now I am pretty sure this is the place I was offered for an April start and refused a week or so ago. Having not dismissed it out of hand, pollution aside, I had asked for further details.

Five minutes ago I emailed back to say that in its current form there was absolutely no chance of my agreeing to the terms. I have yet to see a more draconian contract or one that seems to be aimed more at convicted prisoners serving time than adult teachers. The 16 classes are stated as 18 and there is teaching of teachers involved (I have no problem with that part), medical insurance is only provided to the under 60s (again I could handle them arranging it and paying it myself) but utilities are not free. Paying for those could wipe out the pay increase.

But here’s the deal breaker:

The teacher should avoid drinking.

Are they having a laugh???

British and an ex mariner and they want me to agree not to have a beer or ten or a bottle of wine? That is never going to happen even if it is doctor’s orders. I am hardly a child and I don’t expect to  be treated as one. In six years here only Joan has seen me the worse for wear and that as I said at the time, was because I knew an era was about to end and overdid it due to immense sadness. It was also in the privacy of my own home.

Oh, and they also want lesson plans drawn up. For the uninitiated, these are advance details of how the lessons will proceed. In an oral class? Utter bunkum. Five minutes into the class and the plan is blown out of the water because the class takes it in a different direction. My job is to get the students talking in English and I really don’t care what they discuss as long as it is in the target language so why would I want to waste my time preparing papers that may as well be incinerated for all the use they would be?

I shall be very interested to see what reply I receive from the agency tomorrow! You never know, if they are desperate enough then accommodation may be made for me. I don’t particularly fancy the city and it’s a polytechnic so I would be teaching non English majors presumably. Let’s see how much they want me.

Joan actually stayed awhile tonight after her shower and watched another twenty minutes of the film I started showing her a week ago. For anyone interested it is an excellent film and is on You Tube - The Children Of Huang Shi, a true story set during the Japanese invasion of Nanjing.