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Electro-Boogie Jack posted:If foreigners are vandalizing stuff or causing fights that's fair game, but laowai-related problems seem like they're pretty rare in the vast scheme of things in China. quote:Then again, I've never spent much time in Beijing. I assume drug trade is still mostly handled by Chinese there, not actually by Africans or whatever I heard a few people saying?
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May 20, 2012 19:57
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Street drug dealers in Shanghai tend to either be African or western Chinese Muslims. Both of these groups, however, seem to have little trouble operating and I very much doubt they inspired much of the crackdown or backlash. There simply aren't that many. As for the party scene being the inspiration, I hight doubt that plays into it much either. Many of the bigger cities have their share of foreigner bars and drunk English teachers. However, for every one of these places, there are a hundred KTVs each with a large crowd of Chinese partygoers. There's a large, affluent local nightlife in these areas and the laowai element is a very small part of it. China isn't like Cambodia or Thailand where people come to party for months at a time, and it really isn't a place 30-50 ism expat men flock to for pub culture (there are better, cheaper places). Yes, this type of decadent behavior is a stereotype of Westerners here, but I don't thing this is something foreign workers or students have really created. PPL, do you think the visa system should be streamlined better, or there are just too many foreigners coming in all together? The big issue for a lot of the quasi-legal dealings I see with visas come from the fact that getting and sponsoring work visas gets to be an enormous hassle, while throwing someone an F is substantially easier. Case in point, I know a number of younger expats who are students and support themselves through English tutoring, which is in a high a demand as ever. These people should be paying taxes on their earnings, but they don't. I get that. However, there's no way the agencies a lot of these people get their work from can sponsor enough visas. These people are providing a legit service a lot of people want to buy, and they're not replacing a Chinese local in doing it. Getting legit work visas is hard as hell for most companies. Do you know of another segment or industry that's made up of many quasi-legal visa holders in China's expat community? I haven't really experienced another.
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May 20, 2012 20:01
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Even in China, "foreigners" is wayyyy too broad of a category. What is a "foreigner"? Africans that can't afford to renew their visa in Guangzhou? Unemployed European/North Americans that drink and carouse and treat women like objects in Shanghai? Europeans/North Americans that speak Chinese and are studying/working legally? Smoking, scooter-driving Korean international students? Japanese businessmen? ABCs who couldn't get hired by Goldman Sachs and went to their parents homeland to find a job? In an ironic way, I think it's a sign a country's really "made it" if they are dealing with an influx of immigrants. And it's undeniable that the way some Western guys in China act is despicable and has shadows of colonialism. But I don't think it's ever fair to generalize over the whole population. I kinda feel that this whole thing is a smoke bomb designed to cover up for the Bo Xilai (or maybe Chen Guangcheng, but mostly Bo Xilai) incident. Has there been any verdict on that situation? Any legal decision? What happened to the Politburo meeting that got pushed back? Where is Bo's son and wife?
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May 20, 2012 20:08
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hitension posted:Even in China, "foreigners" is wayyyy too broad of a category. Although it may focus on certain nationalities especially after that little KFC debacle with the alleged Koreans. Who knows though, these things don't take much to come to a head especially with a country like China that has a really deep victim complex. Remember how fast they turned on that pop star wearing that Japanese imperial flag and went on a Japanese embassy burning spree. It doesn't take much at all..
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May 20, 2012 20:15
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Modus Operandi posted:Although it may focus on certain nationalities especially after that little KFC debacle with the alleged Koreans. What's this about?
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May 20, 2012 20:16
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shrike82 posted:What's this about?
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May 20, 2012 20:27
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Last Buffalo posted:PPL, do you think the visa system should be streamlined better, or there are just too many foreigners coming in all together? The big issue for a lot of the quasi-legal dealings I see with visas come from the fact that getting and sponsoring work visas gets to be an enormous hassle, while throwing someone an F is substantially easier. Case in point, I know a number of younger expats who are students and support themselves through English tutoring, which is in a high a demand as ever. These people should be paying taxes on their earnings, but they don't. I get that. However, there's no way the agencies a lot of these people get their work from can sponsor enough visas. These people are providing a legit service a lot of people want to buy, and they're not replacing a Chinese local in doing it. Getting legit work visas is hard as hell for most companies. Do you know of another segment or industry that's made up of many quasi-legal visa holders in China's expat community? I haven't really experienced another. It definitely needs to be streamlined, and it would be nice if there was a system setup to allow for freelancing. I can understand entirely the lack of wanting freelancers. With a work permit, you have a company that is technically legally responsible for you. You have a set wage, you are good to go. For a business visa, you should have a sponsoring company that sets ya up. Tourist visa, you should have a plan for travel and funding. Student visas allow part time work with authorization from the school and registration with the ministry of labor. The only way I could ever see freelancing be legit here would be on a deposit basis, and in fact this already exists in the form of Sole Proprietorship. The only real barrier to entry is the registered capital and the time to get it setup, and the registered capital can be sucked dry once everything is good to go. 2 year Z visa that's pretty much infinitely renewable, fairly cheap to operate and everything stays above board and 100% legal. I can't really think of a single other country where the notion of "come to our country, work odd jobs at high risk, pay no taxes" is welcome in any way whatsoever. It sounds like they are going to create that talent visa thing. If they are smart they will go by the letter of the law on green cards instead of the game it is currently and bringing it up to international standards. Currently, to land a green card, you essentially have to prove that you are either rich, making incredible contributions, or you have family here with stable housing and reliable income... in other words, you're not gonna be living on the streets. Currently, only once meeting those criteria do you bypass the work permit requirements and are fully legally allowed to do freelancing.
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May 20, 2012 21:03
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It's not China, but supposedly there's a sole proprietorship option available here in Thailand - of course you can't get a work permit to work for your sole proprietorship unless you hire 4 Thai employees (or pay taxes on 4 Thai employees anyway) as with any other business - that's 4 for every foreigner holding a work permit under the company. I mention it because it cracks me up. The way this poo poo works in Thailand is surely even more hysterical than the way it works in China. Surely you guys aren't forced to hire a set number of local employees simply in order to get a work permit to work legally in your own business? (BOI is a different topic altogether, as is people holding Thai citizenship or PR, the latter of which hasn't been issued in nearly a decade to any foreigners due to some hilarious politician at the top who, for no known reason, simply refuses to sign any fully vetted PR applications)
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May 21, 2012 09:56
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hitension posted:In an ironic way, I think it's a sign a country's really "made it" if they are dealing with an influx of immigrants. I know "our economy get very good" but in what way is 600,000 people, not all of whom work, an "influx" in a nation of 1.4 billion? Chinese immigration policy is specifically designed to keep out low paid, low skilled economic migrants who do exactly the kind of jobs on which the Chinese economic boom of the last two decades has been based. I am not sure that "economic success = immigration" in China (elsewhere, sure). Also, if anyone wants to argue that English teaching is a low skilled job then you can have my dick in your ear.
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May 22, 2012 05:51
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GuestBob posted:Also, if anyone wants to argue that English teaching is a low skilled job then you can have my dick in your ear. Isn't it though? Most foreign (read: white) teachers have no background or qualifications in ESL education and everyone I've met in the field treats the career as a means of living in Asian country x.
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May 22, 2012 11:16
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Yes, ESL is a really easy field to enter (for a middle-class person from the US, Canada or UK, I know a few African ESL teachers that have to be super qualified to have their jobs), but don't start thinking it's some sort of horrible inconvenience or economic drain on China or any other country to have them come. The reason these jobs are so plentiful is because there is an enormous demand to learn English and having younger people come to teach is the most economically-viable way to do it. Of course, some ESL teachers suck because they're young, lazy idiots, but most of the time these schools get their money's worth. Having cheap foreign teachers is not a burden on Chinese students, and there still really aren't that many of them comparatively. Besides, has anyone met a native Chinese English teacher? The only one's I've met have been in third-tier cities, and they could barely speak English to me themselves. Hiring some younger college grads is a much better option, especially when such a large part of the population wants to learn the language.
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May 22, 2012 11:37
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There's really no incentive to really put a ton of effort into being a great teacher, at least from what I've seen first in South Korea and now China. I have a degree in applied linguistics and have found it got me exactly bupkus my first round through. This is primarily because South Korea's education sector is terribly mismanaged. I am not really a teacher at my current job in Beijing, I guess the closest I come sometimes is an interview coach, but it's still apparent that they view these sessions as things that can be scheduled with an hours notice, because "it's just English talking". The "English monkey" mentality is very strong at my company, and it's most likely going make them short a qualified laowai in a few short weeks. There's a reason why the demand and jobs are in Asia, the education system here is terrible at language teaching and acquisition.
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May 22, 2012 12:03
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shrike82 posted:Isn't it though? Most foreign (read: white) teachers have no background or qualifications in ESL education and everyone I've met in the field treats the career as a means of living in Asian country x. How do you think people gain enough experience to get onto the MA TESOL programs which lead to teaching pre-sessional University courses? Or working for the British Council? Or getting into the International School circuit? Granted this represents a tiny proportion of people - the same people who are teaching rather than just farting about at the front of the classroom. I suppose you could be right about the colour thing though, the black dude who works at my school is pretty experienced. 
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May 22, 2012 12:10
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GuestBob posted:How do you think people gain enough experience to get onto the MA TESOL programs which lead to teaching pre-sessional University courses? Or working for the British Council? Or getting into the International School circuit? It's interesting how you focus on jobs (can't say I'm particularly impressed by the people at the British Council either) rather than educational outcomes for the ESL students. Case in point of how teachers just fart around and then leave.
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May 22, 2012 12:21
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shrike82 posted:It's interesting how you focus on jobs (can't say I'm particularly impressed by the people at the British Council either) rather than educational outcomes for the ESL students. Case in point of how teachers just fart around and then leave. You obviously have a real chip on your shoulder about English teachers. It could be the outcomes indicate that it's not easy to improve language ability. It could also be that in your first post you talk about qualifications, and then magically start harping on outcomes. Care to actually provide something quantifiable as to what has given you such an inferiority complex? And perhaps give us an idea as to where you're going to finally leave those goal posts?
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May 22, 2012 12:28
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shrike82 posted:It's interesting how you focus on jobs (can't say I'm particularly impressed by the people at the British Council either) rather than educational outcomes for the ESL students. Case in point of how teachers just fart around and then leave. shrike82 posted:Isn't it though? Most foreign (read: white) teachers have no background or qualifications in ESL education and everyone I've met in the field treats the career as a means of living in Asian country. Yeah, I wonder why I am focusing on the ideas of qualification, jobs and careers. Those people who are into language teaching and who are building a career in it are certainly not a "case in point" of people who are just passing through. [edit] This is probably not for D&D though - come over to the T&T threads and try your luck there; plenty of feckless drifters who haven't the wherewithall to defend themselves. GuestBob fucked around with this message at 12:44 on May 22, 2012 |
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May 22, 2012 12:37
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There are a lot of bad English teachers in China - and a few of them are foreigners! It's not a good career path for people with no skills, but there are no good career paths for people with no skills. If pressed someone with a grudge against English teachers is probably just going to shift the goalposts as far as necessary to prove to himself that foreign English teachers in China are bad at their jobs, bad for students, and bad for themselves somehow. Given the job climate in the United States it's small wonder that people who might not be terribly qualified are coming over in droves. It's because there's demand for them here, no matter how small the career opportunities. Over in the States the powers that be are committed to throwing the young generation under a bus, so why shouldn't the come to where they can get a living wage? If you want to actually talk about language teaching efficacy that would be a fine conversation to have, but you need to start with the Chinese educational system instead of starting off ranting against the underemployed young people who take the jobs they're offered and muddle through with virtually zero training or support. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 12:58 on May 22, 2012 |
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May 22, 2012 12:55
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The first nine months I spent in China was a teacher at an international school. Overall, there were more than 60 foreign teachers at this school, and probably less than 15 of them had education-centered degrees or prior teaching experience before starting their position. I didn't . Teaching english as a second language, especially to native Chinese speakers is a difficult skill, but it's also the kind of thing you can get exponentially better at by just working with it. Most of my similarly inexperienced coworkers and I got a lot better as we went along. Were we as qualified as someone with a masters in education and a few years of full-time teaching experience? No, but most any school in China/Korea/Thailand/wherever cannot afford to bring those types over and pay a competitive salary. I left teaching, and so have a lot of my coworkers, but I think we more than earned the salary. A lot of being a good ESL teacher is having your native language abilities and then diligently practicing and correcting whomever you're working with. You can do this adequately, even if you're not building yourself up to do it as a career. There's this weird animosity in some parts of SA about the ESL industry, and I can't quite understand it. Yes the jobs are easy and plentiful, but, by the by, they are not scams or some neo-colonialist scheme to abuse with the local residents. It's not charity work, but it certainly isn't exploitative, and a lot of people get a lot out of it. If there's one group of people that the Chinese government won't want to limit getting work visas, its English teachers.
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May 22, 2012 13:40
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Last Buffalo posted:
It just seems like a pretty inefficient use of academic financial resources for poorer asian countries anyways. From what friends have told me a lot of Thais are figuring out now that the same basic english can be taught by Filipinos for less than a third of the salary normally paid to "native" english speakers. Plus Filipinos bring a lot less complications when it comes to visa or respectability issues. There's also the other side of it..how useful is English exactly? Most Chinese who work in China will be working for largely Chinese companies. If they do business abroad chances are high it'll be with other asian countries with equally poor english. The real elite/upper class business people all speak english anyways because they can afford to study abroad and those are the only people who are going to be cutting deals in EU/North American board rooms. Miss Shu Chin From Beijing 3rd rate U. with her EFL level english isn't going to get anywhere close to that level of business dealing. I know Thais who do business with Chinese companies and they speak 100% Mandarin or a combination of Thai/Mandarin. They don't even bother with English..so it's definitely not the primary language of business in many SE Asian countries who do business with China. Then there's countries like Korea and Japan. They have poured poo poo tons of money into English and they still suck at it. Yet they get along just fine economically speaking with the majority of the population being quite sucky at English. I think English teachers are still necessary in some cases but it's not as important a job as some people make it out to be. Just my observations from living in Asia for many many years now.
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May 22, 2012 16:12
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quote:There's also the other side of it..how useful is English exactly? English is a Lingua Franca, people use it outside of the Anglosphere and the Chinese do huge amounts of business outside of the Anglosphere. Equipping your staff with some basic proficiency in English is a heck of a lot easier than trying to find Chinese speakers of Igbo or Persian or Pashtun. It never seems to occur to native English speakers that people in other countries use English to communicate with each other, not just the sahib.
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May 22, 2012 16:37
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Here, Modus is right, it's (at least in large part) people looking to kill time, but at the good university (Chula, Mahidol, Thammasat, etc) and international school level it seems to have gotten better. The worst of the worst have moved on to Cambodia. What's frustrating here is watching the administrators gently caress the educators who care. I have an old friend that's taught here for about 15 years who has a degree in economics and a masters in English Lit who is very, very intelligent and over the last two years I've watched the university he works at (considered just below the top top tier) move him to a bullshit department and gently caress him over because he's friends with some dean that the dean in his department doesn't like. Beyond that, he's also constantly pressured to just pass wealthy kids who have failed one of his classes and are re-taking it. He's now moving to another country, slowly. I have nothing to do with academia because of the old "the stakes are so small" joke (other than mentoring MBA kids) and this kind of nonsense is exactly why. He's hardly the only person I know facing this kind of garbage either. Everywhere has bureaucracy, but I don't hear these kinds of complaints out of friends at ISB, Thammasat, Chula, Mahidol or NIST. Don't know anyone at Pattana. Maybe it's true everywhere, but there does seem to be a growing sense of the need for professionalism. At the end of the day, the really on the ball wealthy don't want their kids getting a poo poo education and the middle class are catching on too. So, what I intend is that, yeah, a lot of loafers come here to earn beer money, but there are dedicated educators who are broken by the idiocy of the combined academic bureaucracy and status/face nonsense. There's a whole other paragraph here about the pressure for wealthy Thai-Chinese families to have an academic who does what's expected and finds out they are the underachiever of the family, requiring this person to then bolster their fading sense of confidence by making life miserable for their subordinates.
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May 22, 2012 16:38
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The reason China has so many ESL positions and jobs is because so many upper middle class Chinese want to send their kids abroad for college and such. It's not just so they can do international business, it so they have access to a quality level of university education that just isn't available in China. Also, it speaks to affluence to know English and study abroad. I've heard about, but never encountered first-hand, the whole Filipino experiment with ESL in China and heard it brought on a lot of problems. First off, English as spoken in the Philippines has a number of differences from that spoken in the US and elsewhere. Also, the filipinos brought over generally didn't have enough education to really be solid ESL workers. Again, this is what I've heard, but I don't know. I've never encountered an ESL filipino teacher in China. Japan and Korea pour a lot of money into English education, and not everyone comes out fluent, but they do have a good portion of the workforce that is workably fluent. Not everyone needs to know English, but some do. They both have pretty strong economic and political ties to the Western world. I've never worked or lived in Thailand, but I'm guessing from your post that a lot of Thais see ESL teachers as unqualified and opportunistic. Is that true? In China, I get the vibe that most Chinese see foreign teachers as a pretty unthreatening presence, as the thinking is "hey, who else is going to teach English?" and there's already plenty of unqualified Chinese teachers for other subjects, so most foreigners with a reasonable BA could be an asset to teaching conversational English. Yea, there are some sketchy types, but I think those are more few and far between in China than in Thailand.
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May 22, 2012 16:38
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Last Buffalo posted:Japan and Korea pour a lot of money into English education, and not everyone comes out fluent, but they do have a good portion of the workforce that is workably fluent. I can't speak to Korea but this is really NOT the case for Japan. ESL education in Japan is terrible, Japanese workers are terrible at English considering the amount of effort they've put into it and a section of blame should be apportioned at the private ESL industry. To be fair, it's largely due to the curriculum.
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May 22, 2012 16:47
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What's so hard to understand about this? Educational attainment in any country is a matter of social status, first and foremost. Having a white man teach you English is how you show others your position in society. People don't care about whether you actually learn anything any more than they care that their BMW probably isn't faster than a Camry or that their Hermes purse is no better at holding poo poo than a plastic shopping bag. I mean, what did you guys think, that the Chinese/East Asians just love education for the sake of broadening their horizons and the pursuit of pure knowledge?
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May 22, 2012 16:53
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shrike82 posted:I can't speak to Korea but this is really NOT the case for Japan. ESL education in Japan is terrible, Japanese workers are terrible at English considering the amount of effort they've put into it and a section of blame should be apportioned at the private ESL industry. To be fair, it's largely due to the curriculum. I can speak about Korea's ESL from some anecdotal experience, people do learn how to speak it pretty well and wit daily use and practice, like any language, can become quite fluent. Writing on the other hand can be a nightmare because I don't believe that they learn syntax properly. I won't blame this on the teachers or influx of westerners either, seeing the textbooks show that the course is often poorly written.
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May 22, 2012 16:55
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There actually are several strata there, at least in Thailand. The families who have the means and value education in a sincere way spend a lot money and time making sure their kids actually do learn things. That group is increasing in size. The rest, yeah, status.
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May 22, 2012 16:55
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Throatwarbler posted:English is a Lingua Franca, people use it outside of the Anglosphere and the Chinese do huge amounts of business outside of the Anglosphere. Equipping your staff with some basic proficiency in English is a heck of a lot easier than trying to find Chinese speakers of Igbo or Persian or Pashtun. A lot of them are groomed to graduate from ivy leagues and such to take on board positions in the family businesses. They already speak native-level english so the whole EFL thing is meaningless to them. These are the type of people that are going to be doing high level business between ethnic Chinese run countries and the rest of the world.
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May 22, 2012 16:56
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ReindeerF posted:There actually are several strata there, at least in Thailand. The families who have the means and value education in a sincere way spend a lot money and time making sure their kids actually do learn things. That group is increasing in size. The rest, yeah, status. I think the people from families who are in the upper middle class (but not quite elite) are the ones who are truly competitive with education. But like I mentioned before most Thais I know who speak english really well were educated abroad anyways. They were part of the overseas raised Thai population who went to schools like UCLA and are back in Thailand running the family business. Even the ones who weren't raised overseas generally studied in Australia, NZ, U.K., or the U.S. for at least a couple years.
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May 22, 2012 17:05
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Yeah, I'm incestuously intertwined with the latter group now. I don't want to go further into that discussion except to say that while there's no clear dividing line, there's a pretty broad distinction between the performance of the kids of historically wealthy Thai families and newly wealthy Thai-Chinese families, the latter of which have been taking over the country's economy and, slowly, politics for the last 50 years. The former of which have been selling off ancestral land holdings at record pace to the latter to finance cars, condos and a free-wheeling lifestyle. Still, that's a bit (not huge, but a bit) or a broad brush.
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May 22, 2012 17:08
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Modus Operandi posted:A lot of them are groomed to graduate from ivy leagues and such to take on board positions in the family businesses. They already speak native-level english so the whole EFL thing is meaningless to them. These are the type of people that are going to be doing high level business between ethnic Chinese run countries and the rest of the world. Yea, there aren't enough of these people around to help run or maintain the economy of a global superpower that China is growing into. I've met a few Chinese families that speak English at home, but not many. When I was a teacher, I taught and tutored a number of kids who had english-speaking parents. However, these kids still couldn't speak or write worth a drat because they grew up and live their life speaking Chinese. There's not some aristocratic class that can handle all the need for English. My friend is an accounts guy at an Ikea plant and need his English to handle sales and crap for all the stuff for selling the factory's merchandise. He's not some born-rich CEO making major business decisions, but most factories and companies in China need someone like him to facilitate the amount of overseas clients they deal with. These are the people who ESL has some use for.
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May 22, 2012 17:13
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ReindeerF posted:Yeah, I'm incestuously intertwined with the latter group now. I don't want to go further into that discussion except to say that while there's no clear dividing line, there's a pretty broad distinction between the performance of the kids of historically wealthy Thai families and newly wealthy Thai-Chinese families, the latter of which have been taking over the country's economy and, slowly, politics for the last 50 years. The former of which have been selling off ancestral land holdings at record pace to the latter to finance cars, condos and a free-wheeling lifestyle. Still, that's a bit (not huge, but a bit) or a broad brush. Guys like Abhisit have very typical backgrounds for the new elite. They are hand groomed to be in elite positions. They make powerful friends abroad and cultivate these international connections. It's a cushion for them even if things go pear shaped in their parent's country. Have you heard Abhisit in BBC interviews? He's the yellowest British man ever. It's hilarious that he passes as Thai at all.
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May 22, 2012 17:19
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Yeah, heh. I think he was on the debate team at Oxford? He speaks better English than half of my high school class. One of my favorite things about the wealthy elite Thai-Chinese is playing the "Oh you're just Chinese" card. When Thai people are pissing them off they're Chinese (e.g. "Lazy workers!"). When you accuse them of being Chinese, they're Thai. When you accuse them of being Western bananas or whatever, they're Asian. I don't even really care, I just like prodding the privileged who run this place and have tons of underpaid servants and laborers. I used to play Maggie's Farm in MBA mentoring sessions during breaks, but no one even remotely got the irony. It's become one of my favorite sports in a country where the dominant mode of discourse for discussing ethnicity is, "Ha ha, the new girl at the office has dark skin!!! Talok!!! She'll never find a husband 55555" "Why do all my Burmese migrant workers constantly leave  How can I afford a new Mercedes!?!?"Also, have you had the good fortune yet to have a taxi driver red shirt tell you that the Chinese are ruining Thailand and then refuse to accept that Thaksin is even remotely Chinese? This place has a 40/60 chance of becoming a really stupid version of Bumiputra Malaysia in the next 10 years, heh. [/THAIJACK]
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May 22, 2012 17:26
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ReindeerF posted:
A Thai politician many years ago tried to drum up some old fashioned SEA anti-ethnic Chinese xenophobia but it failed spectacularly. I think it's because most of the middle class Thais just don't care about this. The ethnic divisions have blurred a lot due to families mixing. Plus lower class Thais are at that point where they don't see much of a difference between their dark skinned corrupt overlords in parliament and the light skinned corrupt overlords in parliament. They are all khun Thai at that level of corruption. I've heard people bitch in a roundabout way about Chinese but they're mostly referring to people like the foo-foo upper middle class Chinese-Thai land lady with the big hair, painted on red lipstick, gold, and gaudy clothing who constantly acts like a snooty bitch in dept stores.
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May 22, 2012 17:56
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Last Buffalo posted:
I don't entirely disagree with you there some English is important but when you're talking basic business functions you don't need a very high level of English education to be functional in a job like that. They just need to know enough to process orders, read simple e-mails, and input data when necessary. In the bigger picture it doesn't really impact business productivity in some major way if low level workers aren't conversational. Most Chinese business is factory or production based anyways. In an office or HQ for a company it certainly matters more but Asian companies are all top down heavy anyways. The Chinese men/women you would see in top management or more serious middle management positions probably still have some overseas education.
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May 22, 2012 18:05
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I wonder if it works in China like it works in Thailand. In my role I consult with businesses to use online marketing to, basically, make more money. About 50/50 on Western clients I can communicate value to them about what I do and they're far-sighted enough to understand (the rest are absurd or thieves, or both). Thai (mostly Thai-Chinese) prospective clients are getting better as the next generation are taking over the businesses, but usually it's like, "Hah, we get NO BUSINESS from the internet, why would we spend money there? Just build web site." "Yeah that's because neither you nor anyone you know has any idea what you're doing because you're all operating like it's 1975, so go hire your nephew, web sites ain't what I do, Somchai." The pugnacious ignorance is what surprises me. I have this sneaking suspicion that the sheer amount of competition in China must force more companies to be forward-thinking as opposed to the entirely closed shop that is Thailand. We ran into that kind of arrogance tons in the early days in America (1997ish), but it didn't take much to get them to give it a go because of open competition. Today you've got mostly Western founded and run companies here whose entire multi-billion dollar existence is predicated on successful internet marketing and the entire old-man-run Chinese factory and tourism sector is still "pffft I call my friend in Singapore na?" But, hey, they make money, so why would the old line care? Hab Mercede-, hab 3 house, hab 10 maid, etc. This next generation is much better prepared, but the dynamics of Asian family business, which exist separate from whatever superficial rules they pretend to adopt to satisfy institutional concerns, don't favor giving enough power to the younger generations to make a difference until they're easily 30-35. That's seriously retarded advancement, at least here. Some of what I've learned about this topic is absolutely fascinating with regard to financial structures and so on. This goes right in line with the topic of English language, too. Nowadays I have the occasional friend saying, "Can you get me a contact at Unilever? My uncle went in and didn't speak English and the French guy walked out of the room." Granted, I would never disrespect an older Thai man like that in his own country (leave that level of arrogance to the arrivistes), but the point stands. The pressure is on here, at least a bit.
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May 22, 2012 18:18
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ReindeerF posted:I wonder if it works in China like it works in Thailand. In my role I consult with businesses to use online marketing to, basically, make more money. About 50/50 on Western clients I can communicate value to them about what I do and they're far-sighted enough to understand (the rest are absurd or thieves, or both). I would say that bigger Chinese companies are way more savvy at online marketing. They lace everything with online ads including filesharing programs. Plus they have an entire industry of Chinese search engines, video and social networking, etc.. that all compete directly with Google and Facebook. Alibaba and the like have been pretty impressive in the way they've connected lower level Chinese distributors with purchasers worldwide. They also just acquired a large piece of Yahoo. I won't even get into the corporate cyber espionage and the like but i'd say it's all pretty advanced. So Chinese companies take the internet very seriously unlike some Thai companies who think it's still a place to play game and see sec show. I think Thai companies don't care as much because it's the old style of business where they are happy to get their delegated share of the pie and don't see any reason to rock the boat as long as it's bringing in good money.
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May 22, 2012 18:36
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Yeah, that's about right I think. I've mentored a couple of Chinese exchange students in the MBA program and there's a big difference in their estimation of the online market 99% of the time. We do get some very savvy Thai kids through, but it's like you allude to, everyone gets a share based on who they are. Welcome to the patronage economy, heh.
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May 22, 2012 18:40
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Throatwarbler posted:What's so hard to understand about this? Educational attainment in any country is a matter of social status, first and foremost. Having a white man teach you English is how you show others your position in society. People don't care about whether you actually learn anything any more than they care that their BMW probably isn't faster than a Camry or that their Hermes purse is no better at holding poo poo than a plastic shopping bag. Do you do this? Do you have any firsthand experience with this? Do you have kids even? In my experience the parents that care enough to seek out private teaching usually care about the quality of that teaching as well. The other type is rich kids who couldn't loving lift a finger to save themselves if they were dying and are failing because of it. I think there's an impulse to all out-cynic each other on D&D, but there are a lot of people out there just genuinely trying to do right, and they're told that part of that is having their kid learn English. And you know what? Every time I've brought it up with Chinese students, “Why is English important?" they always seem to have a cogent answer. Often it has to do with overseas business but often it's also that they want to study in an American college. Am I supposed to give them some sort of internet cynic rant?
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May 23, 2012 01:59
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Here's a beautiful case in point about teaching English and dealing with management that knows nothing about it: I learned today I have to give a 4 hour class instructing merchant marine cadets and deck/engine officers about international maritime conventions. Keep in mind this was when I walked in this morning. me:"Which conventions?" them: MARPOL, and SOLAS. me:"What do they need to know?" them: The basics. me: "What do mean by basics? There are 6 annexes to MARPOL and 14 Chapters to SOLAS." them: Use your judgment. me: "What?" them: Yes. Also, you need to make sure they know all the different main and auxilliary engine manufacturers and how to repair them for bulk carriers. me: "What are those?" them: We have the 外派面试手册 (handbook for cadets and officers. 60% in Chinese, including the table of contents, which I have told them repeatedly that I cannot read with any degree of accuracy. the rest in incorrect English) :Christonacrutch: But really, the problem are these drat backpackers out to steal women who don't respect Asian culture. “Also, you go to Shanghai tonight, did you bring your passport?"
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May 23, 2012 03:10
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Arglebargle III posted:Am I supposed to give them some sort of internet cynic rant?
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May 23, 2012 04:24
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