Sunday, August 20, 2006
The rest of last week was pretty boring, however, this past weekend myself, Pablo and Phoebe flew to Shanghai to look at some schools and have some job interviews. Shanghai is amazing! I am really excited to live in Shanghai and I am a little nervous that there will be too much to do there?! So here is what happened... Friday night we went out to dinner with the boss from ESL (English as a Second Language) and that was pretty interesting. Lorne (the boss) is a 40something Canadian who has lived here for quite some time and intends living here permanently. He smoked an entire pack of cigarettes during dinner and smoked another pack at the bar he took us to afterwards. He made
ridiculously vulgar jokes and passes at phoebe even though we only met him that night. After many beers we talked about the job and it pays the best and when it came down to it he is really serious about teaching. It was kind of weird because all the sudden he got really serious and told us that its all about the kids and explained that each kid in China is the only hope of four grandparents. It made us feel a lot better once he got serious because up until that point he was pretty sketchy. He then took us to a bar that he used to manage. Apparently all the girls that were there actually "work" there. Their job is to flirt and get white guys to buy more drinks all night. They have to stay until bar time and then if the girls want they are prostitutes to the men buying them drinks all night. I couldn't believe this guy took us there and was then telling us all this stuff. I'm still not 100% sure I like/trust the guy but I don't think he was lying at all or would ever cheat us, not to mention we don't have a whole lot to lose, all he can do is not pay us and if he does we can easily get out of the contract. He told us to come over the next day and sing contracts and we told him we would call him. However, we had plans the next day to visit two other schools. We canceled one because we really weren't interested but called the other and they offered to come pick us up and show us around Shanghai all day. We felt bad because this school paid considerably less than the other one and the only reason why we were interested was because it sounded like a lot of fun and the people sounded really nice. Oh, but wait, our hotel kicked us out for the second night and we had no place to stay, so in the process of trying to swindle our way into having other plans (to go back to talk more to Lorne at ESL) we told them we had to find a hotel and they found one for us and paid for it. After touring the school, asking some more questions and finding out more about the contract we realized we were going to sign with Lorne at ESL because it was more money and the contract was shorter. But we felt HORRIBLE because the people at the this school (New Beat) were ridiculously nice and their school sounded amazing but we just needed the money and to be home earlier. BUT IT DIDN'T STOP THERE. The people at New Beat wanted to take us out to dinner and we couldn't refuse. Then they also wanted to pick us up to go to the airport and we couldn't refuse. And they brought us gifts in the morning and the whole time they kept talking about their nice little school and dropping all this cash on us and we new we weren't going to sign but didn't know how to get out of everything. We felt like the devil. I really wish I could teach at New Beat but the salary was sooo much lower and the whole point of me coming here is to earn money to travel as much as I can. We also didn't get as much vacation with New Beat. We still feel bad and have to tell them no in the next couple of days. So I now have an official job teaching English to first and second graders in Shanghai. My contract ends June 30th, I have around a 4 week break some where in January/Februrary, a week in either March or May (I can't remember), a day off for Christmas and maybe a week off in October. Now we just need a place to live?! I will keep everyone updated...
ridiculously vulgar jokes and passes at phoebe even though we only met him that night. After many beers we talked about the job and it pays the best and when it came down to it he is really serious about teaching. It was kind of weird because all the sudden he got really serious and told us that its all about the kids and explained that each kid in China is the only hope of four grandparents. It made us feel a lot better once he got serious because up until that point he was pretty sketchy. He then took us to a bar that he used to manage. Apparently all the girls that were there actually "work" there. Their job is to flirt and get white guys to buy more drinks all night. They have to stay until bar time and then if the girls want they are prostitutes to the men buying them drinks all night. I couldn't believe this guy took us there and was then telling us all this stuff. I'm still not 100% sure I like/trust the guy but I don't think he was lying at all or would ever cheat us, not to mention we don't have a whole lot to lose, all he can do is not pay us and if he does we can easily get out of the contract. He told us to come over the next day and sing contracts and we told him we would call him. However, we had plans the next day to visit two other schools. We canceled one because we really weren't interested but called the other and they offered to come pick us up and show us around Shanghai all day. We felt bad because this school paid considerably less than the other one and the only reason why we were interested was because it sounded like a lot of fun and the people sounded really nice. Oh, but wait, our hotel kicked us out for the second night and we had no place to stay, so in the process of trying to swindle our way into having other plans (to go back to talk more to Lorne at ESL) we told them we had to find a hotel and they found one for us and paid for it. After touring the school, asking some more questions and finding out more about the contract we realized we were going to sign with Lorne at ESL because it was more money and the contract was shorter. But we felt HORRIBLE because the people at the this school (New Beat) were ridiculously nice and their school sounded amazing but we just needed the money and to be home earlier. BUT IT DIDN'T STOP THERE. The people at New Beat wanted to take us out to dinner and we couldn't refuse. Then they also wanted to pick us up to go to the airport and we couldn't refuse. And they brought us gifts in the morning and the whole time they kept talking about their nice little school and dropping all this cash on us and we new we weren't going to sign but didn't know how to get out of everything. We felt like the devil. I really wish I could teach at New Beat but the salary was sooo much lower and the whole point of me coming here is to earn money to travel as much as I can. We also didn't get as much vacation with New Beat. We still feel bad and have to tell them no in the next couple of days. So I now have an official job teaching English to first and second graders in Shanghai. My contract ends June 30th, I have around a 4 week break some where in January/Februrary, a week in either March or May (I can't remember), a day off for Christmas and maybe a week off in October. Now we just need a place to live?! I will keep everyone updated...# posted by Mike @ 6:39 PM 
