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| Dalian Institute of Light Industry | ||
| Having had a bitter experience in Qingdao, I came to Dalian expecting the worst. To my pleasant surprise and maybe because I have learned to adapt from my previous experiences, my first term here at Dalian Institute of Light Industry was pretty good. Oh sure, the school is a public school so I did not make that much money. But thanks to luck and obvious good impressions I gave the school's leaders, I was given TWO foreign teachers' work load and as such, I lived comfortably on what many people knew as the highest salary earned by any teacher in this school. The school has its good and its bad. The bad include unmotivated students but that's common when teaching public school students in China. The infrastructure is quite run-down because the campus is quite old. The noises from airplanes and jet fighters taking off almost daily from the Dalian airport which is about a 15-minute drive from the school (one of the take-off runways if not the only take-off runway is actually right across the road from the school's front gate) can be quite unpleasant during lessons and when you are trying to take a nap in the afternoon but one can get used to it soon. Things are a bit costly on campus, e.g. 5 yuan for a 1.25 liter bottle of Coke as compared to 5.70 Yuan for a 2 liter bottle at Carrefour. Also, frequent hill-blasting resulting in buildings shaking and trembling can make some people quite uneasy. Last but not least, the school is located in one of the most remote areas of Dalian so there is not much to do around here other than going to restaurants, K-TV's and bars. Downtown Dalian is 40 minutes away by bus which stop running after 10pm or 11pm and the apartment building gets locked up after 11pm (a "curfew"). If you have a good relationship with the kind "old" lady who I call "ayi" who is one of the 2 caretakers of the apartment and you want to have a night out on the town, then she can stay up to unlock the front door and let you in if you tell her in advance. The good being an attentive and honest FAO. At worst my pay was only about 1 or 2 weeks late once because they had to freeze all of the school's funds to do budgeting for the new school term/year. My concerns and needs are always met and resolved (including a revision to my contract's supplement) in a very short period of time. They have wined and dined me and the other foreign teachers more often than I ever did while in Qingdao (birthdays, welcomes, goodbyes). Heck, when my parents were here less than a month ago, the school took them out in the chancellor's private car to see Dalian! The apartment is BIG! I sleep on a queen-size bed. There are TWO air-conditioners in the apartment. I have a Pentium 3 (or is it 4?) with 24/7 high-speed connection to the Internet (though during school days the speed can be brutally slow because in the afternoon thousands of students maybe online in the various computer labs throughout the campus). I have all the essential cooking utilities including a microwave oven in the kitchen but I have yet to used them because I always eat out. The bathroom has a bathtub and the sink has hot water too. On the downfall there have been numerous times now when there was no water resulting in my not being able to take a shower in the morning, and during the summer break a section of the school (including the apartment building) had no electricity for 36 hours. The living room has 3 comfortable sofas and a pretty big TV which is perfect for watching rented movies on my portable DVD player. The apartment is actually more like a hotel and any and all repairs needed are taken care of promptly -- free of charge. There are so many drawers and cabinets. If you like loud techno music, the school has a small little bar that functions as the teachers dining room in the afternoon and a disco on weekends. The school's restaurant, though a tad dirty, offers many northeastern dishes (but I have grown tired of the place thanks to a tyrannic GM and lately some snotty and lazy waitresses). There are plenty of small restaurants around the school so you can have a nice meal for less than 15 Yuan. Because I don't look like a foreigner, it may explain why I haven't had any requests from students to come visit me (except from few boys who wanted me to help them improve their English -- for FREE). I have had a few small gifts from some students who I no longer teach that all cost no more than 5 Yuan. It is the thought that counts and I will keep them forever. I am not here to score females (there are MANY gorgeous female students because this school has a modeling major) so I don't care that I don't have a personal fan club. I think most students still don't realize that I am not a student here because they often say I look a lot younger than my age. My second term has so far been more or less the same. I have been asked by the Director of the FAO to return next year. I am thinking about it. One reason is that after a term of being here I am bored and tired of the area and the school. But I like the city. Dalian's weather resembles that of Vancouver's (I hate humid summers) and it's also a very modern city (in Chinese standard) with plenty of Western style restaurants and bars to offer foreigners (though a tad on the expensive side). That and the fact that all 3 of the other foreign teachers have said that they would be here next term and we have all become good friends (not to mention all of us are from the Commonwealth). So far my biggest beef is with the Associate Dean of the Foreign Language Department. She would not hesitate to ask you for favors like taking over a class of students or switching schedule with her because she had to be out of town, but takes forever to get anything I requested done (if ever done at all). |