Teaching injustice

So I was invited to join my Chinese office mates for dinner. The only other expat teacher that came was Andrew. Andrew is a thirty some cheeky, Scotsman who doesn’t share the same office but the one next to mine and since we are the only expat teacher on our floor you’ll often find the two of us hang out a lot. We get to the restaurant and let me say it’s nice to go to dinner where people know what they are doing. One of the teachers from my office demanded a private room and we got one. I don’t think that would ever happen to a foreigner, heck I never knew these places offered nice clean rooms to eat in. As we sat down to dinner the Chinese teacher seemed to transform. While in the school many of them put on a face of professionalism and seriousness but outside the school they crack the same joke and complain just like the rest of us. Probably the best statement made was when Andrew asked if working at the school was a good job and one of the teachers replied “is that a question or statement” while all the other teachers laugh their heads off. I later find out that I make about twice the salary the Chinese teachers do for about a third of the work. It’s hard to believe that some of the foreign teachers complain about the salaries and benefits we get while some of the Chinese teachers have to share their apartments. Another thing that amazes me is that most of the Chinese teachers here would be unqualified to teach in a Western school because they are Chinese. Fuck I think most of the teachers here are far more qualified to teach than some of the teacher I had (Ms. Ozmen). But as most of them say that’s how the World works.