January 31 - Exams, Customer Service, and New Firsts

January 4th was the day of the final exam, which was to be held from 10am to noon. I had drawn up more than one version of the test and had been hoping for a gymnasium test so I could properly keep an eye on all my students. I had written up rules of conduct and allowed materials. I had given notice of my zero tolerance policy for cheating and had gone over my plans with the school administration. The administration told me they could not accommodate my plans for using a gym for all the students at once and, in fact, had never even heard of such an idea before. Instead they wanted to divide my students into several classrooms in one building with a couple of invigilators to watch over each room. This meant, of course, that I had to divide my attention among different rooms, so I couldn't ensure the rules were followed adequately.

My students all cheated blatantly.



It was really bad, and the invigilators all enabled it by doing stupid things like standing there and looking out the windows while the students handed notes to each other, or letting them use banned materials such as notepads. The classrooms were too crowded and so, even with multiple test versions, it was easy to look at the paper belonging to a person with the same version who was close to you. I was told later that this is an unspoken pact between Chinese students and professors. In a world where tuition prices are sky high and competition for jobs is fiercely competitive and highly dependent on getting a college degree, the Chinese education system has decided to shortchange employers with less than excellent students by winking at cheating. It's not adversarial at all, it might even be described as collaborative.

Anyway, I caught two students red-handed passing a note (unluckily for them I happened to be peering into their classroom at the moment it happened). I stormed in, demanded the note, which they denied possessing. I told them I saw the note and was taking away their exams, which I subsequently brought to the administrator (the head invigilator/organizer), then came back and searched the floor. I found the note under the student's desk, and multiple choice answers were scrawled all over it.

After the exam, the students came to acknowledge their responsibility and try to beg mercy for two other collaborators that I hadn't even known about. At this point, I was less furious as I was sick to my stomach, knowing that these poor guys were just the ones to get caught. The administrator begged me to let them off with just leaving their exams unfinished and a warning. I said that was fine with me, and let them go. I knew that I was being too morally strict for their system and I knew that the cheating wouldn't help them anyway. As I had been passing through the classes, I was dismayed to see that the students found my exam to be extremely difficult.

This was borne out by the corrections that came later. I should say at this point that carrying 400 exams nearly cost me a baby finger, as the plastic bag I was carrying them in bit extremely deeply into my joint and caused my finger to turn blue and numb, only easing up after several hours.

Once I got started on corrections, it quickly became very apparent that the students were, for the very large majority, about to fail my course miserably. I became lethargic as this weighed down on me, and my initially enthusiastic corrections began to lag. I eventually finished them two weeks later, by which time I had used 4 red pens in their entirety and decided that a grading curve would be necessary to improve the grades, even in spite of all my students' cheating. During the course of correcting the papers, the vast, monstrous scale of the cheating was fully revealed to me in the patterns of student answers and even with blatant note writing to each other on the blank backs of pages. Those particular students weren't too bright.

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On January 5th, the day after the exam, I finally received my backlogged pay. That was a great relief for me and I went out with my friend to celebrate. She took me to Pizza Hut. Before you laugh, you should know that Pizza Hut in China has a much more interesting menu than in North America and the ambience is much better. The pizza, however, remains of extremely poor quality, sad to say, even with the interesting local flavours (like popcorn shrimp, for example).

After dinner, I went to Carrefour to get some groceries. Everything was gonig really well and I even got my shoes cleaned for me by some free sample guys touting a Korean shoe cleaning fluid. However, when I got to the cash, my friend pointed out a special discount that was available if we spent over 138rmb, which had to be printed on one receipt. Because of the cashier, my bill was printed on two receipts and she tried to refuse to give me the discount. This was just before closing time, so I and my friend were some of the few remaining customers in the store. I stood my ground and asked for the discount. The girl wouldn't give it to us, so I asked to speak with a manager. The manager came and started yelling at my friend and telling her it was our fault. Then she told us she didn't want to do it because it was a hassle. The final excuse was that we would have to put all our products back on the shelves and get new ones. I said that was stupid, as we could just repass them through the scanner. Then it came to light that this supervisor was too low on the authority chain to make any call about it whatsoever, and she had just been trying to make us give up and leave. 

I asked for someone with real authority and waited further. Finally, a harassed-looking young lady came down, listened to my friend describe the situation and then hurried us through the cash to rescan the items and give me the discount. I impressed the heck out of my friend, who thought for sure they wouldn't cave in. She said: "if you were Chinese, you would have failed." I countered with: "If I was Chinese, I probably wouldn't have tried in the first place since I'd expect to fail. You don't get something if you don't ask for it."

In the next couple of days, I got a few necessities, the most notable of which were my first ever cell phone and my first ever haircut in China.

I got an HTC Desire A8181 phone for the equivalent of a couple of hundred dollars. The unbelievable thing about phone service here is how it is both uncomplicated and cheap. With a China Mobile SIM card, I'm on a plan (that is not necessarily the cheapest!) which charges 0.2rmb (about 3 cents) per minute for calling, 0.02rmb per text message within China, and you must spend at minimum 29rmb (less than $5) per month, with another 10rmb added on for 70mb of internet data. Personally, I am using about 100rmb worth of voice, text and data, for a grand total of about $15. Makes you think about how much of a scam the North American telecoms have got going for them, doesn't it?

Getting the phone was a whole day affair, as I was originally considering getting an iPhone 4 and shopped around for it extensively. I actually wanted an HTC Desire more than the iPhone, but I had believed that HTC only sold phones in China under a subsidiary brand called Dopod, so I am happy to have found they also have HTC. Anyway, my search for the iPhone revealed to me the insane pricing schemes they have here. Apple's worldwide suggested retail prices all tend to be very similar to one another, give or take $100 or so, but here in China, to exploit high demand, the stores are trying to sell the phones for almost double the retail price in Canada (the price without a contract that is - the price with a contract is Canada is about 6 times less than the price in China). At one store we stayed and haggled for half an hour, but the owner refused to budge on price. As we were leaving, my friend told me the guy had said that foreigners are too clever about shopping, so he refuses to do business with us or he will make less profit. To hear that he said that, I felt bad for Chinese consumers if they accept his prices and half-baked excuses for keeping them high.

Anyway, I love the Desire a lot, but I still treat things as if I am phone-less. I sometimes don't pick up calls or check my messages. I feel like my former roommate's boyfriend, who acted the same way when he first had a cell (I'm not sure if he still acts that way though). She reads this blog occasionally, so that should make her smile, heh.

The problem with using the Desire's smart phone capabilities to their utmost is twofold. First, the supposedly 3G system here in China is actually not so fast. Second, the amount of data in my monthly plan is too low to really use it. People told me to get the ubiquitous casual game called Angry Birds, so I tried that. I found it amusing, but it made me stay up too late one night, so I avoid it now. Then there is the fact that I am in China so all my access to things like Facebook, Youtube and other sites are all blocked, which is quite frustrating. As I've said before, even this blog is blocked in China. I can't get onto Blogspot itself, so I am posting via email. I've tried getting a free program called Freegate to work, but it won't start up properly for me. If anyone has a suggestion that doesn't include paying for a VPN, please leave it in the comments. 

When it comes to the phone, I guess I will just have to be happy with talk, text and email for now.

My haircut was cheap (only 8rmb, a little over a dollar), but it was almost a total disaster. The guy tried to give me a trendy Chinese haircut where my bangs got progressively longer on one side of my face. Fortunately, I managed to convince him that I wanted it to be more even and more professional-looking. The haircut turned out to be not too bad, though I don't think it's the best cut I have ever had.

Finally, I've included some food pictures from two restaurants. One was Korean BBQ and the other was Ai De, which I talked about in previous posts.