I Am Not Just A Pretty Face!

Though sometimes it seems as if that is what I am here for. The "foreign experts" at Jiang-Jishu are a hot commodity and I am pretty sure this is true throughout most of China. Please consider this telling pattern:

At one of the places that is considered a "bar" in Changzhou, I met this one guy who said his job was basically sitting in a glass cubicle playing solitaire while important customers were paraded past it. The teacher's office at WEB International English (my other job) also has glass walls. Just today a prospect was given a tour which included the "Waijiao" in their little glass cage. Coincidence? Perhaps not. If only there were some analogous situation...like some sort of park or area where visitors can come and watch creatures work and play in enclosed spaces...well, I'll think of it later.

At a college like Jiang-Jishu, which doesn't have that much going for it, it's always considered good business to display the foreigners. I have been on the website's homepage several times now. And as "foreign experts," we get asked to teach and present things that we are totally unqualified for. We are to keep the students entertained.

We also get invited to crazy things. The school and the adjacent hotel I live in always seem to host many odd events like the "Inspection and Quarantine Sub-Level Officials of Southeast Africa Conference (IQSLO-SEAC). Last week the school had the "2010 International Conference on Industry Engineering and Management." Guess who made the whole thing "international:"

This guy Sean, and his three white friends.

Oh and I think some of the Japanese teachers were there too. Basically my "boss" called me and the others asking us to go to some of the lectures. I wouldn't have missed this experience thing for the world, but the promise of a Baijiu-fueled banquet only sweetened the deal. When we got there we realized why we had been asked to go. Another person making it "international" was Dr. Horst, a German with close ties with the College who did a lecture on marketing. It was the one thing I could comprehend that whole morning. Another Chinese lecturer gave a powerpoint in English. However that soon proved useless:

Apparently concepts like group decision-making can be expressed through calculus.

Anyway, as nice as it is to feel important now and then, sometimes I feel a tad exploited as a spectacle, like the poor monkey I see being dragged around on a leash when I go downtown. I suppose it could be worse. I get paid and go to banquets. Monkeys at the zoo don't.

Oh. THAT'S the word I was looking for.

Leb Wohl