Working Hours

I'm contracted to do 20 hours from Monday to Friday every week. Regardless of the hours I work I still get paid for the 20 hours unless of course I work over time then I get paid an hourly rate. It took me 2 weeks before I had worked my first 20 hours. This all came to an abrupt end after the May holidays. I now had 20 hours plus 9.5 hours traveling time. I was most upset as my free time was being eaten up by travel! My friends at home found this quite amusing as I would have worked the equivalent in 3 days in my previous life.

But there's always more work to do, not that I mind. Someone will come to the school to see a leader and they want to practice English. You will be called to the office in your free time to practice English with this person, or prepare them for an English Exam. You are paid in food, IE taken to dinner.

Then there are the speaking competitions. The students want to meet with you to practice their English. You then have to be judge and remain impartial. Once again payment is by food.

There are English corners all over the place. Basically an English corner is where Westerners turn up and Chinese people come to practice their English. They normally last for 2 hours, however it is just like doing a days work. You need to keep the conversation going and listen intently for their Chinglish.

One English Corner I go to is on every Saturday from 2 - 4, (no I don't go every Saturday!). They pick you up and drop you off and payment is in the form of beer. Another one is on every Sunday Fortnight from 9.30 - 11.30. This one I do go to every fortnight but more for the Western interaction after wards! We go and have lunch and catch up with other Western Teachers.

I find it interesting the amount of old men and women you see working. Many of them do regular maintenance and pruning of hedges and other plants and also mow the lawn. I see one lady outside our apartments who shovels sand through a sifter and then makes concrete. Most of these people are way beyond retirement age.
There are also those that clear rubbish. We also have an old man who delivers our water. Carrying 18L of water up to level 4 is no easy task.