more on the state of kung fu in china

[Faruq]

Not anymore.

That was the case when I came here back in '99 but somewhere around '06 or so (I forget which year exactly) the government started cracking down on unqualified Engrish teachers. You can still just show up with a tourist visa and work illegally for a training center or as a tutor but if you plan to possibly stay long term, especially in a single city, I wouldn't reccommend it. You can get caught, deported and banned from ever entering China again. It's not common and that's why I think if you are happy to just hop around from city to city it's probably no big deal. Get caught and just hop a plane to Thailand for the weekend and then come back but in some other city where immigration doesn't know you.

My personal experience has been that immigration has come to my home twice over the years and just recently they even showed up unnannounced at my job to check my papers and interview me to see if they could catch me talking about teaching anywhere else in my free time (which would also be illegal and grounds for deportation)

So teaching illegally is a roll of the dice. Current law requires a BA at the very minumum...from an English speaking country.... and it's very hard to get a proper Z Visa nowadays without some sort of TESOL cert on top of that...even if it's just some dumb online course. Oh yeah, and they also now require a police check from your home country stating you have no criminal record. Kind of a dumb rule though since local police stations in America only have local records. . . at the least that's how it was when I got mine.

Plus, I researched that 4 or 5 years back and they were saying on the forums that unless you had speciial connections it was near impossible to get posts in Southern China with the intense competition among English teachers because of the beautiful weather; and forget Hong Kong. That was why I asked what can an American do for work in the South, because it won't be English without special connections. Plus, I gotta moslem name so I gotta hope I'm not branded a terrorist because of stupid al qaeda and the taliban. Not to mention people who don't like Hui or Uighur people seeing my name and just writing me off saying "well he's not gonna drink, and he's gonna be all picky about not eating food with pork in it and if he misses one of his 5 prayers he's gonna act like the world's coming to an end; so he's gonna just be a big party-pooper so I don't think I even want this guy training in my school!", lol. I've just got it bad all around so someone start playing their violin for me. Oh, and I just saw pazman's post. So I don't have connections, I'm a moslem, and I'm Black. Might as well just save myself the the misery and just stay where I am, lol. Very informative if teaching English in the South weren't so competitive. No, still very interesting pazman, though I don't understand why Chinese culture dictates not to hire Blacks, unless it's based on American culture as passed on from Americans who were doing business there before the 1980s. And why do you and Bawang say Westerners seeking gong fu in China are weirdos? Bawang says they even have a crazy look in their eyes. I'm not understanding. Plus, I consider it for mastering Cantonese and Mandarin because I think I'd have much better chances to learn Bak Mei in the U.S., though not in Illinois. When I hang around Cantonese here, they always speak English, lol.

[Faruq]

And I should add that the "Chocolate People" thing is a surprise, because a family that owns a shop in Chinatown here practically adopted me! The wife told me she used to teach Cantonese back in Hong Kong, which I told her I wanted to learn. She tried to push me toward Mandarin, but I insisted on Cantonese so she started giving me lessons each week at a nearby bakery. She introduced me to a nice Cantonese-American girl (but the girl I would come with coke-blocked me and ruined that), and after a few months the lessons moved to the family's home. Oh, but because of my language abilities I don't think she believed I was American because she kept asking me what country my parents came from each week though every week I answered her "from Chicago, I'm Black-American". Maybe she thought I was Desi or something because of my name, because Indians often ask me if I'm Indian. That must be it if Chinese culture kind of prevents the hiring of members of the Chocolate Clan. Or perhaps drive-by's occurred after some of the rap concerts my predecessors in China obviously threw at the Universities they taught at since they were Chocolate people after all, once they got in good and felt secure, spoiling it for all the rest of us! #^%# Chocolate People!

[omarthefish]

... Plus, I gotta moslem name so I gotta hope I'm not branded a terrorist because of stupid al qaeda and the taliban. ..

Hi there. My names Omar. Never had a problem with a Visa but I have been singled out to have my bags searched at customs....twice.

... Very informative if teaching English in the South weren't so competitive. . .

Meh. I don't think it's that competitive. Just not as easy in the past. Now you actually need a degree.

... I don't understand why Chinese culture dictates not to hire Blacks, unless it's based on American culture as passed on from Americans who were doing business there before the 1980s.

Most Chinese experience with black people is the East African's. They're the one's you go to to get ****ty hash or decent X from in Beijing. . . at least before they cleared them out of town for the 2008 Olympics.

... Plus, I consider it for mastering Cantonese and Mandarin because I think I'd have much better chances to learn Bak Mei in the U.S., though not in Illinois. When I hang around Cantonese here, they always speak English, lol.

FWIW, everyone in HK speaks Mandarin now. Sure, it's their second language but ever since the reunification their new primary tourists are rich mainlanders. .. Mandarin...it's the new "English". When I was there last year pretty much everyone with at least a high school education spoke fluent (although heavily accented) Mandarin.

I'd say, get a TESOL cert and then go through English First or some other online placement org and then do a little research about where they want to place you before you sign because "Guangdong" might be some ****tly little suburb 3 hours outside of town. Or show up with enough cash that you can afford a quick trip across to the island and back to switch your Visa from L to Z and do not F around with that part. Schools like to tell you to just start teaching rigt away and they'll get the Visa done over the next few days. A few weeks go by and "bam!" you are now an illegal immigrant and they haven't don't your Visa but now you can't complain or they'll report you for working there without a proper Visa. Hefty fee's for both you and the school but the school get's to avoid paying you your last months pay while you only pay the fine and only one of you gets deported.

[Gru Bianca]

FWIW, everyone in HK speaks Mandarin now. Sure, it's their second language but ever since the reunification their new primary tourists are rich mainlanders. .. Mandarin...it's the new "English". When I was there last year pretty much everyone with at least a high school education spoke fluent (although heavily accented) Mandarin.

Hi Omar,

sorry but, humm nope, in HK mandarin is still domain of those people doing business with China and the Main lander that have moved over.
Common HK people still do not speak Mandarin well despite they study it at school and I am talking about young generations.
Their root as HK people are still strong.

[wiz cool c]

After you get used to the SC training method (develop one technique after another with "partner"), you will never be pleased with the solo form training. Most TCMA teachers will teach you form after form. It's very difficult for you to go back. Others may not understand your situation but I can quite understand that.

thanks,you the man. i must agree i am liking the privates now. cause my knee is not fully healed yet and the moderate contact is a nice transition. maybe 6 months or a year and i can get back into shuai jiao. hoping to compete in hong kong at age 43 haha.for real.win or lose

[omarthefish]

Hi Omar,

sorry but, humm nope, in HK mandarin is still domain of those people doing business with China and the Main lander that have moved over.
Common HK people still do not speak Mandarin well despite they study it at school and I am talking about young generations.
Their root as HK people are still strong.

I'm speaking from my direct experience in HK just last year. I did say it's obviously their second language. I was there for about 4 or 5 days only but I got by entirely with Mandarin. Bought stuff at the local 7-11 in Mandarin. Took various taxi rides around town in Mandarin. Went out for dim-sum and dealt with the waitress in Mandarin and so on. The only person I bumped into during my stay who could not chat in Mandarin was the valet at the hotel. I was in HK with my Shifu and a couple of shixiongdi and I ended up having to talk to him in extremely broken English to ask where the nearest convenience store was. I'll admit that some of the waiters at the dim-sum shop had to struggle with Mandarin but at the "coffe shop" I ate lunch at it wasn't a problem.

Also, I never said they spoke it "well" but I'd say about 90% of the people I met there spoke it and, for the most part, spoke it better than English.

I don't have to take someone's word for it. I was there just last year.

[omarthefish]

p.s.

I think you misunderstood.

When I say they all speak Mandarin, I did not mean to imply that they had switched. I meant just that most folks have learned it by now just like most folks in Germany or the Netherlands speak English. Of course it's not the language they prefer. I just mean that you can get by fine in Hong Kong nowadays with only Mandarin.

[Faruq]

Hi there. My names Omar. Never had a problem with a Visa but I have been singled out to have my bags searched at customs....twice.



Meh. I don't think it's that competitive. Just not as easy in the past. Now you actually need a degree.

Most Chinese experience with black people is the East African's. They're the one's you go to to get ****ty hash or decent X from in Beijing. . . at least before they cleared them out of town for the 2008 Olympics.


FWIW, everyone in HK speaks Mandarin now. Sure, it's their second language but ever since the reunification their new primary tourists are rich mainlanders. .. Mandarin...it's the new "English". When I was there last year pretty much everyone with at least a high school education spoke fluent (although heavily accented) Mandarin.

I'd say, get a TESOL cert and then go through English First or some other online placement org and then do a little research about where they want to place you before you sign because "Guangdong" might be some ****tly little suburb 3 hours outside of town. Or show up with enough cash that you can afford a quick trip across to the island and back to switch your Visa from L to Z and do not F around with that part. Schools like to tell you to just start teaching rigt away and they'll get the Visa done over the next few days. A few weeks go by and "bam!" you are now an illegal immigrant and they haven't don't your Visa but now you can't complain or they'll report you for working there without a proper Visa. Hefty fee's for both you and the school but the school get's to avoid paying you your last months pay while you only pay the fine and only one of you gets deported.

Yeah, that's the reason the lady teaching me Cantonese pushed me toward Mandarin saying it was now the official language and Cantonese was no longer taught in the schools. I just love the challenge with the 7 to 9 tones (depending on who you're talking to). To an Anglophone, learning Cantonese is basically linguistic Calculus. Plus, its only recently that we have a lot of Mandarin speakers here in the U.S., because historically Cantonese has always been the majority. But if you say Westerners looking to teach English in China are now overwhelmingly requesting posts in the North over Southern posts, then wow! The tide really has changed and it shouldn't be a problem for me to get a teaching job in Hong Kong, Fushan or Guangzhou! Yaaay. And I wonder how the not-hiring Schokoladen Gladze for jobs works when you arrange everything via a U.S. based TEOSL teacher placement service. Would the University or school in China set you up to fail and plot to fire you for incompetence or something if when the English teacher got there they found out they were Black? I wonder how Obama's brother harangued it? He's obviously not an English teacher though, lol.

[bawang]

would you teach ebonics as an ESL teacher?

i really dont know if you will meet racism, i havent been back in years and the culture has changed. people only know america from seterotypes.

however guangdong has a large african population so they might get used to you.

[Lebaufist]

To swing sword properly (train form) and to chop down tree branches (sparring) should be done at the same time. Unfortunately most TCMA teachers only teach you one but not the other.

This is true. I'm a country boy and just called all that "chores". But in either case I still had to be taught first, to do it right later.

[Lebaufist]

i do traditional fundamental training and i have no experience. you flail around spinning that guan dao like a rave stick and you have experience. ok.

By hitting tire with stick.....have I told you about my unicorn?

I'm still not buying this broken english routine of yours. I bet you're a white guy.

[GeneChing]

By hitting tire with stick.....have I told you about my unicorn?

Unicorns are real!

[Lebaufist]

Unicorns are real!

Well, I'll be gobsmacked. LOL!

[Faruq]

would you teach ebonics as an ESL teacher?

i really dont know if you will meet racism, i havent been back in years and the culture has changed. people only know america from seterotypes.

however guangdong has a large african population so they might get used to you.

Training schools and many universities, in accordance with Chinese culture, will not hire black people.

Never heard that before. I'll have to look for some youtube videos showing that. Do they learn kung fu? And no ebonics unless there was a compelling reason to do so. That whole Black people and Chinese culture is still an enigma; no one's really explained what we have to do with Chinese culture. Anyhoo, Guandong weather is very much like that of Hawaii from what I hear, so I'd love to be able to live there a few years. But I've got a distant German uncle-in-law who's been living there like the last 30 years running his factories there and from the second hand stories to do business there you have to be a cowboy and be ready to draw your weapon when you get cheated on deals or else you'll never be successful. I wish I could talk to him, or could've when he was young.

[bawang]

By hitting tire with stick.....have I told you about my unicorn?

I'm still not buying this broken english routine of yours. I bet you're a white guy.

you sound weak like woman.

Never heard that before. I'll have to look for some youtube videos showing that. Do they learn kung fu? And no ebonics unless there was a compelling reason to do so. That whole Black people and Chinese culture is still an enigma; no one's really explained what we have to do with Chinese culture. Anyhoo, Guandong weather is very much like that of Hawaii from what I hear, so I'd love to be able to live there a few years. But I've got a distant German uncle-in-law who's been living there like the last 30 years running his factories there and from the second hand stories to do business there you have to be a cowboy and be ready to draw your weapon when you get cheated on deals or else you'll never be successful. I wish I could talk to him, or could've when he was young.

i was saying learning cantonese is like learning ebonics. ebonics is an ancient dialect with roots to africa, but you cant use it to communicate with most americans.

guangdong has an african district called chocolate city, about 100 thousand west africans live there.