Everything looked crisp and wonderful, so we had to get out of our apartment. We decided to pay a last visit to 798.
Please leave a comment to help us understand how these art works are symbolic for our stay in China.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Last visit to 798
The pollution has been so bad lately, that we were planning to stay home today with the curtains closed. But then suddenly the air quality index dropped enormously:
Everything looked crisp and wonderful, so we had to get out of our apartment. We decided to pay a last visit to 798.
Please leave a comment to help us understand how these art works are symbolic for our stay in China.
Everything looked crisp and wonderful, so we had to get out of our apartment. We decided to pay a last visit to 798.
Please leave a comment to help us understand how these art works are symbolic for our stay in China.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Where the sun don't shine
Next up on our farewell Chinese food tour: pork rectum, a specialty from Shandong Province. Not as good as looks. Not even as good as it sounds.
Zhajiangmian
Besides being paranoid, we are also still hungry, and continuing our farewell Beijing restaurant tour. This is one of the foods we will really miss: Zha jiang mian. It is the specialty of this restaurant, and it is really good!
I'm looking forward to experimenting at home to get even a bad approximation of this.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Paranoid
As our astute readers may have noticed, we are sometimes getting a bit paranoid regarding our work place here.
Or are we????
One thing F did not mention in his previous post is one additional reason we had for not wanting to turn in our university ID cards: if we cannot see our salary data, it seems reasonable to assume our institute can also not see our account, and hence cannot transfer our final salary.
When Ms. No first asked us to return our IDs, we sent her a friendly email with our concerns (not being able to access our salary data and upcoming teaching evaluations). We ended the email with the request if she would also double check if the institute could still transfer our final salary (still two months remaining at that time) if we would close our university account.
Ms. No never responded to this final request, and we hoped (but did not trust) that this meant that the answer to our questions was that of course they would make sure of that.
And then this week has been rather good so far -- we received the reimbursement for our trip to Vietnam without any problems, and we received our "housing fund" that we apparently saved money into over these two years. So we thought that, really, we were just too silly to think that the giggling second-in-command would go as far as to try to make the secretaries trick us into closing our account prematurely.
But NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
This evening, I received a call from the lovely Number 2. The phone number she called from was outside China and she said she noticed just now that she cannot access our Tsinghua account anymore (this is impossible, because the university system can only be accessed from inside the university). She also said she just called HR and they said we handed in paperwork to close our account (this is impossible because HR is on vacation). And hence, she said she has no way to pay our final salary.
So we are not paranoid! Yay!
Or are we????
One thing F did not mention in his previous post is one additional reason we had for not wanting to turn in our university ID cards: if we cannot see our salary data, it seems reasonable to assume our institute can also not see our account, and hence cannot transfer our final salary.
When Ms. No first asked us to return our IDs, we sent her a friendly email with our concerns (not being able to access our salary data and upcoming teaching evaluations). We ended the email with the request if she would also double check if the institute could still transfer our final salary (still two months remaining at that time) if we would close our university account.
Ms. No never responded to this final request, and we hoped (but did not trust) that this meant that the answer to our questions was that of course they would make sure of that.
And then this week has been rather good so far -- we received the reimbursement for our trip to Vietnam without any problems, and we received our "housing fund" that we apparently saved money into over these two years. So we thought that, really, we were just too silly to think that the giggling second-in-command would go as far as to try to make the secretaries trick us into closing our account prematurely.
But NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
This evening, I received a call from the lovely Number 2. The phone number she called from was outside China and she said she noticed just now that she cannot access our Tsinghua account anymore (this is impossible, because the university system can only be accessed from inside the university). She also said she just called HR and they said we handed in paperwork to close our account (this is impossible because HR is on vacation). And hence, she said she has no way to pay our final salary.
So we are not paranoid! Yay!
Still here
Our working relationship with the secretaries has not improved recently. Especially one of them seems to say "no" as soon as she sees us, before we even can begin to make a request. She is more concerned about "regulations" of the university, then making our life easier. Point in case: she wanted us to hand in our IDs before Friday noon last week. This would mean that we cannot check the university website for our salary data, our teaching evaluations, and changing money may prove more difficult without the ID also. So we obviously politely refused.
That Friday morning we had some other business in the office where all 8 secretaries are seated. Ms. No ducked behind her monitor and grabbed the phone as soon as she saw us appear in the doorway. No word about the IDs, so we assumed we had found a face saving solution for all. Of course we were wrong. She had just cancelled everything, without taking our IDs. So no teaching evaluations, nor checking of the salary for us. (We still have the ID though to change money --- huzzah!)
When we realized that we couldn't access our evaluations, we wrote an email to Ms. No to ask her to help us to get our teaching evaluations. That afternoon we had some more business in the office, and lo and behold, Ms. No approached us after we were standing there for some time, pretending that she just saw the email. You might be able to guess her answer to our request of whether she could help us. Everyone was supposedly on holiday now, and only after the holidays she could help us. We asked whether she could call to make sure that these evaluations were not deleted, et cetera et cetera. To make a long story short, while we were arguing with Ms. No, a different secretary made a phone call and got our teaching evaluations. (You can find them on our webpages in the unlikely case that you are interested --- we don't want to link to them, because we want to keep this blog private.)
You may think that this is just us, that the secretaries behave this way because we are very obnoxious and rude people. This may be true of course, but I would like to note that all but one of the postdocs have trouble as well. One of them even received the weirdest email from Number 2, accusing him of badmouthing Chinese people. The email says that if he does not change his behavior, she will tell Papa (our ****less leader) and never allow him to visit the institute again.
Perhaps the most telling part of the email was the sentence "you have been a guest for xxx years". Yes, we are perceived to be only guests here. I guess that says it all.
That Friday morning we had some other business in the office where all 8 secretaries are seated. Ms. No ducked behind her monitor and grabbed the phone as soon as she saw us appear in the doorway. No word about the IDs, so we assumed we had found a face saving solution for all. Of course we were wrong. She had just cancelled everything, without taking our IDs. So no teaching evaluations, nor checking of the salary for us. (We still have the ID though to change money --- huzzah!)
When we realized that we couldn't access our evaluations, we wrote an email to Ms. No to ask her to help us to get our teaching evaluations. That afternoon we had some more business in the office, and lo and behold, Ms. No approached us after we were standing there for some time, pretending that she just saw the email. You might be able to guess her answer to our request of whether she could help us. Everyone was supposedly on holiday now, and only after the holidays she could help us. We asked whether she could call to make sure that these evaluations were not deleted, et cetera et cetera. To make a long story short, while we were arguing with Ms. No, a different secretary made a phone call and got our teaching evaluations. (You can find them on our webpages in the unlikely case that you are interested --- we don't want to link to them, because we want to keep this blog private.)
You may think that this is just us, that the secretaries behave this way because we are very obnoxious and rude people. This may be true of course, but I would like to note that all but one of the postdocs have trouble as well. One of them even received the weirdest email from Number 2, accusing him of badmouthing Chinese people. The email says that if he does not change his behavior, she will tell Papa (our ****less leader) and never allow him to visit the institute again.
Perhaps the most telling part of the email was the sentence "you have been a guest for xxx years". Yes, we are perceived to be only guests here. I guess that says it all.
Private restaurant
Yesterday, Amanda took us to a private restaurant near Nan luo gu xiang. There were many more great tasting and looking dishes, but it was too dark to take even reasonable pictures. Pictured above is the pork knuckle with ginseng.
These are eel bones, which taste surprisingly good. We also had the meat of the eel in a separate dish.
Melon. We further had: fruits, sparrow stomachs, red cabbage, lotus root, soup with bamboo fungus stuffed with fish, frog (good for knees), deer in cucumber, more fruits and vegetables, served on a stick, and finally eggplant noodles.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Moved!
We spent this weekend sorting out our things, pre-packaging some of it and moving everything else into the front room. On Sunday night things got a bit hectic when we needed to fill out our insurance list, but otherwise the weekend was surprisingly relaxing and fun (which should give you some idea of how we feel when we have to go to the office...)
This morning, two movers came to pack all our stuff. We thought it was a great deal to have them do this for only 75 euros.
Unfortunately, their packing - albeit efficient and careful - increased our shipping volume by 225%, adding a few hundred euros to our bill. Whoops!
Oh well, nothing to be done about. Let's just hope we see these THIRTY TWO boxes again in a few months in Saarbruecken.
This morning, two movers came to pack all our stuff. We thought it was a great deal to have them do this for only 75 euros.
Unfortunately, their packing - albeit efficient and careful - increased our shipping volume by 225%, adding a few hundred euros to our bill. Whoops!
Oh well, nothing to be done about. Let's just hope we see these THIRTY TWO boxes again in a few months in Saarbruecken.
Ikea is cool
The weather is hot. The air is ridiculously polluted. But, fortunately, Ikea offers free air conditioned living rooms and bed rooms to suffering Beijingers.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Korean Food
We are back in Beijing! We went to our favorite neighborhood Korean restaurant, where we had the menu that consists of some fifteen odd courses or so.
Bureaucracy
Number 5 of the six obligations of a student who gets funding to go to a conference is supplying "three photos of the applicant on the international conference (main conference room, giving a talk, and the hosting city)". So here you are:
Yes, we stretched the rules slightly: one of the pictures is A at the banquet instead of in the main conference room.
Yes, we stretched the rules slightly: one of the pictures is A at the banquet instead of in the main conference room.
Monday, July 19, 2010
We made it!
And we have a beautiful room with a beautiful view to boot, neither of which is visible on the photo.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
So relaxing... NOT
Somehow, sitting on the runway for FIVE hours, arriving in Guangzhou at 2 am, sleeping for a few hours till 6 am, taking a flight to Hanoi, waiting for 80 minutes for your luggage and hence missing your next flight, has not been too relaxing.
Subsequently having to scream at the China Southern dude, because he had the audacity to blame us that we waited for 80 minutes for our bags (with all the other passengers, and while frequently telling the staff that we were going to miss our next flight), was not too relaxing either.
Unfortunately, our screaming did not even pay off, and we are stuck staying at the Hanoi airport hotel tonight, which we have read should be "avoided at all cost". Hopefully, tomorrow we will make it to the conference/resort. Boooohooooo! What have we done to deserve this?!??
Oh well, at least we are enjoying the unrestricted internetz and some beef stew.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
This is not a blog post
We are not really able to give you a full account of the "party" today. Let's just say that we behaved. Everyone behaved. It was highly awkward, and not just for us. If you follow the institute's news items, I am sure you will read some wonderfully poetic stories about the warm and fuzzy feelings we all shared tonight.
Unfortunately, other events here, which may or may not be perfectly innocent, have sparked up our paranoia about how these last few weeks here will enfold. And we do not enjoy feeling paranoid.
BUT! The good news is that tomorrow we are off to Vietnam for a conference. This is where we are staying for this ordeal. (Before you think that we are just whiners who in fact are being treated really well (which in some sense is of course true): the institute refused to pay for the conference hotel, and we found a really good deal on this one!)
Unfortunately, other events here, which may or may not be perfectly innocent, have sparked up our paranoia about how these last few weeks here will enfold. And we do not enjoy feeling paranoid.
BUT! The good news is that tomorrow we are off to Vietnam for a conference. This is where we are staying for this ordeal. (Before you think that we are just whiners who in fact are being treated really well (which in some sense is of course true): the institute refused to pay for the conference hotel, and we found a really good deal on this one!)
Thursday, July 15, 2010
A little disappointed
What is wrong with you guys? Why do you think we always have to be adults? We were hoping that your advice would be more like the picture above.
Anyway, A found this great page combining two of my favorite things: kitties and Mel Gibson. Ok then, just one of my favorite things.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
About grading and suiciding - Part II
Thank you to Stefan and Lies for the good input on this dilemma.
When this student emailed us this weekend, we tried to contact other teachers to see if he also had trouble passing other courses. And we did our best to try to get the institute involved, in the hopes that they would know what to do in such a situation. (Having them contact a university counselor or mental health center would definitely have been a good idea. Unfortunately the language problems here mean that we have no way of doing such things ourselves or even finding out what the possibilities are.)
Then we just waited, because we really did not know what to do...
When the secretary called us yesterday morning, we were happy that at least someone else seemed to be getting involved. When we met with her and another secretary, she said that "she could not ask us to pass this student". And then she clearly did ask us to do just that by her non-verbal actions. We tried to get her to come up with some alternatives, because just passing this student really felt impossible and unfair to the other students.
In the end, F suggested giving the student a passing grade, but requiring that the student take the course again next year. And that apparently made the secretaries happy.
We feel more or less OK with this. We are happy to give this student another chance (although unfortunately, it is hard for us to know whether he deserves one -- it does seem that other professors are also doing their best to pass him). I hope that next time something like this happens, I will be in a more familiar culture!
By the way, Stefan, we are really curious what happened to your student?
When this student emailed us this weekend, we tried to contact other teachers to see if he also had trouble passing other courses. And we did our best to try to get the institute involved, in the hopes that they would know what to do in such a situation. (Having them contact a university counselor or mental health center would definitely have been a good idea. Unfortunately the language problems here mean that we have no way of doing such things ourselves or even finding out what the possibilities are.)
Then we just waited, because we really did not know what to do...
When the secretary called us yesterday morning, we were happy that at least someone else seemed to be getting involved. When we met with her and another secretary, she said that "she could not ask us to pass this student". And then she clearly did ask us to do just that by her non-verbal actions. We tried to get her to come up with some alternatives, because just passing this student really felt impossible and unfair to the other students.
In the end, F suggested giving the student a passing grade, but requiring that the student take the course again next year. And that apparently made the secretaries happy.
We feel more or less OK with this. We are happy to give this student another chance (although unfortunately, it is hard for us to know whether he deserves one -- it does seem that other professors are also doing their best to pass him). I hope that next time something like this happens, I will be in a more familiar culture!
By the way, Stefan, we are really curious what happened to your student?
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
About grading and suiciding
We need to determine the grades for our course, which - contrary to previous courses we taught - is not a no-brainer. Our students definitely "womaned up", or dropped out, after the initial (somewhat) rampant copying. (And, we adapted our expectations and homeworks, to be at a level a little bit lower than what we are told is a killer" MIT PhD level course.) Almost everyone will easily pass, and many will get a score of 100, because many students answered bonus questions and even corrected mistakes in recently published papers in prestigious conferences (WWW 2010).
Unfortunately, however, there is one student who really does not deserve to pass. He has not done anything (in fact, we were not aware of his existence) until the final, which he handed in one hour late (it was a take-home exam), and on which received only 45/100 (if we don't penalize for the late submission, which we would do with any other student). A few weeks later, during the weekend, and a few days before we are supposed to submit the final grades, we received his homework sets, which he himself admits were written "in his own words" after reading other people's answers. Something we explicitly do not allow at all.
Failing him is a no-brainer, but unfortunately, there are complicating circumstances.
He says he says he was not doing well (thinking about having to leave the university, and even suicide) at the beginning of the semester. Only after we told him that he could not pass, did he share this info. We asked the institute for input, and at first they told us that his grade was our decision.
This morning, we were called at 8 in the morning. We were even awake :) We were asked about this student, and about whether he would fail. If he fails another course, he will be kicked out of the university.
I am sure many of you have seen this situation before. Here is a student who we hear is not stupid, but who we have never seen and based on his work, deserves less than 30/100 as an overall grade. He may be suicidal. What should we do/what do you recommend?
I have no clue why they do not teach this in grad school :)
Unfortunately, however, there is one student who really does not deserve to pass. He has not done anything (in fact, we were not aware of his existence) until the final, which he handed in one hour late (it was a take-home exam), and on which received only 45/100 (if we don't penalize for the late submission, which we would do with any other student). A few weeks later, during the weekend, and a few days before we are supposed to submit the final grades, we received his homework sets, which he himself admits were written "in his own words" after reading other people's answers. Something we explicitly do not allow at all.
Failing him is a no-brainer, but unfortunately, there are complicating circumstances.
He says he says he was not doing well (thinking about having to leave the university, and even suicide) at the beginning of the semester. Only after we told him that he could not pass, did he share this info. We asked the institute for input, and at first they told us that his grade was our decision.
This morning, we were called at 8 in the morning. We were even awake :) We were asked about this student, and about whether he would fail. If he fails another course, he will be kicked out of the university.
I am sure many of you have seen this situation before. Here is a student who we hear is not stupid, but who we have never seen and based on his work, deserves less than 30/100 as an overall grade. He may be suicidal. What should we do/what do you recommend?
I have no clue why they do not teach this in grad school :)
Monday, July 12, 2010
Miscellaneous
Google leaving China?
I think not.
A's birthday cake.
It's a sign!
Cry for help? (This whiteboard was made for our visitors from CHUK, and probably more importantly, for the press that came along with them. After a couple of days a message in German was added. Not by us.)
I think not.
A's birthday cake.
It's a sign!
Cry for help? (This whiteboard was made for our visitors from CHUK, and probably more importantly, for the press that came along with them. After a couple of days a message in German was added. Not by us.)
Saturday, July 10, 2010
In memoriam
http://whattodayatewe.blogspot.com/2009/07/stinkpoes.html
Exactly a year ago today, we left you at the vet to be no more. How different the year would have been if you had made it. We still miss the idea of you.
P.S. Speaking of ideas, we believe sending the following email to us is a great idea for a birthday present for A: "If team Franke would like to get a cat to keep them company in Germany, and if future job prospects of team Franke require them to move to far away countries to which they cannot take said cat, then I hereby pledge to adopt said cat under said circumstances."
Exactly a year ago today, we left you at the vet to be no more. How different the year would have been if you had made it. We still miss the idea of you.
P.S. Speaking of ideas, we believe sending the following email to us is a great idea for a birthday present for A: "If team Franke would like to get a cat to keep them company in Germany, and if future job prospects of team Franke require them to move to far away countries to which they cannot take said cat, then I hereby pledge to adopt said cat under said circumstances."
Friday, July 9, 2010
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Hi Mom! We're on Television!
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| The Word - The White Stuff | ||||
| ||||
CNN has a story about how Chinese companies rent white foreigners to "go to meetings and conferences or to go to dinners and lunches and smile at the clients and shake people's hands," or to "simply sit in the office a few hours a day near the window where clients and customers can see them".
We are of course intimately familiar with such duties.
(In fact, we could be much more cynical and submit our whole time here as a case of "white monkey duty" (a term we prefer to "face job") but I decided to self censor.)
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Monday, July 5, 2010
Jinshanling Great Wall
To further add to our confusion the weather this weekend was extremely nice: hardly any pollution.
Foodz from the roadz:
If they had not grossly overcharged us, I would have given the address and highly recommended this place.
Meatfest Friday
We're trying to regain the 2 kilos both of us lost in the last two weeks. For A this is actually necessary, as she is getting a bit too thin. F on the other hand might just as well shed a few more kilos.
Also, salad:
Friday, July 2, 2010
What a day!
We fall from the one surprise into the other!
The fact that we were wearing our orange outfits this morning must have been what convinced number 2 to treat us right.
Besides, it was TWO against ONE.
The fact that we were wearing our orange outfits this morning must have been what convinced number 2 to treat us right.
Besides, it was TWO against ONE.
Confused
OK, we just met with number 2.
The meeting started as predicted (she said "I have no idea how you got the impression..." and "What do you want?") but surprisingly quickly she came out with her options. Which are OK.
We will get paid August 2, and need to stay around for a few more days to wait for the money to get through and take care of the paperwork. And August 10 we are FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
We don't know why we had to get insulted first, before reaching this perfectly fine agreement. But we are happy this has been resolved.
The meeting started as predicted (she said "I have no idea how you got the impression..." and "What do you want?") but surprisingly quickly she came out with her options. Which are OK.
We will get paid August 2, and need to stay around for a few more days to wait for the money to get through and take care of the paperwork. And August 10 we are FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
We don't know why we had to get insulted first, before reaching this perfectly fine agreement. But we are happy this has been resolved.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Learning a lot
After seeing the nice side of China, we now see a lot of the rotten stuff. We don't know if our institute is representative of China, but we pray to the gods it is not.
Anyway, I am learning things. About how important some things are that we take for granted.
- We cannot be sure our email (or even this blog) is not being read by our superiors. This did not worry us before. So what? we thought. What are they going to do with it? But all of a sudden, it does seem like a big deal.
- We do not have anyone we can turn to. The ....less leader is the supreme authority. No matter that he has a stake in this conflict, and therefore should not be the arbiter. In our case, this is frustrating, but not the end of the world. But in general, the Chinese seem to be in a much worse situation, because they could run into this kind of situation in any part of their lives.
- The giggling second-in-command does not shy away from bad mouthing us, and some of our colleagues don't seem to want to talk to us anymore. According to Amanda, this divide-and-conquer management style is quite normal for a Chinese supervisor. We must say we don't miss talking to these people, but what if we had had to stay and work with them for years to come?
And so, we feel blessed that we were not born in this part of the world. We do not mean to insult Chinese readers, because we do know that not all of China is this way. But China does seem to have a system with way too much corruption and nepotism that allows this kind of thing to happen.
And of course our ....less leader allowed it to happen, too. Something for which we still have no words.
Fortunately, we get to leave soon(ish).
Anyway, I am learning things. About how important some things are that we take for granted.
- We cannot be sure our email (or even this blog) is not being read by our superiors. This did not worry us before. So what? we thought. What are they going to do with it? But all of a sudden, it does seem like a big deal.
- We do not have anyone we can turn to. The ....less leader is the supreme authority. No matter that he has a stake in this conflict, and therefore should not be the arbiter. In our case, this is frustrating, but not the end of the world. But in general, the Chinese seem to be in a much worse situation, because they could run into this kind of situation in any part of their lives.
- The giggling second-in-command does not shy away from bad mouthing us, and some of our colleagues don't seem to want to talk to us anymore. According to Amanda, this divide-and-conquer management style is quite normal for a Chinese supervisor. We must say we don't miss talking to these people, but what if we had had to stay and work with them for years to come?
And so, we feel blessed that we were not born in this part of the world. We do not mean to insult Chinese readers, because we do know that not all of China is this way. But China does seem to have a system with way too much corruption and nepotism that allows this kind of thing to happen.
And of course our ....less leader allowed it to happen, too. Something for which we still have no words.
Fortunately, we get to leave soon(ish).
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