Pissed!

I'm a NET in a local HK school. It is evident that the local teachers feel quite strongly about the NET scheme that EMB introduced. I'm offered a contract with different T&C, my workload is deemed lighter in comparison to my local counterpart in the English Panel (i.e. in case you're wonder WTH is a English Panel, it means EL department), and I'm not expected to do any adminstrative work because I don't speak Cantonese or write Chinese. I also get to colour my hair in whatever shade I like, much to the dismay of the local female teachers who were expected to only spot one hair colour - black. I also get a special allowance on top of my basic salary (PS: that's basically to help me pay the exorbitant rent here!) And my being Asian-Chinese does not help to pacify the inequality because unfortunately, they see me as a comrade. So, their point, I presume, is, why should I get special treatment and they slog in the same job and get paid less (and we're all Chinese in race)?

I'm pissed today because of this single sentence that was used on me today: "I think you should do this too, because Sarah and Mr Lee are also doing it." FYI, Sarah is the TA (aka teacher assistant) and Mr Lee is a newbie who does not have much experience teaching and the reason why he's employed at this time of the year is because he's here to finish marking all the assignments for his colleagues, dig? Anyway, back to the pissing (no puns intended) scenario, this was how it all started. I was asked, even begged, if I'm permitted to use the word, to give the Form 4 and 6 students more chances to speak in English, so I was asked to design a form for students to sign up. Now, that's not my job to design a freaking form. Fine. I did it anyway. Then, the students do not turn up, so I was pissed because I hate to wait. So, I told the PC about it and viola, guess what? I was told that in order to cover my arse (I beg your pardon), I should be filling in forms (one for each student, mind you) to remind the students to turn up for the extra class that I'm giving them after school, which, by the way, is out of my job scope. Then, I should give the forms to the GO on the same morning and if the students still do not turn up, firstly, I have to let their English teachers know about it and then, fill in another form so that they'll have performance scores deducted from them. Oh, did I mention that the forms are all printed in Chinese? Never mind, and do you know why I should even be doing this in the first place? Well, (quote and unquote PC this morning) "I think you should do this too, because Sarah and Mr Lee are also doing it."

So, I'm pissed off with 2 things, first, doing idiotic admin work when the TA should be doing it for me, and second, being juxtaposed with 2 persons who aren't even professionally on par with me.

No, I'm not a bureacratic person, neither am I so full of myself that I'm throwing my weight around in HK, but in a society where the citizens greatly value hierarchy, why do I not get treated the way I should be? Is it simply because I'm yellow and not white?

You know what? Sometimes I wonder if such situations were created unintentionally because of the lack of proficiency in the language that is necessary to foster effective communication? Do they really mean what I thought they meant, or is it because they do not know how to use the words correctly?

Let me end with this: Some Form 6 students (equivalent to JC1 in SIngapore) do not know the difference between 'cancel' and 'postpone'; they thought it's all and the same.