coming to terms

I have finished first week of new term. Or maybe the first week of new term finished me. In Ost-Asia schools, experience of new term is somewhat the same. I am speaking to the German yesterday. "Oy, Karl! You OK over there?" He is sounding Chinese these days. He says, "Don't disturb. I have a füssball match tomorrow and much marking already." School for him is fun, and yet not. It is the story of teaching in Ost-Asia. Students mostly are keen to learn. Question is what they want to learn is keen or not.

The German is very good about talking of his school in circular terms. Terms that go round and round. This is another feature of Ost-Asia schools. You never know when expatriate staff can be retrenched for being too vocal or critical, so everyone speaks in riddles. It is like reading parables of Jesus before you drink morning coffee (thank you Alchemist for recommendation; two tbsp of Lavazza con crema in one 200 ml mug = alert intelligent civilized behavior).

We have to come to terms with all this if we want to work in Ost-Asia. Ost-Asia does not want to know it is doing stupid things but it wants to have solutions to stupid things. Yet it does not want to accept the solutions as solutions since that admits stupid things are happening. So it accepts the solutions as suggestions for improvement, and stupid things are called areas for improvement. It is all about improving. What is unsaid is that it is not really improving, but correcting stupid things that should not have been that way firstly.