I had a teacher at a kid’s school tell me that EVERYTHING they do is illegal for foreign teachers, not just their kindergarten classes. So, kids from probably 6-12. I’ve never heard anything about that before, is that correct?
It seems hard to find kids’ work without being illegal, or having to also teach illegal kindergarten for the school to accept you.
No, it is incorrect.
[quote=“TaiwanVisitor12321”]I had a teacher at a kid’s school tell me that EVERYTHING they do is illegal for foreign teachers, not just their kindergarten classes. So, kids from probably 6-12. I’ve never heard anything about that before, is that correct?
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That depends on what they do at this school but most foreigners have legal jobs teaching non-kindergarten students. One quick way to be illegally teaching is to have a work permit at one branch and work at several. Or to not have work permits altogether and hire foreign teachers (both native and non-native speakers) that have ARC’s thru Chinese study.
So you might need to clarify (or ask) what makes everything they do illegal at this school? Kindy work is definitely illegal but teaching age 6-12 should be legal unless you are talking about a shady school.
Sorry, I clearly misunderstood. I thought the OP was suggesting that all teachers teaching young learners were acting illegally. If the OP is referring to that specific school then, as Abacus suggests, we’ll need more details of what the school management are doing.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if something dodgy is going on, although it needs to be mentioned that the western teachers are usually complicit in these situations.
Well, it’s a chain school, with kindergarten in the morning and older kids in the afternoon.
From what I’ve figured out so far they just get the work permit for the older kids and have you teach kindergarten anyway, but this teacher that introduced us to the school says that ALL foreign teachers have to run and hide when the government shows up, kindergarten or not, it’s all illegal. This is just a teacher (Taiwanese) that introduced me to this place, not the management telling me this, and it seems like locals don’t know anything about kindergarten being illegal, so it’s really hard to get straight information about this stuff. The people I live with (locals) didn’t even believe me that kindergarten was illegal for quite a while.
I came here to teach kindergarten, but I had no clue it was illegal at that point, and that school screwed me over on day one anyway. I’m working adult classes but need plenty more hours, so I’ve been trying to get some daytime hours at kids places, but they don’t seem to like it when I tell them I’m not interested in morning classes. I was even recommended by the principal of several schools, who both assured me that afternoons only would be fine. Then they send me to talk to the HR lady and she just blows me off because I’m not interested in mornings and that’s the last I hear from them.
I’m asking about kids being illegal because now everyone I live with is mad and says I should just give up finding kids work since now they think it’s ALL illegal. I’d probably be willing to just risk kindergarten, but there’s a good chance I’ll stay long term or even get married here so getting deported probably wouldn’t be too good.
No, they know the law, they just won’t tell you. The Taiwanese have a fetish for not answering questions. If you’re an inquisitive person, then you’d better be prepared for some thoroughly infuriating exchanges.
ex.
Foreigner : I had a strange experience at 7-11 the other day. I was standing in line, and a little brat hit an old woman with a bag of M&Ms. When I told him to say sorry, the little shit told me to F off and his mother just shrugged. Then I glanced around and everyone was staring at me, as if I had done something wrong. What’s up with that?
Typical Taiwanese : Really, that’s strange.
Foreigner : Ya, but, why would they do that?
Typical Taiwanese : Ya that’s really strange.
Foreigner : But the kid was a little shit, why were they scowling at me?
Typical Taiwanese : Ya, that sounds frustrating.
If you want answers from your boss, you need to go in there knowing the answers already. When they say that the law says you can teach, that’s when you pull out a copy of something like this http://www.cla.gov.tw/cgi-bin/siteMaker/SM_theme?page=432f7d3f and tell your boss that you’ve been looking into the matter. That’s when she’ll realize you’re not just a dumbass FOB and she can’t jerk you around. It’s ridiculous, time consuming, and just plain stupid, but hey, “you just don’t understand Taiwanese culture”. :eh:
You need to remember that in East Asian cultures the law tends to be more regional than in western cultures. By that I mean that an interpretation of an existing law could vary considerably between one place and another. This is neither right nor wrong, just different. It does make it frustrating for westerners when they look for rules to follow. There often isn’t a clear cut answer.
In my neck of the woods it is against the rules (AFAIK) to have a school which functions jointly as a kindy and a buxiban (or a buxiban and an anxiban). A school can only do one of the three. If a school owner is looking to operate an illegal kindy/buxiban operation she or he will apply for a kindy license and run the school as a kindy with some buxiban classes. To attempt the reverse would almost certainly get the school shut down as the rules for kindy licences are, understandably, tighter.
Therefore, when the school receives its regular raid it is listed as a kindy and therefore it is assumed that all teachers are teaching kindy. Consequently everyone has to hide, even if they are genuinely only teaching kids aged 6+ in the buxiban section.
I’m sure that some posters will state that I’m wrong, and they will probably be right. You need to stop tying yourself up in knots over what is legal and illegal. It varies. Just take a calculated punt on what you feel is the right thing to do and you’ll almost certainly be right. Don’t teach students under 6 and only work at licensed schools that feel like they take education seriously seems like a good rule of thumb.
Are you implying the Taiwanese aren’t frustrated? :roflmao: They are just as frustrated as us. The difference is that they’ve been taught from day one that when they come across something confusing, it’s best to just shut your mouth and don’t ask stupid questions that you don’t want to hear the answer to anyway, all the while plotting on how to put the blame on someone else, should the shit hit the fan. Westerners tend to be taught to, oh you know, ask for clarity when they come across confusing things. Then when things go bad, we tend to tell the truth about the situation. Different culture and what not.
And anyway, lest the OP be confused, the law is not different in Taouyuan, or Kaoshiung. It’s just the enforcement that is insanely inconsistent…Or consistent, depending on your view of red envelopes.
That’s why I used the word ‘interpretation’.
No, they know the law, they just won’t tell you. The Taiwanese have a fetish for not answering questions. If you’re an inquisitive person, then you’d better be prepared for some thoroughly infuriating exchanges.
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The people I was talking about not knowing about kindergarten laws though were just regular people I know here, not the boss. I’d certainly hope the people running the schools hiring foreign people know about it. I’ve met some nice people that have tried to help me find schools or who have introduced me to the principals of these schools (which also confuses me, since the boss of the school welcomes me with open arms, then their underling doesn’t like my hours, which the principal knew about, and that’s the end of that… I would have thought the boss had some influence?) and they keep finding kindergartens for me. I try to explain to them that I can’t do that, and they’ve never even heard anything about that being illegal. I live with my Taiwanese girlfriend and her whole extended family knows nothing about it. If I didn’t see so many people online talking about it, I’d think it was just some online rumor with so many people in Taiwan telling me they’ve never heard of that and they can’t see why that would be illegal.
I’ve never actually brought up kindergarten being illegal in an interview, I just tell them I have adult classes in the mornings so I won’t be available for kindergarten hours. My girlfriend thinks they’d get mad if I asked them if they were breaking the law.
I’ve heard the line about not understanding Taiwanese culture, or Asian students before, and I’d have to agree. It’s a pretty weak excuse to throw at me sure, but the longer I’m here the more confused I get about what these people expect from me. I get opposite stories about how things work wherever I go.
One school’s HR lady thought I was afraid of kids (she never actually saw me interact with kids, she just thought I was being “too serious” while at a JOB INTERVIEW with her. That school’s principal had met me before and told me my personality was great, and with some practice, since I’m new, I should be great. After the total failure at the school with the HR lady with obviously different opinions, the principal then actually took me out for lunch at a nice restaurant and even brought a couple students for me to practice with and concluded that she didn’t know what the hell the HR lady was thinking by turning me down… yet she can’t overturn or influence her decision. She even helped me find other schools, but they all want kindergarten.
My (Taiwanese) girlfriend doesn’t understand my thinking when I suggest that the boss of a company should have some influence. It seems like Taiwan is all about pulling strings and knowing people, yet the boss can’t tell their employees what to do? I don’t expect them to automatically give me jobs or anything, but I’ve met people that have gotten me n with the principals of a few different schools now, and that doesn’t seem to mean much.
If I could get enough adult hours I think I’d just forget these kid schools completely, I seem to be able to deal with them just fine. I’m dealing with a kids school now and making good progress, but the hours they want to give me are very part time, and overlap with evening adult classes… the entire point of going there is to get hours in the daytime, not to block hours that schools I’m already at could be giving me… It’s a big mess.
I love FoB’s so naive, honest and looking for the truth.
Illegal in Chinese translates loosely as I got caught and actually prosecuted. If you’re not caught, it’s not illegal. The law was passed by a group of legislators who thought one way, applied by a ministry another in a different manner and enforced by the police only when it needs to be registered as a bust to fill their quota.
The employees know exactly what the owner wants and there is normally no leeway. Your gf thinks your idiot because it is blindly obvious to her, but not you and she can’t understand how you can’t see it.
[quote]the principal then actually took me out for lunch at a nice restaurant and even brought a couple students for me to practice with and concluded that she didn’t know what the hell the HR lady was thinking by turning me down… yet she can’t overturn or influence her decision. She even helped me find other schools, but they all want kindergarten.[/quote] :roflmao: Try to figure out what really happened here and get back to me.
:roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao:
It’s not your fault TWvisitor, you’re probably just used to people being frank with you. You’re also probably used to asking questions, and having them answered. You’ll learn soon enough though.
But to get back to the matter at hand. Go directly to your boss with a folder of papers. Tell her you are very concerned about your ARC status and you want it cleared up. When she starts her non answer, whip out your stack of papers (it could be a list of menus for all it matters) and tell her it’s a copy of Taiwan’s employment law that was given to you by an employee at the Labor Department. Tell her you’d like her to show you the specific statues relating to your status. You’ll be guaranteed to get a straight answer then.
If you’re implying that it was a “free” (except for lunch) private session, I don’t know about that. I spent more time talking with the principal than the kids she brought with her, unless some smalltalk with them was taking advantage of me, then, uh… I guess they did? It’s not like I taught a lesson. That school thought I was afraid of kids for some crazy reason, so she brought some to see how I reacted to them. They weren’t even kids actually, they were in high school. Seems like a whole lot of trouble for what they got if that’s what you think it was.
In recent news in my ongoing trouble with schools wasting my time, I’ve found a kids school where I’ve interviewed, demoed, they loved me, but OOPS, we don’t actually have hours for you like we said (even giving me the weekly schedule of each class that apparently now doesn’t exist)! But you can go to this other town really far away, and work there instead!
So, since I can’t really go there, I guess I’m not (no train that goes there). Why not just tell me that other branch was where the hours were in the first place? They dealt with me for a week before this, so isn’t that just a huge waste of their time? Not sure where not telling me about that upfront does anything to benefit them.
For a place that seems to think living at work is a good thing, they sure don’t know anything about efficiency. Maybe that’s why they live at work here.
Face time with a foreigner is expensive and a real treat for some students even if they don’t talk nor appreciate it. Taiwanese who can converse easily with foreigners are often held in some weird sense of high esteem. It can be very hard to explain to someone who doesn’t have enough experience with it. The principal gained guanxi and face by treating you to lunch with the students. Taiwanese will go to absurd lengths by western standards for face and guanxi.
Learn to play the game and how to read them. I would suggest the 2 books that taught me how to deal with them more effectively, “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” and “Thick Skin, Black Heart”.
They will often use the psychology trick of promising you something then altering it slightly. Since you have already committed to the original plan, you’d be loathe to break the agreement. They will also offer you things they know you wouldn’t accept as a sign to you that they are trying to help when in reality they aren’t and couldn’t give a toss, but they really can pull off that fake sympathy. 
Basically if a Taiwanese tells you it’s raining outside, then you fucking go out and check it actually is raining.
Taiwanese have a whole different relation to time than we do in some cases. Pick up T.L. Yang’s translation, “Officialdom Unmasked”. That book written around 100 years ago is very relevant to the present day and you still see the same shit happening. It will also make you laugh and cry at the same time. Richard Hartzell’s “Harmony in Conflict” may also help, but will be difficult to find and is frustrating for the western reader. Just a note, Taiwanese will waste the time heedlessly of people they consider beneath them.
To paraphrase Okami: "You’s gettin’ PLAYED. Big time. 
Trick is to roll with it. One day, you’ll know how to play the game and THEN!!! Man!!! You’ll see the door open to 3 hours a week at NT$550/hour and you’ll be LAUGHING! 