Dealing with certain difficult Foreigners

[isela]

Sorry to hear your story.

I don't have any better advices, as there's already plenty of real good ones here.

I'll wish you courage and good luck to solve the problem soon!

Meanwhile, hope that you can take good care of yourself. Don't get wounded by cigarettes before your enemy gets to you!

p.s. let us know how this goes later on!

[simonlaing]

I sympathize with the Original poster.

My first year in China I was in a suburb city of Suzhou, (a pretty tourist town sometimes given the title one of the two cities in China that are paradise on Earth.)

The second 6 months of a contract at a school we had a teacher who came and was similar to your coworker except for the sex tourist part. He whined and complained about almost everything and was very needy but then was judgemental and gossipy negative of almost everyone around including insulting people to their face.

I think animal world's advice is the most appropriate. You must put down boundaries and stick to them strongly. Since you have to interact with him in the school professionally you may want to just restrict his visits to your house and other issues.

I would advise you not to worry about what gossip he would talk about you as people would realize who is the one talking about it and take it for what it is.

At our school the immature, oblivious to boundaries and appropriateness teacher found 2 English teachers in the school to hang out with and deal with all his issues. Encourage him to travel on the weekends to Shanghai or other big cities around yours so you don't have to deal with him on the weekends. (Plus he will be able to being annoying in a city that is used to dealing with some annoying westerners)

For the classes that you covered for him, you should be paid his class hour payment or overtime. If he asks why you don't want him to help him as much cite the issues he has infringed on you, not paying back 500 yuan, making you cover his skipped classes and other inappropriate behavior.

When he talks at work, I find the nodding technique works. Just nod silently that you heard and act bored (which you're probably bored) but don't agree or object or talk to him about it)

If it is in the office or at a meeting you can say how you don't think this topic is appropriate for the work situation.

Don't sweat this guy he will be gone in 1 year if not 6 months and the city will go back to being cool and laid back. You can control how and what interaction you have with him outside of work so use that control.

Also this is probably not the first sex tourist you may encounter in China. Count your blessings he is not doing worse things like watching porno in the teachers office, teaching while he is high on drugs or sleeping with students....

Good luck,

Simon

[chinadude2006]

I think all of you have been fooled, this post smells like a troll post. He claims to be studying Chinese because he wants to move to Japan in 2 years because of anime, ok then why not study Japanese and if you want to get rid of a person, just ignore them, simple as that.

[BrandeX]

You read that wrong. The "bad guy" said those things TO the poster.

[animal world]

I have to confess being a tad disappointed that the OP didn't see fit to make even a one-sentence post to thank us collectively for caring about his situation and offering him our best advice. Oh, well...

[imron]

Maybe his friend also reads the forums and beat him up after reading that post, so he hasn't been able to reply?

[ciaocaio]

@animalworld: Sorry about that. I was sort of embarrassed to come back here. It was a bit of a eTantrum and I appreciate all the positive feedback here.

I took your advice, animal and Yuahuanhao, in having a chat with him at work. I started with, "you need to mellow out a bit here" tried to politely point out some situations where he's made some Chinese girls angry and pointed out how the locals are old-fashioned. He acted cool about it and has been avoiding me ever since aside from "how's the weather" chit-chat. He seems pretty uncomfortable around me now. I tried to make it seem like I was giving him advice as someone who's lived abroad a few years so he didn't get angry... seemed to work, in that it got him off my back for the time being.

Also, don't worry about me thinking Americans are like him: I've seen the good side of Americans here in China, too.

I was venting last Sunday. I had just finished a long week with insane overtime like I've never had there (see above), and I got home and freaked out. Now that I've had a normal work week (and now that I have the actual overtime money in the bank) I've been able to reflect a bit and I'm a bit ashamed about the original post: it was pretty tantrumy.

As for telling anyone, I don't know if I could. It's complex and I just deleted a couple tl;dr paragraphs.

There's a long-standing opening at another branch of the school (it's an after-school training centre) in a nearby city in the prefecture: It's got it's pros and cons but I ignored it originally mostly because I've moved too much in my life and I want to setlte down now that I'm getting old.

If it gets really bad I'll ask for a transfer. If his crazy escapades explode into something big I don't want any part of it. It's not a matter of not having balls: it's a matter of never having wanted to be part of it. I chose to live in a small city in China for a reason and it's not because I'm some badass guy who lives on the edge.

Thanks for your understanding and all your advice, everyone. I really do appreciate you guys reading that with a sympathetic eye, and it was really helpful to get outside points of view

~ caio

[Lu]

It's not necessary to repeat the entire story to people, but you might want to mention to coworkers that you and American Guy don't really get along. If the guy does get out of hand, at least they'll know you didn't wish to be associated with him.

In any case he'll be gone in a year, right? No need to move then.

Good luck!

[animal world]

ciaocaio, good to hear from you and great that the dilemma has been solved. Since your nemesis handled it well, there's no need to talk with anyone at school about it. You might want to drop the occasional hint that you and this fellow foreigner are "just colleagues but nothing more."

Oh, if you move each time you meet obnoxious people, you'll be forever on the move.

Assuming it's okay, i would like to send you a short PM with a few questions.

[jbradfor]

He seems pretty uncomfortable around me now. I tried to make it seem like I was giving him advice as someone who's lived abroad a few years so he didn't get angry... seemed to work, in that it got him off my back for the time being.

"for the time being" seems to be the critical phrase here. Just be prepared for when he gets over your criticism and reverts to his old ways, what you will do then. Because if you revert back to your old ways, nothing is changed long term.

[SirDude]

First, when he calls you or knocks at your door, I would use the line that every other woman in the world seems to use to blow off a guy, "I am washing my hair" or "I'm about to wash my hair" etc etc, "I can't talk right now, bye!"

And since he's from NYC, not to offend the rest of the people in the state of New York. (they'll know what I mean) You need to deal with this with clear, up front actions, too many people from NYC have this, "My crap doesn't sink" attitude. Or, the word NO, mean you just didn't understand my offer.

So I say tell your employer that you have tried to stop this guy and if that doesn't work, kick him in the nuts! He's from NYC, he'll understand that.

The next time you hear a woman from NYC talk about needing to tough, it's because of guys like this. They eat people like you for breakfast.

Sorry for the NYC bashing, but I deal with too many of them every winter down here in FL. They think they own the place or something.

[SirDude]

OH, one thing I forgot to add, I read this post while looking up some ESL / TESOL information on a teacher's forum, sorry, don't know the site off the top of my head, but the person was talking about how a scum-bag like your boy friend was going around bragging about all the Chinese girls he had used / slept with and the guy found himself beat-up pretty bad by a bunch of locals.

I know it was somewhere on the ESLTeachersBoard.com, I was thinking that maybe in under some kind of warning about how to act in a different country???

So if your employer knows anything about people being beaten up over stuff like this, I would bring that to their attention. Plus, in general, I think he sounds like a bad enough employee that it would look bad on everyone, including the company to have this continue.

Plus, it sounds like you have a pretty good record of what's been going on, but you may want to keep some kind of notes / dates, etc that if the crap does hit the fan you can show it was him. Not just your word at the moment, but write proof that he's been doing all these things.