You wanted me to come back this forum and tell my experience, should I?

[AdamD]

My hunch is that sujeto backed himself/herself into a corner (hence falsely accusing other forum users of being 'aggressive' and 'manipulating' the thread) and has nothing more to say.

 

You're all wonderful for being concerned about sujeto's welfare, but I agree with roddy's hint that our energy should be expended on better topics and people.

[Silent]

 

My hunch is that Sujeto abandoned this thread because it became bloated with hundreds of irrelevant posts, including plenty of unsolicited self-help advice, rants, criticisms and diatribes in response to his original question

Though his post contained several question marks I had not the impression he was asking a question, he just responded to the forum request to receive an update on his situation. 

 

His post, by some classified as a rant, contained mainly problems, bad experiences and complaints. Obviously some very legit complaints, but also some complaints that seem to be caused by unrealistic expectations and his attitude. I think the self help advice is mostly legit and certainly well meant but not always formulated in a considerate manner. I can very well understand he can't appreciate the advice. If you don't feel well it's hard to stomach if people tell it's your own fault, specially in his case where there are some very legit complaints that may be considered the root cause of him not feeling well. I just hope things sink in over time as that might make this a valuable learning experience for him.

 

I guess the responses have the same problem as his post, they're biased. His post towards the negative experiences while he says he had good experiences too. The responses are biased towards what he, himself, could do to improve things and how he ignored some information given rather then confirming the legitimacy of his complaints.

 

Of course there's also the issue of diverting debates reducing relevance towards the original post but that's the way things go on an internet forum.

[anonymoose]

Several people confirmed the legitimacy of his complaints - or at least the legitimate ones. Several people acknowledged that the university was wrong to advertise courses in English, and then not provide them. I don't think anyone expressed a contrary view.

[Demonic_Duck]

Don't worry, he'll be back in a month or two, start a new thread and the whole cycle will begin again!

[hedwards]

If it helps anybody, I'll be back in China in a couple months and I'm sure I'll have plenty of things about the way they speak Mandarin in Guangdong to complain about. Not to mention whatever else is getting on my nerves at the time. :-P

[Johnny20270]

Some people just love one country and hate others. For me I have a strong love / hate relationship with China. I like most countries include some of the poorer ones like Cambodia, south east Europe (and don't mean siem reap).  I think Egypt is a sh#thole and would never go back. 

 

I can understand some of his sentiment though. Personally I read a lot of crap about china before I came here about how great the food was, culture, scenery, etc . Somne spectacular scenery but no-one ever mentions that you can't see sh#t without some group of Chinese talking loudly, spitting, pushing, shoving, littering following a guy yelling in a megaphone and running it for everyone

 

I went to the ncpa in beijing to see a classical music concert last Saturday. Rightly pissed me off! Completely ruined by the crowd. Worst behaved crowd I have ever seen in any country (and I have been to more than a few!) But you know, on the plus side, it has a spirit that somewhere like Korea never has for me. People certainly aren't bland, I'll give them that! 

[Lu]

I genuinely wondered what had happened to sujeto and was trying to encourage sujeto to let us know what had happened since he first posted in this topic.

I suppose I may be showing my naivety and faith in human nature but I do actually care what has befallen sujeto. For all the ranting and raving, underneath it all was unhappy person trying to make sense of whole new world and dealing with culture shock.

I feel the same way. I hope he'll find some way to work it out, so that he can still have a fruitful stay in China. I hope he returns in a while to let us know how he's getting on.

[roddy]

As abdcefg said: " it became bloated with hundreds of irrelevant posts, including plenty of unsolicited self-help advice, rants, criticisms and diatribes"

Agreed, and while I appreciate people might have enjoyed themselves, I don't think we added much of lasting value to the site, beyond perhaps the first couple of pages. You could argue spin-off discussions such as the native / non-native teacher one are valuable, but when nobody bothers starting  a new topic for them, they become effectively lost - nobody is going to be able to find them via search or idle browsing, and if they do they have to pick out that thread in amongst all the others. Yes, moderators can split those off, but frankly it'd be preferable if the members themselves took the initiative. I honestly fail to understand why this doesn't happen, it's a matter of a few clicks and the typing you were going to do anyway. But then, maybe you'll say that if it's so little work, I can do it myself. Fair enough. Edit: discussion of this by anonymoose. Yay Anonymoose.

 

And Silent: Of course there's also the issue of diverting debates reducing relevance towards the original post but that's the way things go on an internet forum.

No it's not. It depends on how people use it. There's no inevitability here. Someone could have said 'hmmm, I'll draft a list of things for prospective postgrads to consider' and we'd have a permanent and valuable resource. A couple of folks could have started new topics for emergent discussions and we'd have a handful of focused pages, rather than one long collective stream of consciousness. 

 

Have set this topic to close itself after the weekend. Enjoy your last words...

 

Edit: reopened a year later as the OP got in touch and said he had more to add....

[Simon_CH]

I see how the thread is heading towards its natural end roddy, but disagree about your overall assessment of it.

 

I think it was a good, honest discussion with a lot of sound advice and candid opinions, something this forum could use a lot more of. 

[AdamD]

Are you serious? This site is packed with sound advice and candid opinions. That's the whole reason I come here.

[Shelley]

I have to agree with AdamD.

 

Gave you both a green point by mistake. Never mind you probably deserve it for something somewhere

Edited January 18, 2015 at 08:47 PM by Shelley

[Simon_CH]

 

 

Are you serious? This site is packed with sound advice and candid opinions. That's the whole reason I come here.

 

I agree about sound advice, not so much about candid opinions. Most people here are very enthusiastic about living and studying in China, and it's mostly just a question of where and how, rather than if. But China is not for everyone, something this thread has shown rather clearly and doesn't get mentioned often enough in this forum. Studying, living, teaching, working in China makes sense for some, but certainly not for most. And that's why I appreciate this thread, because it's an extremely candid report of how brutal the cultural clash can be when someone comes very unprepared and with the wrong expectations. 

[Johnny20270]

Simon makes a very good point. 

 

Reading this forum at times one could almost think there is a lot of pro-china lobbyist at times. I'd argue that this forum is not a fair representation of the general public opinion of the country. In reality, China has (unfairly in my view) a pretty poor reputation in the world (certainly Britain) and in fact most people I know, after visiting here f#cking hate the place! Seriously. 

 

Now before starts to quote the above, please note: This is not a criticism, just an observation, as by nature of signing up to this forum we are generally interested in a combination of culture, language,country etc and generally adopt a favorable spirit towards the country / language.