Chinese expecting me to do their homework

[tallcity]

Hello,

 

I have learned Mandarin enough that Chinese here in Denver generally are aware that I speak it.

I might meet some new people occasionally, but it always goes in the same direction.. they want me to do their homework.

The nicer ones don't expect that, but they text over photographs of book pages, and want me to translate, and if I don't understand the meaning, I get a lot of crying emoijs. They don't seem to understand that I find legal and scientific papers a little boring, and not my field.

One time, working at the Confucius Institute as a work-study, a Cantonese coworker dropped off her laptop, told me to correct her essay while she went out for lunch (none of it for me)..I read maybe a page, and when she came back, i told her it was fine.

 

Any other experiences to share, or advice on how to communicate that you... really don't want to be their worker / teacher ?

[陳德聰]

If these people are not your friends, I would just flat out tell them that I am not a tutor (I am a tutor but I choose my students carefully) and that that service generally costs money. If these people are your friends, then why don't you just tell them that you don't have time? Crying emoji are just crying emoji... You don't have to care.

 

Edit: I think your story about your coworker is a bit disingenuous. If you weren't willing to help her, why would you tell her it was fine? She should not presume to tell you what to do, and I am a bit suspicious that she would just give you her laptop to correct her essay without any other background such as you having offered before or perhaps she was just asking and not telling, but there was a miscommunication. You should just be direct. By lying, you have effectively told her that you are available for that service. You're the one giving mixed messages...

[Melanie1989]

My first language exchange partner was like this. She asked me for help once and i agreed to it (we'd been chatting for a few months or so prior), then it became a regular thing. She didn't even want me to explain what was wrong with things that i'd corrected, she just wanted to pass. She was a nice enough girl and she did help me a lot so this continued for a while. 

 

Eventually she would only really get in touch with me whenever she had homework and, whenever i had a question, she would just email me links to "learn Chinese" websites! You have to reach your limit i guess and decide how much of a pushover you want to allow yourself to be. One day i just flat out said to her "Ok, you're taking the mick. I'm here for us to help each other, not to help you cheat your way through English class. I'm not doing your homework any more". Funnily enough, i never got a reply and her Skype account was soon deleted.

 

I think it's important to establish your boundaries from the start and let them know exactly what you are, and aren't, willing to do.

[Hofmann]

Charge them for it. If they're not willing to pay, leave them.

[Shelley]

advice on how to communicate that you... really don't want to be their worker / teacher ?

 

Just that -

you... really don't want to be their worker / teacher ?

 

Just tell them no.  If they only want you for your homework skills, then you won't miss them as friends, because they are not. Don't worry about how they feel, they obviously don't care about how you feel.

[ZhangKaiRong]

Yeah, shut the doors and don't look back. At my university, we had this exchange buddy system we could apply to. My uni got super popular with Chinese students in the last three years, and the international office had a serious headache to find anybody who could communicate with them, as their English sucked, and they couldn't say a word in my native language. So I was assigned to be a buddy of several Chinese students. I was happy; I got back home from China, so I felt glad for the chance to speak Chinese. And it all started, I became a regular homework-doer for them for every subjects: microeconomics, calculus, IT, finance, etc. I also started working full-time in that September, so I had time for such things on weekends - full time as well. Most of the fellow students contacted me solely for arranging an appointment for homework doing - and it was clear they did not care about understanding a thing I did for them. After a month I got fed up and told them I was not their appointed 奴隶 and they should start making some effort because they will fail miserably on the exams. Wechat messages stopped from them. I still don't regret, I found Chinese friends who appreciate the time spent with me rather than the time I spend on their homeworks...

[somethingfunny]

 

 

Charge them for it. If they're not willing to pay, leave them.

 

^^ This.

 

I'd not necessarily ask them for money but I would recommend you start viewing the skill-set they're trying to exploit as a marketable good.  Being a foreigner in China really brought this home to me.  If I'm out and about and a cute Chinese kids comes up to me and says "haaallooo" then sure I'll talk to them, or if it seems like someone is making a genuine effort to talk to me out of interest then thats ok.  But if I get a 12 year old kid coming up to me with her mom pushing her from behind with "free English lesson" written across her face then I definitely don't have time for that.  It's kind of sucky yeah, but why should I give up my free time having the same lame conversation that I could be getting paid to have if I was sat inside a training school.

 

Twice I've helped Chinese friends clean up the English in research papers they were looking to publish.  Actually, in both cases they were friends of my friend.  On both occasions I didn't mind because I'd known my friends for a long time, they'd done a lot to help me, and I got a nice big dinner at the end of it!

[rayne]

This is why I don't do language exchanges. Especially since I'm an English teacher. When non-native English speakers hear that... the look on their faces just completely changes. They look like happy, hungry wolves. It's quite funny. 

 

If you want to turn them down politely, I would suggest you say you have decided to do tutoring on the side and will start charging at XX$ per hour. Make it really high if you don't actually want to do it. 

 

Example:

Acquaintance:  Hey tallcity, can you correct this essay by Friday?

tallcity: Oh, you've heard? I've officially started tutoring. I usually charge $40 per page for a science paper but since we're buds, I can do $30? But Friday's a bit soon because I have other clients, so I'll have to charge an extra $5 per page. So it looks like you have 15 pages here... that's $525... Let's make it a round $520, since you're a new client. Deal? 

 

Make sure to drag it out and negotiate to seem like you're serious. Say you can take off the $5 per page if the deadline's on Monday instead, etc. 

 

It has worked for me. I've lost 'friends' who only wanted me to do 100% of the "helping". They basically wanted a free English teacher. I've kept people who really wanted to be friends, but just needed help sometimes. I've also gotten a few clients who were crazy rich enough to accept my outrageous prices. 

[Flickserve]

So far, I have avoided students. The few people that I have contacts for are older. I have not yet come across this issue but this is all useful stuff!

[roddy]

I'd be tempted to try the old honesty trick. "I don't want to do this. It's boring. Let me know when you're done, we can play together."

 

I'd have a limited amount of sympathy for these people - many of them will be on courses they simply don't have the English for. Not so much sympathy I'd proofread their essays though. 

[889]

Also, the polite, subtle approach will not work. Respond with an Angela Merkel emoji and you won't get your point across.

All you can say is No, so phrased.

[Demonic_Duck]

Angela Merkel actually has quite an expressive face, though. I prefer Xi Jinping emojis as an analogy for not expressing emotions.

 

Happy Xi

 

Sad Xi

 

Angry Xi

 

Embarassed Xi

 

In-love Xi

 

Cool Xi

 

Amused Xi

 

Disappointed Xi

 

Cheeky Xi

 

Poker-face Xi

 

"I ***ing hate you Shinzo Abe" Xi

 

The whole emoji set is available for use on your personal website for a bargain price of $40 per emoji. $30 $35 if we're friends.

[889]

Yes, she's got 1001 faces, but I was thinking of the the Merkel Nein we've seen so often in recent weeks.

(That's free for the taking, by the way.)

[Demonic_Duck]

Ah, but conversely, the Merkel "nein" face is actually very good for expressing "I'm not gonna put up with yo' crap any more".

[889]

It's meant to say, "And don't even think of asking me again!"

[abcdefg]

Habits learned in school carry over into adult professional life.

 

I've had requests from physician friends here to help them paraphrase medical texts that they are plagiarizing as part of "original" papers they are writing for scientific publications.

[shuoshuo]

My Chinese friends here in China are like that. You should help them out when you can, but you should also find ways in which they might be able to help you. Recently a friend of mine kept asking me to correct her English homeworks. One day we had a surprise open book quiz in class. I sent her a message telling her to drop everything that she's doing, sent her all the questions to the quiz and told her that I needed the answers asap. She actually sent them to me! You scratch my back, I scratch yours! You'll be surprised at what the Chinese would do for you.

[Demonic_Duck]

As we all know, two wrongs make a right!

[Flickserve]

Habits learned in school carry over into adult professional life.

I've had requests from physician friends here to help them paraphrase medical texts that they are plagiarizing as part of "original" papers they are writing for scientific publications.

This is actually a very difficult task and needs a high level of ability to convey the meaning of the original article. Writing a medical research paper is very difficult, even for a native speaker, unless one is an experience research paper writer.

I myself keep an open mind - after all, a person who does research may be an excellent thinker, but not necessarily into learning English. I do understand there is a lot of plagarism around though. It happens all over the world, not just China.

[abcdefg]

Fortunately, I do posses the necessary technical vocabulary and have written my share of medical research papers so I usually wind up helping my friends out. Often they are presenting some extremely useful findings, making genuine contributions to the body of knowledge in their specialty field. Least I can do is help with word choice and syntax. Furthermore, I learn interesting things in the process.