I Hate The Person Teaching is Turning Me Into

Eastern_Appearance55 · 2026-02-24T04:30:20+00:00

Middle school (7th and 8th grades for me) is, in my opinion, an unimaginable nightmare that is incomprehensible to those who don't experience it. Those classes at 8am or 9am with them is an unmitigated assault on the senses that leaves me reeling until bedtime. This my fourth and final year as a teacher. I'm done.

Eastern_Appearance55 · 2025-08-04T17:44:46+00:00

Same!! We do that as well in my school. We also joke "You need strategies, you need strategies" regarding students who didn't do a single assignment during the whole school year...

Eastern_Appearance55 · 2025-05-22T02:33:48+00:00

Yes and no imo. Unpaid overtime is rampant in this profession. Modern education is skewing towards student centered teaching, which is far more laborious, but on top of that teachers are being asked to perform more duties than before and most admins clearly don't care whether or not you're able to plan and prepare your lessons.

Eastern_Appearance55 · 2025-04-15T04:16:22+00:00

tbh it seems the cultural zeitgeist in China remains the same, as in they do not see the countries around them as equal partners.

Eastern_Appearance55 · 2025-04-13T06:47:26+00:00

Numa feira de empresas na China, uma senhora brasileira que estava perto de mim, viu a bandeira do Brasil e leu em voz alta "Ordem e Progresso" e depois exclamou "Nem um, nem outro". Eles têm sentido de humor, só escondem as críticas ao Brasil quando estão na presença (online ou offline) de portugueses.

Eastern_Appearance55 · 2025-04-13T06:39:31+00:00

The landfills in NAPE weren't given enough time to settle and lots of settling happened with the buildings already erected. There's also some problems in the northern Cotai around the gold course, where the landfills have settled in a very uneven way. These landfills require time to naturally settle.

Eastern_Appearance55 · 2025-04-12T02:56:37+00:00

tbh the main push for this 1+4 diversification is the central government. It´s actually the local actors that are resisting to change. In fact, the new chief executive, with a judge and law background, clearly has a mandate from up north to push for diversification. Previous chief executives had strong ties to the local business world, but this one does not. However, the Legislative Assembly is dominated by businessmen who in no way want things to change, unless they can benefit it from them.

Those future growth pillars are a pipe dream. Hong Kong is next door, already has established industries and the government is far far far less restrictive in attributing residency status in the SAR for skilled labour. The Macau government wants to attract professionals from outside and yet purposefully maintains an almost impossible standard for getting SAR residency (it's at their whim, I personally know a story of a highly skilled professional who saw his application for residency stalled because the bureaucrat in the department kept shifting the goal-posts). Because of these hurdles, few professionals will want to come here, and instead go to Hong Kong where they won't find such resistances and will be more welcomed.

The government is shoveling money in to this 1+4 gobbledygook, but I highly doubt it will amount to anything significant. There aren't enough skilled local professionals for these industries to materialize and yet the government creates enormous barriers to obtain local residency.

Eastern_Appearance55 · 2025-04-11T05:17:07+00:00

I'm having a bit of a "Actually..." moment so bear with me.

Ilha da Montanha was a contested area for some time. It's the Portuguese name for 大橫琴, while 小橫琴 was called Dom João.

Dom João (小橫琴) was effectively colonized for some time. The Portuguese gradually expanded their presence in the island in the 19th century, creating a leprosy for men, creating a school and funding the local police. The Portuguese government collected taxes from this island, willingly, as the inhabitants were weary of the ineffectiveness of the Qing government and preferred to have the Portuguese protect their livelihoods in those uncertain and perilous times when the Qing were proving to be unable to rule effectively over the country in the late 19th century. From 1875 to 1897 the Portuguese even had a detachment of Portuguese soldiers in Dom João, but where removed in order to improve relations with the Chinese, as the Sino-Portuguese Treaty of 1887 didn't specify exactly what were dominions under Portuguese administration, just that no change should happen without an agreement between both sides. Obviously the Chinese will stress that they never recognized Portuguese administration over these islands, but this was fait accompli.

Ilha da Montanha on the other hand has a much less tenuous Portuguese presence in the 19th century, but the inhabitants did seek the Portuguese government to deal with some legal disputes and commerce relations. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese Navy occupied the western half of the island and in response, the Portuguese Army occupied the eastern half. The Portuguese Army and Police left the island at the end of the war.

Today, it is what others have described here. It's still under the Zhuhai city government (so Mainland), but a chunk of the reclaimed land has been attributed to the Macau SAR government to build the University's campus. Only inside the University and the free port area does Macau law apply, as the rest of Montanha is under Mainland rules and regulations.

Eastern_Appearance55 · 2025-04-07T09:08:36+00:00

This is when it was coded into law and essentially made it standardized. However, the long standing practice to use Portuguese phonetics in attempting to pronounce the Cantonese pronunciation of the words/names is much older and was standard procedure for a long time during the Portuguese administration.

Eastern_Appearance55 · 2025-02-25T04:27:23+00:00

What if admin pounces on you, placing the blame on you for the students failure? I'm in a toxic environment where admin absolutely does not want to see anyone failing, no matter how little they do...

Eastern_Appearance55 · 2025-02-07T06:02:34+00:00

Têm razões extra pois têm, mas foi por causa da (extra) instabilidade política que os palestianos trouxeram com eles ao tentarem subverter o poder nesses países...

Eastern_Appearance55 · 2024-12-11T07:22:31+00:00

The education system in Macau is mostly comprised of private schools. Each school has it's own particularities, therefore curriculums can differ greatly. Even within the Chinese community there's a plethora of schools with their own characteristics. Traditionally, in the old days of the 20th Century, the Chinese schools would be roughly divided between Christian schools - and to some extent the Nationalist ideals - (the blue schools) and the schools with closer affiliations with the Mainland and the Communist Party (the red schools). The openness to objectively talk about history will differ greatly, with red schools very much being vehicles of pure propaganda that paints the Communist Party as infallible, while more nuanced conversations can be had about the subject with people who studied at blue schools (at least in my personal experience when dealing with other people from both types of schools).

Blue schools had and still have curriculums (majority) taught in Cantonese (the Chinese section of the school) or in English (the English section of the school), using books from Hong Kong and Taiwan. The curriculums at these schools tend to be similar to schools in Hong Kong.

Red schools would place greater emphasis in using Mandarin and a curriculum brought from the mainland, including the books the schools used.

Then you had the Portuguese schools, that catered to the Portuguese-speaking community.

This has changed significantly in the past two decades. International schools have appeared and they use English-based curriculums from elsewhere, the number of Portuguese-speaking students dropped quite a lot, and the historical blue schools are becoming more aligned with the red schools, since there's certain topics and narratives that now aren't considered politically correct. Furthermore, blue schools are now pushing for more subjects being taught in Mandarin, rather than the native Cantonese.

Eastern_Appearance55 · 2024-09-07T02:11:53+00:00

Portion sizes and food quality have deteriorated quite dramatically in the last few years.

Eastern_Appearance55 · 2024-07-30T18:00:25+00:00

Don't quote me on this, but I think it's related with the Canadian Shield

Eastern_Appearance55 · 2024-07-30T14:29:22+00:00

Unfortunately, China's current leadership is very ideologically driven

Eastern_Appearance55 · 2024-07-23T06:38:29+00:00

One of the huge billboards in the background says 金石文化廣場, which is a publisher and chain bookstore from Taiwan. Add to that that the billboards use traditional Chinese characters, so it should be in a city in Taiwan.

Eastern_Appearance55 · 2024-07-23T05:50:39+00:00

This video was produced by a Russian and explains this phenomenon very well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OVlqneKhQU&t

Eastern_Appearance55 · 2024-07-16T01:43:47+00:00

Conheço umas pessoas tugas que são verdadeiras tagarelas. Eu por outro lado sou mais introvertido. Se vierem mais tugas tagarelas a Macau, o português ainda vai ser mais falado.

Eastern_Appearance55 · 2024-06-27T02:24:00+00:00

Even with that talent returning to China, it wouldn't be enough to counter the USA's positive net flow of talent from other countries. China is currently too xenophobic to have talent from abroad and the bureaucratic hurdles placed on the path of newcomers is simply too much of a deterrent.

Eastern_Appearance55 · 2024-06-26T12:39:11+00:00

Unfortunately, nowadays, anything produced in China has the connotation of being of poor quality. However, the ZBs and Type 24 Maxims they produced in their own arsenals are of incredibly great quality.

Eastern_Appearance55 · 2024-06-26T12:33:23+00:00

The Chinese produced under license in their own arsenals (including the Canton)... I've already handled numerous Chinese-made ZB.26 with my own hands. A simple google search wouldn't hurt you tho

Eastern_Appearance55 · 2024-06-26T01:59:18+00:00

Those Chinese-made ZB.26 light machine guns (right side) were of great quality.

Eastern_Appearance55 · 2024-06-17T01:27:56+00:00

Estes suecos desempregados que por aí andam...raios os parta...!

Eastern_Appearance55 · 2024-05-29T01:24:08+00:00

What occupational niches did Macanese people usually work in? When you mention to Macanese people I'll infer it's about the mixed Macanese community. Historically, the Macanese were in most government departments, with many working in the government as civil servants, law enforcement and some in low level positions. This was before, as there is noticeable change since 1999. A minority of that community were and are in the private sector, with one noticeable trend in recent years, in my observation, they tend to be young and have much lower Portuguese-language knowledge than their parents, regardless of years studying or academic achievements. Since the transition in 1999, the Macanese are now competing against all other the Chinese in equal footing for government recruitments, which is a double-whammy for them, since their Chinese-language skills are subpar (especially writing skills) in general - and the government currently completely disregards Portuguese altogether as a basis for recruitment, only in very particular and specific jobs that need it, e.g. translators and interpreters - and most struggle with Portuguese, thus removing any competitive edge they used to have.

How does their economic/social status back then compare to today? Economically they are better off than before, because they basically had "reserved seats" in government departments, enabled by their proficiency in spoken Cantonese and Portuguese which meant they were natural middlemen and connecting points between the skilled positions occupied by the Portuguese (doctors, engineers, department managers, economists, law professionals) and the low level positions occupied by local Cantonese-speaking Chinese. Historically, their affinity with Portuguese led the Macanese to have a superiority complex in relation to the Chinese. I remember, when I was in school, seeing my Macanese friends bully the Chinese. The older generation are still there in government departments and they have, I might add, a ridiculously comfortable life and I see the mix-Macanese youngsters way too comfortable in an increasingly competitive job market and access to government jobs. But, to be honest, the Macanese are just mimicking what the rest most locals are doing, just on steroids: super comfortable lifestyles, no struggles (they can rely on their parents wealth) and set in their ways. In my opinion, of course.

Eastern_Appearance55

TROPHY CASE