Getting a Life
Trip Start
Jun 03, 2006
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39
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Trip End
Jun 03, 2009
Shenzhen, China
Monday, November 6, 2006
What I've never done is to live on my employer's campus. It throws up an interesting quandary because the line between work and play is far less clear, and maybe I see the line in a different place to others. It's being made increasingly obvious to me that I'm expected to be available 24 hours a day. This is never explicit, but comments, activities and organisation (or lack of) make your regular working life more awkward and uncomfortable if you're not available at the drop of a hat.
There are expectations and conflicts. Should I feel guilty...? No, but I do have to adjust. I could get up on my high horse and demand my personal freedom and rights as an individual, but this is China. It is, despite what many Chinese will tell you to the contrary, a collectivist culture. Therein lies the quandary. I see myself as an individual. I want to shape my own life, yet I live in a country where the employer-employee relationship doesn't include such liberal freedoms. Even more trickily, the local populace and my local colleagues cannot grasp such concepts even though they may nod and say they understand and accept it. They don't! It's not their fault, but it's weird to be in a situation where two sides should compromise and the other side doesn't even realise that there's anything to compromise over.
I don't know what the answer will be, but I'm not sure that I can stay on a campus forever. I just wonder what the reaction would be to me rejecting my employer's version of my life and moving outside. After all, it won't be seen as being about me as an individual, it will be seen as about me depriving the school of one of its prime marketing assets and breaking some promises that may or may not have been made to parents and students about socialising with foreign teachers. It is 2 views of the world!
