TeachOverseas recruiter

Henry Eu, the guy who does the recruitment for our summer staff via TeachOverseas is here. This makes anyone who has had to work in the summer immensely happy. Henry, having never been here before, would describe the conditions of our previous campus with the nice rooms and heavy tree forests, then when they would get here and find the cracked cement and wooden slat bunks, we would get the "But Henry said..." chorus. I don't know how many times a shocked summer staffer would stare at a squatty potty in disbelief and say "But Henry said that the rooms would be American style."

Ah yes, well since Henry said it, let me get out my magic wand and change everything to how you're used to, because you know, this trip of yours IS all about you. Sometimes I think Henry just made some things up to get people over here. So hopefully, with Henry being on campus today, the list of questions we get in the summer should dwindle.

"But Henry said you would be wheelchair accessible." Lady, this is China. OSHA would shut the entire country down if they could. There are parts of Beijing that are barely foot accessible, let alone wheelchair accessible. What part of "Great Wall" made you think it would be wheelchair friendly? Remember, what we view as a lawsuit waiting to happen, they look at as future entertainment.

"But Henry said the ATMs would work over here." They do...if you have a Chinese bank card. Or don't mind paying an eight dollar transaction fee from your bank which isn't used to dealing in yuan. Yet.

"But Henry said I would have my own room with my own shower." Haha. Sir, I am 26 years old. I have lived in a dorm style setting for the better part of ten years. Most of that time with a roommate and most of that time, shared a shower with a roommate and/or a whole floor and a peaceful, yet expansion minded colony of mold. I have been at TIP for almost two years and I just got my own room a bit ago. You're going to be here for all of six weeks, you can duke it out amongst each other on who goes to the showers first.

"But Henry said we'd be able to see (insert attraction here)." and we will certainly try our best to give you a cultural experience along with your service here. There should be time at the end of the session for you to do some sightseeing before you go back and we rejoice. But please understand, if you really wanted to see that, you should have talked to a travel agency, not an English volunteer service organization. You know, in all this time, I still haven't been to see the Summer Palace?

"Henry didn't say anything about (insert major cultural difference here)." Yeah, well...TIC