Serious problems? This was news to me.
"Who are these students?" I asked skeptically.
"Look!" she retorted, whipping out papers and holding them up to my face accusingly.
It seemed just about 100% of my Diplomacy and Law students had signed letters of complaint about me.
What on earth were the complaints?
Wang Yan actually refused to discuss details of the complaints. Details were beside the point. There was clearly something wrong with my attitude. How, she demanded rhetorically, could all the students be wrong?
And no, I couldn't get a copy of the letters. She had to protect the students from me, she said.
I'd received a hint — only a hint — of discontent shortly before the meeting with Wang Yan. A Law student who didn't know the answers to a test had instead written me a message claiming the students disliked my teaching. This had prompted me to email the whole class to inquire whether there was a problem. I received only positive responses — and they were sent only days before the same students signed the complaints. Excerpts:
Hi, Uriel:[Your class] is very chanllenging for us, and we have to be always alert, and smart in your class, but I think that is OK, and we could learn a lot in your class.
The problem might be, sometimes our way of thinking is a little bit different, due to some culture differences, which I think is very natural. Sometimes I just couldn't figure out what indeed you are asking, but when you expained it, I think I knew the meaning, just did not know that would be the answer you were expecting. But I think I am getting used to it, and I am trying to develop my logic and knowledge as well.
Best,
hello! Uriel,
To be truth , I like the materials you gave us ,I like the way of your analysis to these materials, and i like these topices ,because those make me learn more about other culture.best wish
Dear Uriel Wittenberg
I can learn a lot of interesting things in [your class]. Your lesson is very good and your explain to the article is logical. I enjoy it very much.
What had happened? How could students, within days of volunteering such sentiments, sign complaints to the administration immediately afterwards? And how could the complaints be virtually unanimous (in the affected classes)?
Article comments
1 - Bing
As a Chinese student in UK, I feel ashamed by what happened to you. One thing you might have known is that most of those would-be diplomats have special backgrounds. They enter the Chinese Deplomacy System via nepotism and people like them are called "TaiZiDang" or Crown Princes in China. They domineer over Chinese who need help abroad. They think themselves the owners of Chinese embassies and consulates rather than civil servants. They are ugly scars of China.
Thank you for your work in China.
2 - Uriel
Hi Bing.
I have indeed been told that kind of thing about CFAU on several occasions by people in China.
Thanks kindly for your comment.
3 - Frank
At a diplomacy school, you should understand that these are the people that will learn to lie and deceive for their country.
If they were really smart they would be at Beida or Tsinghua, but since they have connections they are at the school for guanxi reasons.
Rest in the knowledge that these types will face the reality of a market oriented china dominated by the beida tsinghua types anyway.
4 - Uriel
Actually, some of them were pretty smart (as documented in the full version of my story).