November 01, 2004
Töistä taas / Vel apie darba
Suomeksi:
Toi Kaitsun tyo tilanne ei naytta yhtaan hyvalta, kahden ja puolen kuukauden aikana hanella on ollut yksi tai kaksi vapa lauantai.. Vaikka hanen sopimuksessa lukee etta joka toinen lauantai on vapa, kaytannossa jos on toita (vaikka kuinka pienta), han joutuu menemaan sinne ja hengailemaan. Esimerkiksi viime viikonloppuna hanella oli koulutus, siis lauantaina ja suununtaina han oli toissa kuuden asti (ja siita ei laskee toina, koska se on koulutus..). Ja maanantaina tietenkin taas toihiin, vaikka ei ole mitaa tekemista. Kaikkien tuon paalle, jos han halua otta vapan viikonloppun (etta varmasti pasee menemaan jonnekin), han joudu ottamaan puolen paivan hanen vuosilomasta. Siis on ihan ok olla toissa 16 tuntia 3 paivaa perassa, mutta jos haluat yhden vapan lauantain, se on paha paha juttu.. Kun flunsa iski ja han pyyti menemaan kotiin 15:00 iltapaivalla (ja ei ollut mitaan toita), ne sanoi etta ok, voit kayta puolen paivan sun lomasta.. Mika orjuus!
Lietuviskai:
Kaitsu darbas, vel regis tikra vergyste - per pastaruosius pustrechio menesio, jis turejo viena ar du laisvus sheshtadienius, nors kontrakte aishkiai irashyta, kad kas antras sheshtadienis laisvas. Jei prodiuseriams pasirodo, kad yra bet koks, niekingiausias darbiukshtis, tenka eiti i darba.. Pvz padaryti ka nors per 15min, o po to sedeti ir maltis, kol tos valandos praeis.. Pavyzdzhiui praeita savaitgali jie turejo apmokymus, kaip naudoti nauja sistema. Taigi abi dienas Kaitsu buvo darbe iki 6iu vakaro. Sheshtadieni ir sekmadieni. Bet shito neskaichiuoja, kaip darbo, todel jokiu laisvadieniu uzh tai niekas negavo.. O pirmadieni vel i darba, nors nera ka veikti.. Puse savaites Kaitsu suka nykshchius, po to visi puola kazhka daryti per naktis.. Blogiausia, kad mes negalim planuoti savo atostogu ir savaitgaliu. Pvz jei Kaitsu nori tikrai kur nors vazhiuoti sheshtadieni (kad neatsirastu koks darbiukshtis), jam tenka naudot puse dienos ish savo atostogu. Taigi, ju nuomone visai priimtina dirbti 3 dienas ish eiles po 16 valandu, bet jei nori pasiimti sheshtadieni laisva, tai jau labai blogai... Pvz, kai Kaitsu susirgo gripu ir norejo isheiti 15:00 ish darbo, jie nurezhe jam puse dienos ish atostogu... Kokia vergyste!
Meanwhile I've been somehow successfull with my job hunt and interviews last week. I don't have anything in my pocket or on paper, but there were couple of places: Temasek polytechnic and National Institute of Education that seemed to be quite interested in me. One teaching, another research associate positions. I haven't heard from both of them since last Wednesday, so I wonder if I should wait and count my chickens when I have something more certain.. Anyhow, jobs in educational field, although also much tighter than in Finland, seem to be the only reasonable possibility for me. I've been to some new media companies, also to e-learning companies and it is a living hell, I can tell you. First you enter a room packed with some 20 youngsters looking very tired and red-eyed, staring at their computers.. I heard that the turn-over of employees is very high in Leijonakaupunki, people get really poor salaries (the going rate for an ordinary graphic designer is about 1500SGD=750euros), they squeeze the last juice out of them and then, I guess they just leave to some other company where they're treated in a very similar way. They get 14 days holiday a year (compared to 40 in education sector!), work on Saturdays (the work week has been recently shortened to 5 days for civil and educational servants) and stay very long hours. Anyway, I might be spoiled, but that kind of work morale doesn't fit my view of the world. Apart from that, it is quite difficult to get the job interviews at all, because the employers also know that most of the westerners standards are different (and of course, I wouldn't go to that kind of a saltmine for such a petty salary). So, lets keep the fingers crossed that something comes out of those 2 places for me..
One more feeding picture. At least some joy in life.. Otherwise, we were trying to organize some trip on the upcoming Deepavali-Hari Raya festival and it was quite a headache for me. Seems like the whole peninsula, no, maybe the whole continent is traveling, such a massive exodus it is. Anyway, all the flights are booked and all the hotels overcrowded and overpriced. Our humble idea about a cheap trip to Thailand escalated into massive search for a getaway to anywhere for any price on those particular days - 11-15 of November. We ended up paying only twice more for the flights to Thailand, but were so happy that we actually got those, because the prospect of staying in Leijonakaupunki for 5 free days doesn't sound too good (since these free days are so difficult to get). So we're flying to Phuket, trying to get away to Koh Phi Phi , then to Koh Lanta and fly back to Leijonakaupunki from Krabi (if you've been to Thailand, I guess you know what I mean). Yeah!
Another upcoming trouble is getting out to somewhere on Christmas. The initial idea of living in Leijonakaupunki and enjoying cheap flights to all the nice exotic locations around seems to be quite difficult to implement - you can get away only on public holidays and then everybody else is also flying somewhere..
The preparations for Deepavali have been gearing up, in the Mariamman temple the devotees perform fire walking ceremonies to purify their bodies before the actual celebrations. The ceremony itself took place yesterday night at 3am, I didn't go, because there was noone to keep me company, and I don't know really how to get there at that hour. However, on Saturday before that, I went to the temple and happened to see some other purification ceremony.
The Gods in that temple sit behind this kind of curtains that the priests then open during the ceremony, everybody gasps and put their arms up.
I chatted to some guy in there, asking what is the best way to learn about Hindu religion and customs, he said that "mingling with the people".. hmm.. I'm sure that's the best way.. Just that everybody thinks that I'm a tourist.. :) He also said that walking on fire is not scary at all, Mariamman protects them and burning charcoal looks like flowers to them.
However multicultural the place is, I think there's still a lot of mis-perceptions and prejudices here. Our taxi driver told us the other night that, "don't come here on Sunday, it will be full of "foreigh workers" (meaning Balngladeshi or Indian) and they stand on the road, don't let the cars pass, "just chatting, you know, not doing anything, chatting chatting". "Foreign workers" cause some kind of perceived danger, because they stand or squat in crowds and they're only male. Female "foreign workers" are usually maids that may be also dangerous - the papers are full of stories of women putting rat poison in their employers milk "to teach them a lesson" or setting the house on fire..
To get some balance I also went to visit one Chinese temple (I guess, it is Taoist).
Definitely it is not disabled friendly. The thing in the door, on the ground, how do you call it (slenkstis lietuviskai) was up to my knees, so any kind of wheel chairs aparently are not welcome. In fact I read that in many Budhist or Hindi countries the disabled are not treated well, because people believe that they did something horrible in their previous lives, so now they have to pay for the suffering they caused other people. So people may be suspicious and not very helpful and compassionate. Avoiding to spoil their own karma..
Ancient chinese aesthetics is very beautiful, I'm not so sure about the modern version of it. People don't seem to have a problem with cheap stuff and flashy colors, it seems to be cool. The wonders of human taste.. How did the old things manage to appeal to people and survive throughout years, although they were in not so flashy colors.. Who was actually the aesthetics standard keeper? How come that the old stuff is so "real" and the modern so "fake"? And doesn't anybody see the difference?
