Everyone would find out anyway. Although students at Chinese institutions of higher education may be highly motivated and capable, the facilities available to students and teachers suffer greatly by comparison to ours. All floors are bare concrete, the hallways are dimly lighted, water covers the floors of washrooms, and winter heating is not always effective. One might as well be in the basement of a warehouse as in the hallway of a nationally-respected institution of higher learning. Offices are sparsely furnished and rarely private.
Teachers accordingly spend most of their nonteaching work hours at home.
When I first arrived I requested an office, but was not assigned one until two months later. Perhaps even then I was assigned an office only because I had been noticed preparing for class in the classroom that the students use for a number of other purposes. In any event, I was given the key to an office to share with two other foreign professors. There were only two desks for the three of us, and the room was uncomfortably cold in the winter. The office did contain two upholstered chairs.