我一直相信，教英文寫作最有效方法之一，
除了rewrite我學生的文章，我也會跟他們分享examples of my rewrite of my writings，讓他們更能體會寫作是如何耗精力，
下面這個案例，first draft我花了25分鐘，final draft花了我2-3小時。
Write about a time when you were betrayed
First draft
I kept a knife in my briefcase, just in case.”
A mainland businessman who fled to the US 10 years ago recently recounted on social media how work life was like for him in his native land. At one point he was only 23, yet he already instinctively knew how to protect himself against unscrupulous employers: at the time, he was hired by a Shanghai-based furniture manufacturer who, instead of giving him a salary, promised to offer him 10% of the company’s revenue at the end of each year. When December came and, by his own calculations, $3 million was due to him, his boss refused to fulfil his side of the bargain. To assert his right to the sum, the 23 year old bribed the company’s accountant, got from him evidence of his boss’s tax evasion, with a view to use the material to force his boss to hand over the $3 million. He also kept a knife in his briefcase, in case his boss got wind of his plan and hired thugs to rough him up.
Final draft
“I kept a knife in my briefcase, just in case.”
A middle-aged mainland businessman recently made this rather alarming declaration on his social media when he looked back on the early days of his career as an executive at a furniture manufacturer. Instead of being given a salary in line with his market value, his 23 year-old self was sold what seemed a sweeter deal: a base salary of RMB 3000, plus 10% of the company’s profits that year. “We are on track to rake in RMB 30 million, so your bonus will amount to RMB 3 million,” his boss assured him.
Six months on, he realized his firm’s scale of operation was much smaller than his boss had let on; the company only earned RMB 2 million in profits by December. What’s more, boss refused to hand over the promised 10%. The young man then took matters into his own hands. He bribed the company’s accountant, obtained from him evidence of his boss’s tax evasion, with a view to using the material to pressure his boss to pay up. He also kept a knife in his briefcase, in case his boss hired thugs to rough him up. Eventually, his boss, feeling the tension and mindful of what his employee could have done with the connections he had made in his previous job as a reporter, relented, and gave him RMB150,000.
********************
First draft
I wish I had the 23 year-old’s savvy when I had to deal with an unscrupulous mainland boss, but I was raised in Hong Kong, and had unconsciously assumed that the whole world operated on rules and order. So, when I first reported for my job and my boss asked me to use my credit card to buy personal items for him – hotel bills for his friends, Hong Kong-made Chinese medicine for his business partners – I did so without thinking, confident in my belief that I would be reimbursed after I submitted my receipts to him. He ended up owning me around HKD30K. When he failed to pay me, I was so confused – I’d previously worked for a multinational, where employees were seen as the company’s assets and very well taken care of. Fortunately, I did keep a copy of my receipts. I asked the company accountant to pay me directly instead. She was sympathetic enough to me, so there was no need to pay her bribes.
Not long after I was mistreated by my boss, I turned to an older mainland colleague and asked her to interpret his actions to me.
“It’s not even about money. His thinking is, if I treat her so shabbily and she still continues to work for me, this means she can’t find better opportunities elsewhere and she is totally under my control,” she advised. At the time, this style of staff management was all Greek to me, though I was to later learn from other colleagues that, they, too, received similar “lessons” from our boss (most were not paid the salary they had been promised).
Final draft
The mainlander’s reminiscence prompted me to do some reminiscing of my own. I, too, once suffered the stress of having to cope with a deceitful mainland boss, though things never deteriorated to the point where I had to have a knife with me at work to feel safe. My first brush with his ways came when he asked me to use my credit card to buy personal items – hotel bills for his friends, Hong Kong-made Chinese medicine for his business partners. “Of course I’ll pay you back later,” he said. At the end of the month, when I submitted the receipts to him – by then he had owed me almost HKD 30,000 – no reimbursement was forthcoming. Luckily, I had the good sense to make a copy of the receipts, so I handed them over to the company accountant, who was from Hong Kong and sensed immediately the injustice of my situation. She paid me out of the company’s funds.
Not long after this incident, I turned to an older mainland colleague and asked her to interpret our boss’s conduct towards me.
“It’s not even about money,” she said. “He is testing whether you’re under his control. His thinking is, if I treat her so shabbily and she still continues to work for me, this means she can’t find opportunities elsewhere.”
I was to later learn from other colleagues that, they, too, received similar “lessons” from our boss – most were not paid the salary they had been promised.
********************
First draft
I did find better opportunities elsewhere, so I quit in less than a year. Ironically, the experience of working under such a person turned out to be the best education I’ve ever had, far better than even Oxford. The dreaming spires taught me how to read books; my mainland boss taught me how to read people.
Final draft
I did find better opportunities elsewhere, so I quit after a few months. Ironically, the experience of working under such a person turned out to be the best education I’ve ever had, far better than even Oxford. That celebrated university taught me how to read books; my mainland boss taught me how to read people.
Michelle Ng
英國牛津大學畢業，前《蘋果日報》和《眾新聞》專欄作家，現在身在楓葉國，心繫中國大陸和香港。
聯絡方式： michelleng.coach@proton.me
個人網站： https://michellengwritings.com
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