Job Discussion Forums

[Jacob]

Anyone considering working for the Buckland group based in Guilin/Yangshuo, Don't. The guy who runs it, Ou Wen, told me his name was Owen Buckland and that he had a position for me in Guilin and the pay was fair for a first time teacher. Sounds perfect. He ended up to be an agent and sent me to another province to a middle school that payed him over RMB30,000 to place me there. Then he made the school pay me the airfare reimbursement instead of Buckland. There were two contracts which caused lots of confusion. One with me in English which is the standard contract issued by the Chinese govt and another one in Chinese that he drafted with the school he placed me in. There were numerous discrepencies between the two contracts and getting anything worked out was impossible.

I and the school got excuse after excuse and was told that everything is "no problem."
Owen, actually Ou Wen, is a great salesman and he takes advantage of both parties. The English teachers who have no idea how to go to China and find a teaching job and the Chinese schools who have no idea how to find a foreign English teacher. I did end up having a great teaching experience and making many friends with the school I was sent to and the problems that Buckland caused by screwing the school out of the commission fee of RMB30,000 and not honoring parts of the contract was really unfair to the school that wanted to improve the education of it's students.

I would suggest avoiding agents like Buckland and work for a recognized University. People like Ou Wen and the Buckland Group are doing a diservice to the Chinese educational system. If you have any question s feel free to contact me.

Jacob

[Minhang Oz]

Jacob : As you correctly point out,many "first timers" are attracted by how easy agents like this make it all sound.Many people looking for a China experience read the above journal,also a Dave's site.While some of the posters there can be characterized as whining and self centred,there are still many useful pieces of advice ,and I have had queries from people regarding the Buckland group.So,if you post your entry there you would help others avoid this agent,without putting them off the China teaching experience as all your comments in this regard are very positive.

[hubei_canuk]

HAHA
Oh, i'm sorry to laugh it's just like black humour.
...
My friends and i used to sit around Yangshuo (for many years back and forth to that place) and every once in a while we'd hear "another Owen Story".
Or someone woudl sit next to us in a Cafe on West street and look very concerned and worried and say "i've just gotten involved with this agent but now..."
Just like the stab and gunshot emergency ward in Washington DC.
..
Owen is super-slick and super friendly. Many people admire him. He's very successful. Some people have done good in their deals with him. I've dealt successfully with him ... er i think.
...
He always has a deal. If you are stuck Owen just may be the answer.
You need a lot of street smarts to stay ahead of him. If not you are likely to have or be "another Owen story".
In a way, like the Yangshuoians , i admire him. Her never crosses the line into illegal. He still stays in business in Yangshuo.
Count your fingers, chain your wallet, lock and load, and remember the Owen motto "Promises don't cost anything" and also what's written on the Owen family Crest "Never give a foreigner (sucker) an even break."
He has four brothers all invoved in foreigner business.
....
Well he from my perspective he got me two good gigs as well as numerous small ones but i found him a "learning experience".
"Caveat Emptor" and remember what Crazy English teaches everybody to say:
WELCOME TO CHINA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HAHAHAHA
...sorry, he made me crazy
--------------
Jacob, seriously i got to talk to you man, i just gotta hear the latest stuff that sank down the sewer and where it was. I got 5 years of dealing with Owen, maybe i can help you out.

[arioch36]

Caveat Emptor?

How about decency and honesty/ How about warning people, instead brushing it off as a joke. And you sit their and make cracks criticizing the Beijing government???

[Roger]

Jacob,
did you ever ask anyone about how to work in China before you were baited by Owen? If not - all newbies ought to learn from your experience!
- Hard and fast rule: Accepting a job from an agent INEVITABLY means you are going to pay for a service that you don't really need! The 30'000 your employer paid to Owen could have raised your monthly salary by 2.5 K!
- What's more: No agent, and I repeat: NO AGENT accepts any responsability for those he or she catches in international waters! Why, some of Owen's victims get shunted around the country from Owen to Shutong in shenyang (another agent!) and back to the south!
- If an advert proclaims a recruiter needs "10 native English teachers" or "twenty native foreign English teachers" (nice oxymoron, isn't it - 'native foreign English') then you can almost bet that it is an agent, and most will be placed in different locations!

I have known Owen for many years, and I must say I had some respect for him initially. However, three years ago he sold his outfit, although he is still recruiting. Why isn't he teaching any more? Because as an agent he makes a lot more, and he has a lot less overheads!
So it is 30'000 now? It used to be 10'000 (which already was an absurdly high fee, considering how little work an agent does!).

Owen in the beginning was a smart man, now he is just shrewd. He has no strategy, he is a tactician and an opportunist. Unfortunately that's how things often develop in China: too many people laud a guy, he becomes complacent, the rouble keeps rolling in, he turns excessively greedy and irresponsible.

[hubei_canuk]

Right on roger! This is the point, Westerners have to learn about China as well as specific people and schools. Every school is some trouble.
But people are different, Some don't see the trouble as trouble. What is trouble to one is fun to another. I know a guy worked for years for Owen, it suits his style quite fine. Yet he himself loves to tell "Owen stories".
..
I'l never forget Owen took me and aonther guy to Guilin for a day's work. Afterwards he jumped off the public bus and we had to find our own way back to Yangshuo with our own money. We eventually got it back but we had to chase him... and that's what he wanted, so that he could do more deals with us. Crafty devil.
..
I probably know you Roger, maybe any Expat long enough in South China knows Owen.
...
That 30 thousand sounds extreme. Yes it was 10thousand per term before for some "select schools" ie, desperate. I wonder where thaat 30 k one is?
Owens favorite motto is : "What choice do they have?"
..
Owen sold his outfit after milking it dry. (ie. taking everything from it and giving nothing back) He started a new school to do the same thing over again. The reason i think that you do not see him so active in this is that he went bvack toUNIversity in Nanning to get a degree. I think just for status. Many people told me they think he is a chinese milionaire many times over by now. Remember he also used to own "Minnie Mao's" Cafe.
...
I respect Owen as a cunning scoundrel. The world needs cunning scoundrels or it would be a very dull dry place filled with people like (herein lie esl names, self-censored). I also like him, he can be very friendly and pleasant. Like someone said "He is always in your face"...chinese idiom means you can always see him around town.
...
But not recently, because of the uni. But i think after that is over you will see him back with a vengeance in Yangshuo.
..
And the New Yangshuo at that with all the changes.
So to all newconmers remember: When you see Santa come down the chimmney do what the chinese would do...charge him for trespassing and destruction of property and take the sack of goodies.
... something like that.
I'm getting homesick for Yangshuo.
..
see you around town Roger.

[hubei_canuk]

"Caveat Emptor?
How about decency and honesty/ How about warning people, instead brushing it off as a joke. And you sit their (there) and make cracks criticizing the Beijing government???" Arioch36
-----------------------------------------------------
Ha! You are just what i mean Arioche! "Caveat Emptor" to you!
If you want honesty and decency from a commie country you are dreaming.
You will get it from me though.
Warn people? I just did! Caveat Emptor! Wake up and smell the brimstone. This is no country for people that expect rule of egalitarian law or for a socialist system like Canada, America, Germany or Britain to take care of them. China is raw tooth and nail capitalism and State and Army monopoly. You got no smarts you will get eaten up here.
..
You can come out a winner often here but you have to fight hard. There's no better advice than that.
I cannot change the whole Western world. Many, many newbies to China are immediately cheated.

Think about this:
Do you think my advice makes a dent of imporession on most of them? Do they say "Thank-you canuk" and follow my advice? No! They tell me i am so negative and go their own obstinate way. They even curse me for annoying them. Many people believe that to see negativity is to be negative. It ruins their beer of whatever. i have been insulted and derided hundreds or even thousands of times in person or on chat forums for 'negativity".
...
Even if they KNOW and LEARN how bad the bosses are, many many simply do not have that psychological muscle to take the necessary steps to assert and protect themselves from the scammers. That muscle has been atrophied by life in the Western cradle.
...
The Vietnamese used to have a word for how "soft" they believed the Americans were because of the American soft lifestyle , and that's why they believed they would win the war against South Vietnamese.
..
On top of that many New people to China have unrealistic expectations and cannot "eat bitter" (che ku). That's another reason they don't want to do what it takes.
Regardless, i never slacken my efforts to aid and assist all and sundry Western Newcomers and Oldcomers against the "MONSTER DEMON of TEACHING IN CHINA." Everyone who knows me, knows this.
..
You don't like a black humour? Maybe you haven't suffered enough. The games are a lot of fun, Just like fighting if you don't enjoy it you may not win.
And what do i detect? A little sympathy for the chairman? You don't like me cracking at them? I really don't consider them so important that i will spoil my time at the karaoke. I don't consider commies to be traditional chinese culture, I just consider them traditional chinese leeches.
...
I consider Owen a "China Lesson". China and Owen have inseparable, I wouldn't have it any other way. I wouldn't change a minute of it, i came out ahead and it was worth the fun.
............
Caveat Emptor for Everybody ! Even Tiny Tim!

[MW]

Get your Z visa and employment contract before coming to China.

First timers are natural victims because they view the world through a looking glass.

[hubei_canuk]

"Get your Z visa and employment contract before coming to China."
...
It's not necessary to get Z-visa before coming to China. depends on the province. Hunan cannot get change Z-visa in provonce, many others can. ..
Generally unless you know somebody, the only way to find a good job in China is to come to China and personally source it through contacts.
..
Almost all of the internet ads placed by schools and recruiters i wouldn't deal with. This is my personal preference. There are many reasons for that.

[MW]

Canuk -

You are right, of course, it is not required to get your "Z" visa before coming, just prudent!

[chinasyndrome]

[quote="hubei_canuk"]

[hubei_canuk]

"Canuk -
You are right, of course, it is not required to get your "Z" visa before coming, just prudent!" - MW
------------------
Depends on the situation and whether you know it or not. Also depends if you are in Asia or not.
It's an unnecessary aggravation if you don't need to do it.
Here in this jurisdiction in Western Hubei it is unnecessary and even too troublesome to do it before you come. Takes months to do all the paperwork (documents to go back and forth beteween countries) and then mail it out, an etc etc.
Here the Foreign affirs process 30 teachers a year all the same way. It's very easy and trustworthy. No one has to depend or trust a particular school.
It is even better this way here, because if the new teacher doesn't like it they can skip out immediately, not with a incoming Z-visa though.
..
But that is because i KNOW this situation. So i can trust it.
Which leads me to say: Taht is the only way i will get a job in China.
That is i first go to a place, investigate the FA and the school, the working conditions, apartment, city everything and if i don't like it .. leave and if i like it , then work out a deal.
That's my method. I never will make commitments long distance anymore.

[hubei_canuk]

Chinasyndrome: Did i ruin your beer?
I don't know much about what you are going on about but you prove my point to Arioch36. People don't want hear another person's truth and they don't want to be "helped".
..
They want to retain their own cultural methods and ideologies and the methods that i have found here that work for me they find offensive and refuse to use them.
Chacon as son gout.
I have a great deal of caution about "helping" newcomers. I wait to see what they really want and what they are willing to do for it.
...............
Chinasyndrome: It seems like you have got yourslef more than you have got me.
The only point of argument you seem to have is that you don't like my stragtegy for what i will do if i get sick here in the interior.
..
You talk about it as if it is a matter of "logic". It's not, it's personal preference, how to live, how to die. I fully know all the trials and risks and will face them with courage and fortitude. If you cannot respect another persons decision how to live and die then that is not my problem or concern.
...........
That appears to be it. Despite your long diatribe there is very little meat on it. You mentioned something about me being self-condtradictory but didn't provide any examples.
If a state of coherency strikes you where you are able to elucide more precisely what is eating you, Please feel free to past and i shall be honor bound to reply.
regards
"Many people believe that to see negativity is negative. It ruins their beer.

[hubei_canuk]

Roger!
Now i remember who you are!
I came back to Yangshuo once to hear the tail end of your story.
Owen was really burned about the you-know-what!
I heard him on the phone to the cops. But i surmise he didn't get very far.
Good for you!
You hoist him by his own petard!


.

[MW]

HC -

Great advice for someone already in the neighborhood but terrible for a newbie!

Think about it?