Job Discussion Forums

patsy · Joined: 07 Oct 2004 Posts: 179 Location: china

Hello everyone! I'm really dreading returning for my next and last term at Changsha Women's College. Currently I am living in my apartment which i rent in another part of China, what are the consequences if I don't go back? I am not going to pay them thousands of dollars to break the contract. Is it a good idea to just return and finish out the next semester? I think the other two foreign teachers wouldn't mind a little overtime if I don't come back . Thanks.

HunanForeignGuy · Joined: 05 Jan 2006 Posts: 989 Location: Shanghai, PRC

Patsy,

Last year I worked in ChangSha. I am familiar with this college. My God, I feel sorry for you, truly. I knew of two teachers who worked there and escaped in the past. They claimed that the living conditions were awful.
Is that the case?

PM please and we can talk about this matter.

HFG

danswayne · Joined: 23 Apr 2006 Posts: 237

I have sent you a message before, and I am now g oing to try again I used to work at your school, and I am now in Changsha again doing other business. Send me a message if you wanna talk.

clark.w.griswald · Joined: 06 Dec 2004 Posts: 2056

Well it seems that the opinions about this school are pretty well unanimous. Perhaps a warning about the problems there may be useful for others who may be researching this school in the future.

cj750 · Joined: 27 Apr 2004 Posts: 3081 Location: Beijing

HunanForeignGuy · Joined: 05 Jan 2006 Posts: 989 Location: Shanghai, PRC

Clark, Patsy and all,

First, if you are now living in ANOTHER province in China, you or may not need to have a letter of release from this school to secure another. First, go and get yourself another job. A respectable one but with a school that needs you. If the new school in the new province wants you enough, they can make all of this happen. My experience is that it can generally be made to happen.

Next, yes, do send them a letter announcing that you are not going back. This is just a CYA step. But BEFORE you do that, look closely at everything that happened and try to ascertain / learn / come up with as many reasons as possible why they broke the contract. Look at your living conditions (which is the ONE reason why most of the teachers ran away); your pay, and everything else. And yes, did they provide you with a proper visa.

Believe it or not, guys, the Foreign Experts' Bureau in ChangSha is one of the MORE proactive ones in China. They organize lots of activities for the teachers but they also intervene.

Case in point -- known to me personally. I had an Irish lady friend who taught at a respectable institution in ChangSha. (She and I were friends with the refugee lady FT from the Women's College). But the institution where she worked really gave her substandard housing. Terribly so. She complained and she complained and they did nothing. She went to the FEB and she wailed and wailed and wailed and believe it or not, they ACTUALLY came to inspect her housing, found it to be substandard and the institution was basically told to arrange another more suitable flat -- within 72 hours. And they did.

In any case, if you are not going back, you are not going back. Just make sure to CYA. Get a new job, check to see if your new employer can, as they do here, arrange for all of your papers, and then do one of two things : nothing, or raise h*ll.

clark.w.griswald · Joined: 06 Dec 2004 Posts: 2056

Thanks HFG.

To the OP I assume that you have raised your concerns with the school but gotten no action. If so then I would encourage you to lodge a complaint about the school if the problems there warrant such, but this can be done after you leave and are safely elsewhere. Even though it won't help you personally, it may count against the school and thereby help teachers in future.

patsy · Joined: 07 Oct 2004 Posts: 179 Location: china

Thanks to everyone for your input. Regardless of what I do next semester, people should be warned about HUNAN WOMEN'S COLLEGE in Changsha. They are liars. I have faced severe housing problems, an inept and absent English department, and presently have not recieved my travel allowance that was due me according to the contract at the end of last term. As with everything you must threaten them with going to the PSB or refusing to teach, and when they think they may lose face, they might do something. I am not new to china, have been here 8 years, so I am used to the system, but have never experienced anything like this. DON'T BELIEVE ANYTHING THEY ADVERTISE OR TELL YOU OVER THE PHONE. Even if you go to visit the school, be very skeptical that things will be arranged the way they are telling you.

By the way, the girls are all at the school due to low college entrance grades and most aren't much interested in serious study, there are a few exceptions. That combined with the frustration of no male students makes a very interesting environment. And not one that is fun to teach in.

Watch out.

Anda · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 2199 Location: Jiangsu Province

Um, I don't know about China but in South Korea if you left the country then you could come back in and work somewhere new.

If you have worked in other proviences here then I think seeing that immigration like Korea is run on a provincial level that you should be able to go back to a provience where you are know and have a good record and get a job there.

jeffinflorida · Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2007 6:38 am Post subject:

cj750 · Joined: 27 Apr 2004 Posts: 3081 Location: Beijing

jeffinflorida · Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2007 2:26 pm Post subject:

clark.w.griswald · Joined: 06 Dec 2004 Posts: 2056

Jeff, there is another possibility here. You may have unwittingly cancelled your own Z visa there when you applied for the tourist visa. You cannot have two visas at the same time so the visa office may have cancelled your Z visa in order to give you the L visa.

Then again, the Z visa may have already been cancelled by the school so when you applied for the L visa there was no other visa current and you were given the L.

I suppose that if it was the former then the clerks would probably have asked you if you wanted them to cancel the Z to give you an L as it would have been a strange thing to do, but then stranger things have happened at Chinese visa offices.

HunanForeignGuy · Joined: 05 Jan 2006 Posts: 989 Location: Shanghai, PRC

jeffinflorida · Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2007 1:48 am Post subject:

After discussions with the Boarder Police - as in，in their office - They told me the school cancelled the visa soon after I left by notifying the PSB / Visa people that I no longer worked there.

So the date the visa was canceled - as in the computer record - indicates that the visa was canceled several months before I applied for the new visa. I left in October, the computer showed the visa to be canceled in November.

If I had shown up in the PRC in January when I came back to spend some time with my Pretty Chinese Girlfriend I would have most likely not been allowed to pass the gate at Beijing airport, if I had not purchased a new tourist visa.

So I don't think I cancelled the Z visa by purchasing a new tourist visa - but I am glad I did buy a new visa...