Job Discussion Forums

[mat chen]

I have just been burned badly by the animals that run this school. They cheat anyway they can and when you point it out to them,they get you deported. twenty new teachers every term and a lot of them are working on student visa's. Very very few native speakers, truck drivers and any one else with two legs and looks foreign can work there.
So moving teachers out is important so the new ones don't get wind of what is going on. Police are in on this. From day one they make you feel like a criminal having a meeting with you about the laws of China while twenty photographers take your picture supposedly for tv and the press.

[kukiv]

Mat - haven't you been several years in China?
Why - after all your experience - are you working for such an outfit?????

[mat chen]

I am old and no longer can make the good money. My last job at a good school turned bad because I had to go back to Canada after
my 6 months of waiting for a visa and on returning I had to mark all the religious peoples English writing exams because they had a seminar to attend. I colapsed from exhaustion and then the director wanted me to go home for treatment after 6 more months. I had to take any job because I have a Chinese wife here.
You're right like a bad marriage I have no one to blaim but myself. and I am getting phone calls now from the authorities about how much it will cost me to stay in China. On MondayI will go to my consolate and seek refuge. I never gave anyone my phone number except my FAO, and I am a long way from him at the moment.
This isn't about me but about how labour laws work in China. I present the bank print outs and the contract to the labour board and they ask me questions about how old I am and how tall I am and do I have a wife and family and when I show them why I am there with everything in Chinese writing,they start to read their newspapers.
This isn't just aboat me, it is about people who prey on the weak and poor in this country. I would see the mormons at my school staying months after their contracts had finished. They know business and have trained Taiwan lawyers who told them to stay until they got paid.
I agree time to go home and teach the well healed Chinese.

[The Ever-changing Cleric]

[kukiv]

Ma t- reading this post, and then going over some of your old postings certainly gives an example of how the task of living long term in China as an English teacher - could eventually lose some of its initial charm.
There's a huge difference between the life of traveler teacher and those who decide to put roots down here!!!! Without the continuing support of a family - things can become very difficult, especially when working within an industry that seems to have little problem with exploiting the weak and more desperate!!!!!

Good luck - I hope things work out

[mat chen]

Exploiting the weak means ganging on a foreigner. But it is not only the weak. I am in Shanghai now dealing with my Consolate and talking with the well to do. There is this need in China to make money anyway you can get it. You have to pay morgages on those two apartments you bought that are empty at the moment.
My problem is that I listened to my Chinese wife who thought I was working for really good people. Not that all the people are bad there. Just the ones in the International department. Promisses and more promisses.
The trick is to get new teachers in and the old ones out before they meet each other. Now good schools try and make a bond with teachers so there is a continuation. The lowest thing I have ever seen was last week when a teacher was called to the office to pick up his passp0ort thinking it had a new visa in and find out they waited till the date was up and then telling him he had seven days to leave China.
But let's face it most long termers like me realize there is no tenure here and a year is not bad at a school in China. It is just the attitude that foreigners are rich. Xiangtan has lots of students paying top dollar and their bread and butter is having us teach their students.
There are two foreigners there who have been there two years. One an Indian writing his Phd and another from Africa who is really a business man. Neither need to be paid. The Indian occupies two apartment and the African has an apartment on the school even though he owns a home in the city.
But it is true the rich in China get treated well and the poor get stepped on. The rich African tells his students he is from America. This is standard because Chinese think Africans are poor and American blacks are rich.

[Dan The Chainsawman]

Yeah, ganging up on the laowai is something I watched this last week. I wished I had been in the position to help. However, I'm running on the very edge of my contract and have fought my battles for my respect. He's just starting his and has to fight his and from what I'm watching he's getting slaughtered.

Not a pretty sight, I think I'll invite him out for beers and give him some pointers.

[zootown]

[zootown]