Job Discussion Forums

cujosux · Joined: 25 May 2005 Posts: 18

I thank all those who have read and all those who have entered thier opinions (Roger and his aliases excluded).

I would now like to posit a slightly different scenario: What if several FTs complained? Would an illegal school still be safe. I know for a fact that this school operates under an Information Consultancy lisence and not a training lisence.

Mr. Kalgukshi · Posted: Mon Nov 28, 2005 11:16 pm Post subject: If

If the personal insults and name-calling continue, this thread will go bye-bye and sanctions will be administered, as appropriate.

stil · Joined: 23 Jun 2003 Posts: 259 Location: Hunan

There must be many legal competitors in the area, shi ba? You could go to one of these competitors, take the boss out for dinner and talk about the other school. Perhaps they will do something about it or you can try and have a legal FT complain.

The problem with complaining yourself (or even several FT's) is you open yourself up to the PSB. You were working illegally, knowingly or not. You don't know what the training centre's connections are. Perhaps he doesn't need legal status because his brother-in-law's 2nd cousin is the head of the PSB in that area and will turn a blind eye. There is a lot of organised crime in Shenzhen too. Do you really know anything about your boss.

I suggest you don't involve your girlfriend at all. That's just plain weak, man.

I would let it go. Learning experience and all. If you work illegally you can get burned.

andyscott84 · Joined: 02 Nov 2005 Posts: 115

Just let it go mate. Nothing good can possibly come of it. Remember this is a society that dislikes publicly admitting mistakes. The best things you can do is just to warn people of this particular school and if new teachers are seeking advice about contract signing, you can tell them about your experience to help them make their decision.

You are free now, you can do as you please. Be glad for that. You can now go and find a new school and if you've learnt from this, then a few months from now you will be enjoying yourself so much that you'll forget all about this illegal school.

Gregor · Joined: 06 Jan 2005 Posts: 842 Location: Jakarta, Indonesia

I agree that you should just let it go.
It would be really nice to shut them down. I know that, and I understand it 100%. If you manage to cause them any amount of trouble with the help of other teachers, students, or anyone, good on ya, just be careful to do it anonymously. And I suggest that you don't bother.
Remember - you are the foreigner, and you were breaking laws the same as they are/were. Maybe you were manipulated and so on, and I'm sure that we'd all admit that the so-called system that is so-called in place in China leaves teachers open to this kind of treatment.
What I mean is, probably MOST teachers start out on an L visa and later on get the Z visa. Many never get it and continue to work illegally, either on the L, or maybe on an (equally illegal for working)F visa. I've seen it happen, even when a legit school just doesn't have enough guangxi and/or money to obtain the Z visa.
But, man, you know full well that you were technically in the wrong. This causes trouble even for myself, because as a DoS who needs to hire teachers occasionally, I will still not allow a teacher to come in here like that without knowing full well what he or she is doing.
And you couldn't, anyway. We all know that China makes it abundantly clear that it's illegal to work on anything but a Z visa (or the new, inside-passport Residence Permit).
I'd suggest that you cut your losses and learn from the experience. It's a bitter pill to swallow, but that's life, ya know?

yesteacher! · Joined: 07 Feb 2006 Posts: 31

This is what Roger said "it makes me wonder whether any of us should give you any help!"

Who did Roger mean by "us"? Or who does he mean by "you"?

I found this post to be very interesting. What can a teacher do when we have been cheated. It seems Roger says to suck it up and move on. Others said to advertise the schools deception.

In my reading, the OP was seeming to ask was there any legal recourse in Shenzhen. A phone number, Gov't dept, or an instructive experience. Not a personal attack, based on an individual insight into the soul of an message writer.

Can anyone in Shenzhen help Cujosux?

Roger please SHUT IT!

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

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

[quote="clark.w.griswald"][quote="yesteacher!"] So the first place to go when you have such problems is probably your local PSB office. I would recommend making an appointment and asking to speak with a supervisor rather than just walking in and speaking to the person at the front desk. This gives a formality, and accountability, to your discussions, and you will likely find that they will take your concerns more seriously. Oh and if you don't get the response to your concerns that you feel these concerns justify then ask to speak to a higher up. Perseverance is the key to dealing with the authorities here![/quote]

Clark,

While I am a newbie on this Board, I have been in the PRC for many, many years...and I must say that I find the above-cited paragraph of advice particularly ill-grounded.

In all of my many years of experience, and here I will seriously defer to Roger and the other, I do not know of ONE instance in which, and I mean, not of ONE instance, in which a FT who has contacted the PSB on an issue as you suggested above, in which the the PSB either intervened or in which case the matter was resolved in a non-traumatic way to the benefit of the FT. Not ONE. But I do know of many cases in which FTs did as you suggested, and their respective visas / resident permits were revoked, or the PSB actually sided with the employer, etc., etc.

I would truly encourage every reader of your posting to refrain from doing what you suggested herein in relation to the PSB. It is naive and bureaucratic at best and dangerous and exceedingly harmful at worst.

In those cases were there is a serious, egregious and palpable wrong involving a FT, my experience -- that is, not mine, but that of my colleagues -- has demonstrated that the most expeditious manner in which to proceed is to cauter the incident and move on, or if truly exceptional, involve one's Consulate. But the respective Consulates do not tend to get it involved in these matters lightly.

My God, Clark, would you go to a zoo to check the teeth of a lion and ask the lion to open his mouth while you counted his teeth?

Louras · Joined: 24 Nov 2004 Posts: 288

The advice given by clarkie is the advice that would probably work in a western country. clarckie has been here forever and still dishes out advice like that. I would like to know if you have first-hand experience on this?

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

7969 · Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 5782 Location: Coastal Guangdong

take rogers advice and let it go. you will achieve nothing except more headaches.

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

I have posted inh a different thread my experiences with the Chinese law as regards the handling of an application for divorce.
What my experiences prove is that there is no predictability even if things look crystal-clear to you because they are covered by regulations and laws.
The body of laws in the PRC are simply a kind of guidelines, no more. When the prestige of authority is at stake the authority will enforce the law to the last letter.
But usually the "prestige" lies on the wrong side of the fence: if an FT is seeking redress the whole Chinese juridical system comes under scrutiny by outsiders. They must not be seen to be finding flaws with the Chinese legal practice - i.e. if you discover a CHINESE law breaker you must be looking at it from the wrong end of the telescope!

Here is another example: it's about thieving. Everyone "knows" the Chin4ese are 200 percent "honest" - it says so in the Chinese textbooks. No Chinese is a miscreant, thief, murderer.
If you do report having been robbed of something the PSB may feel you are the troublemaker because you are casting aspersions on the Chinese nation. A foreigner being victimised by our people??? Never!!!!
Even Chinese that report criminal activities get routinely laughed out of police stations. The police are not trained at catching culprits; they are perhaps trained at preventing some thefts (by patrolling crowded areas). If they catch a thief he is in for some picking - maybe the cops lift his wallet! Then they beat him a little, before letting him go.

Am I exaggerating?
A few years ago I had a German-French couple for neighbours in a villa in our estate. One evening the man waylaid me, asked me to go with him for a cup of coffee in his home, then told me a story:
He had made a trip to Macau with his wife in their company car driven by their local driver.
Because the Chinese driver could not cross the border (with a car that bore Guangdong number plates) they left him on the Gongbei side of the divide.
When they returned a couple of days later their home had been ransacked.
The man told me ten thousand U.S. yuan had been stolen from the living room in their villa; the thief had burgled their home from the backside of the house, breaking a glass pane and entering through that hole. How did he know where the money was?
The police established that the Chinese driver had, with his own girlfriend, visited the estate (there is a checkpoint where strangers have to sign themselves in). He was out 20 minutes later.
Twenty minutes? That's enough time to commit such a burglary, seize the dough (if you have an inkling as to where to look for it), and leave the estate.
The driver then threatened his German boss with trouble because "my father is well-connected..." He didn't elaborate on who his father was connected to but the German felt he couldn't press charges any more if he wanted to see his contract term out.
He dropped the charges and kept the driver on his payroll. I thought "stupid!" but kept this to myself. THe burglary couldn't be laid on the driver's shoulders anyway - his finger prints could have been put on furniture days or months before the night in question.

Mysterious Mark · Joined: 15 Dec 2004 Posts: 121

Well this thread is quite old now. Can you tell us what you did or didn't do, Cujosux, and what the outcome was?

One thing that was overlooked was how the students fit into the equation. If a school gets shut down, the fee payers may find refunds difficult to obtain, and then they need to find a new school, too.

I seem to recall a thread last summer about renting apartments in China, in which several people refuted Roger's stance on the question. Don't have time to look for it right now...

yesteacher! · Joined: 07 Feb 2006 Posts: 31

I went and called the PSB. No luck.

Then I decided to have my girlfriend call the local education bureau. Were given one number after calling them they told us that they didn't handle this kind of thing and to call this other number. That other number would say the same thing and give us a different number. This would happen about five or six times and finally we would reach a fax machine. End of the road.

This happened several times with different Education Bureau, Expat affairs, PSB, and every other department we could think of. After about a week I just gave up, got a new job and moved on.

After a few weeks it really began to bug me again and we went through the whole cycle again just for kicks and giggles. No luck.

Finally, I was in a bar and ran into one of the other teachers there. The same thing had happened to him with this school. No money. And he was furious. I told him what I went through, but he was unswayed. He said he was going to close them down. I hope he has more patience then I did.