Job Discussion Forums

[tofit]

My Journey to China is getting more interesting by the day.
I'm living one of those horror stories that many people find
themselves in when they arrive in China to teach English.
I was offered a Job at a School in Wenzhou, and
was told to come ASAP. I told the recruiter that I will buy the
Plane tickets for January 12th. She said that would be
good. January 10th she calls me and says "The headmaster
will not need you until after the Spring Festival Feburary 25.
She told me, "if you wait airfare would be reimbursed by the school."
I wasn't about to let this recruiter rip me off, I knew they had no
obligation to reimburse my airfare. I told her that it would be
cheaper to just let me live in China for a month. She agreed and
said they would give me a place to live and a living stipend.

Well, I have started teaching. One of the teachers
left, and I had to teach his classes. When I arrived
I met the two teachers. At first they both
seemed friendly. The Sweedish guy, I lived with, and
we got along great. The other teacher Ernie, also
known as Tom (the school thought Ernie didn't sound
American enough, I wonder if he is Spanish.), was a
good teacher, and very polite and would invite me over
to his house for dinner. During the second week, I
found out that these teachers were in a quarrel, and
each of them was tring to turn me against the other. .
. . . .

Well to cut the story short, the two teachers ended up
in a fight, and I was caught in the middle of it.
I did not want to take either side, and wanted to
remain neutral. Jake won the political battle with
explaining the fight to the school, and Ernie was
asked to leave.

With Ernie gone, the school needed a teacher to take
the classes. It came suddenly, he didn't tell anyone
he was leaving, and it just happened to be Saturday.
Saturday is one of the schools busy days, all the kids
have the day off at primary school. The school manager
helped me merge into the transition of training to
teaching. I have a syllabus that has a lesson plan
already drawn out for each class. The classes are
assigned letters for each level Y A B C D E. It think
I made a smooth transition. The manager told me that I
need to speak louder, and work on my board writing
skills.

I made many good friends here. I'm the only American
in this town, and in the nearby towns.
Pingyang is a beautiful town, it has the
beautiful mountains, and exotic trees, it is cleaner
then Aojiang, and its a more prosperous town. Longan
is south of the Aojiang river. It is the shopping
town. I take a ferry across the river for 1.5 kwai
(yuan) I haven't explored Longan much, but I did find
a KFC! I met a Chinese guy who works for the
government, and he speaks perfect English. I met a
lady who was the manager at my school, she worked on
opening the school in Aojiang. She quit the school
after one year. We climbed the mountain in Pingyang
together and we talked about the school and what it
was like to open it. She told me some important pieces
of information about the current school manager, and
the headmaster.


I just had my Spring Festival Vaccation, the Chinese
New Year. I was kind of upset that I couldn't go
anywhere. This is the time all the expats (teachers)
go explore other areas of China. I didn't have enough
money to go anywhere. I only have 4000 RMB and $180
USD. 3000-5000 is enough for me to live off of for one
month in China. I could live for less, food is only
15-25 RMB per day if I eat at the right places, and
the food isn't that bad.

Well something is going on at my job, and I am tring
to piece it all together. Before the Spring Festival
the school manager told me that the headmaster didn't
like my teaching. The day before another teacher sat
in on my class and said I did a great job, and he
didn't see anything wrong with my class. I asked them
what the problem was, and they said I have trouble
controling the class. I called the main office in
Shanghai, and the recruiter Erica told me that they
have asked her to find 3 new foreign teachers. That
tells me that they want to replace both of us. She
said that 2 teachers are for the Pingyang school, but

I don't think the Pingyang school will open this year.
When I climbed the mountain with Linda, she told me
that the headmaster wanted to open the school last
year, and he has been waiting for all the resources to
come together. When I came to Aojiang, I was scheduled
to open the "New school in Pingyang" but Nancy, the
school manager, said that the headmaster has not found
a building for it. He does not have the resources.
Linda would make a great school manager but she is
holding out because the headmaster low-balled her on
the salary. The headmaster did the same thing to me.

"We don't think your teaching is good enough, but we
want to give you another chance. We will only pay you
5500 untill your teaching is better then we will pay
you 8000."

He has breached my contract, my tourist visa expires
on March 12th, and they said that they would have it
extended. I asked them how you would go about doing
that. They didn't give me a clear answer. I asked
another teacher, and he said that he had to go to
Shanghai to do it, and it takes 3 days. They also said
that I would have to pay for it.

Spring Festival is over, today I'm teaching classes.
My teaching is good, I explain things to the students
that the TA's wouldn't know. The Author of the book is
from England, so some of the words are England terms.
The TA's are also the source of the 'problem'. In the
classroom they get an annoyed tone with me. They will
challange me with their tone. "Oh you need to review
that more, they don't know it enough." Then they will
start to teach it. When they do this, the students
loose their trust and respect in my teaching. If I say
something afterwards the students look at the TA like
"Huh" "Is that right". The TAs have more contact with
the students, because they call them to review. They
work harder then we foreign teachers do, and they are
paid much less.

I'm not sure what will happen in the next few weeks.
My vaccation ended, and I started classes yesterday.
The night before yesterday, to my surprise, the
school manager sent me a phone message saying "I will
not be teaching at the school anymore this year, I will
stay home and raise my son." I'm not sure whats going
on. Jake, the other teacher, went to Guanzhou for the
Spring Festival Vaccation, and he wants to teach
somewhere else. If the school looses me before they
find a new teacher, they will have to cancel most or
reschedule all of my classes. If they reschedule my
classes they will loose many students. The school will
likely go under and fail if this happenens.

I am looking for a new job. I have contacted some
recruiters, and so far I can't find a job that pays as
much as this one. My friend who works for the
Government said he could help me. He said he could
talk to the headmaster and persuade him to keep me.
He has many influential friends too, I'm always with
good company when I hang out with him. He said he
could also help me find another school, he used to be
a teacher.

I wrote this a few days ago, and since then many new
pieces of the puzzle fell together. You will see more of this
story soon.

[tofit]

I have many pieces to a very complex puzzle.
The recruiter had hired me to help open a new school in Pingyang.
The headmaster had planned on opening it after The Chinese New Year. I asked the school manager when she wanted me to start doing promotions in Pingyang. They said that the headmaster still needs to find a building for it. They didn't have the school setup yet!

I just talked to another recruiter, he said he needed 2 foreigners for a school in Pingyang by March 1st. I looked at the contract, and its the same contract I have. I asked him what the headmaster's name was, and it was the same name.

During the Spring Festival vaccation the school manager sent me a message saying that she will not be working for the school this year, she will stay home and raise her son. When I was on the mountain with Linda she said that Nancy gets a cut of the schools profits, why would she quit?

Today I asked the headmaster of the school who would run the Pingyang branch. When he said who it was, I was really suprised. It was the youngest girl at the school. I have been told by many people that the headmaster is a good businessman. An experienced business
man knows you need good management to make an
investment like this turn a profit. I talked to Linda, the previous school manager. She wants the job in Pingyang, but the headmaster told her that he already has the position filled. She is certainly the best canidate for the job, she has great conversational skills, and business experience. Why did he choose, the inexperienced girl over the best canidate?

Here is what I think is happening. Mr. Zhang wants to
save money. He wants to get rid of Jake and Me. He is
not really planning on opening a Pingyang branch, he
doesn't have the resources yet. He doesn't have a
place, a capable manager, or a Foreign Teacher! Why
would he waste his money.

[abusalam4]

I have been in China and know what it is like. Here, I am listing some of the mistakes you must have made - willingly or unwillingly. And there are crooks like the guys running this school taking advantage of on your back:

1. Never go by a tourist visa for teaching to China, IT IS ILLEGAL! And if they treat you in a bad way, you cannot complain to the authorities.

2. You did not research this employer well enough before leaving.

3. You trusted yoiur recruiter too much. They will always tell you a lot of rubbish which later does not turn out to be true. Their primary objective is earning money from the school they will send you to.

4. I do not know about the credentials you have for this job. But obviously, the lower they are or even at zero level. the less likely you are to find decent employers with reputable schools.

I could continue but I do not want to make you feel too bad. My advice -. if you want to take it - is: Leave that place asap, get out of China and coime back with a Z visa (for legally workinjg and teaching there). If the Chinese authorities find you there teaching on tourist visa, you will be in big trouble, and your employer and even the recruiter will leave you alone and eben not know you anymore - to get out of the trouble they have caused for you by not guiding you properly through the essential procedures as they should be expected to do.

Good luck!

[Steppenwolf]

Stop working while you are on a tourist visa!

[james s]

...

[kev7161]

The biggest lesson (okay, there are several big lessons from this missive!) is the seemingly lack of preparedness the OP had. Especially when it came to cash reserves. You said you couldn't travel during the holiday due to only having $180 in your pocket + some RMB. People! Wake up and smell the economy! Would you go on a month-long vacation with only a couple hundred bucks in your possession? For that matter, would you go on any vacation without backup money in a bank account or on a credit card in case of emergency? For anyone considering coming to China in the near future, have some extra cash, either on you or easily accessible via debit or credit card. We all hope we don't have disastrous situations like in this thread, but if you've done ANY kind of research you know it can happen and you may as well figure it quite possibly will happen. Pessimistic? Not at all, realistic is more like it.

[andrew_gz]

james s wrote, "If not jail, then heavy fines and deportation with an unpaid flight out."

Jail?
Do you have any examples of this?

[mondrian]

[james s]

...

[Vandros]

Tofit, you have made some glaring errors, and it is clear your new to china.

First, you did no research, which is bad. Simply trusting a recruiter is not good. What recruiter did you use anyway, some are actually better then others.

Secondly, you dont seem to know how to play hardball. The chinese will take advantage of you if they can, if you let them I should say.

Third, you did no research into visas. If you had you would know that any contract signed while you are on an L visa is not legal, so they are not breaching anything.

As for your class being out of control, I am not surprised, you let yout TA undermine you. They will do that, and it sounds like you are being an apologist for her. Who cares if she spends more time with the students, your the teacher, not her, she's "your "assistant, and when your in class, your in charge. You need to have a talk with both her, and the school, and kindly let her know what she is doing that you dont like. That doesn't work, thats when you turn unkind.

The headmaster is not a good business man, he is an idiot. Like most chinese business men he thinks in the short term, basically how much money he will get right now, in hand. The future is not nearly so important to him as is today.

Paying you 5,500 when he is supposed to be paying you 8,000, lol. Thats a huge difference. The only reason he can do this is because you are on the wrong visa. Why don't you get your own visa. There is an exit and entry burea in most major cities in china where this can be done. However, if you don't have a degree, then you might have a problem.

You just did not do your homework it seems, which is your biggest mess up I say. Had you, you would have been able to forsee all of this before hand.

Your students, they don't respect you because you don't demand it. You are afraid to stand up to your own TA because you actually seem to think it is ok for her to run "your" class. She disagrees with you, shows scorn right in front of students, that is very bad. However things have gone on too long for you to change them easily, if at all.

My advice, run, your employer has broken the contract, so your free to go whenever you want, it was never legal to begin with. Jobs in china are so easy to find, just don't make the same mistakes twice, and you'll land somewhere better no doubt.

[abusalam4]

Well, IMHO you made two mistakes:

1. You came to China on a tourist visa without the proper Z visa required for working there legally, so these guys can play around with you and find all kinds of pretences and "good" reasons not to pay what they may owe you for your hard work. You cannot complain as this would certainly reveal your illegal status there and could bring you into serious trouble.

2. You did not research your recruiter well enough. Any recruiter who makes you come to China on a tourist visa is unprofessional (to put it friendly) or a criminal (to put it more drastically).

3. You did not research the school well enough before leaving for China. The story you tell is typical, and refers to those guys running a school like a businessman ignorant and not really interested in education.

The only thing you/should do:
1. Quit the school soonest possible.
2. See if you can renew your tourist visa but stay away from such schools while you are still there.
3. Next time, do it better and come on a Z visa, research your employer/recruiter carefully before doing anything with them!

No foreign teacher needs such schools and recruiters in China!

Good luck!

[Mister Al]

Vandros wrote

[andrew_gz]

james s wrote, �You dont get out of there, you run the risk of goint to jail. Teaching on a tourist visa... If not jail, then heavy fines and deportation with an unpaid flight out.�

mondrian wrote, �Where do you think the Immigration will house you while they process your deportation? In a hotel?�
Thanks smarty pants!

James wrote, �If not jail, then��
I did not ask where one is housed while awaiting deportation.
James said you can go to jail.

Does anyone know of any FTs who went to jail?

[cj750]

not for visa violation..for other things..he!! yes.....

[andrew_gz]

Me too cj.
But I was looking for a visa violation resulting in time served.
And that is what was claimed!