next »

[becster79]

Well, I've finished up there and permanently out of the province now.

I will add a caveat to this, though there are schools that are much, much, much worse than this and actually, I had no MAJOR problems.

That said-

1. The town is boring. Really not a lot to see and do, and it was only once I'd moved there I found out just how HARD it is to 'escape' for a weekend to Guangzhou (8 hour train trip).KFC, a pizza place and steak (both rather unimpressive, Chinese style).

2. The apartments are typical smallish Chinese style given to FTs but are LOVELY! Best I've lived in in China, included heater lights in the bathroom, intercom, all matching furniture (yay!).

3. Students are great, typical Chinese students but a lot have parents working in the southern factory areas- perhaps I little more worldly than other small town unis? Not sure.

4. New campus (where I worked)- quite isolated, a good 20min hike on 30 odd year old crowded bus

Now...

5. The FTs tend to be a mixed bag. They've had a rough trot with some FT's, incidentally all of them are "Dr's" (I say this loosely in every respect!). Will see how long this lasts before I get modded, but I really must put the warning out there for all, particularly in Shanghai-

BEWARE

OF

"DR"

JEREMY

HILL

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Complete con artist, there same time as me and caused nothing but problems for all the FT's (rumour is that he pushed one down the stairs during a brawl during a break) and the reason why the college decided not to renew my contract (I never did a thing wrong, still quite bitter about my treatment but according to others in the know he used and abused me where he could). Also got to the stage the FAO wanted nothing more to do with him and refused to take any of his calls!

6. If you do decided to work here, CHECK YOUR CONTRACT CAREFULLY! They tried to screw me out of my summer pay- it specifically said in my contract (on the signed and chopped page incidentally) that I would receive 12 mths salary- suddenly when it came to June and organising my airfare the FAO said he made a mistake and I wouldn't get this. We came to an agreement however and did get one month in the end. Boofhead mentioned above whinged (as in went to the college president!) about this as well, all he got was a piddly 600Y for his efforts.

Now I'm wondering if I should post this in other places as well??

[Riz]

Plz post that experience at other places. They can do the same with some fresh foreigner in China.
Thanks.

[becster79]

Riz, did you have an experience here as well? It's been awhile since I posted this. Wasn't too sure whether or not to post it at Dave's but if someone did their research and googled the school, I would assume this post would come up (being downstairs).

[Riz]

Not the same college but a similar place that you have described above. I left that job in 6 months. They had planned to hire me for 6 months but did not tell me. Miss Fao said " it's hard to get a year's visa due to the Olympics and the college would get another 6 months later. They had started IELTS program that badly failed.

I have posted my that experience in schools reviews section about 10 months ago. I am VERY patient having gone thru that contract.
Cheers!