Hi, I'm at THE Yang En University in Fujian province which inspires so much awe and fear, and to be honest, I think it doesn't merit a fraction of its bad reputation.
If you've been in China for a while, you must have seen a lot of the expats that go through this country. Many of them are good, some exceptional and some exceptionally bad! What has happened in Yang En dates back several years from before I came here (1 year ago) and the problems were a mixture of the last mentioned category of expats and a chinese private university laborously trying to get off the ground without having any experience with lauways (i hope i spell this correctly). Yes, there were severe cock-ups from the university side and there was a lot of mismanagement. Also yes, there was a lot of bad will of expats expecting to have the same facilities here as they had "back home".
One complaint on a blog is typical, as it is about the lack of central heating in our residences. Before I came to China, I had already found out that below the Yangtze river there is no central heating in buildings. If you think its too cold, you buy your own little heater, but don't bitch about things that are impossible to change. The other story is about a chinese teacher being beaten by security guards. The way the story is told, we're living in a nazi camp where human rights are broken every minute. I'm saving you the details, but briefly, the chinese teacher was not beaten up as said in the ; instead, he had continuously refused to slow down on his bike going too fast through a main gate downhill into campus. One day the guards chased him when he did it again and plucked him off his bike after catching him. Yes, they were probably rough and yes he got handled roughly, but this place is still not a penitentiary because of that.
I get my pay on time every month; My contract says 12 hours of business teaching, I do 4 extra a week (the university asked my if I wanted to) and I get my overtime without bickering and I don't have to check; I live on campus in a spacious flat which you can see on my pictures (
http://picasaweb.google.com/dvanuye). I added furniture etc, but the basics like air conditioning, fridge, gasburner were there; I have a electric warm water heater in the bathroom so I can take showers whenever I want although not always as long as I want; last but not least, we're well taken care of and I recommend the place to anyone who wants a (business) teaching job in China. A bonus is that the climat and the surrounding area are great, as least for someone like me who likes warm weather, hills and lots of nature.
As I implied before,if you can't get used to the chinese way of slow and tedious administration, if you expect everything to be like "back home", you are in the wrong country! China has its pros and cons, but you'll pros and cons everywhere you go.
Bad reputations are created in minutes, turning them into good reputations takes years, but I think that this place merits an effort to get some good advertising. I just signed up for another year and I'll be happy to start again in september.