I know nothing about Gannan Normal College, so for all I know they may be the worst bunch of charlatans on Earth. However, reading between the lines of Dr Cross's complaint, it can easily be argued that they are not so bad either.

In reading Dr Cross's complaint, several things jumped out of it.

1) For some reason, best known to Dr Cross, he did not enlighten us with regard to what was so private that Gannan College felt obliged to disrespect it repeatedly. The fact he made this the opening shot of his complaint puts it in pride of place in his complaint yet he keeps it a secret. That in itself suggests that Dr Cross is himself embarrassed to disclose it and if he is thus embarrassed, then perhaps it WAS something the college had good reason to intervene in.

2) Gannan Normal College then told him he could leave - evidently he did but did not have his visa cancelled. As you know - that is a major offence in China, as Dr Cross was enjoying the hospitality and protection of the Country under illegal conditions of his own making. Don't pick me up on this issue, the law is the law and he had broken it hands down.

3) The college then complained to the Foreign Affairs Department but Dr Cross has no idea why. This is because he was no longer around to find out. It seems he had already run away and instead of complaining about the college reporting him to the authorities, he should know that under the law, when an employee does a runner - the employer is required to report this to them. Thus the college were not acting unreasonably - they were acting in accordance with the law - unlike Dr Cross who seemingly had already broken it.

4) Now he has been caught by the police - and quite rightly so - yet he still complains about this - and implies that they are being unfair on his girl friend for leaving her homeless. Dr Cross really does need to consider himself fortunate he is not languishing in prison over this.

It seems fairly clear to me that no matter how badly Gannan Normal College may have treated Dr Cross, his own (undisclosed) behavior evidently contributed to theirs in the first place. It seems obvious that he then followed this up with yet more inappropriate and indeed illegal behaviour that has simply made his position worse and reduced his credibility and standing to somewhere just above zero.

My point in "attacking" certain complaints made in the Review Board is to impress on those who make those complaints and others who choose to read them - that there is such a thing as fair play. I see complaints made by people who in some cases have plainly acted far worse than the schools they're complaining about.

Dr Cross's complaint is a typical example of this. It seems he thought he could do what he wanted and because he was stopped by his employer, he took great exception to it and ran away. Therefore it can be cogently argued that the behaviour of Gannan Normal College was possibly something of a reaction to the behaviour of Dr Cross himself that started it all off. Indeed, nowhere in his text does he manage to quote any instance at all where the college has broken the law - quite the reverse in fact. Dr Cross has clearly got only himself to blame for his present predicament and as far as I am concerned he deserves all of it. It is his kind of behaviour that makes life for all of us more difficult because it gives schools in general greater leverage to apply more stringent conditions on the rest of us.

In response to someone else's implication in this thread - Are we foreign teachers seriously being expected by some of you, to 'side' with those among us who complain unfairly in one way or another? This appears to be based only on the flimsiest of reasons, namely that because we are all foreign teachers we should therefore "stick together" God help whoever seriously believes that!

If those complaining cannot or will not make a clean breast of their own contributions to the apparent bad behaviour of their employer, then they're being unfair and are just as bad as they accuse the employers of being. Please don't bother making a complaint at all unless it is a real itemised and objective complaint and not a one-sided whinge.

John