I'm in Guangdong. Altogether I have lived in China for more than five years and all but about 6 weeks of that time was spent here in Guangdong. I'm not wild about cold weather. Presently I have a Chinese friend working on this but she is in another city. I also have an "agent" assisting me but of course his motivation is strictly financial. It's the same agent that helped me land my current position and I laid a bit of a guilt trip on him basically saying, "You sent me to this place now help fix the damage." He seems to think he can but we'll see. As far as dumping me without a reference for "no good reason" the key word is "good." I'm sure they THINK they have a good reason. While my teaching has never once been called into question my propensity to get, um, "peeved" about small matters like having 6 classes added to my schedule with no additional compensation makes me a "problem." That's why to me this whole reference thing is such a travesty. All a school has to do is say the word and you're more or less blacklisted. They needn't produce a paper trail showing you've been evaluated and proven to be terrible. They just say "unfavorable" for whatever reason they see fit and that's the end of it. A school often can't hire you even if it wants to if this "unfavorable" label gets slapped on you. My present school has had not just one but two couples do a runner before their contract was up in just the past 3 years. The second was a retired couple and were Christians. These were not crazy backpacker types. I could write a novel-length list of all the crap I've endured here. I'm a "problem" because I actually spoke up about it which I'm now very sorry I did. One thing I will definitely do in the future is insist on a formal written evaluation signed and stamped by whomever I'm working for. If they're going to call me names they're going to do it in writing and not surprise me at the end by pulling a stunt like my current employer is.