I never want to go back to work there, even in the public sector, thoroughly jaded with the place.

And if you end up on bad terms with the school FAO, he'll backstab you. You won't be able to get a new job in that province as he'll have blackened your name with the local education bureau! Seen it happen, my friend!

I'm sorry about taking so long to reply. I thought it would be best to wait for my release letter before furnishing further details about how I dealt with my problem.

OK, so I forwarded the stupid e-mail I had received to the previous FT, whom I'd never met or connunicated with at that point.

I waited for his reply for a few days, but he never replied. However, I had already heard about him from a private school boss who had been pestering me to take a second job, that boss having told me that he'd gotten my cellphone number from my FAO! That had annoyed me, as I was disinterested in a second job. What I had been told was that the American had bragged about his FEC despite having dropped out of an Amreican college after just one year, had a live-in Chinese girlfriend who had tried to commit suicide and was nutty as a fruit cake, loved travelling alone, and had criticized his FAO outside public school circles for laziness. So, I sent that FT a 2nd e-mail giving him my Skype details and complaining bitterly about my FAO, who was his FAO's successor.

He took the bait, and we Skyped! He tried to dissuade me from going after my FAO. I surmise that was because he knew my FAO was helping the private school boss to recruit the FT by providing personal information. coz I had told him so.

That FT said he wouldn't repay them my salary as they had scammed him out of insurance money over the several years he had worked there. Not my business really!

Back to my problem, I got my salary eventually, about 4 weeks late, after my FAO had lied to me twice about the money already having being paid!

I've seen it before. Chinese never admit when they are wrong, this is part of the 面子/face social concept.

Someone does something obviously in the wrong or flat out stupid but instead of apologizing and taking responsibility for it they will try to deflect blame by moving their responsibility onto someone else and foreigners are easy targets. One guy at my company made a mistake that resulted in relatively big financial losses, instead of acknowledging or (god forbid) apologizing for his mistake, he tried to blame another employee below him, fortunately the office manager know the true responsible and managed to save the man's face while ensuring that he would reimburse the losses.

If they get called out on it, instead of just walking away and salvaging whatever dignity they can from it, they make a massive scene which attracts onlookers. Now there is no way out and even more face is being lost so they scream more and make the situation even bigger. It's like the only way to save face is go nuclear which loses you even more face, so they start throwing things or attacking people to cover their embarrassment and just make it worse.

I saw a women get caught shoplifting once. The security guy or manager or whoever he was kept telling here to open her handbag and she wouldn't so he grabbed it off her and took out whatever it was she had stolen. She went apeshit, screaming at him like he'd violated her rights or something but he just told her to leave.

She kept screaming and abusing him and he was obviously just trying to avoid trouble, he kept saying just go - which set her off even more.

Now she was screaming about how he couldn't kick her out of the place and did he know who she was? Her brothers's wife's sister's friend's cousin's father's concubines's mother was... whoever and he would rue the day he decided to bully her and blah blah blah.... when I left people were trying to calm her down - and I suppose give her face,as if she was the one who was the victim - so she could go home and complain about the disgusting treatment she endured.

I really don't understand the face thing. It has do be the dumbest mindset ever created.

This is one of the best... :o)

He just turned his mistake into your problem... and I assume that he then returned to his daily activities as if nothing happened...

How did you deal with this situation?