I couldn't have said it better myself!

Hi AMonk. Just a couple of quick comments of your comments about the OP's English. It is a very common bit of knowledge that with the every increasing use of computers/internet that the quality or our written English has declined. This poor use of English has slowly creped into our oral English too. This has been noted many by many educators and I too am guilty of this crime plus I am an English teacher to! Maybe the OP is a non native English speaker but please give the OP the doubt or make your comments in a more positive manner. Thanks for your consideration.

"To be effective....you need to be on your professional mettle"

Anyone who claims to be an expert English speaker/teacher should be able to demonstrate a better quality of writing than "Doctor" Cross showed.

I have been put off, even repulsed, by the low standards exhibited in some of the postings which have appeared in the past. "Doctor" Cross's is simply one of the most glaringly bad. As others have noted, there are some gaps and questions raised by the "doctor's" testament. But my major issue is/was that in order to be taken seriously, one should use a decent English format (which we all purport to be able to teach our students).

I have accepted badly written passages full of English errors which were rich with Ideas and Creativity. However, the writers were neophytes, not self-proclaimed "experts" whose job it is/was to teach their native tongue to others.

I repeat, "if you want (to be taken seriously and) to be effective, be on your professional mettle" when you report your experiences to your peers.

Thanks for your reply, Frank. As you (and others) can now see, I meant you no malice or insult in picking on your use of that word.

I doubt that Dr Cross will have anything further to say. I am quite satisfied that his situation was largely brought about by his own actions and subsequent attitude to the college's response. I believe he has been comprehensively debunked and like he appears to have done at Gannan Normal College, he has now run away yet again.

John

Your "Paging Dr.Cross" posting states that his "episode" with Gannan Normal College was "horrific" How can you say that, Frank? All the signs in Dr Cross's own complaint suggest that it was not "horrific" at all. Indeed he was not even there after the College refused to stop "disrespecting his privacy" and confirmed their agreement to him breaking his contract.

Indeed it is quite clear that he did break not only his employment contract, but the law too. Thus, whatever "horror" Dr Cross may have experienced may well have been entirely his own fault.

We all have only the one posting from Dr Cross and nowhere does even he suggest it was horrific - merely that it was inconvenient and expensive for he and his girlfriend to live in a succession of hotels after HE ran away.

Dr Cross posted what everyone agrees was one-sided, vague, cryptic, confusing, etc etc. But there was enough clarity there for me to draw my distinctions but there is none whtsoever that entitles you to state that his experience was "horrific"

As you say yourself, Frank,"It's All In The Details"

As for the vicious, mud-slinging nature of the discussions herein, let me point out that I never mud-sling anyone. It's the likes of Mr Duke who; when their argument is defeated; lack the control necessary to resist calling names and making personally insulting remarks and telling lies against some of us who simply have the temerity to state our own opinions even though they differ from his. Mr Duke - in this case at least - has not shown himself to be "wise" - "sensitive" and imbued with "wit" as you said in an earlier posting in this thread. It only shows up the fact that he has a narrow mind, a bullying attitude and a big mouth - as was also volunteered by "Earthling" in his posting.

John

I guess Im lucky because I see things I agree with in some or all of the posting in this thread from Raoul, John, Ginger Grant, and Yingwen Laoshi. But in all of this heated and now vicious debate, something quite central to all this shouting and mud-slinging has been lost: Where is Dr. Cross? It is his vague and rambling posting that provoked this personal and rhetorical warfare. As I said before, I want to be sympathetic to James Crosss plight, but without clarification it is difficult.

Dr. Cross, as you can see, a firestorm has erupted as a result of your rather cryptic outcry.

I hope you will return and remove much of the mystery surrounding your horrific episode at Gannan.

Yes, I do indeed agree with your impressions of Mr Duke. However, he does seem to be rather hollow in the face of a well-presented case. He didn't even address what I said about Dr Cross but simply ranted away at me for having dared to challenge his complaint. Some argument, Huh?

Then he descended into the refuge of small children - that being throwing around insulting remarks and name-calling. Always a sure admittance of defeat and indeed, in his case, a public acknowledgement thereof.

I shall ignore Mr Duke of course. A man like him, who thinks he is important, will always experience greater frustration when the one he presumes to throw insults at, simply ignores him in the way one ignores a child throwing a tantrum.

Finally, thank you for your support. A few others have been in touch privately with their support too.

John

Fellow FTs and Earthlings,

First of all, I support peoples right to disagree and engage in spirited debate. For several months, I visited and occasionally posted thoughts and experiences at Daves ESL Caf (and still do from time-to-time). I find Daves to be an often hostile and unsupportive forum. Theres too much Kill The Messenger going on over there.

In the beginning, I was coming to ESLTeachersBoard.com for job postings and school reviews only. After growing weary of so many inhospitable and morally-superior posters on Daves forum, I decided to read a couple of months worth of threads on ESLTB.

What I quickly discovered was that many of the posts from Raoul Duke often articulated my own experiences and theories about the pleasures and pitfalls of living and teaching in China. More often than not, I find that Raoul Duke brings tremendous wisdom and insight and wit to his posts, and I also feel he is quite open and generous in offering guidance and support to others who often feel confused or victimized.

Raoul Duke has tremendous connection to and understanding of the common and down-trodden people of China. (Read his postings regarding the "Rose Children," for example.)

I have a tremendous respect for many of the FTs that post on this forum. I have learned much and from many of them, whether through experiential testimony or terse debate. But were it not for Raoul Duke, I DOUBT I WOULD BE HERE AT ALL!

Love him, like him, or hate him; of course I cant do anything about your feelings regarding The Duke (or me, for that matter!), but to dismiss him outright will surely deprive one of insight and understanding and quite a few laughs along the way.

Sure, hes a wise guy, but also a wise and sensitive man.

Hail to The Duke!

Don't be silly, Mr Duke. You make it sound as if I am always posting anti-teacher complaints in here. I have in fact taken issue with only three in the last seven months and every one of them deserved it. Since the beginning of 2005 (Repeat:2005 - not 2006) I have taken issue with the following people and schools (Yes, Mr Duke! I do schools too!). The following postings are all matters of record and there are no others of mine to report on.

1) Mr Barry Donnelly for his complaint about Ruwi School that was so badly written that I had to tell him about it - as did several other people. Also, I knew Mr Donnelly personally and I can assure you that whilst his complaint about Ruwi was true to some extent, he chose to ignore a number of major contributing factors on his part. Ruwi may have acted wrongly - but so did Mr Donnelly who chose not to refer to his own involvement in his being fired.

2) I exposed a scam in Nigeria, purporting to be from "Brightstar Academy" conning people out of money for "advance expenses" connected to a job offer. You didn't see fit to offer me any compliments there, Mr Duke.

3) Along with several other teachers, I challenged Mr Hemingway's long and boring account of his treatment by a College in Huabei. My own complaint was confined only to the un-necessary length and irrelevant content of his posting, which went on for thousands of words. I didn't comment about the causes of his problem - only the manner in which he presented it. The Hemingway issue went on for a very long time - fuelled by yourself in no small measure, Mr Duke. You even tried to un-necessarily raise it again quite recently, well after it had all died down and gone away. You, however, are a personal friend of Mr Hemingway so you can be counted on to defend him no matter what the causes may have been.

4) I also challenged Mr Davis's equally long, personally insulting and boring diatribe about Ruwi School and its management. That went on for a long time too. I have since been privately informed of many other aspects of Mr Davis's behaviour at Ruwi School that point the finger right back at him.

5) Da Yang English Training Centre in Jingdezhen - specifically its owner, Ms Litta. I twice warned about this school and on each occasion was supported by several people who had worked there.

6) Recently I busted another scam, this time in Ghana - it was identical in nature to the one in Nigeria and my research indicated that both scams originated from the same people. You missed that too, Mr Duke!

7) Someone named "Yi" who with a number of others flew to China to take up a job in a summer school without securing Letters of Invitation and therefore had no 'Z'Visas. School may have been in the wrong (but may actually have acted correctly - their conduct was not fully explained by Yi) Yi & Co obviously did not check on the procedure for entering China and found themselves destitute on arrival. If they couldn't be bothered to do some quick and simple research then they should not have been surprised when they found themselves in trouble.

So, in the past nineteen months, I have taken issue with only four other Foreign Teachers - namely Messrs Donnelly, Yi, Davis and Hemingway - My challenge to Dr Cross counts as Teacher No.5. In the same period, however, I have also taken issue with three so-called schools - Da Yang I took to account on two separate occasions so I can probably claim four in all.

Thus I think my posting history on here is nothing like you untruthfully accuse me of. Moreover what little I have done is pretty evenly balanced between other teachers who have been at fault and schools who have been at fault. So, before throwing your wild accusations around, Mr Duke - I suggest you get up off your asshole and do some research! Those like you who jump to accusations face the risk of making themselves appear silly - as you have done.

Moreover the teachers I have challenged have all been cases where it has been QUITE obvious that the teacher concerned has been at fault to some significant degree and/or has been guilty of lying and/or using insulting language. If those complaints were so objective - where were you then, Mr Duke? You didn't see fit to challenge me back then did you? No, Sir! You kept your head down and tacitly accepted the validity of my arguments. Even when I challenged your personal friend, Mr Hemingway, you remained silent. So why do you now jump up and bleat so belatedly?

Moreover in my postings I merely turned the plaintiffs' own whining back on themselves - I did not "invent" situations. I took what they had said, considered it all very carefully indeed - from all angles, (something you need to learn yourself) and I looked on it in a different way from that which they expected. Which is a nice way of saying that I saw through them.

You are quite right in saying that there are many schools that are every bit as bad as they are claimed to be. My postings show that I will challenge them too. I have challenged a very small number of teachers who chose to falsify their complaints by means of exaggeration, lies and selective reporting of facts. So don't exaggerate your claim against me in the same way that they exaggerate theirs. I ask you to be big enough to publicly retract the following claim that even you know is untrue. I quote your own words:

a) "If you look at John's posting history, mostly over on the Reviews side, it's hard not to notice that John seems to exist for one thing and one thing only: to try and shoot down any complaint that any foreign teacher makes about any school. He puts a lot of work into making it look as if any problem that happens in China is entirely the fault of the foreign teacher"

Do you seriously wish to apply the foregoing to a mere handful of instances in the last year and a half? Don't you think you are being ridiculous?

You are a far more frequent visitor here than I am and I see you jumping in with your brand of subjective opinion quite often. I think a lot of what you have said in the past has been uninvited, uncalled for and in large part a load of utter crap -don't see any need to make personal innuendo against you where your opinion has differed from mine. It does seem from what you say now, that you reserve unto yourself the right to spout your unsupported opinions, whilst others - in this case, me - should be denied a similar right. Who do you think you are?

I make a point of never resorting to personal attacks or innuendo, Mr Duke. You however are happy to descend into the practice of trying to discredit me by puffing away with your own innuendo. Isn't that what you accuse me of doing, Mr Duke? Are you not the pot calling the kettle black?

What I will NOT ignore are cases like that of Dr Cross who has quite plainly stuffed Gannan Normal College from start to finish and is now justly reaping his whirlwind. I don't need to know much about the college nor about Dr Cross to deduce what has happened. It is his kind of behaviour that adversely affects all of us who act properly and reasonably, I think I have every right to comment upon it.

If Dr Cross's case is so virtuous then why has he not come back and clarified the behaviour that caused the college to deal with him in the way they did? Indeed I don't see you addressing the content of my challenge to Dr Cross's complaint - merely the fact that I challenged it at all. This suggests you have no argument to mount about his complaint. You even admit that you were so unobservant as to not notice what I did - namely that it is probable that Dr Cross moved his girl friend in with him. How can you claim however that the colleges's response was "draconian" when all Dr Cross said was that they were not respecting his privacy. If it was a rule that Dr Cross chose to ignore, then the College have every right to invoke that rule - but what was Dr Cross's reaction? He evidently threw a tantrum or two and then did a runner.

You leave your views on ALL schools very clear when you accuse me of "Sleeping with the Enemy" Who is "the enemy", Mr Duke? Is this how you view all schools in China? As "The Enemy"? and all because of my very small handful of challenges to teachers who were being unprofessional and one-sided?

My God! You are so easy to overturn! Go away, Mr Duke and READ Dr Cross's complaint a few more times and try looking at it for what it is. You already missed the very core of it and have probably missed a lot more too. In future you would do well to research your responses and take more care with them so that you don't make yourself look foolish.

John

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

Having read Dr Cross's posting a number of times, I feel there is rather more to the matter than meets the eye.

1) Dr Cross pointedly fails to say anything about how and why the College were "not respecting his privacy". Maybe he was doing something that they felt they had every right to stop him doing. He starts off by saying "we were being harassed" and immediately changes to the first person singular "they did not respect MY privacy" Who were "we"? Almost certainly he and his girlfriend I think.

If he had arrived at the college and moved his girl-friend in with him, then that could be construed by the employer as an action unbecoming a foreign teacher and not in keeping with Chinese customs. Moreover, the employer is under no obligation to provide a home for foreign teachers' girlfriends. This may not meet with the approval of the employee but we are all working and living in a foreign country and in all employment contracts I have ever seen there has always been one or more clauses that refer to local laws, and customs. These clauses in effect give the employer more or less carte-blanche to invoke them to get rid of their employee if they wish. Of course I have no idea what it was that Dr Cross was said to be doing that caused the college to "harass" him, because he has chosen to keep us in the dark about it. Why is that, I wonder?

2) He refers to "these activities" and claims that when he asked the college to stop doing whatever they were doing that did not respect his privacy, they told him they could not.

3) He then received a letter from the college telling him he could break his contract - this suggests that he may have told them he wanted to leave and their letter was agreement to him doing so.

4) Then the college reported him to the Foreign Affairs Department and Dr Cross implies that he has no idea why? Did he not address their complaint with the Foreign Affairs Department? Did they refuse to tell him what the complaint was about? Or did he not bother to go and see them and instead quietly faded away one night hoping that his absence would defuse the matter? Indeed, come to think of it - maybe he had already faded away and that would legally require them to inform the Authorities.

5) Why did the college keep his personal belongings? Of what use were they to the college? Could Dr Cross have had a penalty to pay for breaking his contract and the college decided to hang on to his things as security pending payment of whatever he may have owed them? Also, Dr Cross must have left his belongings behind or the college could not have got hold of them. Perhaps Dr Cross left in a hurry?

6) He admits that the college got him the proper paperwork and says that these "would have expired on August 24th 2006" - about a month from now. But evidently his visa was not cancelled as it should have been when he left the college. He says that he asked his new employer to "get the proper permits" yet he should have known that in order for them to do this the existing visa needed to be properly cancelled by Gannan Normal College and a letter of recommendation obtained from them. Do I smell a moonlight departure here?

7) It seems he is now in the position where the Nanchang Police Department have found him and told him he is in the country illegally. This would be the case if he has left Gannan Normal College without having his visa cancelled and is hawking himself around trying to get another employer to dig him out of his own trouble.

8 I think he is very fortunate not to be in far more serious trouble. He would be well advised to use the balance of his 9 days grace period to make arrangements to leave China and then get his girlfriend a new place to live instead of seemingly imlying that the Nanchang Police are being unreasonable in throwing him out leaving her homeless. Dr Cross's girlfriend is his own responsibility.

9) It is quite probable that there is no "way around" this situation as China is not always so corrupt as he may believe.

Perhaps Dr Cross should accept that somewhere along the line he has done something wrong or at least wrong enough to arouse the hackles on his employer's neck. Whether or not he could have avoided this or rectified it at the time is now beside the point. He has to leave or face the real risk of imprisonment. Moreover, he may not be allowed to return either - as he did not ask (or allow?) Gannan Normal College to cancel his visa and they will have informed the police accordingly - as indeed the law requires them to do in such cases. This may well have blacklisted him for future entry into China.

It all points to Dr Cross taking great umbrage at being told to stop doing something that he felt was his right and then doing a runner to try to evade the consequences. He has definitely not told us the background to this situation and as such that throws a huge amount of suspicion on his complaint.

John

Dear J. Cross,

I am very sympathetic to your plight. However, I am also taken aback by your badly written testament.

I presume that you make claim to be a Native Speaker (judging from your UK e-mail address), yet you wrote such a poor sample of English, that I have to wonder whether the original University let you go "with cause"? Apart from NO paragraphing, and endless, convoluted sentence "structure", I found at least 7 (seven) errors in your submission. You further sign your posting as "Doctor". Of what, may I ask? Surely not English.

Your warning would be better received if you had proof-read your caveat, and had explained exactly what you meant by the Uni "not respecting privacy". Did someone rummage through your belongings, rearrange your papers, walk in and out of your home, go through your mail or continuously interrupt your lessons? Or was it something(s) else?

Please do not think that I do not feel sad that you have had such a lousy experience. I do. But to be effective when reporting on it, you do need to be on your professional mettle.

Good luck for the future.

AMonk

What happened was we were being harassed , meaning they did not respect my privacy , I had ask them several times to put an end to these activities and they said they could not. After some time I received and email that stated I could break the contract. I received the letter from the Gannan foreign affairs office indirecly from the school President of Gannan Normal College in Ganzhou City, Jiangxi Province. Shortly after the incident , they reported me to the Departmnet of Foreign Affairs In Nanchang City , what they said I would really like to find out. Also they kept my personal belongings for three months on top of all these happenings. After being homeless though the winter break , Spring festival and New Year we exhausted all our money on eating and hotels and again we did not have our personal things all this time. We did have the proper permits at Gannan , that would of expired August 24, 2006. After the holiday we found a job at Dayu College in Nanchang though Frank Zhang agency ( be aware of this person ) , at the beginning of our relation we told them of the incident and that we should get the proper permits for my job and after many suggestions to take care of this matter , nothing happened. Recently we were called in to the police department in Nanchang, Wanli district were we lived and then the said I was breaking the law and it turns out they told me I had to leave China in nine days from the 21st July 2006 and leave my girlfriend homeless on top of it. There must be a way I can get around this incident beings I was a victim of deceit and was not told the truth. These schools need to take there responsibilities more serious instead of putting the heat on the foreign teachers. This is a very bad way to treat foreign teachers in China. I would appreciate any help I can get .

Dr James Cross
jcross73uk@yahoo.com