Will you explain how you think it's a contradiction?

The truth is, for teachers who come to China, we have to be willing to change. You can't expect to leave this place unchanged, or else what's the point of coming?

Under forced circumstances due to lack of experience, we can compromise sure. But that doesn't mean we change our outlook on life lest we become some bitter, old man who brags about conjured exploits from days past. If you change and learn to appreciate the advantages of being a Westerner, then I would say you merely became more perceptive. That is no small feat in itself.

So you would say he treated all western teachers then with the freedom they deserve and expect, and respected their privacy, and provided accomodation free of utility bills? Sounds a funny primary school to me, a sham of a school, run by scammers and crooks!

OK...

So is this "authority thing" mentioned in any job adverts? And is it maybe discussed in interviews?

And does this "school" operate within the guidelines as defined by SAFEA?

Well such an accusation puts me in a bind, doesn't it? You're basically saying that my opinion can't be taken seriously because it's based on some kind of deluded thinking. And insisting that I am not deluded/irrational etc., which would of course be a natural reaction to such an accusation, would only make me sound more deluded to anyone who is convinced that these thoughts are coming from someone with Stockholm Syndrome, or something like it....

I'll just say that I get where you're coming from. I myself have accused others of the same thing in the past. It is a real phenomenon.

I'll also say that I am not a passive person by nature. I've gone head to head with abusive and unethical bosses and coworkers numerous times in my life, and not without cost to myself. I tried to be measured in my previous post, talking about the good and bad. Bottom line-- he is not a dishonest person. Not a scammer. I have worked for liars and scammers-- they are certainly out there. Working for Fred is no picnic but he is a fundamentally good person. He wants to do right by his teachers. But his baseline is confusing for people born and raised in Western culture. What I mean is, everyone has a baseline: minimum conditions they need in place in order to be able to do their best, to give them the necessary footing in order to then bring forth what their gifts and talents are. For Fred, his baseline is about authority. It's very Asian. Very Confucian. Life is hierarchical in these societies. The boss needs to have the upper hand, and he needs to know that you know he has the upper hand.

It does take some art to deal with this. But I learned how to eventually and it was worth it for me.

The truth is, for teachers who come to China, we have to be willing to change. You can't expect to leave this place unchanged, or else what's the point of coming?

Omack, I think you are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome...

Stockholm syndrome, or capture–bonding, is a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them. These feelings are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, who essentially mistake a lack of abuse from their captors for an act of kindness
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome

I take that your post is your freedom pass from gruff old Fled?

Great all that happened before you ever came to China. In Dongbei a contract means nothing, there are places that will falsify your signature for the official contract agreement with the government, some others you will never see a copy of your contract, and the one that you sign has no value whatsoever, unless of course you break it, and then you will be threaten and might lose your chance to teach here for a while.

Be very careful to choose where you go, and try to stay far from Dongbei. That's almost like another world, things "work" so different in there.

And you are right when you say they treat you as if they were making you a favor, that's their way to see foreigners there, they think we come to China because we have no better at home.

Good luck and I hope you find a better place than that

Then I have no comment. It's shameful that a semi-state run enterprise can work in such ways. Depressing times indeed.

Forgot to mention earlier that the full name of the "school" is Huludao Shifanfuxiao Primary School
The email addresses they used to contact me were: eslln@tom.com, dongbei.fao@gmail.com ... although by now they may have changed them.

I suppose adding my two cents on this post will show everyone how badly this school needs people yet will treat you like garbage even during the interviewing process. It's truly remarkable that they even got away with doing this for so long.

You're absolutely right. They are treating innocent foreign people like garbage even before they have come there during the application process. That is because they are garbage in their mindsets themselves and would be in need of professional psychiatric treatment urgently.

In other words, they are absolutely crazy and mad - and even in China, that is quite exceptional!

These comments posted by this Fred guy is symbolic of most if not all businesses and many public education sectors' attitudes towards a laowai, be they with a white face, a brown face, or even an Asian face. These employers sincerely believe that since they're paying you your salary then YOU absolutely have NO RIGHT to think for yourself. You can only TAKE what they dictate to you and accept it at full face value. They EXPECT you to let them take this for granted. It pretty much summarizes the ignorant, disgusting mindset of the employers.

They don't care if you are from a foreign country. In fact from what I have understood with the attitudes of these employers is that since you are flying all the way here from a foreign country it's because you couldn't "cut it" or "make it" in your own country. While I had met my fair share's worth of misfits in China while working there I have also met plenty of decent people. It's unfortunate that just because there were some laowai that these employers "heard about" making trouble in China they can then generalize it to the entire population of expats.

Fred, you are a disgrace to your culture. You should be ashamed of saying such things. You're words sound like something that a child of a Horse and a Donkey would say. Which animal that is would be something that you should spend time looking up but I'll answer for you anyway, it's spelled A, S, S.

I, too was contacted by "Xiao Lin" last year around June of 2009 while I was on one of my adventures in Dongbei with the Korean American owned school in Shenyang when I was contacted by this school. The mental loops that this school played with me to both entice and intimidate me even before I EVER considered going there truly will not make me forget this experience. I suppose adding my two cents on this post will show everyone how badly this school needs people yet will treat you like garbage even during the interviewing process. It's truly remarkable that they even got away with doing this for so long.

"there are very big percent of foreign teachers in China just garbage. They think they come from rich countries, they know everything; they always tell me they are happy with this or not happy with that. GO TO THE HELL. Who do you think you are? Are you real experts? Come on! Be conscious please and be indebted! Don't be evil. I think we respect you foreign teachers excessively and actually you don't deserve it."

How can someone who should be a "teacher" write such low quality insults? I wonder what and how he teaches his students? The person who wrote this should be reported to the Foreign Affairs Bureau in Beijing. This is an insult for foreigners and an insult for Chinese relations with foreign countries. If that is the opinion they have on foreigners they shouldn't be allowed to hire them in the first place. Foreign teachers working in for this "school" now should consider looking for other jobs to save their dignity. Personally as a Foreign Teacher who has been working in China for more than 3 years I felt very disappointed when reading this comment. My Chinese friends who read this post with me were also disappointed with their countryman who wrote it.

It sounds like a racist comment made by someone who clearly despises foreigners but still wants to exploit them for the sake of making money for his so called school/ business.

The comment about "garbage foreigners" demonstrates the ignorance of the person who wrote it. If that is what he thinks of Foreign Teachers then he should change his job and not work with people he clearly despises.

What should the Foreign Teachers be "indebted" for? They are not given any charity, they are just doing their work. You are not giving them money out of the kindness of your heart for doing nothing. They work, you pay... this is how the world goes, don't you know??

It is true that there are some poorly qualified Foreign Teachers in China but most of them are qualified professionals. They try their best to teach, in many cases without much assistance, guidelines or proper material and resources from the management of the schools they work for. Sometimes this is not appreciated by people like Fred who considers them "garbage"! If those teachers worked in other countries most likely they would be earning much more money, with better living conditions and have more respect so clearly they must be in China because they like the country and enjoy the experience. China is a great country with a long history of civilization... but the above comment makes me wonder if the person who wrote such things is "civilized" at all!

2500 years ago Confucius said that foreigners come to China from a long way and Chinese people should appreciate them. Deng Xiaoping also said: "We should have good relationships with foreign countries to promote Chinese economy" ... but maybe Mr Fred disagrees with his wise countrymen!

A school is not a business!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You are there to educate those little innocent children... but it sounds to me you are more interested in making money out of them.

I hope the Foreign Affairs Bureau in Beijing will investigate this school and remove this person from his position.

This is one thing that people who operates a training center or school must take notice. STOP calling your schools as a place for business. A teacher who hears that word will certainly leave his or her employment with or without a contract.

I am nearing the end of my patience as my FT boss keeps on telling everyone that he's got a business to run. Ouch!!! that's like a bomb exploding in my ears. And the funny thing about my boss is that he called to invite me to join his training center and 3 months after the starts talking like I should be grateful to him for getting the job. Yes, the pay was high. I took it. The accomodaton was practical. It is fine. The classrooms??? Don't ask. It is so dirty and smelly. I wonder how 6,000 students can keep on studying in a stinking place. I repeat, 6000 students in a training center. I have my own work visa anyway and I don't need the school to help out.

Well, a business is a business. A school is a school.

Maria: I just paid 322 Yuan this afternoon for YOUR phone bill. You worked in my school only 3 weeks and you made soooooo high phone bill, and I still dont know how high your water and electricity bills will be. You didnt pay us 800 $ which you should pay. So be quite. You should know you owe the school. You left the school a lot of mess. And now you are keeping badmouthing my school. What kind of lady you are!

I have experienced that bills for utilities were never shown to foreign teachers stating the exact amount for phone calls, where and for how long. There are are some suspicions that the officials or staff who collect the bills have a second income to overcharge foreign teachers when asking them to pay for utilities. The same for other utilities like electricity, gas, or whatever.

800 $ for utlilities in China is a very huge amount, and no foreign teacher would be prepared to pay it just because you demand it. You know, in our part of the world we also pay for all these utilities ourselves but we get bills that we can check as to their accuracy and we have the right to complain if there is something wrong in the bill. If you expect a foreign teacher to take your high fantasy bills just for granted, your expectations are wrong!

Learn from the West, mate!

Though there are some out-and-out western rascals working as foreign teachers in China, there is also a small group of kind foreign teachers, mainly white Americans, who are religious people. If you are in need of financial help, you can ask them for loans, and they will not disappoint you. Even if you can't repay them, on account of being broke again, they won't be too angry with you!

I have been doing this job for around 8 years, and I find out that there are very big percent of foreign teachers in China just garbage.

Oh yes, there is garbage everywhere - in the streets of big Western cities and in backward places in China with lots of rats around attracted by the smell of garbage. And some Chinese people in that area even do not care to put their garbage into bins where they belong, and they do not care about the rats around either.

Applying the term "garbage" to humans is quite another thing. If a larger part of foreign teachers in China are just garbage as you suggest, then my reply to you is this:

Yes, that's really true in some cases. But the number of garbage Chinese "schools" with lousy bosses, mean and greedy, cheating and deceiving as they are, incompetent school management, native Chinese "teachers" who can't speak a word of English themselves, garbage housing given to foreign teachers- all this is much more frequent than the number of foreign garbage teachers you are talking about.

And you know what - garbage attracts other garbage, that is in plain language: A garbage "school" probably attracts "garbage" teachers. If that is correct, then you might know why you have come across so many "garbage" teachers at your place.

I know a very simple solution: Do NOT employ foreign "garbage" teachers, and all your problems regarding foreign human garbage would be solved.

But maybe, no other (decent, non-garbage) foreign teacher wants to work for an obvious garbage place like yours. If so, all of us have what we want...hahaha!

As I have said before, this is a place to avoid.

I remember another poster ("Hans" and his wife, when posting on this board they were pretending to hold advanced degrees from Berlin Free University ion Germany) posting a lot of unfavourable personal information regarding some of those making critical posts here against Dongbei Primary.

It seems that this was another attempt to silence those making unfavourable posts with regard to Dongbei Primary, and it shows such posters have a hidden agenda when making such posts against certain individuals here.

Don't believe them!

Hello. I have to bump this post up as I have been waiting to write this. My boyfriend was so paranoid, distraught and afraid that this man, a supposed Fred (aka Xiao Lin), was crazy and has a history of harassing people so I waited. Back then, I even posted on http://raoulschinasaloon.com/index.php?topic=4608.0
If you can't read it, it says:
Advice: Liaoning???
on: December 18, 2009, 08:05:07 AM
I said:
Any thing good? Bad? Thanks!

THEN I also say...

LoL, actually I already saw this... we'll see. It definitely means we're not putting all our eggs into one basket but honestly, he just made the job sound a bit strict. Aside from that, he seemed "honest" but yeah we're still looking anyways.

Basically, someone refered to this very thread and lo and behold IF YOU CAN believe it, Fred/Xiao emails me the same day with this:

As I am a member of Raoul's China Saloon, I came across Lucy's post this evening about me and our school as posted by Lucy as "Liaoning Advice"?

http://raoulschinasaloon.com/index.php?topic=4608.0;topicseen.

Given what Lucy has written about me personally and the school, it would appear to be everyone's best interest that we pass on your application.

I will write to Raoul. privately, to correct other matters in this thread.

Sincerely Yours,
Xiao Lin

SO NOW, apparently not only did he speak during the phone interview for a total of 2 hours (mostly ramble, half business-related) and talk about cow pastures and fresh milk in Liaoning, but he also considers my concerns enough to withdraw my application. What can I say. It happened for the best!

And just to add, Fred also contacted the website's administrator to have my very vague question pulled and then put us in a situation where we couldn't tell if he was trying to harass us through the administrator (aka our personal work related Visa problems AS MENTIONED IN THE THREAD: http://www.eslteachersboard.com/cgi-bin/review/index.pl?read=28821) or really had a genuine concern for us. I mean, yeah, so he shows his concern for us by telling the administrator what I personally told him during our 2 hour long interview. AND, other than it being a draggy 2 hour phone interview, the school did seem a bit strict but Fred advised the apartment is brand new and it's nice, etc etc. I was willing to give him the benefit of a doubt, but perhaps, it's best it came down to this. You judge according. =) Cheers.

Lucy

I worked at this school. If you ever see Huludao and primary school together, just keep moving. This place is a joke and they are not trustworthy at all. They try to cheat you in all sorts of ways. The Foreigner that they have there, says that he is your friend and that is trying to help you. Don't believe it. They fail to tell you that you have "English Corners" every morning that they expect you to do. They are constantly criticizing your teaching, but never try to give you support. The FAO is a lying con man, he will change his answers every five minutes. They try to keep working in the school by using fear. Just be smart and stay away for this place. I agree, if you constantly see the same school advertising for teachers, it means that is a loser school.

I came here looking for work. The Foreigner who says that places the ad for the school is just trying screen out bad teachers uses three different names when you contact him and can become irrational at times. He goes through this whole thing about how the school will try to throw you out of the country if you don't work hard. I have no problem with that, so I keep going. I get there and the apartment is nice but very far away from the school! I had to walk 45 minutes to and from the school each way! They said that would give me a bike, but they would take the money from my pay as an advance. I declined.

The FAO is a surly guy, who barely knows English himself. "Fred" is not a teacher just a man who needs a job and can speak some English. What tore it for me was these English corners and my "teaching evaluations". The administration wanted me to watch the "Head" foreign teacher give a lesson. They do not want to pay for anything, they paid me by each class I taught, but I was supposed to go the training for free? I told the Head guy and he tried to get me to play sick. I refused. The FAO came to me and told me to go to the training and I asked him to show me where in the contract where it said that I must attend these trainings, he could not. The next few days the Head foreign teacher would not speak to me. I finally asked him what was wrong and told me that I had slighted him. I had told him to his face that I was not going to this and he had tried to convince me to come or play sick. He was part of the whole set up. A week later the FAO called for me and handed me a sheet of paper trying show where in the contract it showed where I had to attend these trainings and now I had to go EXTRA trainings. I just looked at it, and told him to cancel the contract. I left there several days later and I tell you, I never felt freer.

This Huludao primary school is a joke and one that should be avoided at all costs. Do not believe the words that these people say. I have placed my email at the top, I have nothing to hide and I stand by my accounting of this. I am still in China and still teaching.

This is a typical ploy by schools to hurry you up into signing a contract. Delay, delay and then set a last minute deadline. One of the first requests that I always had with a school is to show me the apartment and contact names of other foreign teachers that have worked there so that I can contact them and ask about the working and living conditions at the school and city. I have never had the "good cop bad cop" routine done to me until I was at a school working and when the school management wanted me to work extra hours, do promo work "English Corners" etc. Schools in China are like what is now being built in many parts of Canada "3P", "public, private partnership". A school is set up to educate the students at the same time make money for a few people. I have yet to find out what different people might be involved in making money from a school (head master, investors, education department people, what freinds etc). How you are treated by the different people in a school (head master, FAO, fellow teachers) is all over the board and it also varies from school to school on how you are treated. I am glad to hear that you gave this school a pass as there are better places there to work for. Keep looking and pass any good reports on to your friends and others. Enjoy your time there in China.

Recently my girlfriend and I had been in contact with this school located in Huludao for over a month (Nov-Dec). We had several phone interviews, interaction through e-mail and were just about to sign a contract. Towards the end things started to get weird. The foreign administrator began to get hostile with us. It started to feel like they were doing US a favor and that there was no mutual excitement to work with one another. We were told several times that they were trustworthy but with nothing to back it up. At one point the FAO even accused me of coming on this message board and searching for another job. At one point after the whole msg board fiasco we received another email declaring that they did not think we were sincere enough or that we did not care for children. We literally sent nothing preceding that email to indicate anything negative of ourselves. There were two people we were dealing with, one was "supposedly" a teacher there named (get this) Xiao Lin and the other was Fred the FAO (even though Xiao had FAO in his email address) Basically it was a good cop bad cop routine with Xiao being the good cop and Fred being the bad cop. The worst came at the end where after almost 2 weeks of excuses and push backs we finally received the contract. Right away we were told we had a deadline of less than TWO DAYS to sign the contract. The photos that were to accompany the contract never arrived.

My girlfriend than emailed them asking if she could see photos of the school and apartment. This was followed by and I quote "we feel now that the questions are becoming a bit never-ending". WHAT!?!? Never-ending!?!? I have never heard of a prospective employer saying this before. Especially an employer who is overseas and which I would have to work for over a year with. This was all over the request to see pictures of an apartment, AN APARTMENT! My girlfriend and I were now hesitant and decided to wait for the apartment photos to come in. We "passed" our two days deadline when I received a letter from Xaio telling us the deal was off. He then proceeded to tell us who they had selected and said we had missed a great opportunity. The guy basically emailed my to rub it in our faces! We were relieved to tell you the truth because I'm sure had we decided to go there the trust issues would have been enormous and if there was anger over a photo request BEFORE we even worked for them we were sure there would have been worst problems down the road.

I have recently read on other message boards from this school who basically posts every three months asking for teachers which can only mean that their turnover is great (some not even lasting the semester). I have also noticed that there wages have gone down and there hours have gone up. I really hope no one gets sucked into this cat and mouse game like we did. It was weird two because it was a public school and not a training center. I guess however not all public schools are equal.