As you have googled me you can see that I am a real person.
I have nothing to hide which is why i had given my name as opposed to hiding behind a clever moniker.
I am the same person that defends people against malicious and unfounded attacks. i have no reason to lie about my experience here in China or with the schools.
There was a time when i genuinely believed that the people i was working with were able to move away from the idea of using foreigners merely as foreign monkeys. I refuse to contribute to a system that allows Ft to be exploited. While I was at Future English formerly English First I did everything in my power to ensure that the others were paid fairly, on time and treated with some decency. You can choose to believe that or not but again I have no reason to lie here.
I was paid and i believe paid well for my efforts so my my leaving was not based on that. I left when I realized that the owner of the school, (a used car salesman) would never ever be the one that would respect and treat his FT well. One of the teachers that had been there for years was told they could not afford to pay him a few thousand a month more even though their student number had doubled within the last year and a half. This proved to me that they had no gratitude or loyalty to the very people that allowed them to continue running a school. That along with cheating their Chinese assistants showed me that it was not the place to be. I left shortly after a discussion with the owner whereas he proved along with the other Chinese staff to be dishonest, corrupt and incapable of being honest.
I considered working at York as well as a few other schools as I do enjoy teaching. watching students understand and develop their skills is something that brings me pleasure. I have though refused to work at any of these schools as none of them seem to have any desire for anything more than a foreign monkey, backpacker or someone with little idea as to what is happening here. I have spoken with others that continue to work at places such as these and there attitudes are disheartening. Claiming that all schools will cheat and treat their FT's like crap is no reason to to not work for them shows in my mind their true lack of belief in their ability, understanding of basic commerce and their true sense of worth.
These schools continue to operate based on peoples willingness to continue with the secrets. The lies that shroud each school gives the owners the ability to exploit their teachers and pit each FT against the other. It is through fear and ignorance that FT's will continue to accept the crap that is being handed to them. I for one refuse to take whatever crap pie someone is going to try and give me. I will continue to relate my experiences here and elsewhere in an attempt to help others avoid the mistakes I have made. I will remain here in China because I do like living here and the pros outweigh the cons, these crappy experiences help to form my opinions on a variety of things.
I do believe and it might be naive of me that there are good places to work, there are people with good intentions trying to improve the situation and that one day things will be better for FT here in China. If I see a place like that then I will say what i have to say, if not then I will also say what I have to say. I will not though discount the entire country or industry as entirely crap and suggest to people they not even make the effort. You may call me a fool for being optimistic but ultimately that is your opinion and it is just one of many.

As for me complaining about my four and a half years experience, where you might see it as complaining I see it as telling those who are interested what had happened. I have no secrets, nor any reason to worry about what my detractors might say.