Yes indeed, DPP. I arrived in China a very optimistic person, and when I left five years later I was extremely cynical and worn down by the whole ESL mess. Now that I've been away from China since the beginning of 2008, luckily the positive aspects and experiences remain foremost in my memory. It's too bad that the great majority of my wonderful and sometimes fascinating experiences happened outside of the training center, or off-campus of the university (if you don't count some of the most jaw-dropping things my students would utter from time-to-time).

Like you, in my early weeks in China, I tried to remain as patient and flexible as possible; but after a while, it became abundantly clear that the school (I first taught at a vocational college in Jiangsu) had no intention of doing things more reasonably, or professionally. I moved on to the next and larger city of Nanjing, and took up with a training center that was paying twice the amount of the first salary, and because the facility was very shiny and new (and I was recruited by a Chinese acquaitance I had met in the U.S.) I assumed this place would be far more efficient and professional -- WRONG!

Anyway, I want to address ywo of the points you made in your post, DPP...

1) That newbies should do as much research as possible before signing up and venturing to China. Of course, I agree with that, but I've yet to determine more than one or two effective ways to make an informed decision. A great many schools/training centers I worked for had no website, or if they did, it was almost exclusively in Chinese -- and made ridiculous, unsupported claims. Also, the websites are rarely updated to reflect current programs, FT staff, etc.

After getting burned by a number of such adult centers (not with pay, but conditions, expectations, and almost total lack of academic support that had been promised up front) I tried a couple of universities. Now I know a number of posters around here (ones that usually largely agree with) feel that universities are preferable to private centers, and perhaps, according to their experience(s) that is true. NOT true for me though.

The reason I mention this is because in each of two cases, I spoke with foreigners about the job and asked lots of probing questions. (The longer I was in China, my interview question repertoire got longer and longer). Anyway, these foreigners were in cahoots with the school "leaders" and purposely misled me about several matters, such as housing, class size, etc.

In other words, what should I (and others) have done differently? We seek info and reviews on this and other ESL-related websites. We believe we are getting reasonably trustworthy info and advise from other expats, and yet, we get burned nevertheless. I simply don't know how one is to effectively "research" a potential ESL employment situation in China.

The biggest liars I've ever encountered were my two foreign managers in Korea last year. They were total con artists.

2) Standing up to Chinese employers and amangement. Again, in the beginning, I wanted to be flexible and "cooperative" and a "team player" (ugh!), but so quickly I saw it just an exploitation game for however long I was willing to tolerate it.

I made many, many wonderful friendships with Chinese people during my time there. I was the odd expat that would socialize almost exclusively with Chinese, rather than fellow expats. I think this happned for two reasons: a) I was much older than most of my expat colleagues; and b) I wanted to gain a much better understanding of Chinese culture, and what better way than to hang out with locals, right?

It was from discussing frustrations with employers with Chinese that enboldened me to cut through so much of the BS that was being hurled at me on an almost-daily basis. Chinese know far better than expats just how much cheating/trickery goes on in their country. It was my friends that confirmed my negative notions about what was happening at work, with local authorities, merchants, etc.

I strongly advise newcomers to make friends with some locals, but choose carefully. Naturally, many Chinese people must learn to trust you and feel comfortable with you before they will express their trie feelings and opinions about a situation. Are westerners so different in this way?

Also, my best travel experiences in other parts of China were with Chinese firends, who showed me China in more "back door" kind of fashion.

Thanks for your post, DPP, and for keeping the conversation going...