One of the points in the contract is that the school will withhold 1000 RMB of my pay each month as a "bond" for the first 6 months. This means that if I were to terminate early, I would not be payed the bond back.

Is this something I should be worried about?

That's like asking the mouse of the cat looming over him is something to be worried about. heck yeah it is something to be worried about. I have also run into this, and in truth is is nothing more than a way to steal your money. I have known quite a few teachers who have finished their contract that never saw a dime of this so called "bond" money. This is your pay, your money, and they have no right whatsoever to hold it. If they have had many teachers quit, it has more to do with who they hire, and their own schools quality then anything else. To punish you for their own lack of trust, and likely lack of quality, is not fair at all.

Every school I have encountered that demands this has been of dubious to extremely low quality. Any decent school worth it's salt won't need to threaten teachers with withheld wages, which is what this really is. If in your home country you took a job at say walmart for example, and they told you "we will withhold 20 percent of your wages for 6 months" would you accept it? Of course not, you'd tell them to kiss your a@@ and walk out. hat is what you should do here. Chinese bank on newbies to China being uneducated, uninformed, and naive enough to accept something like this as a cultural thing that they simply don't understand. That you come here asking if this is OK proves that. The answer is no, it is not OK, and it is not even close to being the norm here. Only low quality schools who have lost many teachers will do this, instead of cleaning up their act. If you go to work for this place, and accept such BS, you will likely never see a dime of that money, and even if you did, so what? For 6 months you'd be making a lot less money, and it is your money, they have no right to hold it.

No, this is not the norm, and it is not acceptable, trust me on that. If you take this job my guess is you will not be happy, and will want to leave because of mistreatment, hence why they want to shackle you with this kind of provision in your contract. Were I you, I'd keep looking, and I doubt anyone else will say different. Good luck to you.