A female foreign teacher from the UK was the victim of an attempted abduction/kidnapping by a taxi driver yesterday (September 1st 2012) in Changde, Hunan, China.

As she is still in a state of shock, details remain sketchy and no official report exists as to the facts. I have however been able to gleen the following from her:

She entered a taxi on the evening of the 1st and the driver drove away at speed without any to attempt to assertain her destination. The male driver spead away in the opposite direction to the school as she showed him the address of the school in Chinese on a card. She became increasingly upset and tried a number of methods to communicate with the driver, who completely ignored her and continued driving. About 1 minute later, she opened the door and jumped out at considerable speed, causing deep brusing and scars, mostly to the leg.

Then, a group of locals gathered round, and proceeded to try to coerce her to return to the taxi.

Information is missing at this point - but she did end up having her wounds treated at a local hospital and was returned to her school.

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I've said it verbally many times and I'll say it again digitally:

China isn't worth the flight.

This post is shocking to me for a couple of reasons, firstly, an old brit friends chinese wife is from a small town near that place in Hunan. Secondly, when I was teaching in Changsha many of my college students were also from that locale. And lastly, I myself was violently assaulted in Hunan, so I can attest that it is not a safe place for foreign teachers to be, and that is just besides the cheating and screwing out of your pay or other devious, spinning and unscrupulous practices. I would honestly advise ANY ft to actively avoid Hunan AND Jiangxi provinces as places to work. Changsha and Nanchang are just full of ratty GW's, and the winters are hell, and the locals exceedingly xenophobic. Far better places to work than these places, which even have a less than stellar reputation amongst other Chinese from differing parts of China.

Sorry to hear of this, I hope she recovers well.