You go to work in China. You know they are famous for corruption, but you just don't understand what people mean. The people seem friendly and you haven't witnessed any corruption as of yet. Everything looks so well organised. Everything in China does seem well organised, except for EF Hangzhou.

You get a new class on your schedule, the old teacher has left after two years and you now have pleasure of taking over. It is a beginners class and you expect them to know something after two years. The children cannot speak a word of English. You are surprised and shocked. You ponder to yourself. What on earth has the teacher taught these poor children for two years. Not one, but two years! You soon realise that each of them has paid the equivalent of almost £10,000 or $20,000 in Chinese money to receive these classes and none of them have learnt a single thing.

You start teaching them and within 6 weeks, there is already an improvement. You really begin to wonder how you can actually teach someone for two years, without them knowing a single word of English. You might think it's not possible, but unfortunately it is! Anything is possible at EF Hangzhou and other EF Centres.

The class begins to improve rapidly, but some of the weaker students just aren't picking it up. You try, but they are just not picking up with the rest of the class despite your efforts. You single them ut and try to make sure they get it, but by the time half of the class are getting familiar with the new topic, they just about get familiar with last week's. As the teacher it is your moral obligation to give them fair grades. You don't want them to fail, but you don't want to give them A's, just because of the fees. However, in China it works differently. They are the customer, they are paying for a service and expect big results. You now face the possibility of being in trouble if you give them D's, as you will be blamed, despite the two years prior to them doing nothing with the lovely blonde haired teacher, who just had to bat her eyelids at them. They are now in the class where they must learn and their parents will ask questions. This is not the 2-3 year old stage, where you can fob off the parents with sob stories and excuses until they reach 8 years old and can barely string a sentence together.

You decide to fail them, and the consequences are dire. Despite your efforts to give them free support during your free time, they have not picked up the course and will go on to the next year, as they have just paid next years fee. That means they have passed and you cannot fail them. The DOS now tells you that you've made a mistake and you're fired unless you change the grades. You either change the grades on the certificates, or you pack your bags and don't get your flight allowance. What do you do? This is China my friend.