That does not mean that should just cry about it and miss out on all the fun like the e-mail suggests, it just means that you should plan around it, according to the situation.

One thing my girlfriend noted was that it was arguably easier to travel in the day on May 1 than on the evening of April 30 because everybody had the same stupid idea of departing a day early. Yes, it was crowded but that is not a problem unless you a bit of a p**sy who has never visited a large city in the West before you came to China like New York, London, Paris etc.

One example I can give is that of myself this year actually. I spent the best part of day 1 in my own city at an outdoor party and when I needed to get to the train station, I did not a get a taxi which in ordinary circumstances would be by far the quickest and most convenient way to get to the train station. I already knew that there would be traffic jams.

I set off a hour earlier to allow for any delays and made the longer walk to the uncomfortably crowded, yet far more reliable subway system; got to the train station and was able to get a seat without queuing or worrying because I had already bought my ticket long in advance. Likewise when I got to my destination did I mostly use taxis when I knew the roads would be jammed?

No, there's a perfectly good subway and BRT system that cuts through all of that. The only times I ever used taxis were late at night for clubbing and when I had got off the subway at the closest station to my hotel.

Sure, it was not the best vacation that I've ever had but I've had far worse. In fact, I can honestly say that the most stressful moment of my trip was a s**t waiter at a cafe that tried to up-sell T-Bone steaks and Blue Mountain Coffee in the worst possible way, when all I wanted was a small beer. Maybe that was my punishment from god for visiting a UBC coffee outlet near the train station. Nobody should ever go to UBC coffee in any city, ever. I still had lots of fun and equally; time to relax and recover throughout my vacation.

When I see those copy and pasted e-mails from F.A.O's I begin to question their true motivation.

I think that they simply want to avoid tasks such as receiving phone calls from newbies FTs that get themselves lost and call to ask them to translate questions throughout their own family vacation taking place at their questionably and not quite legally acquired holiday home in Sanya (in the case of FAO's at universities).

They are far too lazy and selfish to care and secondly; they are worried that a FTs transportation to return to their city of work will get delayed thus forcing them to rearrange classes and they may also struggle to fine a FT for being late or absent and get away with it, if the FT is able to provide real evidence that their absence is due to no fault of their own.

FTs will sadly, also often miss trains, planes or buses as they will not understand announcements that are solely made in Chinese or read most of the Chinese only signs. Thus some FAOs treat the FTs like children that can't be trusted to go out on their own, preferring to keep penned in to where it is safe, bored out of their skull in their dormitory. After all FTs are a treasured commodity, especially at training centres where they are the forever profitable cash cows.

At my university, I did not receive such an e-mail, yet another FT said that they had seen similar messages to this posted all over the internet or had received similar warnings verbally. I do wonder if one or two members of staff had suggested similar things to her that would not dare say to me.

The FAO's will pretend to care about you, but all that they really care about is themselves!

Don't ever let them insult your intelligence!

As for the degreediscussion paedocrew claiming that I scare away potentially helpful Chinese people...

Being nice because she offered fantastic advice to newbie FT's regarding public festival travelling. That helpful Chinese will not want to post there aagain. Bur Turnoi and his board are so cock-sure and they don't care because they can just invent their own posters..like O'Shei, who you see has been rolled out again to do battle

To be honest, I only ever take the odd quick browse at ESLTB these days and have only made a brief return in order to show that I really did not agree to FAO's treating teachers like that. I've got more important things to do these days, but who knows? Maybe Turnoi or Silverboy are going to roll out my alias again in the future?