I am writing a school review of Wuxi Institute of Arts & Technology. The full name of this school in Chinese is 無錫工藝職業技術學院 (Wuxi Gongyi Zhiye Jishu Xueyuan, or generally Wuxi Gongyi Xueyuan). It is in Yixing in Jiangsu Province.

I've lived in China/Taiwan for five years and am very fluent in the language, so for those who want to say, "What did you expect? It's China." I say, I expect to be treated with the same respect Chinese get in my country -- nothing less!

This is a standard racist and disrespectful Chinese school, with far below average students. If you don't speak Chinese or aren't familiar with or interested in Chinese culture, you might not find it as bad as I did. If you don't care about teaching, you may find it a passable place to stand in front of some adults claiming to be students.

From day one and the English teachers treated me like I had the plague. At my last two colleges in China the teachers would at least talk to FTs. Here they just about ran away. I am not exaggerating.

I was sent photos of my apartment. When I arrived I was told that the apartments would be done "soon" and that I must stay in a hotel until then. In hindsight I should have just eaten the cost of the ticket there and back and said sayonara to them. The photos were of what apartment? They blamed the recruiter, who told me no other lies, unlike the school.

Only when I refused to give them my passport (they need to hand it to the police within 48 hours of the FT's arrival) did they agree to meet with me and insisted that the new apartments would be done within two months. They were, BUT

They first told us we would have flatmates! Our own bedroom and bathroom, but shared kitchen and living room in the same apartment -- with flimsy doors right on the living room. Never mind this is unusual for FTs in China (it is unusual), they said tough. The FTs told them we were going home and wrote to the provincial SAFEA/FAO. Never got a reply of course. Eventually we did get our own apartments, though in the meantime we were told at one point that "your contract doesn't say you get an apartment" even though it did and said kitchen as well.

They wanted us to work on some weekends, after already working Monday through Friday, even though our contract said five days a week. We had to hassle with them about this.

You're taking a shower early in the morning and the lights go out. You find out later that day that the whole campus was notified of the power outage yesterday or earlier. This happened three or four times. Each time I asked them to please tell us ahead of time just like our students were told. Never did.

At one point FT apartments had no TV signal for weeks, even though the rest of campus did. They were asked to fix this three times. Eventually did close to a month later.

Class schedule changes? Your students will be told; Chinese teachers will be told; you, you foreign piece of excrement, will not. Ask them if they could tell you in the future? They lie and say they will. They don't.

Semester one: 36 hours before hand I am suddenly told, having asked honestly ten times or more from the first week I arrived onward and having never received any reply, that I must give final exams and grades.

Second semester: how many final exams do I need to give for my four classes? The department head told me none. Then a few weeks later the devious little babysitters (foreign teacher liaisons) told me two. I told them the department head said none (I had ALREADY told my students none), they double check and say it is two. Two days before exams start I, the foreign teacher, look on the wall in my classroom and see the exam schedule for the whole department. It looks like I should have only one. I go and explain all the above to the department head. He calls in one of the babysitters. FT was right, of course. There was only one.

Expect to be spoken of and addressed in Chinese as a Chinese teacher would be (老師)? Forget it! No matter that you have the same education level, and far more experience than most of the faculty and are older.

Want to have a friend stay over? First fill out this form with dozens of questions about your friend, so detailed you'd be hard-pressed to answer some of them about yourself. I was first told I had to "ask permission". I told them where to stick their permission.

Students? I wouldn't use that words to describe them. China has three levels of university and below that three levels of college. This was the lowest of the low. I had previously thought (being told so by Chinese) that this level was only for private colleges, but this public college is such. The students make standard lazy Chinese college students look hard working. Think I am kidding? Go work there. The Chinese teachers don't even dare confront them when the students misbehave. Other FTs just showed them movies. You must give grades, but you are told not to flunk anyone. You've got English majors in class who can barely understand "What is your name?"

Pay was one to three weeks late the first six months, then suddenly started to be on time.

We'd be told something by someone high up, only to find out the people below him wouldn't honor it.

Good things? Spacious new apartments, if you put "unshared" in your contract. Nothing to do outside of 16 hours per week (they wanted us to write detailed lesson plans initially, we said it was a waste of time). A small but pleasant and developed city (for China), though there is no train line.

You may contact me at juhenan2005@yahoo.com