Midna wrote:

I guess that means something must have struck a cord with you. Hahaha. Well thanks for "countering" my post.

So you've had a/some bad experience(s)? Good for you! Hope you learned from it. Just don't knock every Aston out there.

I didn't say anything about my own experience with Aston or if I even had any, nor did I "knock" every branch of the chain school. I addressed a fundamental problem with the ideology underpinning private institutions such as Aston.

My post isn't "Aston is awesome". It's Aston *can be* awesome if you're not smart.

What? Obviously this isn't what you mean to say. Do you mean "awful" or what?

I feel bad for murder victims, but I also feel like it was a dumb idea to get into that car with a stranger at 2 am. So when someone complains and I say "Bummer, didn't you research this city at all" and they say no I just laugh and say "Well what did you expect."

In comparing working for Aston to getting in a car at 2 a.m. with a potential murderer, aren't YOU knocking the whole of Aston?

If this were a completely one sided thing I'd be with you. But it happens to the Chinese workers at school too..

Are you saying that if Aston takes advantage of foreign teachers AND Chinese teachers there are two sides? For there to be two sides, there would need to be something like the teachers taking advantage of the school, not just the school taking advantage of everyone. That's just showing how one sided it really is.

Jumping into another country without any real knowledge of who or what you're working for is a very bad idea.

Of course it is. But we're not arguing about that. We're arguing about how private schools take advantage of well-intentioned, educated and informed people who DID do their research.

I'll admit that most people aren't going to realize that it can be very dog eat dog with private schools here, but the simple things you can do to are in fact, so simple, that you should do them regardless of what company you're going to work for... if you want to have a fun time in China.

Well, according to your logic, if you worked for Aston, than you didn't do those extremely simple "things".

Your message, which I found offensive, is to blame teachers for being taken advantage of by private schools which have mastered the art of doing so. It's not getting into a stranger's car at 2:00 a.m., it's more like getting into taxi you've called for in the middle of the day. The reality is that many schools are far more tricky than would-be teachers would expect, and take advantage of the visa situation, as well as the difficulty of extricating oneself from their contracts without incurring serious financial loss to take advantage of honest people who come to China with good intentions.

I don't work for a private school and AM having fun working and living in China, for the record.