Thanks for your input. Very interesting indeed from a historical perspective!

I will always have a soft spot for Yuncheng of Shanxi as I had taught there with the aid of reasonably competent teaching assistants for a couple of years.Invariably, we did a fine job together as a team, which I couldn't have done teaching alone.

Companies providing FTs with Chinese teaching assistants to middle schools is certainly not a national practice, but Yuncheng is definitely one of the parts of China where this occurs.In this respect Yuncheng is forward-thinking and deserves high praise for serving its high schoolers so well!

I can forgive the shoddy way my agent treated me, including the obvious lies told me, by visualising the students' happy faces in class whenever I delivered my lessons!