Hello, MJ,

Thanks for taking the time to chronicle in detail, your horrific experience in HeFei. I was teaching in HeFei last year as well. I loved the city and the HeFei people, but I too worked for a very bad school. After reading of your experience, I feel comparatively lucky!

My students in HeFei (at a "college") were so angry with the "headmaster" (i.e. private owner) that they threw rocks and mud at his office and private limousine for the horrendous living and classroom conditions he had given them in exchange for the huge sums of money he had taken from their parents. This happened one month before my arrival.

Again, I'm sorry to learn of your terrible experience. China is a beautiful country, but it is also riddled with these loathsome "schools!" Your story is very sad, but also sadly, not surprising.

If you're wondering why I call myself "crass SOB," it because I was labelled as such by a financially self-serving ESL recruiter (who calls himself "Fish")in the ESL discussion forum of this website, for trying to tell stories similar to yours.

The fact that you took the time to report your experience will perhaps save some other single female from a similar fate. I wish more people would do what you did, rather than silently getting on plane and never "going public" with their experiences in China. It might be one of the best ways to force China to "clean up it's act" in the ESL community.