I have been in China a couple years now, and am doing alright more or less.

However, what brought me here was a tyrannical harpie by the name of Miss Liu.

The reason I mention her is because I have noticed she is recruiting heavily here and elsewhere.

Avoid this woman at all costs. Initially I was drawn here to work for her with promises of a decent job and an OK salary.

Well, when I got here, first thing happened that should have sent me elsewhere, no one at the airport to pick me up. Consequently, you will be sent to Changchun airport, so be leery of any job that asks you to go there. Anyhow, no one there, and Changchun quite a long distance.

Well, this was quite a reception. I was new to China, and all I could think to do was take a taxi into town and get a hotel room. Well, taxi cost a fortune, as did the hotel room, at least in Chinese money.

I contacted her and she gave me some bull shit story about there having been a traffic accident. She then said she would send someone the next day to pick me up at the hotel. She did, though the person was almost 2 hours late. By then I had already checked out of my room, and got to spend those two hours sitting in the lobby like an idiot.

When they did finally arrive, it was in a car that did not have a mark on it. Since her "school" only had one car, as I already knew from prior conversation, I was mystified about how it could be in perfect condition only the next day.

Well, after a long car ride with two chain smoking minion of this woman, we arrived in a very small town with more oxes then cars on the road. I was taken up up up to a closet of any apartment maybe 25 sq meters, at most. Then we went to Meikou I believe, might be misspelled, where this womans home base is.

Now this is when I discovered that this woman was not the headmaster of a school, as a woman named "Alice" told me. No, she just ran a crappy little recruitment agency that double as an employment agency. They work for schools who can not legally hire FT's. Therefore any contract you hire with her means nothing.

This was of course explained away as a "misunderstanding." It's funny that whenever these Chinese screw you, no matter how big, it is just a misunderstanding.

Well, I was stuck, having come all this way, so I kept an open mind, and started down the long road that is Miss Liu's ride to hell.

It starts with having to make daily trips to see this old insecure little bag of puss. Of course you have to pay for these trips out of your own pocket. These trips are take 45 minutes each way, and consist solely of entertaining Miss Liu, and impressing upon you how important she actually is.

To be honest I was not impressed. All I saw was someone very small trying to look very big.

She hires these poor Chinese girls, and then uses them as TA's for the teachers. They are all super attractive. many of them could even have been models. They have also are total flirts and ignore the FT for the most part. Miss Liu uses these girls, thinking they will get her teachers. it also makes her feel more important. She is a particularly ugly woman by the way.

At these daily meetings she would have them all lined up, chattering away about nothing. Usually there were at least a dozen of them. I called this Miss Liu's Harem. Not bad to look at, but not good for much else. While most of them spoke good english, none had ant experience in education.

Miss Liu makes a lot of demands on those who work for her.

Now, after a week of going back and forth to her little "villa" I had pretty much had it. I said, "If she wants me to keep coming out there for no reason, then she should be paying for the trips. This did not make MIss Liu happy, I am supposed to be at her beckon call after all. However these trips were not for business, so I saw no problem with bowing out.

Well Miss Liu did, and in the next week no actual job materialized. When I complained about this, I was sacked. reason given, "Your not a good teacher" though I don't see how she could know anything about that, never having seen me teach.

Anyhow, I was lucky to find something better, and only in a matter of days.

In truth when the car did not show up, I should have passed then and there. being new here though, I did not see any other choices.

This woman is a liar and a cheat. It turns out she has a long record of mistreating FT's here in China. She will lie, deceive, anything to get you to come here. Once she has you here she will systematically try to intimidate you and control you.

The contract I was given before arriving was crap. If she hires you to work 20 classes, it is actually 28. The pay does not change though. The apartment I was promised never materialized, and had no hot water, not even for showers. You won't be paid for the summer or winter holiday, though Miss Liu actually doe's get paid for them. She simply pockets the cash. She has an insatiable appetite for Mazhong, and must feed it somehow.

She will make many promises, but in the end, your nothing to her but a commodity, like a pig or chicken, to be bought and traded with whimsey. If you offend her delicate sensibilities in any way, or protest being lied to and deceived, well, your outta there.

Avoid this one like the plague. She uses an Alias by the name of Alice, or used to, likely changed the name. Turns out all the time I was talking to Alice, one of her supposed TA's, that I was really talking to Miss Liu. This allowed Miss Liu to blame this non existent person for anything I was told prior to coming, and say she had made a mistake, not Miss Liu. Over all a totally disreputable piece of crap, who should be out of business.

I posted years ago about her, but she is still around, using numerous aliases. If you want to come to china, don't use a recruiter, find a school and communicate with them directly. Avoid Tonghua Middle school, it is just Miss Liu. Avoid jobs in Jilin province in general, she has a lot of power there and will suck the life out of you like a vampire. This lady has an intense need to feel important, and loves to surround herself with foreigners and make herself feel important. Avoid avoid avoid, like the black death.