Place hasn't improved. Pulling a runner this weekend.

you must be joking ? !

unless you have a serious degree, with a teachers cert from your country, i doubt if they will offer over 6000 rmb.. Many schools make such claims to have emails sent to them, and then then numbers go down

Not sure it was wholly the OP's fault that he ended up at that school, nor do I recall him saying he was warned before hand. However he should have researched the setting to see if it was to his liking.

When I came here a 10 years back I had those exact same problems, both from the food, and the extremely polluted air. I was sick non stop for my first 6 months here, it was a total nightmare. It was only after purchasing antibiotics and taking them for 1 month solid that I got better. Try being sick for 6 months, not fun. At intermittent times after that I had to again imbibe in antibiotics, it took some time for my system to adapt, I guess I am sensitive. My first year here was physically horrible.

China has many different things you will need to adapt to, like I said, sometimes environmental shock, which includes shock to your system in the form of illness, can be worse than any culture shock. Regardless I stuck it out and am today just fine, and am not bothered by the bad air or the food. I did however lose 11 pounds my first 2 months here, that's all I'll say on that.

I disagree about the food, I love Chinese food, always have, and find it superior to western food, all a matter of opinion and personal taste I guess. OP be brave, and don't focus on the negative. Try to find things to do, spend time online researching and learning new things, use your time constructively. Even where you are there is much more to do then was available to people even 100 years ago, let alone 200 or 300 years in the past. Those people survived and thrived. Learn from their example, you might find you thrive with less distractions. Or maybe not, only time, and you, will tell.

This is one of the main problems with foreigners coming to China for the first time, not culture shock, but "environment" shock. You could argue they are connected, but I have seen slums and dirty disgusting areas in ever culture. That said, mix that with a low level of development, and then the living arrangements being so poor also, and you get a lot of people running from a job in their very first week.

Often newcomers to China don't do much research into where they will be going, and they are sold a lot of flowery words about the place that often end up not being true. I suppose it's often the only way they get teachers.

I suggest new teachers do much more research, in fact I suggest they stay away from China entirely. However if you are going to come here, you really need to know where "here" is. Don't take a recruiters word, or the schools, you really need to find out for yourself.

The place is dirty, messy? Living quarters stink? Nothing to do? The food is terrible? Welcome to backwater China, I taught in such a place myself when I first came to sunny wonderful China. I think it is the crucible which all new teachers to China must go through.

Yes, indeed you should have went to a more developed city, which begs the question, why didn't you? Haven't even started work yet and already want to quit? Like I said, environment shock.

It can be a tough transition for some foreigners, to be exposed to living conditions that you would only see in a condemned housing tenement in Harlem or some such place. Rat's, garbage, terrible smell, disgusting food. I think things like this play a large part in why these back water schools stay so backwater, and have such a difficult time finding teachers. The work itself could be pleasant, as you generally would not have to fight a lot of bureaucracy, or long time systemization. However, if the environment is crap, who cares if you enjoy the work.

Schools need to get on the ball and start providing a better living environment for teachers. Teachers in turn need to start doing more research beforehand so things like this don't happen.

Yeah, If I knew how bad this place was I wouldn't work either. Some of the Chinese teachers are a real f*ckup. I needed to send a student into an adjacent classroom to take a test. there was only a Chinese teacher in there chattin on QQ in the language lab. She refused to allow a student to use the class to take a makeup. The student had to spend twenty minutes searching for a class in which to take the test. The teacher was a Chinese teacher who teaches Japanese. She speaks English until you need her help, then she doesn't understand a thing. She ripped off a flash drive that i left in the language lab.

One of the foreign teachers is a foreign broad who claims to have a Ph.D., but she said that she didn't write a dissertation. She does no work. She treats her students poorly, and often calls them stupid. She doesn't bathe, and she doesn't answer her door when she is in her apartment. She lies about things and generally causes trouble. Avoid this trashy school. The apartments smell, the toilets back up frequently, and the water delivery isn't reliable. The cafeteria food sucks.

The students are okay. They must endure the same terrible conditions.

when you say door was open, do you mean it was not shut? or was it unlocked and you stuck your head in without knocking? i want to see how
inconsiderate and/or creepy of a person is reporting here.

The guards let me through with no hassle!The school itself is pretty spartan. Nothing fancy, though the boulevard that passes through the campus is quite pretty. I speak a little Chinese. The guards said that they remembered me! That was a bit creepy.

Wow. What security! Lights! camera! Action! The teachers'dorms look okay from the outside, but inside they are very bad. Upstairs there were 3-4 floors of rooms. A couple of Chinese women told me that the foreigners were downstairs. One room was open and someone was passed out cold on the bed. Couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman, but it was a westerner with longish red-brown hair.There's a jailhouse-type door leading to the foreign teachers area. Looks like there has been some recent work done. Renovation looks to be in progress.

I wouldn't live in that place, no matter what they paid me.

hi
ur right ........................................
a lot of these scams exist cas china is a huge market..........
ur taking ur chances if u go there...............
even if they refer u 2 another foreign teacher................it could b fake..................
i've been there..................
zvonimir mesarov

As I'm from the UK, I would only consider someone who had graduated from college/university to be a graduate. College/university students studying for their first tertiary educatonal qualification are termed undergraduates. When someone leaves high school, he (or she) is simply and modestly called a school leaver.

I'm not sure what you're talking about here or why you have written the above, but I am sure that it's relevant to something.
Is it related to the title of the thread "Avoid Yangzhou College of Environment and Resources"?

Re: Global recession affecting teaching positions in American universities: historically, in America, during times of high unemployment, college enrollment increases as unemployment increases. This is especially true in the community colleges. With the increase in students comes a need for teachers. Most of the jobs are in the form of staff (part-time) and three-year contract lecturers (to a much lesser degree). Graduate faculty doesn't usually increase unless there is an increase in state budgets or an influx of cash in the form of private endowments.

Even during good times in America, the pattern is that the ratio of graduate faculty to lecturers remains fairly stable. No money, no growth. My alma mater added five new graduate faculty this past semester. It's not located in the economically-devastated areas near the rust belt or near the automotive industries. It was not greatly affected by the INTERNATIONAL banking debacle in which bankers, lenders, traders and speculators played the derivatives game knowing full well that it is not a sound financial model. (i.e., one can hedge his bets, but he can't bet his hedges over and over again unless there's more money behind the hedge than that which is behind the bet).

It has been nice exchanging ideas. Ta ta, mein liebes.

Actually, the financial crisis has had a positive effect upon university and community college enrollment in some areas. Secondary school jobs are scarce. Public education has suffered as school boards have slashed budgets.

Re: American investment bankers responsible for condition of the economy, thus making it difficult for college and university teachers to gain employment. Competition in these areas has always been stiff. I see no differences between now and twenty years ago.

Mein lieber sauganleger der achselhhlen:

Please reread my post. I clearly stated that I visited a friend who lived there a few years ago. I taught at a university in town.

Come to think of it, there was a metro babe teaching there who was half-German and half British/Scottish. Her last name was Gestank. Was that you?

And no, I am not a German national (nor is English a second language for me), but I know liverwurst when I see it. I was born and grew up in Washington, D.C.. That should make me pretty American, no?

Cheers,

Kurt

I visited that college back in 2008. I knew someone who lived and taught there. The situation was a bit crazy what with students, outside visitors (one foreign teacher supposedly had a lot of sleepovers of both genders). Personally, I didn't care for the one-room set-up and no television. I can verify that at least three of the rooms were filthy. What I remember the most about the place was the abundance of wildlife in and around the teachers' dorms. That and the black mold on the walls and ceilings. My friend moved out of the dorm and got an apartment elsewhere.