Thanks for posting this update and clarifying some of the changes (and also Jay's actual situation). Carrie Zhang was on the teaching staff when I was there, and she was an absolutely lovely person. In fact, I had little problem with the English Dept. (mainly the Foreign Affairs department) except for doubling up classes (I was teaching 16 hours, but I had to teach 2 classes at one time -- over 100 students -- that was a lot of time spent grading essays, etc. since it was writing and other content classes). Aside from that, the English Dept. was great. It was mainly the transportation/housing/safety issues and the dreadful FAO's. I'm guessing it'll probably be a good 3 to 5 years before civilization works its way out to where the school is and on-campus housing becomes available -- until then, with only about 1000 for living allowances, FTs will have to spend about 2/5 of their salary to get a decent apt. in Sanya or live in squalid conditions.

Hainan is quite overrated in general. Outside of all those 5 star resorts, it is not quite as well developed as many other parts of China, yet it can be a rather expensive place to live due to its desirability as a tourist location or retirement destination. People often come to Hainan thinking that it will be an island paradise, yet they will often discover that when you actually have to live and work there, rather than enjoy a holiday, it's really not all that great.

I also taught at Qiongzhou during the 2010 - 2011 school year and still live in Sanya.
The new road was completed within 100 yards of the campus this past month.
Jay (the earlier post) is an American born teacher currently at the school. His 'ocean-view apartment' is actually more than a mile from the ocean (maybe he's on a very high floor :). The college's 'housing supplement' is around 1000 rmb a month. On-campus housing for foreign teachers has yet to be completed... but it may be for the 2012-2013 academic year.
There is a new dean of the foreign language department: Carrie Zhang. She is both competent and caring.
I was always paid on time. I left because of the work load... I prefer to teach fewer hours.
The #3 bus service has improved dramatically, more frequent buses run and operate later in the evening - until 11pm from downtown.
Safety on the connecting road and in the adjoining community of Lizhigou is still an issue... especially after dark.
The 'university' is still a work in progress... but it has improved markedly since Karen and her colleagues taught there.

with a not too a bad command

Ah..if you call culverts still being installed and mud and gravel everywhere a finished road...what backward country are you from? As a resident of Sanya for the last 10 years I pass by the this aforementioned college road every week and I can definatley atest to the fact that this "road' is not completed and has been a work in progress for the last 2 years. As for this college putting you up in an "ocena view' apartment..I highly doubt it as rental rates are running about 3500-4000 a month for anything even close to the ocean...me thinks maybe some administration employee with a not to bad command of the english language has been at work on this blog?.But what the heck..take your chances...contracts are made to be broken!

"DO NOT TEACH A QIONGZHOU UNIVERSITY HAINAN ISLAND"

This is a very bad school.I was only there one month before having problems with everything from housing to salary.The classrooms are a mess...filthy dirty and the place smells real bad because it is built across the road from a sewage treatment plant!There are no proper showers for the students so they smell bad too! My apartment was full of cockroaches and never had any water or electricity.
The staff at this school are liars and entirely and utterly incompetant.Do not believe a word that Dean Li, Victoria or Grace tell you.The contract will be broken at every chance that they get and your salary will always be paid late or not all.Do not expect to get a letter of recommendation after you leave as the Dean will only bad mouth you by saying you were a bad teacher and the students didn't like you.The school is still under construction and very noisy and dirty and the cleaning staff and workers have to live in closests as well as the Chinese teachers living in empty offices.
If you come to Sanya,email me and I will meet with you to tell you more.If you have already accepted a job at the school...LEAVE BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE ..DO NOT SIGN THE CONTRACT!

Ha ha! Well, I'm the chart queen. In fact, I even taught seminars to students on how to read charts and explain them (that was for some speech competition).

Anyway, the chart in question had columns for each category (salaries received, reimbursements received, items for reimbursement, etc.) and then that was listed for each month.

To tell the truth, none of this really matters at this point -- my main concern is to warn off unsuspecting would-be candidates for a position at QU. It might be a good place to work 5 years down the road, once the area surrounding the uni is more developed and hopefully safer, and housing is built for FTs, and the administration gets its act together. But right now any teacher working there would be beating their head against the wall.

Wha....do I see some "back-peddling" here?..Charts...who would use charts for salaries?...what kind of chart..a "pie chart".Was your piece of the pie the too small? Did you get that "ala mode"?
Don't worry Karen..the school can threaten you all they want with slander..breach of contract...cancel your visa....prevent you from getting a visa in the future or whatever.You stick to your guns girl!...you bad mouth that school all you want tool...let it out.And if all else fails you could still go with the "crocodiles"

Just to clarify a few things written by my colleagues...

No...my husband never wanted to work fulltime. The original plan was for him not to work at all at QU -- but then the school called right before the meeting and asked if he could. He agreed to part-time, not fulltime (we had no Nanny for our child), but there was a miscommunication (mostly my fault), and he got scheduled for full-time, and then that all had to be adjusted at the meeting.

Yes, he did get overpaid for November and December (and I got underpaid for October) -- we immediately contacted the school in October (by phone), and then again in November (when he got over-paid the first time -- by email that time, I have a copy of it). Now, you would think that all they needed to do was to see what the accountant deposited into each person's account, and then straighten it up, but the same thing happened in December (my husband got overpaid, at least one of the other teachers got underpaid; my salary was correct, though).

I then sent the school a chart of all the payments we had received from September through to December, pointing out areas where I had not received the full salary, where reimbursements had not been made, and also where my husband had been overpaid. This could have been easily verified by the accountant, but that didn't seem to occur to the FAO department. They asked for copies of our bank statements, which we supplied. (it took a little while to figure out how to do that)

Victoria came up with the plan of having salaries for all foreign teachers deposited into her personal bank account and then remitting it to the teachers. She might have been well-meaning in the beginning, and she may have gotten the salaries right for some of the teachers, but she never paid me my full January salary. Even when I showed her the chart of all monies received, along with my bank statement, she refused to pay. Thus I began to suspect she was pocketing the money (or was very bad with Math). My suspicions were confirmed in early March, when she refused to pay the full month's housing allowance -- we moved out of the wood factory on March 2, because we lived for one and a half days at the wood factory, she said that she would only pay 2/3 of the housing allowance for the apartment in Sanya. (We would have been able to move by the end of February if she'd paid the February salary on time). This was not a case of bad Math -- it was a clear case of cheating!