It's been many years since I paid my airfare to China or to Oman or to Bangladesh or to Lebanon or to Myanmar. It has been a condition of my employment. There is a lot more of this than you imagine, pengyou.

The way you state it's been a condition of your employment is a bit mysterious. AFAIK, the ministry of manpower/recruiters in Oman, always pay for your airfare to go there and a holiday once a year. As for China, I have never heard of this, except perhaps for some very good private school jobs or non teaching jobs. Your last statement is also a little condescending, especially as you don't explain why.

You say you have an MA. Well most jobs requiring someone with an MA and Delta say, in China, don't normally give you all that you want. 20,000 rmb a month yes, but free digs and airfare, no. They may however give you an apartment allowance.

It does seem to check out that the maximum age for teaching in China is 60 years old. If you are 66 Adrian, you are indeed too old. That being said, I think this person that hired you should have known this before making promises they could not fulfill. Now it also seems that many places make exceptions to this rule, but they don't have to, so it could very well be that he is actually telling the truth, and is just plain incompetent, and not a liar.

Many places that do not follow this rule don't require any special actions to be made by an older teacher, they simply don't enforce it. Some places do enforce but will make an exception if the below is done.

a. The school makes a special request based upon need and special circumstances.

b. The foreign teacher signs a waiver of medical liability. Medical insurance is mandatory for foreign teachers but no Chinese Insurance Company will write a policy for any foreign teacher over 60.

Other places will make no exception whatsoever in regards to this rule, special waivers filed or not. It could be that this place is one of those places.

Not trying to defend this Indian fellow, because either way he is not very bright, and it could be that the province he is in will grant exceptions, and he just did not know, or care to research the subject enough to know that one simply needs to file a special request. Either way this does make him a moron, but not necessarily a liar.

Could also be that he is lying, and that the province he is in doesn't care, and he simply found someone else to do it, someone who ended up not following through in the end, or maybe he just changed his mind. The point is, this incompetent fellow could indeed be telling the truth. I still would not work there though, because whatever the case this person is incompetent, and even with the best case scenario he's woefully ignorant about the policies and procedures of running a school.

Rajesh Sehgal is a business person involved in Shaoxing's textile industry. His wife, Mini, came up with a very good idea to institute an international school for dependants of expatriate employees from countries such as Korea, India etc. This school is to be attached to a larger mainly Chinese school. Rajesh admits of no interest in the formation of the school other than to facilitate education. Once off the ground and running, the school would manage itself, so to speak. At that stage, Rajesh Sehgal's interest in the school would cease. At least that is what Rajesh told me to get me on side. We signed contracts and I have official letter to obtain F visa [Business visa]. I also have the F visa valid for entry until November for 90 days. Rajesh wanted me in Shaoxing in August so as to have my input to marketing material such as promotions with my nomenclature and personal appearances etc. All very standard when starting a school. Then the relationship took on a quirky personality, as if Dr Jekyll had become Mr Hyde. As I have written, four days before due departure date, Rajesh emailed me a Dear John....alas! I am too old ... suddenly I had aged from the previous week. I had to laugh. But what gets me is the fact that Rajesh didn't have enough guts to say he was stabbing me in the back. Imagine my life here at home; the preparations [my wife was to join me in Shaoxing and Rajesh had supplied her also with letter for residence as spouse of F visa holder] had been completed and my large family of five adult children [chadults we call them] and their respective lives ... suddenly ... no warning....all the preparations were to no avail.
What can we do but to warn others [and I have been to China six times as well as other lands] to check, re-check and then doubt all your findings until they become established facts, verified, substantiated and ,,,whatever else you can say.
It is an interesting item via Google that from Shaoxing emanates 60% of global Internet malware.

Exactly. If a contract is considered the beginning of negotiations then what good is someones word in China.

The guy really has no obligation to reply to you Ivan Millet, and to look on a lack of response as inferring guilt is circular logic, and such reasoning should be confined to people who work for holy inquisitions and the like.

As for the ticket information, now that is a bit suspicious I agree. I have not heard of schools buying tickets for teachers upfront for a long long time. There was what was considered a golden time for foreign teachers here in China, when you had a lot more perks, the market was not so saturated, and schools "had" to provide said perks to get you to come here. That isn't the case anymore, and hasn't been for a long time. If this guy actually demanded a ticket up front, something he almost certainly must have done since no schools simply "offer" this anymore, then indeed that could be seen as unreasonable in today's current ESL market.

All of that being said, I don't know enough about the back story to comment in any specific way. I'll only say that a deal is a deal, and once you make it, you should stick to it, unless there is some unforseen circumstance of an extreme nature. Telling the guy "You're old" hardly seems to fall into that category, I mean heck, they knew his age since day one. It's very likely they found someone locally and saw a chance to save some coin, and we all know how good schools are at paying airfare at the end of a contract in China.

What is an Indian doing in China? If this Rajesh Sehgal is as honest as Indian cricketers, then we are not surprised that you were caught in his web of deceit.

I also express my sorrow to you. This sounds pretty bad. Terrible to lie to someone like that.

Thanks for the heads up though. Forewarned is forearmed.

Some months ago, out of the blue, after I had posted my resume on ESLTEACHERSBOARD, Rajesh Sehgal contacted me and without ado offered me the job as Principal/DOS/Administrator of the Shaoxing International School. It's a long story, but I was due to fly to Shaoxing this coming Wednesday, and I had not been given my air flight ticket number by Rajesh. I emailed a few times and eventually, late last night, Rajesh emailed me to inform me that I was too old. After all this time; after months of negotiations; after I had my Business Visa, Rajesh Sehgal decides that I am too old. Suddenly I had become a too old person...suddenly ...
Do not trust Rajesh Sehgal.