Yes, I agree with you. And especially thanks for the input quoted above from your text.

It describes in a nutshell very precisely and nicely the misery of the education system in China in general and of the crappy ESL world in particular - and why it takes so long to have the necessary changes implemented! It's all about a gang of different cats, all of them trying to catch the same attractive rat!

Thank you, Turnoi. Yep"gang of different cats after the same rat" describes them well. Do your crocodiles like pussy cats, by the way?

I think at the moment in China, my advice for a newby teacher is to try and pick the best out of a bad lot. If the outfits have attracted the sort of attention that Yuming has don't even consider them, unless you think it might make amends in some way for slaying your Grandparents or some such juvenile misdemeanor.

I myself have been persuaded to return to China; whereas, I believe the school I will be going to is relatively FT-friendly, it won't surprise me to find that they have in fact told me some old porky pie about something- or simply not told me about something else. One has to put up with a little nonsense but not truck-loads of it that Yuming is going to dump on you.