He has said plenty about other places. What have you said except trying to be a smart aleck?

Hey Matt it's great to hear this kind of stuff.

Indeed, Dragonized, and you'd have to have the imagination of a horror story novelist to make up the kind of stuff the OP has posted. Matt should be believed because of the amount of detail he has provided, and the fact that it resembles closely the experiences of China old hands shared on here. It's good reading, and very informative too. Like you, I hope he becomes a regular. By the way, I had already come upon complaints about that school in Leshan county of Luzhou, Sichuan, by the way. Far from being 'prestigous', it is indeed notorious...LOL!

I see it's been quite a long time since anyone posted a reply about this. Let me give my humble two cents worth.

I have been working as an English "teacher" in China for only five years. I worked at several schools in Beijing, Sichuan (Nanchong and Leshan), and currently in Hefei. I had no problems at all in Beijing, but the public schools where I worked in Sichuan were not much better than working for a TC. The problem at the junior high school in Nanchong was not so much the admins, but mahy of the other teachers. There was one specific teacher whom hated foreigners. Utterly. She tried to get me fired simply because she hated me so much because I made her "lose face" by. In Leshan it WAS the admins. Namely the "head" of the foreign teachers, international dept. He would volunteer me for extra things on the side.

Now, Hefei on the other hand, is a TOTALLY different matter. I first worked at New Dynamic Institute (Nazi Dominated Institute as I refer to it) was a joke and a half. Once the CC's got "students" to pay the fee, they completely forgot about said students (referred to as clients by the staff). During summer Hefei is deathly hot but they refused to turn on the A/C. I started wearing shorts even though it was against policy. They don't allow the FT's to listen to music in their office even during their own time because it's "unprofessional"). There is only one break during the working hours. Classes are one hour long and once one finishes you move to the next with no time to compose yourself or use the restroom even. I was even very sick once, vomiting and what have you, but was told I was not allowed to leave. This was also a couple hours before my classes were scheduled. Then the "education" departments leader threatened to sue me after some silly conversation. I worked there for four and a half months and they NEVER applied for my new visa, and let me go with two weeks to go left on my old visa. Also late pay and didn't pay me the full amount for the last month.

I then was forced to take the next job that came my way within that two weeks, which was a private college. It was not much better there. Not even a kitchen sink (or kitchen) in my accommodation. If one can call it that. It was a nearly two hour bus ride to downtown. Overloaded with classes. All the reject students asking me to always treat them to dinner and what have you. The head teachers also changed the exam scores I gave my students based on their relationship. I also did some part-time work for two other TC's during that time. NC (New Channel) IELTS, and WEB. WEB is as bad as NDI. They blatantly tried to not pay me for several classes. They "lost" the records until I started to get nasty with them. They then "found" the records within five minutes.

New Channel on the other hand was a pleasent experience. Treated me with respect and offered me as many classes as I wanted. Always payed in Cash after one month, whether that was the first-fourth week of the month. Very good relationship with all the employees there. This may be due to being part-time though, as I have a friend who is full-time there now and always complaining about things they do or don't do.

Now I am working at Anhui Medical University. Except for some students, I thouroughly enjoy it. The amount of pay I recieve for the amount of classes I have is amazing. They also gave me a big three room apartment of campus with two bathrooms and two balconies. Never asked for any extra work or to be a judge or anything. Free insurance and even accident (life) insurance I believe. The only problem is the pay date is inconsitent. They do state in the contract FT's will be paid some time between the fifteenth-twentieth. It needs a lot of signatures and the dean is often away so it's hard to obtain is John Hancock. Paid the full amount during Spring Festival even.

These are my experiences. I cannot say anything about WSI but I know to stay away from any and all TC's with the exception of part-time.

Hope this information helps someone someday.
-Matt