Cher Turnoi,

Thank you very much for your kind post.

Yes, the manager was / is a white, American male, who previously ran a pizza restaurant somewhere in the United States. Suddenly, somehow, he morphed into the manager of a "prestigious" school. I am not professionally qualified-enough to pass judgment on his behaviour but in French we would say "fort bizarre" to say the least.

I have additional comments that I wish to add here.

I worked for this "institution" in the latter part of last year. Generally speaking, I have been stable in my employment in China. However, I was not professionally prepared for the basest and most degrading forms of treatment that I was to endure at this "institution", nearly all of it at the hands of a "foreign" manager. Intimidation, bullying, verbal abuse, uncontrolled fits of rage, professional humiliation, forced "re-education" to "mold me" to their standards. Couple this with the unbridled violence present in the school directed both at the foreign teachers and the children and one has all the makings of a novel by Balzac..a novel that I might call "L'Ecole des Damnes" or something like that.

Housing was variable and pay was, as befits the institution, also "variable".

I have returned to China now to take up a post in Shanghai at a large international institution and frankly it took me nearly four months of rest and the care of friends to recover from the "managerial atmosphere" of this "institution". Again, Balzac might have referred to it as the "Maison des Alienes".

Additionally, in order to dispel the notion that it's "just me", I would encourage all to read this long, long thread written by various other posters who suffered egregiously at the hands of this institution and at the hands of this particular "manager":

http://www.teflschoolreviews.com/suzhou-foreign-language-school-china-2007235.html

Additionally, others might find this series of posts intersting as well:

http://bbs.chinadaily.com.cn/redirect.php?gid=3&fid=19&tid=636182&goto=nextoldset

Here's a thread from Raoul's BBS, with yet another series of critical posts about the place from a different set of teachers:

http://raoulschinasaloon.com/index.php?topic=326.0

Now's here the school's usual take on all those who complain as set forth on y the school's designated rebuttal mouthpiece:

1. Anyone who has left the school is a miscreant;
2. Anyone who has left the school is a nomad and b*tches all the time:
3. Anyone who has left the school has problems.

Obviously, in view of the long, long, long, long, long, list of teachers who have taken the time to write their comments, all of 1-3 can be trashed as simply seeking to mitigate a catastrophic situation.

And there is one final issue that worries me more than the others:

violence

One teacher was beaten by the guards for trying to ride his motorcycle on campus;

Another teacher "fell" down a stairwell and suffered a broken leg after a verbal altercation with one of the "managers";

And finally, I have been hearing stories that a teacher who departed after I had departed was set upon and thrashed by two thugs to give the teacher a "lesson". The first two incidents are 100% verified; I have been in contact with the victims. I am attempting to contact the latest victim and will post the details as they reach me.

In any case, my email is open to all and on this board. I have written what I have written here and elsewhere based upon fact and witnessed events. I am not interested in character assasination nor am I interested in retribution. I am, however, interested, in truth and justice, of steering as as many teachers away as possible from such a horrific situation.

Mme S. de B.
Paris / Shanghai
2009.05.21