A brief (?) follow-up before any other responses actually crop up:

About those 4 complaints to which I referred: There were an equal number of positive responses (yes, a couple by me) from teachers and even a student I believe on that same site/thread.

Raoul, teachers come to me and talk to me about their positive experiences at the school. They don't have to buy me a drink or anything.There have been positive posts right here from teachers at SFLS (and no they are not all from me as some would have you believe). Do those count or are they all discounted because you've never heard from them? Who exactly appointed you as "your-word-is-golden-in-Suzhou-and-everyone-else-is-a-dirty-liar-whose-postiveness-makes-you-cringe" anyway?

I can't wait (and no rebuttals have yet been posted for all of us to see as of this writing) to hear from some of the 4 horsemen who will chastise and turn around every single thing I and others posted. They will find flaws in each and every point. There is no winning (and really I'm not looking for a win, more like a balancing of the scales) with people like these. Their "credentials" are spurious to say the least and they will never, ever concede a point. I've seen people like this all over internet message boards; they're a dime a dozen. I've not read of any school which they've worked for or if they've even had ANY positive experiences in schools or China as a whole. If not, then most of us can kinda see why by reading some of their crude, abusive, and overall snide comments here. Where in China are you working these days? And, if you're not even in China, why would you even consider a return if the system is so corrupt? Who made you the patron saints of fixing up the Chinese education system?

And finally, when a female colleague of mine came on to this thread and said how she enjoyed her job and enjoyed working with me, our dear, dear, dear friend "StephanieB" commented on how she and the other females in our department were all middle-aged, ex-wives of abusive husbands (you can go find the full comments on your own, I can't be bothered with a link). Well, I don't know each of their personal lives that deeply, to be sure - - not sure how "StephanieB" did with only being at this school for a few short weeks and rarely interacting with any of the teachers. However, one of our teachers is quite young and has not yet been married, one is a widow, and the others? I don't know and it's not my business. They don't gather around me cackling and stirring their witch's brew as he would have you believe. I noticed when this highly distasteful posting came on a couple weeks back, not one of the top 3 (I'm excluding Raoul at this time) came on and chastised him, uh, her, uhm . . . whatever. But they were sure to choose a side based on one over-the-top (to start with) posting. Good luck with your little pork dumpling Raoul. See, it's selective ragging on selective posts and posters and I'll repeat - - you can't possibly "win" with anonymous internet members like this.

So, now, go ahead Horsemen and take your potshots and have a great time. I know, oh how I know, they're already on their way. Yippee!

(actually, I must say, I really enjoy the freedom we are given on this site, so thank you to the moderators for letting us all "speak" our minds - - it's kind of invigorating and highly entertaining to read some of these threads/postings - - now back to our regularly scheduled scratching and clawing!)