Oh yes, in case you are unclear about the Zaid visa (or Zee) it gets cancelled anyway when you get the 'Residence permit' stuck in your passport, and of course you use that to exit and enter the country as well as to give you the right to live here. Providing that when you fall out with an employer you scarper from their immediate area and don't offer yourself up to the police or other authorities,giving them the chance to put a line through it, then you are not a fugitive and have the right to live in China until said (pardon play on words) permit expires- It cannot very easily be cancelled, unless the company have the ear of really big guns in Central Government- Yuming would want to keep away from that lot. I am sure Yuming has other teachers who stay on L and F visas- now that's a different matter and very easy for them to cancel those. One of the reasons companies like to keep the expert certificate is that it's redeemable for 800 rmb in Tianjin, I am told (that could be nonsense as Chinese boss told me that) Another reason is that they use it to buy things in your name. And of course to make your transition to another company more difficult. I have always thought there could be another reason, just a power thing to keep you in tour place as 'white monkey'
Now, if I were in the position of being finished with a company with good time left on my R-permit, I'd just clear off- all the other companies know of Yumings track record and would not consider you as risky if they did employ you unofficially until you could acquire another Z and cleanly go through the process again at a later stage.

Actually Tom that's a little incorrect. Because your residency permit is directly connected to the specific company you work for and not simply a residency permit that allows you to work for anyone you like, scarpering does not make any difference at all. All the company has to do is take your experts cert. to the PSB and fill in a form with them in the process and your residency permit is cancelled there and then, no one has to put any stamps or lines on it to invalidate it.

You get your Z and then your RP on the basis that you have come to China to work for the people who applied for it, your invitation letter states the specific company on it too, not just you have been invited or given permission to work in China. If a company plays ball, you can change jobs and have that permit and FEC transferred to a new employer, it does not mean you can leave and go from job to job on the same RP without going through the official channels.

My mate had this problem at Yuming last year. He said he wanted to leave due to not being able to earn enough cash there and they took offence. He did not have his FEC in his possession, only his passport. Yuming went straight round to the PSB and informed them that this individual was no longer working for them and handed in his FEC, end of story for Yuming. For the teacher however, the story was just unfolding.

Upon finding new employment he never gave it a moments thought that he would run into any issues over visas as the current RP he had in his passport was not due to expire for months. He took it for granted that having a valid RP allowed him to change jobs as easily as in a western country and had never seen or heard of the FEC.
He worked for the new employer for a two or three months and then, due to a problem and then visit from the PSB to this school, was targeted by the representative and the school was told that this teacher had to come in to the PSB later that day for a check, there was no reason they picked on him it was purely bad luck.

Upon attending the interview he showed them his passport and his valid RP. The person(s) conducting the interview asked where his FEC was to which his obvious response was he did not have one to his knowledge and did not really know what it was. They explained that it would have been issued along with his RP upon arrival in China and described it to him, he still had no idea. They left the room, taking his passport with them and did some checking. Upon return they informed him that they had discovered his RP, although showing validation for about 3 months longer had been cancelled earlier in the year and he was now classed as illegally staying in the country. He asked how and why, they informed him that his previous employer had come in to the offices and told them he had left the company and filled out some documentation and because RP's are specific to the company you are employed by it is therefore no longer valid. He tried to argue stating that he was not informed of this by his previous employer and that no officials had contacted him to let him know either. Their response was it was not the PSB's responsibility to contact him and inform him and they could not comment as to the actions and/or inactions of his previous employer.

He was informed he may be fined a significant amount of money for each day of the overstay and issued a short term 'L' visa to give him time to get all his affairs in order before leaving China. He received a nice big stamp in his passport showing he had been staying in China illegally and got a permanent computer record as someone who had broken the immigration laws.

This meant that even if he was to go home and get a new passport to hide the stamp he now had he would have trouble returning or applying for any future visas, be they for work purposes or simply a holiday. To put it simply, he was now banished from China for good as the record with the PSB will be there for good.

Yuming knew damn well what they were doing when they did this. They were banking on the fact that this teacher, like many others, knew very little about the immigration and visa process in China at the time and would drop themselves in it by staying longer than they should. Clearly their intention was to get rid of him completely and get rid of him they most certainly did.

Why they choose to do this to so many teachers I do not know, if they were not so cut throat in that way they would probably find a hell of a lot less bad publicity posted about them. I agree with what others have said regarding the teachers they choose not to screw around, this can only be to ensure that some of them read the bad publicity and then post up positive statements in perfect English, casting doubt over those who have posted in the first place. Its all a very strange affair where Yuming are concerned, Helen is one strange girl and not easy to connect with at all. She always keeps a certain distance as far as relationship is concerned with teachers. When I worked there I never felt comfortable with her, you just get that vice that something is not quite right with her and my suspicions came into fruition after trying to leave myself.

She is a nasty, selfish, devious, vicious and greedy two faced person who sucks up to her boss, or perhaps business partner o_O, and has no morals whatsoever. She knows damn well the things herself and the company do are outrageous and this is not a simple case of being to stubborn and not wanting to loose face as is often the case in China. They are crooks, plain and simple. They use the private education sector as some kind of hustle to exploit large sums of money from schools and use foreign labour like toilet paper.

Anyone who has posted positive statements here, or elsewhere that is a real teacher, you guys need to serious wake up. I do not care how long you have been there but from what I have read most have only been there about a year at most. The screwed teachers far outweigh the sprinkling of teachers that have had a positive experience there, I myself keep running into teachers all the time in Tianjin that are currently in a bad situation there or have just come out of one. Seems every time I speak to a teacher who is having a bad time with a company in Tianjin it turns out to be Yuming.

I know they are not the only set of shits in Tianjin but they have to be one of the worst, if not the worst. They certainly attract more attention than anyone else and not of the positive kind either.

Seriously people, do not work here. I know reading people moaning about a company on ESL sites often comes across as a hatchet job, but this place needs to be avoided if your care about staying here.