1. When you arrive, if you are a girl, you will spend your first one or two nights in a shared, filthy, tiny dorm-room with 5 or 6 Chinese, English tutors from the school. You will have to do all your ablutions (going to the toilet, trying to wash yourself with no shower, bath etc.) in a tiny, filthy shared space with absolutely no privacy (you will be trying to wash yourself whilst surrounded by tutors defecating & urinating right next to you, with no-one ever cleaning up after themselves). Your first night, you will have to try sleep on what amounts to no more than a wooden board, crammed into this tiny, filthy space with 5 or 6 of the tutors. The next morning, you will have to make your way to the hospital to have your medical, very likely after not being able to wash yourself or get any sleep due to the appalling conditions. To add insult to injury, you will have to pay your medical check-up expenses yourself, which the school should actually pay for you but are to cheap to do.

This basically says that the school does not care a hoot about anyone and would just put new teachers in a hellhole or an underground bomb shelter if they could get away with it. Apparently the owners of the school were still living in the chaotic, warmongering era of 50 - 90 years ago in China. They must have grown up living with 10 people in a room shared with cockroaches, spiders, lizards, birds, and maybe some sluggish monstrosity which paid them visits once in a while from the dark earth underneath them.

You will have to cover all your visa costs yourself (the school should actually pay these for you) and, if in China already, will have to go to Hong Kong, at great expense, to try obtaining your work visa there. The school will not tell you that certain nationalities (such as South Africans) can no longer obtain a Z visa in Hong Kong, and must return to their home country first. So, if you discover this only when you arrive in Hong Kong, you will have no choice but to return home again, after having wasted your time and money.

This school has done the unthinkable: Assuming it's easy for ALL foreign teachers to just come and go therefore believing that we can just waste money because it's China. This is like begging for us to believe that this country is total crap and the system is completely broken, which it is but this is obviously scamming and cheating.

When you first arrive, the school will tell you to take one or two days rest to recover from your long journey. What you may mistake for kindness here is only a rouse on their part for, when you receive your first months salary, you will find they have deducted those one or two nights jetlag recuperation off the money they owe you. You did not ask for this rest nor were you told they would deduct this from your salary, but they will do it anyway.

The only justice you can get because of this would be for ALL FOREIGN TEACHERS at this school to JET THE HECK OUTTA THERE. Maybe then the administrators can feel some "jetlag" themselves as in always having a sinking feeling because they have NO TEACHERS who would want to work there.

Speaking of monthly salary, the school will cheat you out of this too. Dont count on getting any more than 1/3rd of your first months salary. They use some bizarre, crooked system which deducts all your paid leave time (you are entitled to 2 days paid leave per week in accordance with your contract, but they will say this is unpaid leave). Plus, the fingerprint reader (which makes you feel like youre in a prison every time you clock in or out) is faulty and operates only in Chinese, many times not recording your clock in or clock out times or, telling you in Chinese that it has been accepted and then a few minutes later saying in an electronic Chinese voice, which of course you cannot understand, that you need to re-do the process as there has been an error. I kept an exact log of ALL my clock-ins & outs and was still cheated by Birmy on my monthly salary. They said the fingerprint reader indicated that I had clocked in late several times that month, a total lie and something fabricated by the HR department as they can alter these figures at will. You cannot argue this as its all in Chinese and they will say the machine is infallible.

WAT in the name of all that's good is the school doing with a fingerprint reader??? Have they watched too many bad movies from hollywood or something? This is a school, not some ultra high tech computer facility. Seriously the people who own the school are freakin' losers who never had their wet dreams of being anyone come true so they're acting out their childish fantasies by putting this thing in, pathetic. Maybe they're afraid the Terminator will come and destroy everything, which would be totally awsome.

There are no lesson plans at all for upper level students and, the ones you may find hidden in a cupboard somewhere, are nothing more than Google-translated ramblings on the most complex and hopelessly uninteresting and useless topics. Upper and intermediate students will often come to class clutching just the first page of this so-called lesson, whilst you come in balancing reams of Google-translated material which the students were not given but should have been by their Chinese, English tutors beforehand.

Google translations, from my limited experience, can seem to do a no better job than babel fish and other translating software. The poor students who are subjugated to this Nazi method of teaching are being ripped off. People in the west do not use google translated material as the answer to all nor do we revolve our lives around dreary topics, we have fun you know.

After your first one or two nights in a filthy dorm room or fleabag motel, you will have to find your own apartment. The school will (if you are lucky) have arranged only one or two for you to look at AND you need to be at work to do training during this time too (which they will try get out of paying you for). Considering you will be training and working till after 9pm every night, it will be almost impossible for you to find a decent apartment in such a short time. For any apartment you settle on just so you are not sleeping on the street, you will need to pay at least 4 to 6 months rent as a deposit upfront. Considering that you will be cheated out of most of your first months salary, plus the fact that you will have had to pay for your medical and flight ticket upfront, with no help or reimbursement from the school, you will not survive even a day at this new job in China unless you arrive with at least 15 thousand RMB to start.

15 thousad RMB is well over 2000 dollars in this day and age, which is what most Japanese schools require for you to start with. Does this school think of itself as the equal peers of any school in the world or something? I think anyone with 15 thousand rmb to spare would stay away from taizhou. If the school can't even do the basic, menial task in this ESL business of helping a teacher find an apartment I doubt any teacher can believe the people at the school can even chew gum or tie their shoelaces properly

Although your monthly salary may seem good at 8 thousand RMB per month for your first two or three months probation (make that 3 months as the school will lie to you again in negotiations, saying you will only have to do two) & 10 thousand per month thereafter, the school is actually paying you one of the LOWEST salaries an English teacher could possibly earn in China. You will be working 40 hours a week; be called to meetings (often 3 to 4 hours long) during your off days, for which you will not be paid; you will have to outlay so much money in the first month and are being cheated on your first months salary; you will receive only 3 days paid leave per year (the lowest of ANY English school in China); you will be cheated out of Chinese public holidays too (for example, you will get only 3 days leave instead of the obligatory 7 days over Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival)

This sounds like a Mafia run school. I mean I think illegal workers who come to the USA get cheated less than this, which is kind of scary. They will do anything to save money and not see you as the human being you are. Calling them scum would be kind of an insult to some scum. I find it amazing that in our species there are people who achieve such a high magnitude of progress not only for themselves but even for the world yet there are people like this who are less helpful to the world than a plate of gluttonous maggots.

10. You will share an office with the Chinese, English tutors who are on the phone to students the whole day at fever-pitch volume levels, when not teaching, and encourage students to come in and out of the office at will. This will make it almost impossible for you to concentrate on your lesson preparations.

11. The school has disabled all the USB ports & CD drives on the computers and the IT department is absolutely useless and hopelessly ineffectual. This will make your life as a teacher a nightmare as you cannot use or save any outside lesson material from USB, DVD or CD, nor will you have flash or the latest Internet browser on your machine to prepare video clips for your students.

Office management is obviously non-existent. Neither is common sense. The only thing who would want to work in Birmy's office would probably be Humma Kavala from the Hitchhiker's book. Only he would enjoy the backwards, idiotic setting as he sits on his fat rump and reads his poems while the office monkeys clammer for attentions by banging their books, folders, and computer screens on the walls and desks.

Dont count on actually working at the branch you agreed to work for in your contract. When you arrive, as so many foreign teachers are quitting in disgust every few weeks or months, you will more than likely be told you will be teaching at another branch. They will try force you to do this and you will be very lucky if you can get out of it.

So from now on every foreign teacher will demand a villa near the seashore just to mess around with the school. When they finally understand what you're saying to them, promptly reply, "BUT I STILL WON'T GO THERE BECAUSE YOU'RE TOO STUPID TO DO ANYTHING EXCEPT BREATHE PROPERLY."

When I first arrived at this awful school, I wondered why all the foreign teachers never had anything to do with anyone else at the school. They just silently came in, tried to prepare and teach their lessons, and then left as quickly as possible, not saying a word to anyone. I soon realized the reason when one of my fellow foreign teachers told me that, anything you say to any of the Chinese staff at the school, will immediately get passed around the whole school (to your students too), only to come back to you in some twisted or warped form, making it seem like you have been up to no good. This applies to your movements and interactions outside the school too. Many foreign teachers were furious when being confronted by Chinese, English tutors at the school as to why they were having lunch or dinner with a Chinese girl, reported back to the school by who knows which staff member or student. Its a free country (supposedly) and we are fully entitled to meet with our Chinese friends at anytime, especially being single and having the right to meet with whomever we want, whenever we want. How dare they pass judgment and cast aspersions on our character here. What in heavens name has it got to do with them anyhow?

The Chinese people who work there have nothing better to do with their miserable lives than to act out a sick fantasy where they actually do something which contributes to the greater good of man. Instead they believe they live in an age of evil where foreign demons come to attack and hurt them. They will satisfy their masochistic needs by constantly hanging on to your every word and movement and promptly overanalyze so as to justify that they do exist for a reason. The people behave in a way which reminds me of classic novel I read a long time ago called The Young Englishman(I might have gotten the wording wrong). In this book a man uses a monkey disguised as his "nephew" to keep the villagers away from doing his job.

Reasons 15-19 are common problems in the crappy world of esl and it's sad to see the superstition of the "waijiao" school being competent amongst Chinese people not go away but stay and take root. Because there are so many schools like this in China I suppose the parents and students carry a false hope that the next school will be better or just because the price is higher it will actually mean a better quality. This will probably not go away until the younger generation is in walking sticks, although this is just a wild guess out of left field. Maybe by then the ESL world here will have just mutated into some other imperfect boat of crap.

All of the schools are controlled from head office in Jiaojiang, Taizhou. Unfortunately, this creates massive problems as the people up there have no idea of the comings and goings of each individual branch, making their devastatingly incompetent and damaging decisions from the ivory tower, with no regard for, or interest in, the foreign teachers well-being. The director of our school knew no English at all, same with the finance and IT departments. You will incessantly be bothered at all times of the night and morning outside of working hours by staff asking you to do this and that and G-d knows what else. With little and often no notice at all, you will be asked to drop everything and go help out at another branch, often 2 to 3 hours away. You will have to get there first at your own expense, and will have no time to prepare anything (pack your things; plan your lessons, accommodation etc.).

Yes, the people are so busy being useless so why would they have any idea what our feelings are and what we're thinking??? They don't even bother to ask in the first place!! All of these people just assume they know. Degradation of the mind sure is easy to spread but teaching common sense to the masses can seem so hard.

Applying for leave will cause you the most headaches. You have only 3 days paid leave per year (worst for any school in China) and, to apply for unpaid leave, you have to find a teacher to take over your duties, who you must pay during that time. Even if you manage to pull of this feat (not easy when you only have one other foreign teacher at your branch, who was planning on going away the same time as you), they can pull the plug on this at a moments notice, making some excuse like they urgently need you at another branch. So, once you start at this school, plan on having hardly ANY leave per year at all.

If this school can get away with it, they would rob the graves of every western foreign country and administer some re-animating material to the deceased making them come back to life in a zombie state. From here they would make the zombies work 24/7. Then they would become the first school ever in the history of mankind to make a dozen billionaires out of an educational body while successfully managing the zombies. From there they will change the world and make Birmy the symbolism for wealth. But seriously at this point I think the only remedy is to give a lobotomy to the admins so they can be zombies themselves and that would be a better state for them to be in as they won't be causing so much damage.

We do not want any of you to experience the torment and misery we had to endure at this terrible excuse for an English school.

This isn't a school. This is a dump, a wasteland. It's dangerous to call this place a school as that might cause a misunderstanding with some people who want to work in China. Birmy needs an official nickname on the web so everyone will know it's on the level of EF, Web, Crappy Hamster, and Aston. Something like Bummy, Bummer, Bad Bird, etc. Anyone up for giving one??