I hate to spoil the lets bash Huijia party, but some of these comments are so over the top, I cant help laughing. Im currently in my 7th year teaching in the IB program. Yep, 7th. Let me give my honest perspective on life at this school. You can make your own judgment. First, as mentioned, I teach in the IB program, so there may be some variation to life in the other programs/schools, such as primary, middle schools, and the GAC programs. But Ill try to address the whines about the overall administration that are on this board.

Ill start by stating that in my 6 years here I have always been paid on time, have never been screwed out of money, and have been treated fairly by the administration from day 1. There has been plenty of funny stuff, mostly little annoying things, but nothing thats driven me to head for the hills or rant on a board like this; not even close.

From the highest level overview, teaching at Huijia, the job itself, really boils down to this: teaching/motivating/controlling our students. Contrary to the complaints posted, most conversation/discussion, among teachers here, center around our students and how to best teach them. Its a private school (and yes, the bottom line takes precedence over learning at times), therefore the tuition is high, therefore the parents are wealthy, and therefore some percentage of our students are spoiled (one child policy ... the little kings and queens), and therefore the attitude and motivation of too many students is indeed lacking. That, in a nutshell, is what MOST teachers here are concerned with, motivating non-motivated students. It can be discouraging for sure. As I say that, let me point out that we have some outstanding students, who, year after year, upon graduating, are accepted to highly ranked universities ... Cornell, Brown, Michigan, Berkeley, U of Washington in St Louis, and several others. The poorer students, and poorer classes, are the challenge. I can't and won't sugarcoat that. It's tough. But I will also say that, for the most part, those students are simply bad students. They're not bad "kids". I like them, especially OUTSIDE the classroom

Another critical point to understand is that China is a developing country. Its not the US. Its not Canada. Its not the UK, not Australia. It is a developing country with policies and systems (or more often, a lack thereof), that at times simply do not make sense to foreigners. If you come here expecting the same systems, ideas, organization, policies and comforts as your western country, in essence, a seamless transition, you are living in a parallel la-la universe and will probably wind up writing the kinds of posts that you've read on this board. Having said that, Im sure that Huijia has its own unique brand of China-isms, as I call them.

In my 6+ years at this school I have seen quite a range of teachers come and go those fresh out of college who are simply unprepared for the world-at-large, let alone teaching in China. They fail miserably, and guess what they do? You got it come to this site and blast the school. (Some have been impressively mature/together, and did just fine.) There are those who dont understand they are in a developing country and the moment they dont get what they want they cry bloody murder and guess what they do after that? You got it. Then there are the whiners by nature, who, no matter what environment theyre in, whine incessantly. I have zero patience for these individuals. Guess if they last long here? Guess what they do when they leave? You got it. Then there are teachers who simply dont cut it. Theyre not good teachers and are not offered a contract extension (those who would like one). Guess what they do? You got it. Then there are teachers who are asked to leave for a specific incident, or general behavioral issues, or lied on their resumes and were found out (this happened just recently). Guess what these teachers do? You got it. Then there are those teachers who did indeed have a bad experience, got screwed in one way or another, and have every right to come on this board and voice their dissatisfaction. But in general, those teachers who understand that China is a developing country, are open-minded, flexible, can role with some punches, have a mature/professional attitude towards teaching and life in general, for the most part, have an experience here that ranges from at least pretty decent to very positive. By no means am I saying that teaching here is Disneyland, but from my experience and perspective, so much of the noise posted here is WAY over the top. All the junk about the FAO/Amanda and Joy, curriculum, alcoholic teachers, teachers having sex with students, bldg 10, classrooms falling apart ... here goes (get comfortable, this will take a while

Housing Ill preface by saying that the school, recognizing that housing in general, in China, falls below the comfort level in western countries, went ahead and built a new apartment building for foreign teachers only. (This costs money.) I lived in the teachers dorm (bldg eight) for 3 years before the new building (building 10), and believe me, these apts are a very nice improvement from the dorms. The old dorm rooms are about on par with a really cheap motel room. Having said that, construction, in general, throughout China has a way to go EVERYWHERE, not just Huijia. Owners, developers hire cheap and often low-skilled laborers from the countryside to save money and consequently you generally get what you pay for. Still, I think the apartments are pretty comfortable; 1 and 2 br, TV (BBC and a few other English language stations), so-so DVD player, A/C, decent bed, desk, small dining table and a couple of not so comfortable chairs, free internet, stove. Not bad, really. There are also 2 community rooms, one on each floor; 1 has a ping pong table. The other is used for poker night and (board) game night. I think some teachers use it for yoga as well. It has some comfortable sofas, big TV, DVD player, lots of DVDs and a selection of English language books, mostly best-seller/thrillers. All good. Here are the downsides: due to the typical low-quality construction, the paint is peeling/chipping in virtually every apt. Some of the floor tiles separate, and no doubt other cosmetic problems that as owners, most would do something about. There have been major fixes needed here and there as well. One teachers sink literally collapsed. This is China, not Beverly Hills. The heat in winter is too strong on the first floor and not strong enough on the second. I live on the second. I bought a $30 space heater. Problem solved. Move on. There is dirt and soot everywhere in China. Yes, you have to constantly wipe dust from your furniture and floors. Yes, the school allocates hot water only in the morning. Afternoon and evening showers are not what youd call comfortable. I and others have agreed that saving energy is a good thing. Where the school comes up short here is in not notifying the teachers. We have to guess, inquire, and get conflicting information about when its ok to take showers. Communication at this school is not an art form. You just find out somehow and deal with it. I havent heard anything about rodents in a teachers room, so Im not comfortable commenting. Lets just say having lived in the bldg for 3 years now, I was surprised to read it. Washers and dryers yeah, the washers arent great and break down too often. This is annoying, not end-of-the-world annoying. The dryers are close to useless. Most teachers hang clothes on a line in one of the courtyards, or on the roof, or on drying racks theyve purchased and hang them in their room. One note along these lines, there is lots of criticism of Amanda and Joy from the Foreign Affairs Office (FAO). Ill address those a little later, but in relation to the washers after too many had broken down, and repairs lasted about one washing, I communicated this frustration to Amanda, who contacted the company. The school had signed a maintenance contract with the company which stipulated only repairs for the duration of the contract. Amanda not only negotiated brand new replacement washers, but talked them out of raising the price per washing cycle that they were pushing for. This may not be on a level with a cure for cancer, but believe me, in China, its quite an accomplishment. The fact that the school built an improved living facility (building 10) for foreign teachers only, a substantial improvement over the dormitory, bldg 8, would fall on deaf ears of the whiners who post here. Some parts of the building are more noisy and dont get much light. Theres a kind of luck of the draw as far as the apt you get. Some are better than others. There is also a comment about a teacher who almost died and another who developed cancer as a result of living in building 10. Um hundreds of teachers have lived in building 10. To make a claim like that is utter trash, irresponsible and baseless. The teacher who almost died is recovering nicely in her home country, France, and before becoming ill, enjoyed living and teaching at the school. I do not know the exact degree of severity of her condition, but Im quite sure that close to death is pure nonsense. Plus, making a connection to the building, again, is pure garbage. Yes, a teacher recently was diagnosed with cancer. She is currently coming and going same as ever, having further tests to determine if the cancer is benign or serious. She is an older teacher (sorry J!), and correct me if Im wrong, but I believe cancer strikes people of all ages, sexes, colors, and religions throughout the world. She has indicated to me she doesnt think it is serious. We all certainly hope so and are pulling for her.

Foreign Affairs Office (FAO)/Amanda/Joy Both Amanda and Joy (a poster mentioned Diane; that must be Lan, a new employee) The first thing to understand is that they are the liaison between the foreign teachers and the (Chinese) administration. While attempting to work with the foreign teachers they often need to get approval from the administration, which basically means the owner. This puts them right smack in the middle of culture clash, and often a financial clash. Guess who signs their paychecks? This is a VERY tough position. Anyone who cannot see this is not terribly observant nor interested in seeing beyond the nose on his face. When Amana, Joy, or Diane cant get the administration to agree to whatever the foreign teacher is asking for, guess who takes the hit? I know very well how hard Amanda works behind the scenes to represent the teachers who come to her with reasonable requests. (She is doing so right now as a matter of fact to get the admin to make improvements to our contracts; Ill leave it there for now.) Ive been around the block, lots of experience, and I find Amanda to be friendly, intelligent, caring, hard-working, and dedicated. I am not the only teacher here who will back me up on that statement. There is a statement below about Amanda and her lesbian lover, Joy. This is a shameless, disgraceful, out and out lie, inexcusable, and should give open-minded readers here a very clear neon-flashing- warning about what you read on this site. This is a slanderous comment and in the US could go directly to the courts. Amanda has been of great help to me and many other teachers on many occasions. (Joy is newer and still getting her feet wet, but shes also helped me a few times too.) There are many comments that Amanda lied to teachers during the recruiting process. Id have to know exactly what was said in order to comment. Ill just say shes never lied to me. Knowing her, I find this statement very hard to believe. A poster mentions that in her webcam interview, Amanda was not making eye contact and looking off-camera, implying she was either gearing up for a lie, or looking to some sinister off-camera person for help. I wasnt there, so I cant say: Heres what really happened but the implication of Amanda lying in the really amateurish way described sounds more than suspect to me. The offices are chaotic at times with people coming and going. If Amanda lost focus or eye contact, she may have been distracted. If so, she needs improvement in this area. Ill mention it to her, so she can indeed improve. There could certainly be some miscommunication, misunderstandings, or situations changing since previous conversations. But out and out lying? I have trouble believing that. Many teachers here would also.

Canteen Its ok, not awful, not great. I've been eating that food for over 6 years. It suffices. Too oily and salty are the usual complaints. Its usually jammed at every meal. People eat it constantly. Nobodys keeled over. There are plenty of alternatives nearby. In my 6 years, Ive found hair in my food once for sure, maybe twice. (I have also found hair in my food once or twice in very nice restaurants. Anybody else?) A few years ago some teachers were talking about an insect in their food. I never experienced that. With all the whining from the teacher who mentioned about that in his first two weeks, I cant prove anything, but I would take that statement with a huge grain of salt (so to speak). This is a canteen servicing hundreds of workers per meal per day. With a 300 RMB per month allowance, its close to free. Anyone with high expectations, again, is living in la-la land. The canteen, in general, is a non-issue.

Classrooms Again, I can only speak about the IB rooms. Keeping Chinese construction in mind, theyre ok. Theyre not falling apart. My criticism is that the maintenance crew mops the floors outside the classrooms and around the offices, but doesnt seem to do anything inside the classrooms. There are a couple of rubber trash cans in the back of each room that are overflowing with garbage, mostly empty water bottles, but no one attends to them. The rooms in general could use some repair, or a facelift here and there, but there is absolutely nothing preventing a teacher from walking into a classroom and teaching a class. Nothing. Get in there, do your job, and stop crying. I might also add that the IB dept just upgraded from blackboards and chalk to smart whiteboards which interact with laptop computers that the school has provided (on loan, not keeps) to each and every teacher. Pretty high-tech, probably even a little overkill. Any mention of that in these posts? There is also a plan for a completely new, state-of-the-art (Im told) IB building planned for construction soon, supposed to be ready by 2013(?)

Admin changing grades A poster mentioned that grades magically get changed behind closed doors. To my knowledge, there is no smoking gun evidence to prove that this occurs, but the teachers pretty much unanimously agree it does. No one knows to what degree, but even if its an incident here and there, its still too much, it is bad B-A-D bad. If I were a perfect human being Id storm into the directors office, pound my fist on the desk and rail about the injustice of it all . and get fired or more likely given an off-point song and dance that either lightly denied or excused what they were doing. Im not perfect. Assuming this does occur, it certainly doesnt make our jobs easier. We, the teachers here, just shake our heads, and go on with business. If this little piece of information is enough to discourage prospective teachers from coming here, that is completely understandable.

Significant others visitation rights Theres a pretty amusing post about this. The poster claims that he and his guest have to either climb walls or bribe the security guard. Sounds horrible, eh? Well, theres one little, insignificant point that the poster left out, which is, that in both the working contract and the teachers apartment rules, there are clear stipulations: boyfriends/girlfriends are not allowed to stay with their mates overnight. Now, you can argue that this is absurd, an infringement on your rights, etc, but its clearly stated in the contract we sign. China (in general) is much more conservative than western countries, and the school is as well. So in climbing walls and paying off guards to get around this annoying little rule, what is the teacher in essence, saying? You guessed it its ok for the teachers to violate contracts but NO FING WAY is that demonic school going to kick me around. I guess honoring contracts only works one way. Now, we all know guys have been sneaking girls (and vice-versa) into dorm rooms and bedrooms across the globe since the Ice Age, and if it goes on here more power to those involved but its good to know all the facts.

Evil black taxis - A poster criticizes the taxis that service the teachers. This is a real head-scratcher. Ill take you through it. In China, black taxis are a simple fact of life. Theyre everywhere. A group of friendly, black taxi drivers hang out at the east gate of our school, the one closest to the teachers apts. We walk to the gate, get into the taxi, tell our friendly driver where we want to go. The driver takes us to our destination. We pay the fare (20RMB, market price). Sounds awful, eh? Alternative bus transportation is pretty inconvenient. If you need a special trip, airport at off-hours for example, say 6am, you arrange your trip with one of the drivers in advance, and he comes at the scheduled time, helps you with your luggage and off you go. This is a truly a horrible, horrible setup. Agree?

Evil off-campus bar/restaurant This place is also described in bleak terms, a den of iniquity. Another head scratcher. As the poster mentions, the wives of two American teachers (not Australian as the poster states) opened up a funky/cool, cozy bar/restaurant in the little village that runs parallel to the campus; convenient walk, more convenient by bike. It offers western food and beverage that are either difficult or impossible to get here club sandwiches, pancakes, bacon and eggs, coffee Bud, Corona, Guinness (cans), etc. I think burgers are on tap soon as well. You can also order food from any of the local restaurants within short walking distance, head back to the restaurant, enjoy your drink, and wait for your food. Sounds pretty disgusting, eh? Shockingly most teachers here consider this place a very nice option to the canteen, plus, it offers a cool place to hang out. There are virtually no places like this in the village, nor in the downtown area. The poster then goes on to imply that teachers regularly get hammered and show up to class drunk. Sheesh. I know that several of the 20-somethings to early-30s teachers hang out there at night, not sure how often, not every night, and Im willing to bet they enjoy a beer or two, and that some overdo it. Unless you hang out there, you wouldnt know to what extent. But lets ask a tough question: do young (mostly single) guys hang out in bars and drink ONLY if they are teachers at Huijia? Im going to go out on a limb and say that this takes place pretty much in every nook and cranny across the globe. Im also willing to bet that those teachers who overdo it are less than 100% clear-headed the next day in their classrooms. If they can get through their lessons feeling less than perfect, but still pull it off, then they are in the same company as millions of working professionals around the globe; doctors, surgeons, pilots, CEOs, senators, scientists, computer programmers, economists, investment bankers on and on. If their performance isnt up to par for this reason, or any other, believe me, it will become known, and the school will take appropriate action; either warn, relieve him of classes (maybe not all), or show him the door, probably at the end of the semester. Ive seen this on a couple of occasions over the years. Im not blind and I havent seen any stumbling drunks in the office. Contrary to the posts here, the school monitors teacher performance and those who dont cut it are gone.

Teachers here A lot of the posts claim that the teachers here arent qualified. Im wondering if theyve sat in all the classes that these teachers teach. Im wondering if they know all the qualifications, or lack thereof, of the teachers here. Im wondering if those who are critical are in any position to do the criticizing. In getting to know teachers, I can get a sense of where I think they might stand in a classroom, but unless I see a teacher perform in front of students, I withhold judgment. My observation is that as the years pass, the school is (gradually) hiring more mature, experienced, qualified teachers. Peripherally, the turnover rate, which is still high, has slowly been improving. Some teachers have taken to signing 2-year contracts. In addition, there are a handful of teachers that have left the school, taught elsewhere, and have either returned here, or have re-applied and been rejected. Im sure I just gave a few posters a heart attack.

Successful Business Model I started in 2004. At that time, in the IB program there was a total of 8 classes. There are now 30. You can say what you want, but there is no arguing with the business success of this place. Most companies would drool over that growth.

Deviant Sexual Behavior Nothing to see here, folks .. move on.

Curriculum To my knowledge, not a problem in the IB dept, though it used to be for some subject teachers.

A few final comments (finally!!!) So, why do I keep coming back? I get that question a lot. Perhaps most importantly, we get LOTS of freedom here. If we dont have class, we dont have to stay in the office. Our apts are a 3-min walk from the school. We can leave campus. That is a big deal to me. We have an orientation meeting at the beginning of every year, and each subject dept has a meeting at that time too. Thats about it. Maybe another ad hoc one here and there. For me, thats great. I dont like meetings. There are little to no bureaucratic forms to fill out. Basically the school just leaves me alone and lets me teach. I like that. I also think we have a nice little campus, pleasant little environment. It doesnt bother me that theres not much to do on campus nor in downtown. I have plenty to do to occupy my time. But thats why virtually all teachers leave campus on the weekends and head to Beijing. Thats where the action is bars, restaurants, Starbucks Many teachers rent apts there, others stay at hotels or youth hostels. A poster indicates that the reason people flee to Beijing is to escape the torture chamber otherwise known as Huijia. I havent taken a survey, but the general feeling I get is just what I mentioned younger teachers want to go where theres more social life. Its in Beijing, not here. No big deal. What is a big deal is that the air is cleaner here, especially on campus. No getting around it, pollution in Beijing, and virtually all big cities in China, is gross.

Im not a rah-rah flag-waving Huijia promoter. I dont stand to gain anything by commenting here. I dont have an administrative or marketing position. Im just a teacher. I just think its good to offer a fresh perspective to prospective teachers, point out that some of these comments are straight from the loony bin, or greatly exaggerated, or downright false. At the same time, yes, there have been, and continue to be issues.

Last but not least I expect to get completely, totally, utterly lambasted for this post. Thats ok. Who knows, maybe someone will even call me a lesbian. Wont that be worth the price of admission? but Im a guy. I doubt Ill come back and look. I never really come to this site anyway, just felt it was time to add my two cents or more. I stand by what Ive written.

Good luck to all you facing the tough decision of moving overseas and choosing the school that suits you.