Sorry Raoul, but I can't follow your logic. First you said it's a 10 month academic year, but you then acknowledged that Chinese teachers are paid for all 12 months including all holidays. Then you argued that the Chinese teachers are more valuable to universities because they are permanent employees, and therefor the schools are willing to invest in them. Just because there's a rationale for taking better care of the Chinese teachers doesn't mean the foreigners aren't being cheated if Chinese teachers are paid for July/August while their foreign counterparts are left in the cold. You admit it's "unfair," but won't call it a scam.

The question now is, if foreigners are being short-changed, why isn't it a "scam"?

One of your arguments was that it's always been this way in China. I took your word for it at first but decided to look into the matter. I found this on Middle Kingdom Life.

Foreign teachers at universities are paid two months in advance for the winter and summer holidays. For example, if the academic semester in the fall ends in the middle of January, you will receive two months' salary for January and February around the end of that semester. Likewise,

if you are on a 12-month contract

, most universities (but not all) will pay you for July and August at the end of the spring semester, usually during the first or second week of July.

So it appears that there is such thing as a 12 month contract (I've been on one for years), and probably always has been (unless I'm just really, really confused). And if THAT is the case, than the change to 10 month contracts is an opportunistic attempt to take advantage of unsuspecting foreigners, and with all the shortcomings I've mentioned before.

You never addressed how there can be a 6 month contact for either term, but not a 12 month contract for both. Isn't that a bit self-contradictory?

I maintain it's a a scam (a devious stratagem for gain) because it makes foreign teacher's salaries sound much higher than they are (17% to be precise) as compared to universities that still offer the much more realistic and fair 12 month contract, and it essentially cheats the foreign teachers out of 1/6th of their due income for the actual work they did. Further, that money is probably going somewhere else.

Most haven't caught on to this, which is why I wrote the original post. Clearly, there used to be 12 month contracts (if we trust MKL, and if I can believe that I actually exist and have had this normal contract), and it's becoming the norm now to cut out 2 months pay and laugh all the way to the bank. People should factor in the missing months of pay, and mentally adjust the proposed salary accordingly.