There needs to be a recap on this topic because the essential information was probably lost in the shuffle (partly because some people were misinformed on this issue and chimed in on the wrong side of the fence).

• In the past continuing teachers at public universities received pay for the summer months, and thus were able to go home for a holiday or travel elsewhere, such as take an extended trip throughout China. Qualified/experienced teachers could also negotiated for a 12 month contract.

• Chinese teachers are all paid 12 months as year, including the summer months.

• Teachers are not on a monthly salary. They get monthly installments of a one year salary.

• There is no “10 month academic year.” The year is 12 months, and the actual teaching load may take only 8-9 months of the year.

• Now the 12 month contract is disappearing, and instead of going home or traveling all around China, continuing teachers now can find themselves without an apartment and needing to take on summer work elsewhere, such as teaching in summer camps.

• This is a scam because teachers no long receive what they were formally entitled to, and what all their Chinese counterpart receive. One can logically conclude that if the university or other public school formerly paid over the summer holidays, it is in the budget to do so, and therefore 2 months (or 1/6th) of your salary is going into someone else’s pocket.

• The difference between the older, standard package, and the newly trimmed down one is so large that it’s the difference between a really good job in China, in which one can relax a bit and travel and even go home yearly, and one that is not that much better than working at a language mill (where, at least you won’t have to find other work somewhere else just to get through the year). The difference in salary is also huge.

For some reason one heavy weight at this forum came down on the other side of the issue and baldly stated that the 10 month contract is the norm, and it’s a 10 month academic year. I proved both of these things wrong, and yet the impression that ripping teachers off of their summer pay and holidays is OK remained.

Lastly, despite what some may say, it is still possible to get the same summer holiday package teachers used to get in the past, and I’ve managed to not lose my summer holiday by standing up for myself (even if that’s impossible in illogical China and just a pipe dream). If more people would stand up for themselves it would help keep the bar from continuously falling in China for all teachers, because there would be some better jobs out there. If people want to persist in mischaracterizing me and obsequiously siding with institutions that are cheating teachers out of what they are due, I now leave them to it.