Having read Dr Cross's posting a number of times, I feel there is rather more to the matter than meets the eye.

1) Dr Cross pointedly fails to say anything about how and why the College were "not respecting his privacy". Maybe he was doing something that they felt they had every right to stop him doing. He starts off by saying "we were being harassed" and immediately changes to the first person singular "they did not respect MY privacy" Who were "we"? Almost certainly he and his girlfriend I think.

If he had arrived at the college and moved his girl-friend in with him, then that could be construed by the employer as an action unbecoming a foreign teacher and not in keeping with Chinese customs. Moreover, the employer is under no obligation to provide a home for foreign teachers' girlfriends. This may not meet with the approval of the employee but we are all working and living in a foreign country and in all employment contracts I have ever seen there has always been one or more clauses that refer to local laws, and customs. These clauses in effect give the employer more or less carte-blanche to invoke them to get rid of their employee if they wish. Of course I have no idea what it was that Dr Cross was said to be doing that caused the college to "harass" him, because he has chosen to keep us in the dark about it. Why is that, I wonder?

2) He refers to "these activities" and claims that when he asked the college to stop doing whatever they were doing that did not respect his privacy, they told him they could not.

3) He then received a letter from the college telling him he could break his contract - this suggests that he may have told them he wanted to leave and their letter was agreement to him doing so.

4) Then the college reported him to the Foreign Affairs Department and Dr Cross implies that he has no idea why? Did he not address their complaint with the Foreign Affairs Department? Did they refuse to tell him what the complaint was about? Or did he not bother to go and see them and instead quietly faded away one night hoping that his absence would defuse the matter? Indeed, come to think of it - maybe he had already faded away and that would legally require them to inform the Authorities.

5) Why did the college keep his personal belongings? Of what use were they to the college? Could Dr Cross have had a penalty to pay for breaking his contract and the college decided to hang on to his things as security pending payment of whatever he may have owed them? Also, Dr Cross must have left his belongings behind or the college could not have got hold of them. Perhaps Dr Cross left in a hurry?

6) He admits that the college got him the proper paperwork and says that these "would have expired on August 24th 2006" - about a month from now. But evidently his visa was not cancelled as it should have been when he left the college. He says that he asked his new employer to "get the proper permits" yet he should have known that in order for them to do this the existing visa needed to be properly cancelled by Gannan Normal College and a letter of recommendation obtained from them. Do I smell a moonlight departure here?

7) It seems he is now in the position where the Nanchang Police Department have found him and told him he is in the country illegally. This would be the case if he has left Gannan Normal College without having his visa cancelled and is hawking himself around trying to get another employer to dig him out of his own trouble.

8) I think he is very fortunate not to be in far more serious trouble. He would be well advised to use the balance of his 9 days grace period to make arrangements to leave China and then get his girlfriend a new place to live instead of seemingly imlying that the Nanchang Police are being unreasonable in throwing him out leaving her homeless. Dr Cross's girlfriend is his own responsibility.

9) It is quite probable that there is no "way around" this situation as China is not always so corrupt as he may believe.

Perhaps Dr Cross should accept that somewhere along the line he has done something wrong or at least wrong enough to arouse the hackles on his employer's neck. Whether or not he could have avoided this or rectified it at the time is now beside the point. He has to leave or face the real risk of imprisonment. Moreover, he may not be allowed to return either - as he did not ask (or allow?) Gannan Normal College to cancel his visa and they will have informed the police accordingly - as indeed the law requires them to do in such cases. This may well have blacklisted him for future entry into China.

It all points to Dr Cross taking great umbrage at being told to stop doing something that he felt was his right and then doing a runner to try to evade the consequences. He has definitely not told us the background to this situation and as such that throws a huge amount of suspicion on his complaint.

John