I worked for this organization for a few months, and it was possibly the most miserable months of my life.

I came to Changchun being promised much by Star Education, but when I got here things started to fall apart.
The company has a foreign manager called Shaun. He - as I started to find out - spoke big words, but failed to deliver on almost everything he said. It was only later that I started to work him out for what he is - a serial liar - as things he promised me started to contradict one another.

The apartment was not 'western style' in any sense of the meaning. It was a total dump, dark and smelly and set in a dodgy neighborhood. But i'm not a quitter, I told myself, so I stuck with it - This was a mistake.

The apartment proved not to be my main concern though...

I never once received a full months pay in all my time at Star.

This is because they didn't have enough classes for me, and so they would dock my pay check. I asked to give me more classes, but they only had these classes at qinghua language school (By the way, this place is total hell to work at. Huge classes, no curriculum, ill disciplined students etc...), and I refused them.

I was told by my Shaun at Star that there would be other classes - but they never materialized.

I only had one day off each week, and NO paid holiday whatsoever. Not even the Chinese national holidays were paid. My schedule each week would require me to work at three or four different locations all over Changchun - sometimes I would have no time for lunch- I was forced to take taxis because of the time constraints. Traveling in the winter ain't much fun, I can tell you!

I was also told that my taxi fares over 10 yuan would be reimbursed. I never saw a penny of this money.

Star is a farming out agency and will promise the world, until that is, you sign the contract. Once I signed this everything changed for me, I was pressured to work - to do extra classes in my free time. My schedule would change with little notice - my former boss said that '1 day is enough notice' - so if i was doing something else, my day would be ruined.

Everything revolved around Star, as far as they saw it, you are their property.

And I was told that if i refused to work, I would be breaching the contract - I was even threatened with visa cancellation when I confronted them on this.

Star has about 20 FTs - gotten over the Internet - mostly from Canada. Most of the other teachers would be nobodies or bums back home, not the sort of people you would want to associate with. No i'm not generalizing, this is actually true.

No-one actually living in Changchun would be stupid enough to work for them, or for any other of the recruiting companies that operate in this city. Indeed - as bad as star is - there are other companies that worse!

I have many friends who work in Changchun, and have had great experiences. Mine, sadly, will only be remembered as a bad time and it has put me off ever working here again.