Click here to view old videos.My Chinese Headache Part 2
Okay, I know that it has taken me a long time to get the rest of this story down, but I guess late is better than never. I’m not going to go into as much detail as I did last time because then I’ll never get this done, but I’ll at least cover the basics.
To sum up the story, my school, or rather, the president of my school lied and tried to get away with it. The president, Richard – Yuli Guo, thought that he could push Phil and I around and get us to pay our own way home. He thought that we would not fight for what was our legal right. Apparently, he has pushed a lot of people around since he became the president of WECL and has gotten what he wanted more times than not. I think that he thought we were young and stupid, but he underestimated us.
This is what happened in a nut shell.
The school tried to feed us the cock and bull story that there weren’t any tickets left, but the truth of the matter was that Richard just didn’t want to pay what the tickets cost. They had known well in advance that we were going home. They just waited until the last minute like they usually do with all other important things. Once we found this out, we pulled out our contracts and read what was clearly stated on our contract. Our contracts read in plain English that the school was required to pay our one way international ticket home. Richard played dumb at this point and asked to have us fax a copy to him. The funny part is that he personally signed and sent a copy of the original to me and Phil when we decided to teach a semester for him.
We sent him a copy of the contract as he asked and about a day later he told us that he wasn’t responsible. He said that we should read the contract more carefully before we continued to harass him about paying for our tickets. Well, we didn’t stop harassing him and that didn’t make him happy at all. We started doing research to figure out how to get him to pay what he was supposed to. We also saw at the bottom of our contract a beautiful statement that said if either of the parties broke the contract that between 10,000 and 100,000 yuan was to paid to the other party. Whether we were going to get that if he didn’t pay for our tickets we didn’t know, but we were going to use it as a backup plan if need be.
For several days, Phil talked to Richard on the phone and argued with him that it was his responsibility to get us home. At one point he said OK that he’d take care of it, but after talking to our support staff we found he had told them a completely different story. He had no intention in paying for our tickets. Richard knew that our visa was going to expire soon and that we would have to leave before that happened. I think that he was hoping that we would get scared and fly home on our on dime. Thankfully, our support staff was trying to figure out how to get an extension for us or a possible L visa if it came to staying longer. We weren’t going to leave until we found out someone else had forked over the cash for our plane tickets.
At another point he said he would pay the cost of what our tickets would have cost if we had left in September because that is when they are cheaper or he would give us 5,000 yuan each. Either way it wouldn’t cover the cost of what the tickets cost now. So, we told him no and that we were only going to accept the full amount.
As all of this was going down, we decided to contact the person who had originally sent us to China and ask her for help. She gave us the contact information for a woman at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing and told us good luck. We sent the lady at the Ministry an email and hoped for the best. When we didn’t hear from her we contacted our agency again and asked if she could do anything else to help us out. She then decided to send the lady at the Ministry an email herself. The email she sent was also sent to Richard. We weren’t expecting her to do that. You can only imagine what her email caused.
Bright and early the next morning our phone rang. It was Richard and he wanted to talk to Phil. For the next 30 minutes or so Richard let Phil have it for involving our agency and the Ministry in our problem. I didn’t have to ask Phil what was going on because I could hear Richard perfectly. The man was mad. Fuming mad. Smoke was seeping from our cell phone. He screamed at Phil that he was trying his best to find us our tickets and a whole bunch of bull crapity crap. Although, it could be possible that as soon as he got that email he sent Joe, his lacky, out to find us tickets even if it meant he had to rip it out of some poor dead man’s hands. I seriously doubt that though.
For the next few days we called and harassed Richard trying to figure out when he was going to have our tickets, and eventually he stopped taking our calls. Apparently, we were starting to annoy him. We then had to direct all of our inquires to our support staff – which didn’t know a whole lot and couldn’t get real answers from him either. I was starting to get nervous at this point in time because it was just a week or so until our visa expired. I was just hoping that Richard would somehow come through and give us what we deserved.
It wasn’t too long(a day or so) after this that we got a call from Joe telling us to go to the school. He had faxed over our a copy of our e-tickets and wanted us to make sure that we were okay. We ran to the school and ripped the piece of paper from the fax machine. All of the information on it was alright so we called him back and gave him the okay to actually purchase them. We saved the numbers and later confirmed them with United. They were legit, thank God. Richard bought us tickets that would fly us from Beijing to D.C and then on to Columbia. I guess the Ministry possibly getting involved in our problem and the possibility of having to pay us 10,000 – 100,000 yuan – made him search a little harder for the supposedly non-existence plane tickets.
After we were done celebrating that we were going home, the thought of how we were going to get to Beijing crossed our mind. Richard had mentioned that we would have to take a train from Xiamen and that the school would pay for it. We thought it would be a good idea to go double check with the school and make sure. For those of you who don’t know, Xiamen is 33 hours away from Beijing and 33 hours on a Chinese train is a long time, especially if you are in anything other than a soft seat. Well, when we told the school they knew nothing about our train trip to Beijing. Our support staff called Richard to find out what was going on and what they had to tell us wasn’t at all amusing. Richard wanted us to take a 33 hour train ride with all of luggage to Beijing on a hard seat. I think we hit the floor.
The bad part was that there was no way we were going to be able to get him to upgrade us to a soft seat. Richard was responsible for getting us to Beijing, but no where was there written down how he was supposed to get us there. Thankfully, we were able to convince him to give us what he would pay for the train tickets toward whatever other transportation we chose. So, we each got a whopping 250 yuan credit each.
After some research, we found that the only way we could fly to Beijing from Xiamen with all of our luggage was by buying a first class ticket which would cost us 2350 yuan each. The thought of dragging our luggage behind us all the way to Beijing didn’t seem fun at all. We’d done that from Fuyang to Beijing and that freaking sucked more than you can think it did. Desperate to get home as soon and as painlessly as we could, we decided to fork up the money for the first class ticket to Beijing. What else were we going to spend that money on? Even if we took it back to the states and had it converted, it wouldn’t be that much in American money.
The last difficult decision we had to make was how to get to the airport. The school wasn’t offering to take us, so we had to think of a way to cart all of our suitcases to the main road at 5:00 o’clock in the morning to catch two taxis. The one thing I’ve learned from coming to a foreign country for a year is to bring as little as humanly possible. If I had known that before I had flown to China, I wouldn’t have brought three suitcases and a backpack stuffed full of crap.
The night before we left Xiamen, we got a call from one of the support staff. She told us that the school had arranged for two taxis to come and take us to the airport. This made me happy. It meant I was only going to have to tug all of my suitcases halfway to the main road. 
Come that morning though there were no taxis like we were promised and we had to drag our suitcases to the main road anyway.
Two hours later we flying out of Xiamen and we thought all of problems were behind us. Oh, how I wish that were true.
After waiting 8 hours at our terminal at the Beijing airport, they finally called us to board the plane. As we handed over our boarding passes we were asked to step aside. I thought we were getting the random search, but it didn’t turn to be that easy or cheap. The woman before us informed that no matter what we were told by a United Airlines spoke person had said, we were allowed to take only one carry-on and that we would either have to A) throw one away or B) pay $142.00 each to have one of them checked. We couldn’t quite throw away the stuff in either one of our bags, so after arguing with one another for 15 minutes I handed over my credit card.
16 hours later I was back in Columbia.
It’s going to be a good long while before I head back to China. Man has yet to invent an Advil pill big enough. 
That’s rough. How about some good news?
September 27, 2007 @ 1:57 PM
A.) NEVER work for a private “institute” in China.
B.) NEVER get a job through a recruiter.
In the end, you didn’t research China well enough, judging by the fact you did those two things. The proportion of nightmare stories that come from working for buxibans and getting work through recruiters is against anything good every coming from it.
Your negative China experiences seem to have started with violating those two easily-researched fact (no buxibans, no recruiters).
Learn from your mistakes so you never have to deal with another “Dick” – er, “Richard” ever again.
It’s hard to sympathize for your plight, though. SOOOO much information about living and working in China is out there and it appears you never looked into it.
September 27, 2007 @ 7:38 PM
@ The Wizard – A) Phil(the guy who came with me) didn’t work for a private institute), which was just as bad if not worse than my job at the private school when we lived in Fuyang.
B) The recruiters were not a problem, in fact it was the recruiters that helped us throughout our entire trip. Without our recruiter in the US, these school would have completely taken advantage of us.
C) I have done plenty of research, more than you are giving me credit for. I researched for a year before I went. I chose the safest possible options.
I wonder if you really have been to China. I’m happy to hear you have had a good experience, but I can easily and confidently tell you, you are wrong with both A and B. Public, governmental run schools are just as corrupt as the private schools, and a recruiter although if chosen incorrectly will steal your money and leave you stranded, I chose my recruiter wisely. If you “research” as you said and choose wisely a recruiter will be very beneficial.
The fact of the matter is, there is no escape from dicks like Richard in China, you’re a bit ignorant to think there is a way to avoid corrupt individuals in China yet still travel, get jobs, and live in proper environments. China is a country coming out of poverty. Money is the most important thing in 90% of the people’s lives now. This corrupts, and this will not change for a while.
September 27, 2007 @ 9:01 PM
I’ll be heading back to China very soon. Yes, there is corruption everywhere in China. Welcome to the real world, however any research on China (try http://www.raoulschinasaloon.com or http://www.eslcafe.com for starters) will reveal that Recruiters are more often than to rip-off artists, are to be avoided, and your experience actually cements this.
A.) You chose the recruiter.
First step on the stairway to hell.
B.) Your recruiter put you in a myriad of shitty situations based on the Richard guy.
The fact they “helped” you after the fact doesn’t resolve the fact they put you in a series of shit storms that you have eloquently chronicled on your blog.
So you can pass the buck if it helps you move on, but the reality of the situation was that you put yourself through this, and your recruiter did the same.
Nobody’s perfect, but we can strive for honest assessments.
Either way, it’s too bad you had to experience what you did, even if it appears you put yourself in the “bed” that you had been “made” to “lie in” on far too many occasions, and given your hole overloading the backpack situation – you might have a pattern of getting yourself into bad situations that could have been easily prevented with some foresight and without relying on what others tell you and assumptions (which bely any actual “research.”).
Next time, try Taiwan. Oh, and no recruiters. There’s nary an honest, reliable one in the ESL biz. Taiwan + finding gig on your own = a happier experience for you should you return to EFL teaching abroad.
I only go by the information you post on your blog.
As for me, I’ve been in the EFL abroad biz for 15 years. 3 of which (and still counting) were in China.
September 28, 2007 @ 3:39 AM
PS: Sorry for the poor typing. I’m recovering from losing my index finger in an accident (my own fault).
September 28, 2007 @ 3:41 AM
@The Wizard – Let me clarify, yes the recruiter chose a bad school to work with, but we had no problems with our recruiter. In fact she told us she was going to find us another school. After having talked to Richard, having heard the countless lies (unknown as lies at the time), signing contracts, and having had our things already shipped from Fuyang to another location, we chose to stay. Let me mention again, the school as well as the recruiter, we had no problems with. The school and people there were not bad. The recruiter did everything to find us a good school. The school in fact greatly disliked Richard.
Our experiences of pain were because of certain corrupt individuals spread throughout China. I cannot understand why you feel we put ourselves in this situation. This was not like buying a used car for 3 dollars. This was about trusting contractual information, and governmental documents.
I agree with you, Taiwan I’m sure is much better than China for teaching. I also believe in what you say, that most recruitment officials are corrupt. I’m just stating the fact so are the schools and many of the people. To say it’s just the Private Schools and Recruiters in my eyes is ignorance. A friend of ours came with no recruiter to this school and experienced similar problems.
It is nice to think things like this could have been avoided, but in my opinion, the only way of avoiding a corrupt school in the ESL business is by A) Luck, B) Not going to China.
China in all was a good experience, I would not take it back. Let me tell you though, research on the internet is like trying to have sex over the internet. It’s good but will never prepare you for the real thing. It’s unfortunate individuals like Richard have removed a lot of the luster China had, but like you said that’s life. And anyone traveling to China, I’m sorry, this corruption is unavoidable. With the right attitude, China can still be a good experience, but going without a recruiter and avoiding private schools will no way near ensure any enjoyment in China. It’s a matter of tolerance, and expectations.
September 28, 2007 @ 4:35 AM
Man, sorry to hear about your finger, that’s terrible. Don’t ever worry about typing correctly on my blog. Seriously, have you read my stuff? Grammar is not a focus, as you can tell from reading my posts. Hope ya heal fast!
September 28, 2007 @ 4:39 AM
@Gabrielle: I think your analogy of sex on the Internet and research on the Internet is bang on (no pun intended).
For whatever sense of “I’m telling you so because I’m so damn clever” that the Wizard seems to be trying to get out of his comments – it’s bullshit.
Both the best and worst jobs I’ve had in China came via recruiters. And my good vs. bad experiences are pretty balanced between public schools and language mills.
It comes down to reputable people and non reputable people. It’s unfortunate that you guys got (or nearly got) burned, but I think it’s more chocked up to the “shit happens” mantra than anything you didn’t do to prevent it.
Anyway, glad you safely got back to the US, and I hope the headache goes away someday so you can get back here and we can laugh about it over some cheap beer some day. 🙂
September 28, 2007 @ 10:21 AM
Ryan,
Your credibility for accuracy and objectivity flew out the window with your Hugo Chavez worship. Not China related, but it clearly illustrates your shallow nature and inability to see two sides of a coin (should I reference your Chinese Supermarket rant? Laughable in its pretense of being “objective” so people don’t see it for the “extrapohate” that it is). Your blogs reveal observations that are dubious, at best. Definitely bullshit at their core….
Anyway, thanks, Gabrielle. I’ve healed but there’s a weird on/off switch regarding physical sensation. I still FEEL like I have all of my fingers, despite seeing the reality that I do not. As a result, old habits that linger (typing, playing video games, running fingers through hair, etc.) are thrown off by the 30+ years of habit (i .e. functioning will all digits intact).
It is freaky.
September 29, 2007 @ 1:45 AM
Nice job. Way to stand by your guns.
October 28, 2007 @ 4:01 AM
@CLB It was difficult, but I was lucky. Had Phil not been there with me, I imagine that my story would have ended much differently.
October 28, 2007 @ 4:37 AM
Hi Gabrielle,
I just saw this blog. I also interviewed with Richard Guo in his Beijing school. I reallly want to stay in Beijing, so even though the pay sucks and he’s a dick like you said in your blog, I would still want to take the offer. But in the sample contract he gave me, it says if the teacher terminates the contract, he/she must pay for 10000-10,000 RMB. It makes me so worried, coz I probably cannot teach for the whole contract year.
Can you give me some advices real quick?
Thanks a lot!
December 10, 2007 @ 10:12 AM
@Angeline,
Just to let you know, the sample contract you got is not a sample at all. Everyone under the blue sky gets that vague piece of crap. My other response has my advice.
December 21, 2007 @ 6:10 AM
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