I'm already working at a government university and everything's going fine. Mostly I love my job. However, there can be small complications around getting correct factual information (such as when finals were), and I thought it might be easier to ask here, where I know there are teachers with similar positions, rather than use up my pestering-the-bureaucracy credits with actually pertinent questions.

All the foreign teachers at this uni are new, so we're all in the dark on some things and have been blindsided by surprises in they past.

1) Bonuses. I hear we only get the "flight" bonus if we actually take a flight and produce a receipt. Otherwise we get nothing. My guess is the bonus won't cover the full cost of flights because they've gone up dramatically. I was not intending on going home, but on traveling in China during my breaks, so am disappointed to hear I will nothing of the flight bonus. Needless to say I am now planning to fly in China, as they said they'll reimburse me for those tickets (though they could easily say that was incorrect at the last minute).

2) Classes. There have been a few problems with teachers being assigned to teach classes they aren't qualified to teach, such as teaching "Political Philosophy" in English, or literature classes when they have no background in literature. Teachers were notified of which courses they would teach only AFTER they signed their contracts (within an hour after, to be precise). Do have have suggestions as how to avoid getting hit with a subject I didn't agree to teach? There's something in the contract about the class schedule being arranged beforehand, and thus it may be possible to hold off on signing the contract until I know what the job will be. If I were to get a mix of writing, reading, literature, culture, and philosophy or politics classes my job could be a nightmare, whereas if I teach what I am qualified to teach – oral English – it's a peach.

3) A new teacher has been told, at the last minute, that he will need to get his health check in America before coming to China. Can't he come in on a Z visa, and get the health check here?