Dear Taffy,
Hope all is well, familial and digestive.
It appears to my smog-stained eyes that China's education industry has changed markedly from our era.
Many of the private schools are sans-waijiao now. Even the prestigious high-schools have pared the number of foreign teachers to a handful that are relatively well-paid and credentialed. Agencies and recruiters still play wack-a-mole with immigration police in 2nd tier cities, but their profits and numbers are dwindling.
University English departments are shrinking, a result of both birth-rates and reduced interest in foreign grad school/ employment.
Can I be forgiven feeling that we experienced an era of particular manic magic where the castoffs of developed Western societies prowled classrooms as China's foreign language education crawled from its infancy? A time when 'institutes of higher learning' turned their poor children over to white-faced ex-models, 12 steppers, alimony escapees, and back-pack lotharios.

I do miss those days.