Laodeng
- 2004-08-27
> Good luck, and let us know how it turns out!
As of this morning (Friday, 27 August), my visa and green and red books, along with the cancelled contract, are back in my hands.
As my e-mail correspondence with the young idiot I was dealing with grew more heated, I started copying Steven Dunning (their "foreign personnel supervisor"), who is on family business in New Zealand and will not return until February.
Dunning contacted his office (not sure exactly what happened), but by last night (Thursday, 26 August) we were getting apologetic phone calls (plural).
There is probably a place for an outfit like this--which, after all, is authorized locally to apply for Z visas--but my advice would be not to deal withe the indigenous help. In the case of Tong Hu/Yuzhen, I would wait until Dunning is back on the premises.
Cheers!
DoS
- 2004-08-27
Good luck, and let us know how it turns out!
> Tong Hu Consulting/Yuzhen Group in Shanghai is a teaching-assignment
> contractor. In other words, you sign a contract with them, and they
> farm you out to middle schools (zhong1 xue2) in Shanghai and its
> suburbs.
> Although instructive, the story is a little complex. But I'll try to
> keep it short.
> Needing a rapid extension of my Z visa, and despite some considerable
> misgivings, I signed on with this outfit on the basis of their
> telling me . . .
> (A) that they could obtain the visa extension with a minimum
> turn-around time, and
> (B) on the basis of my C.V. and some glowing references, they had
> obtained a firm job offer from a so-called "key" middle
> school in Jiading, in the northern suburbs of Shanghai.
> Lest I be accused of somehow misunderstanding, I should note that
> they also said this in Shanghaihua in the presence of my Shanghaiese
> wife.
> So yesterday (Wednesday, 25 August) two representatives of Tong Hu
> drove my wife and me to Jiading for what was billed as an informal
> touching-bases, let's-get-acquainted session with the headmaster and
> some of his people.
> But when I got there, it rapidly became apparent that I had NOT been
> hired and in fact the session was a formal job interview. But I was
> "tried and found wanting"--in short, I didn't get the job.
> On the drive back to Shanghai, the Tong Hu representative kept
> assuring us that there was "no problem" (sound familiar?)
> and we were not to worry. He then added that they had rented an
> apartment for us near the school that didn't want me (a little
> crazy?). But this was after we had already informed Tong Hu that,
> because the beginning of school was so close, that we ourselves had
> already rented (paying a considerable nonrefundable deposit) an
> apartment in Jiading. The lead Tong Hu represntative literally pouted
> all the way back into Shanghai.
> This mornng (Thursday, 26 August), I informed Tong Hu that they had
> unilaterally dissolved the contract because of what might be termed
> in Western law fraudulent misrepresentation. They still insisted that
> both my wife and I had "misunderstood."
> At this writing, I still have not been able to recover my U. S.
> passport, along with my green and red books, from them.
> But one of my aces in the hole is the fact that my brother-in-law is
> a judge in Shanghai. I think I'll be okay.
> But let this serve as a warning to Foreign Experts in China and those
> who think they might want to teach in China.
> Thanks for reading!
Tong Hu Consulting/Yuzhen Group in Shanghai is a teaching-assignment contractor. In other words, you sign a contract with them, and they farm you out to middle schools (zhong1 xue2) in Shanghai and its suburbs.
Although instructive, the story is a little complex. But I'll try to keep it short.
Needing a rapid extension of my Z visa, and despite some considerable misgivings, I signed on with this outfit on the basis of their telling me . . .
(A) that they could obtain the visa extension with a minimum turn-around time, and
(B) on the basis of my C.V. and some glowing references, they had obtained a firm job offer from a so-called "key" middle school in Jiading, in the northern suburbs of Shanghai.
Lest I be accused of somehow misunderstanding, I should note that they also said this in Shanghaihua in the presence of my Shanghaiese wife.
So yesterday (Wednesday, 25 August) two representatives of Tong Hu drove my wife and me to Jiading for what was billed as an informal touching-bases, let's-get-acquainted session with the headmaster and some of his people.
But when I got there, it rapidly became apparent that I had NOT been hired and in fact the session was a formal job interview. But I was "tried and found wanting"--in short, I didn't get the job.
On the drive back to Shanghai, the Tong Hu representative kept assuring us that there was "no problem" (sound familiar?) and we were not to worry. He then added that they had rented an apartment for us near the school that didn't want me (a little crazy?). But this was after we had already informed Tong Hu that, because the beginning of school was so close, that we ourselves had already rented (paying a considerable nonrefundable deposit) an apartment in Jiading. The lead Tong Hu represntative literally pouted all the way back into Shanghai.
This mornng (Thursday, 26 August), I informed Tong Hu that they had unilaterally dissolved the contract because of what might be termed in Western law fraudulent misrepresentation. They still insisted that both my wife and I had "misunderstood."
At this writing, I still have not been able to recover my U. S. passport, along with my green and red books, from them.
But one of my aces in the hole is the fact that my brother-in-law is a judge in Shanghai. I think I'll be okay.
But let this serve as a warning to Foreign Experts in China and those who think they might want to teach in China.
Thanks for reading!