I think they
moved a teacher from Linyi to Yongji as the school in Linyi made it crystal clear to EV
that unless the foreigner has a resident permit they can't teach there. I wouldn't be
surprised if the school in Linyi ditches foreigners altogether later.

I don't think he was happy with moving to Yongji from what I heard.

As far as Linyi is concerned, that is the former school of the owner of EV.

He was the headmaster there in the 90's, and that school, and the relationships with the local Edu Bureau, is his keystone contract.

If that goes, EV goes with it.

The Polish couple, unmarried btw, I had referred to in my previous post were teaching in Yongji county, presumably initially on L or F or student visas, at the start of this semester. They were English teachers in their homeland and were only interested in working for one semester in China.I am reasonably sure the young woman's name began with an 'M'.They had been promised a salary of 6,000 RMB a month each and air fare allowances of 3,000 RMB each, as well as fully reimbursed HK visa runs to get legal.

Yuncheng itself is not so bad. The counties, well they are backwaters and have all the baggage that goes with living in such places.

I would strongly disagree. Talking with people who have lived all over China, as well as comparing my experiences in many other places in China, the experiences that foreigners have in YunCheng are nearly one order of magnitude, 10X, worse than in the rest of China.

It is, and I do not state this casually, probably the most xenophobic place in the country, and China is one of the most xenophobic countries in the world.

Of course people who live in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen think this is all made up. Those of you living in your little bubbles think so, as well.

Thus if geo-political events go poorly, I would expect that anyone in YunCheng would be in actual physical danger.

I don't know why any of you are still there. At least move to Beijing, where the global media has a presence.

Maybe you think that your wife's rich family's connections will save you, or that being a business partner with a local business magnate will afford you special treatment. Maybe you think their international or agro-chemical ties will save you. Maybe you think you are special, or that you have been in country 6 to 14 years (since Hu, a much more liberal administration), speak the language fluently, and that your friends and neighbours would never do anything to harm you. Maybe you are a sinophile and do not look at the country with a critical eye. Maybe you are too busy earning money to notice anything else. Maybe you think having one or several young children will protect you. You think your guanxi will hold up in such a scenario?

The USN is, apparently, going to challenge the boundaries of the islands in the next week or two with inside the 12 nm sailings.

If *anything* happens, you all are going to be in a very bad situation.

Helen or the PSB will come knocking at your door at 6:30 am to take you to 'a safe location for your own safety'.

I suppose being able to write about being in a concentration camp or being interrogated or tortured will make for a great book, but personally I have foregone that 'opportunity'.

Although...some of you were already interrogated last year for being a terrorist supporter and had your passports held and were not allowed to leave the PSB. So some of you know that I am not a barber's cat.

I have warned you, some of you in person, and you remain there.

Good Luck? I guess?...

For the sake of anonymity I will confirm I work for YEV but don't want to give my name.

I started working for them in late November last year. I'm only holding out to finish my contract and even then it is 50/50 as to whether they pay me what they owe.

Simply, they are as slippery as oil to work with and as dodgy as they come. I needed a job at the time and they served that purpose (however I escaped from one frying pan and jumped into a bigger one). They do give you a contract but it has more holes in it that a sieve and is largely in their favour. Don't expect to be paid for any holidays other than their 1,000 travelling allowances which they make a big song and dance about giving you and expect to be paid the bare minimum they can get away with. Also if you have to do a Hong Kong visa run, expect to be funding it yourself.

I did eventually get to go to Hong Kong following one extension in Qingdao (again at my expense). Not only did I have to pay for all of it they even deducted my salary for the week I was there. Fair enough, I took that on the chin. At least I was getting a z visa. When I returned to Yuncheng, I found that in my absence my few things had been packed away and stored at the office and that I had been relocated from Yuncheng city to a county an hours bus ride away.

On the exact thirtieth day of being back, Helen from EV and some other person who I don't know showed up at my door at 7.30 am and said pack your stuff you are going to another school. (It transpired that the school where I was, I don't wish to say which, had decided to no longer retain foreigners due to the hassles). I was then shunted to another county and left passportless while they took my passport to be processed for the resident permit.

After a month, I politely asked about my passport. It was still 'in process'. Six weeks, still no news. I was starting to get cabin fever and also pissed off so I went to the office and demanded answers. I didn't really get any. After the second month, I got so fed up I called my embassy. They called EV and the PSB. The PSB said EV had had my passport already over a month. I was livid. I got it back the next day, no apology or anything.

They do shunt teachers around and certainly since the beginning of this semester have had major hassles in recruiting new teachers. The polish couple someone mentioned on here are no longer with EV as they were told that they would be unable to be got a z visa and they elected to leave of their own accord. One school (I think it is Linyi) refused to have foreigners teaching there who were not on a z visa and so is having a stream of stand in teachers which EV are pooling from their ever dwindling teachers. I was asked to go there but refused as it is simply too far for me.

I was in Yuncheng last weekend and met another foreigner who works for another school who is nothing to do with EV and it appears like night and day. What he said about the way he is treated and other stuff literally is the total opposite.

From me, I am counting the days until 7th November. I have another job lined up. I shall just chalk this up as experience, as I said it has served its purpose but working for YEV, you put all your eggs in their basket and you will get scrambled.

Yuncheng itself is not so bad. The counties, well they are backwaters and have all the baggage that goes with living in such places.

Would I say stay away? Yes to EV. To Yuncheng, No.

They say the school that employed the two expats did not have the proper certification to hire foreign English teachers.

I wonder if I met the woman. Likely. Shanxi ESL community is very small. I met several women from the states who meet the description.

A reminder that many of the schools in Shanxi employ under the table, and of course Yuncheng EV will shuffle the ESL T about as they skirt the regulations. I have met several teachers, each year from 2009-2015, who told me of shady procedures that suggested EV was not going the legit route with that particular teacher.

To be fair, there *are* teachers that EV goes legit with each year but how they decide who is whom is a mystery.

Must be why friends back there report open contracts with EV, and other Ts shuttling about covering classes.

If you can deal with China, or you have capture-bonded with the culture. then the increased salary will be a good thing.

However I am sure that not everyone shares your sentiments that China in general is a
terrible place.

Must explain the low retention rate for the ESL industry in China this year, then.

Few stay more than 8 months, fewer still 5 or more years, even fewer still 10+ years.

Regardless, a warning:
If anything geo-political happens the locals cannot/willnot tell Americans apart from any other non-Han.

What do *you* think will happen if the PLAN and USN exchange fire?

You will want to leave, or maybe your local 'friends' will knock on your door and tell you they are taking you and your family to another location 'for your own safety'.

Or you could re-live June 18, 1900.

Have fun, you were warned, anyone with two firing neurons can see what is coming.

I think everybody has the general gist that Yuncheng English Village is a totally crap place to work.

However I am sure that not everyone shares your sentiments that China in general is a terrible place. Making comments like this does not really help those who actually do live and work there whether they be expats or Chinese and certainly will only piss off people, especially the people who are in Yuncheng and are not working for English Village.

There seems to be a pattern developing on this board recently of slating everybody without actually determining the fact from fiction and I think it should be stopped before it becomes endemic.

If someone has something useful to say (bad or good) about Yuncheng English Village then update the thread, but recent comments don't really serve any useful purpose other than pissing people off but maybe its a ruse to bump the thread to the top of the page again...

All I have to add is the phrase the people still 'inside' China speak to me when I call them.

I hear this from several people, in different parts of the country.

"It's bad. Really bad."

This refers to the attitude of the locals, the behaviour of the locals, how the locals treat foreigners, what they say about foreigners; and the general mood both socially, day to day, and economically.

Suspicion, draconian security, and a general dark mood pervades the country.