Well, well, well....look at which school has returned from the dead, or is it returned from the middle of hell?

I saw another ESL site that everyone reads around here that on November 21, 2016 this NOTORIOUS school is urgently looking for THREE teachers for as soon as possible.

Well, well, well, in September, 2016 this school hired three new teachers on one year contracts and after two months, or less, they all have either run away or been fired or both. Also Mr. Yang, the hard-drinking FAO of the school, hates Africans and Filipinos and older people, according to what he tells everyone who will listen, in September, the only people that he could find where a Filipino, an African and a 70-year old British guy. No North Americans, no British, no Irish, no Australians, and no New Zealanders -- the odor of the school has travelled too far. I mean, sweet Jesus, he had to scrape the bottom of his personal "approval" barrel just to get the Filipino, the African and the 70-year old British guy and now they have turned on him -- so fast and so quick.

I won't rehash all the details -- everyone on this board knows just how bad the place is, how horrid the living conditions are, how - 40 C. six months of the year th eclimate, and just what kind of a cold, uncaring, demeaning, abusive, controlling, money-grubbing manager Mr. Yang is. And don't forget that the other teachers in the school are cold, indifferent, uncaring and would walk over you on the street if they don't run you over first.

The living conditions, as we have all heard, are like a slum out of somewhere in black Africa. The furniture has fleas and lice and bedbugs. You will be housed in buildings that should have been torn down, the neighbors are either prostitutes or drunks in most cases, and nobody will care about at all. Should you have an accident, and should you miss school for a week, nobody would miss you. It's that bad.

In dealing with this place for more than 13 years, I can personally assure all readers of this site of the following: If you are thinking about this place for an ESL experience in China, don't. Just don't. Not if you wish to be treated with dignity, to be treated honestly, to be shown respect, etc., etc. Huludao is a small-town fourth-rate backwater Chinese city where winter begins in September and ends in May. Even if you think that you can put with -40 C. for six months at a time, you will soon learn that you can't.

Why doesn't this school just give up? Anyway, Mr. Yang was promoted to two jobs now -- he is the Foreign Affairs Officer of the school and, believe it or not, he is the Breakfast Chef in the Cafeteria. That is the class of person.

Vincent J. Astor
New York

Dear Kristen,

You are very welcome! Sorry that I never met when I was in Huludao but you were quite famous there, too.

Two runners in one term and Yang took you back both times. They were so desperate. And then you are so famous for your midnight postings all over the 'Net.

I even lived in your old apartment ... not so clean, I must nice say.

Kind regards,

J.

Dear Been There,

Yes, I knew this person but surprises to all...he wasn't an American at all. Not at all.

He was Russian, born in Russia (Moscow) just lived a period of time in the States and acquired an almost perfect American accent. Everyone in Huludao who knew him well realized that English was his second language except for Fred the FAO and the other somewhat naive laowais with whom he worked. The resume was just a facade. Truly.

When he left Huludao, he went to Beijing and then flew to Seoul ... where he didn't leave for the States but flew straight back to Moscow as he had finished his "residency" in China. I hear from him now and then ... he's doing quite well in Moscow but he's not André but Andrei Andreivitch. He is a great fan of Putin and they know that.

He was just on a "komandirovka" in China as he put it. After all, Huludao is the headquarters for the Chinese Northern Pacific nuclear fleet and the other Chinese rearmement factories and home to a few divisions of the People's Army. And yes, he was the FAO's right-hand bag guy. We all knew it. As for what I have written, some of it he told me directly, some of it his friends in Beijing told me, the rest was just easy enough to put together. And I have an invitation on letterhead to visit him "in the Moskva".

I have an idea for whom he is working in Moscow but I can't say it openly.

Anyway, about Huludao, it sucks.

There you have it all ....

Yes, from what I know, he is still there .... they also promoted him to be manager of the kitchen staff, the cooks, the cleaning staff, and all those other non-foreigner related things.

He is generally unavailable, only shows up to work when he wants to, cares nothing about nothing of the foreigners that he is expected to supervise and he simply leaves them stuck in the middle of hell.

One day, an older teacher stepped on a nail that pierced the foot completely. He was of no help that time, none at all, his drinking party was more important.

Another teacher had a police raid going on his apartment for various reasons (an illegal African was suspected of living with him) and same thing.

Dear God, if you can read English, and if you are thinking about this place, don't do it ... not in this life, not in the next.

It took me years to recover from the place after I left ... I still have recurring nightmares about the entire thing.

But if you are a drunk, or if you are a druggie, or if you are a hippy trash who can't get out of bed in the morning, then this place is perfect for you.

Dear Dizzy Spells,

Thank you so much for your post.

My stomach curdles when I see the devil come back from the dead. So, they lost their only Dutchman hippy who had been with them less than one year. And now they have no one and they will find no one.

Firstly, they DROPPED their salaries again. The Dutchman hippy trash was making 9,000 RMB for 22 hours per week. Now they will pay RMB 7,000 for 24 hours per week.

Yup, that is that trashy drunken FAO again. Let's see what victims if any he will find now. No one stays and everyone runs. An abusive, mean-spirited, unfriendly atmosphere, in a city where winter is 7 months long (like - 30 C. from end of October until mid-March), natives who can be friendly but can only NOT be very friendly at all. The apartment(s) suck, really suck. Oh, yes, you MAY get paid on time and then again you may not but in any case they will take taxes off your salary but NEVER, EVER SEND THE MONEY to the Tax Department.

Huludao is NOT cheap -- don't let them give you that speech at all. It's a captive audience because it's a military city and an oil producing city -- so they charge (meaning the merchants) whatever they can get away with. AND SPECIAL PRICES for the foreigners.

If you want to ruin your life and if you want to feel like you are in prison, or in a labor camp, or worse yet, LIKE YOU ARE LIVING IN NORTH KOREA, then this is the perfectly PRIMITIVE NEANDERTHAL place for you.

If you are a drug addict or if you are a drunk, then this place is even more perfectly suited for you.

You will be lonely and miserable in your personal life and you will be abused and run over in your professional life.

Everyone but everyone runs from this place -- sometimes after one year, sometimes after one day, sometimes they just never show up.

You want to know what hell on earth is? Then this place is perfect for you.

It's back again. Pls be warned everybody.

http://www.eslcafe.com/jobs/china/index.cgi?read=41240

A one term and scars? My god what happen? Get MA or dr. degree because they make a teacher confident and stronger.

Is the same school everyone.

FYI Dongbei or Huludao Primary>>> http://www.eslteachersboard.com/cgi-bin/forum/index.pl?noframes;read=60025

Sb,turnoi, this poster is now comfirmed as woodbine eillie.Entertain this sick individuals fantasies at your peril.This person needs mental help to get better, and not be in china with a young wife and child.

I don't know any of these posters and only taken an interest in you because of your harassment. All I know is I have had e-mail from an established long-term poster who claims that San Migs is/was most definitely 'The Baker' and he could also be the woodbine poster but he wasn’t 100% sure of that. Up to Turnoi and SB and co to decide if that fits or not. Has there been something unreliable about you- up to turnoi and sb to decide. Are you also Woddbine Willie, San Migs..or was that Mr Hyde?

The Trader aka Woodbine Willie aka married to northern chinese farm girl, [edited] n'est pas?

No certainly not.

San Migs aka The Baker n'est pas? Or so an e-mail to me claimed?

On this topic, Laughing, you might be a little - just a little - like Turnoi when he paints all of the training centers of the world with the same brush. To think in general terms is useful as a map of the world, it's a great mental tool to have, but the devil, and the angels, are in the details at times....

Lies!

Have you ever even been to the north of china? I bet you have not!!

From my previous life as a Moderator on this site, I can say the following to the Usual Suspects: This being a School and Recruiter Review board that new teachers frequent when they are unsure, lost, perplexed, frustrated, worried, facing the Big Unknown.... so, this being such a board, I would limit the personal replies to a minimum. The Forum is a perfect place for personal replies. Go for it on the Forum.

Reasoning with the SB is an utter waste of time.

Just laugh at him.

I was thinking that in one of his recent posts there was a thinly veiled threat against disagreeable posters. He was on about FT's murdering each other...so might be better to reason with the lout. The baker, what has happened to him I wonder!?

Yes, because if San Migs says so, it must be true, n'est-ce pas?

Don't even think about the rest of China! Not worth it.

Heh.

It's high time that arch enemy of sb,s returned(been doing some research) The Baker, to reason with SB is my opinion.

A good example of not to work in such a remote and backward place.

I will reiterate what I have said many, many times. If you are going to live/work in China, then live or work in Shenzhen or Zhuhai, and only one of those two places, refuse offers from rural guangdong, also backward as hell.

Zhuhai, you can be at macau airport or on a ferry to HK easily (Macau is not that big!).

HK, well, dead easy, pick up an octopus card, with some value already on it, hop on the MTR/airport express and you are out of there, and only a stones throw from Shenzhen.

Living in that place, sounds like living in hell to me.

First, to all of our kind readers, the post below was not written by a native English speaker. The grammar is quite good but it is the grammar of someone who is a native DUTCH speaker, a rather young one, recently graduated, with no work experience who has become Mr. Yang's latest captive.

I need to warn all of our readers again and again and again about this insane asylum. AVOID IT. And believe nothing that Herr Meinbar van Goudda writes here. It is a paid political announcement. He was actually paid, as I understand it, to write this drivel. Yes, indeed he is working for Mr. Yang -- he was an 11th-hour recruit. But he is the ONLY one and there are no others and if we do our job well on the Internet, there will be no others.

So let us debunk the lies...the apartment is "basic". No, the apartment where he lives is not basic. It is a slum. He lives on the third floor in the worst and poorest building one can find overlooking the pauper's market and abutting a street full of cow and horse excrement and open running sewers. When it rains, the windows in this apartment, particularly the balcony, leak badly and the entire apartment floods. If there is a typhoon, the apartment is submerged. The cheap paint falls all of the walls and the apartment wreaks of sewer gas because of poor plumbing. Then there are the cockroaches, the rats, the mice, the vermin, and the drunken, filthy neighbors. My good, good friend, the previous tenant, used to have to hire cleaning staff every week at considerable cost to himself to clean the building, the yard, the balcony etc. (And the school refused to move him because it got the apartment for free). No respectable "white folk" would ever live in this apartment.

Now the neighbors .... who just open their doors and throw their garbage into the hall, into the stairwell, onto the common balcony, and when that fails, they open their windows and just throw it outside. Worse than black Africa, far worse.

And yes, I visited this apartment. I was good, good friends with the previous tenant, an older American guy who could not wait to escape from Yang. Yes, I did a runner, and when I ran, at midnight, this elderly American was kind enough to accompany me to the train and put me on the train to Beijing and then he played dumb to Mr. Yang about it.

And the heavily censored Internet that does not work most of the time and that is monitored by the local secret police because we are foreigners and the mobile telephone lines that are monitored as well. Worse than that, in the little less than five months that I was in the school, the secret police came to visit me late at night in my apartment at least four times to make sure that I was not a spy .... because ....

Huludao, a big open secret, is the base for the Chinese Northern Pacific nuclear submarine fleet in a little bay called Wang Hai Se. And it is the home of at least 1000 missiles pointed at Taiwan -- not to mention that it is also the headquarters of the Northern Division of the People's Liberation Army. In addition, the surrounding suburbs are home to at least 25 - 30 egregiously horrible labor camps -- "re-education camps'" -- where Christians, Falun Gong members, independent thinkers, and general dissidents are incarcerated and where many of them are tortured, beaten and eventually die. So paranoia reigns supreme about the foreigners.

And the air pollution which is on a level equal to or worse than that of Beijing and or Shanghai because of all of the heavy armament factories located near Wang Hai See.

Herr Meinbar Van Goudda does tells the truth when he writes, however, that there is nothing to do in this city. Indeed, there is nothing is do. There is one Western restaurant of some value but that it is. Otherwise it is just all labor re-education camps and boredom.

Now as for the students, this is essentially a school for mentally retarded children that have been refused entrance to all of the surrounding primary schools. Each class contains at least 10 - 15 mentally challenged children of all degrees and levels, in addition to all of the other substandard children who had been refused admission by the better local primary schools. It does not make for a pleasant experience during one's visit to China.

A foreign teacher's schedule is worthless. It changes minute-to-minute, every day of the school year.

As for Yang and his drinking and abuse, I can 100% say unequivocally yes to both. He screamed and cursed and threatened me and would pontificate at me so loudly that his face would become crimson with anger. Once he started screaming, he would just loose control and he was capable of saying anything and everything. I should know -- I heard it all from him. This did not happen once but rather so many times.

Now as to the drinking, yes, as others have written, the several days or so before I pulled my runner, he came to school so inebriated as to be totally useless. He came to my desk one day when I was in the teacher's office and he breathed on me. If I had thrown a match at his breath, he would have exploded.

I personally found the assistants treacherous, unhelpful and two-faced. I know that the two other teachers with whom I worked liked some and did not like others, but as a general rule, they were Yang's spies. Other than that, they were Sunday-polite and Sunday-helpful.

Now this school is so rotten and indeed there is a God, even in China, that the headmaster was recently sacked for gross corruption....can you believe it?

Huludao, in my opinion, especially from my happy little perch in Tokyo now, is the glutus maximus of China. The weather is miserably cold six months of the year (like - 30 C. or - 30 F.). The inhabitants only view foreigners as people to be cheated and robbed. The inhabitants are 1950's Stalinist types in their mentality and are as cold and unfriendly as can be.

Yang tries to destroy everyone who leaves his school, either within contract or out of contract. He tries to have them either deported or blacklisted or both. Sometimes he succeeds -- more often than not, he fails.

And to show my solidarity to all of the previous foreign teachers who bailed out, when I learnt of another victim, I immediately tried to obtain his or her email address and I usually succeeded. Then from my nice little perch here in Tokyo, I would reach out to them to try to offer them a job, either here in Japan or with the company for which I work in its China offices.

So our nasty little Lord Fauntleroy of Mr. Yang is about to try to staff his school again for the spring -- is he?

In that case, to all of the future victims, DO NOT DO IT. There have been over 100 teachers that have come and gone through his school these past 8 years and considering he used to only hire three foreign teachers a year...

And to our nice little Dutchman, Herr Meinbar van Goudda, who wrote this paid political announcement, good try but it will not work.

Yang and his school are at the VERY TOP of the hate list for China as they so deserve to be.

DJW
Tokyo

Do you know where do they advertise, the Golden Kindergarten? Do they need teachers now? I had not heard of them before

Quite a catharsis around here. Almost reads like an AA session for abused teachers.

My two cents ... or is it yen now?

Victim of this Yang 2013-2014. I also signed a one year contract. I lasted 8 of the 10 months. The foreign teachers came and went at a rate of about 1 a month, sometimes 2 a month. Everything written herein true.

My own story as follows. So winter terms arrives ... Yang is short of teachers. He asks me to cover something like 36 classes. I agreed because I was paying back student loans. I do these classes at a rate of sometimes 9 classes per days,form 7:45 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.

And then the criticism from Yang starts : I am not paying enough time to my lessons, I am not submitting lesson plans with variety, the Chinese co-teacher says that by the end of the day I lack dynamism, I am following the book too closely, I am not following the book enough, I am too quiet in the office, I hold myself back from mixing with the teachers (I am so tired that I can't stand up) and on and on and on.

So I tell this Yang that it is not Harvard University and that he is lucky that he has any teachers at all, the way he treats us. And Yang lets loose with a volley of cusswords, abusive slang, filthy words and general bad temper. By the end of it, he is screaming at the top of his lungs. I just listen.

When he is finished, I leave the school. I go to a travel agent and buy one train ticket to Beijing and a plane ticket to Tokyo, both for the next morning and then afternoon. That evening, I pull a runner but not before having had the time to trash the apartment (I hate to say it but I did it). I spend the night in a hotel.

Next afternoon, upon arrival at Narita Airport Tokyo, I call him from an overseas phone booth. I tell him that I have him real sushi for dinner and it is a sham that he couldn't join me.

The slob curses again (I suspect he was drunk) and then like with the others, he hung up the phone.

Prior to his school, I had been in China almost 11 years, very peacefully with a lot of renewed contracts.

He needs a psychiatrist in my opinion and he definitely needs to join AA.

He wouldn't be capable of getting you banned, lol. Write some more!

Besides, so what if you was banned from re-entering China? That threat is only of any value if you have family members there or do a significant amount of business here (and as an ESL teacher, you probably don't).It is not like you are getting banned from entering nice developed countries like Japan, the U.S.A or anywhere in the E.U!

LOL... Stupid nationalist Chinese overvaluing their country. They have more to fear from Westerners choosing not to go there!

Well, this has gone viral. As it should.

I worked there from 2007 - 2010 (mid-term). I was the longest-serving "white folk" in that racist school.

I surely didn't stay that long because of Mr. Yang. I married a local girl. And let me tell all the dudes on the board that everything written is true...worse than that, it is UNDER THE TRUTH meaning it doesn't even reach the level of crap that went on. Talk about corrupt, venal, mean-spirited, uncaring, cunning, taking advantage of unsuspected foreigners of all races ... they had it all down so perfectly ... they knew how to pull it off.

Yessam indeed, during my time there, it was a revolving door. One day. One week. One month. A term.

With me they played dirty so to speak. I married my local girl. I had to stay there until she got her papers. First year, normal. Second, renewed the contract at the last minute. CUT MY SALARY BY RMB 1,000 PER MONTH because I was performing "under level". Mind you, there ain't that many jobs in Huludao. Third year, renewed contract day visa was due for renewal. Gave me a RMB 100 month raise (big f*cking sh*t) and then announced special taxes of RMB 450 a month. At the end of the third year, I was making less than at the beginning of the first year. So so small town.

Anyway, went back to Capetown with the wife for winter holidays (she had her papers by then) ...and just never returned to Yangville. Called him on Skype at the beginning of the term to say that I was "delayed" a week or so. I was so nice. And then just never showed up....oh me, oh my.

Anyway, he sent me a three line email. Every other word was the "f" word or the "b" word, etc. etc.

He smokes like a chimney and he drinks likes a fish. And yessam, he has a violent temper. With everyone. He is an equal opportunity temper man. It just flies. There is nothing sweet about the man at all.

AJ Wills

I almost worked with John Anderson above. I was supposed to, anyway.

I interviewed with this Yang. Telephone and video. I sent him all the documents. He gave me a contract and a start date. Provided me with the visa.

So I arrived in Huludao, after he couldn't come meet me in Shenyang (first sign). I am waiting for him at Huludao Train Station for one hour. He shows up with a colleague of his. He takes one look at me and says something like : "you are so brown and so Asian looking, our school doesn't hire those types". This was after a signed contract and the trip from Cebu.

So I didn't even get the foot in the door. He fired me before I started. Thank God I had some friends in a nearby city who put me up until I could find another job. That was eight years ago but the scar has been in my heart every since.

And yes, when he met me at the train station, it was like 08h00 morning, he was drunk. He smelled of liquor and he behaved the same.

I was happy to see John Anderson's post.

Saludos y abrazos desde Medillin.

I worked there five years ago for one term. The contract was supposed to be one year. I couldn't take it.

The FAO, this Señorcito de Mr. Yang, was useless. I was a stranger in a strange country, in a frozen city, and he could hardly do anything to help without making a big brou haha about it. Daily life questions -- forget it! Olvidasélo! Paperwork and documentation -- un fracaso terrible. He did promise me a legal visa and he delivered. He did promise to pay me on time and I was sort of paid and sort of on time. The overall "ambiente" was disgusting. I had one class with 17 challenged what they write here "retarded" children in it. How to manage? The pay was terrible, like RMB 4,500 a month, but he told me that I was non-native, not white, etc., etc., of a certain age and he was doing me "un favor". Caca de torro as the gringos say. I had to share a two bedroom apartment with two gay guys from the Philippines. They were fighting all the time -- marriage problems. They were fired after one or two terms, I don't remember.

I do remember that even then, ya entonces, he couldn't find teachers. He had a bad rep with the big agents -- they wouldn't send him anyone, and his name on all of the Internet boards was already not good....to be polite.

Re the drinking, personally, I don't know. I avoided him as much as possible. But they were all like that in this school -- all the leaders drink and drink and drink and so the little leaders drink and drink and drink.

I am a practising Catholic and once I went to mass in the Catholic church in Huludao. He learned of this and told me that if I ever went back, I would be fired. And it was the "official" Catholic church.

Salvame Dios!

In any case, it was the four months from hell. And it so turned me off on China that I will never go back. Never. It is like what Dane writes in the Divine Comedy : leave behind all hope you enter herein.

People are finally wising up. China is no longer worth it for the pollution, xenophobic and hostile locals, and low pay. If you are going to get low pay, you may as well do it in the sun.

First some corrections lest we make trouble for other innocent parties ...

Bohai Primary School is a separate entity with a basically OK foreign teacher hiring record except low salary but new accommodations.

JinXi Primary School is a separate entity same as above located 30 minutes by D train from Huludao in a rather poor village.

Golden Kindergarten, Huludao, however, is a separate entity that over time has evolved into the best employer of foreign teachers in Huludao, if you can get in. 20 classes per week, 30 minutes each, office hours, RMB 12,000 plus end-of-year bonus plus end-year-of-airfare. The best apartment for foreign teachers probably in all of China ... on the 25th floor of the newest doorman gated community building in the city, just stunning. Ocean views, city views, direct tunnel to Walmart (yup). They are stable as they have had the same Atlanta belle in the job for the past few years. Oh -- and paid taxis to-and-from work plus all the other usual benefits.

Now back to Mr. Yang. No, he has no shame. The foreign teachers were put in rat-infested, cockroach infested, garbage-strewn apartments with furniture that even Goodwill Industries would reject. And then the school charged the foreign teachers for any needed repairs. One apartment was not waterproof and when it rained or snowed, the apartment was always flooded. They wouldn't move the teacher.

The contract, like elsewhere in China, was meaningless. 18 hours per week often became 40 hours per week. Summer and or winter vacations became unpaid work periods if Yang could find the foreign teacher. They took taxes out of the foreign teachers' wages, as they should but the taxes never made it to the Tax Office. They pocketed the money. Also Yang would submit false hours to the Education Bureau for teachers' pay -- say if a teacher worked 20 hours, Yang would claim that they worked 35 and he would pocket the difference between the real hours and the fake hours.

There were two Mr. Yangs -- both unpleasant -- the drunken Mr. Yang and the sober Mr. Yang. Drinking was a really, really, really big issue and it made life for the foreign teachers absolute hell. The foreign teachers confronted him about it very often. When sober, Yang was mildly dependable. When he was under the weather, and this could last for weeks at a time, life for the foreign teachers was really difficult, including missed payrolls, visa issues, missed deadlines for visa renewals, urgent foreign teacher needs unattended, etc.

Yang hate foreigners. He was the wrong person for this job. To him, all foreigners were evil and he had his list of which countries were the most evil and which countries were less evil. Additionally, he took great pleasure in screaming, cursing and generally humiliating foreigners. Really great pleasure. Perhaps a different person might have made things better but Yang was so arbitrary, so rude, so small-town-know-everything-but-has-been-nowhere, so rabidly antiforeigner, that anyone and everyone would regret working at that place.

Huludao Primary had this program for ten years about. In 10 years, they went through 125 teachers. They set a record. Even the Chinese Government intervened to ask them what the devil was going on. Considering they only hired 2 - 3 teachers a year, that is a lot of teachers in 10 years. Most stayed 3 months, many even less. The African teachers, because of visa restrictions in other provinces, would stay the longest as they had nowhere to go. Yang treated the Filipino teachers as if they were plantation workers.

In the end, I did my one year contract -- almost. By the time April came, I couldn't take one more drop of Yang. I bolted. And I didn't care.

So now that they are dead and gone, I cannot shed a tear. And in case they try to resurrect themselves next year, let's hope that this thread serves as a reminder of what evil people really are like.

John Anderson
London

Yeah!!! Yeah!!!! Yeah!!!

I personally know 3 people who were bullied by this Fred. He also had a horrible American working for him at some point, if I remember well. But Fred was the worst by far.

Allelujah!!!