I appreciate everybodies input, my gut feeling is they school are honest, yes, I do have the
qualifications that I could go elsewhere but I think as a starting point to immers
myself in the real China and study Chinese it's a good place to do so.

Your gut is correct.

To be safe and appease some of the others on thread, redact some info on your docs.

-Passport number, birth day and month.

Scan the copies and send them along.

Get your invite letter and a contract and sign it before you leave your country. Scan the signatory pages, email them back.

Take the invite letter and contract and go to your nearest Chinese Consulate/Embassy and apply for the Z-visa. Return in a few days, pick it up, and book your flight.

If Yin Xing *insists* upon originals couriered to them in order to get an invite letter, to get the Z, to start the process, suggest sending copies and that you will bring the originals with you. You will need the originals when you apply at your local consulate, in any event.

Most honest schools will know this is an issue, and apply for the invite letter with the copies. You will courier your own docs - safest way to do it.

Yin Xing *seems* to be honest, but This is China - anything can happen.

What they others are advising has to do with dodgy schools getting originals couriered, and then withdrawing the offer, selling the documents and identity of the applicant, and doing this as a business model.

From my conversations with the FAO at Yin Xing (yes, I have met him) and the other teachers there (yes, all Britons), it **seems** safe to do this.

This is China. TIC. There are uncountable untold risks in that society that do not exist elsewhere.

Anything can, and does, happen.

The school treats teachers as well as can be for Yuncheng, they are as honest as a Yuncheng employer can hope to become - but that is damning with faint praise.