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