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.