Greetings Holly,

Just a little history here ... once upon a time, Changshu International School was a really decent little place to work...but then it went bankrupt and it was acquired by the same private education group that runs Suzhou Foreign Language School, where the infamous Kevin the Pervert the Pizza Boy worked for 13 years, and the Nanjing Foreign Language School and one other school in Jiangsu.

When it changed hands, everything went downhill. Absolutely everything. All of the "foreign" administrators were parachuted in from the Suzhou Foreign Language School, where the 375 pound Kevin trained them all. The Suzhou Foreign Language School was always in chaos so one could hardly expect the Changshu International School to be any different. Because of all kind of problems with the Jiangsu Foreign Expert Bureau, the Changshu school started having serious problems in obtaining Z visas for its teachers. Real serious problems. Also, and again because of the infamous Kevin, the reputation of the Changshu school truly suffered and no one but one wanted to work there. You write that many teachers left after the end of one year. This is not true -- the truth is much worse. Many teachers ran away, disappeared at the end of the first semester, some even left after a few days.

And the Cory that you write about is and was an "intimate" friend of the infamous Kevin, if you understand my meaning.

As for taxis not taking you there after dark, that is a common occurrence in Changshu. Changshu is actually a rather pretty city and a rather prosperous city by Chinese standards. Its GNP is the seventh in China. It is rather laowai-friendly and laowai are not gawked on the street as such would happen in many other Chinese cities. Public transport is minimal at best and most buses stop running after about 18h00. There are many internationally known stores -- Walmart, Carrefour, Auchamp, etc., and foreign products are readily available. Changhsu is NOT a good place to learn Chinese, however, and most Changshunese speak in Wu dialect as opposed to proper Mandarin.

But as for the school, it is definitely an "avoid" at least at the present time.