I've been meaning to post this story for a while. You've all read the board here and it should be fairly obvious that Ealing is not a place you want to work at. I'd like to take a minute to share my story.

I started working at Ealing in 2014 after leaving a different school. I had a good recommendation from that school, a release letter, etc.... Ealing seemed like as good a place as any. The pay was okay and the opportunity to teach at a higher level was seemingly there.

Initially everything was fine, but soon my hours started piling up from about 30 to 40 to 60. I had a two hour commute every day to a school with no English speakers. At all.

None of the staff spoke English, none of the kids spoke English, none of the parents spoke English. There was literally no way to communicate with anyone, which obviously lead to issues.

I told David Zhou about these issues early and often and they were never once addressed. After about three months of this (constant communication with David every week about how this was not sustainable) at a 60 hour a week schedule working at two horrendous schools and not yet having been paid for the previous month, I told David Zhou I was not going to teach any more until I got the previous month's pay. I also once again brought up the hours and teaching conditions issue.

The only way I can describe David Zhou's response is to equate it to a child's temper tantrum. I've never seen a grown man behave so ridiculously in my entire life. He threw around threats that he'd have me arrested, he'd get his friends to beat me up, he wasn't going to pay me, etc.... He tried to get me to bring him my passport (I thought probably to rip it up). The whole thing was absolutely insane.

I told him I just straight up quit, there's no way I could continue working for Ealing after that. I called him one day about the back pay and he agreed to pay part of it. I went to the school and sure enough his hired thugs were there. After a lot of yelling and threats I left without my previous month's pay.

Obviously I was not given a release letter and he let my residency permit lapse. So, it became impossible for me to find a job at a reputable school and I left China.

Don't let this happen to you. There are a lot of good schools in China, but Ealing isn't one of them.