Shanghaied in Beijing

Indentured Teaching, French Generals and Fake Trade Representatives

The time has come to coin a new term, Beijinged; An individual being coerced into employment through means of trickery and/or false promises in Beijing.

It’s enough to immediately drive most newcomers over the edge, straight back to the airport. A flourishing practice nurtured in numerous local English-language bulletin boards such as Craigslist. Just about every non-professional having come to Beijing looking for change has gotten vastly more change than they’d bargained for, and then some.

english beijing Shanghaied in Beijing picture

In its most common form, getting Beijinged means going straight from the airport to an English teaching job that was pre-arranged over the Internet. The eager new teachers are greeted by numerous smiles and â€œni haosâ€ at the vast modern airport, only to find themselves in a tiny moldy apartment an hour later, full of roaches to keep them company.

Even the â€œluckyâ€ of such teachers may be faced with screaming hoards of Little Emperors, while the severely unlucky may be faced with classes of 100 or more stoned, half-drunken college students smoking cigarettes and spitting on the floors of their dilapidated classrooms.

One thing is certain, so let’s debunk any myths right here and now- Chinese students are no more well behaved than their Western counterparts. To the contrary.

So, after a traumatic bout of teaching that nearly ended in permanent mental illness, the new Beijinged resident may fly screaming from the country, not even able to watch the Olympics on TV without shaking.

The ones without the means to return home may unfurl political banners on Tiananmen Square in the hopes of being deported. But, a select few of the Beijinged residents will rent their own nasty little apartments and continue looking for work from the comfort of some smoke-clogged Internet cafÃ© with sticky keyboards.

Then the real fun beginsâ€¦â€¦

An acting job sounded nice, until you ended up in the middle of a cold forest all night long sleeping on the ground, waiting to perform 2 minutes of acting in exchange for barely 20 bucks. Then you answer an ad reading â€œNative English speaker needed to attend business meetings and take notesâ€. It seems you may have finally found something, with professional people in a nice office at a private finance company. Then your new employer asks you to go on a â€œbusiness tripâ€.

The following week you end up over a thousand miles away, in a rural jungle village on the border of Myanmar. The instructions are to visit a massive hydroelectric construction project with your coworkers and claim that you are an international trade representative from Washington DC.

The builders of the project are applying for financing and it turns out that your company is charging them dearly to apply for it. But, your company doesn’t actually exist. The builders get suspicious and threaten to call the Chinese FBI.

Now back in Beijing and unemployed again, you’re nervous any time a stranger comes to the door of your nasty little apartment. A new opportunity arises. An American businessman is opening a new English school and needs a manager.

A nice new apartment is provided. A monkey lives in a little cage in the courtyard, but the school looks nice. Then the American demands to keep your passport, but you are going broke and this is your last chance. You agree and take the job. A series of serious incidents over the next few weeks leads you to believe that your boss may be in the mafia, but you don’t care at this point.

Then it’s all over one day when the boss accuses you of sleeping with a 17-year-old employee that he’s been known to make unsuccessful passes at. You have never touched the girl and decide it’s time to take your money and fly.

The passport is returned after lengthy coercion.

You’ve been Beijinged.

By Sun Tzu on 21-07-2008