Beihang University, Beijing

[waijiao]

This didn't happen to me but to a colleague. Beihang recruited him at short notice from the States last fall and promised to pay his plane ticket. Now they're telling him they won't pay.

For the record, I've been here two years and never had problems getting paid. My complaint is that the administration is mind-bogglingly incompetent, and I think that's basically what my colleague's situation is about. Last summer those of us who wanted to return had about a week left on our visas before they finally collected our passports to get us new ones; as a result 2 of the most dedicated teachers they had found work elsewhere at the last minute. (And I got a call about 2 weeks after this from someone in the FAO telling me the processing was taking longer than expected, and hoping I wasn't planning to go back home - which, luckily, I wasn't.) Then in October they discovered they didn't have enough teachers, browbeat a bunch of us into taking extra classes we (at least I) didn't want (but which I admit were well-paid), and recruited my colleague with what, I think, was a desperation promise the guy promising it wasn't authorized to make.

On balance you should probably avoid this place just to avoid headaches like this; though I have been told (by a Chinese friend) that every university in CHina is run by idiots.