Just think of it as a nice little "Welcome to China." Cause that's the "fun" of dealing with Chinese companies, they do their best to play you as little as possible. As far as contracts, they don't actually mean anything; it's just something there to make you feel a little more secure.

Depending on the company, you could try and use their own logic and come back in six weeks to ask for your other 975RMB. It won't work, but depending if you handle it with the right amount of political tact and annoyance to answer your questions, they might not think it worth the hassle to use the exact same scam on you next time.

You should tell them there is nothing in the contract about this...

i dont know your situation with the time you took off work, was it allowed? agreed? was and mention made of lost of flight bonus? was any money paid at that time? (did the company really lose anything from you not being there?)

If your company did not agree to the leave and was during work time, meaning company looses money then you should not expect to get the money, it would be greedy... you must remember for a school to lose a foreign teacher for 6 weeks is a big concern harder to sell classes and unsure of how many can be sold and for when (they cant be sure you will truly come back until you do)

If its a case of this was free time and you had the right to take it off as well as an agreement from the company and the loss of bonus was not mentioned then you must get the full 4000, you should not accept not getting it...sometimes the only way to make a Chinese company agree with your (if correct and reasonable) requests is to not work, if the company needs you they will listen if you say you will quit at the end of the month if the bonus is not paid as stated in the contract, see what they say and then write and copy a letter of resignation give it to the boss.

Ive quit on a school before the day before the busy weekend working time, this was with a disagreement with the boss...the boss said ok then leave...i left work that afternoon thinking I should pack my stuff and leave the city to look for a new job, late that night as i was thinking of what to do i got a text message from the boss accepting my reasonable request and asking me to come to work tomorrow.

start from the begining, contract negotiation. make sure it says you will get xxxxxxrmb at the end of the contract. if you give them any wiggle room they will cheat and then pat themselves on the back because they are so clever for damaging their own reputation and image with future teachers. so retarded

Ok a few more details. I originally wrote them a letter requesting leave, they asked me to do that. I asked for 3 weeks and said I was happy to teach summer classes then take leave. When summer classes were announced they didn't have any scheduled for me because I said I wanted leave. I showed them the letter. Oops, they said. Oh well, you have 6 weeks' leave. 4 other teachers were also all going back home to Canada. By the way, they received a deduction on their airfare payments as well but shrugged their shoulders after being told that this was the way it was always being done.
I took 3 weeks and had to fly back to this city because I was asked to take a group of students to Beijing for an excursion. I wasn't going to get paid for it and I agreed to that because I was getting a fully expenses paid trip to Beijing for a week. Unfortunately, when I arrived back here from overseas I was told the trip had been cancelled due to lack of numbers!!! They forgot to advise me of that and I can tell you I would have preferred to stay overseas than fly back for no reason. So I sat around here with nothing to do for 2.5 weeks although I did a promotion for the opening of their new school and for which I was paid and also some other stuff for them as agreed. I mean I am really still in their employ aren't I even when I take holidays? I would have thought the airfare repayment bonus is there to keep a teacher employed and on the books for 12 months, an incentive really. I am happy to stay here for another 2 years but this has left a bad taste in the mouth. It's not the lousy 1000RMB it's actually the principle. Hey, you're taking holidays man, but we are going to deduct the holiday time off your 12 month "working" contract???? Huh???
I told them I would write about this to this column and show them the answers and the general opinion of other foreign teachers.
I know I am right and that their 'interpretation' is crap and is not acting with integrity. In a previous life I was a contracts manager and the wording on this contract leaves me with no doubt that they are working this wrong.

Hey crimochina,

I hear you. Here's the wording of the contract. There is no other mention of the air fare bonus in the document. I was hardly going to argue with these terms as stated below, I thought it was as clear as possible.

14. Air Ticket Bonus: Party B will receive 8000 RMB for an Air Ticket bonus pertaining to a 12 months contract. Party B will receive 50% of this bonus midway through the contract, and the remaining 50% at the end of the contract. Should Party B terminate this contract early, this bonus will not be paid.

What bit says you will have your leave deducted from the bonus??? Damned if I can see it!!

yeah it seems they are just cheating you, in the future you could make sure they include free and fully paid holidays or simply stated that you will not be for holidays.
but the sad truth is everything is at their discretion because they can screw you over in so many ways if you make waves