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Q: A stupid foreigner
I have recently faced moderately mild case of fraud. I was looking for a mandarin tutor and it turned out to be very difficult task. After a bunch of emails and calls I agreed for a meeting with a tutor. She was gorgeous- rich experience, beautiful English but quite expensive(125 rmb/hour, each time must be two hours). But then I remembered few tutors whose english was pretty scaring and they asked for 120~, so I agreed. It was required to sign a contract, I asked the teacher one more time who was going to be my teacher and I was passionately assured that it was she. The contract costed me more than two thousands for one month. Finally next week half an hour before lesson I got an email saying that a school(what school?) has found a perfect teacher for me. I was intrigued... Of course I'm not a native speaker but English spoken by that teacher is far, so far from at least sufferable. I am very angry because she clearly does not cost that money and I could find a teacher twice as cheaper and with much better english. I understand that I am to blame in this situation but it is so not fair.
Has anyone experienced anything similar?
9 years 38 weeks ago in Teaching & Learning - Other cities
Welcome to China !
now repeat after me ......."This is why we drink"
Scandinavian:
crap... I mean, thanks for the reminder. Need to ask Mr. Fridge to prepare Mr. Beer to be ready after Mr Coffee has done his stuff.
Welcome to China !
now repeat after me ......."This is why we drink"
Scandinavian:
crap... I mean, thanks for the reminder. Need to ask Mr. Fridge to prepare Mr. Beer to be ready after Mr Coffee has done his stuff.
So you were scammed by a "gorgeous" tutor. Made me wonder, you signed the contract because she was "gorgeous" or did you sign because her English was "gorgeous"?
crimochina:
This guy is a loser with 0 experience with women. He's using the chinese tutor thing to shop for a prostitute but he's too stupid to realize that prostitutes would charge less and be more than willing to teach him chinese.
You are stupid beyond words. I have 20 people willing to teach me chinese for free. Even when I private tutor I have them pay per class. And stupid you paid upfront.
Yakatya:
I'm female, smart ass.
P.s. Freud would say you have a problem. And what is it all about the aggression? Have not had anybody to teach you for a long time?
jetfire9000:
"I'm a female, dumbass"
Your reasoning for choosing this tutor and the word choice you used really makes you sound like a dude, no offense. Definite strong case of attraction there... Okay so you're a chick... Les I guess?
is this guy for real?
who pays that much before the class...
the title definitely suits you
Stupid Foreigner
Olalala, this place feels like home- people are so polite and nice.
coineineagh:
Don't taker it personally. MAny of the people here, myself included, are employed based on our attractiveness as 'white monkeys'. You tell us a story where you basically admit that attractiveness was part of the reason you signed the contract. You are validating China's superficial economics, and proving that we foreigners aren't immune to it either. It isn't what we want to hear. I believe you when you say you're female, because I've witnessed how women place even more value on attractiveness than men do. Remember, just because she's as pretty as you have sought to achieve all your life, doesn't mean everything she does and is, is of that same high quality. Just be more careful in the future - the easier it is to scam foreigners, the more that locals will try it.
Your reasoning for choosing this tutor is completely off. Are you looking for a good tutor, or a beautiful woman? Why are you looking for one with perfect English? The better their English is, the less you have to work to learn Chinese. You should be finding tutors with decent English (or at least working English) but not perfect English. Otherwise you'll fall into the trap of speaking English all the time. Secondly they will use the excuse of proficient English as a reason to garner a higher fee from you, arguing that they are giving you a higher service. Umm... You're here to study Chinese, not English. So no thank you
.
Contracts in China mean nothing, but you're a foreigner so it's safe to say you've got no way of getting your money back. Maybe you can pressure them into it if you get mad enough....
Next time find a volunteer to help you for free or offer to pay a friend a third of the price. Anybody would do just as good of a job for a third of that price.
Finally, since contracts in China don't mean anything, NEVER GIVE THEM YOUR MONEY ALL AT ONCE!! Can't stress that one quite enough... You pay them after each lesson, so you don't lose your money to a fake contract. If you must sign a fake contract, have them write in that you will pay the tutor after each lesson, and you can sign your name on a little calendar sheet after each lesson, to keep record of the classes you have attended. If they give you trouble up front and say you must make a deposit, don't give in. They want your business then they'll listen to you. End of story....
But seriously just find a private tutor, no agent fees and no hoops.
Chinese people never pay up front. When money comes first, product quality goes down.
WangNan2020:
Too generalizing here... A lot of B2B sourcing here pay suppliers upfront, instead of being invoiced, the quality is good but of course you need on-going effort to check it.
Actually "gorgeous" - meant beautiful English and rich experience) unfortunately, I am not interested in local fauna, well... on that level. And yes, I already understood how stupid it was. But after a bunch of tutors I saw she was like a Milka amount all those soap tasting Dove chocolates at family mart.
the other day you were asking about marrying a chinese...
I guess that plan has also shifted to plan B....
So glad I'm married and can speak Chinese rather well. And yes, you're stupid. And gullible. Rule #1: Never believe anything anyone that looks Chinese tells you about anything.
Rule #2: The hotter the girls, usually, the more needy and crazy they are.
Rule #3: Do what most men do. . .go to one of these worthless training centers, tell them you will do part time work for one day a week for a couple of hours, and use the customers that come in for Chinese lessons when they ask you for private lessons, especially if they are married and say their husbands "work all the time."
xinyuren:
I agree with your rules. Your conclusion that she is stupid is faulty however
WangNan2020:
Can't totallly agree with Rule #1: I look Chinese and my words are believeable (well, 97% of it.)
Many years ago I used to go shopping in the fresh market near my home, after shopping I would spend extra 40 minutes with one of the vendors that I shopped from often while holding a piece of paper and a pen what everything on her stand was called they were more than happy to talk with me, sure I can't give a speech to the CCP congress but I can communicate with everyday people in my life just fine, hiring a Chinese tutor has never crossed my mind. Been happily living in Shanghai for 21 years.
icnif77:
I would approach Chinese butcher with the different kinds of meat displayed ... and then I would release an animal's sound, 'MUUuu' while pointing with index finger toward the piece of meat.
If butcher would say 'mei you', I knew my animal's sound was wrong ... 
My animals' sounds 'vocab' was sound of 3 red meat animals: cow, pig and sheep/lamb ...
I've never studied Chinese and I've learned most of Chinese from my students. I was playing psychological trick on them to made them more relaxed when they spoke English and make mistakes ... by showing them how stipud I am when speaking Chinese.
My favorite example was 3 Chinese words with similar sound but different meaning, 'neu-bi', 'im-bi' and 'sha-bi'.
Once in real life I had to reenter bank 3 times with Mao's note in hand to yell the right one and get the change ... for the bus. 
I've survived 8-years in China, however I also couldn't hold a speech in Chinese Congress ..
This post is old but just to update it. 125 yuan/hour is incredibly cheap for a private tutor. That's what students tend to charge for 1-1 mandarin lessons. A good teacher is at least 200 yuan/hour these days.
icnif77:
The thingy with Chinese is they will always negotiate ... anything. Whatever you will state as your price, they will offer you lower or they will say "It's too much ..".
You never ever lower your stated price! NEVER! They can take a hike with their negotiations ..
I had a Principal and Chinese English teacher at the Public school in Yuyang, where I was working getting involved into my stated price for the private student.
I gave them only one reply: "Why don't you teach her ...? Your English is quite good ..", and they came back to me and pay my first stated price for an hour of coaching.
I don't remember in which city that school was, but it was either in Tianjin or Hebei. I read the school's name from Rec. letter I still keep in my records ...
Looks like you got a skimping service... One suggestion would be that you go and lodge a complaint at a commercial administration office (工商管理局) for the area you live in.
Doing that could be a challenge and source of headaches in and of itself, but think on the positive side because you'll learn a lot of social experience working in China!
If you get all the information handy, like the school's name, address, the contract etc, and you raise your voice a little bit and act pissed, you'll be taken seriously at the commercial administration office.
You might not get the original teacher back but it'll do definitely damange to the school!
