Forgotten foreigners shanghaied in Shanghai

Yet these are teachers, not lawyers. They did not come to exploit people but to educate them. They do not have company lawyers behind them, nor a parent company for protection.

However, they know that the rules and laws of the Chinese government DO protect them. It quite clearly makes provision for those whose jobs are terminated in such a fashion to receive moneys owing - including compensation.

But no government can legislate the greed and cupidity from individual people. Especially people who consider this group of unrepresented teachers as easy prey.

The whole of Shanghai is under re-construction at the moment for the Expo. Buildings are swathed in scaffolding, roads being widened and people being cautioned not to walk around in their pyjamas when “The Foreigners” come. Taxi drivers are being given lessons on manners and clean white gloves, schoolchildren are being coached to say “hello” and the city is to look its brightest when the expected hordes and the foreign Press begin to descend in May.

For more than a month the foreign teachers of KaiEn have been living on fresh air and deferred hope. Without the papers and the salary, bonuses, overtime, airfares and visas to which they are entitled they can move neither on nor out.

One wonders how well their story will impact upon all those Westerners being courted at the Worldwide Expo? What enticement is there in a work contract in a strange country to people who cannot trust it to protect them?