We always hear about the exploitation of third world workers, of sweat shops, of child labour, prison labour and worse. But it cuts both ways.

The SCMP today tells the sorry tale of explotation of foreign English teachers by heartless Chinese employers:

Like many young foreigners in China, 28-year-old Briton Gareth Thomas decided teaching English was an easy way to see the world and get paid for it...He signed a contract for 15 teaching hours a week, 8,000 yuan a month, insurance cover and passage home. But when he arrived in Guangzhou seven weeks ago, he found that his workload was far greater. Now he's quitting.

"They brought me from Shanghai and promised to pay for the ticket [to Guangzhou] after one month. But they won't, and they changed my contract without my permission to make me work 20 to 25 hours a week," he said. The agency put pressure on teachers to work extra hours, and called him every other day to get him to teach more classes, said Mr Thomas, who holds a certificate in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). "If I was five minutes late, they fined me two days of pay. I feel cheated. They exploited me."

But while teachers complain of exploitation, students are also short-changed because most teachers have no experience. Some are not even native speakers but are hired for their Caucasian looks.