LookThrice

Yup, completely correct. I'm 21 right now, I had my 21st birthday in China.

1. Yes, I was held against my will. You are only allowed to leave if and ONLY IF your parents pick you up (the staff can remind your parents that it's almost the 4 month mark, but only your parents can see it that you leave the school)

2. My parents took away my passport and all my ID/money. You couldn't call anyone; we weren't allowed to use the phone at all during our stay unless it was our 2 month call home.

3. Yea, my parents were really disappointed in me failing college and wasting lots of money/time. My family in China (my only family in the US are my parents and sister) found me this place and told me parents to send me here. I was on the computer a LOT; mainly on reddit and playing League of Legends with friends.

4. Right now, I'm living in their house. They saw a lot of changes in me for the better; physically I'm a lot more fit from this and I've learned to appreciate the things I had here in the United States. They're still REALLY cautious about letting me on the computer, especially when it comes to online games. Right now, I'm reinstated in my college and plan on continuing my education in the fall.

Yea, a lot of the things there were pretty abusive now that I look back... That was actually one of the lesser punishments lol.

These two kids in my team once ate one of the staff's food because they thought said staff member was going to eat out. He comes in 5 minutes later and finds all his food gone. He got mad and after lunch, he made both of those kids drink water until they threw up. He fed them afterwards, but I'm sure they learned their lesson from that.

It's just really brutal all round if you do anything bad. I mean, it's not like most of the kids sent here were little angels or anything.

When I first got there, everything was surprising. They didn't have sitting toilets like in the US, so you had to squat while pooping. I wish I took a picture of them, but some Chinese people might know what I'm talking about. There's a lot of little things that were surprising to me at first but I eventually grew used to - no washing machines, used ice cold water to wash our clothes; no hot water in our dorms so we took showers as a team in a nearby bathhouse; etc

A lot of the kids try to run away on the first day, and usually two of the staff just grab them by the arms and force them to run laps until they get tired. The logic is if their legs are tired, they can't run. If they refuse to run, they just get dragged in circles until they comply.

Also, it surprised me just how many people smoked in China. They don't have a minimum smoking age, so kids as young as 14-15 smoke on a regular basis. Since cigarettes weren't allowed, a lot of kids went nuts over not being able to smoke, and tried to get cigarettes in any way possible (stealing from staff, trying to get kids that were leaving the school to bring them, etc.)

Believe it or not, some students went there willingly to improve life habits and whatnot.

I can hook you up with the school if you want to give it a try lol

Heh, I took those pictures on the day I was leaving the school, and I just got back from this place!

I've definitely learned to manage my time better and prioritize. Video games and reddit ain't shit if you fail out of school/don't have a job!