Alex Cockain taught at Kai'en in the early early days (1999-2000). He is now possessor of a PhD in anthropology from SOAS. He offers this reflection on the collapse of a Shanghai institution.

Last week, Kai En English Language Training Centre (a combination of the names of the two founders Ken Carroll and Brian McCloskey), a 13-year-old joint venture and one of the first entrants into the language training market in Shanghai, closed its doors in dramatic circumstances. In the days since then commentary has talked of students being stranded, staff being left high and dry with insufficient funds to pay rents, gangsters coming looking for money, a partner departing to England, and the two founders fleeing the country to Taiwan and Ireland: stories which have been underscored by motifs of misplaced trust and betrayal.

I suppose as a result of having taught there between 1999 and 2000, I experienced a twang of sympathy for management upon hearing of the story: a somewhat surprising reaction I felt, given that my departure from working there was not entirely clean – I had refused to renew my contract and suddenly it, or more accurately they, turned nasty ultimately not only giving me a date by which time I had to be in Hong Kong in order to obtain an alternative form of visa so as to enable me to return to Shanghai but also making not so thinly-veiled threats about making contact with police should I not acquiesce. Compounding such bad memories on my subsequent and frequent visits to Shanghai have been an onslaught of Kai En-reminders such as Ken Carroll’s face attached to seats in taxis, seemingly with complacence advertising what seemed from the outside to be a rapidly expanding empire of both English and Chinese language learning training. Perhaps, sympathy is the wrong word: what I felt might have been more like the guilty pleasure one derives from watching a former high-school bully go through an acrimonious divorce later in life. Or, maybe that is too strong. I was torn let’s say between compassion and ‘serves you right’ types of sensation.

In some strange way, like a sword of Damocles, my experiences at Kai En have come to dominate in a disproportionate way my entire China experience; perhaps by virtue of the fact that whilst working there management made me aware that I could have been part of their world for longer than was in actuality the case: like an ex-lover I recall beers in Hongqiao with management in which I was delivered the ‘you’re a good guy’ routine as well as after the event gazing upon those aforementioned Ken Carroll faces in taxis with, it has to be said, some emotion I have yet been able to define. A year in Lanzhou prior to Kai En, three years working in Shanghai subsequent to the somewhat acrimonious departure from Kai En, a Master degree and PhD based at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London on China-related issues, and the best part of five years lecturing in Beijing have failed to leave such an imprint as that left by Kai En. And I find myself slightly irritated that I find myself now caring so much about the plights of people I have lost contact with, students I have never taught or met, all of whom work in an industry I feel increasingly cynical about. What follows is, then, perhaps representative of some kind of catharsis: a means through which memories of the past can be placed in a more orderly and apt place.

It is possible to view the demise of Kai En through a very micro prism, speculating that it was simply a consequence of business arrangements which involve protagonists with very different personalities. Anyone who has ever met Brian, Ken and their partner Steve cannot have met such a very different triumvirate outside the confines of the plot of Julius Caesar though in the case of Kai En it seems likely that they were torn between issues of pedagogy and market niche rather more so than honour, patriotism and friendship, as was the case with Julius Caesar, Mark Antony and Marcus Brutus.

Nonetheless, it is rather more compelling to view the disappearance of Kai En, as many have already done, as being symptomatic of rather more macro processes. Being a victim of the global financial crisis; a symptom of the bubble in English language learning bursting have both been offered as way of explanation for the demise of Kai En. Into this hermeneutic melee add, perhaps, a narrative of two Irish mavericks who, with a tendency to quote both Chomsky and entry-level Management textbooks to incoming employees, were living out a dream (as has already been picked up by Irish print media) in Shanghai, experiencing success before coming unstuck in the face of – cue the Hollywood soundtrack – increasingly corporatised dynamics involving Chinese education providers and already established English language teaching centres.

And it is in this that those feelings of compassion come rising to the surface in the way that grief does from time to time. Somehow Kai En’s story does, despite the aforementioned attempt to make it parody, represent in some way a profound realignment in the ways in which China and the Western world relate. Admittedly such a response might be a reaction to the ways in which the story has been treated by Western observers on blogs and web-postings, so that the event has come to signify an instance in which the plight of individual private business entrepreneurship can become quashed by draconian, unspeakable almost, government pressure, corruption and foul play (recurring themes in a large amount of Western perceptions of China); albeit juxtaposed with everyday grievances from those close at hand about salary delays, poorly painted classrooms and so on. Again, cue the Hollywood soundtrack.

And, aware of being swayed by such discourses, I seek out Chinese media commentary on the event where the event has received a rather different treatment. Albeit implicitly, the demise of Kai En is being constructed in such a way that it connotes a decline in the linguistic power of the English language – a means through which a rather more political and economic power can be achieved – as well as a manifestation of how poorly Western businesses can be managed. To Chinese audiences, added to this are, for example, images on television of a middle-aged former teacher of Kai En recounting, whilst sobbing, how she has but one yuan to her name; a scenario which, to local Chinese observers, seems at best irresponsible and most likely shocking for a person who it would seem had an income of at the very least eight or nine thousand yuan per month.

But, according to this writer at least, Hollywood music should, perhaps, accompany this reading. Profound changes are indeed occurring in the ways in which English-language education specifically and interactions between the West and China more generally are conceptualised. Whilst Kai En was for a time able to gain a place within and, by virtue of this, a portion, albeit a tiny morsel, of the riches which Western tertiary institutions as well as institutions like the British Council, masquerading in China as the Cultural and Education Sector of the British Embassy, can gain within markets such as China, it appears that such bounty is now being pocketed by both Chinese and Western players on tables where the stakes and rewards are higher.

In some space in my evening, amidst doing other things, perhaps as an attempt to give my life bigger meaning I ponder over what might happen should Hollywood ever deem a drama based within the English-language learning world of Shanghai to be commercially viable – note to self, approach Tony Parsons for a screenplay. And then I consider who would play the protagonists, and my mind boggles.