The bonuses are having the opposite effect the Chinese hope for. They hoped to breed loyalty. In reality people only see the 13.5k they get monthly. The rest is on a wish and a prayer given the Chinese attitude towards written contracts. Dont expect to see any of it. An effort to have the bonuses monthly was rejected.
As stated above a foreign pilot here was just fined 12,000USD for an altitude bust. Fines for being 5 minutes late. Fines for missing jeppesen plates. Fines for "heavy" landings. Fines for rate of descent. Fines for taxiing fast. QAR's are for salary rebates to the company. Fines for just about anything they can think of, and you need not have been PF for the event. Safety has very little to do with it.
Outrageous medicals. Perfectly fit pilots will fail medicals regularly. Both at initial and again at renewals. Little recourse when you do. You will be breathylised regularly at check-in and possibly have your blood pressure checked too.
Training flights. You will spend the first 6-8 months at least in training (100-400hrs Pilot Flying). This consists of regular 4-sector 16hr+ days (3 pilots) with you in the jumpseat for half of it (doesnt count for hours). They use foreign captains as safety pilots for new f/o's. There is no training. A Chinese captain often with little english will just conduct the flight completely as he sees fit with you sitting in the left. When you're in the jumpseat all operations are conducted in Chinese. You are still liable to be fined for cockpit mess-ups when sitting in the jumpseat.
Simulator sessions are conducted many times a year (on days off, not duty days - and in Zhuhai). Each time any Chinese airline (or high-speed Train)has an incident, all pilots in China are sent for retraining. These are in addition to your recurrent training. Each one is full-jeopardy, even the training days. If you fail (and many will do) you will be removed from flying and have to retake the simulator in a months time without pay. Disregard what you think you know, they will find fault. Same goes for check flights.
Leave. Flexibility is difficult. If you need to change your leave they wont let you unless the 2 week period crosses a month-end. This gives them 3 weeks to fly you to FTL limits in each month. Anything else will be rejected.
Kennels for hotels. They use no-star hotels. Most are free or almost free for the airline. Better described as nameless guesthouses in industrial carparks with shocking dirt, stifling heat (or baltic cold)unbearable noise and no facilities whatsoever. You will spend up to 4 days in these at a time. It is illegal to make your own arrangements and the management are indifferent. Locals also complain to no effect and in fact local co-pilots are now being asked to share rooms. A recent foreigner boycott resulted in a mere change of carpet at one "hotel"..! Bear in mind many foreign pilot contracts stipulate 3-star or better - again to management indifference.
Food. Almost all food onboard is prepared by a no-star Chinese hotel owned by Spring. Saying it's sub-standard is an understatement. On overnights expect similar.
Flying itself: There is a complete lack of English all-round. Most company documents are only in Chinese. No cabin crew will understand any briefing or evacuation command. Pushback is in Chinese. ATC will give clearances in Chinese, at times refusing to speak english (see the fines above and Juneyao incident elsewhere).
Flight plans offer zero extra fuel. Contingency is zero percent. More than 200kg extra will be argued by dispatch. ATC will randomly, but regularly keep flights at ~FL250 for hours when planned at ~FL 350 because of unnamed and unpredictable restrictions. You see the dilemma. Despite this your f/o will question strongly any extra fuel as his paycheck depends on it. Monthly fuel bonuses are arbitrary, not based on formula, and far below what was advertised. A bad idea to start with.
In short you are here to fill a seat. Given that most Chinese pilots are on lifetime contracts, the management havent quite grasped the fact that foreign pilots have other options. I think they might learn that soon.
For now they are scratching their heads at why nobody new is coming here...