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Spelunker
Joined: 03 Nov 2013
Posts: 392
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 Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2016 11:05 am Post subject: re: jeans |
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| Quote: |
| Jeans in that sauna sweatbath Guangdong summer?!? Oof. |
In the autumn or spring, in high summer, a smarter pair of shorts and birkies sandals. I refuse to dress like a male chinese teacher, when there is nothing in the contract that stipulates that. |
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ExpatLuke
Joined: 11 Feb 2012
Posts: 744
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| Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2016 12:32 pm Post subject: |
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This is a minor rant on my part, but I think "teachers" who show up to teach in a pair of shorts and sandals are a disgrace to the profession. It's not hard to dress to your role. If you're refusing to do it, it says a lot about both you as a person and your attitude towards your job. If you don't respect the job, the school, your students, your fellow co-workers, or the teaching profession, why should you be shown any respect in return?  "Refusing to dress like the Chinese teachers" takes it a step farther and starts disrespecting their culture too.
I can't imagine many people would take too kindly to some Saudi's showing up to their place of employment back in the west dressed in full Arab headdresses and robes. Yet, here you have no qualm over dressing like a hobo.
Get some class please. Respect yourself. Respect others. |
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Spelunker
Joined: 03 Nov 2013
Posts: 392
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| Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2016 1:13 pm Post subject: re: dress codes differ from country to country.... |
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| Quote: |
This is a minor rant on my part, but I think "teachers" who show up to teach in a pair of shorts and sandals are a disgrace to the profession. It's not hard to dress to your role. If you're refusing to do it, it says a lot about both you as a person and your attitude towards your job. If you don't respect the job, the school, your students, your fellow co-workers, or the teaching profession, why should you be shown any respect in return? Rolling Eyes "Refusing to dress like the Chinese teachers" takes it a step farther and starts disrespecting their culture too.
I can't imagine many people would take too kindly to some Saudi's showing up to their place of employment back in the west dressed in full Arab headdresses and robes. Yet, here you have no qualm over dressing like a hobo.
Get some class please. Respect yourself. Respect others. |
Your right to respond, and for me to respond also.I dressed as to the norms of the culture for the classroom and office in Oman, that was no problem. Me dressing comfortably yet smartly is not a lack of respect for myself, nor my students or fellow teachers when I was in China, who I was very polite towards, except for when male students made inane racist comments like "colour wolf". Show me where dress codes are mentioned in a contract in China, and even Chinese teachers said it was ok to dress like that in summer, some took issue with dirty clothing and sandals, but if clothes are clean and the shoes are not flip flops, then there are no problems. Some sandals actually look very smart. I am not "here" i.e. China or Vietnam, but in an EU country, so why me stating my personal preference for summer dress for teaching in China (not been in China for 3 years...and didn't teach over the summer in the last year I was there all that time ago!), annoys you so much I really don't know. I am NOT stating everyone should dress like that, not at all. You are starting to sound obsessive about dress codes, and conduct for FT's in Vietnam, and I really do not know why, but teach to their own. (Originally wanted to write a concise one or two line post in response, took me five minutes to type this)
Have a good day,
sp |
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nomad soul
Joined: 31 Jan 2010
Posts: 11454
Location: The real world
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| Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2016 3:09 pm Post subject: |
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| Generally, if the students have a strict dress code or wear school uniforms, it's a given that the teaching staff has to dress accordingly as well. |
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Spelunker
Joined: 03 Nov 2013
Posts: 392
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| Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2016 4:57 pm Post subject: re: exactly |
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| Generally, if the students have a strict dress code or wear school uniforms, it's a given that the teaching staff has to dress accordingly as well. |
Precisely, a matter of when in Rome at al. When the cup is full....it's bloody well full, and I know I am in the right here. The truth is the truth and all that jazz.... |
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skarper
Joined: 12 Oct 2006
Posts: 477
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| Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2016 5:15 pm Post subject: |
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I don't think there is much to be gained by getting into a spat with spelunker. He has his views which some may agree with while others do not.
IMO teachers are well advised to dress like they mean business. Smart casual. No jeans or shorts, collars on shirts [polo shirts can be fine with kids/younger people]. Wear socks and proper shoes. Ties can help but are overkill if teaching children. You will get a better reception if you look like you made a bit of effort. Women have a harder time balancing comfort, affordability and sufficient formality.
It matters more how competent and prepared you are with regard to teaching, but if you dress the part the students will give you a fair chance. The 'cool' teacher who lopes in to class unshaven and casually dressed will struggle to be taken seriously. His great ideas and materials will be compromised.
In Japan, most teachers have to wear suits because their salaryman/office lady students have to. I applied for one job in Japan that had 4 full paragraphs on dress code and barely 4 lines about the required qualifications and experience of suitable applicants!
So I appreciate the relaxed attitude of Vietnamese EFL jobs. Frankly, anybody who balks at meeting the very moderate dress standards in Vietnam has an attitude problem and were I making hiring/firing decisions [which I'm not] I'd be very wary of employing such people and they'd be the first teachers to lose hours during a squeeze. |
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Brunouno
Joined: 18 Apr 2013
Posts: 129
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| Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2016 1:52 am Post subject: |
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| skarper wrote: |
I don't think there is much to be gained by getting into a spat with spelunker. He has his views which some may agree with while others do not.
IMO teachers are well advised to dress like they mean business. Smart casual. No jeans or shorts, collars on shirts [polo shirts can be fine with kids/younger people]. Wear socks and proper shoes. Ties can help but are overkill if teaching children. You will get a better reception if you look like you made a bit of effort. Women have a harder time balancing comfort, affordability and sufficient formality.
It matters more how competent and prepared you are with regard to teaching, but if you dress the part the students will give you a fair chance. The 'cool' teacher who lopes in to class unshaven and casually dressed will struggle to be taken seriously. His great ideas and materials will be compromised.
In Japan, most teachers have to wear suits because their salaryman/office lady students have to. I applied for one job in Japan that had 4 full paragraphs on dress code and barely 4 lines about the required qualifications and experience of suitable applicants!
So I appreciate the relaxed attitude of Vietnamese EFL jobs. Frankly, anybody who balks at meeting the very moderate dress standards in Vietnam has an attitude problem and were I making hiring/firing decisions [which I'm not] I'd be very wary of employing such people and they'd be the first teachers to lose hours during a squeeze. |
The dress standards aren't moderate in Vietnam. Many employers expect leather shoes, long-sleeve shirts and a tie. Try dressing like that in Vietnamese weather while teaching 40 kids under a fan. It's not fun.
Isn't a TESOL class supposed to be a comfortable and non-threatening environment for the students? It seems as though a teacher would be creating the opposite, initially at least, by walking into a classroom as a pretentious penguin.
I'm not advocating that we should be walking into the classroom dressed like pigs, but common sense should prevail, and we should dress according to the environment (not just the weather). |
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TRH
Joined: 27 Oct 2011
Posts: 340
Location: Hawaii
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| Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2016 2:07 am Post subject: |
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| Brunouno wrote: |
| The dress standards aren't moderate in Vietnam. Many employers expect leather shoes, long-sleeve shirts and a tie. |
I still think the tie is a bit of overkill. As I mentioned before, Viet male teachers don't wear ties so why should foreign teachers? Consider the origins of the modern dress tie. It is called a four-in-hand because it was first worn by coachmen who needed to keep their collars closed in the cold English winters. It certainly causes your body to retain heat. An open collar dress shirt, dress pants and shoes should be sufficient. Most foreigner teachers are OK on the first two but fall down a little on the shoes, wearing sneakers or trainers, depending on which language they speak. 
| skarper wrote: |
| Women have a harder time balancing comfort, affordability and sufficient formality. |
This comment made me think of something to throw out there. Would it be appropriate for a female foreign teacher to wear an ao dai? Of course they would need the figure to pull it off. There were some teachers in the public school where I taught that really shouldn't have worn them but it is sort of the national teachers' dress. Both affordability and fit would depend on finding the right tailor, so it might take a female Vietnamese friend to do it right. |
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skarper
Joined: 12 Oct 2006
Posts: 477
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| Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2016 4:36 am Post subject: |
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Ties are overkill when teaching kids. They will just pull on it and it will get in the way. I don't think many employers enforce this rule but I'm not in a position to say since I don't teach 40 kids in a fan room...and wouldn't. IMO we shouldn't take those kind of jobs but I have the luxury of choice nowadays and I know some don't.
I wouldn't wear long sleeves either unless I had tattoos or excessively hairy forearms.
When I worked in language centres dress code was moderate. One place actually banned ties and allowed black jeans and trainers. The other was more strict but short sleeves and 'khaki' type trousers were never an issue. Ties were required in class but the aircon was on full blast [barring power cuts] so I never felt hot.
I wouldn't work anywhere that didn't have adequate AC. |
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ExpatLuke
Joined: 11 Feb 2012
Posts: 744
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| Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2016 5:31 am Post subject: |
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| skarper wrote: |
I wouldn't work anywhere that didn't have adequate AC. |
Definitely. You have to have an environment conductive of learning g. If all the students are too hot to move, you won't accomplish much. |
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Spelunker
Joined: 03 Nov 2013
Posts: 392
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| Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2016 6:35 am Post subject: re: bravo! |
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| Many employers expect leather shoes, long-sleeve shirts and a tie. Try dressing like that in Vietnamese weather while teaching 40 kids under a fan. It's not fun. |
That was my only point, with no malice directed at any one poster or race of people at all.
In Oman, the wall mounted A/C unit was not working in one classroom....the HOD simply said class is cancelled, he realised in 40 deg C + desert heat, it would not be good for me, or the students who would just whinge for 50 minutes, if the A/C was working of course, the class could have gone ahead and the spoiled bunch could have whinged at me about something else for 50 mins
As the OP has said, leather shoes, long sleeve shirts, and a tie in a humid climate like Guangdong province or Vietnam would definitely be no fun, especially in the sauna like climate, which I presume can last year round more or less in the south of vietnam? |
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PlushSky
Joined: 11 Jun 2015
Posts: 11
Location: UK
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| Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2016 7:22 pm Post subject: |
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Appreciating the candid responses here guys.
| RustyShackleford wrote: |
| I: You will be lucky to find a place that has all those things, especially clean water, for your price-point. Look at ABOVE $500 unless you're okay living somewhere obscure. |
Do lower priced places not have clean drinking water then? How does one circumvent this in Vietnam? Stock up on bottled water?
| RustyShackleford wrote: |
| II: You may. Just keep in mind the quality of food/drink, not to mention roads/air will be nothing like UK |
How bad is the air there? How does it practically affect your quality of life? As for the roads, could you elaborate? The footage I've seen does make the traffic look chaotic and probably stressful.
| RustyShackleford wrote: |
| IX: Probably. I became quickly became pretty wary of my fellow Expats and largely hung out with westernized Vietnamese who happened to speak fluent English. Others are much like you put it. |
What is it about expats in Vietnam that appears to be so repellent? Is everybody jaded or are they really that abhorrent?
| RustyShackleford wrote: |
| X: If you go with your preconceptions, not really. Vietnam is both easier and much, much harder than Japan/Korea. Why do you think Vietnam is a good idea? |
You've largely affirmed my preconceptions; if they're approximate then why would moving to Vietnam be a bad idea? It's my understanding that Japan's cost of living is too high for a tefl first year rook and that Korea is decent pay but the supply of English teachers there is very high while the government has withdrawn a state program for employing them en masse. Also heard that antipathy towards white English teachers there has grown and that it's a quite insular nation anyway. Conversely, it appears that Vietnam's citizens are friendly and welcoming to foreigners and the cost of living is famously low.
I'm very interested to hear your reasons as to why it's much easier/harder than Japan and Korea.
| kurtz wrote: |
| Considering that you haven't made any inquiries about finding work, the nature of the students you would like to teach or basically anything resembling something even remotely professional, I'd say save up as much coin as you can in the UK and come on over to SE Asia to party with the 20-somethings who are always up for a beer. Then go home. |
That inquiry is not the focus of this thread. I'm interested in the living experience of expats in Vietnam, not the labour one.
| kurtz wrote: |
| Clearly you want to just party, work as little as possible, head to the beach on weekends and nail as many willing, tight-bodied wenches as you can in your 3 year sex-escapade. |
A perhaps reasonable deduction to make from the OP but not accurate. I'm 30. The older I've got, the dimmer my view of promiscuity has become. I'm no party animal. Tight bodied wenches always welcome but quality over quantity and that of course goes for character as much as physical traits.
| kurtz wrote: |
| Understandable, but you just need to ask yourself where you'll be in three years' time, and was it all worth it? I have no idea of your financial situation, but if you're not set up now, have fun getting back on the grid after a three year party. I seriously doubt you'll save anything at all. |
I'd have three years of memories to look back on and cherish and quite possibly may want to remain in a country I've lived in. Contrast that with my next prospective three years in the UK: physical energy depleting year on year as I work the long weeks, the spirit sapping commutes, the low pay to living cost ratio, the dwindling prospect of home ownership, the dreary weather. I have about 9000 in savings now.
| kurtz wrote: |
| Lastly, your English Lit degree will continue to be useless unless you learned how to elicit the past perfect continuous tense, teach pronunciation, basic vocabulary and put up with teachers who have become managers yet have no actual management experience. |
It was my understanding that the vast majority of work in Vietnam is teaching children which is less past perfect continuous tense and more holding up cartoons of animals and repeating the words slowly (a crass characterisation but you get my point).
| ExpatLuke wrote: |
| For your preconceptions, I find they're mostly spot on, with the apartment and commuting to work ones being the exceptions. I think you can find a good place to stay for about $500 less than 30 mins from work, but it depends on a lot of factors. |
Would you mind elaborating on what those factors are?
| skarper wrote: |
| PI is a clear no - need to pay 700-1000 to land that kind of gaff right off the bat. |
What parts of the description make it a clear no?
| skarper wrote: |
| PII 20-25 hours a week will be just enough to get by. Often you won't manage 15 hours a week. ALL the hours are weekends/evenings or go to people who have paid their dues. So if you do 3 hours an evening and 12 at the weekend you are only managing 24 hours with only one day off. It takes time to get the benefits of the low cost of living. Factor in a day or two every 3 months for a costly, expensive and stressful visa run and you'll be scraping along during your first year. |
THIS is the sort of thing I was rooting around for, the sort of thing not mentioned by companies/youtubers selling the benefits of teaching English abroad. So is there any scenario in which those 15-25 hours are compressed into 3-4 days leaving full days off in the week? Or is there always the pinch in the back of your brain telling you not to relax too much because you've got to teach class tonight?
| skarper wrote: |
| PIII if you can cope with a fan-only gym then sure - you will have time to work out 2-3 times a week. You may lack the energy though. Teaching is draining and the climate is unforgiving. |
Going by the last scenario I'd be teaching for three hours most days; how would three hours work be that deleterious that I couldn't fit in a 60 minute lifting session?
| skarper wrote: |
| PIV You can date in the bigger cities but it may be less fun than you expect. Younger women usually want to get married. Older women will have been divorced. A lot want money on a pay as you go basis or on a longer term leasing arrangement. This is changing though so there may be some more options in HCMC. Hanoi? less so but still possible. |
Do a large proportion of dating-age Vietnamese women speak passable English? What's the dating scene like with expat women?
| skarper wrote: |
| PV You will get ripped off shamelessly every week if not every day. 50% is a common mark up on housing, taxi fares, drinks etc. |
What advice would you give to your past self on this subject, if you could go back?
| skarper wrote: |
| PIX - you won't make many friends that are worth the time of day. The people who are decent and interesting long since gave up socialising because of the scum they meet....maybe a tad jaded there.. |
Sounds bleak. Are white westerners out there really that bad? Is it trustfund kids, deadbeats or some other monstrosity?
| skarper wrote: |
| PX - If you are as naive as you seem [I still think it's a wind up] then - NO - not a good idea at all. |
Presumably most people who 'dive in' to this experience are naive on account of having no practical way of trialling a live-in lifestyle in a country thousands of miles away. I fully accept my naivety in this area and it's why I'm so grateful that you and others here have taken the time to respond to this thread. |
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PlushSky
Joined: 11 Jun 2015
Posts: 11
Location: UK
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sigmoid
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 1276
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| Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2016 6:14 am Post subject: |
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OP -
I just want to say, based on your description of your situation, that I think what you are considering is a great idea. Get out and see some of the world before you get too old.
Just remember that it's not all peaches and cream, and that life is still hard no matter where you go.
Starting out in Sai Gon is as good a place as any, better than some. If it doesn't suit you, you can always move on. Right now, I know expats living in Seoul, Okinawa, Ha Noi, Vung Tau, Phnom Penh, Bangkok, Rayong, Chiang Mai, Phuket, Luang Pabang, Vientiane, Yangon, Surabaya, Jazan, etc. as well as in South America and Europe. China is always another option. Basically, you have options. Not many great options, but options nonetheless.
Re: HCMC - Everybody has 19 liter water bottles delivered.
Yes, the BIG market is teaching kids. You don't need to be a linguist and you don't need to dress up. You need to be entertaining and flexible.
The air quality is poor just like any huge city in the developing world. There are approx. 7.5 million motorbikes.
Nightlife is pretty good if you are a drinker. Dating is great if you want to get married. There are some modern cinemas and live music, plenty of bars, cafes and restaurants.
If you want to work out, there are gyms. California Fitness is a chain that is here, in addition to numerous cheaper local ones.
Housing can be a problem in a city of circa 10 million. Rent is not as cheap as it used to be and quality is often lacking. Food is still quite inexpensive. Some good local food can be tasty and nutritious but much of it is crap. You don't have to sit on the pavement; there are many cheap restaurants with adult-size seating and tables.
Don't worry about other people. Like any place, you'll meet all kinds, both locals and expats. The main thing is that most expats are either pollyanas with their rose-colored glasses who simply "love" Vietnam, or totally miserable moaners who do nothing but complain. Read "Burmese Days" by Orwell, if you haven't already. It can be sort of like that sometimes.
Anyway, in the end everybody has their own experience which depends on themselves wherever they go. A positive attitude coupled with a dose of healthy paranoia will take you a long way. |
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ExpatLuke
Joined: 11 Feb 2012
Posts: 744
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| Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2016 10:03 am Post subject: |
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You can see from this post, that mileage will vary depending on how you go about things. Some people adapt, are flexible, and find they fit quite well with the culture. Others are incapable of adapting and are constantly comparing things to how they think they should be done, and are never happy. Others seem to pick and choose their battles.
My comments about finding a place to stay for $500 per month within 30 mins of work are largely based on my own experiences. In Danang, you're within 30 mins of anywhere in the city, and a $500 apartment is considered expensive. In Saigon, I'm not sure, but I'd say you'd have to find a place and a school in one of the "less nice" districts.
My experiences with women and dating have been vastly different than many on these forums it seems. For me it seemed like dating here was like doing it with the training wheels on. Meaning it's pretty hard to fail at it. I dated extensively before finally settling down with someone who truly makes me happy. But I've met other expats who seemed incapable of meeting anyone.
Things like air quality, food safety, and cleanliness depend largely on what city you choose to live in and even what districts you live in within those cities. |
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