Job Discussion Forums

[1st Sgt Welsh]

[spycatcher reincarnated]

Kurtz

To answer your questions:

Yes, it is a lot of money, but I believe that many EFLers that have been here for a long time (10+ years, myself being here 20+ years) have saved up considerable cash reserves. I.E. over 100,000 usd, especially with the interest rates that have been available

I could have undoubtably got it done much much cheaper (as my wife did with her endoscopy), and probably would have never got around to doing it had I not been about to leave the country.

Reasons for leaving are varied, but include:

I want a change
Going back to look after one of my parents- want my children to understand how important it is to look after their parents.
I want my kids to live somewhere more sophisticated/cultured
My nearly trilingual, eldest child has been offered a place at a truly excellent elementary school (only looked because we were thinking of leaving)- flew past the entrance test because of the education he has received here. NB: from what I have seen kids that go from Vietnam to study in the west find the west an absolute breeze, even if their English is lacking when they arrive.
Tired of the weather- used to enjoy it

Reasons for staying, which were obviously outweighed by the reasons for leaving:

Very good education options available here for children- would like to keep my eldest here for another year or two to make him truly trilingual
Financially better off here
Life is so much simpler/easier here than in the west
I feel here is safer than where I am moving to (stats show there is safer)
Have more friends and contacts here than anywhere else

[kurtz]

[kurtz]

@ sarge.

Perhaps a skim of the five pages is what you need.

To be honest, I can't be arsed with this anymore. It is quite clear that the majority of teachers in Vietnam are in struggle town. I don't have concise facts, but it's quite well known that most people doing EFL are on 1000- 1500 a month. Yes we know, you used to work at RMIT and being on a decent salary you have managed to save decent money. There is a little more to life though than staying at home by yourself
How is the lifestyle down in HCMC? Date any quality women? Enjoy the city's fine restaurants? Get out and enjoy the fresh air? There is a bit more to life than just banking some coin and eating street food. The VAST majority I would say simply are getting by and have a lifestyle of teaching kids, eating pho and drinking 333.

How much do most people have after a trip home, sweet f all!

We have our friend spycatcher who I don't know, but I again don't think be is a regular teacher. This one person is flying the flag for your cause.

Anyways, I rest my case. I will let the jury decide on if one can maintain a well rounded, Western lifestyle, eat quality food on 20 an hour which has been mentioned so many times, given the hours Vietnam is providing in general, and if it is a place to bring up a child given the environment, politics, lack of space to do sport in and all the other things we take for granted in the West.

[mk87]

I really dont think that's true. I mean I arrived here FOB first teaching job and my lifestyle here has from day 1 been better than anywhere else I have ever lived - I work for one of the bigger "mills" ... and I would assume (although I dont know for sure) that the percentage of teachers here who work in these "mills" is higher than people who don't. Maybe I'm totally wrong on this but it's the impression that I get as well as a logical deduction.

I pretty much haven't cooked in 3 years and generally I eat western food, certainly I'm not the type of person that's gonna be happy eating noodles and rice 3 days a week and I fucking despise 333...I live in a very nice big house with its own garden/ walled space and I live the life I live (quite impulsively) and never really have to think about money, my life is much more fulfilling than it was in the UK (and I'm not from a poverty stricken background... nor am I from a well off family) I manage to see more international music at a cheaper price, I play sport 5 times a week at a cheaper price, I take trips out of the city at a cheaper price. I don't know what you are doing if you can't live comfortably off a basic $20 p/h gig here. Obviously it depends on the hours you do...but I'm talking about working as a full time job, not just doing classes here and there. Most jobs you cant work part time and make a living, where-ever you are.

I don't think VN is the golden egg that some people seem to be suggesting, but to say that the majority of teachers spend there time sat on plastic chairs eating pho and drinking 333 is insane... it's just not true, and it has never been in the 3 years I've been here. But again, I think some of this goes back to the conditions in our home countries - us younger bucks are just more used to being at the whim of capital, maybe that has given us coping strategies to deal with it in a better way - but I just think that what you are saying is totally wrong... or it applies to the kind of semi legal teachers that work here (one of my housemates in the past is a prime example, but he wasn't willing to work as a professional, nor did he have the qualifications to allow him to do it, so he was always living on a knife edge - but he would have been wherever he was in the world, because nothing was ever his fault)

edit: However, I totally agree that as a basic teacher bringing up kids in VN would be a batshit crazy idea.

[1st Sgt Welsh]

[ExpatLuke]

I think it doesn't really matter at this point. At every turn kurtz has stated that you can't live well in Vietnam on a EFL teacher's salary, and pretty much everyone else has told him he was wrong and used their own experiences as examples.

It's funny he mentioned $1,000 to $1,200 salaries, because in Danang that's what I started with. It was more than enough to support my single lifestyle in every way possible. When you're only paying $250-$350 in rent, and your school is paying for visa/work permits, all the rest of your cash can be spent on entertainment and filling up your bike with gas for $5 a week. I even saved enough on that salary to take trips twice a year to Thailand, Singapore, Cambodia, Philippines, etc. That was all on $1000 a month. Back in the US I was also living from pay check to pay check, but definitely didn't save enough for even a trip down to Miami.

Now a few years later, I make more than that and I'm saving a good portion of it. I would honestly be more concerned with trying to raise a family in the US than I would be here.

Not sure why he won't accept it, but it's clear to anyone who takes a look at this thread that 1 voice against 10 is probably in the wrong.

[1st Sgt Welsh]

[skarper]

I'm not saying Kurtz is flat out wrong but his POV is not typical and I think he is labouring under the impression TEFLers have in demand job skills that can hold down a high income in the real world.

Even if we're not out and put wasters few of us can manage a better lifestyle back home than we can manage here, and that's before you factor in the amount of work we have to put it here versus there...

If you can go back and make 30-40 K USD/or GBP then you probably should...but I could not. I'd stuggle to make 20K GBP and I'd hate my life trying to live on that.

[I'm With Stupid]

[kurtz]

Post Script

Hello Lurkers,

I can see this has created quite a bit of interest.

As you can see, being single and having some spare money to travel to another cheap Asian country is the justification for living in a poor, corrupt and unhealthy country such as Vietnam. It has been said that just because some other cities in Asia might have worse air pollution than Hanoi and HCMC, which is where most expats live, a Google search on pollution in Vietnam makes for enlightening reading.

Children need places to roam free, but the big two cities provide very little in the way for a child to do, and given the shocking traffic, even riding a bicycle is for the most part out of the question. Getting around town is fraught with danger for a youngster, so it is a life of taxis and a further cost to peck away at modest EFL wages.

We have heard from one poster earning a paltry $1000 a week. Again, having a holiday in another Asian country strangely seems to be some kind of justification that teaching EFL in Vietnam is fine. How much does he have left in the bank after working for a year is the question.

We have only seemingly heard from one poster who has a child, and ironically is leaving Vietnam to improve his child's life; a wise and commendable act.

Other posters have chimed in with their experiences, but again, it hardly supports the idea that EFL in Vietnam is nothing more than a means to an end, and living a Western lifestyle and having savings in the bank is less than attainable for the vast majority.

It has been said that " things didn't work out" for me, even though I have already stated that I had a decent job, but I left because my wife had a fantastic opportunity in another country; reading compensation, we can always improve, can't we.

It has to be said that most people in Vietnam are on a low salary. $20 per hour for most is out of the question. Feel free to look at job advertisements, come over and knock on doors and see for yourself ( enter poster " yes but I earn $2500 a month - * pat pat* yes of course you do, but most do not). Despite the fact that Vietnam is a beautiful country with a fascinating history, it has a low quality of life. Being able to see a movie cheaply and getting cheap dental work done on the odd occasion, getting by doing not much work ( " yes but I have explored Asia on my wage * pat pat* yes of course you have, good boy) is no justification for living and teaching EFL there. Heck, spend a year or two there, but get the hell out if you can.

Vietnam is a fairly popular country to retire in for a certain type of male, if you know what I mean. Most have passive incomes from abroad, you won't find many who have retired from earning bundles of cash from EFL in Vietnam. Go and talk to them. Each will have their story; most will involve paying money in some way to either buy their wife for visa reasons, or paying them to keep them, quite unsavory really.

Get out and see for yourself people. See what kind of quality apartment you get for under $700 in a large city in Vietnam. Go see what the VAST majority of people are earning in the EFL game. You will see a certain person brag of a substantial pay, yet that one poster hardly represents the majority.

I hope you lurkers have found this entertaining as I have.I guess it comes down to standards. We all have different standards and that is what this has boiled down to, standards. What are your standards? Come to Vietnam and find out for yourself.

[ExpatLuke]

I don't think I've seen anyone use vacationing in other countries as justification for making $1000-$2000 per month. I think everyone who has mentioned it, myself included, used it to show one of the added bonuses of living here.

Honestly, I don't feel I need to justify my life or my wage here in Vietnam. I have everything I need provided to me, I can have things which I don't need such as vacations to other exotic locations and daily entertainment provided for me, I have health insurance and access to western quality hospitals (spent a few nights in one last year) provided to me, cheap access to dental care provided to me, fresh air provided to me, weekends off, not teaching any young children....name it. What am I missing out on be living here? The only thing I can think of that I'm lacking is some of the convenience western countries have in access to some comfort commodities.

Let me walk you through a typical weekday in my life in Vietnam and you can compare it to your life in any other country. I think it will speak for itself.

Every morning I wake up around 7:30 and go for a run on the beach, which is literally less than 50 meters from my front door. As you might imagine this gets pretty hot, so it usually take a dip in the ocean after my run. I pop back inside for a quick shower and head out to one of the several western or Vietnamese restaurants for a quick breakfast. The rest of the morning is spent in pursuit of my hobbies such as reading or writing (again on the beach while enjoying fresh fruit juices). At around 11:30 I usually head to lunch. And by 12:30 I've driven across town to start preparing for my first class. After I've done all my prep, I spend the next 3-4 hours teaching respectful students with a real desire and excitement to learn. I then have a 2 hour break in which I usually go back home to meet the girlfriend who's getting off work and either go out to dinner (lots of international favorites to choose from, Thai, Indian, Japanese, Italian, etc) with her, or make dinner at home. I then head back to work for about 2 more hours for evening classes. Not something I need to do, but they're quite easy to teach as the classes are usually only about 4-6 adult students. Easy and rewarding work. After that I come back home and my girlfriend and I will either spend a night in watching movies or go out and meet friends for drinks, depending on our mood.

Weekends, which I don't teach on, are even more free. I usually spend them meeting with students at cafés for extra English practice (because I enjoy it), going to the cinema, taking day trips to nearby secluded beaches, getting ahead on lesson planning, and generally just relaxing.

If you're single, I'm sure your days will be less tame than mine, but I'm quite happy with it as it is.

When I compare that to working 8:00-5:00 in the US and coming home and feeling too exhausted to do anything else for the rest of my night, there's really no contest. My lifestyle here is wonderful, and of course having a family will change that in many ways, but it does for everyone who decides to have a family. At least here, I'm putting away savings for it.

I don't live in one of the two main cities in vietnam, and I doubt I would be nearly as satisfied with my life if I lived in Hanoi or Saigon. The wages in the central region usually only average around $16 per hour. However, the cost of living here is also lower. Housing seems to be a lot lower, as several people in Saigon mentioned paying to $450-$500 in rent, whereas I only pay $250. I wouldn't try to support a family on that salary, but it's definitely enough for a single person who doesn't have any debt to pay. When I first moved here, I started on $1000 per month with 15 classroom hours a week. I've since moved on to quite a bit more than that, but it was more than enough to support my single lifestyle.

[LettersAthruZ]

I'm all outta popcorn, so I'll chime in!

Yes, I have to disagree with Sarge (though I almost never do, but, hey) on this one - like Thailand was the ESL paradise, THEIR Golden Age died around 2000-2001-2002 after it was made a Crown Colony (well, OK, so, it's not actually a Crown Colony, but swarm after swarm after swarm of Brits vacationed there and loved it so much, they became ex-pats there and a large number of them, to survive, took up ESL instruction, so it may as well be today)!!!

Today, ESL salaries are so bad in Thailand that experienced ESL instructors are leaving Thailand en masse and a large percentage of those are heading to Viet Nam.

Viet Nam's ESL Golden Age? in my opinion, it began around 2005, 2006.....living was easy, there were faaaar more gigs than teachers, and the salary-vs.-cost-of-living ratio was extremely high! From my personal observation, I'd venture that the salad days began to wane around two or three years ago.

TODAY? Well, no, we are NOT at ".....armies of Western EFL teachers sleeping under bridges and resorting to cannibalism in order to get by.....", but truthfully??? We're not as far away from it as Sarge believes we are. As Western Economies continue to decline and (REAL) unemployment rates in Europa and The States continuing to top 15%, 20%+, we're going to see more and more and more arriving on these shores trying their hand at the English Language Edu-tainment game in order to make some sort of living......

On the OTHER hand, Is it as bad as Kurtz says?

Speaking for myself, certainly not! Also, speaking with colleagues that I have known for three, four, five years in Ha Noi and Hai Phong, no - they, also, are doing well...

HOWEVER.....Kurtz's point DOES ring true in that, yes, there ARE a lot of non-native teachers from other Asian countries working as FULL-FLEDGED TEACHERS, NOT as T.A.s, for between 10 and 15 Million Dong a month (AND, YES, on recent trips to Ha Noi and Hai Phong, I WAS asked if I would like to drink bia hoi and slurp noodles with them on the street because, literally, they complained about how "expensive" the 30,000VND for a bottle of Tiger Crystal is at the air-conditioned bar that my colleagues and I frequented when I had resided in Ha Noi). So, yes, that COULD depress wages in that if a native English-speaker is going to arrive at Noi Bai fresh in from Europa or America and demand a salary of $1500USD to $2200USD a month INCLUDING housing....well.......yeah......PERHAPS those days may well be heading off into the sunset........

[ieltsteacher102]

quick cost of living info monthly

apartment 500 usd, dist 7 85 sq meters pool good vieew
electriccity 100 usd
internet cable 35
food 300 usd buy in locla market and metro, mostly western fffod lots of cheese cook mostly at thome
petro parking-100
health insurance 150 fv hospital
beer 100-drink lots of beer
western restaurants-4-6 times month 100
misc 100

total cost per month-about 1500 this is me and wife, two people,
sometines spend less or more
i think have a western lifes tyle the food is all western dont eat rice lots fish pork beef and great fresh fruit vegiess, apt is good
drop by dist 7 nice neighbour hhhods little traffic in many areas a few rivers, nice places to walk around, love bicycling lots teachers families a few parks yea come on over i know what a western lifstyle is because i return to usa every year for one month see ya soon

[1st Sgt Welsh]

Hi kurtz,

You know for someone who has "rested his case" and could "not be arsed with this anymore" it seems you still have a bit more to say . OK, lets go through it.