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direshark
Joined: 12 Apr 2014
Posts: 90
Location: Qingdao, China
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 Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2014 2:30 pm Post subject: |
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| RW8677 wrote: |
People are still accepting 4600?? - woah. Not really in a position to advise others when you accept that garbage contract. |
| kungfuman wrote: |
The only thing I find cartoonish is that in this day and age someone will allow themselves to be exploited by accepting a substandard salary of 4500y a month |
Popped back in here to see some people taking jabs at my salary. That's okay. So far that I can tell, my salary - and even below - is more or less standard in the Qingdao area for public universities. Funny enough, since I have a graduate degree, I have the highest salary at my institution out of all the other teachers. I guess I could be making more, though the university funnels easy side work to us. Judged a competition for a couple hours and took in an additional 1000 kuai last month.
Regarding the quality of life vs salary: I'm having the time of my life here and not really compromising anything. I have to be a much more liberal spender than I've ever been in order to spend my monthly salary. But note that I'm not a lifer, nor am I here to really make money, so it's not a priority anyway. (I'm after the Mandarin proficiency for a specific career trajectory.)
This is all a side note. The OP asked for specific advice on a contract, and in my view, the most important thing is to clear out the ambiguity in order to know what to expect from your new profession. If your view is that my acceptance of a lower salary compromises my opinion on this subject, so be it. In my case, I knew exactly how much I'd be working (I'm actually working a lot less*) and exactly what I'd be getting for it.
*first four weeks taught nothing, last six weeks taught fours hours. Love the life here.
Last edited by direshark on Mon Oct 27, 2014 3:48 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Voyeur
Joined: 03 Jul 2012
Posts: 431
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| Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2014 2:57 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, sometimes schools have to have a standard contract that requires a certain number of maximum hours (16 apparently, in your case), but the local manager knows that this makes for an unattractive job at that salary and makes you teach less. You're doing great so long as you get the schedule you've been teaching. Of course if something happens and they enforce the maximum you can get screwed--but you can always quit.
Glad you are doing well. |
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mysterytrain
Joined: 23 Mar 2014
Posts: 366
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| Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2014 4:29 pm Post subject: |
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| jm21 wrote: |
| Seriously, how do you guys deal with the problems associated with your gfs and wives travelling? My gf gets no vacation time and so has to quit her job. Almost no chance of getting a visa to America. How do you guys deal with those issues? |
To answer your serious question: my wife hasn't worked since we got married (she quit a very well-paid job, by local standards, to marry me), and that is one of the primary reasons.
In the first place, she can't get a job in this city that pays enough to make the "extra" income all that worthwhile (before we got married, she was working in administration for a mining company, at a remote site in Eastern / Central Kalimantan / Borneo). If she did take a job, we would have run into that problem every five and a half months when we hit my two-week holidays in December and June, so she'd have to quit, somehow try to get the time off, or I'd have to travel without her - no dice on that).
After this year, we will probably be living outside her country for a few years, so it will likely be awhile before she works for salary again, if ever (we'll probably start a small business or two later when we come back to Indonesia to "retire"), and she is okay with that, as long as I can support the two of us and help to support her family (which I do).
For a girlfriend who wants to maintain some fiscal independence, it's more difficult, I think. No real workaround I can think of, except: a) she does the working / quitting thing, or b) she just doesn't travel with you. |
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Non Sequitur
Joined: 23 May 2010
Posts: 4724
Location: China
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| Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2014 6:26 pm Post subject: |
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| jm21 wrote: |
| Seriously, how do you guys deal with the problems associated with your gfs and wives travelling? My gf gets no vacation time and so has to quit her job. Almost no chance of getting a visa to America. How do you guys deal with those issues? |
Maybe find out on the off topic forum??  |
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3701 W.119th
Joined: 26 Feb 2014
Posts: 386
Location: Central China
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| Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2014 2:46 am Post subject: |
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| I deal with it by not having a Chinese GF. |
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kungfuman
Joined: 31 May 2012
Posts: 1749
Location: In My Own Private Idaho
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| Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2014 6:11 am Post subject: |
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| jm21 wrote: |
| Seriously, how do you guys deal with the problems associated with your gfs and wives travelling? My gf gets no vacation time and so has to quit her job. Almost no chance of getting a visa to America. How do you guys deal with those issues? |
My gf had a decent job at a five star hotel and one day quit it. Since then she has become a housewife - NOT with my blessing as the girl is only 25 and needs a future besides living in my room 24/7.
At present this is ok for her = but I have mentioned to her on numerous occasions that she needs a job. And a good job. My primary part time job offered her a job but I didn't think working in a kids training school was even close to ideal for her.
I liked her job before for two reasons - It got her out of the house for 9 hours a day - can anyone say MAN CAVE? and she got a generous discount on hotels from Marriott Hotels. We stayed in the Ritz Portman in Shanghai for less than $100 a night and they gave us a suite upgrade. I never wanted to leave that place .
Hope that answered your question JM |
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kungfuman
Joined: 31 May 2012
Posts: 1749
Location: In My Own Private Idaho
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| Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2014 6:13 am Post subject: |
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| 3701 W.119th wrote: |
| I deal with it by not having a Chinese GF. |
is that an option? Didn't know that. |
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jm21
Joined: 26 Feb 2008
Posts: 406
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| Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2014 9:05 am Post subject: |
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My gf loves working. She would go crazy being a housewife. But the jobs you can get and quit easily are kind of crap. It hurts some man bone to have her working long hours at some shit job. I've been watching these food truck competitions. Might be an idea there.
Last edited by jm21 on Tue Oct 28, 2014 3:15 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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3701 W.119th
Joined: 26 Feb 2014
Posts: 386
Location: Central China
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| Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2014 12:56 pm Post subject: |
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| I have no interest in dating young 20-somethings (I'm 32), who are only with me because I'm white and a novelty. I'm not planning to stay in Wuxi beyond this year, when my contract ends, so I can't really date girls my own age (they all want to settle down and get married). Not fair to lead them on. |
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kungfuman
Joined: 31 May 2012
Posts: 1749
Location: In My Own Private Idaho
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| Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2014 1:51 pm Post subject: |
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| 3701 W.119th wrote: |
| I have no interest in dating young 20-somethings (I'm 32), who are only with me because I'm white and a novelty. I'm not planning to stay in Wuxi beyond this year, when my contract ends, so I can't really date girls my own age (they all want to settle down and get married). Not fair to lead them on. |
White people live on 119th street? For real? |
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