Job Discussion Forums

[Bev]

Hi everyone,
I am a nearly certified TESOL teacher and would love to move over to China with my 8 year old son.
I have resigned from work, sorted the house and sold the car; so now what??
I have done research on many locations and I would love to work in the Yunnan Province. Can anyone tell me more about this great location, job prospects, people and climate?
Would love to hear anything and everthing.
Thank you all in advance.
Bev

[Roger]

Why have you chosen Yunnan province? Because you have already put it in your head that that's where you want to go to live, right?
What can we tell you that you haven't heard already? Why don't you read up in guide books?

Job availability is not as good as you might wish; there are just a handful of towns that have schools where FTs have been known to be employed.

But here are some questions you have to answer in your own interest:
- Why did you decide you want to move to China with an eight-year old child under your care? Does your daughter/son wish to emigrate?
- Can you afford to live off your savings for a few months?
- What are you going to do if the situation doesn't work out satisfactorily?
- What about your kid's schooling?

I don't wish to dash your hopes but you have an extra responsibility because you have a child. I want to point out that Yunnan is one of the poorer provinces and it pays lower salaries than coastal regions do.

Good luck anyway!

[Jizzo T. Clown]

I agree that moving to China with an 8 year-old boy is something that requires A LOT of thought and planning. Have you ever been to China? I wouldn't say the poorer cities are a place for a Western child. And what about childcare? If you plan to teach EFL you'll most likely be working many, many hours. I don't envy you. If I were in your position I'd probably try to work somewhere a little more westernized (like Shanghai), to begin with. Then after the initial shock of being in China I'd consider moving on to a "more Chinese" (less developed) city.
My two cents, FWIW.

[Bev]

Thank you for your replies to my post.

My son and I have not been out of Australia and we are travelling with a male friend whom is also a TESOL teacher.

We decided on China as our first location due to the fact that fares and accomodation are supplied. We have been researching for many months and have heard the people are wonderful and yes we understand that the majority of China is undeveloped. We want to go for the experience of a new culture. Money is not the issue but I haven't got an endless supply either.

Having thought about it I would like to know what problems you could see with taking a child to a country full of them. Are your thoughts on peer pressures, bullying or the basic cultural differences etc. Have you travelled with a child to China and taught English? I know there are alot of expats in China with young children and seem to have made the right decision for themselves and their kids. I have organised school work from my sons school for next year so I can home tutor.

We know it wont be an easy transition but we are looking forward to the experience. My main concern is the polution and hygiene of China. Any information on this would be appreciated.

I don't plan to accept any contracts that are more than 20 teaching hrs per week. I know contract negotiation is crucial and we have alot of support though Teach International. Not really concerned about enough time with my son. I do everything in his best interests.

Look forward to more input.

Thank you

Regards

Bev

[Roger]

You prefix all your arguments and questions with a plural "we"; has your child been consulted in the matter?

This is probably the biggest issue. A child needs stability, but you are offering her or him potentially a tramper's existence.

Your child has developed ties to the local community and the kids there; now he or she will have to start from scratch in an alien culture whose lingo your kid has yet to master. This for your own gratification because you want to experience a "foreign culture"?

You think Chinese are "wonderful people"? Why? I don't think the Chinese as a whole "wonderful" people; there are good Chinese, and there are a lot of undesirable Chinese, and you will discovere that soon enough. If you hit it off badly your whole concept of China is going to crumble. I doubt you will get away with a lasting impression of total bliss and harmony in this country.

Your child will be missing his or her old mates, the common language, the food, the weather, perhaps a pet, perhaps the chirping of birds (there aren't many wild birds left in China).

The Chinese may or may not, but probably will shower a very Chinese form of parental/custodial love on your child; if he is blond and blue-eyed they will all want to adopt him and to show him off; what child loves this sort of doting? It will alienate him or her and potentially put a wedge between you and him.

At school he will be a laggard unless he picks up the local lingo pretty fast; if not, he is going to suffer from a strong inferiority complex exacerbated by Chinese national self-aggrandizing.

You mentioned other "expats" in CHina and their kids. The truth of the matter is that you are not going to be on a par with them as a TEFLer is several notches down the pecking order of foreign nationals resident in China. You will be unable to meet the tuition fee requirements from your meagre teacher's income.

You stated clearly you are not going to be willing to put in 20 contact hours a week; this rules out more lucrative jobs such as tutoring at training centres. You will be housed by a public school, and your housing will be good by local standards but not, perhaps, as ideal as you might wish them to be: i.e. there will be a lot more grey concrete than green nature, and you might have to put up with a night curfew as well. Canteen food to top your misery off.

What if your child falls seriously ill?

As for "pollution" and "hygiene", we have discussed this in numerous threads; some westerners patently exaggerate the situation but there is a dire pollution problem that hardly needs exaggerating.

[Super Mario]

Yes Bev, there are lots of expats in China with children. They generally pay around USD 1000 a month to put their kids into international schools. If you could find a local low fee school to accept your child, the poor kid would face a traumatic experience.
My son was in child care then kindergarten from 3 to 5. He coped, he learned Chinese. But once back home he announced he was never going back to school in China.
Please think carefully.

[Volodiya]

Roger, I have to compliment you on a couple of really thoughtful and good posts to this thread. Education for the child and good health care, when it is needed, are serious issues, for young parents.

Among my friends is a couple who have two children. The mom is a good home-schooler and the kids are doing well in that realm, so far; but, the parents acknowledge, and have calculated, that in another few years they'll have to make some serious and costly decisions about education, or their kids will begin to pay the price for their living abroad.

Recently, they had a health scare when one of their children fell very ill with what turned out to be typhoid. They were desperately worried about him (four years old) for about 48 hours. It proved difficult, even in this town of four million, to find a doctor who they felt confident of, and treatment required hospitalization and re-hydration. They will stay in China, but it reminded them of some of the vagaries of life here.

Bev, that twenty hour job you're talking about is full time for TEFL, after you add prep time, admin time, etc. (I consider anything approaching 25 hours/week to be at my upper limit of effectiveness.) If you were planning to homeschool, it's difficult to know how you'd find the time. (In the family I referred to here, the wife doesn't work, and hasn't, since the kids were born. Her only occupation is educating her children. She spends lots of hours at it, every week.

[Babala]

I worked with 2 FT's who had children here in China. The one woman came here when her daughter was 2 and she has attended kindergarten at the school where she teaches for 3 years now. Her daughter speaks Chinese the same as any other Chinese child her age, has many friends and loves it. The other FT's daughter was 9 years old. She had to be put in a grade 1 class because she spoke no Chinese, didn't make any friends (remember that Chinese children go to school for much longer hours than we do) and hated living in China. Her mother took her home after 6 months. Her daughter found the constant staring and attention very hard to deal with. International schools are expensive and if you do choose to come with your son, I really urge you to put him in one. As Rodger said, it is not easy to find work in Kumming and the salaries there are low compared to other places. I think you should really think it over before choosing to come.

[no_exit]

I live in Yunnan province, in Kunming. There are lots and lots of families with kids here, mostly missionaries. Since your kid is eight, you will only really have the option of an international school (and there is a decent one here), or homeschooling. If he was younger, you could put him in Chinese school, but at 8 that won't really be an option. He won't speak or read or write Chinese, so he would be hopelessly behind Chinese kids his age, and would need to go back several grades. Chinese children probably won't bully him per se, but they will call him a foreigner and take notice of his difference. Chinese adults make a huge fuss over foreign children, so don't be surprised if he gets touched (in a friendly way, not anything hostile), asked lots of questions, and generally treated like an anomoly.

Yunnan, just like the rest of China, is developing rapidly. There are more job options out there than there were two years ago when I first came here. However, Roger is right in saying that the salaries are generally lower here, and you don't have many cities to choose from. Actually, with a child to consider, I really don't think you'd want to live outside of Kunming anyhow.

You will be surprised by Chinese people, in good ways and in bad ways. I think it is good that you are going with a positive attitude towards China and Chinese people. Almost certainly, some of your expectations and preconceptions will be challenged when you get here, but that is something we all have to go through, and there isn't much you can read on a message board which really prepare you for the reality of China.

Sorry I haven't got any job prospects to send your way. The semester has already started and the best bet for finding a job will be to come out here and look around. Although most positions are filled, things come up, teachers leave or get fired halfway through the semester, and there are almost always schools here looking for some kind of teacher. Most schools in Kunming don't hire over the internet, as there are more than enough foreigners here locally to fill empty positions, so if you aren't actually here when you're job-hunting, your prospects diminish significantly.

In any case, good luck to you.

[sojourner]

No _Exit,

In your posting, you mentioned that most of the foreigners, with kids, appear to be 'missionaries'. My impression was that the Chinese authorities did not allow foreigners to come here with the sole purpose of proseltysing. Or, have the regulations been changed in recent months ? I believe that in India, while foreign missionaries are forbidden to proseltyse, they are allowed to establish secular activities , eg clinics and schools. Would that be the situation in China, now ?

I have heard stories that in many parts of China, members of fundamentalist churches have been coming to China, under the guise of being ESL teachers, for the purpose of 'spreading the Word'. Maybe that is what you mean by 'missionaries' ? I've heard that such 'missionaries' are very popular with many employers because of their willingness to work for very low salaries. After all, their main reason for coming to China is not to make money, is it ? Also, many churches would probably pay their evangelists living allowances, on top of any salaries earned through teaching. Maybe, that could be the reason why salaries in Kunming are low, compared to other parts of China !

Also, I wonder whether any of the 'missionaries' have ever undergone TESL training ? Pity the students !

Peter

[jg]

Bev,


I don't know about Kunming, but Shanghai has many international schools, some of them with solid reputations. they have stiff teacher standards so they get a mixture of teachers who meet those standards and teachers willing to tell a few lies to meet them. I am speaking about teachers I know personally who told such lies, not trying to be elitist or anything but I know I certainly wouldn't want my kid to go to a school that didn't thoroughly vet their teachers. And few schools here do really check backgrounds as they should.

Raising a foreign kid here might imbue them with a oversized sense of entitlement or alienation from common Chinese, being surrounded by only the wealthiest Chinese kind of does that to youngsters growing up here. Just my opinion based on the expat kids I've met here. It can be an unsavory environment in many ways.

[no_exit]