Job Discussion Forums

[Ger]

"As we know , the purpose of most foreigners who come to work in China is to experience Chinese culture , to learn about Chinese customs, and to travel around."

"It is believed that the salary in China is quite low , the purpose of most foreigners coming to work here is to experience instead of earning money . Currently, the salary in an ordinary public school is RMB4,000-5,000 per month (500-625 Dollars per month , while an ordinary Chinese teacher's salary is about RMB2,000 per month - but of course local Chinese people may have other money-earning ventures), but the offer we provide will supply you with free ,good-condition accommodations and delicious Chinese food which is very cheap, so the salary is enough for living and traveling in China.

Advice : You may be disappointed, if you came to China just for money. Working in China, you may not earn much money, but you could experience the special Chinese culture, enrich your experiences and afford your travel in China with your salary. It is indeed a great plan."

[tofuman]

On the business end, if one really wants to approximate Chinese culture, I suggest getting a job as a correctional officer in a state prison. Better if the prison has a psychiatric security unit. You can earn much better money and return home in a car driven on streets where laws are actually obeyed.

On the other hand, the food here is great, the martial arts opportunities unsurpassed, and the women are gorgeous.

[Shan-Shan]

That special Chinese Culture is indeed superior to all other kultures on the planet, now, in the past, or that will be. Really, we should be paying schools to offer us the opportunity to breathe thick coal-laden air (a perk that some of our distant past relatives in industrializing Europe had the pleasure of experiencing), selling our first born to have the chance to merge with the friendly and civilized mass of humanity bursting cities at every seam, and sacrificing our uneconmical concepts of higher hygiene to be a part of this great Economic Miracle (because we all know that whatever China deems important, however China decides to measure the success of a society, is the Golden Yardstick that we should also take up) of Modern China.

But folks, you can work in other countries, eat their "delicious food", and save more money for more travelling. If you haven't heard, China has what are called "L" visas for people who want to travel, but not be restricted by work hours and semester schedules, nor be forced to travel when everyone else is travelling.

If teachers are only coming to experience second-hand the plight of the average Chinese person just trying to survive in his/her own country, what will that do for the quality of the education provided by the teacher? No pedagogical background, no experience, and no interest in teaching itself because the FT is only waiting for those holidays when he/she will finally be able to fulfill that life long dream of walking the golden avenues of Kunming, of seeing trees, dipping their feet in rivers, listening to birds sing...(wait, that was my hometown back in Canada). The mills just keep turning. But don't blame us if you are disappointed with the quality: we are only here for the kebabs and "non-erotic" massages!

What an arrogant place if it thinks that it's disappearing culture and commodified cultural relics are compensation enough for people's labour. What next? Whitey should pay a little more for a can of coke because it utilizes the image of S.H.E., a muscial phenomenom that we tone-deaf Western folk should be grateful for hearing?

I am presuming that the original post was in jest. But I do know, like many others here, the "jest" is gospel for many benighted dingbats who think that being screamed hello at, eating dumplings, and drinking piss beer is heavenliness. These same folk see China as "a miracle", and that by being here at this great time is thanks enough for whatever they ourselves are doing.

[vikdk]

I have heard on the grapevine there are new oppertunities for travelers to earn some money in china working as surgeons - the locals trust a white fingers operating the scapel far more than yellow - no experience needed - easy to follow diagrams will be provided - apply to EK(English kwack) with recent foto for the official skin colour certification.

[Lobster]

OP: It's all in quotation marks. What is the source, please?

TM: "...I suggest getting a job as a correctional officer in a state prison."

I take it you speak from personal experience, and I say: Yes! Particularly one in which you can extort sex from the female prisoners by supplying them with drugs or threatening them with transfers away from their familes.

When Satan looks in the mirror, he sees an angel.

RED

[Malsol]

Lobster welcome back Jester.

[Roger]

Westerners who want to live abroad normally do so to escape the tedium of life that has become all too set, predictable and - boring!

Westerners enjoy the privilege of having a choice of continuing their relatively uneventful, undramatic, safe and secure existence - or to expatriate themselves for a while if not permanently.

I don't know if anyone comes to China to experience the culture of this country; why would it have to be as a salary-slave? Why not afford yourself the amenities of travelling according to your whims and your means?

I have done the latter, living out of my backpack in guestrooms for a long time; it's feasible and revealing. You see much more of the bright side of life in China.

This decided me to try my luck as an employee - not so much because I wanted to prolong my acculturation in China but because I was sufficiently adapted and still willing to accept hardships I never had to endure back home. Mind you - as a traveller I experienced my own share in adversities and in insecurity and lack of safety (think of hotel rooms and who apart from yourself has access to them at all times).

I am still here, and I still feel my life is more colourful than it was before - and that's due to the alien nature of the place that is now my home.

And as an alien place it doesn't offer me special incentives to stay here; that would be similar to attempting to bribe an FT into staying in China. I don't really see any justification for luring foreigners with world-level salaries.

It's not "culture", it's not the relatively high salaries that keep me going - it's just what I make out of my life here that is more appealing to me than what I could make out of my life in a western country.
I have the best of two worlds rolled into one package!

Those who absent themselves from their home country or town only temporarily, especially the young crowd, ought to do it only if they can afford tp come here. Afford to come and return without making any money here. The stay and make money part should be an option. Life is, after all, about giving and taking, serviing and getting rewarded.

Money as an incentive is a moral corruptor; it is a means to reward the honest, but it should not be used to tempt people.

[Lobster]

Thanks Mal! Nice to see you too!

RED

[william wallace]

nil

[Shan-Shan]

I like an add posted here which entices teachers to work for a pittance in an area that was once a powerhouse of the great Mao Ze Dong (who was only 30% wrong on all accounts, unlike us mortals who never get it right 99.9% of the time).

To think, I could teach on a swathe of land where Mao, and an adoring foreign reporter, once walked over sixty years ago. Really, I could see where this valiant western reporter, in seeking the guidance of the CCP, slipped through enemy lines, and found his way through the dark thanks to the throbbing red star ever overhead in his visions.

Hell, I'll use the pay I receive to erect a pillar, a beacon for all the big noses to come sniff the sweet fragrance of the birth of modern China. We all should make a pilgramage to this place, or to any place in the people's republic, to show respect, awe, and grace to a nation so eager to respond to their dead leaders' dreams of big limos and rockin' parties at zhongnanhai.

Then again, I will have to pay for my airplane ticket, as well as local transportatin costs, and any potential medical bills. Hmmm, perhaps I'll just fly over, skip the teaching and guided tours, and have that odd thing called "a vacation", you know, a non-working holiday! Yeah, no twerps to deal with, no begging for that 4,000RMB after three very long weeks. Wow, a stress free vacation.

Still, there will be no children to learn from me, no younger generation to teach and sing to, to coddle and assure that the future is indeed red, a mixture of rust and cola red.

A definite conundrum.

[Lobster]

Now I've found the ad! It also tells us this important information:

"it is illegal to wok in China without a Z or F visa "

So if you're here cooking on a tourist visa, you'd better watch out!

RED

[william wallace]

nil

[vikdk]

[kev7161]

Originally, I left the US to come to China because I had experienced some wonderful kids at a summer camp the year before. The four weeks flew by and I was sure I wanted that similar experience for a longer time. That longer time turned into 2 years, where I did have some pretty cool kids, but a lot of "un-cool" ones as well and a school were I was frustrated more often than not.

I didn't HAVE to stay in China at that time. Indeed, I was mentally ready to go on back home. Then I stumbled across an ad that was offering some decent pay in a different setting with something more akin (I hoped) to what I was looking for before. Now I enjoy my life a little better than before and want to give China ONE MORE YEAR (have I said that enough times?) before moving on. I've made a couple of close friends here, have saved money back home, live comfortably, and mostly enjoy my work. I can't say that about my life back home - - but I do miss home.

[foreignDevil]