Job Discussion Forums

[AQUA MARINA]

Hi everyone,

My boyfriend and I are very interested and keen towards teaching English in China. We are torn on which city to go to first and would like our experience to be enjoyable by makeing the right choice.

We were looking for advise on the pros and cons of where to going first.
We are looking to move to fairly metropoliton city with subway access
and love beaches, forests and a city that has a cultural vibe. We were hopeing if anyone could shed some insights on Shanghai, Beijing ,Hong Kong, Taiwan.

Also we learnt recently that those major cities have more pollution and
refoucsed our sights on Chengdu the captial of Sizchuan. It's supposedly
the one of most beautiful places in China and offers the best of both worlds. Home of the Pandas!! yaYY!

How is the health/dental care and are taxes high?

We are both highly motivated, positive, friendly and relaible people. We both enjoy working with kids and am open to new experiences. We both have our TESOL Diploma and have experience working with kids.

However, a concern we have is would it be a problem to apply for a working permit if we do not have a college degree?


Looking forward to hearing from your travels soon


Marina

[Songbird]

If you look carefully at the top, there is a button. It says SEARCH. If you use it you will find lots of answers about the degree, basically what it says is....

DON'T come here if you DON'T have a degree and steal our jobs!!!!!!!!!! We worked our a$$ off to try and be professional teachers! In fact, I'm now going further and getting a Masters next year WHILE teaching here!

We are asked this question all the time here and get tired of saying the same things over and over and over....sorry if I sound rude.....

And no degree means No Beijing, Shanghai etc.....even with what I have, I'm out in the backwaters of Shaanxi! I hope to earn my 'strips' to work in a city in a few years time....

[7969]

marina, not having a degree doesnt mean the individual concerned is not going to be a good teacher. there are good teachers with degrees and good teachers without. no degree just means your options may be a bit more limited, thats all. and if you dont have a degree and you come here, you wont be stealing anyones job, there are plenty of jobs to go around in china.

in china, some "beautiful" cities are dalian, qingdao, xiamen. in taiwan, kaohsiung is a nice place.

btw, i recommended someone use the search function yesterday, and it doesnt work that well i found out. but its worth looking through the last few pages of threads on the site, both china job related and china off topic, and the taiwan thread if you want more information.

[tofuman]

AM,

A word of caution, as well as some advice. Optimistic, friendly people are the type loved by devious and conniving individuals in China who see Westerners as potential victims to be exploited, taken advantage of and deceived in various ways.

If you do not have a degree, you will be all the more vulnerable to the exact types of people here you want to avoid like a plague. The reason is that the better schools are more particular as to who they want working in their school. Some have contracts with companies that provide them with degreed and experienced individuals only.

The difference between the students in the better schools and the "losers" is remarkable. Do you want job satisfaction and a a sense of accomplishment or frustration and disappointment at the end of the day?

Some places in China appear extremely conservative while being quite hypocritical regarding marriage and family issues. The president of a school may have a different student on his desk each week, but you will be excoriated or shunned for having a "boyfriend."

Finish your degree, get married, and then come to China.

[jammish]

If they are coming as a western couple, the school won't be able to care less whether they are married or not - it's highly unlikely that they will check. If you say you are married, they will accept that you are married.

As to places that fit your bill, there are only a few: Dalian, Qingdao, Xiamen... It's harder to get decent jobs in these cities than other places...

[Gregor]

You will have to do some triage here, AM.
First, you and your boyfriend will have to decide what is more important to you - the beautiful atmosphere and so on, or a low-stress job.
Now, if you decide to pick your location, and THEN worry about the job, I'd suggest waiting around and looking at job boards until a job in that city comes up, and try to get that. One half-way decent job will support the two of you until the other can find work, but that will, I guarentee, be VERY stressful on the relationship. Or maybe you'll get lucky and have multiple openings at one time. That happens. But in any case, if you pick the place (or narrow it down to a list of places), you really should wait until you find an opening there. And you will, eventually. There are TONS of jobs all over China.

Or you can do what I did when I first became a teacher.
No, strike that, I STILL do this. Pick a country and just get a job ANYWHERE. My attitude about going to a new country is, what the &^$% do I know?? I have no idea. I got a job offer in Oaxaca, Mexico once and said, "Yeah, OK." I didn't care, and since I was so laid back about the whole thing (seriously - I do not care. I want enough money to pay for my life, and that's it), almost nothing short of not getting paid could POSSIBLY have gone wrong.
Did that again in Lebanon, then Indonesia, and then in China. Hell, I didn't even WANT to go to China when I first went. I was offered a job with good benefits, I was at loose ends, and there you go. And it worked out GREAT.
Mind you, I have almost NO sense of aesthetics.
The point is, you need to decide how to approach this first, and the most difficult is deciding to live in Paradise and then looking for work there. Because if it IS paradise, there will be a lot of English teachers who agree with you.

If you are going to China, you need to pick a city big enough to have an ESL market, and a city that big will be polluted. Count on it. How sensitive ARE y'all to pollution?
Look at the international jobs on Dave's. There WAS a gig in Benxi, which is pretty small, and pretty in a very plain way (famous for the Benxi Caves; very much worth checking out). Maybe that would be a good place.

[Steppenwolf]

Taiwan is separate; Hong Kong is out of question for you with no degree; in China proper you can always try and hope but I doubt you can always be choosy.
"Beautiful" places? I didn't know there are "beautiful cities" here - but there are some more interesting ones than others. Yes, Qingdao, Dalian and Xiamen, also CHengdu, Kunming, Suzhou, Hangzhou. Many tend to be overrun, though.

[tw]

OP, you can pretty well forget about Dalian since a degree is now ABSOLUTELY required in the province of Liaoning.

[Gregor]

[AQUA MARINA]

Matt will be going down before me. We are both similar that we do as much research on a country as possible and compare it with people who are already over there. So far, Chengdu is looking pretty good. There are schools we have our eye on and he's already applied. I think it's important to go somewhere where you'll be happy.

I'm tired of the rat race and want a laid back atmospehere and enjoy life a bit. I've been reading most jobs on the mainland pay between
3,500-6000RMB and the average local makes less that 1000-1500 RMB per month. Since most schools offers accomadation, that's already savings right there.

As a rule, is it safer to teach for public government related schools?

[jammish]

The quotes about what average locals made are often misleading. For one, they are locals, and hence don't need to put savings aside for when they return to a vastly more expensive western country.

For another, they tend to get plenty of bonuses on top of their usual salary. This is certainly true of the Chinese teachers at most schools.

For another, they are allowed to have groups of 5-10 students to their flats, where each student will pay 50-100 RMB per hour. Over a few hours they can substantially increase their monthly income in this way. The FTs are not allowed to do this.

The Chinese teachers also get contributions made to a health insurance/pension scheme. They also have total job security, usually.

Don't be taken in by all this 'they earn 1000 RMB a month' crap. It's misleading BS designed to make FTs think they are onto a really good deal.

Not saying we have it badly. I think we generally have it quite good. Just don't take things at face value when it comes to the Chinese.

IF they were all earning 1000 RMB a month, I fail to see how places like Pizza Hut could be constantly packed.

[adamsmith]

I would have to agree with Jammish here for sure. One teacher I knew (chinese) who was teaching at a uni was making a base salary of 3500 rmb a month. The school also paid her to write essays for the students for which she made an additional 4000 per month. On top of that she recieved many other bonuses etc so she was able to live a pretty decent life. It seems that many people follow this line that we are making much more than the locals but I have yet to meet a chinese teacher who puts in near as many teaching hours as the FTs at the schools I have worked at. They always seem to make sure they get the full contracted hours from us so we can earn our super salary.
While many of the locals do earn sqat, such as waitresses etc, these jobs are generally low skill jobs. Teachers are not a low skilled job and should be treated accordingly.

In regards to the OPs posts, she asked about MAC and Chanel. Most larger upscale shopping areas in China all have a floor of cosmetic counters on the main floor - you can't miss them. I have seen both of the brands that you ask about here. The problm is you will pay through the nose for anything from these counters. My girlfriend took me shopping there once and she picked up 3 little things of creams and a lip gloss - the bill came to over 700 RMB. A good portion of your salary if you are only making 4000 RMB a month.

[chengdude]

[7969]

yeah agree about chengdu. i was there this summer and its only real attraction, other than the panda breeding centre (which was a bit of a letdown really, the pandas are really hard to photograph and i went there three times trying to get good shots) is its proximity to other more attractive places in china. for that, chengdu is hard to beat. oh they also have one of the best western restaurants in china, forget the name of the place, but they served american style chili dogs, hot dogs, hamburgers, and a whole menu full of other nice dishes. all the staff spoke good english, the prices were very reasonable, and the food delicious.

[chengdude]