Job Discussion Forums

[btkong]

I'm moving from Vancouver, Canada to Taiwan at the end of this month and will be there (Taiwan) until the end of August for a two months to attend a Mandarin immersion summer program (I've been studying mandarin for a year and a half at University) at a kaoshung university.

I intend, after finishing with my mandarin summer school in Taiwan, to move to Shanghai and teach English, anywhere from 4 months to a year.

The real goal of my trip is to study mandarin and put together an extensive landscape picture portfolio. I'm an avid amateur photographer.

I especially want to spend about a month or two traveling through Western Sichuan (juizhaigou, songpan, daochen, yading, etc), Yunnan (Lijiang, tiger leaping gorge, shilin, etc) and Tibet. I know the quake has devastated parts of Sichuan, so I'll have to see if Sichuan is accessible in a few months.

I've been to China three times last year, each trip for about a week or two, so I know what to expect lifestyle wise.

My questions:

Can I land a teaching job in China in September or late October? I know August is when most people start teaching jobs, but I will be in Taiwan until early September. October has the fall colors which I want to photograph (especially in Juizhaigou) so I plan to at least spend a week or two traveling though Sichuan, which makes it hard to work during this time!

I hope to bring around 5 or 6 thousand US dollars with me to china. I'm pretty sure this is not enough to live a year in Shanghai without working, but it should be enough to supplement the meager income I make as an English teacher. At the very least, I hope the money allows me the freedom to do an extensive tour of china? Perhaps I can do private tutoring if I work part time at a university. I want as much free time as possible so I think I have to work for a university...maybe 10 teaching hours a week? There is also the possibility of working for international software game developers in Shanghai, but I'm not going to count on it for sure, so I'm planning the English teaching route for now.

What would my pay be like with these low hours at a university?

Is 6k USD + part time job teaching in a university enough to last me for 6-10 months in China?

Should I just go ahead and get a tourist visa for China for a couple months from September onward and after my taiwan program finishes, head to China around Septmeber and try to land a job there? Or should I try and line a job up for September in Shanghai while still in Canada?

October, I really want to be travelling trying to catch the fall colors. Is it possible to get time off from teaching to accomplish this (is I did indeed land a job). Or should I perhaps live in Shanghai for a couple months, the see if I can land a teaching job after October? Basically, should I travel for the first few months then try to land a job, or is it possible to juggle teaching, studying mandarin & traveling?

I have two degrees from University and two diploma's/associate degrees from college (Been going to school for 8 years ;p). I don't have TESL certificate nor am I going to bother.

From University: Bachelor of Arts Degree, major English, minor in Journalism; Bachelor of Science Degree, major Computer Science, minor Linguisics

From college: Diploma of Computer Science, Associate of Art degree

Thanks so much!

[Mei Sheng]

You may want to reconsider not getting a TEFL/TESOL certificate. It seems to me that schools around China are requiring certification, especially in Shanghai.

I recommend taking an online TEFL certificate course, such as i-to-i or Bridge Linguatec.

Considering that you want to travel in Sichuan and Yunnan, I suggest that you find a job there and ask for classes all day, M,T W and possibly Thursday morning.

Good Luck!

[arioch36]

OP

[GeminiTiger]

juizhaigou is one of the most beautiful palces on earth and worthy of
your goals to reach it, i was there in spring and it's fantastic.

eh.. something more useful.. advice..

the visa situation in china right now is a nightmare especially for new people. in order to get a teaching/work visa you need to be at a school, not taking pictures, it's trouble for you, but it's the reality.

if you want to save money don't teach in shanghai, find a university job outside of one of the international cities.. outside of those cities $6k is ample to live a whole year on, but not travel extensively. whatever job you do is likely to cover your living expenses. also you will find teaching a public school is much relaxed than a private training school.

if your serious about learning Chinese i would think you should do a whole school year here, your visa would expire a year later giving you about 3 months of free time at the end of your duties to travel before going home.

don't come into china expecting a visa change or extension. either come a s a tourist or come with proper documents to be working here in advance.

it is quite possible to find a position any time of the year here. the quality of that position is going to be due to your luck.

good luck.

(no i don't want to do capitalization today)

[mcl sonya]

I think $6k is enough to travel on in areas like Sichuan and Yunnan for half a year, you can definitely make that stretch and you don't need to teach to survive. Don't know how easy it would be to juggle a lot of traveling with teaching. Traveling can be done very cheaply, on less than $10 a day before the cost of transportation. The smaller the areas you go to, the more opportunities you will have to practice Chinese and the better it will get. In rural areas you will speak ONLY Chinese all day long I imagine. I think traveling for half a year on your savings will help you meet your goals better than living in Shanghai teaching English for a year.

[arioch36]

MCL

[btkong]

thanks for the advice guys. Yes, I guess it really doesn't make sense to be an English teacher if I really want to do extensive traveling. I want to spend a good month and a half to two months going through sichuan and yunnan and tibet and maybe another month hitting up innner mongolia and other remote provinces of China. I do also want a good week in Yangshuo as well.

My goal is also to improve my mandarin (I can pretty much say what I want to say in basic terms, but it's not really at the conversational level yet and understanding mandarin is really tough...i only know about 900 words/characters...).

I guess traveling across Yunnan and Sichuan will really give me lots of mandarin practice so no know will speak English. It will probably help me learn mandarin more effectively then if I was teaching English all day then studying mandarin at night...

I'll spend 2-3 months traveling china instead of living in shanghai for a year. Thanks

[mgafunnell]

bring deodarent. it isn't sold here.

[kev7161]

Actually, not quite true. Nivea has a nice roll-on now that smells good but not "pretty" (it's for men and I'm sure they have a woman's version). I think Watson's has something similar under their own brand as well. The Nivea is not too expensive but I still have a boatload of AP/Deo from a care package last Christmas.

In the same vein: Gillette sells some EXPENSIVE shaving cream/gel stuff - - easily 2-3X what you'd pay in the states. Now they have a new shaving gel/moisturizer in a tube that's around 23 rmb. Still pricey compared to the one dollar Barbasol I get back home, but not quite out of the stratosphere like their canned products.

[7969]

[nickpellatt]

$6000 US should go a hell of a long way in China...and would a been enough for me to live on for 6 months I think!

My math is terrible, and I dont really know US exchange rates exactly...but doesnt that work out at around 8000 yuan per month over 6 months?

I was earning a lot less than that...and lived a pretty peachy life, and was still saving money each month. Perhaps Hainan is much cheaper than the mainland, but I have friends living in places that cost 400 yuan a month that are more than acceptable to me...

If you picked up a little tutoring work, I would say you could manage easily.

I would also suggest, that if you are going to move around, but perhaps stay in one place for at least a month at a time...you might be able to offer to do some volunteer work in schools, perhaps in exchange for nothing more than a bed/dorm room.....this would cut your overheads, require less commitment than a real teaching job does....just an idea

[d moon]

Why do people still make out that you can't get toiletries here? Mine is hardly an intenational city but Sephora is ten minutes by foot from my home and you can buy anything there you could buy in a Sephora in Paris or New York. C'mon!

If it was only as simple to get an F-visa now as a bottle of Dior aftershave.

Kind of a complete reversal from 5 years ago when the visa was easy the aftershave not

[melilly]

[melilly]

I meant "ditto" of course, not diddo, I'm such a dodo!

[Super Frank]

This teacher / traveller discussion just goes on and on doesn't it.

Teachers working for cheap labour is market forces at work and moaning about it is pointless.

However you should take your teaching seriously, you will be paid more than double what local people are earning for a lot less work and the students are spending a lot of money to be at your school so you owe it to them to not just piss it away.

Life experience doesn't mean there is no right or wrong way to do things. You have a responsibility to other people, if you don't take your job seriously then other people may have to cover you if you are late or sick due to you putting your own interests first.

I'm one of the chancer teachers here, no degree, used to drive a van back home but doing your job properly is a basic coz that's what your paid for. In two years I've almost doubled my wages just by being reliable and everyone thinks I'm a gentleman coz I wear a shirt

Yeah travel and teach a bit, that's fine just...oh...yawn...whatever