Job Discussion Forums

[La Cucaracha]

I'm planning a move hopefully into one of the NET's. However, I was wondering why the board activity is so low compared to Korea (where I am now). It's probably one of two things:

--high job satisfaction rate, so people can't be bothered hanging out on the internet to complain about their host country

or

--there just aren't many teachers in Hong Kong, therefore less of a pool of people that tend to talk to each other about job stuff on the internet

which is it? I realize Hong Kong has perhaps 7 million people and Korea has 50 million. How many teachers would you say there are in Hong Kong? I believe there are 17,000 legal teachers in Korea.

Thanks!

[hkteach]

I've no idea how many teachers there are in Hong Kong (many thousands I guess, considering there are many international schools, language centres all over the place + those on the NET scheme).

But most of them have already gone on their Easter holdays - serious flu outbreak here - several young children have died and all primary schools, special schools, kindergartens, day care centres etc. were ordered to be closed last Wednesday (12th March) even though teachers are still on duty in many schools.
Many foreign teachers managed to change their flights and have already flown out of Hong Kong, so the numbers of teachers here has been greatly reduced.

Perhaps there won't be a lot of activity till after Easter ..... March 31st is official return date (although we have to wait and see what happens).

[dandan]

If you look through the posts you'll see that this board is dominated by two or three particularly vociferous nutters. Most teachers I know know about the forum but just check it occasionally for a bit of light entertainment value, it's not really possible to discuss anything sensibly on this forum. It can be mildly amusing sometimes though.

[La Cucaracha]

[articulate_ink]

I'm on my way to Hong Kong too and the difference between the Korea boards and this one is remarkable. While there's the occasional spat on here, it's nothing like the nastiness in the Korea forums. I was thinking the same as you: maybe people in HK actually have lives. I also suspect that there's less isolation there, and less of the overt glare-at-whitey crap you encounter here. There are days I don't want to leave my apartment if I don't have to, and I live fairly close to Seoul. I'm sure once I get there I'll have a more balanced view. Three more months!

[A'Moo]

The lack of activity is due to HK's persistence to try and be two things at once, while acheiving neither...
Hong Kong tries to be cosmopolitan, along the lines of London, Milan, Paris, NY, but lacks the sophistication, art, and clean facilities of those locales. People in HK don't read as much as Europeans, for one. They also don't have the same opinions on hygiene....
HK also, in futility, tries its best at showing chinese, but lacks China's small-time charm (which China itself is quickly losing), as well as very affordable cost of living...
HK is a place where certain expats make a LOT of money, while the teaching colony convinces itself, in vain, that they are making more money than they would be back home (I know 25+ teachers back home, all who save IN EXCESS of 30k+ US per annum, while living a very good, detatched-home lifestyle)....
HK is a boring place, with boring, somewhat unfriendly people, with a few redeeming qualities (the hiking around Lantau and Lamma islands is enjoyable, with very affordable accom's)....

[11:59]

A'moo, $30,000 US per annum is less than $20,000 HK a month. Even PNETs without qualifications or experience receive a monthly allowance � in addition to their salary � of some $13,000 HK a month, and many live off the allowance without ever touching their actual salary. Let me reiterate that this is for novice teachers on the EMB/EDB (old wine, new bottles) NET scheme. I don't know anyone in HK who does not save the amount you cite at the very least.

Moving upmarket somewhat (the various NET schemes are the second rung up from the bottom of the barrell, as it were), go to the ESF website of:

http://www.esf.edu.hk/index.aspx?nodeID=92&langNo=1

and note that the 12-point basic pay scale (excluding allowances and the 20% gratuity) ranges from a starting point of $338,160 to an upper maximum of $591,780 per year. That upper figure equates to about $76,000 US. I would like to see a teacher 'back home' earning that amount just for teaching a bit of English. Please note again that this is without allowances and gratuities.

If you want to see good 'detached-home lifestyle' then simply go into any village in the NTs, where you will see many a western teacher who has a detached three-storey home with a front and back garden. Or, alternatively, simply go over to Disco Bay, aka Discovery Bay (DB), aka ADDB (Attention Deficit Disorder Bay, on account of the behaviour of the western kids there). There you will see detached beach house teacher residences par excellence. Not everyone chooses to live in a shoebox in an overpriced gweilo filing cabinet in some pretentious area of HK Island.

I am interested in and intrigued (and somewhat puzzled) by your comments regarding hygiene in HK, or rather, lack thereof. I would agree, but as I understand it you are in Mainland China! Are you seriously suggesting that the mainland Chinese do have the 'same opinions' of hygiene as Europeans? Quite bizarre, really! Also how many teachers in Mainland China enjoy the detached-home lifestyle you obviously so admire? Not many I am willing to bet! Also, how many save $30,000 US a year? Again, not many I bet!

As regards the cost of living in HK, I have never been to a place where it is cheaper to live. Perhaps you are not aware, perhaps it is as you were only travelling through HK, but most if not all amenities, goods and services in HK are the same price as the Mainland, or, in many instances, are actually cheaper (and some are free, local telephone calls on landlines being but one example). Given that the average person in HK earns some 8 times more than the average Mainlander I find this quite incredible. Thus, in short, the cost of living in HK is cheaper than that on the Mainland both in relative terms and real terms.

[Horizontal Hero]

Even if you concede some truth to what you say, A'moo, it doesn't really tell us why there is not much activity here. Besides the obvious smaller population of HK, I think the main reason is that most teachers in HK are professionals, and professionals don't hang out on the internet all day wasting their time. They don't spend three hours a day ..ahem... "debating" Darwinism vs fundamentalism on a board where not a single person is bothering to listen to the others' points of view (the Korean forum being the obvious example). I have written about an average 1.3 posts per day on Dave's over a long period. I consider that excessive. I know one guy on another Chinese forum who has made just under 40 000 posts in the same time period (yes, forty thousand). And no surprise they are full of hate and anger, directed at foreigners).

Don't major in minors, as they say.

Also, many teachers in HK are 'older'. They are not kids. As you get older, you start to appreciate real life relationships, and appreciate that online forums can be pathological. You wouldn't waste your time arguing with a nutter on the street. Why waste it arguing with a nutter on the net?

And for the record, I don't agree with the poster above who said this HK board is dominated by nutters. It is a quiet, but reasonably useful board from which you can often get good info about teaching in HK.

[A'Moo]

I average 1 post per day, usually quite short, and go weeks without even looking here. HA, you must have misunderstood, I would NEVER insinuate that hygiene on the mainland comes anywhere NEAR that of HK...The same way I would never insinuate that hygiene in HK comes anywhere near to APPROACHING that in the UK, AUS, CDA etc...
As for things being cheaper in HK than China, that depends...Things the chinese buy EN MASSE (noodles, rice wine, soda, cigarettes) are FAR cheaper on the mainland. Accomodation too. If you are talking about HARD goods, its about the same. And these products are now the SAME cost in 1st world nations as they are in HK/China....

[The_Hanged_Man]

[Marcoregano]

[Henry_Cowell]

If they're saving US$30K per year and investing it wisely, why are they still toiling in the English-teaching trade?? There's something very wrong with that equation.