Job Discussion Forums

boxcarwilly · Joined: 23 Jan 2003 Posts: 85

Any suggestions for summer work in China where the employer pays for transportation. I have seen ads for summer work where the teacher pays for the airfare but nothing with transportation included.

kev7161 · Joined: 06 Feb 2004 Posts: 5880 Location: Suzhou, China

The thing is with summer jobs is that they are such short term. Your employer will generally pay you, feed you, and house you (and sometimes arrange for tourist-y things), but paying "X" amount of money for an international airfare (especially in the high dollar summer months) is not financially do-able. If you are planning on doing this, I'd advise you to find the highest paying job you could and book your ticket now. Or, plan on working two or even three summer programs back-to-back (if you can work out the dates). One program's salary may pay for your ticket and the other is your actual "pay".

Last year I knew I was coming to stay for a year so I came a bit early and worked a summer job. That salary alone paid for my plane ticket (and then some) and my current school is actually reimbursing me for my ticket!

Have you thought of doing a summer job then a six month contract somewhere (assuming you don't want to stay in China for too long)??

woza17 · Joined: 25 May 2003 Posts: 602 Location: china

For the last 2 years I have worked in the summer camps arranged by our company but this year I would like to work in another province for the summer, just for a change. Maybe there are other teachers out there who may want to do an exchange teacher thing. I am in Dongguan, Guangdong province. If anyone is interested please PM me.
Cheers Carol

MyTurnNow · Joined: 19 Mar 2003 Posts: 860 Location: Outer Shanghai

Beware of short-term work!
You're going to find than precious few of these Summer (or Winter) camps/intensives/etc. will offer you a Z Visa and Residence Permit. YOU ARE AN ILLEGAL MIGRANT WORKER IN AN AUTHORITARIAN SOCIALIST COUNTRY in these circumstances! This arrangement is highly profitable for the schools but places you at a small but very real personal risk.

Note that the schools will tell you this isn't a problem. They're lying to you. Check the laws yourself!

MT

noodles · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 67

Just to follow up on what MTN said.
My first trip to China was working at a summer camp. About 15 teachers from the uk all came over on F visas as the employer suggested, with lots of assurances this was ok. On the 3rd week of the camp the school got raided by about 50 local police.
What followed was quite shocking, basically a big brawl broke out between the "principal" and the police, in front of all the students, they finally got him under control and chucked him into the back of the wagon. They then gathered all the teachers together for questioning, informed us we were all working illegally and sent us back to our hotel, telling us they would speak to us all again soon and that we could be in big trouble.
So as you can imagine this was a little bit worrying to all us first timers in a big bad communist country.
Later that evening the "principal" was back at the hotel, with a nice black eye and a few bruises. The local chief of police was with him, with a nice new telephone and big fat wallet, telling us that everything was ok and we should all go back to work the next day. The "principal" had basically bribed his way out of trouble.
The teachers all decided we were not going back, who knows who would have come down next to collect their payment. Fortunatly this was the last week of the camp so we went in the next day to tell the students camp was finishing early and that their parents should come to collect them.

So although this kind of worked out ok in the end, and has just become another of my China stories, it shows you the kind of thing that can go wrong at these summer camps. I'm sure some of the other teachers were scared for life by this.

So BEWARE!!!!!

Having said that, it was one of the best experiences of my life and prompted me to go back home, quit my job and move out here for the long haul.

lagerlout2006 · Joined: 17 Sep 2003 Posts: 985

Noodles Yes the same in Korea Taiwan and maybe everywhere...Temporary camps are a big fAT easy target for Immigration authorities. Shooting fish in a barrel. Everyone knows where they are and what are the chances they are totally on the up and up.??? So the authorities either collect a "fine" or get to arrest illegal aliens which looks good in the papers. Win-win...Of course they are not all illegal...Some do things correctly.

woza17 · Joined: 25 May 2003 Posts: 602 Location: china

My company has a partnership with the government, so no problem, but point taken and I think I will take up the offer of a road trip to Hubei instead and cruise around visiting all the places I had no time to visit before.
Good advice

taobenli · Joined: 11 Feb 2004 Posts: 17

What about U.S-China Education Services? (advertised on Chronicle of Higher Education website) I'm currently teaching ESL as an assistant in a U.S. public school and was on the JET Program in rural Japan last year. I was in Beijing for six months on a study abroad program in 2000 and have been back to China twice since. I speak Mandarin and am currently waiting to hear back from grad schools to see if I got into China-related programs for next fall. My contract at my current job ends on June 11th and many of the schools I applied to don't start till September. U.S. Educational Exchange advertises that they sometimes have 3-month positions available- but would these be in the summer?

I really want to go somewhere to improve my language skills for the sumemr before grad school, either China or Taiwan, ideally. I don't care about not making a profit, but would rather not shell out too much money (as working in public schools in the U.S. is not lucrative).....

Any other good ideas for international things to do in the summer months? Something in Japan or Korea would also be great.....

Thanks for any advice!