Job Discussion Forums

Irish Blood English Heart · Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2004 12:42 am Post subject: Huaibei Coal Industry Teachers

Just been offered a position (yep already) at Huaibei Coal Industry Teachers College. Which is apparently a public university in Huaibei in Anhui provence. Has anyone heard of it or got any thoughts on it? The position is apprently 14-16 hours a week of teaching conversation, literature, listening, culture, reading and linguistics. Im assuming these are older children if its a university? The Salary is 3300 RMB a month, theres a 2000 RMB travel allowance, all the usual benefit though they definitey state a PC in my apartment. So what dya think people?

Dragon Lover · Joined: 14 Mar 2004 Posts: 64

Anhui is a very poor province. I don't know about the school but the offer seems pretty low. Don't settle for a salary below 4,000 RMB plus the usual benefits. Keep on looking.

Irish Blood English Heart · Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2004 10:15 am Post subject:

cheers was reading a good webblog from someone at the very school too http://www.sinosplice.com/~laowaimono/2004_03_01_archive.html and it hardly paints a pretty picture so i'll eep on looking definitely.

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

Accept this job - it sounds interesting: teaching Literature and other intellectual stuff is more challenging (I hope, it is going to be more inspiring) than the usual "oral" treatment.
The pay is average, not bad but not super-high. Anyway, you won't need much to live a good life there.
Good luck,
Roger
PS: I don't know Huaibei - at first I thought it was a misspeller for Huaihai in Hunan province, which is off limits for foreigners...

Irish Blood English Heart · Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2004 12:13 pm Post subject:

Roger its a small city (about a million people) in Northern Anhui, apparently its a real industrial sh*thole, coal mining seems to be all that goes on there (hence the colleges name i guess)! All I could find out from the place was that guys webblog (god i have never heard anyone so miserable in my life) and loads of news stories about how there was a big explosion in a coal mine there last year killing 70 odd people!

So doesnt sound too enticing from that I must say.

On this chinese forum i frequent someone told me it was an even worse place to live than Taiyuan!! and that I should avoid it like the plague.

Which is a real shame as like you said teaching university students proper subjects rather than just the same old bullsh*t sounds enticing. I'll see what other offers come up but I might come back to this one.

nolefan · Joined: 14 Jan 2004 Posts: 1458 Location: on the run

Hi,

As far as salary goes, 3000 is within the ballpark. I have seen universities offer 2500 to some blokes and they took it. If saving money is not an issue, then anything above 2500 should do.

I just read over the other bloke's weblog and I for once did not find it depressing. I think that gentleman is just trying to give a real account of what is going on in his area.....nothing more, nothing less.

If you are coming to China to learn about the culture and don't care much about finding cheese, coffee, and whatever else you are used to, then you should be fine. If you feel that you need to know other foreigners in your town and that you still want Mc D, KFC, and pizza then you might want to be in a different town.

Irish Blood English Heart · Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2004 12:56 pm Post subject:

Im not bothered about western things such as McD's, KFC's etc or even other foreigners. Infact i've read a few blogs from people that went to small agricultural cities where they were the 1st foreign people ever there and that really appeals, as does the idea of working in a nice big city like Chengdu or Kunming. The idea of being stuck in an industrial wasteland with coal slag heaps in ever direction i look and big thick acrid smoke in the air doesnt fufil my romantic ideals of either china country or china city though. Its the same as if I was choosing where to live in the UK. Here i'd live in a big lively metropolis like Manchester, Glasgow or Leeds, or else in a nice small country town like Ludlow, Oswestry, Alnwick etc but I wouldnt want to live in a down at the heel industrial town with poverty everywhere you look and no jobs for the locals (even if i had one), such as Blyth or Corby or Motherwell. Its just generally these places have a certain feel to them which sends shivers through me.

Im sorry if that makes me sound idiotic but I live amongst endless industry and narrow minded people here in Northumberland, dont really fancy moving 12000km to find the same you know?

Aside from the town, the job sounds OK and im not too woried about pay. The way the exchange rate is at the the moment thats just over 200uk pounds a month, not enough for anything here but enough to get by in china certainly. Theres no hope of me doing any saving though in China as with such an exchange rate, even in a high paid job where I saved half my wages (say rmb3000 a month savings) thats only 2400 pounds at the end of the year. Which could be blown in a few weeks in england with our prices, easily!

ilunga · Joined: 17 Oct 2003 Posts: 842 Location: China

'such as Blyth or Corby or Motherwell. Its just generally these places have a certain feel to them which sends shivers through me. '

Danny, you could have said Middlesbrough, I wouldn't have been offended Smile

I find it funny when the locals say to me 'oh you're from England, very beautiful'. Nothing could be further from the truth. I'm in Luoyang, which isn't one of the nicer cities in China but despite some of the poverty and pollution, it's still much nicer than smogland (as those lovely geordies like to call it).
I notice you're looking at that job in Anhui. It doesn't look great to me. Not because Anhui is a poor province (Henan is too but I like it here), but because in a town of only two foreigners you would feel pretty lonely and isolated.
I'm lucky enough to have a western bar here which is a great meeting place for foreigners. It's pretty cool to have somewhere you can go by yourself and hang out, play some pool, just have a drink, without feeling like a circus freak.
I've also been lucky enough to have made two good Chinese friends who are pretty well connected as well Smile

Some locals will only want to talk to you as a way of improving their English (do you like chinese food? yawn can you use chopsticks? yawn yawn) so be wary of giving your home number out to people like that, they'll be ringing you at 8:00 on a sunday morning when you're nursing a stinking hangover Sad

I'm lucky that these two guys aren't like that and I can talk to them like I would with my best mate back home. THey're also great at helping me find girls and ease the communication problem if I meet one who doesn't speak much English. One of them actually said once 'I've got 2 jobs, one is with my trade company, the other is helping you find girlfriends' Very Happy

If you're coming to China with a grand that'll last you ages! In my first three weeks I spent the equivalent of 20 quid. That was before I got a social life, now I spend that in a night Sad

You can live really cheaply though, big bottle of local beer for 2 yuan, delicious street food for 1-2 yuan, big bowl of noodles for 3 yuan. I try to live like this sometimes but then end up blowing a load on foreign beers and taxis, so saving money is impossible. Also I've started seeing a girl who works in a bar over the other side of the city so that gets pricey, 40 yuan a night for taxis plus beer costs.
I'm gonna be struggling to be able to make it back to sunny Middlesbrough in the summer. Not sure my folks will be impressed if I stay on another year without going back for a few weeks.

Gonzo · Joined: 08 Mar 2004 Posts: 80

Im sorry if that makes me sound idiotic but I live amongst endless industry and narrow minded people here in Northumberland, dont really fancy moving 12000km to find the same you know?

Well, sorry, but that's what you WILL find here most of the time. It's not just China, its people. But there's enough here to compensate. I'm in a popular city on a good salary, but the students are drones and trying to teach them is depressing. You might live in a dump, but could well find the job rewarding. Don't worry about a few hundred more a month somewhere else.

Irish Blood English Heart · Posted: Mon Mar 29, 2004 10:34 am Post subject:

Yeah Ilunga its totally true when you say you're from England people have romantic visions of Church spires, undulating fields, morris dancers, the village pub. Fact is it couldnt be further from the truth. Britain is an expensive, over crowded, industrial, ugly armpit of Europe. Sure it has some great cities (Manchester, York, Cambridge, Edinburgh, even London et al) but it has far more cr*p ones (Doncaster, Your home city, my home city).

Its not just a world thing though. In Britain people used to always smile and tell me how great Newcastle's nightlife was, and the local people etc etc and how it was the best city in the World. I just want to scream "No it isnt", thousands of fat drones with skin heads, rockport shoes, black pants and checked shirts dancing to shitty cheesy music, drinking vodka redbull and trying to pull some fat passed out slapper who seems to be wearing 2 tiny bits of fabric is not my idea of a great city!! I hate this place i really do. Compared to the convience and culture of Manchester its a dump. What I really need to do is get out of Britain altogether, see a totally different way of life from the "geordie nation". Its too expensive to do that in Britain (this must be the most expensive country on earth), so the other side of the world it is for me!!!

P.S. Ilunga Boro might be a dump but at least the people ive met from there all seem to be modest about it, self deprciating about their city and friendly, and game for a laugh etc etc. People where I live truly believe that Newcastle upon Tyne is the centre of the modern universe and that anywhere else is just plain sh*t when quite the oppisite is true in my experience!

As for Anhui yeah I think i'll give it a miss. Im hoping to be south of the Yangzi to be honest.

ilunga · Joined: 17 Oct 2003 Posts: 842 Location: China

"No it isnt", thousands of fat drones with skin heads, rockport shoes, black pants and checked shirts dancing to *beep* cheesy music, drinking vodka redbull and trying to pull some fat passed out slapper who seems to be wearing 2 tiny bits of fabric is not my idea of a great city!!

I couldn't have said it any better myself! The clothing thing in particular pisses me off. I once got dragged to Zanzibar (what a dump) and was overjoyed to get turned away because I dared to wear jeans and shoes which happened not to be black.

There's a few nice places in England but on the whole it's one big dump! You've only gotta cross the channel and spend a few days in cities like Paris, Barcelona or Berlin to realise it. Problem is your average British tourist only travels to the likes of Benidorm and Tenerife every summer to get the same culture with ten degrees an extra 10 degrees heat.
England is so boring. Pretty much every town nowadays is exactly the same! Compare China (when you get here) and the huge diversity between different provinces. The people, the food...
I really can't see myself living in the U.K. again in the next ten years.

I bet you're counting the days till you arrive. I know I was.

whitjohn · Joined: 27 Feb 2003 Posts: 124

A huge thanks for posting Hank's weblog. He has a marvelous view of China and what it's like being here. If you really want to "make a difference" go to this school and rub shoulders with a real man who has heart! So it's a poor area...who needs good dedicated teachers more than them? I'll bet you would find the students woundefully interesting as well. Much better in my opinion than babysitting spoiled brats in some Shanghai middle school.

Gonzo · Joined: 08 Mar 2004 Posts: 80

Have to agree with whitjohn. If money's not an issue, teaching in a smaller city away from the coast is the way to go, especially if teaching satisfaction is your main aim.

ilunga · Joined: 17 Oct 2003 Posts: 842 Location: China

Don't do it Danny. For a young guy looking for a fun first-time experience in China, this isn't the place for you. It could scar you for life!
Not just Hank's account but if you read the comments, the other foreign teacher in that city is too scared to even leave her apartment to buy cigarettes.
Why do you think they've offered you a position already?
Keep looking mate. I can't imagine these two guys would really enjoy teaching there themselves.

Tao Burp · Joined: 30 Apr 2003 Posts: 118 Location: CHINA

(Cough) I think Ilunga's advice should be well heeded. If you're young, and you want a nightlife without being a circus act, look somewhere else. Although I have to admire the writer of that weblog, he writes too close to home. Maybe his teaching is rewarding, but dealing with the everyday life there can be quite a demand on your patience and tolerance. I speak from experience and from my own scarred psyche.