Job Discussion Forums

[Marcoregano]

Generally agree with the above about TEFLers being out to have a good time. The only western group which IMO goes against this trend seems to be Canadians - I have met many who seemed to be, how to put it, very careful - a little too careful - with their money. Of course, I'm not saying that all Canadians are tight with their money, but quite a few seem to be, for some reason or another.

[Jason Goren]

'Marcoregano', were these tight-fisted Canadians 'Canadian Born Chinese/Cantonese' by any chance? (Boy, do I hate terms like 'CBC', 'ABC', and 'BBC'! Imagine if an Australian referred to themselves as 'ABC' to mean 'Australian Born Caucasian'! That would certainly raise a few eyebrows, wouldn't it!)

[Marcoregano]

No, I'm talking about a good proportion of caucasian Canadians I've come across down the years.

[mgs2]

Excellent topic and some very informative postings. I'd like to extend on the theme of teacher salary when compared to the cost of living of the city.

For example I am in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and here I'm earning, like most other teachers, USD15/hour. Most teachers here work a 20-30 hour week. This income goes very far in Ho Chi Minh City which has a very low cost of living. For example, delicious, healthy street food, such as noodle soup can be purchased for US$1. To present another example, my guesthouse costs USD$220 per monht.

What are the hourly earning of other majors cities, and how do they compare to the cost of living in that city?

[Cohen]

The problem with that is that, even if you wanted to, one cannot live for all too long on noodles in soup three times a day. It might well be okay for the teenage backpacker on their once-in-a-lifetime tour of SE Asia, but it won't nourish and fuel an adult in full-time employment for very long, especially not a teacher. And if you have children you can't expect them to live on such a diet.

Anyway, not many people here will tell you their 'hourly' rate, as not many here do work by the hour (most here have monthly salaries). In a teaching job the actual teaching element (i.e., student contact time) is but a small part of the overall post, so it's far from a simple task to calculate one's 'hourly' pay.

I have done bits and pieces of hourly-paid private work over the years in addition to my main job, and normally charge HK$450 an hour, and the lowest I have ever charged is HK$300. Many people I know won't work for less than HK$500, though I've met some who do bits and bobs at training centres for just HK$250 or even HK$200 (though these people don't have many qualifications or much experience).

The question about cost of living is simply unanswerable anywhere in the world, though arguably especially in HK. There are lifestyles available here that would rapidly bankrupt an Arab prince/oil baron, whilst at the other end of the scale/social spectrum some (street cleaners) only earn HK$3,600 a month. For what it is worth the current median monthly income in the SAR of HK is but HK$16,000, so, contrary to popular opinion it is not a rich city and most (local) people are certainly not affluent. I once had a female undergraduate student who spent her evenings traipsing around the streets of Sham Shui Po seeking discarded tin cans and pieces of cardboard in an attempt to scrape together HK$5 in order to get another catty of vegetables so as to contribute to her family's meal the next day (at first I naively thought she was doing her bit for the environment). Meanwhile others send two, or sometimes even three or four, kids to international schools which can charge anything up to HK$15,000 per month per child. As noted succinctly, and dryly, by Hemlock in his 'We deserve better: Hong Kong since 1997' (follow my link below), "the Rolls-Royce passing a street sleeper is a sort of local icon" (p.65).

Indeed, the gap between rich and poor in HK is the greatest in all of Asia, and is actually reminiscent of a corrupt tin pot dictatorship in central Africa. The UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) recently released a report which showed HK to have a Gini coefficient (an indicator of income inequality, where 0 means that income is perfectly distributed and 1 means that a single individual has all the income) of 0.53, which they note is the highest (i.e., worst) in the entire region.

People tell me it is possible to live on less, but I would say one needs at least HK$20,000 a month to live in HK as a (western) foreigner, though with that sort of income it might not be worth it. You can, nowadays, nearly earn as much next door in Shenzhen and of course the cost of living is vastly lower there.

[mgs2]

Thank you very much for your response. When I convert the figures you provided to USD it sounds like you do earn a great deal more in HK than in Vietnam. In Vietnam very very few people earn over USD$20 per hour, it seems that in HK if you converted monthly salaries to hour wages that everyone would earn above US$20 an hour?

Are jobs easily available in HK. For example in Vietnam, part time work, where you are paid per hour, is very easy. You don't need any permits or work visas, all you really need is a TESOL, you don't need any experience, and you can start right away. In HK can you find part time work this easily?

To compare cost of living, pleasent street food, such as beef noodle soup and pork and rice can easily be bought for US$1. And this is nice pleasent food, you can find plenty of variety in street food. Can you buy plenty of inexpensive meals in HK?

[Marcoregano]

Street food is crap in HK unfortunately (and surprisingly). You can eat relatively cheaply in cafes and sandwich shops, but certainly not as cheaply as in Vietnam. But for choice of food HK beats most places.

I'd say that private language school jobs are reasonably easy to come by in HK, but they don't pay very well - perhaps 15-20K (HK dollars) per month. IMO you won't have a great standard of living in HK on that sort of money, though you could certainly survive OK - as Cohen points out, the average takehome salary is around 15K. But of course, living here is cheaper for the locals!

[mgs2]

Yes I know exactly what you mean when you refer to the fact you can get by on a certain salary, but it really isn't a pleasant existance, that type of situation is highly undesirable.

It seems to be that the job market is much tougher in HK than in Vietnam, obviously HK is a much more developed country and therefore they have a better education system that requires more experienced and qualified teachers.

What advantages does HK have over China? As some people have mentioned it sounds like you can get the same salary in China, but your income has much greater purchase power?

[Cohen]

What I said was that entry level teachers (or, more accurately, ESLers) can earn as much in Shenzhen these days as they can in HK. That might also be true for other larger cities, such as Shanghai, but I would not really know. I read recently that Shenzhen has the highest per capita earnings of any city in China, largely due to HK businesses setting up shop there. Experienced and qualified teachers here in HK however can easily earn six or even eight times as much as they can earn anywhere in China (and some in HK earn a month what some in China earn every year), without of course all the hassles associated with life and work on the mainland. 'One county two systems'.

[Serious_Fun]