Teaching English in China

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Anybody ever try it? Or lived in China?

I just had a recruiter call me and say my background would be perfect for several schools over there. He seems very nice, but rather aggressive. Or rather, I'm too passive, and I've been worried about finding employment so long that I definitely don't want to just let the opportunity go. He wants a Skype interview tomorrow, and he says I could have my pick of several offers.

Of course I'm researching his agency to make sure it's legit, reputable, etc. A superficial search has turned up no red flags, but I'm going to dig deeper. He wants things to move along at breakneck speed, saying that while they have opportunities year-round, the best spots need quick filling for the coming school year. I think it's the schools themselves that I'd have to be careful with, and do plenty of research on, to make sure they treat their teachers well...

But I'm not sure if I even really want to live in China. I mean, I can think of so many pros, but as many cons. The culture might be a nice change, but then again, it might not.

Any thoughts? Comments? Questions I might ask...?

What an off-the-wall opportunity!
 
I'd be really careful about a recruiter who was aggressive and trying to rush things... Ask professors or people in the field if they are familiar with the agency.

Go with your gut.
Nobody reputable is going to pressure you and rush you into a job with hard sell tactics. The "best spots need quick filling for the school year" sounds sketchy.
 
Thanks. He didn't phrase it that way, of course, and it doesn't really come across as pushy. I'm as passive as usual, too, so that tends to give people in general the impression I'm all on board when I'm really carefully considering my options. I'm going to do the same here. He already has an interview set up for later today with a school in China, and there's another one interested.

Unfortunately, I don't know anyone in the TESOL field, but I'm trying to hunt around online for info about his agency and these schools.

Thankfully, I'm also starting to get bites Stateside, so I don't feel as desperate about the whole thing. :) More interviews lining up...GOD, will I be glad when all this is over! So grateful I don't feel as worried and fretful now that I'm being proactive, though.
 
I was in China for a year. Not teaching, got a scholarship to study Chinese for a year. I was a bit aimless at the time and it felt like a good decision. It was even better than I hoped for, because I really had a lot of time to think and get my shit together.

Fasinating place, I loved it, also met my girlfriend there.

I know this is an old threat, but for anyone considering going there in the future, I would absolutely recommend it.
 
First of all, that year in China was the first time I lived in an international environment with other students. I come from small European country and when we go to university, most of the time we still live at our parents place. Like in high-school. In fact, my university was closer to my home than my high-school, like 20 min with the bus.

So that was great. Also the money the Chinese governement throws at you. We got an equivallent of 400$ per month that we could spent only on food and other consumer goods. Everything else was payed for (residence, tuition, healthcare etc.). We mostly ate outside two times per day.

But to come to China itself:

First - Chinese people. I didn't have any Chinese friends (most of my friends were other "westerns") but I got a very strong Si vibe from Chinese people. All very modest, hardworking, don't stand out. There's something very appealing about that. Also, I don't think Chinese teenagers and young adults suffer from lack of meaning or nihilism, like I see in the West, In fact, I'd say they have the opposite problem - most of the time they suffer from too much meaning, i.e too much stress.

I was also surprised by is how aesthetic China is. They have a great feeling for design and architecture. I found tons of extremely atmospheric and aesthetic cofee places, bars and restaurants. It was a perfect place to have conversations about life with my now INFJ girlfriend.

Everything is very clean and efficient. Public transport is cheap, trains are fast (300 km per hour), customer service is top notch. Also, China is much more open to technology than Europe, No one uses cash there any more, it's all payed from phone. And don't even get me started about Alibaba (that's owned by Jack Ma). It's actually scary how efficent this online shopping platform is. It's like some perfect capitalistic machine. You find literally everything you want there and it's delivered to you in the matter of hours.

I got enough money to travel all around China and I also went to S. Korea (it was cheaper than Japan). I prefer China to S. Korea. Oh by the way, I stayed in a city called Nanjing. It's a perfect place, not too big (like Shanghai), not to small and with a lot of greenery. But Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen - those cities are also great. And there's many more.
 
philostam said:
First of all, that year in China was the first time I lived in an international environment with other students. I come from small European country and when we go to university, most of the time we still live at our parents place. Like in high-school. In fact, my university was closer to my home than my high-school, like 20 min with the bus.

So that was great. Also the money the Chinese governement throws at you. We got an equivallent of 400$ per month that we could spent only on food and other consumer goods. Everything else was payed for (residence, tuition, healthcare etc.). We mostly ate outside two times per day.

But to come to China itself:

First - Chinese people. I didn't have any Chinese friends (most of my friends were other "westerns") but I got a very strong Si vibe from Chinese people. All very modest, hardworking, don't stand out. There's something very appealing about that. Also, I don't think Chinese teenagers and young adults suffer from lack of meaning or nihilism, like I see in the West, In fact, I'd say they have the opposite problem - most of the time they suffer from too much meaning, i.e too much stress.

I was also surprised by is how aesthetic China is. They have a great feeling for design and architecture. I found tons of extremely atmospheric and aesthetic cofee places, bars and restaurants. It was a perfect place to have conversations about life with my now INFJ girlfriend.

Everything is very clean and efficient. Public transport is cheap, trains are fast (300 km per hour), customer service is top notch. Also, China is much more open to technology than Europe, No one uses cash there any more, it's all payed from phone. And don't even get me started about Alibaba (that's owned by Jack Ma). It's actually scary how efficent this online shopping platform is. It's like some perfect capitalistic machine. You find literally everything you want there and it's delivered to you in the matter of hours.

I got enough money to travel all around China and I also went to S. Korea (it was cheaper than Japan). I prefer China to S. Korea. Oh by the way, I stayed in a city called Nanjing. It's a perfect place, not too big (like Shanghai), not to small and with a lot of greenery. But Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen - those cities are also great. And there's many more.
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Great insights into your Chinese experience right there. Thanks, very useful to know!

Do you think the fact you didn't really have Chinese friends had to do mostly with language barriers?
 
+1 Thanks for your insights,

especially surprised at suffer from too much meaning, I'd expect the opposite with how the "western" media tends to portray it, as in everyone being a cog in the grand Chinese machine etc..
Nanjing looks like an interesting, also pretty ancient history. Shenzhen is on the to-go list (albeit quite far, but heck, it's tech-city all over).

Are facilities like restaurants or grocery stores and such also automated in regards to payment?

PS: Jack Ma's not going to be Alibaba's CEO anymore, by the way (pretty recent: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-49644025).
 
Lol yeah, what I meant by this is that Chinese (and I guess similar goes to Korea, Japan, Singapore etc.) really have a lot of responsibility on their shoulders. Parents are pushing them to do well in school, to get a car, job, apartment and to take care of them when they get old. Those countries have high suicide rates amongs young - but those who commit suicide are usually those who fail in entrance exams or at university because of too much pressure and competition. Let's just say Chinese parents are very involved and pushy, which isn't ideal. But it seems to me it's better than being on the opposite side of the spectrum. i.e being uninvolved and let children just roam around aimlessly.

Chinese are very pragmatic and I guess you could say also materialistic. But I see this as a good thing. They won't suddenly question the utility of money and become hippies. It probably stems from Confucianism, which is a very pragmatic philosophy. It seems to me it's better to be pragmatic than to be too metaphysical like India with its buddhism and hinduism.

I got a feeling that ideal Chinese man is ESTJ. For sure they appreciate judgers (Te, Fe in top 2 functions) more than percievers. They appreciate hardworking and reliable people who can provide for their families. I think Conucius was probably an ENFJ. Of course on the opposite spectrum you also have daoism, which troughout history celebrated free spirits and artists. But even daoism seems to me to be a bit more pragmatic than buddhism, a bit more "active". I get a strong NI vibe from daosim.

It's a very interesting cultural history and legacy and there's no doubt it works. It produced great results in China but also in Korea and Japan where it was exported.
 
Oh and yes, everything is automated. Your bank account is connected to WeChat or some other app, and you pay trough it. Even in those shabby looking street food stalls you can pay with the phone. Not only you can, its 's advisable that you should. And I was there 3 years ago, now it probably only advanced. The same with those street bikes. You scan the code of the bike and the bike unlocks. When I was there the price was 1 yuan per hour, which is like 0.15$.

And WeChat is such superior app than Facebook, In fact, I remember Zuckerberg saying Facbook will evolve towards WeChat model. I guess it already is, because majority of people use messenger more than actual Facebook. What I like about WeChat is that it doesn't show likes on your posts on the wall, It shows them only to you.

So WeChat is first a chatting app and paying app (you can also very easily transfer money to your friends on it), and only secondary for posting pictures and tagging friends and all this crap. And it's all in one.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/8/18256226/facebook-wechat-messaging-zuckerberg-strategy
 
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philostam said:
New Lol yeah, what I meant by this is that Chinese (and I guess similar goes to Korea, Japan, Singapore etc.) really have a lot of responsibility on their shoulders. Parents are pushing them to do well in school, to get a car, job, apartment and to take care of them when they get old
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Not to mention societies like these hold you seriously responsible for every little thing. I think it's mostly an Asian thing but it's topnotch hard wired in east asian countries, mainly China, Japan and S.Korea.

The attention to aesthetics in this culture is intimidating and scary. Every freckle counts. Every brand, moreso. I know of several sanguine phlegmatic types from these countries to thrive better when elsewhere. The chill types basically burn in these types of environments. If your mother won't passive aggressively kill you, your aunt or grandmother is likely to swoosh a broom onto your face.
 
I agree with the obsession with image and beauty. That's espescially true for S.Korea, where 40% of all girls of certain age underwent a plastic operation. I don't remember the data excactly and I don't have enery to search it now, but it was a crazy number.

So yes, Asians can appear a bit shallow in this respect and maybe they are.

But I don't agree with "collective East, individualistic West" narrative. While it's true that Chinese are very patriotic and proud of their country (they are also incredibily ethically united), it's not true at the slightest that they put their country before themselves. In fact, they would say that for the West with our Kantian roots of objective morality or whatever it's called (I'm not trained in philosophy). They don't understand objective morality. They might condemn a certain behaviour (let's say theft) in others but would defend their son if he was a thief. That's the Chinese logic - family first. So it's not about the action itself, it's about who does it.
 
Ren said:
How come Communism failed, then? :D
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Did it? Chinese style capitalism is just a mask that is not much different from Chinese style fried chicken. Lol whut? :tonguewink:

Every thing is a mask for ego preservation.
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philostam said:
I agree with the obsession with image and beauty. That's espescially true for S.Korea, where 40% of all girls of certain age underwent a plastic operation. I don't remember the data excactly and I don't have enery to search it now, but it was a crazy number.

So yes, Asians can appear a bit shallow in this respect and maybe they are.

But I don't agree with "collective East, individualistic West" narrative. While it's true that Chinese are very patriotic and proud of their country (they are also incredibily ethically united), it's not true at the slightest that they put their country before themselves. In fact, they would say that for the West with our Kantian roots of objective morality or whatever it's called (I'm not trained in philosophy). They don't understand objective morality. They might condemn a certain behaviour (let's say theft) in others but would defend their son if he was a thief. That's the Chinese logic - family first. So it's not about the action itself, it's about who does it.
Click to expand...
True. The family bloodline is strong. Double standards moreso. I agree too that it's dangerous to be too much a generalist. Still it's an intriguing pattern.

Weirdly though, I don't really see the obsession with aesthetics as a form of being shallow but rather as an obsession with perfectionism. Cue: lotus feet. I can't say that this materialism isn't annoying though. What is annoying is the fixed notion of positions and places in society. It can be too rigid, I think, for the human psyche. Or idk. Hehe
 
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