Alicia,

Thank you for suggesting I leave China. Thats EXACTLY what I plan to do very soon! In the meantime, why dont you actually offer some REAL information about your experience? You say you also dont like things about living and working here, but you offer NO real information. I thought the original point of this discussion thread was to help Daniel, not telling the other posters what to do. As you suggested to DB to come to China with a positive attitude, thats exactly what I did. My less-than-positive attitude is the result of four years of bad experience in China. Im just trying to save Daniel some possible (and likely) future grief.

When you talk about accepting things you cannot change, I honestly understand your meaning, but again, after four years of experience here, I have also changed my feeling about that. Chinese schools ask us to come here and teach. They seem to think we will do this in some sort of vacuum. One cannot teach English effectively (in my opinion) without also teaching the culture of the language. As I said before, Chinese schools seem to want the benefit of foreign teachers knowledge and experience, but they want to change, improve, or modify almost nothing, because the inefficient, corrupt, apathetic system works very well for THEM, but doesnt help the students, parents, or teachers (Chinese or foreign). Did I first come to China to change it? Absolutely not, but one cannot participate in such a mess (with any sense of pride or integrity) for very long without wanting to bring about some change.

Chinese schools are more than happy for most foreign teachers to come here for adventure and experience and then go back home after six months or one year (provided they dont flee before). That why theres no chance anyone will require anything to change. Its all part of the bigger exploitation machine. Very little of it has much to do with education.

You talk about how unhappy I am, but I didnt notice that you actually disagreed with any of my observations either. Please enlighten us how your experience has been so much better than mine. Perhaps you can, but at this point, youve offered precious little (NOTHING to Daniel) except telling the rest of us how to feel and behave.