sorry just a bit of joking around....You can dance if you want to, but if you cant dance and if you dont dance......!!!!!!!!!

So, can I ask you, why do you feel the need to defend China so much? What did you sell your soul for?

Certainly you may ask.

Every country has many critics and much to criticize. As a United States citizen, I have been raised in a culture of "American exceptionalism" and have been bombarded by political criticism of a parade of 'evil nations', Russia, Iraq, Iran, etc. China now wears that mantle in the U.S. corporate press, not in small part because they cannot profit from the Chinese market, while our other corporations are happily feeding at the Chinese market trough.

In like manner, China is routinely criticized in great detail on this site. Many of the complaints and critiques are valid. I respect the writers' observations and support their right to express them. But I seldom see the need to add my voice to this chorus, though I occasionally do in respect to China's corporate English training 'schools'.

I have lived in China full-time for seven years and have lived here part-time (4 months a year) for five years before that. I have experienced much during those years. I have learned the spoken language and have spent almost all my time surrounded by Chinese citizens. Still, I realize that I am an outsider and my knowledge of China is limited.

I don't believe that the observations of Westerners on this site provides a balanced portrayal of what all foreign teachers will experience when they work in China. My personal experiences are the basis for my comments "defending China". For the most part, my time here has been fascinating and rewarding. It has neither been a career nor an escape from a painful past.

I have no other agenda than providing what I feel is a balanced view of what some foreign teachers might experience when teaching in China, providing an addendum, if you will, to the litany of complaints that fills these threads.

I don't believe that I have a soul. And I have never been offered as much as a 五毛 for it.

For many of the better foreigners in China, teaching at a public university merely gets us a visa and a full time job that doesn't interfere with what we're really doing whether that be taking a career break, studying Chinese, writing books or running businesses on the side.

We actually tend to enjoy teaching at the unis because there's little interference and you tend to get better students. Private training centres are bullshit places that offer better paid part-time work to allow you to gain extra cash if needed, but you'd ideally avoid working for one on a full-time basis.

And yes, we will say that several parts of the education system in China are bullshit. That's because we actually care about teaching work when we are doing it. We don't have to tell people what they want to hear.

We don't even hate China as a whole. But if YOU would take the time to talk to Chinese friends, you'd probably find that they're equally, if not more so frustrated by the same matters in China as us. People may love their country unconditionally, but they are NOT so stupid that they'll instantly praise everything about it and get defensive towards those who criticise it.

As for me, I rarely teach now and not all my friends (both foreign and Chinese) even speak English, because believe it or not, many people in this world can't even speak English! Although I really wish that my French wasn't so bad as communicating with the friends of some African friends can be a bit of a challenge, if both their Chinese and English aren't so great.

So, can I ask you, why do you feel the need to defend China so much? What did you sell your soul for?

Maybe Silverboy was right. Politically correct GW clap trap, indeed...

And ne'er the twain shall meet eh? I don't hate fun either, but responsibilities? Not for me,
no wife, no kids......

You have a job, bills to pay... We all have some responsibilities.

Some of those people actually think that the third world, uncivilised aspect of it all is liberating. That's what confuses me. Are they not grateful for the freedoms that they already have?

Isn't the freedom to binge drink at weekends without anybody batting an eyelid, enough freedom for them? No, they want to get pissed every single night when in China. If you regularly come into work drunk back home, you'll get fired pretty quickly.

Some think that they have more freedom to openly abuse drugs in China. Only because the local police tend to incompetent and badly trained, not recognising drug types or signs of usage. If you ever end up getting caught by a cop doing his job properly, you'll find that sentences back home are probably far more lenient. If you're carrying a large amount in China, you're pretty screwed indeed.

As for women, back home, you can date before marriage without anybody having issues, you can even legally bang hookers in some places. But if you use a girl just for a sex, when she was expecting something more serious; you can expect your peers to tell you that you're an arsehole and her brick shithouse brother/cousin to give you a good kicking. In China, they don't seem to care about this at all... Because they believe that Chinese women are just useless, cheap sluts (and yes, some are); but even the worst women probably have family friends that care about them.

It's this lack of care and self respect from younger foreigners that can be irritating. Nobody expects an angel, but everybody expects some form of self control. As Silverboy said, even the most hedonistic types need boundaries.

It will be then that the ugly head of Cultural Marxism infects their heads.

Care to explain that term?

Hang on a minute, I remember a while back you posting about how you had no truck with the "anti-beer brigade" or something along those lines, and how you had your FT flat adorned with a liquor cupboard which you share with your chinese girlfriend?

They may indeed be drifters in a foreign land and I hope that some of them can snap out of it because it's an easy trap to fall into.

Some of the younger ones may be merely victims of the modern economic situation, as many good university graduates struggle to find graduate level work. So you can imagine the situation that those with no so high grades or those coming from not so well respected universities face (although in the E.U, most public universities are more than good enough). Sharing one room in a shitty, overpriced Dalston/Williamsburg apartment with 3 other flatmates isn't possible for every young, excessively ambitious and deluded university graduate. So, China becomes an option.

Some probably go to China, intending to only stay for a year or two and then end up staying too long. Some get attracted by the possibility of chasing a dream, but of course, not all dreams can come true. How many young (and maybe old too) FTs have you met that deny being an English teacher? Sure, some of us really do only teach for the visa (in the past, myself included), but when you start denying that you are even a teacher at all, that's something else, a really strange kind of fantasist behaviour. At least, even those fools are realising that ESL isn't all that it is cracked up to be.

Another thing that is definitely worth noting is the fact that many new fresh off the boat, young FTs are nice, but inexperienced and naive people. Unfortunately after getting a spoilt by the locals and then becoming a minor celebrity, many of them develop an inflated ego and will behave in quite a terrible manner, as they do not have to face the social expectations of their local peer group back home.

Therefore getting shitfaced drunk on a work night, womanising and openly abusing drugs becomes very normal for them; they get the impression that they will get excused for everything, because they are a foreigner. They have nobody to answer to. No parents or family, no kind of competent boss or colleagues, no village gossip circles, nothing. Even if the police arrest them for something, a bribe can be paid. This falsely gives them the impression that they are more 'free' than back home, even if home happens to be 'the land of the free.'

Those people seriously need to question themselves. If I was regularly coming into work, still drunk, wearing flip flops with the smell of booze on my breath(never mind hungover) and f**king and chucking random silly young girls between 16-21 years old that I picked up in a sleazy local nightclub (or the school) and possibly introducing them to the use of illegal drugs, how would people feel? If I was back home, how would my boss react? How would the fathers and brothers of those girls react? How would the police react?

Even though China has on an increasingly regular basis, recently proved itself to not exactly be the classiest country in the world with low standards for everything in general, any foreigner is still a guest in that country and should show the country a little respect. Or failing that, show themselves some respect!