This topic keeps coming up, and opinions differ, but I say let it keep going.

I would not say he "won". You said he was a young guy. If he had been teaching in Asia for 10 or 15 years and came back to the West when he was say 61 years old and still has 10 or 20,000 dollars in the bank, maybe he could start a small, even part-time business cleaning up construction sites and selling scrap metal, if he was prepared to have a simple life for his remaining 10 or 15 years or so.

True, that is possible. But you get that breed of older FT who refuses to return home and is stubborn and stays in China "broke" cadging (bludging) off of others.There are some in their fifties with no savings and only their FT salary, this is true, but many refuse to accept it and are in a big river called "De Nile".

Let's say a young guy, perhaps 35 comes back to the UK broke after living and teaching in China for 10 years. What future is there for him?

I'd say at 35 not much of a future, but if he is prepared to pull his thumb out and break his back he can break even and even have some savings by the time he is 40, and be better off than a elderly FT with only a few thousand rmb to his name in some crappy chinese bank, where you can't even get a credit card as an FT. Yes, there are many FT's in China who do not even have a credit card, I knew one weird elderly american FT who did not trust banks, and so saved/converted his salary into USD which he hoarded in his flat. The local chinese farmers almost had a field day when one day when he was drunk , he dropped the money, and his hard earned 100 uncle sam notes were fluttering about in the wind on the street with him desperately running after the odd note or two, I was laughing my a**e off, luckily he got it all back.

It seems many people on ESL sites like this don't think about that. I can tell you, I know for a fact that many ESL teachers in China don't even have 2000 or 3000 dollars in the bank, even some men and women in their late fifties. If you think there is something noble about poverty and being poor, good for you. I certainly don't have a poverty fetish.

I believe it was John O'Shei who coined the term "poverty fetish". Yes, there are many without savings in the bank, they will never change. I'd reply more but got to teach today, so sorry for replying in brief.

Cheers,
SMGS