It's easy to spot FT's abroad whose agendas have little or nothing to do with helping
students achieve their goals. The silvertoddler even admits that his reason for trying
to make it as a teacher in China was for the sex and the beer. There were many just like
him. Fortunately, that's starting to slowly change.

What's starting to change in China is that the genuine teachers are mostly leaving China or just give the place a wide berth.

As for the sex and beer route, there's much better places for that than China and people know that too. Schools don't just recruit a load of Eastern Europeans for no apparent reason, it is because they can't replace real teachers with sexpats anymore.

I suppose there are many reasons a person can become embittered about the teaching
profession. Many "teachers," for example, are lured into positions at training
centers only to find that they've been duped in numerous ways. Such training centers
have been discussed here, if not overly discussed, many times. I've read and heard all
the terrible stories and am thankful that in the seven years I taught in China I never
had to resort to teaching in such a place.

Universities, training centres... Both different flavours of shit.

A university job may be far more tolerable but you still have the corruption and the general state of the Chinese education system to deal with. Training centres are only worth teaching at for quick part-time cash; the ironic thing being that their shitness usually means that they can't recruit full time teachers and they'll be forced to get part-time guys in and pay them much more per hour.

As for teaching in developed countries - it is becoming increasingly clear that as the West heads towards a steady path of decline, many educational institutions are becoming little more than indoctrination centres. If one was to just take a quick look at the average teacher in a Western school today, it would quickly become apparent that they are most of them are just some bitter, leftist blue haired unfuckable monster that is on a mission to force teenage girls to accept that they're going to get gang-raped by refugees (and that it is now 'cool') or to tell little Timmy that despite only being 8 years old, that he is 'definitely trans.'

The best path for any new teacher today? Do something better than teaching.

Note to greenhorns. If you're new to China and want to actually get something out of the
experience, avoid all expats and all places where they hang out. In fact, just avoid as
many Westerners as possible.

It depends which kind of expats you are talking about. Teachers? They're simply not expats. Even the international school teachers that might get an expat package still don't tend to behave like expats either. That's why they hang out in the cheapest, crappiest bars where all the Africans and Middle-Eastern university students also seem to go. Such have their purpose, they're often the best place to pick up slutty, chubby white chicks; if that's what you're after.

The guys doing real jobs? In some of the bigger cities, they're often found hanging out where the young, middle class (and most likely overseas educated) Chinese guys hang out anyway; your paths will probably cross. Of course, you can go all 'realChina®' about it and only hang around with the farmers, but in the same sense that there's no point in only hanging out with Westerners, there's also no point in deliberately avoiding them. Besides, even if such Western guys are nobs, they'll only be there on a quick business trip half of the time and were probably only brought there by their Chinese colleagues. My social life is often a part of my work life these days, so anything that isn't a KTV trip with Chinese colleagues or clients often represents a refreshing change of scenery.

And how does one dress like a teacher? I do so want to get it right.

Refer to the 'English teacher starter pack' memes, take on an office casual dress code, then add certain factors such as lack of self respect/hygeine (especially the tendency to sport an overgrown beard and a manbun these days), a general facial expression that represents a combination of being constantly lost and hungover at the same time, an excessively large backpack carried everywhere that probably contains little of value except a laptop, a tendency to wear shorts and flip flops to work, looking worn out from travelling everywhere out public transport to training centres all day either due to being farmed out miles away from your apartment to other centres by your training centre or the university not paying one enough to live well on their salary.

There's much more that one could add to that list. Alternatively, find out a way to steal a bright orange EF polo shirt or whatever (probably by shagging one of the Chinese staff that has an unhealthy obsession with foreign but non-teacher dick) and just wear that, forget to shave for a week, wear your shittiest pair of trousers etc. Or just refer to this little beauty: https://imgur.com/a/zeLKK