I still push with the idea that the bottomline is greed, which does not necessarily equate with cash. It could mean greed for prestige, greed for power, greed for respect, and so many others. If you were given the choice to work as a janitor in the USA, would you take it? Maybe not. Sure, the job is high-paying, but a teaching job could be "more respectable"...

In addition, I do not literally mean that teachers come to Asia to have their own slaves. What I mean is that by dictating school authorities what this and that ought to be, these teachers are acting like masters to a slave -- (figuratively speaking...) people whom teachers think are inferior to themselves in terms of critical thinking and analysis. If you don't believe me, I invite you to read the China thread of Dave's ESL Cafe Forum. There, you will read for yourself the low perception of many foreign teachers on the Chinese people in general. Example: "I can't understand how terrible Chinese think. They can barely carry conversations" and other remarks... etc. etc. The words of my Japanese professor comes to mind: "Imposing one's values on others is a form of violence."

So... I still agree with Xi. There is a correlation between higher salary and higher risk. Smaller schools with lesser facilities and located farther from the cities would like to compete with the more-known bigger schools, and one way of attracting applicants is advertising higher wages. Needless to say, not all advertisements are truthful. A lot of card stacking has been done to make the "deal" more appealing, which may not end up being realized in the long run.

Finally, let me add that ESL teaching is a multi-faceted issue... I should say "supply and demand", as is greed, is just one of the many sides of the whole story.