We have already heard of one story about a 55 year old former ESL teacher. I know of a 50 year old guy from UK in China living on 4000 rmb a month. He has no house or family back in the UK. He has no savings at all. It is hard for him to get teaching work in China. He thought he could possibly marry a wealthy thirty-something Chinese woman to solve his financial woes. No, he has discovered that Chinese women are not interested in low-income Western men. I know of a 47 year old UK guy in a similar predicament. They came to China a long time ago and started teaching. These guys have been advised to move to Japan or Taiwan ( the first guy has advanced degrees including an MA ) but there is another snag for them: They can't afford to relocate. It looks like they are stuck in China with no support at all. If they fail to get more teaching work they are finished, and will end up on the streets.

This is another warning for anyone who thinks ESL is a career option for them. It is not, and if you take notice of anything ESL GW types says you could end up like the two gentlemen I just spoke about.

Thanks for the post, first of all.

I know a guy like you describe who must be around 47 now, all he had when I last knew him was a small training centre with his younger chinese wife, this was going back some years. No degree at all, and nothing at all back in the UK, and he did not seem keen to want to take her back there as he was quite rightly worried she would do a runner and leave him skint and stick in the UK alone, so he chooses to stay on in China, indefinitely, despite hating teaching kids.

There are more older blokes stuck in China, than meets the eye. The GW's will say it is all horseshit, but it is the truth, we, and many others know it.