Nicely written post. I hope you do hang out longer because you're obviously qualified to teach here, and we definitely need more like you. Moreover, I doubt you're really the lazy bastard you humbly claim to be. Well, I at least doubt that you bring said laziness into the classroom.

I think your observation, or estimate as it were, that 90% of the "teachers" here were not educators here is fairly accurate. I suppose that in fairness, though, it should be added that even though they weren't involved in education at home, it doesn't necessarily follow that they are all incompetent teachers. In that regard, I'd much rather work along side a young teacher fresh out of college with a degree in basket weaving but with a high regard for learning and a capability to do proper research than I would someone, no matter what there age, who hasn't such a capability or such a desire and thinks that just because they can speak English they can take on the responsibility of a classroom full of eager students.

Yes, I've rubbed elbows with the incompetent far too often as I enter into my fifth year in China. They range in age from 20 to 70, but they have a few things in common: Very little demonstrated interest in improving themselves as teachers or recognizing that ESL/EFL Teaching is a field full of experts who are constantly challenging prior theories and/or supporting proven approaches and methodologies. And that, fortunately, nearly all of their research and thoughts are available and can be found if one bothers to search for it.

Yes, teaching a second or foreign language is a challenging vocation, and no one involved in this vocation should take it lightly. Nevertheless.................

If I had my way, all new teachers would be required to teach in some far-flung village or in some of the poorest counties of China before being allowed to teach elsewhere. There they could find out just how important quality education is to the young people here. I wish they would have to look daily at the children standing outside the gates of a middle school with sad and wishful expressions on their faces- children who've never had the opportunity to study because their families are so poor - and maybe then that new teacher, if they haven't already done so, would have to ask themselves some pretty serious questions about what their motivations for teaching here are. And maybe, just maybe, they would take a heartfelt approach and be a little more mindful of the responsibility that's being handed to them. But, well, if they did that, then they wouldn't have enough time to complain about China would they? And, oh yes, they are rather busy commiserating with their fellow complainers and thinking of new ways to justify their own employment.

Finally, just so those of you with no real qualifications to be here, and/or no real desire to improve your abilities as teachers, think I don't care about your well documented plights at the hands of recruiters and not so real education centers, I'll offer up the following quote which has been posted in this forum before because, yes, I do feel your pain - sort of:

As long as people will accept crap, it will be financially profitable to dispense it.
Dick Cavett

And one more from Dick:
It's a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn't want to hear
Dick Cavett

And just for good measure:
"The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be
Marcel Pagnol