Some years ago I happened to discover that there was a company that determines equivalent salaries for specific professions in local currencies in individual countries.Said company does detailed investigations of the cost of living in many countries mainly on behalf of its clients such as multinationals and governments,usually at regular time intervals.That means that in this globalised world foreign employees will be able to maintain roughly the same standard of living for doing the same work irrespective of which foreign country they happen to be working in.
In the UK,teachers and lecturers working in London get a weighting allowance,which is added to their salaries to allow them to have the same spending power in London as their colleagues have by working in less affluent towns and cities.
Some posters on here have implied that academics' salaries in Asia should be equal in terms of Euros to those in Europe.That's a fallacy,as the cost of living in Asia is much lower than that in Europe.In fact,to maintain parity,Asian salaries must necessarily be much lower in terms of Euros.But here in China there's another difficulty caused by unequal development,which is highlighted by a piece of information I learned by listening to the BBCWS.About ten years ago it was announced that the average salary of hotel workers and factory hands in Guangdong was 3000 yuan a month,wheras in Northern China it was a mere 300 a month.At that time I was teaching in the north for 1800 Yuan a month,and living well off my earnings.I suspect if I had lived down south on said salary just then I would have been leading a simple and boring life.
Where I am teaching now,in a small city of Northern China,10 Yuan buys 7 big bottles of local wheaten beer.Unlike many British and American beers,it is good beer.Meanwhile,on the currency market,10 yuan is worth about 1 Great Britain Pound or very roughly 3/2 US Dollars.So,if you're a beer drinker,it's obvious it's much better to teach in China than in the West.For just 40 minutes of teaching I earn 70 Yuan,which can buy 70 big bottles of local wheaten beer here!So,I reckon that as a lifelong beer drinker I've come to the right country.
I shoulsd add that I can support a Chinese wife and fund her daughter's university study while eating good food,including meat,and drinking beer regularly on 4500 Yuan a month for teaching 16x40 minutes a week at a senior middle school.Of course,I don't go travelling and my wife does the cooking here in our rent-free flat.In the West doing as above without borrowing from a bank would be impossible,even as an overworked secondary school teacher timetabled for 25 or so teaching periods of 40 or 45 or 50 minutes/week.