Requiring honesty and integrity from FTs with or without degrees on mainland is pretty tough in the "crappy world of ESL". There are a few reasons why and one huge stand out reason is that our local employers find it so difficult to follow either of these two magic words. Then, there is this cluelessness in so many local employers about what business they are in. Many of the schools/centers owners are poorly qualified to hold their often bought licenses and often they put their younger family members or wives, girlfriends into the power to run it. So, how could a foreign teacher keep his/her honesty and integrity when his superiors are such bigots? It's really sad to see the low level scumbags raising their bars for us. Even the local officials could not have kept their honesty and integrity when all these unqualified foreign teachers arrived and had gotten their Ls converted into Zs/work permits so easily. Agreeably, we're technically just little nobodies hosted in a foreign country, but look what we've done so far. We've helped the local young workforce to use English and that's most likely contributed to the mainland economic boom as well. Too bad that we've been looked down at whether we've got degrees or not, and then sadly enough that some of the local workforce is using what they've learnt from us against us. Honestly, I serve as an example as my former employer's mismanagement has not only turned a school into a "humans export company" but has also misevaluated me which has turned my family's life upside down. How many of us are out there that have to fight this local modern trend?

On topic of the use of our degrees, I have well utilized much of my own education on my mainland jobs. If it was in EF, or in the ACT-GAC. Ironically, in both companies on mailand I paid for my honesty and integrity as an EF center dismissed me from the DoS position and that due to my unwillingness to cheat its headquarter, and then the ACT-GAC center's absolute dishonesty and unethical behaviours made my job impossible to carry out. From the ACT-GAC I had to resign in order to keep my honesty and integrity, but when I realized that my superiors in the company's headquarters, either in Shanghai or in the US, practiced the opposite to these mentioned magic words, i felt as such a fool. The honesty and integrity have left a permanent scar on my family's life as we have had to move a few times and as I have lost trust in the locals that wish to see a Recommendation Letter from the last employer. Most importantly, these two magic words have tested my sanity since I have followed them, in my current view, too much.

Cheers and beers to all fts on mainland that've managed to retain sanity :)