I wanted to point out something which concernes not only me but others on the boards looking for useful information as well. Anytime you hear people say how "Normal" racism in Asia in general is you really can't trust their words on what a beneficial experience working in Asia is.

In my time working in China and a former Soviet Republic I experienced personally and of course heard from seemingly content people working in places how much money they were making. But when asked about hiring people who weren't defined/classified as white they merely brushed off the very notion with a shrug of their shoulders.

Recently some posts on this board regarding the EF Changchun brought back memories of an interview I had with them over the phone a couple of years ago when the maximum salary they could offer me was 4,000 rmb. Which leads me to think these individuals who claim "good" experiences are projecting only their very own sense of reality on the rest of us. Anyone who decides to listen to these individuals (especially if you're not of a certain defined "color") will surely risk being set up for heartache and misery.

It is well observed by many how people of a darker skin color as well as other Asians (including people of chinese descent who are from other countries) are treated like 2nd class citizens in china by the local chinese. Yet despite this you keep on meeting expats with a "white man's burden" mentality in the middle kingdom telling you how much they love it in china which really reminds you of how much mediocrity this country has embraced compared with the rest of the world. For those not familiar with the term I just used it's not just people who criticize china for anything, they also generalize the chinese in positive ways which can be dually insulting. Birds of a feather really do flock together(from both sides).

For the rest of us who want a better, more fair environment we shouldn't compromise ourselves as the well being of our own lives are at stake. It is just NOT OKAY to be taken in by the crap from any side, chinese or expat. What separates the likes of us from the likes of these people is the ability to put ourselves in other peoples' shoes, not just going by our own ego.

It is not okay for anybody to judge us merely by our picture in a passport or a photo by email. I urge all quality teachers with a good educational background to consider the moral and ethical implications of turning a blind eye to this with regards to so many public and almost all private facilties that provide educational services in china as well as many other asian countries. Schools (which I only consider public ones to be legitimate) must show they have made the effort to be fair to everyone before being considered as honest and truthful. Only when this society learns for certainty of how much racism is NOT OKAY can they be deserving of better teachers.

For the utmost guarantee of not having a bad time, I take Crap School Spotter's advice and I'm just going to tell everyone to visit a public library or if you have the change to visit china just as a tourist.