The last group of people you should practice Chinese with are FTs, join Weibo or QQ or something.

Problem is, for some con artists masquerading as "teachers" in China they know their English is what gives them leverage. For people like this you can only expect them to know minimal Mandarin, enough to spark up a few laughs and chuckles. A good measuring stick for any expat teacher to use to see if the previous expat teacher was a useless grovelling weasel would be to see if the students are expecting some sort of monkey performance from you when you first step into a classroom, that and also if they are unfamiliar with taking notes and sitting still as you give a real lesson.

Foreign "teachers" who live like this wouldn't want to delve too deep into the local culture, anywhere. To do so would mean the possibility of taking on more moral obligations due to better fluency in the language. For these people, wasting their own time as well as the time of curious locals is the best way to watch their lives pass on by, and they wouldn't want it any other way.