I missed a few posts due to being busy with my job, but Turnoi you have hit the nail squarely on the head (again) with your statements regarding working in the ESL industry. I think when we work somewhere we just can't take in how the country treats us based on our own whims and wishes, but rather how they treat teachers as a whole. For Native Speakers of English this experience can fall within 2 main categories:

1. You are a Native Speaker, you are White, you are under 65 years old, you are of medium or above medium height, and you have near Aryan or the median Western European face. In this case you will not have any problems finding any jobs in China. Even if you are a picky person you will not worry about getting work. Socially you will not need to make as much effort towards making an initiative on your own as people will come to your social circle voluntarily to the point where you need to drive them off. While you are still at risk for bad working experiences just like anywhere else in China you will generally speaking have your needs catered to and the attention you receive will give you a plethora of choices on who you can share a life with, where you can go for socializing, and enjoying better customer service than anyone else including Native Chinese people. Unfortunately, many expats who have been treated this way fall falsely into the belief that the Chinese treat them like this due to the inherent virtues of the culture rather than the

2. The second category would be everyone else. This would include the Native Speakers of any background including older Native Speakers who are White as well as Non-Native Speakers of any background (save occasionally for the non-native speakers who possess the "look"). You will not have your pick of what jobs you can get, and you will need to work hard at applying for work. You cannot enjoy the luxury of which city you may go to as your priority is on finding a job first. Getting attention to your needs will not happen automatically if at all and you will need to be a lot more pro-active to expand the diversity within your social circle. You may have to "hustle" as they say in the USA a bit more to earn your bread and you may need to hold more than one job to make ends meet. Now I may sound like I'm generalizing a bit, but do realize that since we are talking about the work scene in China things can seem a bit jaded. I read some articles that were culture related written by local Chinese people who have criticized their own for possessing too much of a hierarchy mindset, which means one look they take at you and they will already presume to know what salary, job, and quality of an individual you are. As many as 1/2 the local population may think like this.

Fortunately, I have sometimes met expats who tried to be fair with hiring people. I have also met Chinese people in China who did not always distinguish just on face alone, but also by teaching quality. But you do need to look hard, and you will feel like good, fair minded folks are needles in a haystack there.