John

You are correct in stating that there are thousands of us Fts working in China. What we also need to remember however is that China is an enormous country with a population of about 1.3 BILLION. I think we can all agree that there is also an enormous number of schools over here, of which many continually seek FTs to work at their schools.

The fact is FTs are still a drop in the ocean in China. We are STILL a rarity in most cities and towns in China and will continue to be for a good few years from now.

Darren and all other FTs currently working in China are indeed valuable assets. If you have a pulse and are a native speaker with a foreign face (particularly a white one), you are highly sought after, virtually everywhere in China!

As everybody knows having an FT at a school increases the profit margins considerably more than it does if only local teachers are working there. This is why it is completly pointless for people to continually compare the wages of FTs to those of local teachers. It's a pointless comparison. SCHOOLS IN CHINA MAKE A LOT MORE MONEY ON AVERAGE FROM US FTs , SO WHY SHOULDN'T WE GET PAID A LOT MORE THAN THE LOCALS?

True, it's not our God given right to demand high salaries, however schools also don't have a God given right to demand high fees from their students, because they have an FT on their books, but they invariably DO!

It's up to each one of us as individuals to decide what we believe we are worth. Not everything is cut and dried. Our salary at a particular school depends on so many factors that I don't have time, nor need to go into now. Everybody knows this anyway.

I believe I know how much I'm worth(probably a lot less than I think, but never mind. Lol), and so do Jinchafa and Darren. Also, Many school owners know what we are worth to them too; Often a big black Mercedes, or BMW and the suchlike, judging from the vehicles with horns blaring, that I often have to dodge at the school gates.

If more of us listened to Fts like Jinchafa and Darren, we'd at least only suffer the humiliation of the school leaders overtaking us in their black saloons , waving to us, WHILE WE ARE IN TAXIS, not the local dirty, polluted overcrowded bus.'Why is the Laowai taking the poor bus into town........'. The answer to that depends on us all, either individually or collectively.