1. They will break your contract.

2. You will never hear a word of truth again.

3. You will get called Laowei incessantly.

4. Men will hock up loogies and spit them on the sidewalk when you go by.

5. Prostitutes ([edited]) will solicit you for sex.

6. You WILL break your contract!

7. You will never get out of this Hell hole again.

8. You will lose any money or self-respect you ever had.

9. You will forget what food tastes like.

10. You will see mile after mile of God-awefully ugly buildings and never remember the feeling of freedom or fresh air again.

YOU DO NOT WANT TO TEACH IN CHINA, PEOPLE! WAKE UP!

They don't understand their own food, Magister, how can they understand Western food? They do understand that to achieve that special pork dumpling taste, the pork should be left to go dangerously off before using it. There have been scares surrounded the likes of McDonalds in China but by and large it's likely to be safer than San Migs' fresh Chinese fish and vegetables, because McDonald itself keeps an eye out for any malpractices. Of course a lot of the food in so-called Western food restaurants in China is just as unhealthy as Chinese food proper. Egg sausage and chips, if cooked by Chinese people in China[left to their own devices] is Chinese food; it'll get the same loving care as a dish of Shanxi noodles,potato and chicken.

There are many restaurants that charge twice to three times on average what you'd be paying for from a street vendor which pose as high end wannabe types with pseudo-western names. The quality of the food, though isn't any better than that of the street places. It's merely served on fancier plates with seemingly fancier furniture everywhere and maybe a few fancier sounding ingredients (some of which I'm sure they will claim to be imported) will be used on the food. These are the places where you NEVER want to waste too much money at, period.

I don't know. It would never occur to me to pay the sort of price that Starbuck demands in China. You obviously have been into Starbuck, whereas i live a more frugal lifestyle. I like to try and save as much of my wages as possible. I like to take as much money as i can back home when I leave.

Chinese tofu, vegetable and fish are killers if stored incorrectly and handled by a man who never washes his hands after going to the toilet; and that's the standard treatment the aforementioned get. Then more often than not they will get the old chemical treatment, MSG, to bring out the distinctive Chinese flavours. That stuff will deprive you of your eyesight for starters. On balance Mcdonald, as nasty as it is, will keep you in better health.

I'm afraid not. You have more chance of surviving any given Western meal (even McDonald) than a Chinese one. Best hope you only get a week of the runs and Hep A with the latter. Then there's the long term killers like all the oil (sometimes industrial and might kill you next day) and the MSG that they use. When in China it's best to cook your own grub, but please overcook the vegetables to get rid of special Chinese poisons that they spray them with. Bread and Australian/American butter might be safer.

Well done, pleased to hear it. When I was teaching in China before I used to take advantage for my own ends, during class times sometimes. When say a group of half a dozen made it clear they didn't want to follow a lesson plan . They'd say, we want free-talk. I'd say okay but I also want you to do some translations, it's good for you(simple stuff I needed to practice and get my tones right)...like xia wo yi da tiao, you zhi zhu zai tian hua ban shang(scared the life out of me, there's a spider on the ceiling) Now say that in English ,please, i'd say, after they corrected me. i often would buy one item at a time when I went shopping to practice speaking. You shouldn't take a Chinese with you because if you ask the assistant, where is the butter, instead of trying to understand you ,she will turn to the other person and ask what this mad man is saying. They don't actually call you mad but their expressions look like they are.

Hi Terry. Hey man, you don't need to do it. Even if you bought the ticket, you don't need to go through with it. I recently heard a horror story about Jinan. Are you absolutely sure it's NOT a vocational school, and that the students are real students who got in on their merit and not on their parent's money.

4,200 is almost as low as it gets. I made that 3 years ago to teach 14 hours a week, and was also paid for 12 months. THAT was the standard government contract at the time. Chinese teachers with Master's degrees should be making more than that. They were making 5,000 where I was. So, I wonder how many hours you have, and whether you have a 10 or 12 month contract. Flight reimbursement? Do you have to do English Corners for free on top of your schedule? How many different subjects will you be teaching. Those are all things to take into consideration.

Likely you will get some serious lung infections. Also, unless it's a newly built school, you'll probably get those squat toilets as well.

None of that means you won't have a very positive experience. But, you are precisely correct about why foreign teachers need to make more money than the locals. It's because we come from a different economy, and will return to it one day. This ain't charity. One can cope with low wages, but when they dip below one's Chinese counterparts, that is a pisser.

Your contract should allow to to bail out at any point with a one month notice. If you don't happen to fall in love, or find yourself in one of the increasingly rare fair scenarios where everything is going fine (and that's STILL very possible, and some of the people on this thread have found such cushy niches for themselves I think), make some excuse and bail. I would use family illness as an excuse. You can forge a doctors note if necessary. Even if they were inclined to call your country to check, they'd probably be too cheap to make the phone call. Besides, you can get any friend to pretend to be a doctor over the phone, but it will never come to that. Just serve up the lie and that's that.

IF the shit hits the fan, or if you change you mind now, scoot over to neighboring Vietnam or Cambodia. You can always find work in those countries, though in Cambodia it's only in Phnom Phen (sp?). I think you can find work in Saigon almost instantly. There were training schools there everywhere. Visas are not really a problem in either country, especially Cambodia, as you can get a year visa that you can teach on for $230 going into the country. That could be a back-up plan.

If things are getting dark in the winter, and you're gacking up loogies and choaking them back down while trying to teach, and people are playing you like a tool, get the hey outta' there.

I think, however, that you have about a 65% chance of things being quite to your liking. Probably 80% change it's tolerable. And then there's the 20% chance it sucks. And then there's a 15% chance it's a nightmare.

Actually, I sorta' regret giving you things to worry about, because it's not really helpful. So I'm going to throw in one tip that might help you through the winter there. As soon as you start getting a tickle in your throat, start gargling with vinegar. The acid in the vinegar kills the bacteria on contact. I found doing this as much as necessary (could be as much as 5-6 times a day) in the initial phase of exposure, which usually showed up in the throat, killed that crap before I'd get yet another month long lung infection, of which I've had at least 8 or 9 while in China (that doesn't include regular colds).

So, again, best of luck to you. I believe you'll be fine. And now maybe you have some back up plans so if the shit hits the fan you don't just have to sit in your cell and get pelted full on in the face. You can turn that fan around on them and let them wallow in a shit-storm when you bail out, and they have no replacement.

Cheers

Hello Clyde. It will be Jinan. I'm a bit confused, I thought we were talking about state universities and middle schools. Your graphic description of the ablutions and what used to be called French toilets( when i was in France in 1966(England won the cup) most of their matong were holes in the ground) gave me a nightmare flashback to a couple of occasions I did find myself in those teaching establishments. Being a chain-smoker has to be an advantage to work in such places I thought, because only 10% of your odour receptors are active. They should give you free fags as part of the contract.

Foreign teachers need to be paid more than local teachers because one day we have to return home; restarting your life again in the West, can be a very expensive business indeed; we don't all return to Mum and Dad's, and find our room exactly as we left it five years before. I never felt guilty earning substantially more than Chinese teachers. Your position would really get up my nose. However, my pay will be only 4200, so I could yet be confronted by Chinese teachers getting 5000. For the balance to change after you have started the job is different again, I understand. Not good at all.

this is a good debate and the OP Clyde deserves a lot of credit for what is a well written argument, however whilst i agree with most of your opinions Clyde, I do think you are somewhat over-egging the fact that foreign teachers are hard done by these days having been used to working 12-14 hours a week and now they are having to work 20.

Being paid F/T for 20 hours a week is still a cushy number considering most western countries it is a minimum of 35. I would also say that sitting in the office all day when not in a classroom, waiting for hometime (in effect, resembling a 40 hour working week) does not constitute as work either.

Hi Terry. You SHOULD be much better off in a public university. It's a different game, and it used to be the only safe bet. Since you are committed, you can look forward to very nice students. I'm assuming it's a "public" university, for students who actually earned their way in there, and NOT a private university for students who have money but couldn't make it into a public university (I hear those students are dreadful). But probably you will have the really good variety of students.

It'll probably be fine. If you don't know what the deal was supposed to be, you probably won't mind if you lost some of your benefits or had 2-4 hours tacked onto your schedule. A big part of my problem was the job kept getting worse. They added 2 hours, then they added bullshit classes, then the Chinese teachers all got raises and my salary fell blow theirs, then they started demanding a curriculum and lesson plans, now the are cutting out the summer vacation. So, it's intolerable for the job to get worse. But if you step into it without knowing that the standard contract used to be 12-14 hours a week, but you are working 16-20, and teachers used to get paid for 12 months a year, but you are only getting paid for 10… it won't piss you off. But you can imagine if you are someplace and they were just to say, "Hey, we're going to add 2 hours a week and reduce your pay by 10% at the same time," you'd probably want to tell them to go F themselves. But if you just walk in the door and your are working 8 more hours a week for 15% less, you can still be smiling and stupid and gullible and even do extra tasks for leaders to "show your appreciation."

Ah well, you'll have a good experience if you are a good teacher. Can I ask what city you'll be living in?

Good luck. And do take everything I've said with a grain of salt. I'm a little pissed off at China at the moment, especially because I've had a much softer landing somewhere else and wonder why I ever dealt with all that crap. There is a lot of value in living and experiencing China. It's priceless. But so much depends on the job. Still, public universities are the safest jobs in China. On the other hand I've gone back to working for a training school, but only because it's not run by businessmen, there are no leaders to deal with, no English Corners, no extra-curricular activities, and basically no bullshit whatsoever. Training schools in China can be the worst, depending on the bosshole who runs the show. I worked in one that was OK, and then really bad, and another that was absolute shit from the get-go, but could have been even worse.

Cheers.

Darker and darker, grimmer and grimmer, gets the picture that you paint. You are putting the wind up me alright. Perhaps I should have tried harder to find a Private English Language Centre to accept me. I have worked for a few learning centres in China, so I know they give you a fair deal and encourage you to speak Mandarin. I have actually spent only one day teaching in a Chinese university, so I'll give way to your greater knowledge, Clyde. You sound like you know what you're talking about to me. It looks like I got it right years ago when I avoided working for universities and state schools.

Time is betraying me, so it looks as if I'll have to start at the dreaded university now, 1 Sept. I will remember what you said though and not teach the leaders' nippers for free. Thank you so much.

we might be able to ganbei it through to the end of our contacts

Now that's an entirely different matter again but one I can certainly get on board with :-)

I'm glad we cleared the misunderstanding. I have to say it's rare on this board to have a disagreement come to good ends with both sides respecting each other for the better. I am happy this happened today.

Clyde, I think you took what I said way out of context. I don't hate or have animosity towards western women from the country that I am a citizen of. As a matter of fact, I adored the women growing up and thought the world of them. When you are in love with the idea of something, you will generally see past its faults. But going abroad allows you to make more comparisons.

It was working overseas and dealing with characters from all sorts of backgrounds across all genders that made me change my views slightly when it comes to certain groups. If I am living in the United States of America, England, or Australia I wouldn't categorize the western women as always being a certain way. But I did see how working overseas, being White, and being a Native Speaker all at the same time gave the western women the better chances of not experiencing as much negativity compared to what I went through as well as what others went through.

When you have less negative experience, you may keep a little bit of that bubble of everything being and going towards the better and it's easier to self rationalize the world as still being an optimistic, idealistic place to be in. Being deprived (if that's the correct word) of the truly bad experiences such as being out in the street with little money, being insulted personally by a student, being discriminated against in all walks of life, etc. you will not understand how reality can be much worse than how you see it. I just think the women I have met overseas came across as a little jaded sometimes, though not all were.

As for the disagreement over whether the system works or doesn't work in their favor, I was speaking from a perspective based out of ethnic definitions. Compared to, say, African American Women who work as ESL English Teachers in China (yes I have also worked with them) I would say the White Western Women has huge advantages. Just by applying for any ESL job I am sure they will get more responses per person than people defined as ethnic minorities in Western Countries.

I have also personally posted about how I heard of Chinese Bosses who had attempted rape on some of the female foreign teachers (this information I obtained from the Silverboy poster from something he had written a couple of years back) and how despicable that was. I am well aware there are 2 sides to every coin.

I think you contributed some very useful information regarding why we shouldn't come teach in China. However don't tell me I "hate" someone just because they belong to a certain, defined group. My personal resentment for some of the western women I have met come from personal experience including receiving opinions which come from an attitude of baseless arrogance. "Western Women" can also include women such as Japanese American, Pakastani British, Chinese Australian, etc. and I wouldn't necessarily want to deal with them any more than the western women I had met overseas. Maybe I wasn't specific enough, but let's be more modest, eh?

Actually, foreign teachers of Oral English are highly valuable in China for exactly the purpose we were hired for, which is to help students to SPEAK English. Consistently, I have found that my best students at the university I worked at were the ones who had had a foreign teacher before some time in their education. The difference was very conspicuous. That is testimony enough. Further, I've seen students make exceptional progress in training schools I've worked at, if they were lucky enough to get moderately good teachers.

Yes. More students at a higher price per class. Not sure that education has much to do with it, more the value of a white face.

If one of the required qualifications for a particular English teaching job in China is fluency in Mandarin and you arrive unable to speak a word of the language then the leaders should be miffed and you should get the sack.

It's not up to us as to what should or should not be a prerequisite for employment in China, should or shouldn't be just doesn't come into it. I personally do not believe that most English teaching jobs in China will ever demand any knowledge of Chinese.

I don't know what the all the brouhaha is all about, all I suggested was, if you want to try and get on with[very difficult] people [leaders] then it would be good to learn Mandarin. The next thing I know is that I get weird replies, something like "another GW has emerged from the slime again"(something like that)

I agree with you about how people point at foreign, overweight woman. I worked with a couple in a city in northern Jiangsu for two weeks. Both these women were from the states and here doing teacher training. One was a nice looking, but overweight blonde woman. The other was her mother. When women saw them, they just stared at them all day. Even the vice-principal of the college they were working at when he compared them to Chinese woman told them they were fat and CHinese women skinny.

During breakfast at our hotel, one woman while she opened her mouth up and down like a horse, just kept staring at the women. It seems women are in competition with eachother for beauty in China, and foreign women as "I am glad I am not them."

I am 1.70 cms tall and weigh 70 kilos, not exactly the poster child of obesity, and I have been called "fat."

It's also worth noting that some schools (particularly training centres) would actually prefer to employ newbies with little or no language or cultural experience of china (easier to control). By in large the management of such places are not looking to become friends or extend cultural ties, what they are looking to do is make money. Do that for them and you'll generally find that you have a more pleasant experience working for them regardless of your ability to speak mandarin.

This is spot on. After working for training schools for about 2 years, and having outstanding recommendations, as well as a legit TEFL and an advanced degree, and also having the right sort of look and temperament that is considered desirable, I found nobody was interested in hiring me. Why? I knew the ropes and couldn't be cheated. What they really want is a young person just out of college who they can manipulate, and will be smiling and stupid while getting cheated because they just don't know any better. When foreigners first arrive in China to teach, they are like baby sea turtles just hatched from the eggs and trying to make it to the see. Those turtles can be eaten by gulls, crabs, and then once in the water sharks. The idea of the training schools is to get such green and tender foreigners, in China for the first time, filled with good intentions, and then cut them raw deals right away and get their signatures on it. Cheating the new teacher is more important than having a reliable good teacher, so shortsighted are the predatory capitalistic "communist" businessmen.

I remember telling one such bosshole that I didn't need help opening a bank account, as I'd just done it on my own using Mandarin. He scowled. Why? Because there was a "favor" he couldn't hold over me. I did it myself. Better to not speak any Mandarin and be completely at the mercy of the school, and completely dependent on them. The last thing many of these schools want is a competent, independent, acclimated foreigner. They want a virgin, so to speak, and not a seasoned whore, so to speak.

I remember actually considering taking teaching experience OFF of my resume and replacing it with unrelated office work type stuff, just to disguise the fact that I know the situation on the ground and couldn't be taken advantage of left, right, and center.

Universities, on the other hand, all wanted to hire me, but they almost all wanted to cheat me as well, except for the ones in really remote areas with really severe winters and heavy isolation, because they were so desperate they were willing to supply the standard government contract without tinkering with it so that they personally benefited from the personal losses they'd cleverly arranged for me.

I don't feel at all sorry for Western women teaching in China. If they are blonde, that's a big plus. Slim is good too, but overweight isn't bad. Overweight women back home are discriminated against, but less so in China. How many Western women come on these boards to complain? Very very few!

In Shanxi I worked for a Chinese agent who seconded me to senior middle schools. He told me the senior middle schools almost always accepted a female Westerner before a male Westerner. I've seen Western women become very popular with their bosses and with students in China. As for street manners by locals to foreigners, they can be very bad! But let's face it, teaching oral English for 48 clock hours a month for 5,000 Yuan, accommodation rent-free, with a Chinese teaching assistant helping you prepare 1 lesson /week and assisting you in class is a walk in the park for a relatively high pay in a county where a barber earns just 800 Yuan a month. You name me another country where I can get a better deal than that. I BET YOU CAN'T!

I don't wanna work hard for a living, and I don't wanna be poor. China is ideal for me!

I have received flak on these boards for complaining of chinese teachers receiving benefits that I did not get, and was called greedy and stupid for complaining about it, but I don't see it as complaining, merely standing up for myself.

I agree, and what's particularly insulting is that foreigners in some public institutions, such as universities, are now paid less than equally qualified Chinese teachers BECAUSE they are foreigners. Where I worked I discovered this and refused to work for less than my Chinese peers because I was a foreigner. Basically I refused to be treated as an inferior and discriminated against. Really, how can a foreigner live on less than a Chinese counterpart in the developing world? I told them if they didn't match the Chinese teacher's salaries I'd put in a one month notice of leaving. In the end they DID give me the raise, but the English Department didn't appreciate that one bit, and I'm pretty sure they hated me after that. I was accused of being arrogant, but in their own myopic world vision, they couldn't project enough to see that I was only asking for the absolute minimal standards that wouldn't be an arrogant slap in the face. In short, they were so arrogant that they didn't even know they were arrogant.

Why is it selfish to not want to be discriminated against and cheated? If you ask any Chinese teacher if they'd like to go work in a country with a lower salary, and get paid less than the locals, they will all think that would be unfair and they wouldn't do it.

To make matters worse, while getting paid less (this is just starting in unis, not private schools), one is still resented openly for making more money and being spoiled because a decade ago foreign teachers made double what Chinese teachers did. You get the worst of both worlds, the short end of the stick and resentment for getting the long end.

Personally, I think China got worse in the last few years. Just 2 years ago I was planning to stay for the long haul. Then shit started to pile up and stink to wear I just couldn't stand it anymore.

I think the contempt shown by "leaders" is not solely towards foreign teachers but also towards local staff as well.

True. Their treatment of each other is shocking! I'd say in the last few years there has been a change and now foreign teachers are starting to be treated the same or worse than Chinese teachers. For example, foreigners used to teach 12-14 hours a week back in the heyday of working for unis. Now the absolute minimum at most unis is 16, but I often see hours toppling 20. Beyond that they are now writing in all sorts of extra-curricular, unpaid activities into the contract: English Corners; judging events; putting on events (I've seen contracts stipulating, vaguely, "Halloween," "Christmas"); library time; movie night; drama club; and "thesis adviser"). At the same time I've met Chinese teachers teaching as little as 10 hours a week. Thus, it is now possible to be paid less than one's Chines colleagues, while also working more paid hours, AND having a slew of unpaid extra work. The only benefit one gets at this point that the Chinese don't is a pointy hat that says, "CHUMP" on it.

I'm sure there are still good jobs out there, but, last time I looked I finally gave up. The standard contracts of 4 years ago are very difficult to find anymore. Summer vacations have been cut out, more hours have been added, and all the extra bullshit. This may have something to do with the economic crisis and China vying for GDP #1 in a 2nd Great Leap Forward, this one with cement.

This became increasingly apparent when the Chinese teachers started making more money than the foreigners, because foreign teachers salaries have been basically frozen for the last 8 years or so. Chinese teacher's salaries have more than doubled in that same time. The foreign teacher is considered just for entertainment, and this is partly a defensive measure because many of the Chinese teachers teach in an outmoded style that the students (in a public institution) will tell you they find very boring and inefficient.

I would agree, this is frustrating, and one reason people who value their future/sanity leave. Even if you have a cushy and great job, this can sour it for you. I have received flak on these boards for complaining of chinese teachers receiving benefits that I did not get, and was called greedy and stupid for complaining about it, but I don't see it as complaining, merely standing up for myself.

One reason many move to a place where they do get the credit, respect and salary they deserve.

Even though you claim to have lived here in china for years your grasp of the foreigners plight here in china seems to be pretty loose.
Anyone who has lived here for more than a year would know that what clyde has to say has a lot more validity than anything you seem to imagine.
If there is one grpuup of people living here that i really feel sorry for are the western women . They are treated with derision by the Chinese and ignored by the foreign population. I hope no woman reading your post takes anything you say seriously.

Hi Terry:

Yes, I made a very concerted effort to learn Chinese, even before I arrived. I kept it up throughout my time in China, but, alas, never got very good because it's really a bastard of a language. I got some recognition for basically knowing how to speak, but, the disrespect for foreigners runs much deeper than that, I think. First and foremost is the hierarchy, which is all important. It took me years to appreciate the full horror of the hierarchy. In that hierarchy you are nothing. This became increasingly apparent when the Chinese teachers started making more money than the foreigners, because foreign teachers salaries have been basically frozen for the last 8 years or so. Chinese teacher's salaries have more than doubled in that same time. The foreign teacher is considered just for entertainment, and this is partly a defensive measure because many of the Chinese teachers teach in an outmoded style that the students (in a public institution) will tell you they find very boring and inefficient.

The problem with the "leaders" (note their use of this word where we might use "manager" or "administrator"…), is, frankly, they believe they are absolutely superior to those beneath them. No matter what your degree, age, work experience, knowledge, or what have you, you are beneath them. This is a problem because in reality, you are NOT just a rookie teacher who graduated from a Chinese university like all the others. You may come with much more education and knowledge, and you may, in the big picture, in every respect, be superior to your leaders. In the West we don't enforce hierarchies like they do in China. If you are insufficiently deferential (as opposed to pleasantly neutral), and do not show/acknowledge your subservience in the hierarchy, you are seen as rude. In short you need to bow and scrape and do favors for any lackey "leader" who has been promoted to a position higher than you, and of course you are at the absolute bottom. In order to punish the "rude" teachers who behave as equals instead of subservient wretches, the "leaders" may exercise arbitrary and capricious displays of power to frustrate you, including non-cooperation, or deliberate with-holding of needed information, documents, and even money.

As for the rudeness on the streets. That's really a newer phenomenon, which was the worst this year than at any time before. In more first hear in China I heard "F___ you" only ONCE! But in my last year, it could easily be a few times a day. This also has a lot to do with location. I don't hear it in 2nd tier cities. You need to be 3rd tier for this particular treatment. Also, I was hearing it a lot because I was in an area with tons of school boys, who are the worse offenders, and almost the only offenders (some adult males also can be dicks, not surprisingly).

Among the benefits of living in China are: wonderful students (if you teach in a public university), mostly friendly people (the rude ones are a growing nasty exception), excellent and cheap food, the ability to really immerse yourself in another country, and if you are lucky a relatively cushy job.

Another appeaser/GW comes out of the woodwork!

I think the contempt shown by "leaders" is not solely towards foreign teachers but also towards local staff as well. The working conditions in china are generally poor and the way that management treats employees would often be seen as unacceptable if you were to compare any industry in china with the equivalent in the west. Perhaps the contempt towards foreign staff appears more evident because we often expect better treatment having just arrived from countries where it's the norm. Local staff on the other hand are often happy to lie down and take it as they've never experienced anything different. Of course you could argue that we as foreigners often do receive better treatment than locals in terms of wages, benefits and working hours which in itself contributes toward the contempt.

I fully agree with silverboy that learning Chinese should not be a prerequisite to being treated fairly by an employer who has employed you primarily on the basis of you being an English speaker. However, I do concede that in reality learning the language has many benefits for an individual.

Fair enough, you did state that you were going to focus on the reasons not to go to China. I'm surprised you did concede that there were good reasons. How can good reasons survive inside that picture you portray? I anxiously await part 2, to find out.

You have made me reconsider whether or not to return to China because you have vividly reminded me what things were really like, I'd actually forgotten. However, when I think about it, my experience of China was a little different in a couple of respects. I never felt a welling up of hostility towards me on the streets, or was aware of any nasty remarks made by passing strangers aimed in my direction.

As for the veiled contempt shown by leaders in the workplace; do you feel that many of us bring this contempt upon ourselves by not making an effort to learn a word of Mandarin? If you spend five years in China(or even one) shouldn't you(not you personally) be able to hold some sort of conversation in the language? Many of us can't. If I were Chinese I might well find such an inability to make an effort somewhat annoying.

Hell of a lot of truth in what you say though.

I worked in China for close to 5 years, and at 3 different schools, including 2 private schools and a public university. After leaving and relocating in another country, it's become obvious how much I put up with that I don't have to put up with at all any more, and why in general I would NOT recommend China to new teachers. There are good reasons to go to China, and I wouldn't have stayed there so long if I didn't find a lot of them, but here I am just going to focus on the reasons why NOT to.

The Pollution. As everyone knows, China has many of the most polluted cities in the world, and the levels of pollution can be somewhere between apocalyptic and purgatorial. Not only is there the longer range risk of cancer, but many have immediate reactions, including persistent coughing that plagues them until they leave the city in question or China altogether. Also compromises the immune system and opens one up to serious lung infections.

The Internet. If you like your internet, you can kiss it goodbye. No more Youtube videos. No more Facebook. No more anything that has the word "blog" in it. No "Wordpress," no "twitter". Worse, recently if I accidentally clicked on an image, say in Google image search (which works like shit in China) and it went to a "blog" page, I would be retroactively punished. My internet would hang or all links wouldn't work until I disabled and re-enabled the internet. If you live in a public school, as you typically will if you work for one, and you get their internet, the speeds can be nostalgic, reminding you of the old 28.8 external modems on a bad day, or worse.

Illness.Who wants to get a bunch of month long colds and serious lung infections. This becomes normal in China, especially if you are teaching children. Seriously, be prepared to use more tissue and hawk up more goobers in one year than you would normally in a decade. Chinese use antibiotics for the common cold, so they have developed super-strains of antibiotic resistant colds. If you get a normal cold that lasts a week, you are blessed. Most end up being respiratory infections. I shit you not, you will be spitting green loogies and chocking them down while trying to teach. If you can't stand having a bad cold, China is bad, bad news.

Restrooms.The worst restrooms I've seen anywhere in the world. A typical restroom, say at a bus station or in a university, will not have doors (in case you like your privacy). There will be no toilet paper. Hot water?! Don't be ridiculous. Soap? Ha, ha, ha. You must always carry around your own tissue. Hopefully there is water so you can at least rinse your hands. You will see more crap than in your whole life, because these are squat toilets and many, many people don't flush. It may be most people don't, because they expect a cleaner to come in and do it. Because the toilets are the squat variety, the crap just sits there, not even submerged in water. You will see crap like never before, and you can't escape it. Needless to say, the stench from the common WC can be unbearable.

Corruption. Corruption is so epidemic it's not even seen as corruption. Everyone must cheat everyone else just to counterbalance being cheated themselves. In the hierarchy everyone above you screws you over, as is their birthright, and you in turn must screw over everyone below you so as not to be completely screwed by those above. This kind of corruption is seen as necessity and accepted. For example, it is very common to pay a bribe to get a job!That even applies to a public school teaching job, if you are Chinese. You can't trust the food, the merchandise, anything. Corruption has become not only an accepted way of life, but a necessity. It's absolutely unavoidable and ubiquitous.

Patriarchy. A rabidly patriarchal society. You may find female taxi-drivers, but generally females are considered absolutely inferior to males. Prostitution is rampant, and a real Chinese man, who is at all involved in business or the public (meetings and meeting with others as regards deals and whatnot) should know how to drink, smoke, and whore. There are tends of millions of boys who will never get married because of the number of aborted female babies. This is not a country for feminists, or humanists. It's great for chauvinists though.

Cold War Mentality. By this I don't mean a fear of nuclear bombs, and in Russia and the US, but I do mean a general distrust of other countries and foreigners, coupled with an antiquated suspicion of spies. Yes, Chinese people in smaller cities will actually be suspicious of you and think you may be a spy. In order to establish that you are NOT a spy, the government may keep a close eye on you. You may be spied on, ironically, in the name of protecting "our China" from evil spies. In short, you are automatically a suspect, guilty until proven innocent, and subjected to exactly the crime you are suspected of, spying. China has some 40,000 people employed to monitor the internet and email communications. They do keep an eye on you. In general China has an air of "oppression" that one doesn't find in other countries. Let's just say it has a kiss of North Korea about it.

Spitting.WTF?! Why is it that people in other countries don't need to spit, but Chinese need to spit like mad. It's difficult to hear the stentorian hawking sounds all about one without feeling insulted, because such ambitious spitting is typically meant as a direct insult in the West. If someone were to want to spit at you as an insult, and made a big production of it, they couldn't compete with a completely indifferent spitting in China. People believe the body has 4, or is it 5, fluids in it, and one of them is phlegm. Consequently, they must rid themselves of phlegm. The older folk do this constantly, and it's extremely disgusting. They will spit in a restaurant! There are spittoons strategically placed in restaurants! They will turn their head and spit on the floor in a restaurant! There will be spit on the stairs of your apartment building (not to mention piss). Needless to say, this spitting contributes enormously to the spread of infectious communicable diseases.

Hygiene.Ba, ha, ha, ha! I already mentioned no soap in the restrooms. I worked in a public university and never saw soap ever in the restrooms, which means the students could never properly wash their hands. In winter the cold water provided would be freezing, so they wouldn't rinse well either if they weren't masochists. Generally, in smaller cities, people behave as if germs didn't exist. If you get a cold it must be your own fault for not wearing "enough layers." There is no disinfecting other than washing dishes, hopefully with dish soap, and most likely cold water. Table tops are usually washed with a damp cloth. Colds and serious respiratory infections are absolutely everywhere. It's a germ bath, worse than riding the New York subway. You are in a Petri dish. Your only hope is to do everything you can to bolster your immune system.

Traffic. Oh crap! You know the general rule about decent people becoming assholes when they get behind the wheel. In smaller cities Chinese people become "ferocious assholes" behind the wheel. When you are walking, you are shit. When you cross a street, it is very common for cars to speed up at you and lean on the horn to tell you to get the F out of their way, you inferior too-poor-to-show-off-that-you-have-a-car scum. Traffic laws are, what, jokes. Taxis will drive in oncoming traffic and weave all over the place with one hand perpetually honking. See next point.

Honking. It is glorious to be rich in China, and it is glorious to honk. I don't care if you are the most considerate pedestrian in the world, and you just want to go to the market and get a bag of groceries, mind your own business and go back home. If you have to walk down the streets and cross a few chances are you will be honked at loudly, rudely, and insistently, like you are a diseases cow blocking an ambulance. The honking is extraordinarily rude and insulting. One takes it in stride, of course, but once one's away from it, one can comfortably look back ans say, "Wholly F___ that was unnecessary!"

Rudeness. First, spitting, honking, cutting in line, pissing in the street, and corruption are not considered rude. Calling you "lao wai" or "wai gruo ren" 24/7 is not considered rude. Taking you picture while you are slurping noodles is not rude. Strangers talking about you loudly in your presence, in Chinese, is not rude. Smoking and talking very loudly in restaurants is not rude. That is normal and one just has to get used to it. However, in the last couple years, perhaps in conjunction with idiot ramped up nationalism, a more overt kind of direct rudeness is blossoming. It is more and more common to hear, in small cities, while walking down the street, "F___ you!" and "F____ your mother!" Chinese will say they don't know what it means. But, they will say it in Chinese as well so there's no question what it means. Honestly, I've personally been subjected to the most racist public treatment I've ever seen of anyone in my life. In a way it's good for one's own cultural awareness to be exposed to this on the receiving end, and then again it just plain sucks. I've heard "F____ you" from complete strangers (usually boys) as many as on 6 different occasions in one day. However, there's little or no risk of injury. it's just insults.

Being a foreigner. In a smaller city you will be called foreigner all day long, stared at, and talked about in front of you. If you linger on the street a crowd may form around you. You are constantly a center of attention, and a TARGET. If there are 3 or more boys, they are more likely than not to start smirking, and make some stupid comment, which if you understand Chinese might piss you off a bit. Personally, I got sick of being anyone and everyone's convenient target for ridicule.

Pissing and shitting in the street. One could say that this is itself a reason to not life in a typical small city in China, as well as it IS a reason. One lives over seas in order to experience another culture, and children wearing "split pants" with their genitalia perpetually exposed so they can piss and crap whenever and wherever the need arises is one of the cultural delights of living in small town China. You will see children squatting and puddles forming on the sidewalk under them everywhere. You will even see them crapping. Baby piss is not considered vile, therefore it's not uncommon to find little puddles of baby piss on the stairs of your apartment, and even the occasional little pile of baby poop. The children are really, really cute though!

Jesus, this is exhausting, and I have lots of stuff left to warn about. I better just hit one more big one that directly has an impact on teachers, and is ultimately the real reason I left China, as I was able to endure all the crap above OK.

Treatment of the foreign teacher. This is ultimately the most important thing, and there is a range of treatment from "decent" to ridiculously indifferent or even maliciously cruel. First I must warn you that just because all the "leaders" (this should be a category in itself) and people who work around you are nice to you (on the surface) and honor you at the occasional (banquet), and they smile and wave when they see you, that doesn't mean they give a shit about you, don't resent your very existence, and aren't quietly scheming to screw you out of money or take advantage of your gullibility. They actually think you are stupid, though they would passionately, vehemently deny that if you ever questioned them. But in Chinese culture, it's nothing to smile at someone you hate, or be nice to someone you can't stand. That's just part of life. Just think of a seasoned salesman. He won't win new customers if he doesn't know how to flatter and be nice, even while hoping to screw you over. Chinese people in any position of power have had to deal with this on both ends of the stick enough that their "kung fu" so to speak, is vastly superior to ours, and we don't even know their fighting. Don't be fooled. Only judge by their actual actions.

There will be quiet schemes to add classes to your schedule, and definitely to screw you out of any and every benefit you receive. There is a strict hierarchy, and in it you are an outsider, though that has some benefits (like not having to go to their meetings). Screwing over the foreigner is not corruption, it's benefiting the motherland. It's good for "our China." I found recently that every new job I was applying for had one or more schemes to cheat me out of money. Normally this would be a "red flag" but it's so common that one just has to accept it and not get riled. Of course the are going to try to dupe you and pocket the difference. But, eventually, I just had enough of it, and didn't want to work for people who would treat me in such a way, perpetually holding me as inferior, as an outsider, and trying to screw me over if possible.

Well, I wanted to make a small list, but the reasons to not go to China are encyclopedic, as are the reasons for going. I could do a positive companion to this, and even some of these bad things have their good side, in a way, but I want to warn people about some of the more dire things they are quite likely to encounter in mainstream China (things which one may not see at all in neighboring Hong Kong, by the way). The corruption I mentioned permeates all of Asia, and perhaps all of the ESL market, but I think it has a bit more muscle, spit-shined, in China. Some things, like the respiratory infections, absolute crap internet, oh and I forgot to mention the largely impenetrable language barrier, are unique to China.

Lastly, I would highly recommend China as a place to travel!! Living there though, be careful, and consider other countries. Now that I'm gone I'm loving having unprotected internet (so to speak) and being able to breath without a rattle of phlegm in my lungs.