When I first started teaching in China, I was soon aware that America was/is the preferred English speaking country where Chinese students want to go for university study. For a long time I put this down to 'a pretty cool place to go to'- however, I've since discovered that's not exactly true, because whereas U.S.A. has some jolly good universities, they also have the world's piss-poor ones. Rich or not the standards are too high in UK, Australia and other countries for many Chinese to consider as an option.

I did a fill-in at a private middle school a couple of years ago. My students were those intending to hit the big apple in the course of time. My God, what a nightmare, they didn't seem to accept me as a proper teacher cos I'm only an Englishman. The total sum of their grasp of English was stuff like: brown nosing (ingratiating yourself) kicking ass (arse/donkey type animal) and such like gems. After a few lessons droning on to myself with half of the class backs turned on me I gave up and put Mr Bean on which was a big hit. I should add that I had been advised beforehand that these students should not be disciplined.

If you come to China to teach, you should regard it as a means of having a good time-go wallking, visiting places, drink lots of Baijiu and chat up the women, since we are regarded in the main as white monkeys hired for promotional purposes only. But that suits me cos I'm coming back for more.