Some people like and can tolerate teaching for forty hours, and more power to their elbows. However,my advice for any FT who accepts a year's contract to teach in China is to calculate your expected earnings for the year, because you could well find yourself better off working half the hours or less by taking into consideration {what holidays will I get paid for? Will I receive travel money(not air fare) How much air fare will they pay and will they actually pay it? How much of my flat rental will they cover? Will my heating be paid for? Should I risk paying a large deposit and three months rental in advance? Who pays for washing machine when it breaks down?(normally within two day of moving in) Internet? Will they furnish you with a computer?} and so on , the unexpected financial outlays are too numerous to particularise when you accept a 10000 RMB gig with a crappy independent "school" Be careful some independent crap outfits tell you 25 hours a week but when you arrive it's forty hours by the time you collate chinglish lesson plans.

Tom, you are comparing China with the GCC countries, hardly an equal comparison?

I never said anything about teaching 40 hours, but working 40 hours as is common in the gulf, with around 20 hours of class time, more likely 50 mins per class, so actually more like 18 hours of classes.Bear in mind, Wednesday, the last day of the working week, you may only have one class, and be sat on your office PC all day, just finishing off attendance papers, before knocking off early. Agreed, training centres in China are crappy, but needs must. You seem to be independently wealthy, but what of those who are not, and for who going home is not an option? Therefore, if they want to make savings, they don't have much choice. For those teachers who truly enjoy 25 hours of kindergarten classes a week, I salute them! They are certainly more strong minded than I ever could be, teaching Chinese kids just isn't my particular cup of java...

You expect a computer provided? Do you get that if you move into a flat by yourself in England? And in China, the provided internet is normally crappy anyway. Most teachers I knew in China either bought the 3G dongle or had their own adsl connection. The LAN connections are unreliable at best, and monitored/open to security issues.You only get heating, as in central heating, in North China, not in Central/South.

In the gulf I had to pay my own water (not expensive!), and electricity, also peanuts. Internet also was an optional extra, but free at the college. Rent was covered.

Good luck with the visa stuff
TL