"And I cannot believe that someone who has a doctorate in languages would be wasting their time working in such a position..."

100% correct which is why I don't work in education in China and when I did I was at a university.

There is no money in education in China, at least not as a teacher/instructor/professor.

I work in biotech right now. Money is great, and life is good.

If more teachers went into business in China things would be better in China for teachers because they would be forced to raise wages and standards in order to attract teachers and keep them.

When thousands of their low wage C.R.A.P. jobs were repeatedly left unfilled things would change.

Look at what education reform did in South Korea. First it became a pain in the azz to work there as far as getting all of your information processed and then, when a huge hole was left from that, the wages went up and they are still going up. People are also getting smart on that front too and they demand an E1 visa position and not any E2 position visa.

The difference between many E1 visa jobs at 3.8 to 4.7 million won
and an E2 visa job at 2.0 to 2.5 million won is like day and night.

The way that South Korea has cleaned up their teaching game requirements is excellent and with that teachers can now demand and get higher wages too.

When China does that, and they will, you'll see things change in China because people can afford to be picky and get what they want in a contract within reason.

I know a couple now, both from Canada, married, working for 4.0 million won each at a college on an E1 visa. Both have doctorates.

Anytime I am confronted when I am in China with someone wanting to practice their English, I simply speak Mandarin Chinese to them. I let them know that I want to practice my Chinese. If they want ESL lessons, we need to talk about pricing.

ESL teachers in China are treated like whores and whores get paid before they get laid.

Its not my goal here to tell people where to work. It is my goal to make sure they don't get screwed.

If you work in an ESL mill lined with glass walls in a high rise somewhere, you made a wrong turn.