And BTW, 10,000 rmb a month is peanuts compared to the gulf. If I wanted daily abuse and stress in my life, I'd go back to the sandpit to have it heaped on me daily, from students and colleagues.

Intersting stuff, San Mig.
In the early 1970's secondary school subject teachers could get jobs over there paying at least double what they could earn in the UK. At that time I had seriously considered teaching in a gulf country for a couple of years to return to Blighty with enough cash in hand to buy a semi-detached without the need for borrowing money from a building society. Eventually I dismissed it as I didn't know how much money it would be possible to save after having paid for one's daily living costs.
Salaries for expat teachers over there have shrunk considerably in the meantime because the Arabs have twigged they csn attract those teachers for less money than was possible before.
I wish to compare teaching as an expat in the Gulf countries with doing so in China. My questions are these. As an ordinary EFl teacher over there living non-extravagantly, what would one's earnings be for a 25 period a week teaching load plus office hours, and how much of it could one put aside after paying for one's daily living costs? Please answer in US dollars.
In a Chinese backwater as an oral English teacher on 5,000 yuan a month living rent-free and teaching 18 periods a week with no office hours, I can save 3500 yuan a month after living fsirly well.
I realize that alcohol and girlfriends would be a problem over there, and possibly smoking at work too. Here in China in backwaters, none of those three issues is a problem.