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.

[My experience was in 2 small cities, and one's experience might be different in a very large city.]

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.