Clyde, I do think you are somewhat over-egging the fact that foreign teachers are hard done by these days having been used to working 12-14 hours a week and now they are having to work 20.

Being paid F/T for 20 hours a week is still a cushy number considering most western countries it is a minimum of 35. I would also say that sitting in the office all day when not in a classroom, waiting for hometime (in effect, resembling a 40 hour working week) does not constitute as work either.

That's true. I've heard that argument before. If you are a teacher in the West you may teach as many hours as a full time job. You wouldn't be doing it for less than $800 a month though. If you are going to work 20 hours, the salary should at least reflect that. And it also shouldn't be that the Chinese teachers are working less hours for more pay than you get. I'm not sure exactly that comparing teaching Oral English in China can be compared to being a teacher in the West (unless you meant an ESL teacher in Europe or something). Because then you have to start thinking about things like, do you have a car in China, and could you even afford one if you wanted one. The answer is probably "no".

So, even if you can save more money in China than a teacher could in the West, because you live on campus, and even if you have more free time than a teacher in the West could dream of, you also have nothing going into your retirement, absolutely no security whatsoever (well, my uni didn't provide insurance), you don't own a home or a vehicle, don't have access to quality health care should you need it, are completely separate from your family, and otherwise live a compromised existence that simply can't be compared to being a full functional independent, employed teacher in the West. One has to keep things in perspective and the proper context. The reason to teach in China at a public university was the free time and long vacations.

Once you start working 20 hours at a uni for shit pay like 5000-6000 you might be better off working for a training school. In fact, I found training schools paying people with much less education and experience nearly double what I was being offered in universities for comparable hours within the same city. Actually, in the last place I worked, teachers at a local training school who may or may not have even had a BA, and probably didn't have a TEFL, were making more than a 1,000 yuan a month more than the university teachers, and working only 4 hours more a week. They had less benefits, but, the uni is cutting out summer vacation and tacking on duties…