Your flat is likely to be a rat-infested locked-down prison, more often in a teachers' compound, where getting back home after 2230 is often a big problem; the caretaker having locked up and already in the land of nod. If your mate comes to visit you, he'll very often have to book into a hotel, because unless your visitor is a relative, he or she will not be allowed to stay the night. These rules are sometimes not enforced but you won't know that until you've moved in. No, it's better to work for a decent private school, where you'll be given a generous housing allowance, enabling you to live in luxury, away from the wretched school(who wants to live on the job?)

Try saying that after being homeless on the streets of England, and sleeping in the back of a mates van, or couchsurfing for a couple of weeks, and having to move on and flit between locations. Not all flats in China are so bad, of course there are those places you mention, but some are also ok.