Secondly, they pay too much attention to our actions in our daily lives, and love to gossip about our preceived failings.

What you have rightly pointed out here, is a major annoyance to any old china hand in ESL in China, and one thing that I resented having to deal with on a sometimes daily basis. It can all depend on the FAO and your fellow co workers. Generally, at a public job, fellow chinese teachers will either be friendly or leave you to your own devices, either out of disinterest or aloof indifference, or a good mix of both.....that never bothered me one jot, I am quite a solitary type and I did not really need or seek their approval or friendship. But generally the FAO can make or break the place for you, and sad to say most FAO's, especially the men from backwards provinces like Hunan and Jiangxi, will be racist, xenophobic and be a royal pain in the arse. Chinese professors also tend to be arrogant arseholes in general.