Teaching EFL in China: Pros and Cons

There are a lot of positive things about China. I've been here 3 years now and I'm finally over it.

I loved most of the first 2 and half years... it's an adventure and I'd highly recommend it for a year or two because the students are great, the people are mostly great and parts of the country are amazing.

My issues right now:

Internet... a VPN won't solve the internet issue because the internet speeds are so poor that you'll struggle to load YT or FB.

*My current connection is 50 MB down/ 40 MB down via PandaPow

Electricity, if you're even remotely rural (City of 1 million is still rural) expect power cuts. At my university we have probably 20 a year from March - October and they can last hours / all night. Not ideal because of the heat and humidity during those months!

*Never had a power outage at either university I lectured at. It's nice to run AC 24/7 with no utility bills

People, everywhere. Queues everywhere. I remember on a trip to BJ I had to queue to cross the street and by time I got to the front of the queue it was back on the red man.

*Agreed.

Red tape to do everything and anything. I remember moaning that it takes about 20 minutes to wire money home from S.Korea.... I look back at those times fondly, now.

*Be smart. Find a Chinese friend to do it. Less than 5 minutes

I work in Zhengzhou, Henan Province and I really lucked out when I see what is written here. I am 64, got a visa no sweat, the city I live in is 1000x cleaner than Seoul, the subway is magnificent, buses are great and dirt cheap, 1 yuan to go anywhere in the city which is bigger than Seoul.

My apartment is awesome, way better than I had in Korea, I don't pay tax, what I earn, I put in my pocket, everything is paid for me.

Cost of living is low in this part of China, Beijing and Shanghai not so much. Fruit is so cheap, I feel like I am back in SA. My salary is about the same as I got in Korea so I can save much more since I pay for nothing except the things I want over and above the basics.

I teach at a college, the English level of the students is poor but they are just amazing. They are so friendly and I just have to ask them a question about something and they immediately volunteer to do it for me, from opening bank accounts to taking me to neighboring cities. 

During the mid-autumn festival, one of the student's parents invited my friend and I to their city, 2 hours drive away, fetched us by car, put us up in a hotel, probably a 4 star, fed us, took us sightseeing and generally overwhelmed us with kindness. The 3 days cost us zero and we had a ball.

Chinese people in my province are just so friendly, they love foreigners. If I had a buck for every photo I have had to pose for with kids, babies and adults (and I am butt ugly), I wouldn't have to work. I have been blown away by their kindness.

They are also way more tolerant of understanding you and your not understanding their culture. They don't start hyperventilating like Koreans do if you do some inadvertently that their culture doesn't usually do. They are way more laid back than Koreans.

Here is my list of pro's and cons. You have to remember, like Korea, you have different experiences in different areas. For me I am gauging it against Seoul because I live in a similar sized city to Seoul, though the area is much greater.

I will start with the cons:

1.  Air pollution, trying to figure out if it is worse than Seoul, I think in winter it is because they burn coal for heating, but summer it is better than Seoul. Anyway both cities suck for that.

2. Internet, if you use a VPN for FB, YouTube etc, if you don't have to use it then the internet is really good, especially mobile internet, way faster than I was getting in Seoul.

3. Traveling in rural China where there are no high speed trains but just local buses, organized chaos is the best way to describe it.

4. Lack of English speakers, I find mostly they don't speak English but they really try to understand you and use apps to help.

5. Driving, again organized chaos, like Seoul the rules are merely suggestions which no one takes seriously, but add a million e-bikes into the equation and you have an interesting time.

Pros:

1. The people, awesome is the only way to describe them.

2. My job, great college, greater students and great pay for the time I teach.

3. Food, I like Chinese food about 1000000000000000000 00 x more than Korean food.

4. Public transport, except for the buses I spoke about, awesome. Cheap high speed trains everywhere. Even the second class seats are like traveling business class on an airplane.

5. No tax and medical insurance payments.

6. Cleanliness of my city, awesome.

7. Not getting stared at. If you do get a stare, it is followed by a huge smile and greeting.

8. The old Chinese folks are super friendly, not like some of the old dudes in Korea.

9. Not being spat on.

10. Not having people refusing to sit next to you on a bus or subway.

11. Not having girls that are so image orientated, Chinese girls are way more natural and not plastered with makeup, they don't actually care if one hair is out of place like Korean girls do.

12. Almost no plastic surgery ads.

So that is it, my disclaimer is that of course in a country of 1.3 billion people and the sheer physical size of it, you are going to have different experiences. I really think I lucked out, Zhengzhou is not too popular for foreigners wanting to teach because it is not a huge tourist area like Beijing or Shanghai but I would take this city over them any time of the day.  Pretty easy to get a well paying job in this city.

Dating (if you are a man)

You didn't really need to elaborate after that one.

 



1.  Air pollution, trying to figure out if it is worse than Seoul,

http://aqicn.org/city/zhengzhou/cn/

AQI in zhengzhou is hitting 680 right now. Seoul is 65.

Just wrote a huge dissertation on my experiences here on another thread before seeing this thread. Let me add one more pro I forgot to add

No Jesus freaks here in China out in public harassing you, knocking on doors etc, proselytizing is pretty much illegal here.

such a (pardon the bad pun) breath of fresh air 

The internet is one big con; along with no YouTube, Facebook, gmail, etc sometimes online teaching resources were unattainable (with no vpn). I was convinced that almost any internet page which had logos or links such as 'f' (for Facebook) or 't' (twitter) would be blocked. For uni/college teaching this was super frustrating; when I was able to download good videos, the students knew the source (usually YouTube). The CCP seem to do their very best to not want foreigners to stay; it's a complete inverse reaction to what schools and provincial governments want when one looks at job ads for native English teachers, yet many Chinese I've worked with have been friendly and curious about western culture and the English language. Another con are academies work hours; I worked at World English and while I was there it made a Korean hagwon feel easy (whereas uni's and ps schools are the complete opposite).
A pro to me though is if you're a little older or not North American you can still find a variety of jobs (compared to the superficiality of Korean hagwon owners and the unreasonable and irrelevant masters requirements of Korean uni's). In first tier cities, it's also more international than Seoul (better food options and a greater variety of people that you can meet).

When's the best time to visit Northern China?  IE  Blue skies, less pollution, etc?  Sept, Oct?  May?  I mean, I'd like to take more pictures and have things be viewable. 

My salary is about the same as I got in Korea so I can save much more since I pay for nothing except the things I want over and above the basics.

I teach at a college,

This is what is beginning to tip the balance away from Korea now.


Beats me why newbies still come to Korea. It just ain't worth it anymore when you can save more in China for a much less stressful time.


What were the visa hurdles like?

I prefer china.  More to do. and friendly, and it's also cheaper. You meet many other foreigners. not only those teaching English or in the military like a lot in Korea.  I think China also speaks better English than Korea. but I'm talking about the big cities, not rural areas.  Also you can teach privately, it's not illegal.

When's the best time to visit Northern China?  IE  Blue skies, less pollution, etc?  Sept, Oct?  May?  I mean, I'd like to take more pictures and have things be viewable.

I really like September in China. The pollution isn't (usually) horrid, and it's warm enough to not wear a jacket but not too hot. October is okay too, but it's starting to cool down and it's not worth going there during Golden Week. I thought May was a nice month too.

My salary is about the same as I got in Korea so I can save much more since I pay for nothing except the things I want over and above the basics.

I teach at a college,

This is what is beginning to tip the balance away from Korea now.


Beats me why newbies still come to Korea. It just ain't worth it anymore when you can save more in China for a much less stressful time.


What were the visa hurdles like?

First let me tackle the teaching at college and money from above. College teaching in China pays between around 1/2 to 1/3rd what it does in Korea. Highest salary I've seen for a college job in China is maybe 12,000 rmb/month (US$1,700) most are in the 6,000-10,000rmb/month (US$ 869-$1450) and thats only for the semesters, the break for Spring Festival is usually not paid or is paid at a reduced rate say 3,000 rmb. You may get another 2,000-4,000 "travel money" but thats it. Housing is though usually included. I taught university in Korea for 15 years and wished I could do it here but unless you are seriously into rice, noodles and dumplings university salaries aren't liveable. I know a bunch of people who work at universities because of the low hours but work 2-3 other side gigs to make ends meet.

Visa hoops, uggh!!! It really depends on the province,each one seems to have their own rules most now do want diplomas verified by the Chinese Consulates that have jurisdiction over where the school is located. You'll likely also have to get a medical check sent to your school so they can get the visa invitation letter done. Notarized criminal checks are now needed now  state or national it depends on the office. I got lucky last week here in Chongqing where I just moved to from Nanjing. They took my state issued one that had a signed affidavit from the US Consulate in Chengdu.

Consulates are notorious for rejecting applications for the most minor things. Houston rejected mine twice, once for a "bad bar code" on the invitation letter then on the new one because it said in Chinese "to the Embassy of the China PRC in Houston" instead of "to the Consulate of the..."

Also to get the diploma stamped by the consulate and the actual visa note this, Consulates DO NOT take mailed in requests, you can walk those in drop the paperwork and come back 4 days later . You usually have to use an agent for this and they will hit for anywhere between $100-$200 to get these done in addition to the fees the Consulate charges.

hth

Do you consider Shenzhen a first-tier city?

I thought I would revisit this thread as I am now in my 5th year in China and things have changed quite a lot for me but I will try to give pros and cons based on the norms, as much as possible.

Language
===

Mandarin is not spoken everywhere and the regional languages can differ significantly. I love this, but at the same time it is a con because you may have brushed up on Mandarin in anticipation for moving here but the local people you interact with daily (shop assistants, taxi drivers) may not speak the language. Where I was, quite rural Guangdong, Cantonese wasn't even the first language and Mandarin was their 3rd language. If you like languages, it is amazing but be prepared to not be understood.

A general rule of thumb is if you need to find someone that speaks English... consider looking in places that would typically employ graduates. Bank employees have been useful when I've been lost/looking for something.

People
===

I had great students in Korea, I have great students in China and typically those are the local people you'll spend most of your time with so you don't really need to worry there. Starring at the foreigner is common here... mostly in the smaller cities but I would get starred at in Daegu too. I have, generally speaking, found the Chinese more accommodating than the Koreans. Go into a shop, language barrier, they whip their phone out, speak in to an app and the phone speaks to me in English. Fantastic. This isn't a one off. It's common. I find that most Chinese people are willing to help if they can and are usually happy to see a foreigner.

Money
===

I don't know if this is common in other countries, but the use of WeChat Pay and Alipay is amazing. Every shop, big or small, has the barcodes so you can pay just by scanning a QR code with your phone. It is useful because counterfeit notes are quite common here. Getting money out of the country is difficult. As someone said previously, 'get a local friend to do it' is basically the only effortless way to do it but even they have yearly limits.

Work
===

A previous poster said something similar to 'I don't know why new teachers even bother with Korea anymore'. I believe that you need 2 years experience to get the Z-visa. Also, very few pay for flights up front. Most schools will reimburse you at the end of the year though. Also, most jobs found online pay only 10 months (either summer or winter holiday goes unpaid) - caveat, this is specifically for public schools or universities, and it is true for those new to China and applying from abroad. However, as soon as I started looking for another job here, I was inundated with universities offering me 12 month contracts with 12 months pay, flight and end of year bonus.

My annual salary, including flight and completion bonus, is 20 million won a year but I have no deductions. I agreed 8,250 RMB a month and that's what I get. The taxes and insurance are taken out before. I pay no rent or utilities so it is 20 million won a year for food, travel and savings.

I have 5 classes (10 x 40 min period) per week, have 2 days off during the week and only work in the mornings. Which goes in to the next section.

Part time work or distance learning courses
===

Because you have so much free time, I know MANY people that do part time work to supplement their income. I don't do this, and it is illegal, but that isn't the reason I don't do it. If you're in a city part time work will find you, if you want it. I went the route of studying instead. I am doing my MA TESOL distance learning and you have plenty of time to do this in China. I have had offers in training centres (read as hagwons) for 2 days work a week which would double my yearly earnings and I would still have my weekend free. Again, this isn't a one off, it is common.... but it is illegal.

A response to unliveable wages/cheap=street food
===
I never eat at the school's canteen and I save a decent amount of money, over 50% of my pay, every month. I go to a western sports bar once a week for beers, burger and chips, and football. I buy expensive brown rice, I buy Australian imported frozen chicken and beef and I buy fresh fruit and veg from Carrefour or Metro. I eat Weetabix with fresh milk for breakfast. I rarely eat out and haven't eaten street food in about 4 years.

I cook nearly every meal at home and I think that's the difference. When friends invite me out of course I will eat dinner with them... but I have met so many foreigners that rely on western fastfood. They go Pizza Hut once a week and get all the trimmings and that meal costs about 200 RMB a time and then they complain that they have no money at the end of the month.

I definitely do not struggle to enjoy myself, eat well and travel on a university wage without part-time work. However, if I had a wife who couldn't work here or children... then it would be VERY difficult.

I also lived in China for a while--three years to be exact. I lived in one of the country's top ten cleanest cities--Weihai, Shandong Province. I found Weihai's air to be cleaner than any city in South Korea by far with the occasional smog coming from the rest of the mainland. Here are the pros and cons I noted while living in China.
Accommodation size--most apartments I saw in China, whether new or old, were western size rather than one-room studios (they do exist, though).

Pros
Food--except in Shandong which is known for having extremely oily and salty foods moreso than any part of northeast China
Foreigner-friendly--although I did get snubbed by some old guy on a bus, and some random college-aged kids who shouted "cao ni ma" at me when I passed them on the street
Health care--it's cheaper than South Korea and is just as good in many cases
Meds and antibiotics--very cheap (probably due to the pollution) and doesn't always require a doctor's prescription
Transportation--fairly easy to figure out and very reliable.
Apple Maps works without a VPN
Grocery shopping--also cheaper than in Korea. 100RMB (at the time 16.50 USD) could buy me a week's worth of groceries.
Tourism--there are tons of places to visit in China compared to Korea and most other parts of Asia.

Cons
Language--as I lived in a city where 40% of the population was ethnic Korean (and because I rarely ever left Weihai) I just spoke Korean to a lot of people and only spoke Chinese when shopping.
Air Pollution--not a problem in Weihai 90% of the time
Food--this was a problem specifically in Weihai--I couldn't eat it most of the time without getting sick
Racism--I rarely ever dealt with this, but there are people who genuinely don't want foreigners in China (many of them are abroad *side eye*) and complain that we "steal" their jobs.
General Health--I literally got sick every month after the first two months of living in China until the time I left
Accommodation--most likely you will have one or more roomates. I prefer to live alone. Also, if you live north of the Hangzhou river the government can control when the heat in your apartment comes on and goes off. If you live south of the Hangzhou River and don't live in a serviced apartment, you're on your own in terms of heating your place and they're NOT very well insulated in the south.

All in all, China is an experience that you may or may not like. Everyone is different. I never once felt "at home" in China the way I have in Korea. Making friends was harder partly due to the language barrier but principally because Weihai was very isolated from the rest of the country. The people I met in larger cities such as Shanghai and Qingdao, I'm still in touch with most of them whereas in Korea, I'm still in contact with a lot of people I met in the countryside.

Nice one, Hamid62. I also moved to Hainan, in part because of how clean the air was. It was definitely a good choice.

You mentioned shared accommodation. That must have been at a training centre, right? I have never heard of university positions with shared accommodation. Right now I have a nice, big 2 room apartment to myself. My last job I had a 2-story lakeside villa to myself. My experience is definitely that I prefer the housing here than in Korea.

General health. When I arrived I would eat out a lot and I would get sick quite regularly. As soon as I started cooking everything for myself. No problems at all. Food preparation standards are, in general, much lower than in Korea.

You're right. I worked for a training centre but they sent me to work at a college, so I still had all of the college holidays off instead of just two weeks. It was a pretty sweet deal. Eventually my roommate (also hired through the same company but sent to work at an international school) left two months earlier than me and so I had this spacious 2 bedroom apartment to myself on the 8th floor (it had 16 or so floors) that the company paid for--we just paid for utilities.

I got sick regardless of whether I cooked or not throughout most of the time I was there. But in the final six months of living when I ONLY cooked my own food (or ate at Mcdonald's or the occasional fully Korean restaurant rather than Joseonjok owned restaurant) I was fine. Again, the food was only a problem in Weihai. When I visited Yantai, Jinan, and Qingdao it was ok while eating the food whether it was foreign or local. Something about Weihai's food just didn't agree with me.

I just realised that I never mentioned what could be the biggest con to living in China--sending money back home. Even though the salaries may or may not be that high depending on where you live, at any given time I think foreigners are not permitted to send more than $500 per transaction (although I've heard it can be lower in some places) while Chinese people can send way more than that. Additionally you need to provide paperwork each time. This is a problem that probably most foreigners faced unless they're lucky enough to open a remittance account in HK and have their schools pay them through those accounts.

Also, in China when I lived there foreigners generally weren't offered ID cards and would have to carry around passports (though I'm sure not everyone did that). Now, foreigners are given ID cards but they can't be used for anything because the foreign ID number of digits doesn't match a Chinese ID number of digits. Foreigners still need their passports to book a hotel room, to buy domestic plane tickets, to buy plane tickets, etc...

Getting money out is the problem unless you can rely on a Chinese person you trust. I've tried every possible way and that is still the most simple and cheapest route. Give the money to a Chinese person, they send it to your bank.

The ID cards are useless . I have no idea what they're for but we still need to carry our passports around with us, legally. I don't 99% of the time. I know it has been a problem for foreigners in a 'foreigner bar' in Guangzhou. On a good day the police will escort you back to your home to show your passport.

One of the difficulties noted here is getting money out but if Union Pay works in your country it is easy, you just open an extra account and put money in there, send the ATM card to your relatives and ask them to withdraw it for you.

One more piece of good news, the government is really making an effort to get pollution levels down and I must say in my city the improvement has be staggering. Hope they continue to do it.

Cons:
- Teaching EFL
- In China