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I was bored in a desk job, so I came to teach English in China...

B

brwnchikinbrwncow

Greenlighter
Joined
Feb 22, 2015
Messages
35
Location
Weihai, China / Portland, Oregon
That's right. I quit my high paying desk job to make minimum wage in China... but there is a caveat (there always is dammit.)

Although I make 9000RMB=$1500USD per month, I don't pay for my apartment, I only work 20 hours a week... I teach English to children which is extremely easy for an English Native Speaker. I also make about 5 times what the normal Chinese person makes so I can either live big or send money home. I choose to do the latter.

Needless to say it has been an experience and I've been here almost a year. Chinese people taught me that kindness at courteous are completely different things... they also taught me that bad hygiene is hard to live with.

I started as a commercial fisherman in Alaska, then joined the Navy, then did 2 years contracting in Afghanistan working 84 hours a week for 12 months.. then got home and got a sweet job because of my resume and qualifications. One thing it didn't have was adventure. See above jobs for that... so I said FUCK YOU and left... Ok actually I didn't say FUCK YOU, but I felt like the narrator version of Tyler Durden in Fight Club...so I left,

This job is easy, they don't drug test... and I can get pure DXM powder from the source. I do miss cannabis and LSD though. Oh well. I live on the beach.

:)
 
For visual stimulation. Enjoy the symbiote of Venom and Cookie Monster:

VENOM_NOM_NOM_by_Carltheshivan.jpg
 
where in china are you?

having been there four times, i can say i have seriously thought about doing that over there. it's such a chilled out lifestyle and you get to save up so much.
 
I read on cracked.com that Chinese kids are always trying to stick there fingers up teacher's butts. Is that true?
I also heard it's common to get hired on as a totem white guy for companies that are trying to make an impression.
Do you speak and write Chinese?
I always wondered this as it would do nothing to have a French guy, who speaks only French, teach French in America.

btw,
Tyler Durden actually was supposed to look like Smeagle vs Brad Pitt
Have heard about the Fight Club sequel?
 
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L2R said:
where in china are you?

having been there four times, i can say i have seriously thought about doing that over there. it's such a chilled out lifestyle and you get to save up so much.
Click to expand...

Hey L2R! I'm in a beautiful seaside city in the Shandong province called Weihai.. google it! It is an amazingly beautiful city right across the water from South Korea... way up on the tip of a peninsula so I wake up and exercise on the beach during sunrise and I ride my motorcycle to the other side of the peninsula to see the sunset. Summers are perfect... mid 70s and low 80s and the water is warm enough to swim.. unfortunately no surfing. There are multiple beaches and mountains. Winters are cold but not horrible.. it never gets below 0 but it does snow occasionally. Currently it's in the 40's. The cost of living is insanely low here... but it's not as relaxed as you may think. You have to realize that any small city (population less than 5 million) is almost exclusively Chinese. I have seen one other American in the 11 months I've been here. Kiss English goodbye. IF you are somewhere like Beijing or Shanghai, English is a second language to most, but prices of everything are insane.

In Weihai, I make a measly $1600 USD per month... but I don't have to pay for rent :) So of that $1600 I send home $1000 every month to save, I spend about $100 a month on food.. the rest is a bar/motorcycle fuel/travel fund :) I get to travel every weekend because the hi speed train system here is super efficient and cheap. I can get to Beijing in 6 hours by train and it costs about 30 dollars.

Visiting here and living here are two completely different things. Just like when I was in the Navy in Hawaii, everyone was jealous, except for the ones living there... it's a beautiful place to visit, but it's a goddamn expensive island haha. China is the same way... to be honest after being here so long I'm sick of 5,000 years of shitty culture. The Chinese are a different breed. They are sheltered from the world thanks to their internet firewall. There are people from all over the world that live here, but the Chinese think China is the only country in the world... so on and so forth.. that being said, I've always said anyone can do anything for a year. If you are truly interested, PM me and I can get you a job as soon as you want. There is never a lack of work for an English speaker here:)

David Wooderson said:
I read on cracked.com that Chinese kids are always trying to stick there fingers up teacher's butts. Is that true?
I also heard it's common to get hired on as a totem white guy for companies that are trying to make an impression.
Do you speak and write Chinese?
I always wondered this as it would do nothing to have a French guy, who speaks only French, teach French in America.

btw,
Tyler Durden actually was supposed to look like Smeagle vs Brad Pitt
Have heard about the Fight Club sequel?
Click to expand...

Haha I have heard about the FC sequel... I can't imagine it is going to be as awesome as the first... it has quite the reputation to uphold. I actually did read a list of cool facts about Fight Club and saw the Smeagle one.. I also saw a cool one that said the whole film was supposed to have lighting to remind you of a 7/11 at night lol.

DUDE, CHINESE KIDS ARE ALWAYS TRYING TO TOUCH MY ASS. It's ridiculous... or they pet the hair on my legs, or the rub my beard, or they just hang on me... I treat them like additional appendages. They are super fun though... completely spoiled because in order to go to a private English institution, the parents have to be quite wealthy... add that to the one child policy and you get a social nightmare from birth.

I don't speak fluent Chinese...and didn't even know how to say hello when I first came here. I can write 3 characters out of over 16,000. So the answer is yes, you can come to China not knowing shit about the language and teach English. It's referred to as "total immersion learning" where you just speak English and the kids kind of just pick up on it.. that being said, unless you are teaching at University level, I've never taught one class without a Chinese assistant. Some things just can't be taught with actions or pictures and you HAVE to have it interpreted, but the main goal is to teach a class without any Chinese spoken.

You'd be impressed. I have 8 year old Chinese children that speak better English than an 8 year old English child. I have 12 and 13 year olds that are so good in English they come to our school to learn their subjects in English, just to get more practice. I had a high school class that I taught chemistry in English because they were that advanced.

The Chinese are serious about education.

Last and not least... it's also funny you mention the "token white guy." Twice I have been offered a day job as a "representative" or "colleague." Once I took up the offer. It included two nights at a 5 star hotel, a hand tailored suit, a leather briefcase, and 6 meals with the guy and his colleagues at high class restaurants. My job? Act like this mans colleague. I am a chemistry major and he is a chemical supplier. He brought me with him to meet an interested buyer from Malaysia.. I just had to talk up the company (lie) and talk chemistry. It worked, he got the deal, I got a free suit and about a months worth of salary. I have been approached to do everything from commercials to underwear modeling. It's a backasswards country.

Pretty_Diamonds said:
I don't get it.
What's this suppose to be about?
Click to expand...

The title of this thread was "I was bored in a desk job so I came to teach English in China."

Would you like further explanation? Lol it's a miscellaneous thread in a miscellaneous forum.
 
This is an extremely fascinating thread, thank-you for offering the above information.. i love hearing success stories like this, China sounds like a bizarre and intriguing country.
 
Fascinating indeed, the total immersion education is interesting too.
Shanghai looks like such a cool city, I would love to check it out some day.
That is so cool that you got that suit and dough for one week's work!!!
I also read that Chinese kids swear like drunk sailors, that would be so cute.

Awesome thread!
 
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A friend of mine here in California teaches the kids probably coming out of your class, OP (and the others like it). She tutors very wealthy Chinese kids that are here attending private high schools, or the University, in fine-tuning their writing. She says it is fascinating because they have not been exposed to any other points of view (especially political) due to the internet censorship you spoke of. What shocked me was the wealth. These kids are coming to the states and paying out of state tuition in universities or going to expensive private high schools so they can get into the universities, living in one of the most expensive rent areas in the country, driving brand new cars, have private tutors and every electronic gadget imaginable.
 
nice insights, mate. i'd take you up on the offer if i were younger, single and slightly less a parent. i'll have to make do with my chinese inlaws staying with us this last year.
 
brwnchikinbrwncow said:
Last and not least... it's also funny you mention the "token white guy." Twice I have been offered a day job as a "representative" or "colleague." Once I took up the offer. It included two nights at a 5 star hotel, a hand tailored suit, a leather briefcase, and 6 meals with the guy and his colleagues at high class restaurants. My job? Act like this mans colleague. I am a chemistry major and he is a chemical supplier. He brought me with him to meet an interested buyer from Malaysia.. I just had to talk up the company (lie) and talk chemistry. It worked, he got the deal, I got a free suit and about a months worth of salary. I have been approached to do everything from commercials to underwear modeling. It's a backasswards country.

.
Click to expand...

This almost made me fall out of my chair laughing. Would be a great premise for a sitcom, the odd jobs and cultural shock of a white foreigner living in china.

I would love to go to china just for the Dim Sum! I would eat a steady diet of cheung fun and char siu bao if I was there.
 
brwnchikinbrwncow said:
The title of this thread was "I was bored in a desk job so I came to teach English in China."

Would you like further explanation? Lol it's a miscellaneous thread in a miscellaneous forum.
Click to expand...
Right. You just seem like an obnoxious douche. I guess I just don't like you. I'm glad you're making so much money off of poor Chinese people in a poor town in China and not spending it in China. You must be proud.
 
Pretty_Diamonds said:
Right. You just seem like an obnoxious douche. I guess I just don't like you. I'm glad you're making so much money off of poor Chinese people in a poor town in China and not spending it in China. You must be proud.
Click to expand...

Sounds like he is making it off of rich chinese people. Did you miss the part where he said the students were spoiled and most likely come from wealthy backgrounds? Also, it's not uncommon for people to send some of their money home while living abroad. Just because you move to china for a job, doesn't mean you don't have family to support back home. I have tons of friends here in the US that send almost half of their paycheck to their families in other countries.
 
herbavore said:
A friend of mine here in California teaches the kids probably coming out of your class, OP (and the others like it). She tutors very wealthy Chinese kids that are here attending private high schools, or the University, in fine-tuning their writing. She says it is fascinating because they have not been exposed to any other points of view (especially political) due to the internet censorship you spoke of. What shocked me was the wealth. These kids are coming to the states and paying out of state tuition in universities or going to expensive private high schools so they can get into the universities, living in one of the most expensive rent areas in the country, driving brand new cars, have private tutors and every electronic gadget imaginable.
Click to expand...

I was friends with someone who is Chinese and from a very wealthy family while in university. It was crazy to me how he would spend money like it was nothing. For example when he wanted a car he just went out and bought a brand new one, when he would buy clothing it was only designer clothing, etc. He had certain opinions about other Asian countries, the cultures in those countries, and the people from them; but he had never been to any of them, or met that many people from them, and was going by what his relatives had told him.

To me he was very naive in some ways; but he had only been to one or two other countries besides China, and mainly only hung around other Chinese people who spoke Cantonese but he knew some Mandarin as well. I remember he was very surprised at how violent movies, and TV shows are in the United States, and when I told him that men get raped in prison he had never heard of anything like that happening in China.

He also did not ever want to go back to China except to visit family members, and instead settled here working in the United States.

My friend spoke English very well considering it was not his first language, and the only thing he had trouble with were slang words.

Do you plan on staying in China? Friends of mine who taught English overseas in South Korea and then later Turkey have stayed as residents in both countries.
 
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I hope you like your job, and do it well.

Having lived in China for year, i have little respect for expats who go there to teach English because it is "easy". Their lack of interest in China and desire to live "easy" is obvious to the students, and affects their willingness to learn.
 
meh fuc em. make as much cash off them as u can tell until u cant handle the fuckedupness which will happen in any developing country imoime
 
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