[ESL中国] Work-Visas, Bureaucracy and Economics.
04 November 2017 [link youtube]
Advice on teaching English in China.
Youtube Automatic Transcription
I generally make the kind of videos that
I want to watch myself I make long sprawling freeform conversational podcast videos all the time 40 minute videos hour-long videos because that's what I won't watch myself and I hear from all the people who are the same way you know you're washing the dishes you're lifting weights I don't know you're exterminating rats from your basement and you want to listen to that podcast not everybody wants that some people want focused five-minute videos to get right to the point so thought I might do a series of videos of that kind providing advice and reflections on teaching ocean China is the first of those videos ah so look we're gonna cover two topics in this video and two topics only the economics of teaching English in China and the visa situation so I've posted our earlier discussion which is a sprawling freeform 40 minute podcast and contains some useful information but some people find it annoying to get the information out of that format I posted that to a reddit discussion group for exactly these kinds of issues and I noticed they had like a disclaimer that they wouldn't even allow people to discuss going to China without getting the proper work visa and you know apparently like I guess the monitors were just so sick of people writing and wanting advice about like oh well they've been invited to come and work in China but the employer admits they can't really do the paperwork and so on and so forth although I do not think it is the definitive reason to either work in mainland China or to not work in mainland China this is an endemic problem and in 2017 it's getting worse and worse my prediction is in 2018 it'll be a complete disaster and then in 2019 the government will recognize as a disaster and change the rules so I don't I don't think this can go on forever but yeah right now it is absolutely hit a crisis point if your employer admits to you that they can't do the paperwork they're being honest with you and you should encourage that honesty back in like 2007 it was true that like the stereotype was that small private for-profit schools couldn't get the paperwork together but that large large institutions like universities I teach English ready at a university that they had no problem maybe back in 2007 that was accurate today it's just this endemic problem across the board and you get schools that are offering to employ you as a teacher but they'll fill out the paperwork as if you're like an administrative assistant as if you're doing some other job or some other role where they can process the paperwork and even the big institutions like universities will say to you well once you come here to teach but you could simultaneously take classes learning Chinese or some other language and we'll do the paperwork so that you're a student and you get a student work visa where you can work within the premises you can work within the university well at the same time taking lessons so long story short on that is you got to see this from the employers perspective I don't know why I mean there's this really kind of hostile self-indulgent attitude that that predominates on the internet because that's the way people use the Internet I guess they come on when they just want to vent but think about it from the employers perspective just a little bit if you're asking an employer to choose you and commit a lot of time and money to you maybe training you also like if you had done of a background already English teacher and they've never met you like you're just doing an interview by a Skype it's a lot to ask it's understandable that a lot of these employers trying to say well look can you come for an interview in person can you come and teach demo lessons come and teach a couple lessons of observation and then we'll decide if we want to commit to doing this paperwork for you and the truth is even then they may not be able to deliver the paperwork and it may be for bizarre reasons that are beyond their control and beyond your control so I'm an experienced English teacher although it's not my career I did it in between other jobs but when I came here to teach English they wanted paperwork from Cambodia because I had formerly been employed as an English teacher in Cambodia they wanted paperwork from Thailand and Laos and this stuff I just laughed at them I said look if I go on a world tour to get you paperwork from all these countries I'll never earn back that money doing this job the rate of pay is so low you got to be kidding me but that's that's what they wanted and this is for teaching at a university level in China so again and I had brought all the correct paperwork from Canada but that wasn't enough I did have a criminal record check I do have a bachelor's degree I proof that I have a bachelor's degree I had everything else in line so it's a disaster and China is not your only option if what you want is to learn Chinese and teach English you can go to Taiwan you can go to Hong Kong I wouldn't advise it because for one thing mostly in Hong Kong speak Cantonese and quite a number of other southern dialects but not so much standard Chinese and also Hong Kong as a horrible city to live in I have lived and worked in Hong Kong in the past not as an English teacher I had a much more high-paying job there we just let me in my life possible in Hong Kong so this is the point is you just have to see it in a comparative framework like if China is such a drag about visa paperwork why not go to Hong Kong want to go to Hong Kong instead want to go to Taiwan instead want to go to South Korea instead want to go to Japan instead why not go to Brazil instead like the world's your oyster when I go to Portugal instead it can be fabulous living as an English teacher they're different places in Europe that employ a lot of English teachers so China is eliminating itself as a viable option in 2017 whereas I would say back in like 2005 it was really the Wild West it was the land of opportunity but increasing requirements for credentials and it's it's not even the credentials of the problem it's just people work for the sake of paperwork it's ceasing to be a viable option and the other thing was going to mention here is the economics of the situation so look I already knew I was highly paid I came I came here in person I interviewed for this job face to face before they gave me the job which most of you don't at the luxury of doing if you're living in New York City you can't just casually fly to China for a job interview I was already living in Kunming so I flew to Hong Kong should the home for the job interview and flew back again and they did pay for my airplane ticket after the fact they said we can pay for your airplane ticket if we give you the job but not if you don't pass the interview I said okay I'll take that risk so I flew in at a face-to-face interview and that put me in a very strong negotiating position I would say for this job so I negotiated a whole list of things that weren't on offer by default with a job I'm paid more than any other foreign language teacher they've ever employed in the past and I found out just recently I'm paid more than my own boss my own boss in the institution makes less than me on a monthly basis so I can't ask for anything more there's no way it could be reasonable for me to ask this institution to pay me a higher rate than I'm getting and for you also that's true but what have I paid I am paid five thousand quí per month five thousand UN five thousand the Chinese currency so compared to even the humblest job in Canada working at a gas station serving coffee at a Starbucks the pay is garbage the pay is nothing compared to the sacrifice and time effort and energy going to make coming over here the pay however is excellent if you're comparing this to being in a master's degree program in the United States if you're comparing this to pay in tuition to learn Chinese that are really in a really crappy environment in a university in Canada so instead of me paying $5,000 a year in tuition in Canada or me paying $20,000 a year to study the United States I am getting a sort of educational experience if I consider myself a student I may be breaking even financially she is she's great I don't think I am I think this is costing me a lot more than I'm earning to be honest with you but anyway I'm spending less money here for that educational opportunity to learn Chinese so if you're asking the question broadly in terms of economics should you do it the answer absolutely cannot be economics if you want to earn money maybe South Korea is a different story maybe Taiwan's difference Tori maybe Japan is a different story I'm very skeptical that those can be justified financially keeping all the weight real but I'm telling you mainland China in 2017 the justification must be your own education your own self-improvement it cannot possibly be the money the money alone doesn't justify the exercise and that is part and parcel Hawaiians have already said 2017 2018 is going to be a nationwide crisis in China because even the universities that offer excellent living conditions health insurance really great package of benefits I get here I mean I'm I'm treated much better than 90% of an English teacher is 90 percent or 95 percent I've excellent I got a great deal here and I get to teach all my students are also well prepared they know how to study I don't have hostile students who don't want to learn English or something really great situation in so many ways but nevertheless this job can't compete with Taiwan and it can't compete with me going back to Canada I work in a gas station even for he and the gas station was the only option I had so therefore there's absolutely no way I can look into this camera and say do you want to say this is a good option for you what this is a great option unless it's an option you're pursuing for your own education you want to learn Chinese you want to learn means you want to learn some other language that's taught at the particular University of study yet that's it for this video I am out
I want to watch myself I make long sprawling freeform conversational podcast videos all the time 40 minute videos hour-long videos because that's what I won't watch myself and I hear from all the people who are the same way you know you're washing the dishes you're lifting weights I don't know you're exterminating rats from your basement and you want to listen to that podcast not everybody wants that some people want focused five-minute videos to get right to the point so thought I might do a series of videos of that kind providing advice and reflections on teaching ocean China is the first of those videos ah so look we're gonna cover two topics in this video and two topics only the economics of teaching English in China and the visa situation so I've posted our earlier discussion which is a sprawling freeform 40 minute podcast and contains some useful information but some people find it annoying to get the information out of that format I posted that to a reddit discussion group for exactly these kinds of issues and I noticed they had like a disclaimer that they wouldn't even allow people to discuss going to China without getting the proper work visa and you know apparently like I guess the monitors were just so sick of people writing and wanting advice about like oh well they've been invited to come and work in China but the employer admits they can't really do the paperwork and so on and so forth although I do not think it is the definitive reason to either work in mainland China or to not work in mainland China this is an endemic problem and in 2017 it's getting worse and worse my prediction is in 2018 it'll be a complete disaster and then in 2019 the government will recognize as a disaster and change the rules so I don't I don't think this can go on forever but yeah right now it is absolutely hit a crisis point if your employer admits to you that they can't do the paperwork they're being honest with you and you should encourage that honesty back in like 2007 it was true that like the stereotype was that small private for-profit schools couldn't get the paperwork together but that large large institutions like universities I teach English ready at a university that they had no problem maybe back in 2007 that was accurate today it's just this endemic problem across the board and you get schools that are offering to employ you as a teacher but they'll fill out the paperwork as if you're like an administrative assistant as if you're doing some other job or some other role where they can process the paperwork and even the big institutions like universities will say to you well once you come here to teach but you could simultaneously take classes learning Chinese or some other language and we'll do the paperwork so that you're a student and you get a student work visa where you can work within the premises you can work within the university well at the same time taking lessons so long story short on that is you got to see this from the employers perspective I don't know why I mean there's this really kind of hostile self-indulgent attitude that that predominates on the internet because that's the way people use the Internet I guess they come on when they just want to vent but think about it from the employers perspective just a little bit if you're asking an employer to choose you and commit a lot of time and money to you maybe training you also like if you had done of a background already English teacher and they've never met you like you're just doing an interview by a Skype it's a lot to ask it's understandable that a lot of these employers trying to say well look can you come for an interview in person can you come and teach demo lessons come and teach a couple lessons of observation and then we'll decide if we want to commit to doing this paperwork for you and the truth is even then they may not be able to deliver the paperwork and it may be for bizarre reasons that are beyond their control and beyond your control so I'm an experienced English teacher although it's not my career I did it in between other jobs but when I came here to teach English they wanted paperwork from Cambodia because I had formerly been employed as an English teacher in Cambodia they wanted paperwork from Thailand and Laos and this stuff I just laughed at them I said look if I go on a world tour to get you paperwork from all these countries I'll never earn back that money doing this job the rate of pay is so low you got to be kidding me but that's that's what they wanted and this is for teaching at a university level in China so again and I had brought all the correct paperwork from Canada but that wasn't enough I did have a criminal record check I do have a bachelor's degree I proof that I have a bachelor's degree I had everything else in line so it's a disaster and China is not your only option if what you want is to learn Chinese and teach English you can go to Taiwan you can go to Hong Kong I wouldn't advise it because for one thing mostly in Hong Kong speak Cantonese and quite a number of other southern dialects but not so much standard Chinese and also Hong Kong as a horrible city to live in I have lived and worked in Hong Kong in the past not as an English teacher I had a much more high-paying job there we just let me in my life possible in Hong Kong so this is the point is you just have to see it in a comparative framework like if China is such a drag about visa paperwork why not go to Hong Kong want to go to Hong Kong instead want to go to Taiwan instead want to go to South Korea instead want to go to Japan instead why not go to Brazil instead like the world's your oyster when I go to Portugal instead it can be fabulous living as an English teacher they're different places in Europe that employ a lot of English teachers so China is eliminating itself as a viable option in 2017 whereas I would say back in like 2005 it was really the Wild West it was the land of opportunity but increasing requirements for credentials and it's it's not even the credentials of the problem it's just people work for the sake of paperwork it's ceasing to be a viable option and the other thing was going to mention here is the economics of the situation so look I already knew I was highly paid I came I came here in person I interviewed for this job face to face before they gave me the job which most of you don't at the luxury of doing if you're living in New York City you can't just casually fly to China for a job interview I was already living in Kunming so I flew to Hong Kong should the home for the job interview and flew back again and they did pay for my airplane ticket after the fact they said we can pay for your airplane ticket if we give you the job but not if you don't pass the interview I said okay I'll take that risk so I flew in at a face-to-face interview and that put me in a very strong negotiating position I would say for this job so I negotiated a whole list of things that weren't on offer by default with a job I'm paid more than any other foreign language teacher they've ever employed in the past and I found out just recently I'm paid more than my own boss my own boss in the institution makes less than me on a monthly basis so I can't ask for anything more there's no way it could be reasonable for me to ask this institution to pay me a higher rate than I'm getting and for you also that's true but what have I paid I am paid five thousand quí per month five thousand UN five thousand the Chinese currency so compared to even the humblest job in Canada working at a gas station serving coffee at a Starbucks the pay is garbage the pay is nothing compared to the sacrifice and time effort and energy going to make coming over here the pay however is excellent if you're comparing this to being in a master's degree program in the United States if you're comparing this to pay in tuition to learn Chinese that are really in a really crappy environment in a university in Canada so instead of me paying $5,000 a year in tuition in Canada or me paying $20,000 a year to study the United States I am getting a sort of educational experience if I consider myself a student I may be breaking even financially she is she's great I don't think I am I think this is costing me a lot more than I'm earning to be honest with you but anyway I'm spending less money here for that educational opportunity to learn Chinese so if you're asking the question broadly in terms of economics should you do it the answer absolutely cannot be economics if you want to earn money maybe South Korea is a different story maybe Taiwan's difference Tori maybe Japan is a different story I'm very skeptical that those can be justified financially keeping all the weight real but I'm telling you mainland China in 2017 the justification must be your own education your own self-improvement it cannot possibly be the money the money alone doesn't justify the exercise and that is part and parcel Hawaiians have already said 2017 2018 is going to be a nationwide crisis in China because even the universities that offer excellent living conditions health insurance really great package of benefits I get here I mean I'm I'm treated much better than 90% of an English teacher is 90 percent or 95 percent I've excellent I got a great deal here and I get to teach all my students are also well prepared they know how to study I don't have hostile students who don't want to learn English or something really great situation in so many ways but nevertheless this job can't compete with Taiwan and it can't compete with me going back to Canada I work in a gas station even for he and the gas station was the only option I had so therefore there's absolutely no way I can look into this camera and say do you want to say this is a good option for you what this is a great option unless it's an option you're pursuing for your own education you want to learn Chinese you want to learn means you want to learn some other language that's taught at the particular University of study yet that's it for this video I am out