Teaching in China

China is an amazing place to teach English and explore a culture that is really just opening its' doors to the world. Teaching English in China is a rewarding experience but it requires you to be patient and open-minded.

Teaching jobs in China are plentiful but finding a professional, organized situation can be challenging. That's where Teacher Placement can help. We screen the schools and make sure you are going to a safe, reputable, professional school.

The time you spend in this culturally and visually stunning country will result in a truly unique experience.

Teaching opportunities in China do not necessarily offer a great deal of money, but they are some of the most unique destinations that we are currently offering. As China opens its doors to commerce, trade and the West, it will experience a great many changes and challenges. Those wishing to catch a glimpse of this emerging superpower can get a front row seat as an ESL teacher.

First, let's put things in perspective. Foreign teacher salaries generally start at 4 times what a local Chinese teacher would earn. These people have families, homes, cars - inspiring when you think that you should be able to save money while working in China.
Second, let's be clear. You have to barter, bargain, negotiate, whatever, you have to do it.

When you go to a hotel, ask for their special rate, if you live in the city and you let them know that, they will give you a discount to win your repeat business. They expect you to ask. Same applies in markets, in shops, pretty much everywhere but supermarkets.
When buying anything, first ask the price. The real price value is usually somewhere between the price they told you and slightly less than half that price. I usually start my bargaining around 40% and end around there or around 50%.

In restaurants, bring your trusty calculator with you, when you order a dish, ask what each dish costs. You would be amazed how sometimes the prices go up if you don't ask (but only sometimes).

The cost of living varies greatly within China, but will generally be far lower than any place in the developed West. Even in Beijing and Shanghai, China’s two most expensive cities, it’s possible to survive on a very thin budget. That being said, it is easy to cut costs and live inexpensively IF and this is a big IF, ... if you can live like a Chinese person.

Inexpensive noodle and dumpling houses make excellent meal options, and you can save greatly by buying clothes and goods in the numerous Chinese markets. Check out the prices of a standard fare menu in a Chinese restaurant – you couldn’t even make hamburger gravy over instant mashed potatoes at home for that price!

Meals, in the cheaper but decent value range, cost around 5-10 RMB. Ordinary clothes costs between 25-50 RMB. You can go way up in both categories but those are base benchmarks.

If you subscribe to the Big Mac index (meaning comparing the cost of living situation based on how much a Big Mac costs in your home country as opposed to what it costs in a foreign country) a Big Mac in China will cost around 8-11 RMB.

Unless your school pays for most of your meals, you may find yourself living a rather spartan existence on that amount of money. 1,500 RMB a month affords you a little more luxury and the occasional night out on the town. 2,000 RMB to 3,000 RMB essentially assures you an extravagant lifestyle of good restaurants, fancy bars, and regular shopping. These price estimates should be multiplied by one and a half for life in bigger cities. Fortunately, jobs in those places also tend to pay more so you may not feel much of a difference at all.

If you chose to live in a "Western" world in China, you are going to find China to be expensive, especially in the major metropolitan centers where they have 5 star hotels and loads of very wealthy investors, import/exporters, dignitaries and business people who think nothing of $40 meal in restaurants and $100 bottles of wine. I can live happily on $40 for dinner in Chinese style restaurants for 2 weeks. I once took 14 people out for dinner on $40 (not including the booze).
It is important to note that basic food like meat, fruits, vegetables and beer is cheap in a supermarket. It is difficult if not impossible to find good bread, cheese, or Western style sausages.

Travel is very reasonably priced in China provided you’re willing to rough it a little. Long-distance buses are usually cramped and often very slow. Trains are not always perfectly reliable, either. Nonetheless, both methods allow you to see the countryside at its best . . . and its worst.

Most teaching jobs in China should allow you to save and/or travel a little, especially if you go easy on expensive Western goods that eat up your budget!.

We’re keeping this section short, because of conflicting information from the Chinese government and immigration authorities. At the moment, you can bring children with you – if they have their own passport and have all the proper inoculations. However, in some areas of China foreign children are banned from attending the public schools; this movement seems to be growing. If you have dependent children that must travel and live with you we advise you to work closely with your Teacher Placement advisor before you commit to a teaching job in China.

Dogs and cats as domesticated pets is a relatively new idea in China and presents real challenges for teachers who are thinking about heading to China with a pet:

With those challenges in mind it is also important to consider your intentions. How often will you be home? Are you the type that will be out and about all the time? Are you the type who will be away most weekends checking out the countryside and various cultural offerings? If so, you may want to re-evaluate whether it's actually fair to bring a pet with you. If you absolutely must have a pet, why not try a cricket? The Chinese have kept crickets as pets for millennia . You can buy one, along with a hand-crafted bamboo cage.

China may not be the best paying country to work in but it can be one of the most gratifying. If you're looking for an adventure you need not look much farther than teaching English in China!

The local currency in China is the Yuan or the Renminbi. Renminbi is the name of the Chinese currency, it literally means "the people's currency". Yuan is the name of a unit of the renminbi.

Jiao is a unit of the Yuan. Like saying 4 dollars and 10 cents. The Jiao is becoming far less used in China today. There is even a smaller unit still, the Fen. The Fen is a unit of the Jiao. 1 Jiao=10 Fen.

So how does it work and what is the currency like? Good question. There is a lot to get used to and I highly recommend that you learn to be frugal with your money. The Chinese highly respect good negotiators.
Currency denominations are: ¥0.1 (1 Jiao), ¥0.2 (2 Jiao), ¥0.5 (5 Jiao), ¥1 (1 Yuan), ¥2, ¥5, ¥10, ¥50 and ¥100.

As mentioned in the Chinese teaching contracts section, you are going to be earning a very decent salary in China. It may not seem like a fortune to you, it might even be considerably less than what you were earning before. You might even have made more as a petroleum transfer engineer (gas jockey) when you were 14 years old. So what? You're in a different country - you're in China where a Big Mac costs around $1.60 (not that I am recommending eating one)... A teacher's salary will leave you lots of room to have fun in China as long as you are smart with your money.

A great reason to go to China is to save money (which you actually can do if you live like a Chinese person) but that shouldn’t be your principle focus.

One of the most common questions we get asked is how foreigners can conduct their banking while living in China, particularly with an eye towards sending money back home to pay off student loans or the house mortgage. Don't expect to pay these off immediately.

The pay in China is lower than Korea, Taiwan or Hong Kong but the cost of living is a fraction what you would pay elsewhere and typically you are working less hours.
Once you arrive in China with your Z visa, you will be taken by the school to the local immigration office to register for your alien residency card, which usually takes a week or two to process. Once you have this card, you are a legal resident of China for the duration of your contract and can legally open a bank account with a Chinese bank for the duration of your stay in China.

Major credit cards are accepted in China, however Chinese society is largely a cash based society- personal checks are largely unheard of- and don’t expect your debit card from your local bank in Omaha or Moose Jaw to work in China.

Like most countries, there are a few banks to choose from in China. The following five are the largest.

In public schools in China teachers lecture students who passively copy down notes. Memorization is extremely important, as students often lack basic critical thinking skills. Students speak very little in the classroom, and challenging the teacher is almost unheard of.

Westerners often confuse Chinese students by trying to encourage a free-wheeling debate in the room. Expect your students to be very reluctant to contribute at first. It takes months to cultivate an atmosphere in which students feel comfortable speaking aloud without being singled out by the teacher.

Chinese education is also strongly based on results, so students are constantly studying for a never-ending series of exams. They are used to processing information and using it to pass exams, something they do in their other classes.

The student/teacher relationship is quite formal. Many students do not even learn their teacher’s full name. Western norms of casual conversation are simply not adhered to in Chinese.

Living accommodations in China are changing fast, so there's a lot of variety. Until the 1990s, most urban housing looked like an apartment building. They're usually drab concrete blocks with balconies that may be glassed in. Chinese people can now own their apartments and many new buildings are being constructed. Now the buildings are often painted bright pink or decorated with Greek/Roman statues. In recent years high-rise apartments have sprung up all over China at an incredible rate. Not only has the availability of housing increased but the living conditions have improved dramatically as well. New apartments are being built with fast internet connections, central heating, electricity and toilets. It wasn't that long ago when houses being built did not have an indoor toilet.

Today, some foreign teachers in China live in beautiful landscaped villas, while others share the older style concrete apartments. Traditional Chinese houses (si he yuan) consist of two-to-four buildings enclosed by a wall and facing on a rectangular central courtyard. You can see these in the "hutongs" of Beijing or in other older neighbourhoods of Chinese cities or villages.

Most of the older buildings are about 3-5 stories. There is usually a balcony, which is usually glassed-in in North China. Apartments commonly have one or two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and bathroom. Floors are usually concrete.
Things not to expect:

clothes dryer - these use far too much energy and are a luxury. Many teachers actually get their clothes laundered for them (very cheap). It you do your own laundry, you will use a standard drying rack.
bathtub - there are bath houses where you can immerse yourself but only expect a shower in your housing. There is actually an old saying in Yangzhou that loosely translated means, "In the morning you put water into your skin and in the evening you put your skin into water. Most people in China do not take a bath at home, especially in the winter. Instead they go to the local public bathhouse. Be sure to go to a NICE one. There are common bathouses where you just get a shower... remembering that some houses don't have hot water... The nice ones are pretty nice indeed.
oven - expect a small gas stove. Forget about baking or roasts. Again I think this is a product of energy consumption and space issues. Makes sense, too... imagine how much energy is consumed using an oven... Now imagine that someone around the corner doesn't even have electricity...

Remember when entering any home in China that you need to always take off your shoes. Chinese will be very unimpressed if you enter your own home with your shoes on.

When sitting, do not point the bottoms of your feet to any person. Try to sit cross-legged or tuck your legs underneath you.

You may have a roommate or a studio apartment depending on the school, but you will definitely have your own bedroom unless you choose not to. Once you find out where your apartment is you should have a Chinese write down your address. Be careful asking Chinese for directions; they will often give you completely misleading directions rather than admit they don’t have a clue where you want to go.

Taxes for English teachers in China can be confusing, especially if your school is trying to help you out.

If you are a new teacher in China and if you earn less than 4,800 RMB per month. You have no tax liability in China.

Foreigners working in China have to pay personal income tax only if their monthly pay is above 4,800 RMB, up from the previous threshold of 4,000 RMB.
There is a lot of confusion surrounding the law of taxes and if teachers should pay taxes back home, or in China. It’s best to check with an accountant in your own country prior to coming to China.

Information we have received suggests that you are totally exempt from taxes the first 90-days in China. Everything you make over 4,800 RMB requires you to pay a tax on ONLY the amount above 4,800 RMB. The tax starts at 15% and increases proportionally with the wage. In many cases, the host institution will absorb this cost as a benefit to the teacher. Teachers should still ask for monthly pay slips from employers for their own record.

Imagine that your salary is 6000RMB/month. The school will claim that they are paying you 4800RMB and that they are providing an additional 1200RMB as a housing allowance thereby negating your tax implications. Very nice of them. Be sure you check in with your school so you can understand this. This will also be important when considering tax implications back home. Remember that just because you're away doesn't mean you don't have to report.

The mainland of China is criss-crossed by a total of 226,800 kilometres of rivers, including 136,000 kilometres of inland waterways. The Shanghai-Chongqing line along the Yangtze River extends for 2,399 kilometres. On any given day the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River are being plied by more than 50 luxury tourist boats. Simply put, water is an option when considering travel in China. If you're close to a river and you're looking to go somewhere up or down the river check with a local travel agent to see what your options are.

Domestic Ocean Liners:
China’s port cities are covered by a labyrinth of maritime shipping lines. The most important of these routes are:

Virtually every city has an airport or it'll have one close by. The best way to book a flight in China is to go to a travel agent. Checking prices online simply doesn't work as most of the booking engines aren't accessible in English and the large travel sites like expedia and such simply don't have access to deals.

It is often NOT recommended to call or contact these airlines directly. Find a travel agent, become their friend, and book all your travel with them.
Before we continue with the list of travel options, let’s check out CHINA WEATHER:
China is an enormous country with several different weather systems and the geography is just as diverse. From the cold northern reaches of China and the Gobi Desert to the blistering hot sunshine and subtropical climate.

Bikes provide a form of transportation for a majority of people in China, so much so that in major cities there are cycling side roads set aside on all major roads. One of the nice things about many Chinese cities is that they are for the most part, very flat. No stories about having to ride uphill to and from school...

It might look scary but riding a bicycle is a great way to see China, as you can pretty much go anywhere and don't have to worry about car traffic-- just bike traffic. When you first arrive it is VERY important to watch how the locals ride their bikes before you attempt a try; although don't necessarily copy their riding style! I recommend that one be careful with parking--sometimes random parking may result in a fine. Seriously. Observe and learn. With that many bikes on the road there has to be some method to the madness.

In most of the major cities there are many places that rent bikes--large repair shops as well as hotels--with prices ranging from 2 Yuan per hour to 40 Yuan per day depending on the style of bike.

The most popular Chinese brands are: Flying Pigeon (Feige), Phoenix (Fenghuang) and Forever (Yongjiu). You should be able to purchase a reliable Chinese bicycle for about 50 USD.

Sometimes it is BETTER TO BUY A BIKE IN CHINA rather than bring your own. You already stand out in the crowd by virtue of not being Chinese. Your foreign bike will also stand out which might make it a target to be stolen.

Bicycle Repair in China
You can try a large repair shop but there are abundant repair stalls with all the spare parts. A new inner tube should cost less than 15 Yuan, and an inner tube and tire about 30 Yuan--all including labor.

They offer an experience for tourists. They are found around big hotels and street corners in cozy seasons. Rickshaws provide a more relaxing way to explore the city.
Prices are bargained with the driver and though prices are usually reasonable, one should still be careful--it is not unheard of for a new tourist pay 50 Yuan for a 2 minute ride from the Friendship Store to the Subway.

You should carry a map with you, know where you are going or ask a foreigner if you care about the price, and if not then just go. The one really nice thing about these rickshaws is that unlike Thailand or other places where these are often used, the drivers don’t try to inveigle you to stop at a go-go bar or tailor shop.

Train travel in China is cheap and relatively comfortable (depending on the type of fare you book). The only issue with train travel is that you often don't have much time off and it takes a while to get anywhere on the train. The best way to do train travel is to plan your trip for night travel and then to get a sleeper berth. The beds are relatively comfy and hopefully the rocking of the train will put you to sleep.

Beijing has five railway stations but Beijing's West Railway Station at Lianhuachi is the newest and largest. Each station has lines running to almost all provincial capitals, and to all China's major cities. There are four kinds of seats available: soft berths, hard berths, soft seats, and hard seats. Most overnight trains have dining cars.

In Beijing it may be more convenient to have your train tickets booked for you by a travel agency such as Chinese Business World's travel center or ChinaTourService.com which make train reservations if you send them an e-mail request. If you opt to do it yourself, the process can be rather confusing and time-consuming.

Some stations do however have special counters which sell tickets to foreigners and overseas Chinese for up to five days in advance. When purchasing your own, remember to bring your passport or ID.

If you're outside Beijing or a major city, good luck. Remember to be patient and sometimes it pays to check at the desk, if they can speak some English, try your luck, if not, nod, back away, and now try to find someone to help you speak to the agent.

The Chinese government has de-centralized public schools and has put forth general curriculum outcomes that all schools have to meet. How these schools get to that end point is entirely up to them which makes for differences in schools located in the same city.

The common thread here is that all schools want a Western English teacher. Some public schools will share teachers, some will have their own in-house programs where they directly employ their own foreign teachers, some will have programs that piggyback on their existing English programs and offer additional classes to students (that they have to pay for). There are many other options and ways public schools operate. The interesting thing here is that if every public school teacher in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand came to China to teach English they wouldn't even come close to having enough teachers for the English classes in China.

Imagine over 110,000 KINDERGARTENS with enrollments of over 20,000,000 students (20 million!). If you said you wanted 40 students to 1 teacher that would still be 500,000 teachers. Remembering that this is for ONE AGE GROUP.

With the need for teachers this great it should be a cake walk to find a job... One would think so and for the most part that is completely true. Finding a teaching job in a public school in China is simple. Finding one that pays you on time and provides medical and can talk to you about tax situations and implications and one that will pick you up at the airport and assist you with setting yourself up and all these important factors that contribute to your overall experience - now this can be a challenge. This is where Teacher Placement comes in. All our schools will do all those things listed there and more.

Private Language School Teaching Jobs in China

As a middle class emerges in China, the demand for English in private language schools is literally exploding. Adults are enrolling in business English classes to advance in their jobs or to keep them. Adults are getting retrained by companies and thus are being sent to private language schools or they are developing in-house training centers. Kids are also being sent to these private language schools literally in the millions. Everyone is competing. Everyone is trying to get into the better schools or provide the best opportunities for their children. It is a tough competitive world in China. All that considered, imagine for a minute how many private language schools catering to teaching English there are in China...
...simply astounding.

The difficult part here is finding a job that will pay you on time, one that understands that foreigners think differently and that we have different expectations, and one that will be professional to work in and for. This is where Teacher Placement can excel for you. We only work with the best schools.

Private School Teaching Jobs in China

All the major metropolitan centers in China have private schools. These are where the elite of society will send their kids. Generally these schools are looking for very experienced teachers and teachers always have to be certified to teach in a public school in his or her home country.

University and College Teaching Jobs in China

University jobs typically don't pay very well - 2500-4000 RMB but there are some perks. There is local esteem attached to being a "lecturer" which can be influential and help you leverage yourself in other directions. University jobs typically only require you to teach 10-16 contact hours. In most cases housing is usually on campus. These jobs often hire in August.

Pork is the chief meat of the Chinese - in fact, in some of the southern languages of China, the word meat is used to mean pork. The consumption of fish, both freshwater and saltwater, is enormous. Chicken is probably the most favored meat, and beef is also eaten.

Chinese food consists of a multitude of dishes that are very regional in flavor. If you're in an area where you really don't care much for the food you really can't generalize that you don't like Chinese food. Similarly if you're way down south and you say that Chinese food it too spicy for you, this may not be taking into consideration the blandness of food up North.

In the south, rice is the main meal and in the north, flour. Dishes in the Sichuan and Hunan areas are spicy, and they are a little sweet in the Shanghai area.

The three main staples for food in China are noodles, rice dishes and dumplings. Unfortunately most food in China is really greasy. Most dishes have a fair bit of oil puddling around the bottom. I was able to find a few restaurants that were MSG-free and oil friendly and these quickly became my favorite restaurants. Try a bunch. Try different things and you'll get on to things you like. There is incredible variety in Chinese food and in many cases it will resemble NOTHING you have come to expect of Chinese food from back home.

The list could go on and on. These are dishes that are commonplace but there are so many more. You could eat a different dish every day and if you travelled around China you could have a different meal everyday for years. One that is really good is a type of mushroom with ching cai - a green leafy veggie that comes i stalks sort of like celery, maybe Chinese broccoli?

Then we have shao guo (hot pot)- a type of soup with meat, noodles, doufu (tofu), other types of bean curd with different textures, small eggs, sea weed etc.

A national favourite is the hot pot Mongolian style which is very common down south. This is a rather large pot, sometimes with different chambers so you have different flavors (hot, garlic, very hot, hotter than very hot, hotter than is healthy, and make you sweat hot but your tongue doesn't go numb). These are a lot of fun in that it ends up being something like fondu - with a big pot in the middle and you just throw everything into the soup and let it cook right in front of you. It’s pretty fun, and is great for a big night out to eat, as it usually lasts 2 hours or so.

There are all types of noodles, in soup, “dry” with some type of sauce, fried, with all types of extras (pork and onions/peppers, egg and tomato, mushrooms and pork with bean sprouts etc...). Then there are the local noodle dishes, one that’s as wide as your belt, it’s got to be at least an inch and a half, and maybe 3 feet long. It’s actually one of the 8 strange things about the Shaanxi province, though I don’t remember what the others are. Another local noodle is about as wide, but cut into squares swimming with oil, with chunks of pork and fat. Those are really good, but luckily it is normal to spit things you don't like out onto the table – I end up doing that with much of the fat.
One local dish I really like is yang rou pao muo - mutton in a soup broth with tiny chunks of a dense bread, rice noodles, and maybe something else - mushrooms, doufu, or the like. It always comes with pickled garlic and la da, spicy salty pepper sauce, and is good to eat in the winter when it is cold outside as it warms you up.

Dumplings, they have all kinds. I prefer the jaozi - boiled dumplings with various fillings, meat and veggie. Then there are the baozi - steamed dumplings with various fillings, not quite as good. They’re too bready - but I do like the guang tong bouzi, more like jauzi but with a soup broth in the middle. There is also a fried type of jauzi, also very good.

Get used to dumplings and do take the time to try different sorts. They are as various as candy back home. Seriously, there are breakfast ones and they are at least 100 or more of these types and then there are dinner ones. Some people make it their mission to travel around China just sampling the dumplings.

In conclusion, the food in China will keep you intrigued & guessing for a lifetime. Keep an open mind. Try different things but don't be pushed into anything you think is absolutely gross or something that goes against your scruples (like blood soup).