Special Topic: Finding and Keeping Jobs in China

Like many foreigners in China I have taught The English. And like many foreigners in China teaching English, I sadly lack credentials that would make me honestly worth the money I have been paid. This in mind, I try to work extra hard when I have a teaching job. Being able to speak a language natively does not qualify you to teach it. In many respects my European friends who pass themselves off as North American to get teaching jobs are far better qualified because, unlike me, they have actually studied English.

For a while I taught at a school in Li Shui Qiao. The school was in an apartment way past Beijing’s fifth ring road in a complex that could have been a medium sized city. Of all the jobs I’ve had in China this was one of my favorites but it started off terribly, almost tragically.

I showed up late the first day because I had didn’t realize how far away Li Shui Qiao actually is. The Beijing Subway map is not proportional. The yellow line 13 isn’t a squat U shape inverted above the center of the city, it’s actually a long stretched out saggy U inverted above the 2nd ring road. There were no legitimate cabs at Li Shui Qiao so I had to hurriedly bargain with a couple of hei che (literally, black cab) drivers.

I arrived in a rush, sweating under my rumpled second-hand sweater – an attempt to look scholarly and legitimate – difficult to do with a giant mushroom cloud of black hair exploding around your head. I walked in, put down my bag, and start teaching the assembled students who were already squirming out of their chairs and either scared or incredibly amused by me.

There were two classes and the first was a group of about six or seven eight and nine year olds. For the most part they behaved, but during our brief break in the middle of the class my new boss slipped me my money and slipped out the door telling me to lock it behind me when I left.

After 45 more minutes the eight year olds were done and soon there parents were coming to pick them up to take them back for more studying and maybe even private tutoring. In China, the weekend is only a prolonged study hall for young students who suffer extra classes and private tutoring on the weekend so they can test well on the gao kao in another 10 or 15 years and go to a top college.

The next class was four year olds and they were bundles of whooping, arm waving joy. They kept scooching their chairs up to my desk and stealing my big flashcards. Their normal teacher – I just taught them every four classes so they could hear what they’d learned in a Midwestern drawl, usually a harried shouted Midwestern drawl – had left behind a lesson plan, but Simon Says failed when every student ran at me and tried to crawl up me. I had to peel them off my legs before we could get back to business.

Disaster struck during the break when the kids were running around the apartment screaming with the couple of older kids who were left behind waiting for parents to come collect them. They ran in and out of the empty bedrooms and bathroom trailing noise behind them like the aftershock of an airplane. My stern admonitions and shouting did little to impose peace.

Finally there were shouts, a shattering of glass, a moment of tranquility followed by several panicked cries, and then everything returned to normal, children swarming and buzzing around me. I went to investigate and found the glass bathroom door shattered and a boy bleeding profusely from his wrist.

His hand was clamped around the wound and he wouldn’t let me see or touch it. I spoke to him urgently in Chinese telling him it was very important I see it. He had been one of the worst students during the class, sullen but not quiet, frequently shouting out and provoking the two boys closest to him into squabbles. I didn’t tell him that when I was 15 I’d been chasing my brother and he’d thrown open the back door as he’d dashed out of the house. I’d put my hand up to stop the door and it sailed through the glass and severed one of the arteries in my hand. When my mother got me to the hospital I’d soaked an entire towel with blood and my temperature was in the lower 90s. I didn’t tell him blood terrified me and I didn’t even know what number to call for an ambulance and that I was just as terrified as he was. I would’ve had to scrape it out between clenched teeth and he probably wouldn’t have understood my Chinese anyway.

The kids kept running and squealing trotting in and out of the broken glass and it took all my ability, linguistic and persuasive, to get them, if not calmed down, then at least quiet and out of my way. Actually, the calm had more to do with a 5 year old girl named Allen (which sounds almost the same as Ellen to a Chinese person) who stepped up to be my deputy

I took the boy into the dirty bathroom and closed the door so the other students couldn’t see us. I kept talking to him in a low voice, trying to calm him and make him understand the urgency of the situation. I was freaking out. The bathroom was dirty, the tap water isn’t even safe to drink so it seemed even less okay for a wound, and there were no medical supplies.

Luckily Allen was on the ball and she managed to round up some alcohol swabs that she must’ve had in her little pink backpack. Finally the boy unclenched his hand and I saw the cut was bad but not fatal. He was probably going to need stitches but the bleeding was going to stop if he kept his hand above his heart and applied pressure. Fear convinced him to listen to me for the first time all morning and he kept his hand high. I held is wrist as hard as I thought I could and considered moving to a deserted island.

I went back to the front of the class/living room and finished the lesson on colors. The kids were having a hard time paying attention and I was too. Eventually the injured boy went home with a classmate and I tried to explain what he needed to tell his parents.

Portrait of the author by his young artist students

I sat on a tiny stool and breathed in and out for a couple of moments and then I found a dustpan and cleaned up the glass. I tore a page out of my homework notebook and wrote a note explaining what had happened and left it on a small round table under a laminated color poster showing animals in English and Chinese. Locking the door behind me, I looked for what I was sure would be the last time at the apartment covered with cartooned posters. There was no way they were going to rehire me after one of the students almost died on my first day. I left the building and wandered around searching for a cab to take me back to the train station, realizing as I did so, that even if I’d managed to call emergency services and explained to them the problem, I had no way to tell them where I was and the roomful of screaming munchkins wouldn’t have been able to either.

If you’re still interested in teaching there are loads of teaching jobs in the Jobs section.

 

Related Links

The Four Best Websites for Finding Teaching Jobs in China
How to Find the Perfect Teaching Job in China
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