Special Topic: Finding and Keeping Jobs in China

I’m a foreign English teacher. I show up to work at 9 in the morning, I have a 2 hour lunch break and then I leave at 4:30 in the afternoon. I go home to my apartment and play with my kids, see my spouse and visit friends. I even have enough disposable income to go do fun things.

My Chinese colleagues arrive at 7 in the morning. They get a half hour lunch break and then leave at 5:30 or 6. Most are able to go home, but those who can’t afford one stay at the school with others in the same situation. I’m sure they talk about one day having disposable income.

Like most foreigners that work in China, I teach right alongside just-as-qualified, hard working and brilliant Chinese teachers who must work longer hours for less pay.

Most foreign teacher salaries range between 8,000 RMB to 15-20,000 RMB a month for a job that demands only a few hours a day. This usually averages out to an hourly wage comparable to, or better than, what teachers are paid in the West.

Most Chinese teachers, however, are lucky if they can get 2,000 RMB a month, even with a degree. (Although, some teachers I talked to say that pay really does vary with location. If a teacher has good credentials and can negotiate, they can find a position that pays 3,000 to 4,000 RMB.)

Aside from the classes they teach, Chinese teachers usually have other duties to attend to, like answering the phones or cleaning the bathrooms. I, on the other hand, pretty much stick with my teaching and occasional marketing duties, which is really what the foreign teacher is around for anyway. (At least that’s how we sometimes feel.)

A foreign friend of mine was grumbling once at the lack of interest her administration had in the grades she gave her students. “Do they care at all how I teach, or if my students actually learn anything?” she mused at a staff meeting. “It’s as if they hired me to put on a foreign clown show.”

As a foreigner, it’s easy for me to feel guilty when colleagues I respect are paid a fraction of my salary for working hard, while I get paid a vast sum to “just show up.” But economics teaches that my salary is not really related to theirs. Chinese teachers are not paid any less because I’m paid more. It’s more like the school’s profit margin is smaller because my salary is bigger. To think that business owners would pay the Chinese teachers more if I take a pay cut is a nice daydream, but capitalism doesn’t typically work that way.

In fact, for some schools, it could be said that the sole reason the Chinese teachers even have a job is because their school was able to recruit a foreign teacher. The sole focus for many schools is to sell classes taught by foreign teachers. Without the “foreign clown,” the classrooms would be empty.

 

Because of this, I usually don’t let myself feel guilty come payday, when the school hands out envelopes and mine seems a little, well, a lot thicker than everybody else’s. I don’t feel guilty until I hear my Chinese colleagues talk about the big ways in which their low salaries have affected their lives. This is not just how they don’t have enough money to buy an outfit they like, or having to save up longer to buy a scooter, these are things that have to do with future financial stability.

 

When asked if teaching was a position they wished to keep for the future, one teacher replied, “1500 RMB? How can I buy a house? No, this is not a job for my future.”

For other teachers, it affects their family life. “My husband works and sleeps very far across the city,” says Minnie, a Chinese teacher. “And my son lives with my mother so I can never be with them.”

Like many Chinese employees, Minnie lives at her place of work, while her husband lives at his. This is so they can eventually save enough money for a place of their own. Their monthly salaries are too small to come up with the 6 month deposit required to begin renting an apartment in Nanjing.

“It’s hard to bear, but for now, we must,” says Minnie. She expects to live this way for another 6 months. And although it is hard, Minnie actually has it very good considering her credentials. She does speak English, but she is only a high school graduate. In this recession, there are many people with advanced degrees who can’t find jobs.

Because so many talented and qualified teachers find it hard to secure their futures or balance family life on a meager salary, they turn away from teaching, ultimately hurting the quality of education that students receive.

This is why I do wish capitalism worked differently. I wish that students and parents understood the importance of the Chinese teacher in the classroom, not the foreign clown.

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Related Links

Get Your TEFL Online: Teaching in China For More Money
5 Blunders to Avoid for English Teachers in China
5 Tips on Finding the Perfect Teaching Job in China

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