TEACHING ESL IN CHINA

I just read one of your posts on VISAs and you said that Canadians could not get certain VISAs! I'
m a Canadian and am wondering if you can give me any more information, what do I do if I want to work in China? Why is only Canadians being singled out? and I would also appreciate any general information on getting a VISA as well as this would be my first time.

Typically yes, utilities are also less in smaller cities, though usually not an issue. Smaller city jobs tend to provide apartments more than the big cities. In such case they will have agreements in place before you come, so they will cover the deposits, rent, management fees and all utilities, often including internet. That is why I recommend so strongly to new teachers in China to take a "hand-holding" position (my own name, not official) at first. That's what I did. The company I started with not only gives you a week+ training and acclimatization to China, but sets you up a bank account, helps you get a phone number and makes sure the school has provided a proper apartment, with everything already set up including western toilet. To just jump right into getting your own apartment is tougher, especially if you don't have a very talented local translator/friend to help. But yes, if a school if offering accommodation, they should pay ALL the fees, since after you leave either they can get the deposit back or keep the apartment vacant for the next teacher. Finding apartments is easy. No problems there, but if you are looking for one on your own be prepared to look at a lot till you find one you like, and the agents/landlords likely wont speak any English, especially in smaller cities.

As for being a heavier person.... I know all about it, trust me. In the smaller cities it is tough, especially for women. For men it is "acceptable" to be big since it is a sign of wealth. Not so for women. The BIGGEST complaint I have heard from MOST western women, let alone bigger gals, is finding a decent (pardon my bluntness) bra over here. The women here simply aren't designed the same as western women, so that can be a challenge. However, China is growing in physical size as is it's economy. Very, VERY soon obesity is going to become an issue here as China copies ALL of western culture, not just the good points. I used to be the "BIG GUY" in China, now I am FAR from the biggest.

More and more women are smoking, drinking coffee and yes, getting "bigger" so those issues will soon be past, but in the meantime, best to stock up on "under garments" back home unless you want to make shopping trips to Hong Kong or Shanghai.

I still face a challenge in finding shoes however.... Size 12 is NOT common and I can only find shoes in an international market here. Which I love!!! It is all high fashion gear that for whatever reason was rejected in North America of Europe. Often times if a couple items are damaged or sized incorrectly, the entire shipment goes back to China to be sold on the local market. We have an amazing International Market here where I can not only get shoes and clothes off the rack (BIG plus!!!) but they are a fraction of the original price! But I live in a mega city, this will not be the case in smaller cities. However, every smaller city will have an army of tailors who can make you anything you like and perfectly in your size. Just show them a picture and away you go. I had an awesome custom made suit created for me and it was 80 dollars, would have been 500+ in the "Big Guy" stores back home.

Another issue for bigger folks, especially the further south you go is heat and humidity. You are going to sweat like crazy in the summer no matter where you go, that's part of the humidity situation here. I had a big phobia of sweating all my life and it took some time to get used to it. Most bigger folks I know here find that to be the toughest part. But don't sweat it 8) EVERYONE here sweats like mad, and in fact the local Chinese belief is that a sweating person is a healthy person. If someone ISN'T sweating, then they must be sick. SO culturally it is ok to be sweaty, which is good, because unless you live here several years, just stepping out the door is going to make that a reality you simply must deal with. First couple years I hated even just walking down the street to the bus stop, but I am as far south as you can go, so thats the price I pay....

Hope that helps!

Canadians are not being singled out per say for visas. Policies change all over the place. The Beijing Olympics pretty much killed the whole "business visa" avenue. They are still possible, but must be done in Canada, and require a lot of red tape. Also politics play a HUGE role in visa's. For example, when the Canadian government gave the Dali Lama an honorary citizenship, the visa price doubled over night. Recently France and China had some "issues" and French folks had a MUCH harder time getting visas. The visa situation can and does change overnight.

However, as a teacher, that doesn't affect you anyways, as business visas do not allow you to legally work and tourist visas have never been completely stopped, only increased in price. Americans have it worse. Not only are their visas triple what Canadians pay, but they have to leave the country every month. That means crossing an international border somewhere every 30 days.... Now THAT would be annoying....

What you need is a work visa which in China is a Z visa. It must be applied for after you are here by the school you are working for. You simply cannot get one yourself, impossible. So that means in Canada you need to ask the travel agent selling you your tickets to get you a 1 or 3 month tourist visa so the school can process the work visa and resident permit when you get here. Once you arrive and you sign the contract, the school will take your passport and send it off to get the work visa. Usually in 10-15 days it will be returned with a shiny new visa sticker giving you permission to work and live in China. Don't worry about your passport, you do not need to carry it with you unless you are booking flights, renting hotel rooms or leaving the country. I NEVER carry my passport with me and in 7 years have never been asked to see it. Better safely left locked in your apartment...

As a general rule you should NEVER have to pay for your visa, that should be a part of the contract. Also you should never have to pay an agent for a visa or make a "Hong Kong Run". In such case you are only getting a tourist visa, and therefore not entitled to work in the country.

You do need to watch out for this, as even HUGE and supposedly reputable international schools like English First have broken these rules and asked teachers to provide their own visas and lied about paying taxes...... Often schools and recruiters will say an F visa is fine, however, it isn't as they are cracking down on such things.

Make sure a Work (Z) visa and resident permit is actually part of the contract and you will be fine.

Your answers make me feel more confident that I know what I'm getting myself into and relieves the fears of my parents and friends.

I plan to go next year, when should I start looking for a job?

How does one recognize a "hand-holding" job?

What company did you start with?


Do you have any tips on what to look for in a contract to recognize a good deal or a FAKE?

I've heard a lot about the "Great Firewall of China" do you know any way to get around it? I would like to keep in contact with friend and family through a blog/hotmail. If not could you give me some tips on what is available and what to avoid?

On your youtube channel you have some video's of your classes, did you need to get permission to tape your class?

Your answers make me feel more confident that I know what I'm getting myself into and relieves the fears of my parents and friends.

I plan to go next year, when should I start looking for a job?

How does one recognize a "hand-holding" job?

What company did you start with?


Do you have any tips on what to look for in a contract to recognize a good deal or a FAKE?

I've heard a lot about the "Great Firewall of China" do you know any way to get around it? I would like to keep in contact with friend and family through a blog/hotmail. If not could you give me some tips on what is available and what to avoid?

On your youtube channel you have some video's of your classes, did you need to get permission to tape your class?

Best way to get a decent job is to plan to come during or near the end of the 2 big school breaks. Summer (August) and January/February, depending when Spring festival falls. Schools will be hiring then and it will give you more options. Coming at other times is also possible, but you may have to choose from Training centers or replacing teachers that quit for whatever reason.

Hand holding job is only my term, you wont find it online. It's any job that basically sets you up completely to teach here. All you need to do is get on a plane and physically show up. Then you move into a furnished apartment (all pre paid) with all your utilities and internet waiting. You wont get bills or have to pay anything.

If you want a guaranteed job, at the same hand holding company I started with 7 years ago, I can hook you up. I have already helped 2 guys this week and they have contracts in hand. 1 of them will be here next week, already bought his ticket.

The company is Buckland Group and they pretty much do everything except get you here. You fly into Guilin, which is an hour and a half flight from Hong Kong and they do the rest. Someone will be waiting in the airport with a sign with your name on it. They will then take you on a 1 hour taxi ride to Yangshuo. Yangshuo is the 100% reason I came to China. Easily my favorite place on the planet, and I have seen some cool places. Google Yangshuo and check the pictures.

Once you get there, they will put you up for free in their own private hostel, with new and old teachers from around the world. You stay there a week and get over the jet lag and get some intro courses and lectures on teaching and living in China. They will also help you open a bank account and get a cell phone. Then they start offering you schools. They typically will have a large selection and you can pick and choose age and location. Once you pick one, reps will come from the school to escort you to your new job and home.

My job happened to be in the same province, so the school sent a van to come take me to the city I would be working in. I then had a 1 bedroom apartment, with big color tv, cable and internet, airconditioning, western toilet kitchen etc waiting. Even (thankfully!!) had mosquitos screens in the windows.

I could eat everyday in the school cafeteria and taught 2-3 40 minute classes a day, 4 days a week.

My pay was all direct deposited into my account. The school bought me a bicycle and gave me Chinese lessons, and people were anxious to take me out and show me around.

To me, that is a hand holding job. I guarantee if you send them an email and resume, they will send you a contract. They have never turned down anyone I suggested it to.

Several of those have gone on like me to learn more about China and then move on to TV, University and other exciting teaching jobs.

www.bucklandgroup.org is the company. Nice people that will see to it you are taken care of. Even other teachers I knew who did not like the schools or situations they were in, Buckland went out of their way to relocate them and make them happy. Also good to know, Buckland will never charge you a penny for everything they do for you. They are paid by the schools, not the teachers. They also do the paying, so no need to worry about slower school finance departments.

As for contracts, you need a Chinese person or a reputable school to know for sure. If the contract is in English it is useless. English is not a legal language here, therefore it is not a legal contract. A real contract will be in 2 parts. A full Chinese contract and an English translation. You sign both and always get a copy for your own records.

The Great Firewall is annoying, but only for youtube, facebook and probably porn type sites. Hotmail, Skype, MSN, personal blogs, etc are all wide open and more than easy to access. There are several free VPN programs that allow you to access facebook, youtube and everything under the sun, but can be slow or advertising sponsored. As I am an avid youtube poster (only a few ESL vids to date, but almost 200 ukulele vids while in China!) I do use a paid service. It is 63 dollars a year, but super fast and well worth it. Internet here is also much faster than I ever had in Edmonton and you can download to your hearts content!! No bandwidth caps!!

As for permission to tape my class... HAHAHAHA!!!!
Those classes are actually mine! No school, no middle man!
I have been teaching those particular kids for almost 5 years now and they are all awesome. (My best student won an international university English competition in Beijing and was invited to Harvard University in Boston to meet with the president..... at AGE 11!!!!)

But in general, you wont have any issues if you want to record a class. The Chinese REALLY aren't as secretive and elusive as we westerners might think. I plan on recording many of my new classes at my job starting next week.

The only tough part will be kiddy shyness more than anyone worrying about your recording.... The closer they get to being teenagers the harder it will be to get them on film..... Same as anywhere I think.. :)

I took sneaky pics of my personal kids class and made Elf-Yourself videos with them.... They were embarrassed as heck, but they loved them!!

oh WOW!!! I'm so excited to go to china now! (I'm literally trembling in my seat!) I was so nervous because last time I tried to go I knew nothing and had very little idea of what to do and TESOL was not helping me at all. If I didn't have university courses set up for this year I'd try and get a contract right now! Eeek! You've made me so happy!

I just wanted to express my gratitude for you taking the time to answer all my questions.

When I was asking about the video taping I was just thinking that in Canadian schools you can't take pictures without parental permission not to mention video tape.

Also you have to pay for the temporary tourist VISA as well as airfare, right?

Yep. The travel agent can do it all right where you are. With tourism so much more accessible to China now and decent seat sales if you look far enough in advance it isn't too bad. I got my first round trip ticket for 900 including taxes, right to yangshuo. BUT!!! It was a milk run. Edmonton, 5 hour layover in Vancouver, 5 hour layover in Taipei, 2 hours in Hong Kong and Finally onto Guilin. Add to that actual flight times and it was well over 30 hours.

Second time I paid 300 more to fly hong kong - vancouver direct. Air Canada may not be a great airline, but they do fly direct to Hong Kong... No san fran, taipei, tokyo, seoul or manila stop overs.... Those can be killers...

Not sure how much visas are these days... Last 3 years here the company I worked for took care of it.

Good luck though! When I made the big leap I did it all within a month. Took time off work for the Tesol course, 1 week after finishing I had a contract. Gave my 2 weeks notice at my executive level job (bosses jaw dropped when he found out why) and the day after my last at work I was on a plane. Upon reflection, more advance planning might have been good, but it might also have given me time to find other priorities..... Happens to many grads of TESOL who have the best intentions, do the training, then get a new job, car payment or relationship they can't quite give up.... Then they never make it out. So maybe jumping ship early was best in the long run. Either way you do it, hope it works for ya.

Ya, the only problem with the bucklandgroup is they want 2 years job experience since I'm attending university the only job I have is a part-time one for my school's English department that and they want you to have your bachelor. I'll send them my info anyways and we'll see what happens.

hello Anthony, perhaps you can help with a couple of questions. 1. I am waiting for my 2 documents from a university in China so that I can get my work visa, they keep saying they are waiting for the government to get the documents - my worry is they are waiting to see if they have no-shows and then will decide if they will send me the doc's - is this wait normal?

2. Once I get a work "Z" visa, ...is it only good for the school that gave me the documents or is it (the Z visa) good anywhere with any school in china?

thanks
Bob