China General

[Anonymous No.928406]

Slightly drunk.
Anyway.

China.

Basically any white, native English speaking male can make 100 yuan an hour teaching English, even without any qualifications - though they might want you to pretend you do, so that they have plausible deniability (AKA face.)

8.5% alcohol Delirium Tremens, I am really feeling it now. Magical.

That's 15 dollars per hour in a country where you can live in a hotel and eat every meal in a restaurant for 30 dollars a day (Shanghai prices, personal experience.) 150 to 200 yuan is a more comfortable hotel range.

I have no real interest in herding toddlers, so I'm interested in other face positions, where being the token white guy impresses other Chinese people and benefits your unscrupulous inscrutable Chinese employers. What information do you have about this kind of position, /biz/?

NB: Do not accept positions in Beijing unless they are absurdly well paid. The air is pure smog, worse than any major city I've been to.

[Anonymous No.928414]

>>928406
>$15 an hour
That's not really that good. You can do better than that teaching privates. I know some foreigners in Shanghai who do it, but the real money was in Seoul. I taught from 2011 to 2012 in Korea and had a HELL of a time doing it. Biggest problem is the visa issue. In Korea most people get around it by doing a visa run to Japan (read: weekend vacation in Tokyo) then re-entering on yet another 3 month tourist visa. I know a guy that made $60 an hour doing that.

[Anonymous No.928444]

>>928414
Beats shelfstacker wages.

But hot damn. How do I get into this private teaching racket?

[Anonymous No.928446]

I've heard Hong Kong pays the most. But it's absurdly hard to get in.

I've also heard that places like Oman, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Gulf Arab States in general pay handsomely as well.

I know dick about PRC. I just hear horror stories of foreigners being jailed and fake passports and unscrupulous employers who fuck their employees.

[Anonymous No.928453]

>>928444
You go and build up your studio yourself. Learn how to market yourself, maybe make a quick and easy WP website. Get on craigslist for that region and offer a referral commission. There are a lot of ways.

[Anonymous No.928461]

>>928414
to be honest you could just do that right now where you live. offer commissions on CL and run that shit. just keep a schedule so you don't let it interfere with your current job and DON'T tell your boss because some of them might get pissed and try to get your visa revoked. otherwise it's kinda don't ask don't tell

[Anonymous No.928509]

Is it possible to teach English in China if you can't speak Chinese?

[Anonymous No.928511]

>>928509
go to craigslist shanghai, look in the education jobs, and look at how many jobs are listed there, in english, and there's your answer

[Anonymous No.928512]

>>928509
It's not only possible, but typical.

[Anonymous No.928614]

>>928512
>>928511
How do you teach someone English while speaking English? That was something that frustrated me in high school Spanish. The whole idea of whites going to asian countries to teach English without being bilingual is silly. The only people you are capable of teaching would be people who already can understand or read English, and they don't need much help at that point.

[Anonymous No.928632]

>>928614
>The whole idea of whites going to asian countries to teach English without being bilingual is silly

Oh man, you've just described /r/china as a whole
>I don't speak Chinese
>but I'm working in China
>and I fucking hate it here
>so I'm gonna whine about the Chinese on reddit

[Anonymous No.928639]

You're a decade late bro.

[Anonymous No.928937]

>>928614
The common misconception is that the white people are "teaching". They're not, they are simply there to converse and improve the conversational skills. It's basically a form of immersion.

There is always a real teacher around to teach the kids, you're just a prop.

[Anonymous No.929358]

Why don't they just buy lessons through skype?

[Anonymous No.929362]

Good idea OP, I just see two minor drawbacks

1. You don't know any fucking chinese
2. You have to live in china, which in itself isn't much of a problem but interacting with Chinese people, even if you could, is very tiresome because they are weird AF

[Anonymous No.929386]

A very small handful of students at my university teach children in China English over skype. They are making well over 6 figures (combined) each year.

And they are reaching a dismal fraction of the people there. All of their clients come from word of mouth and they have more parents wanting their services than they can provide.

[Anonymous No.929399]

>>928406

Was in Chengdu for a total of 10 months, going back for a few weeks next month for seeing friends and market research. Being able to speak some Mandarin and a few words of Sichuanhua makes me stand out (as well as being tall and white). If you don't speak Mandarin then you're just another loser who hangs out at the Starbucks near the consulate/s and hotel bars, and as a result you're missing a lot of opportunity and guanxi. China's better when you get out of your comfort zone and the Chinese very much appreciate when you learn some of their culture (say some shit like "I study Mandarin every day. After all, haohao xuexi, tiantian xiang shang!").

You'll make more bank by offering private lessons in your home outside of work. Just drop leaflets into the mailboxes downstairs of the other 200 apartments or so that are in your complex alone (not to mention the surrounding blocks, so you're looking at a pool of 5,000+ people there), get a desk, 2 chairs a whiteboard and some teaching tools and your loungeroom just became profitable.

>>928509

You should try it. You'll fucking hate it, but at least try it. When you get back to your home country you'll look at the immigrants who don't speak their adopted country's language in a new light as well. But you'll have something in common too.

Seriously though, if anyone is going overseas, LEARN THE DAMN LANGUAGE. It also helps you a lot back home. Go learn some Mandarin and use it on a Chinese waitress in the coffee shop and see what happens...

[Li_Sheng !n54GAoW8Vs No.929418]

Being an English speaking Prop doesn't sound like a good career decision. 15$ an hour doesn't even sound like a healthy salary. Even for OJT in language.

Its generally a much better idea to get fucking good at banking or some other biz and niche yourself out as the guy who speaks chinese and gets to head up all the international trips. Then you're overseas with fucking $50 an hour money and can literally do everything that you desire.

[Anonymous No.929573]

>>929418
How can you get good at banking?

[Anonymous No.929576]

>>928406

But you need a degree. Right?

[Anonymous No.929589]

>>928639
Not really. Roughly a billion Chinese people still want to learn English.

>>929362
>>2. You have to live in china, which in itself isn't much of a problem but interacting with Chinese people, even if you could, is very tiresome because they are weird AF
The culture can be grating, it's true.

>>929418
True. But for absolute bottom class, quasi-destitute people, as a job and living situation, it is manna from heaven. Suddenly you're in a place where you a richer than local doctors.

It could also be a springboard for more /biz/ minded people, a way to gain capital they never could in their home countries.

>>929576
In theory.
You should probably also not be a native Yoruba speaker claiming to have been born and raised in Kensington, but it's not an especially rigorous system.

[Anonymous No.929646]

>>929576
Yes. At least a bachelors. Don't even bother trying to work here illegally. Worked back in 06 but now there's been a lot of crackdowns and its very risky to do so

[Anonymous No.929724]

>>929646
>Worked back in 06 but now there's been a lot of crackdowns and its very risky to do so
The only risk factor is having an employer who is too stingy with his bribes. Even if you have all your papers in order, they might bring the hammer down just to punish him.

There's also private tutoring, e.g. conversation practice in a cafe. Impossible to crack down on "friendship with (financial) benefits."

[Li_Sheng !n54GAoW8Vs No.930185]

>>929573
apply fractions
don't be the guy who lends to scummy people.
banking done.
next career.

[Anonymous No.930251]

>>929724

So you're saying if I worked privately, I can get sort of a "loophole" visa?

[Anonymous No.930267]

Real money from from finding a school that doesn't require 12+ hours a day, so you can do private lessons for more money. Make it look legit, teach a couple people at one time.

Problem is, is that most schools aren't able to help with Visa's and you aren't able to just run to the border and reapply for a visa.

Then find a chinese partner that won't rip you off and open a laowei sandwich shop or something.

[Anonymous No.930330]

>>930251
Well, you could just go on continual visa runs to HK.
The usual tourist visa lasts two months, but requires an exit and re-entry between them.

So, you could arive in HK, wait a week to get your visa, take a twenty minute train to Shenzhen, work a month, take twenty minute train to HK, stay a night just to allow a change in date, take a twenty minute train to Shenzhen and work another month, then go back to HK for a new tourist visa.
It's not a loophole so much as an exploitation of a poorly monitored system.

Now, I've known people who just tutored one on one in cafes, usually for 150RMB, but for a customer who bought them a 40-50RMB coffee, meaning the customer would have been willing to part with 200. So, conceivably, you could 30 bucks to shoot the shit in a cafe for an hour. More if you can prove you understand grammar, and can explain it concisely and accurately instead of being like "uh, that's just how we usually say it."

The difficulty is building the customer base without a school connection. I think skype tutoring could work as a way to kick things off.

[Anonymous No.930335]

>>930330
>40-50RMB coffee
NB Starbucks is basically considered high-end gourmet in China. This is a very atypical price for any drink - you can buy a can of beer for 2 to 10 kuai. When you eat in these places, you're in the domain of the quasi-segregated upper class.

[Anonymous No.930398]

>tfw teaching gooks English so they can immigrate to your country and do STEM degree and take jobs
This is exactly why you're a faggot OP, my University is like 35% Asian and it literally smells like fried rice in the hallways of my dorm.

[Anonymous No.930408]

>>930330

How hard is it to teach privately in Hong Kong? Or are they better at catching on to this scheme?

[Anonymous No.930417]

>>928406
The chinks would have to do a lot better than $15-16/hour to make me consider living in their filthy shithole of a country.

[Anonymous No.930422]

>>930408
It's not really a question of being caught or not.
You could do it in Taipei, but Hong Kong has to many white people living there for pure "shooting the shit" conversation practice to be profitable. Teaching in a legitimate, tax paying way would require some impressive qualifications. Basically, the local Chinese are spoiled for choice and can afford to be picky.

[Anonymous No.930431]

>>930422

Taiwan seems way more difficult to border hop though. I've heard bad things about border hopping from Taipei like deportations and stuff. Sounds like a huge risk.

[Anonymous No.930454]

>>930431
Never had that impression. But then, I never needed a visa for Taiwan. 3 months free, then you could pick up a tourist visa in a neighbouring country (they seem to have unofficial representative offices.)

For visa free periods, the rule in Asia is to pick a random flight out of the country, copy its details and number, and pretend that you intend to fly out on that flight number on that date. I had to do this in Taiwan and Japan. Neither checked up on me. Why bother? It's only an intimidation tactic, to make people nervous about overstaying their visa-free period. I never do, anyway, I just like to keep my options open - leave a month early, or at the very latest if I like the place, etc.

[Anonymous No.930629]

>>930335

Asians are always surprised when they come to my city in Australia to find it doesn't exist here because we have such a strong coffee culture Starbucks failed to integrate into. The only thing they have worth half a shit is matcha frappuccino anyway (in b4 weeb).

>>930398

You ever been in their apartment? Don't ask why there's a bin full of toilet paper next to the toilet...

[Anonymous No.930647]

>>928614
What people in any level higher than intermediary language learning are looking for is conversational classes

In fact, your lack of knowledge of Mandarin might count, since they probably want the real, immersive experience when speaking English, without their nice teacher in there to rescue them

>>928632
The Chinese are a shit people though, let's not pretend otherwise

Some are okay, and money is always good, but damn, anyone who's not an engineer you can generally expect to be insufferable

[Anonymous No.931549]

>>930647
>What people in any level higher than intermediary language learning are looking for is conversational classes
I'm curious how common this is as a paid gig worldwide, because in my naivety, I assumed it was accepted out of desperation of the part of the Chinese.