I was about to start reading it. Do you mean I shouldn't?

Yeah...smacks of arrogance...tries to hide it, but it's all over his piece...very materialistic and selfish person I'd say...can't work well with other people...generalizes how he/she treats people...he/she measures  "success" and "happiness" by the amount of money one makes and the position one holds...he/she still sees "things" and life, in general, based on the textbooks he's/she's read over his/her university days (Jack Welch perhaps??)...he/she speaks of his/her observations of  "other" people, but forgot to factor in the "human side" of it all...I could go on....basically, this guy/gal needs to grow up some more...perhaps a good deal of experience (both at work and in dealing with people) will serve him/her well in the future...

which one is it ? link.. ?

Yeah, link please!

And the wanker of the year award goes to...

Too long, couldn't get through the whole thing. 

I don't think it's worth paying any attention to somebody who wants to be and became the person that looks down on other people based on their job or where they live. 

I actually read the whole thing (it was that, or the TV drama my wife watch, which is so WTF even her she is rolling her eyes every minutes). Ok, I wanted to stop to read because of the attitude. There are some good points, a bit of ambition does not hurt, working hard can bear fruits. There are some points that made me a bit sick, like hanging around 'those who matters' to hope getting a piece of the cake, it's something that I would feel terribly uncomfortable doing. The definition of 'good life' makes me roll my eyes, but ok, different people enjoy different things. We definitely spend our RMBs differently ^^

There are a lots of opportunities to be taken in China, it's the modern Far West. Sometime, you catch a good horse and it feels good. For me, it was saying 'hi' to a random guy who just smiled to me and kindly said 'hi' to me. He asked what I was doing in China, I told him. He needed a guy with my speciality. He hired me in his startup, and since then, it's been great for both of us.

That piece was a bit of self -congratulatory drivel.

Awful person. 

Paul, the writer is a kid really. Limited life experience and I guess what can be annoying is that someone with so little experience can be sort of condescending in such a long article. I have taken the time to respond from the view point of someone more than twice his age and from someone "happy" to be an ESL teacher in a small city. Don't let the words upset you too much because they are just that - words stating HIS opinion and it's probably not one shared by the majority.

However, he does have some valid points and I wouldn't dismiss all of it. Some things he said were interestingly stated. It got a bit long........

wow, so many comments. Paul, you made the guy a local star!

I skimmed through it, pretty much got what the writer was getting at.

To be honest though, I don't work in education here, but much like the writer says, I've also always wanted to question the English Teacher "career" path in China, let alone what do English Teachers do when they decide to go back home?  It is really like having to start all over again?

I'm sorry, I got to the part about where he is describing the other FTs and he is such a judgmental, arrogant asshole. Calling his coworkers unambitious , if you are happy in life, you don't need anything else. A 22 y/o calling another 22 y/o "kid"? And "literally marrying the first chinese girl that talked to him" , even if that load of bull was true, who the hell cares. And then he knocks the other teachers because their gfs were younger? And they didn't try to be friends with him? I do not need to read any further.

before i read it i knew it would be judgemental....

anyways he has some points but i guess every esl teacher knows these things by themselves.

i do have respect for esl teachers here because they are not treated well (also because of some jerk teachers)

even though teaching is almost a dead end to career (unelss opening own school whatsoever) i think it is all about passion.

back home i always wanted to be a teacher in public schools, but i was too stupid and now too old to make that dream come true. Now I try to find a fun job in my major which is kinda hard for me.

Enjoy your time as a teacher and hopefully you can make a good life with it.

I thoroughly appreciated his use of italics throughout.

sorry, too long for me. I am going to eschew it.

Why can't we thumb downs outside of the answers section?

It reads like American Psycho is that wasn't satire, but a serious guide for life. I can almost see him bragging about "now I can buy coke instead of Snow Beer"

He likes to psychoanalyze the people he looks down on. From his point of view as an analyst at a bank, people can be summarized as income bracket numbers, and he feels his words are hard but true. Problem is, when I attempted to do the same to him (psychoanalyze his writing), he considered it to be going too far, and I should get over my personal issues. You see, he's not a number, he's a shining light of skill, brilliance and hard work. We're the obnoxious numbers with the audacity to think of ourselves as more than stereotypical anecdotes. See, this is why you shouldn't bring your kids to international school, or any other place where people learn to think in arrogant, elitist ways. The end result is a self-important eejit like this.

I stepped right over it, the way I would step over something that a dog might leave on a sidewalk.

What I don't understand is the difference between the feeling here and the feeling over there.

Here, he is blasted; there, he keeps thanking people for their compliments.