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Q: Best type of teaching job for traveling?
Heya people, I am having a dilemma about the kind of job that I would have in China. My main purpose with teaching is to travel as much as I can and see all of the country within 2 or 3 years of time. At a training center I would have Mondays and Tuesdays off which is great because noone travels on those days so it should be relatively easy to just hop onto a train, go somewhere and find a hotel for the night. The cons are of course not having a good social life(can't see how I can maintain relationships with anyone if I always have to keep working at evenings and weekends when other people are off of work) and having to work in a training center under a usually greedy boss is not ideal for too long time either. My second option would be either choosing to work at a public school or university which would give me free time on weekends and long holidays in winter and summer when the kids are on vacation. Every time someone travels in China on a holiday or weekends they complain a lot about how crowded everything is with people, so I am not sure if I would enjoy traveling on weekends when I have my days off. The benefit of working at a public school is that I would have the whole summer for traveling, although I know summer is not the best time for this as sometimes the weather can be oppressively hot and it rains a lot too. What I plan to do is to live in one of the traffic hub cities such as Zhengzhou or Wuhan so I can travel relatively large distances on the bullet trains in a short time. I just wake up in the morning, look out of the window and if the pollution level is acceptable and there is no rain I would just travel for two days every week if I could.
What kind of job do you think is best if I want to use all the free time I have for traveling?
Public education, low hours, lower pay but a lot of free time, I know a guy making 8000 with free accommodation in a public college where he works only on monday all day and tuesday morning, he is free the rest of the time, in his case he gives private lessons but that time could very well be used for traveling, 8000 is enough for that as long as you stay in Mainland China.
Two questions regarding your question:
What are your qualifications for teaching and how many years of experience do you have?
If your prime motivation is traveling, then why don't you just come to China and travel?
Keep in mind that
* Traveling to interesting places in China often needs 10 hours rides of bus/trains. Two days a week of free time won't cut it.
* Hub-cities are easy to reach, but the interesting places are usually a long ride from the hub. The distance, and the bad traffic, so it won't be unusual to spend 6 hours between the hub to the place itself. To give you an idea, crossing Suzhou one end to the other takes more than two hours on public transportation... Suzhou is not a big city by Chinese standard, unlike Wuhan for example.
You can try to work in Kunming, Chengdu, Urumqi, Langzhou, where there are a lot of places within one or two days rides (one way...) and you will definitely taste a different life if you never been to Asia and/or China. Sadly, pollution levels are high in some of those cities.
Teach in a university and do your travelling during the summer and winter holidays. You might also be able to arrange your schedule so you can have 3 or maybe even 4 days off in a row some semesters. Pay is generally low though. Definitely don't think you'll manage to do much travelling while working at training schools, its a tiring job and travelling in China is also tiring.
How much of a place do you expect to be able to see in two days? Most of that time will be spent on the transportation. You need at least three days to make it worthwhile.
my suggestion is a training center in GZ Beijing or Shanghai. Highest salaries, you can easily save and transportation is great for weekend trips. you wont have the long holidays throughout the year, but at the end of every contract you can go screw around for a few months. Youll have plenty of cash as the salaries at the training centers are two or three times higher. Then go find another contract and start again.
Of course I would only do this if your truly only planning on staying for like 2 years. If you think it might turn into a much larger stay then its not as responsible, plus youll be worrying about visas all the time. But for a shorter stay thats what I would do.
Also, I wouldnt worry about the social aspect of training centers, youll be done by 9 if you work nights and youll quickly get used to starting your nights then. Lots of potential friends will be on the same schedule anyways. your best and easiest chance to meet friends would be colleauges anyways,
Have fun!
What about talking to a large National training center chain?
If you are willing to be a "short notice relief" teacher, you could maybe be sent around the country by them.
The visa would be difficult though, given that working visas are tied to location (by the provence that grants them).
I have an MA in TEFL, fortunately it was not an online program and I also have a 120-hour tefl certificate.
Nowadays bullet trains are so convenient, you can get as far as 500km just within 2 or 3 hours of time, if I live in a railhub I could do a lot of side trips within the 2 days when I have my days off.
Working at a university could also be a good idea, though most of them only offer 5000-7000rmb for a salary, but the bright side is that they usually pay full winter and summer holidays.
I am just afraid that if I want to travel on weekends those days will be unbearably crowded with people.
mike695ca:
People only really travel in great numbers on holidays. Chinese generally just stay home on weekends or go to the supermarket for free A/C and to run their hands through the rice.
Where you could have some problems is if you choose a city with a large migrant worker population say Guangzhou for example. The high speed train goes to Hunan and beyond , which is where all the migrant workers come from and so getting a train ticket back to guanzghou on a sunday night could be an issue. but again its only the train tickets not travel spots. And again if your at a training center youll have weekdays off and wont have an issue at all.
