I am making good money here teaching English, married a Chinese woman who is amazing. We now have a five month old daughter. Couldn't be happier

I am also an English teacher. I also make relatively good money by working hard even though I feel that the biggest reward is getting to spend time with the cutest little Chinese angels on weekends. I am also married to a Chinese lady and even though we have are separated and have a little 3 year old daughter together I hardly see myself as a loser. 

The problem is that some foreigners come to China and do things that they probably would not do in their own countries. They sleep with a lot of naive Chinese girl after promising to marry them and go to class still smelling of alcohol but you have to remember that no all foreigners are like this. Players and going to play and haters are going to hate.

The problem is that unfortunately people stereo type a lot of foreigners China. You just need to make sure that your intentions a true and don't let what other people say get to you. Sticks and stones my friend...I have many friends from all over the world and came to China to teach. A lot of them have their own schools and are married to a Chinese person. Some of them have even started a family. Try to always see the beauty in life before you get hung up by what people say about foreigners in general.

Because 

DEEP down, virtually everyone of them knows PRC is a polluted shithole, filled with psychopaths feeding on fake this and that. Sure, the hardware is there, but the software (i.e. consciousness) stinks. In short, it is like terrorists flying first class on their 'business trips'.

Logically, you must be a terrorist if you are also on the same plane.

THIS, is how logical daluren are.    What happened to these zombies? Nationalistic brainwashing, the exact same kind the Kims use in North Korea. 'Our country is number 1 (yeah, right, counting backward, morally). Western developed countries are our enemies. This is even more important than your dad and mom, sit up and listen --- whatever our enemies uphold we go against.  They uphold honesty, we uphold dishonesty.  They uphold a justice system where no one is above the law, we go the opposite, we uphold a justice system where anyone can go above the law, as long as he has enough guns under his bed'. 

Bottomline, what value comments coming from psychopathic brainwashed zombies do you give? 

Come on Rob, the answer is obvious...

ESL teacher. Firstly, the 'skills' involved in the subject being taught haven't required much in order to acquire them. Most haven't gone to university to study long and hard for it (especially when referring to oral English). Compare this to engineers, good management, electronics, manufacturing, or any of the sciences, etc etc... For many, it's simply "i can speak and write it, so it's a subject I can teach".

Couple this with the attitudes towards English in China... it's seen as the lowest rated subject for university students (and sort of rightly so... English on its own - why??? Combined with other subjects - awesome!)

Add to this the lack of relevant qualifications required to do the 'job'. In basically any other field for which an expat can get employed in China, ESL teacher is the one where you don't actually need a relevant qualification.... ANY degree will allow you to teach!!! (AND, you don't even need any type of teaching qualification). There are NO tests to determine language proficiency or knowledge (just a passport).

Given all of that, of course ESL teacher is seen as a loser profession!!!

As for the Chinese wife/gf.... foreign visitors to these shores are seen as something exotic (and, usually, rich... at least, rich enough to travel to another country, and get paid FAR more than the majority of the locals). Women tend to flock to the guys here because of this (a chance to improve their social standing - women are, statistically speaking, more likely to do this than men). Therefore, getting a Chinese woman is seen as 'easy' - certainly in comparison to western women (who see neither the exoticness, nor the apparent wealth).

Thus, again, loser!

Now, you guys on here should obviously realise that I'm just explaining the apparencies, and not suggesting that those things are necessarily true!

Teaching (even one's own native language) takes skill (not to mention, patience). Knowing it well enough to be able to examine it takes even more. And, getting someone up to the level required by universities around the world, really good knowledge and understanding of the language (more than what many possess).

As for the wife/girlfriend..... there are some GREAT women out there... and finding that diamond amongst the rough can be hard (I haven't succeeded!) But, it sounds like many here have... (and, it goes for any type of relationship). it also ignores the serious stress and tensions that come about through the differences in cultures and, often, language. Making it work without divorcing within a few years can be a miracle!!!

(I wonder - does being single make me more of a loser..????)

What other people think is what other people think. Like friendships, you give a damn about the people that matter to you, and basically ignore the ones that don't.

Chinese people have such a low opinion of their own country that they think only a madman would come here from the west and that of his own will. They are right.

 I don't think it's reasonable for people to say that it's a loser job, but it's not really an impressive job either. it's just a job. Somebody tells you they work at starbucks you aren't going to think they are a loser but you aren't going to be impressed either. It's a normal working class kinda job.

ESL is gonna be a more challenging and rewarding than serving coffee but it's in that same ballpark of being something you can kinda show up and do without a ton of experience or qualification. And that's a good thing! Every job can't be something you need a specialized master's degree for. But then the downside is that seen as being a working class, average joe kinda job. Nothing wrong with that! But it is what it is.

Where I think a lot of the loser stuff comes from is the feeling of resentment from locals that expat (especially guys) have something coming to them here which makes the lamer locals feel like shit.

Like a local who has a white collar office career and a professional degree feels like they SHOULD be "better" than the working class foreigner...who ends up makes more money than he does and has better dating options. So it's like even a working class western person is still "above" me in the hierarchy when I should be able to look down on him. That kinda thing. It's very ugly I'm not justifying that attitude just trying to make sense of it.

It doesn't Rob. Not at all and you shouldn't give a shit what anyone else thinks.

I've had that thrown at me before, although probably 9 out of 10 times it's mindless people gossiping behind your back and you won't hear about it. Your wife or girlfriend will though.

I think the root of it all is a combination things.

1. The insecurity  / envy.  There is probably no better way to make insecure people temporarily feel better about themselves than by running down other people. Especially when those people are out there living life to the max .. traveling, having fun, doing new things... and you feel threatened by it because you could never see yourself even trying to do that.

2. Face. It's a complicated thing but a big measure of face is how much money and bling you are able to show off. Your average English teacher doesn't give a s**t about face or impressing their neighbors so they don't really indulge in conspicuous consumption... buying stuff to show off in other words. Those who care about face will look other people's situation and resent others for having more than them though.

3. Chinese limited world view. A lot of Chinese just can't understand that not everyone in the world thinks like them.

So, if someone decides he doesn't want to buy a poorly built apartment next to the mother in law, doesn't want to buy a car he doesn't need, doesn't care what a bunch of farmers think of him, is more interested in experiencing a new culture and doing something that makes them happy and gives them great satisfaction even if it doesn't pay as much as they could make back home, buys the cheapest phone on the shelf instead of the new iphone because he only needs something basic, takes a few years off to work overseas and have some fun, wears his ugly old gym shoes because they are comfortable.. the list goes on..  they just don't get it. That person must clearly be a loser because 'everyone thinks the way we do' and if they don't do these things it's because they can't, not because they choose not to.

4. The herd mentality. Anyone who doesn't think, look and act exactly the same is a threat of some kind and must be ridiculed and mocked. Even if you yourself secretly want to be that person. You have to 'fit in' or people will say you're 'strange' and gossip about your family.

This is what goes through my mind when I hear this 'loser' stuff. I honestly don't care what people think about how I choose to live my life.

If you're doing what you chose to do and making the best of your situation, being your own man and looking after your family and responsibilities as best you can then anyone who wants to criticize can get f****d. They are small minded people and it isn't their business.

There is a part of truth in this statement, some people come here to teach because they have no other option, and then there are bitter people generalizing it to every foreign teachers in China, which is just wrong.

I have met people who quit well paying yet boring corporate jobs in their home country to come teach in Asia after finding out that it's what they truly like to do, or because it gives them the necessary time to focus on other aspects of their life, or on other projects. They make less money but also work far fewer hours, 15-20 hours teaching when compared to a 40+ hours at a desk job, but when calculated in hourly income they often make more than they did back home. Also they get free accommodation and free meals, which they probably didn't in their previous occupation.

Then you have bitter 'professional' expats who came here thinking they were the sh*t, the king, the numero uno, then after realizing that they aren't going to make it big in China and are just a random laowai, they decide to look down on teachers and think "well at least there are other foreigners here who are worse off than I am". I am not talking about the full package expats here, I am talking about those commonly referred as "halfpat" working on local contracts and usually making no more than 20-25k which is hardly more than a teacher at a training center making 16-18k (and lots of international schools these days pay their teachers more than what halpats get), except the teacher works 25-30 hours a week while the halpat works 40-45 hours a week, they basically make the same salary in the end, but the teacher can give extra tuition to students in his spare time and cash up several hundreds if not a thousand per hour, while the halfpat can't make extra income so easily. Such people try really hard to discredit teachers to boost their own ego and feel better about themselves, they live in denial of the fact that when calculated per hour, most teachers make as much if not more money than halfpats do. But hey, at least "I have a real job" says the halfpat working a yearly contract at a Chinese company with no guaranty of renewal, whatever makes them feel better.

TLDR there are some losers among teachers in China, but there also are great people, those who generalize the loser type to everyone are themselves losers.

As for loving Chinese (or more generally Asian) women, well we all know why some people (Asian men and White women) pick on White men and Asian women loving each others, because they can't find anyone themselves, it's bitterness in its purest form, such people have toxic personalities, better ignore them.

Simply. .. they are Jelous of your lifestyle and are to lazy or tunnel vissioned to try it themselves.
Fuck em

You need to notice that the only people who come on these China-based websites are trolls or China-based foreigners, so either they are trolls and if so nothing they say matters, or they are bitter foreigners that want to leave but are stuck here and so shit on everything because they are unhappy to be here.

Pay no attention ever to what the other laowai might say about you. Be true to yourself.

I notice other foreigners who are not English teachers look down on English teachers. And English teachers who tell people they are not English teachers and pretend they do something else. These people will be your biggest critics. Also, all those Chinese guys who work like slaves just to eat and pay rent. They hate you too.

And when you can land a job just by being white and basic knowledge of the subject you are teaching....this lowers the bar for losers to swarm the system and make a bad name for it. There are great teachers but for every 1 good teacher, you have 4 bad ones in my opinion. 

One more reason if you are talking about the locals. Communists regime typically has no respect for academics, the majority of them being poor and illiterate peasants. They are the staunch supporters of CCP.  Daluren used to be primarily iliterate peasants. During the infamous cultural revolution, academics and landowners were the prime victims, framed and tortured to death in millions.

Today, with no ethics, no religious beliefs whatsover at least for over 97% of the population which is barely educated, the only yardstick of success is money, regardless of how one acquires it.

This is also why academics aren't well respected in the communist cult, be it in the past or present.

This is easy to prove, start driving a Mercede and see what the face of these moneydogs around you look like.To make it even more entertaining, tell the psychos you are in china because the IRS of your home country wants your money because you have so much of it, which is why you work as a teacher, to keep a low profile.

C'mon..yer a rocker..listen to Petty's "Even the Losers"...Lots wish they were as lucky as a loser like you...

I came to China 10 years ago looking for a wife. Found a good one too. I was 50 year old accountant going no-where. My income sure didn't make me a loser. I ended up teaching in China. No one else would ever dream of letting me do that. China was a whole new program for me. Teaching was a way for me to discover this country without the propaganda (from western governments and people who spent only 2 days in Shanghai.) I don't teach now because I'm 60. But every country goes through the economic cycle that China is going through. There are bad points and good points to China. For me (a Canadian) I see both losers and winners in every country. I wouldn't worry about those people who site you, or ESL, as losers. The pay for the amount of work is still pretty good. Teaching ESL is not easy in China with its education system. The again; maybe I can say that because I have the option of going home anytime I want.

Seriously, do you really care what a bounce of spoiled kids thinks? In a country runned by nepotism, I would be proud to be called loser.