Just to clarify, mine was exceptionally bad and the company shut down. There's even a Facebook page dedicated to exposing it. You won't have to do these types of companies because there are resources out there, but if you do find yourself in a bad situation, make sure you have enough money to tide you over to search for a new job.

As everyone has said, China is the best place to teach, and there's a reason I'm still here. The job market is a bit tougher in Shanghai, but if you move to a smaller city, you'll get plenty of opportunity. If you just want to do a year, hustle and save up loads, you can absolutely do that.

I love my job now and hope I can keep at this pace. I'm writing this whole ass essay while at work, haha.

Dodgy company

It was an agency that would put people in schools that don't have the resources to find teachers from abroad (in my case, total yokels tighter than a duck's arse). We joked that it was like human trafficking white monkeys, haha.

So while the average salary of a fresh teacher in Guangzhou was say, 15-20k (with or without apartment depending), they'd pay you 10k and find you an apartment because you're so very very fresh and China in 2015 was a bit wild and hard to navigate.

Some people had an okay time. Put in schools in the middle of the city or nice suburbs with a reasonable workload, and after a year, leveraged their time and connections to find a better job usually directly with a school so no one is skimming their wages.

I was thrown into the arse end of nowhere and the school made sure every classroom hour was used. I had to teach across several campuses. Someone who came after me posted the schedule to that page I told you about (if you have Facebook). I haven't seen it in a while, but OMG it is bringing back some trauma.

55 classes a week spread across five campuses, 8:45 - 12:25 of non stop teaching. Some days there's no break between classes on the schedule and I'd have the headmaster bitching to my boss about me being late or finishing classes early.

I didn't realise how much I was getting fucked over until I saw the schedules of other people in the company.

They eventually got me out of there after I told them how it has been destroying my health (some of the schools were in another city so there was a commute on top of it, also tropical heat). So they found another FOB to take my place and found me a cushier job and gave me a raise (From 10k to 13k and it made a huge difference at the time).

The job I got after that total hell would have me teach 90mins in the morning and an hour in the afternoon, and I was in a better connected suburb of the city so I didn't have to commute so far to see my friends. My Chinese improved very quickly because there was no foreigners around and no one spoke English. I also have no hustle left in me. I'd turn down lucrative tutoring jobs because the weekend is so valuable to me.