China has been frequently visited by me over the years, beginning in September 2012 for a holiday, then from March 2014 to settle in Guangzhou for two years to study Chinese Mandarin in Jinan University (暨南大学), followed by several trips between 2015 to 2016 all around China, crisscrossing Chinese provinces, until now, September 2017, where I have decided to find work in the hopes that I can settle in China for a longer time.
This is the first time I will work as an English teacher in China. Below is an excerpt from a diary entry of my first experience dealing with an English teacher recruiter aka headhunter (猎头人) while still living in Australia, two days before I had flown to China for a formal interview with Hampson English (汉普森英语) In Guangzhou.
The English Academy Headhunter Interview
As I continued to talk through WeChat (微信) to the teaching recruiter who is in China, we went through all the things I have knowledge about in terms of teaching English in China.
She said, “If you can provide all the right documents, then you can work for one year in China as an English teacher. You need to provide a university degree, a health check, TEOSL certificate, and a criminal police check.”
The Chinese headhunter also mentioned a few other documents that needed to be submitted.
I replied, “I don’t have a university degree.”
She assured, “In the case that you do not have a degree, there are other options.”
The responses that came back to me – a person from a Western country with no English teaching qualifications whatsoever – made me feel confident that regardless of my inexperience, I would not get knocked back.
Can Westerners On Holiday Teach English In China
I asked the headhunter, “Do you provide options for people who are casually in China?”
I qualified that comment by adding, “I have a friend who works in Beijing as an English teacher. She travels from Beijing to Hong Kong to renew her visa every three months, but she has worked as an English teacher in China for years.”
The Chinese headhunter answered, “Yes. We understand that not everyone who comes to China and works as an English teacher can work legally in China. We do have some English teachers who do not have a work visa but still work for our English teaching academy in China.”
When I heard that, I was not too disappointed. We had that option where I could travel to Hong Kong every three months – which is technically not regarded as mainland China – to renew my visitor visa and restart the clock on my three-month visa validity in mainland China.
The Importance Of Invitation Letters
The headhunter said, “What you need to know is you have to commit to staying in China for one year. Our English teacher contracts are based on one year contracts. You have to guarantee that you will stay in China for that time.”
I confirmed, “I can guarantee that. I can receive invitation letters. I have a Chinese friend in Changsha who is a teacher at a Chinese school. She can write me a recommendation as well. I also received an invitation letter from a very good friend in China. She could also continue to write invitation letters for me. That would make it feasible for me to stay for one year in China.”
This workaround to teach English in China would require me to travel to Hong Kong four times a year, and if needed, to ask friends to write invitation letters to attach to any new visa application. However, none of these workarounds guaranteed that the Chinese government would approve my next visa application. We were making progress nonetheless.
The Plan To Fly To China
Today is Wednesday, September 20, 1997. I leave Australia via Sydney airport tomorrow en route to China. I will arrive to Guangzhou on Friday, one day later. The headhunter and I have already arranged for me to go to Ouzhuang (区庄) district in Guangzhou to have an interview on Saturday. So, things are moving forward.
Today is my final day working as a casual on-call labourer in Moss Vale. I got a coffee from the McDonald’s drive thru, chatted to the Chinese headhunter via WeChat (微信), then came back to work as a pick packer.
When I came back from my afternoon lunch I had more conversation with everyone else at work. The conversation with the lads is more frank because the Chinese English teaching role is a done deal.
I told the lads at work that I am going to China.
The MacGyver guy said, “Why are you going over there? They are all coming over here!”
That “being swamped by Asians” comment bandied about by the working class is a very common response in Australia.
Normally when I mention China, everyone has an opinion about it, and it always seems to be negative. Wilson is the only one who had a positive comment about China. He was enthused about what the Chinese woman can do in order to clean the house and prepare food for guests.
My mind was already in the clouds, far away dreaming about the opportunities (and women) in China. There is only so much you can squeeze out of thirty some years living in the same country day in and day out. I am ready for a real sea change, to meet up with all my good friends in Guangzhou that I have made over the years, and to start a new life, and a new identity, in a faraway country.
Read the article about the formal interview with Hampson English (汉普森英语) In Guangzhou.
Diary Of A Mad Chaos is a daily diary written from March 1996 until today, of which individual books and book series have been created, namely “The Lost Years” an exploration of young, entwined love, the “Wubao In China (猎艳奇缘)” book series which provides an extensive comparative analysis of the cultural differences between Eastern and Western societies, and the book titled “Foreigner (华人)” an exploration of race relations in Australia.
