Ask Headmaster Ken

My wife who has several years teaching experience in the U.S. has been offered a position teaching for Disney English in Beijing. Her pay would be approx $1500/month plus a housing allowance, full insurance, and travel allowance.

The problem is that I don't have a bachelor's degree. Disney English would pay for my visa and we would pay for my flight. They recommended that I try to find work prior to arriving, which I will certainly do. If anyone has suggestions in that area I'd be grateful.

My question is would it be viable for us to live on just her $1500 per month salary if housing is paid for?

I’d like to weigh in on this before Ken does.

For starters, if you haven’t already, take a look at Can I live Comfortably on My Teaching Salary in China?

The very short answer to your question is 10,000 yuan (about USD $1500) might be enough to just get by if you have no debt (e.g., student loans, credit cards) back home to pay off AND you both are willing to forgo Western amenities and foods. You will have to live very simply and cook at home as much as possible.

You didn’t specify how much the housing allowance is. If you have to subsidize even a small part of the rent with your wife’s salary, it is going to be very, very tight. This is the reason Disney English suggested that you find employment before you both arrive: They know very well that living in Beijing on 10,000 yuan per month is a challenge.

Although we generally don’t recommend the use of recruiters, this is one type of situation where it makes sense. Instead of hitting your head against the wall, let the recruiters do the leg work for you. Just be extremely careful to follow all the guidelines for conducting due diligence that we describe in our various checklists.

If your wife is an experienced teacher in the States, especially if she is certified, she should be seeking employment at international schools only. The salaries at Western approved international schools are comparable to or even better than what she could earn back home.

I want to emphasize what Dr. Greg wrote about International Schools. Your wife should only consider working at International Schools with her experience. She could easily earn nearly double the salary being offered.

If you live frugally, without such "luxuries" as foreign food, dining out, or holiday travel, you could probably get by on this salary.

The hours are too long and the wages too low for any experienced teacher. However, if you want to get your feet wet, finish a first contract then find a better position, at least Disney will probably pay on time.

You may consider waiting until you are in Beijing and know exactly where you will be living before you search for work (with or without an agent's assistance). The logistics and travel to your work will be important once you are both settled in. You don't want a ninety minute commute.

Do you have any recommendations for recruiters so that my wife and I can explore the international school possibilities? We have tried looking and have no idea where to look or what to look for. Thank you for your time!

International Schools tend not to use recruiters because they don't need to. For a list of appropriate schools, conduct a Google search on [China American "international school"] (without the brackets) and see what you come up with.

One such school that I can personally recommend is the TEDA International School in Tianjin (very close to Beijing). I had the opportunity to take a tour of the school last October and I was very impressed with both the school and the headmaster, Joseph Azmeh. In fact, at that time, he was looking for a K-12 certified English teacher.

There aren't that many American international schools in China. Finding them on the Internet is a simple matter. If your wife is certified and experienced, she should eventually find employment in China at a school accredited by at least one American educational accrediting body. Because the curriculum is approved (and more or less equivalent to what she would be teaching back home), the experience she would gain at such a school is applicable and transferable to teaching jobs in the States. This is not the case if she teaches, for example, oral English at Disney English or even at a Chinese university.

Do yourselves a big favor. Read through our Guide very carefully, chapter by chapter. Try to be as honest as you can about whether the severe sociocultural and environmental demands that will be made of you are a price you are both willing to pay for addressing whatever issues have ultimately brought you to thinking about moving to communist China. For most Americans, this represents an act of desperation.

If your wife cannot find a good-paying job at an American-accredited international school, I would strongly advise you not to move to China to teach oral English at either a private or public school. For your wife, this would be a definite career killer. Be careful, please.

For many, teaching oral English in China becomes a permanent solution to what was, in reality, just a temporary problem.