Employment & Professional Development

I have found this site to be far and away the best resource on the internet for its subject.

Several years ago now my father died and I did, indeed, become very depressed and wanted to try something different.

I had a job in South Korea lined up and backed out just a day or two before the scheduled flight.

Reading this site over quite carefully, I realize that likely my better sense kicked in and I am grateful that I did not follow through as I had not done my "home work".

My life has come back together, but, nonetheless, I am very intrigued with the possibilities. I must say I am not an American who does not know there is a World out there. I am very involved in following all world events and come from a family that traveled and lived in Mexico, Guatemala, and Canada but also had long lost past roots in very parochial "American Rockies Westernism", if you will.

Obviously I am an attorney and I really do have an extraordinary ability with English grammar and usage.

I have found getting a job offer abroad is not really much of a challenge. I really appreciate, however, your very careful discussion of how, at least in China, there would likely be problems if I took just any job.

I would really like to make a contribution and I am very flexible. Money is not a primary motivation to me. I genuinely love cultural challenge and growth as well as the history of civilization and such.

I find again, even back in the saddle with my "old" life, that I am strangely and heavily drawn to this.

In my fantasy, I thought that there might be a market for an educator who could teach American culture, politics, and the culture of American law. If that is plainly unrealistic, I imagined that Chinese demand for simple business English, legal vocabulary and usage (say for contracts), and English negotiation skills might present an opportunity.

Am I crazy? Do you have any advice? Would I be better just going to China and looking into private/entrepreneurial opportunity?

Obviously this site represents the best potential input on these subjects that I have found so far.

Can you give me some advice?

Ken is out of town for the holidays, so I will respond to you. For starters, thanks so much for the positive feedback.

I'm sure you have already read the chapter on teaching in fields other than English. The problem is, there really isn't much demand for that outside of, possibly, Project 211 universities and international schools. Even at these types of institutions, you could be a Western physician teaching histology and pathology and they will still ask you to teach a course in "medical English" to the hospital's Chinese doctors.

I imagined that Chinese demand for simple business English, legal vocabulary and usage (say for contracts), and English negotiation skills might present an opportunity.

To accomplish this, I think you would need to focus your job search on private schools with well established corporate training departments. I know of another foreigner in Guangzhou who is also an attorney and he teaches oral English exclusively at a highly-ranked university here. I believe that over the course of his many years in China, he has taught a course or two that has required his law school education, but that's about it.

Based on what I know of the education system and job market for foreigners in China, my best advice is to find an oral English teaching job at the highest ranking university possible and then, hopefully, they will have the wherewithal to draw upon your advanced education over time--but, of course, there is no guarantee of that.

If you are really determined to teach in China for awhile, it might be best for you not to seek any type of satisfaction from the actual teaching itself, but the contribution you can make to your students as an objective and rational Western professional, one who can provide counsel and advice in a way not one of their Chinese teachers can. This, in my opinion, is the main satisfaction a Western professional derives from teaching in China: the warm and enduring relationships that he or she will forge with the students.

Best of luck to you.

Thank you very kindly for your timely and comprehensive reply.

The compliment for your site is sincere and, in my view, objective.

I noted previously in your writings your emphasis on the great contribution possible outside of formal teaching or the classroom, through individual mentoring relationships with Chinese youth, as possibly the great reward of teaching in China.

I also noted that you posted a narcissism test for individual consideration. While there was no discussion of how this test might apply to Chinese teaching (other than to suggest a narcissist might not fare well teaching abroad), I felt certain that there was a connection to the general topic of this site overall in your inclusion of the narcissism screening test.

Further, I also see that on the site there are many other writings concerning cultural narcissism in China, particularly, perhaps, within the microcosmic scale, with women.

Of course lawyering is itself a narcissistic endeavor in many instances--at least to say that many unhealthy lawyers certainly exhibit narcissistic personality traits.

I am not sure there is a question here (or that it would have anything to do with a lawyer seeking a foreign language position in China).

But here goes:

Am I correct to surmise that, in your view, narcissism, both individual and cultural, is a significant issue in China and among foreign "expert" teachers? And if so, why do you think that this is the case? What do you think the impact is?

Can you address your concern or interest in posting a general screening test for narcissism in the context of individuals seeking teaching positions in China or in the context of the institution of English teachers working in China?

And, I suppose, lastly, are their regions in China where the narcissistic cultural issue is not as particularly strong as in other regions?


Finally, perhaps another way of getting to the whole matter from a shifted perspective, yet related to your first reply, would be this:


If one's primary focus were to be on the contribution one could make a significant contribution through relationship in the individual lives of Chinese students, what jobs (and in which regions) would you suggest?


In other words, finally, if one were to follow your suggestion of looking well beyond the work itself as to the source of potential contribution (thus moving beyond narcissistic issues by focusing on what could be given and not one's narrow self interest, what would that inform as to where to go, what to do, and how to proceed?


Well, thank you very much; I would certainly understand if you were to leave this post aside. I am, however, very much sincere in posing these issues.

Much Advance thanks and gratitude,

A lawyer in the American Southwest who would like to make a difference.

I almost forgot:

May the Year of the Tiger bless you, Ken and this whole operation.

Enjoy the holiday!,

litigating in sw america

lawyersw wrote:Am I correct to surmise that, in your view, narcissism, both individual and cultural, is a significant issue in China and among foreign "expert" teachers? And if so, why do you think that this is the case? What do you think the impact is?

Can you address your concern or interest in posting a general screening test for narcissism in the context of individuals seeking teaching positions in China or in the context of the institution of English teachers working in China?

The "Narcissistic Partner's Test" is intended to help people determine to what degree their partners might possess narcissistic tendencies. It's not meant to suggest, at all, that narcissistic tendencies might be over-represented among foreign teachers in China and it is not directly pertinent to employment. It applies directly to relationships.

However, strictly from a psychoanalytic perspective, I do believe the Chinese are more susceptible to narcissistic tendencies (in terms of possessing a sense of damage, injury, or inferiority, and a hypersensitivity to criticism and recrimination) than, for example, Americans or British. I also strongly believe that Chinese women are more susceptible to pathological narcissism than men due to a variety of cultural factors, e.g., great emphasis on the importance of having a male child, especially now in the context of China's single child policy, as evidenced by the gross disproportion of men to women (1.2:1) due to selective abortion and female infanticide. China is the only country in the world where more women commit suicide than men and one woman does so every four minutes.

I don't think anything I have written can be usefully applied to seeking employment in terms of where to teach or what jobs to concentrate on. The chapters on Mianzi and Guanxi as well as Social Customs and Etiquette should be helpful in understanding cultural differences and how these impact on day-to-day interactions with the Chinese, from the perspective of a Westerner.

Best of luck to you.