The scope of the lectures covered everything from calculus to the diagnoses and treatment of pelvic inflammatory disease (PID). I learned a great deal and was very much impressed with the overall quality of the content and the presentations. One of the lectures however, and the impetus behind this article, was from a professor of communication who seemed intent on proving just how biased the Western media is in portraying China in the news.

For forty minutes I sat and listened to how Tom Brokaw’s report on the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing was “unfair” and “manipulative” because rather benign and well-documented references to China’s problems with air pollution had been briefly mentioned (that the report also discussed China’s measures to improve the situation for the Olympic Games was apparently irrelevant).

Although I had already reached this conclusion at some point during my initial six months in-country, this professor’s lecture deeply underscored what is most wrong with China: Absolutely no criticism of government, country, or self is tolerated well—on an emotional or gut level that is.

Yes, Wikipedia.com has recently been allowed to pass through the Great Firewall of China and well-worded criticism in the media (or on websites such as this one) is acceptable as a matter of policy—if it is first prefaced with compliments and “good points.” But on an interpersonal level, in the deepest heart of their hearts, the Chinese simply don’t handle even the slightest bit of criticism very well at all.

When I first encountered this phenomenon some five years ago, I eventually came to understand it as a symptom of what I refer to as cultural narcissism. For those who are unfamiliar with the diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder, I will list here the nine criteria from the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV). Five criteria must be met in order to make the diagnosis. As you read each of the nine criteria, reflect on your past experiences in China and instead of focusing on one particular individual, try to apply these criteria to China’s current day society-at-large:

1. Has an exaggerated sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
2. Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3. Believes he is “special” and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
4. Requires excessive admiration
5. Has a sense of entitlement
6. Selfishly takes advantage of others to achieve his own ends
7. Lacks empathy
8. Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him
9. Shows arrogant, haughty, patronizing, or contemptuous behaviors or attitudes

I believe anyone who has lived and worked in China for any period of time will recognize at least some of these traits as pervasive in this culture and modern day society.

It’s as if no one here truly appreciates, including PhD level professors, that what makes a country genuinely great is not an absence of social ills or problems (and America, for example, has more than its fair share). What makes a country great, at least in my opinion, is its ability to eventually and openly admit to and correct what problems it does have (or at least make an honest attempt to). About the worst thing any country can do is attempt to deny to the rest of the world (or try to hide from) what is obvious to everyone else: Such behavior is both childish and, from a Western perspective, cowardly. I’ve been told (although I can’t verify this either way) that China has never officially admitted to its policy of blocking Internet access to websites that it finds objectionable or too critical of its government and country.

Every country has its dirty little (as well as big) secrets. How could conditions so horrific and brutal be perpetrated at the hands of American soldiers at the Abu Graib Prison in Iraq? Why is it that the truth behind the 1971 Baker street robbery in London is still impossible to ascertain? Did the British government deliberately gag the press with a D-Notice to protect a member of the Royal Family? Who really did kill JFK? Every developed country in the world has a history it is ashamed of and would prefer had never existed—but great countries attempt to heal from the past by correcting the most conflictual or shameful aspects of it. I think America proved at least that much on November 4th, 2008.

The essential difference between such developed countries as the U.S. and the U.K. and the developing country of China today is not in the absence of social ills, past disgraces, growing pains, or whatever else you’d like to call them: It is solely in the presence of political systems of government that force the former to deal with—or at least admit to—the existence of those very problems. In so doing, these countries become stronger and greater.

I hope I live long enough to see the day when China—as a government, a country, and a people—can successfully heal from the narcissistic injuries of its past. I want to see the day when China will be able to realize that true international eminence doesn’t emanate from having built the nicest Olympic stadium in the world or in finally having been able to send astronauts to walk on the moon. True greatness comes from being able to face the world and say “Hey, you know what? We screwed up and we’re sorry. We’re working on it and here’s precisely what we are doing to try to fix it.”

Within the context of my personal reality, here in my office and in front of my computer, I will know that China is truly a great country (or at least on a very clear and certain path to becoming one) when I am able to access any information on the Internet I care to, no matter how critical, unfair or imbalanced it may be about China in the eyes of the Chinese.

China will be a phenomenal country one day when it is able to accept, on the deepest of personal levels, that “world-class greatness” does not come from perfection, outer beauty, an absence of air pollution, or superlative achievement in the Olympic Games but from honest and open self-reflection. Any psychologist will tell you that a patient’s ability to admit to his or her problems and reach out for help is the first major and necessary step towards healing and genuine growth—and it’s a quality that is completely independent of any patient’s cultural background (that is, there really is no such thing as doing this with American, British or Chinese “characteristics”).

Finding both the strength and courage to face and deal with one’s current problems and past conflicts is the most genuine and impressive manifestation of “reform and opening up” there possibly is.

©2008 Middle Kingdom Life. All Rights Reserved.

This is a question that routinely pops up on China Teacher Internet forums from time to time. I was recently reminded of the topic when I noticed that someone had been referred to the site after presumably he conducted a Google search on the terms “TEFL dating students.”

The standard Western prohibition against dating university students is based on two broad principles: imbalance of power and conflict of interest.

An imbalance of power exists whenever there is a significant differential in status or role between two people. Common examples of this include but are not limited to the following types of relationships: teacher-student, doctor-patient (especially when the doctor is a psychotherapist), lawyer-client, and boss/supervisor-employee. The power differential is not derived simply from a nominal difference in title or position but from unequal roles in which one is the serving as the provider of some needed information or service, while the other is essentially the recipient of that knowledge or service. In this context, the power differential emanates primarily from a position of unilateral dependency as opposed to a mutual interdependency that one would more likely find in relationships that started out on an equal footing.

From a psychological perspective, it is this unilateral dependency that taints the relationship as one in which the member on the receiving end is commonly viewed as having been denied free choice. The presumed absence of free choice is based on the common occurrence of what psychoanalysts refer to as transference. Transference is characterized by an unrealistic and partial (as opposed to whole or integrated) psychological investment in another person. In this context, the provider is not seen realistically for who he is as an individual (with both strengths and weaknesses) but in the partial context of his caregiver or provider role, e.g., he is revered as the benevolent father one had always hoped for but never had, not as plain “John” or “Bill,” as he might be seen by others.

The premise here is that the person who currently holds (or previously held) the more powerful position of the two will always have the “upper hand” and, therefore, the relationship can never be considered an equal one. For this reason, several states, including Florida, prohibit a romantic relationship between a psychotherapist and a patient (including a former patient) in perpetuity, even if the patient was seen just once in consultation. Other states, such as New York, will not consider such a relationship to be evidence of professional misconduct if at least five years has passed since the last appointment and the therapeutic relationship was not deliberately interrupted in order to convert it to a romantic one.

The issue of conflict of interest is based on the presumption that a teacher cannot fairly or accurately assess the academic performance of a student he or she is romantically involved with. It is primarily for this reason that all universities have strict prohibitions against professors dating current students. Whether it is true or not, it will be assumed that there was an exchange of personal favors for higher grades and, thus, dating a current student constitutes unethical behavior, i.e., it is equivalent to selling grades.

In applying these two principles to the issue at hand (foreign English teachers in China), we must consider them in proper context. First, do foreign oral English teachers experience the same power differential with their university students in China as Western professors do with theirs and, second, can the issue of conflict of interest—in regard to the assignment of grades by foreign teachers—be realistically viewed as occurring within the same Western academic and institutional context? I think the answer to both these questions is a qualified no.

Foreign oral English teachers in China’s university system clearly exist outside the institutional, social, political, and academic mainstream. One simply cannot be regarded as holding a position of power in this context. Often, the foreign English teacher in a Chinese university is no more than a couple of years older than his students and, in addition, frequently finds himself in the difficult and awkward situation of being far more dependent on them than they are on him: as a primary source of reliable information, as well as for help in coping with the language barrier. In more cases than not, the foreign English teacher is often inadvertently engaged in a mutual interdependent relationship with his students by virtue of these aforementioned social, cultural, and political factors.

In fact, based on personal observation, I would say it is often this forced interdependency (if not unilateral dependency) that typically leads foreign teachers into romantic relationships with their university students (such that, in a different context, the attraction on the part of the teacher may never have evolved). In cases where the relationship is a unilaterally dependent one, it is typically the foreign teacher who is dependent on the student’s ability to skillfully negotiate his social environment, and not the other way around—especially if her English language skills were functional to begin with. In such instances, the mutual attraction on the part of the foreign teacher and his student can often be understood, at least in some part, as a result of the Florence Nightingale effect, i.e., wherein a nurse and her vulnerable patient fall in love. For the student, it may be the very first time in her life that she has ever known what it feels like to be truly needed and highly valued—especially by a man and particularly if she is not considered “very pretty” by Chinese standards. For the foreign teacher, he can’t possibly imagine what his life in China would be like without her.

The issue of conflict of interest (in regard to grading) is greatly mitigated by the foreign English teachers’ lack of any real power and influence in China. Ubiquitous anecdotal evidence suggests that poor and failing grades assigned by foreign oral English teachers are routinely “reassessed” by university department heads as a matter of course. Without any real power to assign grades that have meaningful consequences (and, in the overall context of academic life in China, any real meaning to begin with), the presumption of conflict of interest is, at best, a very weak one.

Although I don’t think it can be successfully argued that a foreign teacher who is sincerely and romantically involved with one of his students is necessarily engaging in unethical behavior, such conduct does raise other concerns—predominantly for the students who are involved.

Whereas it is true that female students who are rumored to be sleeping with their Chinese professors will be mercilessly gossiped about, the social fallout for the girl will be considerably worse if a foreign teacher is involved, as we now have the potentially added factors of xenophobia and racism to contend with.

If you are a foreign English teacher in China and are romantically interested in one of your students (or vice versa), do your best to avoid any physical intimacy with her until the class has ended and the possibility of having her again as a future student is nil. People will still gossip about her, especially if she is spending a considerable amount of time with you, but it is wisest not to lend any reality to it, particularly in regard to sexualizing the relationship. Remain platonic friends until the girl is no longer confined to the milieu of dormitory life, vulnerable to endless gossip and constant humiliation. If the relationship was meant to be, it will certainly survive a semester or two of waiting.

©2008 Middle Kingdom Life. All Rights Reserved.

If so, then we invite you to take our China Foreign Teacher Satisfaction Questionnaire.

The impetus behind the survey was derived from the rather surprising findings of our last reader poll. An equal percentage of respondents both agreed and disagreed that 5,000 yuan per month is a comfortable salary outside of Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. We were expecting a much larger percentage to indicate dissatisfaction with this salary.

This led us to wonder “What factors are associated with foreign teacher satisfaction in China?” After conducting a preliminary literature review, we developed a survey to explore that very question. The survey will take anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes to complete and we urge you to do so if you are or were a foreign teacher in China.

Your responses will go a long way in helping to both predict and explain foreign teacher satisfaction in China. As data are collected in groups of 50 to 100 responses, we will be reporting the preliminary findings on an ongoing basis.

Thanking you in advance for your time.

MKL Team

©2008 Middle Kingdom Life. All Rights Reserved.

The evaluation system consists of five distinct parts: 1) Evaluation of the candidate’s posted résumé; 2) A Psychological Test; 3) Elementary Test; 4) Writing Examination, and; 5) An Online Interview which must be scheduled in advance. Finally, an evaluation report is available to the registered user so that he or she can see the numerical results of the three online exams (presumably with a maximum score of 100 on each subtest).

Before discussing the substance of the three online exams, it is worthwhile to note how the administrators describe the purpose of this evaluation system:¹

This system has been developed together with the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs, PRC and the Capital University of Economics and Business. It is designed to carry out the recently promulgated Administrative Licensing Law of the People’s Republic of china. The Law is being instituted in order to regulate the issuance of permits for foreign experts and to resolve current problems on introducing oral English teachers into the nation’s public education services. In a long-term perspective, it will accelerate the building the international professional personnel market, foster and standardize international personnel agencies and further strengthen market access, regulation and supervision.

‘This system consists of three subsystems: resume filtration; written testing, and an online interview. The tests will comprise a general personnel evaluation psychological profile and a general knowledge test on China and other current world topics. This system will automatically analyze these tests and generate an evaluation report. The results will help employers evaluate the candidate’s basic information and his/her abilities to become a successful professional worker in China. It will also offer candidates a reliable measuring tool to know their strengths and weaknesses and give a more accurate career orientation.

Evaluating the Evaluations

For the purposes of this article, I registered a user account and then proceeded to take each of the three online tests. Before answering each exam, I created digital snapshots of all the questions for further analysis. As the material is copyrighted, I cannot post the exam material on this site but, as you will soon learn, it is entirely unnecessary for me to do so for the purpose of preparing those who might be asked to participate in the evaluation. That is, based on what you will read, you will very easily be able to score quite high on these exams. And therein lies the first of many problems with this evaluation system.

The manner in which the exams are administered renders them completely useless (assuming the exams themselves were valid, which—as you will learn—they are not at all). Aside from the fact that there is no practical way to assure that the registrant is in fact the exam taker, one can create digital snapshots of all the questions as I did, look up the correct answers on the Internet, and then re-access each exam after a 24-hour wait period.

The Psychological Test

I started with the psychological test first as this was the one I was most interested in (examinees can take each of the tests in any order). It consists of 100 questions and presumably seeks to measure 23 distinct personal attributes or characteristics:

1. Adaptive Ability
2. Drink
3. Extent of Mental Health
4. Harmonization Capability
5. Go-aheadism
6. Heart Endurance
7. Confidence
8. Motivation
9. Communication skills
10. Sense of Achievement
11. Expressive Ability
12. Emotional Stability
13. Tendency Towards Violence
14. Tolerant Capability
15. Inspiring Capacity
16. Professional Spirit
17. Logical Thinking Ability
18. Comprehensive Analysis Ability
19. Sense of Responsibility
20. Organizational Ability
21. Optimism
22. Face Tendency
23. Response Ability

Upon a cursory examination of the 23 traits this test purports to measure, one need not be a Western psychologist to accurately surmise that this is neither a standardized test nor one that has any precedence of use. Many of the questions are loosely based on items that can be found in classic personality measures such as the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory, but the items are seemingly and deliberately reworded, and quite poorly at that, to avoid copyright infringement I presume.

For at least four or five questions, I had to guess at what was intended and that alone invalidates the test, i.e., a test cannot accurately measure what it purports to if the meaning of the questions is unclear.

It was obvious to me that the instrument was written to measure what the SAFEA believes would constitute a good foreign teacher: someone who is resilient, cooperative, takes initiative while at the same time is able to go with the flow and adhere to the will and direction of the majority, is a non-smoker as well as a non-drinker. The test suffers enormously from demand-bias, that is, it is extremely easy to ascertain which answer is the “correct” one (especially after reading this article). I made the mistake of second-guessing the expectation of the exam’s authors in regard to cigarette smoking: Surely, I thought to myself, in China, cigarette smoking must be considered a desirable trait? Because I deliberately padded my responses to the four questions on cigarette smoking to indicate moderation (as opposed to strongly rejecting the behavior), I scored a 93 on the test instead of what I assume would have been 100 if I had strongly endorsed all negative statements about smoking.

The answers to each question are measured along what is intended to be a standard 5-point Likert Scale, which was anything but conventional: Highly Accept—Accept—Moderate—Not Accept—Refuse. I personally found the last category of response to be very confusing as I wasn’t initially sure if “refuse” meant that I was refusing to answer the question or that I was indicating strong disagreement (based on my final score, it is fair to assume that the latter response was intended). Why the authors of the exam decided to use such unconventional labels for recording responses when years of research have validated the accuracy of simply using “Strongly Agree, Agree, Undecided (or ‘neither agree nor disagree’), Disagree, and Strongly Disagree” was completely lost on me.

Finally, many (if not most) of the questions are poorly translated into English such that there is one typo (”wist” instead of “fist”), idiosyncratic word usage, and several unclear meanings. I consider this test to be neither valid nor reliable in regard to what it claims to be measuring (much like the CET and TEM exams, see below). The exam is timed at 20 minutes, presumably to force the examinee to answer as spontaneously as possible without the opportunity to give each question much thought.

The Elementary Test

The Psychological Test shined in comparison to this absurd 40-question exam on what was supposedly intended to be a test of general knowledge. Most of the questions were no measure of common knowledge at all, but of trivial facts about China that maybe a few highly experienced veterans of China might have picked up along the way, e.g., for those who have been living in China for at least three years: Do you know the precise month that every Chinese holiday is celebrated in (including all the minor ones that are not considered national holidays)? Why any prospective foreign teacher should be reasonably expected to know the answers to these types of questions, as well as what I counted as 34 other nonsensically trivial questions, is a complete mystery to me. Six questions, of the 40 total, could be argued to measure the type of general knowledge that a well-educated Westerner would or should know (and one of those questions is asked twice—so it’s only five unique questions in total that are valid). At least one of the questions contained no correct answer due to an apparent typo.

Writing Test

This is the only one of the three tests that possesses any face validity as it is based on the types of questions typically found on the writing part of English tests for non-native speakers (e.g., TOEFL, IELTS), i.e., it asks the examinee to write a 200-word essay (about two short paragraphs) expressing an opinion on a common topic in which two points of view are proffered. The user has 10 minutes with which to formulate his position and finish the essay. As my writing sample has not—as of yet—been scored, I can’t address how subjective or not the scoring might be. My approach was to give validity to each side of the debate (although, in this particular case, that was an accurate reflection of how I felt). I am curious to see how I scored on the writing test.

“The Plumber”

As I sat through and then later pondered this “Evaluation System for Foreign Language Expert,” I was reminded of the time a few years ago when the building management—in response to numerous complaints I had made everyday over a two-week period regarding the rather serious plumbing problem in my apartment—sent a “plumber” who was equipped with a Phillips screwdriver in one hand, and a roll of duct tape and a pack of cigarettes in the other. Obviously, he wasn’t the least bit prepared to solve the problem he had been assigned to address—assuming he even had the knowledge.

I commend the SAFEA on its explicit reason for creating such an evaluation system, namely “…to regulate the issuance of permits for foreign experts and to resolve current problems on introducing oral English teachers into the nation’s public education services.” Something like this is long overdue: Unfortunately, this is not the proper way to achieve those goals, not by a long shot.

Pre-employment screening has its place in the world: It is intended to establish a “goodness of fit” between the needs of any given job and the temperament and ability of the various candidates who are seeking the position. Predetermining a good fit between the needs of the job and the capabilities and strengths of an applicant has many benefits, such as a significant reduction in expenses associated with training costs and employee recidivism.

My question to the SAFEA is this: If you are serious about achieving your explicit goals, why not establish a licensing agreement with one of the dozens of time-tested batteries of pre-employment tests that are currently in use? Virtually anyone of the dozens of pre-employment tests, aptitude or vocational interest tests, such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MMTI) combined with the Strong Vocational Interest Inventory (SVII), would make for a much more valid and reliable pre-employment screening measure. In addition, and completely aside from the absurdity of the instruments you are using, developing a system of administration that can so easily be defeated suggests to me that this is something that was “thrown up at the last minute” to meet a requirement in which there is absolutely no genuine interest in achieving the adopted law’s intent. There are several reputable online computerized testing systems with branches all over the Western world through which your pre-employment battery of tests could be administered to prospective foreign teachers, such as Prometric to name but one. The fact that Microsoft, for example, exercises more integrity and caution in how they certify their systems engineers than China does in certifying its foreign English teachers should be a source of considerable internal concern and reflection.

I would also suggest that there is a much simpler and straightforward manner in which you can achieve your explicit goals: Simply have each province and municipality adopt and enforce the SAFEA guidelines regarding minimum requirements that have already been in place for years. There are numerous Internet services available for checking the academic credentials, as well as the work history and criminal backgrounds of job applicants from all over the world. All you need is an international credit card. The Bank of China issues one as does the Merchant Bank of China, among a few others.

In the end, does it really matter if a foreigner knows on what specific day Chinese Valentine’s Day is celebrated? Does anyone in the SAFEA truly believe that knowledge of such a trivial fact predicts who will be successful as a foreign oral English teacher in China?

This time around, let’s send in real plumbers to fix the plumbing.

©2008 Middle Kingdom Life. All Rights Reserved.

1. This is an exact replica of the text contained under the menu item “About this System.”

It is interesting to note, however, that we could not find one provincial government official in either Jilin or Hainan province who had even heard of this guideline. In Guangzhou, Guangdong province, section chiefs at two different university foreign affairs offices denied any awareness of this advisory guideline and a third reported “hearing rumors” to this effect but could not confirm it either way.

As one director of the foreign expert bureau in Jilin City stated with 100% certainty: “Foreigners can live in China for as long as they want with legal documents unless they have criminal records.” We based our original report on information received from no less than three different PSB directors who, as it turns out, were technically wrong—although certainly not wrong in a practical sense. If this sounds like double-talk to you, you haven’t lived and worked in China for very long.

How is it possible that an SAFEA regulation can exist that not even the directors of the PSB and provincial Foreign Expert Bureaus are aware of? The answer to this question was finally extrapolated after two weeks of exploration that involved the legwork and efforts of many. In order to understand this apparent inconsistency, it is first necessary to know something about the specific role of the State Administration of Foreign Expert Affairs (SAFEA), as well as the social function of the law in China.

The SAFEA is an advisory branch of the Central Government. Its mission is to develop and then recommend guidelines to the provincial and municipal legislatures in regard to the administration of foreign experts, as well as approve and issue licenses to schools for the purpose of hiring foreign teachers. What you need to keep in mind is that no one particular province or municipality is obligated to adhere to these guidelines: They are strictly advisory.

According to Article 35 of the 1996 Rules for the Administration of Employment of Foreigners in China, each province, autonomous region and municipality is free to formulate and implement their own rules:

Article 35 The labor administrative authorities of the provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government may formulate their own rules for implementation of these Rules in conjunction with the public security and relevant authorities in the locality, and report it to the Ministry of Labor, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation for putting on record.

Does a “5-year rule” exist? If you replace the word “rule” with “guideline” then, yes, it does exist in a purely advisory sense. Are there any particular provinces or municipalities that are uniformly adhering to it? The answer to that very specific question is a resounding no. It appears that even where that guideline has been adopted, there are far more many exceptions being made to it than there are specific enforcements of it. To understand the reason for this, one must first appreciate the fundamental purpose of the law in China.

According to Prof. Gao Fuping, “To some degree, the law is considered by the government as an instrument to control social order or to achieve the goal of social development.”¹ Compare this definition to the one offered by Merriam-Webster, as it is also the one that comes to mind when most Westerners think about the law: “a rule or principle stating something that always works in the same way under the same conditions.”

The problem is that we, as Westerners, desperately try in vain to apply our Western logic and our perception of the social function of law to investigating and reporting China’s regulations and procedures, and the truth is such an approach just doesn’t work. In the Middle Kingdom, the particular needs of the community good will usually (if not always) trump the enforcement of the specific letter of the law. Thus even where certain SAFEA guidelines have been adopted into law by various provincial or municipal legislative bodies, that reality does not specifically inform us as to how that regulation will be interpreted and applied by those in power.² For example, the needs of a prestigious key national university will usually and probably supersede the mandates of any particular regulation regarding the employment of foreign experts: Exceptions can and will be made if doing so is in the best interest of “social development” as understood by the various officials with the power to make that decision at the time. This is the nature of day-to-day life and law in China, whether or not we as foreigners can fully wrap our minds around this concept (and it’s only taken me five years to do so).

In regard to a 2-year, 3-year and/or 5-year rule (in addition to all other “rules” that are anecdotally reported on various Internet forums), the real question is not whether these regulations exist or not. The only truly salient issue or question is how they are going to be interpreted and enforced by various officials (assuming they do exist)—and the bottom line is, there really is no reliable way for any foreigner in China to know the answer to that question.

For one thing, the answer is never a definite one because it is typically treated and responded to on a case-by-case basis. In the West “a rule is a rule, is a rule.” In China “a rule is a rule, when it is in the best interest of social order and social development depending on____“ (the appropriate provincial or municipal leaders will fill in the blank).

Ten foreign teachers will report “’Such and such’ is definitely a requirement. I guarantee it.” Then an eleventh foreign teacher will write: “No, it’s definitely not a requirement. My friend Bill just received his foreign expert certificate and residency permit and he’s 74 years old and has lived in China continuously for 12 years!” Were the ten foreign teachers who attested to the presence of a law or requirement wrong in what they wrote? No, not necessarily, because of the manner in which law is interpreted and enforced in China.

Here is the bottom line: If your school needs or wants you badly enough and they have established the proper social relationships with the right people (and they always have), it truly doesn’t matter whether your particular municipality or province has “officially” adopted any one particular guideline into law or not. The converse is also true. Even if your local or provincial legislature has not officially adopted any given SAFEA guideline, that doesn’t mean that it won’t be cited against you if it suits the perceived needs of the school at that time. As Westerners, we spend an inordinate amount of time discussing and debating the existence of various rules and regulations that affect foreign teachers when, in fact, it would be far wiser (not to mention efficient) to discuss how to maintain key interpersonal relationships with those who are necessary for our continued success in China. And, in China, someone is always necessary for continued success. The Chinese instinctively know this, while foreigners naively point to their contracts and suggest to each other that those with problems should call the local Foreign Expert Bureau.

SAFEA guidelines and contracts in China primarily protect the schools, not the foreign teachers. Your best assurance against “violations” does not lie with government agencies or in the specific wording of, for example, paragraph 31 of your SAFEA contract addendum but, rather and almost entirely, in establishing good relationships with the very people who determine whether you are necessary for the good of the school, the community, and—ultimately—China itself.

If you are a foreign teacher in China, don’t worry about the 5-year, 60-year, or any other “rule” that you might read about. Instead, invite your FAO out to dinner and present him or her with a gift (an expensive carton of cigarettes is good for men, if they smoke, and maybe a nice box of imported chocolates will do nicely for the women). Be sure to sincerely compliment them several times and indicate how much you appreciate their hard work and all their efforts on your behalf. Do the same with your immediate supervisor or school owner—and, then, file your employment contract and addendum at the very bottom of your desk drawer, along with any of the documents you may have downloaded from this article, together with the rest of the unnecessary papers you tend to keep but that you’ll never really need to ever refer to again.

Summary Points

1. The SAFEA is strictly an advisory body without the ability to enforce. Provinces and even municipalities are free to adopt their own rules and regulations regarding the employment of foreign experts. In areas where guidelines have been adopted into law, the school may always petition the local authorities for special dispensation in the case of foreign experts who do not meet the regulations currently in effect, i.e., in the case of a foreign teacher who is not in possession of a bachelor’s degree.
2. Even in areas where SAFEA guidelines have been officially adopted into law, exceptions can and will be made in the name of social development if the authorities involved believe that doing so serves the best interest of the community. If an exception is not made it is either because the teacher is no longer wanted or the school has failed to establish the proper relationships with key people. In the former case, an official chopped copy of the law may even be presented to the teacher as a face-giving strategy, i.e., instead of telling the teacher “Sorry, we no longer want you here,” he or she will be told that the school has no choice in the matter.
• Unfortunately, teachers who were at the receiving end of such a strategy will commonly in turn—as a face-saving strategy, i.e., narcissistic defense—adamantly report this event as prima facie evidence of an intractable rule currently in effect in their particular province and city, to which someone else will invariably retort with knowledge of at least one exception. The angry and acrimonious exchanges that predictably ensue from this discrepancy lead to such forum discussions being locked or even deleted.
3. The absence of the formal adoption of SAFEA guidelines into law is no guarantee that a guideline won’t be cited against a foreign teacher as a reason for unemployability if doing so is also perceived as serving the best interest of the school, the community, or China at the time.
4. If an established private school or university really needs and wants you, they can almost always find a way to hire and retain you, regardless of the guidelines currently in effect.
5. Ultimately—and irrespective of qualifications, experience, age, or contiguous years spent in China—it is the nature of your relationships with key people that will determine your continued success in the Middle Kingdom. This is the only “rule” currently in effect in regard to foreign teachers for which we could find no exceptions.

Related Article:
Understanding Mianzi and Guanxi

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*Chinese boxes is a metaphor that refers to a story that is contained inside another story, that is then contained inside another story, and so on and so forth.

©2008 Middle Kingdom Life. All Rights Reserved.

1. Gao Fuping. “Who Makes The Law in China?” Retrieved October 10, 2008 from www.temple.edu/iilpp/images/TextFilesUploaded/Who%20makes%20Law%20in%20China.doc
2. There would be no way for any Western organization, including MKL, to specifically verify which guidelines have been passed into law without first obtaining a translated copy of the laws pertaining to foreign experts in every single province, autonomous region and municipality. Obviously, such a task is impossible as a practical matter and, despite that, doing so would not appear to inform us about what foreign teachers should expect.