VIDEO .
Towards the end of 2019, China was hit with the Coronavirus. According to CNN, as of February 19th, 2020, 2,100 people h ave died from the virus and over 76,000 people in mainland China have been infected. When commenting on the world or traveling through a different country, it’s important to be diplomatic, which means not saying the wrong things and stepping on anyone’s toes. This is easier said than done with dealing with a bulldog-like China. We can all agree it’s not very diplomatic to compare what happened in Wuhan China, to Sodom and Gomorrah, which were two cities destroyed for being full of sin according to the Bible, but people have been making this comparison and I would like to tell the world what I witnessed in my time in China as an ESL teacher over the years.
There is a lot of extortion of migrant workers and not just people coming from 3rd world countries, but even the extortion of people coming from America, Australia, Canada, and the UK.
Many teachers were cheated out of their money. They were either paid less than what they were told or not paid at all. Teachers from all over the world are exploited by Chinese companies and this takes place easily because the system is designed to keep an individual indentured to the company they obtain a visa from. It is near impossible to leave without the company’s permission and if you are the companies, ‘White Monkey,’ a term often used to describe the white and gullible teachers in China, they are not just going to let you leave, especially if they do not have a replacement for you because the ‘White Monkey’ is big money in China.
The ESL market is like a flesh market in China. People bidding for the whitest skin, working them like mules, trading them like baseball cards, stealing their passport information, making fake copies of their degrees and criminal records, so they can apply for visas for other foreigners who do not have the proper documents. China is very strict on the visa requirements and one thing you need is a release letter from your old school. Without this letter, you have little chance of securing a legal visa with another company and any worker who is illegal can be extorted, which is common practice in China and once you are in China it’s not so easy to go back home for a number of reasons like you might not have money, you might have no home or family to go back to, and if you do have money crossing the border with an expired visa could lead to jail or being interrogated about your time in China, which could lead to jail. Nobody realizes how risky it is to be an English teacher abroad, because it seems like this cute adventure you are embarking on, but it quickly can become a dark game where you end up in jail or get deported because the company encouraged you to come out on the wrong visa.
Even when you want to do everything properly and by the book, it’s a nightmare in China because you simply do not know how to play by their rules and you are not expecting to be scammed by a kindergarten school. What happens is recruiters in China take advantage of recent graduates full of gullibility. There is a huge demand for English teachers in China and the demand does not meet the need, so recruiters essentially sell teachers by any means necessary to make money. Because the demand is so high, and China is so bureaucratic and strict, a lot of these recruiters are dirty and lie not only to the teachers but the schools about proper visas and documents.
Many companies will lie to teachers just to get them there. They are lied to about pay, living conditions, visas, and even requirements to get a work visa. The popular lie is come out on a tourist visa or a business visa and we will switch it over when you arrive. Once you get to the school you will find out they have no legal license to hire foreigners and sometimes you are unlucky and the cops come to the school within a week of arrival and you end up sitting in prison until they decide to deport you. Trust me, your recruiter will not be visiting you or taking responsibility for you and neither will your school if this happens to you because they will be too busy SAVING FACE.
China is known for its expression, SAVING FACE. What that really means is they lie. They are the masters of lies and manipulations. Everything is fake in China; the gold, the Gucci, the Nike, the contracts, the promises, the diplomas. Nobody owns up to the deception. It’s copycat central and they know how to counterfeit more than the money, which is why they are trying to switch over to virtual currency because they have so much fake money floating around China, it’s hard for even Chinese people to deal with all the fake goods. They even build fake temples and artifacts for the tourist to come to look at. For a country that prides itself on having one of the deepest and longest histories in the world, nothing there seems to be real or authentic. China’s nickname is Land of the Dragon, but it seems more like a snake eating its own tail and when you have suspicion or questions they will bark back THIS IS CHINA like that’s a legitimate reason for duplicity and cheating someone. Yán ér wú xìn…
You just simply have no way to know how many con artists work in China or the ESL market, but they are everywhere. Education and English is big money in China. The current market is 41.5 billion U.S. and the market is expected to keep growing substantially. If you are Chinese the way to make money off of this market is to find a “White Monkey’ to manipulate. Black Monkeys are not really in demand because China is still rather racist. There are thousands of job ads that say, white applicants only, blacks please do not apply . Great black teachers are fired for inexperienced white teachers who do not even have the degrees or skills to teach and the recruitment agencies will make counterfeit documents for them If you go on Craigslist or Facebook and look at job positions for China you will probably see some of these ads.
During my stay in Tangshan China, I met a woman from Zimbabwe who arrived at my apartment because I was sharing an apartment with her cousin. She came to us in a panic after working three months for a school in the countryside that paid her nothing. She said the school was so racist they thought her skin was dirty and tried to give her a bath. She had no money. Her cousin was broke. She said her husband back home was abusive and had HIV and she did not want to go back. I was broke too, but the richer and lighter-skinned of the three of us, so I gave her enough money to get anywhere in China. A river of tears exploded from her eyes. She was genuinely touched that I gave her money. She went to Beijing, where the embassy actually gave her asylum, which proves China has a heart, but racism is a big problem in China and so is deception. She wrote me letters every day full of gratitude, but I stopped responding because I ran into my own bad luck in China to deal with.
I wish I could just tell you China was amazing and The Great Wall was so breathtaking, and I had the best time with no problems, and I did have my fun and my exhilarating moments, but China is the country that taught me to be a skeptic. Learning to distrust the good things in life steals your joy. The first time one good thing becomes a lie you can never trust a good thing again. This is a very sad way to live life, thinking good people are enemies in disguise, but so many people use this strategic tactic to con you that it is hard to trust others after my time in China. Distrust and wisdom are not closely related words, but it is wise to be suspicious of others. When I hear people say the Conran virus is bad karma for China’s bad behavior, I can understand why they say this.
评论
Fay Vietmeier
3年前 #1