Teach English in China: The Honest Truth After 10 Years

What a Real Teaching Day Actually Looks Like

Forget the horror stories and forget the brochure. Here's my actual week, the one I lived for years.

My university job was mornings only, and not even every day. It started as Monday and Tuesday, then they bumped it to Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday mornings. I grumbled about the extra early wake-up, but let's be real. That's a part-time schedule paying a full-time life.

The campus was about 35 minutes out by car, near the airport, because in Asia they tend to push the airports way out of the city. So every work morning I'd call a car, and I'd read on the ride. Kindle, audiobooks, an hour of feeding my mind back and forth. That's time most people lose sitting in American traffic, raging at brake lights.

I'd scan my face to get into the building, grab a coffee from the machine on the first floor, and teach. During exam week students came in by group, take your test, done. The job was chill. Between semesters I'd fly off to somewhere tropical and warm. That was the life teaching bought me, and it's the part nobody puts in the headline.

The Money: Strong Salary, Tiny Costs

Here's what most people don't realize about China. The salary is strong compared to what things actually cost there. That gap is the whole game.

You're earning at one level and spending at another, so you can save fast. I had buddies stacking real money while still living well. And teaching is just the base. Once you're on the ground you start finding other ways to earn, online teaching on the side, content, all kinds of things you can't even see from your couch in America. Online teaching alone pays well, I've signed contracts paying significantly more than $20 an hour.

The point isn't to get rich teaching. The point is that teaching covers a comfortable life on a part-time schedule and frees up your time and money to build the rest. (I broke the bigger money mechanism down in geoarbitrage.)

"Will I Be Respected as a Black Teacher in China?"

Let me hit the question my audience actually asks me, because most blogs are too scared to touch it.

A lot of Black American men want to know, straight up, will Chinese students respect me, or am I walking into something ugly? I get it. You've heard stories. So here's my honest take after a decade in the classroom.

Students respect competence and they respect confidence. Walk in prepared, run a good class, carry yourself like you belong there, and you earn respect fast. Are people curious about you? Absolutely, especially outside the big cities where they don't see many foreigners. Curiosity is not disrespect. I had a long, good run at a top university, and I wasn't tolerated, I was valued.

Is China perfect? No place is. You'll have weird moments and stares. But the idea that you'll be disrespected in the classroom because you're Black does not match my years of real experience there. Watch the video above, I get into the uncensored version. The short answer: bring your A-game and you'll be fine.

The Honest Catch: China Isn't the Easy First Step

Now the part the recruiters skip. China is not always the easiest place to start.

Places like Thailand and Vietnam cater heavily to tourists and to first-time expats. The soft landing is built in. China is more advanced and more powerful than most Americans realize, but it asks more of you up front, the paperwork, the culture gap, the systems. It's a fantastic place to teach and earn. It's just not always the gentlest place to take your very first step abroad.

So be honest with yourself about where you are. If you want the biggest earning-and-saving upside and you're ready for a real adventure, China is hard to beat. If you want the easiest possible on-ramp, you might start in Thailand and grow from there. Either way, the vehicle is the same: English teaching.

Do You Even Need a Degree or Chinese?

Two questions I get constantly.

Do you need to speak Chinese? No. Schools want you speaking 100% English with students, that's the entire point of hiring a native speaker. Most students already have a few years of English under their belt. Speaking some Mandarin makes your daily life smoother, but it is not a requirement to teach.

Do you need a degree? For most legit, well-paying China jobs, yes, a bachelor's degree is the standard requirement for the work visa, and the degree doesn't have to be in education. If you don't have one, you've still got options in other countries and online, which is exactly the kind of thing I map out with guys one on one.

How to Actually Land the Job

Here's the simple version of getting from "thinking about it" to "teaching in China."

Get clear on your eligibility (degree, background), get your documents in order, get certified if you need it, then target the right schools and apply with a setup that actually gets you hired. That's it. It's not magic, but the order matters, and one wrong move on the visa or the paperwork can cost you months. (Wondering if certification is worth the money? I covered it in is a TEFL worth it.)

That's the whole reason I do consultations. I've been through it, I know where guys trip, and I'd rather you skip the expensive mistakes I watched other people make.

Frequently Asked Questions