So basically I’m dating a Italian girl. She gets 2500-3000 for a 2 hour session of private lessons. Not hating on her but just using her as an example. She hasn’t graduated college, she isn’t a native speaker and does not have a US, Canadian or UK accent. And no passport from a English speaking country and zero teaching experience besides now.
Meanwhile when I was teaching, Privates maybe like 600 to 1000 at best for one hour with a degree and a native speaker with 2 years of teaching experience. Plus I speak Chinese so I can literally explain things easily but yet thats seen as a negative.
It might be because shes a girl, and really attractive. She does tell me most of the guys do stare at her boobs haha. I’m glad I don’t teach English here anymore and moved on from that, but it seems like unless the way of thinking changes, people here will continue to have terrible English speaking skills.
I love Italy and its people but lol @ an Italian (who doesn’t speak English that well) teaching English. They speak some of the worst English and have some of the strongest accent out of all countries I’ve been to and that’s counting Taiwan as well.
its not about her getting a job. It’s the fact that Taiwanese people would rather have a white person teach them English at a higher price even if they are less qualified and it’s not even their first or native language. It’s a well known fact but to witness it first hand is funny. She basically told me her lesson today for 2 hours was explaining what basic Food on the menu is in a cafe in English. She can’t speak Chinese so a lot of it it’s her showing pictures or trying her best to describe things is the best she can or even drawing a picture.
We laughe about it, We both agree it’s a bit silly and some of it might be because these men want to talk to a pretty Italian female.
But the fact is, many Asian teachers that speak mandarin can do a much better job but people still in the most part still would choose a white face over someone who better qualified.
I’ll make sure I say hi when I see a tall asian guy with an Italian girl with nice boobs on the street. I’ll be the guy that’s about 174, black hair, and dark rimmed glasses. You’ll know it’s me when you see me.
This might go hand and hand with the fact that there a lot of the personal trainers in TW are not very good at…personal training. However, someone wanting to get in shape will still pay the ridiculous amount of money for a fit looking personal trainer. Where, someone who is scrawny looking and should probably eat a sandwich (or two), may be more qualified. The scrawny fella may not look the part or probably can’t bench the bar, but understands the science and body much better.
With teaching, it’s relatively the same concept. Let’s face it, a local would choose any western face over you or me @Andrew0409 , probably you over me since you have teaching experience, I’ve only lived the language for 20+ years of my life.
I think it comes down to face. You can brag to your friends that you have a hot Italian tutor and you’re paying her 2500NT for 2 hours. This entails that you are good looking enough for the teacher to accept you, make enough money at your day job to pay for lessons and also learning from a foreigner. All amazingly shallow reasons, but we all know these are true. Do they have to know that English isn’t her primary language, nope, it’s probably assumed it is.
I’m not sure how I feel about her doing this lol. Yesterday the guy got a ktv room so it’s more “private” for the lesson. I’m pretty sure some of these guys have other intentions lol
She’s dropping this guy now. She said he didn’t make a move on her but kept asking her to come closer but she was like sitting on the other side is fine so you can see my mouth for pronunciation. But yeah. I’m fairly certain her looks have something to do with people keep asking for privates. But I’m used to that kind of stuff with her. We’re both really open with what’s going on and it’s actually kinda unreal with the number of messages she gets. Even from random guys that want to meet her all the time for dates. Usually starts with “you are so beautiful, what are you doing in Taipei”.
So also says guys always ask if she had a boyfriend and are shocked that I’m not a “foreigner” it’s all pretty funny.
She did tell him there’s no more lessons. I’d still like to scare him a bit showing up at his place and making him apologize. One of the benefits of being a big guy in Taiwan, you often don’t have to lift a finger and just raise your voice and the other guy begs for your forgiveness. I’m over hurting the little scum, I’d still like to have a little fun with him though.
On the plus side though, now that we know that this bloke just wanted to pay NT$2500-3000 to sleaze on an attractive 18-year old Italian girl, at least we can discount the original hypothesis that maybe Taiwan doesn’t have backward thinking on learning English.
I can’t quite put my finger on it but there’s some kind of moral to this story.
The moral of the story is if one has big boobies, can’t speak English very well and get lots of offers to pay over the odds to teach English…it’s probably the boobies that they are paying for!!!
Or what is known as there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
