Just get to working! Don’t matter if you’re cleaning toilets or a CEO, you feel good when you do something the best of your ability. Look for a restaurant job maybe? Not to bad, 150nt a hour but it adds up and most places divide service charge every pay day. Not amazing but you won’t be bored on your ass overthinking everything. Also probably get free meals.
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I don’t mean to sound mean or judgmental, but did you think this through BEFORE you set out? What was your original plan? Did you have a backup plan? Or all the above and it just went tits up and you are determined to see whatever plan you have through?
I am with Andrew, just get a job and some digs and live within your means until something else comes along. Because now you are in debt? It is time to pull the plug or get to working.
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You guys are right. Time to stop overthinking and get to working. Sorry to bother you guys with my silly problems.
Dude. You really need to take control of your life. I told you before. Going into debt is the worst option. Go to work, quit throwing your money away and pay off those debts before you do anything else. The only thing the majority of us can do in Taiwan and make a decent living is to teach. Everything else is a gamble unless you are working for a foreign company.
Cram schools suck. Period. Get yourself into a private or even public elementary school and things improve a ton.
It’s all about what is in your head. You can punch in do your teaching and punch out a cram school and concentrate on your life outside of work. Build up your knowledge and skills in teaching. Read, read, read about teaching. The First Days of School is a book I think all teachers should read. I can name a few more. It helped me when I was new to teaching. I started in a tiny cram school and worked my ass off to become a better teacher. Now I’m making excellent money, own my own home and have enough to put away 1k USD every month. My only debt is the house. You CAN do it. Anyone can when they put their mind to it.
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I’m a bit late to the conversation, but I’ll also chime in.
I’ll go back to your OP and say, you probably don’t want to go to China. If cram school kids ate you alive here, it’s probably no better in China. You also seemed to be very set on teaching English, but it seems like you don’t have a knack for it and/or don’t even like it.
Not many love teaching English, but it’s a good stepping stone. Depending on where you go, your hours are flexible, so you can pay your dues at the cram school and devote your free time to finding other ventures.
I’ve never had experience teaching English over in China, but I have worked in an office environment there and I will say that it’s really a dog eat dog (no pun intended) world over there. I was a push over before working there and very quickly realized that if I wasn’t assertive (and somewhat of an ass), people there would just walk all over you.
Lastly, China isn’t Taiwan (or even Taipei) where you can get by with speaking English everywhere you go, some knowledge of the language would be very…very helpful.
Thank you @ranlee. Very solid advice.
Also, thanks everyone else for your advice. And even thanks all who have given the "tough love " advice.
I feel empowered today, really empowered, like a forgot that I am a young man that can do whatever the heck he wants and who can face any challenge. Head down, smash through anything! 
I was just looking through this posting and did not consider chiming in but having read some posts on career goals and teaching in Taiwan, I can’t resist adding input. I taught English in Taiwan for several years and like the original poster, I strived to find work in other industries and avoid going back to the US. However, what I came to understand through years of hacking it in cram schools was that in terms of job networking in Taiwan, you will always be regarded as an English teacher and proving that you have skills outside of teaching and beyond the capacity what a local can provide is a very challenging goal (think from a business owner perspective and what you want in a job candidate).
As a consequence of this, I ended up throwing in the towel and heading back to the states. To my surprise, there were WAY more cool job opportunities in the US than Taiwan which were outside of teaching. I’ll digress in that my job field is logistics and supply chain management and there’s lots of work in this area. And interestingly, unexpectedly and even reluctantly, I am now returning to Taiwan with a job in the biotechnology sector primarily because I got marketable skills and knowledge working in the states.
My message is this: want to get out of teaching in Taiwan and move onto more “exciting” opportunities, get job skills and knowledge to provide value to a company. Getting those skills and knowledge while teaching, suppose it can be done but good luck.
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you are still young are you not? why not do the job for the experience like most do. i lived in china before and the job while being what i am qualified for was still frustrating because my bosses were chinese and didn’t have a clue what they were doing, and gave me a fair amount of menial work. i just used the time to experience living there and had a great time. why not just go to china and have some fun? although xiamen is a small island so i am not sure how limiting that would be?
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I’m glad you feel great today, but here some advice, stay more even keeled. I feel like you go wayyyy up and drop wayyyy down quickly if something isn’t the way you thought you would be. Life has lots of ups and downs, know to roll with the punches is my advice. Not saying not to celebrate, and have super productive days that you do a bunch of shit. But stay consistent and level headed.
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I like my job, but I’ve not been successful career-wise. It is possible in ELT. Work hard, get the right qualifications, keep your nose clean, and one could become Director of English British Council Taipei (300k a month, Xinyi apartment paid for, 6 weeks a year paid leave, TES fees paid for…). Similarly, one could start a school and make 650k a month as a good friend of mine does. Or, one could end up teaching in a uni and doing a bit of part time stuff on the side which is what I does. I earn more than I spend and never break a sweat.
The main point about ELT is there are considerably fewer opportunities than many other careers. The quality of life, however, can be very good. I would strongly advise against it if you don’t enjoy teaching, and I would gently advise against it if you do enjoy teaching.
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I wouldn’t say you haven’t been successful career wise.
It seems to me teaching in a uni is a successful ELT in Taiwan ! Nice lifestyle too.
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I just wish there were more options for non-Asian westerners here. All the jobs that would fit my experience, and personality, are for ROC nationals only. I have heard rumors of people getting jobs in the science park, but every time I tried, it was nope.
I’ve worked in science and technology jobs mostly sales and marketing 15 years at least. Loads of jobs .
You need experience , you need to get to know ppl and you need some chinese skills that’s all.
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Above all you need to show you can do the job.
Sometimes got to suck up shitty pay or a shitty company for a bit.
That’s the apprenticeship.
@BHL4life
Do mean the China route. Honestly, I researched it and I found a shared room to stay for $50 USD a month, and my friend said they would help me get settled in Xiamen, and I have a job waiting for me and a Jiu-Jitsu school to train at. Honestly, I don’t dislike teaching, I liked it when I taught Jiu-Jitsu, and I like teaching 1-on-1, because you can help people more, and that’s what the school in Xiamen does. I am too new to English teaching to be good at classroom management yet, and I know it takes time, I want to be good at teaching 1 on 1, so if I come back or go to Japan, I can work in a TOEFL academy.
I was also offered a job teaching Economics and History in Nanning, but they want me to be ready to teach AP economics and AP history on one weeks notice. It seems like to steep of a hill to climb.
You know they have these slums where migrant workers kip in conditions that are marginally better than sleeping on the street. for 300 RMB you might be in that territory. Borderline black hole of calcutta stuff: https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7412/27340192954_c6b39b6704_b.jpg
Possibly. You’d want to see some photo anyway, just in case…
i can vouch for that. my company at the time paid for my accommodation. lived in 3 separate places, all of them complete shitholes. one of them had rats running through the place daily(ground floor), and it was so damp that my towel literally never dried. and it wasn’t even the worst place.
The job and the rent seems suspect. I didn’t like cram school teaching until I got into a kindy. The kids really look up to you and its easier in my opinion. Plus you can do both kindy and cram school and make $2000 USD a month.
Me too for some reason. I love teaching kindy classes, they are so cute and so much fun.
May I please ask you a question? How did you get better at classroom management in kindergarten.
Your post kind of inspired me. I know not a lot of people want to teach kindergarten but I think I’d like it. Do you think it might be a good idea to try my hand at teaching kindy for a while? I mean those jobs are always open in China.
Do you think I should calm down and give it one last chance and save some money here?