It’s getting close to my first year in Taiwan. Before this I’ve lived the expat life overseas for close to a third of my (adult) life. It’s clear that Taiwan is my favorite place to live, and one of the best places to live in Asia IMO.
Of course, the problem the work-life balance that we all know. I am working all the time, I don’t get to enjoy any of the nice things we have in Taiwan. I don’t have a social life and I have dropped all of my hobbies. (And one reason I moved here was because it’s an ideal place for several of my hobbies.)
My weekends and evenings are miserable just due to the sheer volume of work I need to catch up on. Now I feel I have “paid my dues” and worked at a stepping stone 3rd rate private school (not TEFL). Is there a chance I will actually get a reasonable employer and be able to enjoy my life in Taiwan or is that just a fantasy?
Or should I just cut my losses and leave when my contract is up and give up on my Taiwan dream? Teaching is not the problem, I enjoy it. I just can’t handle doing any work for 100 hours a week.
I am not asking for a negativity circle jerk, I want to hear who can honestly say they are living in Taiwan not just for money/safety/family/career reasons, but that they actually enjoy their work AND their life.
Im in a mangerial position, and have responsibility for 3 projects, hence very little work life balance. However this would be the case in any country, Taiwan is not different.
I do enjoy my life here.
I suspect this is part of the reason why I rarely encounter many foreign English teachers in many spots in Taiwan or just out and about. They keep you guys and gals too busy.
You are right you are then missing out all the best stuff, weekends away.
And English teaching doesn’t pay what it used to.
Other industries generally have a better worklife balance cos more regular weekday hours and more regular paid holidays.
Although I have known English teachers who are convinced that it’s the other way round, well it may be if you are working part time and content with no benefits and low pay and no savings.
I enjoy my salary and benefits. It’s a good job. Work? Not so much (only cos I would like a change).
Not going to see me cry about it too much here it’s my choice.
Enjoy life…I mean thats just a hugely open question and you can’t separate work and family from that IMHO.
I also like my job (teaching English). In Taiwan for about 2.5 years now. The key (to me) is first finding a decent employer (I finally found one, seems kinda rare honestly), teaching/being at work no more than 20 hours, and dedicate the other 20+ to personal projects/cultivating skills that can translate into income. Taiwan is an EXCELLENT place to have this kind of lifestyle as an expat. I can definitely see the potential of burning out by teaching too much here. You definitely need to feel like you are working towards something to be happy.
Love my job as a public school teacher in Taiwan. My school appreciates my work a lot. I do tonnes of extra activities for students, spend time with them. I offer the school extra things to make the learning more interested and fun. I would love to have the situation back at home where I am valued as a teacher. Unfortunately reality in Europe is different.
Having agency over what you do and when you do it is the key to happiness in work but the only way you’ll have that is if you’re your own boss. The icing on the cake of being your own boss is no parasitic boss taking his cut of your labor and time so the money is much better too.
If being your own boss works for you then you’ve come to the right place because Taiwan is heaven for bosses – and hell for workers.
That is a solution, but it’s rare to find a school that will even consider it. It’s “full time” (ie, daily over-time in western hours) or the highway. Current school would not even discuss that for next year which was when I decided it was time to leave. My ideal is to just work less, and earn less money, and have peace of mind.
Yes it certainly does. But it’s a “proper” daytime private school, not a TEFL language mill, although it is certainly managed in the same way. I’m a home-country certified teacher doing subject teaching.
As they should since most public school teachers are lazy as **** here. You get weekends off I assume. Public school teaching generally seems to be a better gig.
Not great but it’s not hell. For instance my colleagues in the UK and UK got furloughed for 3 to 6 months with little or no pay during covid. This is because it was easier to do that in those countries.
I took a 3 month 20% pay cut and was never in danger of being let go, it’s hard to fire people here. Even the ‘temporary pay cut’ was agreed on a voluntary basis here (strongly recommended).
Overtime law is enforced in many industries for operators.
Note - this doesn’t apply to migrant workers necessarily although some factory workers get it
Yep. I’ve had this in other countries. That is what I want. It does not appear to be a widespread phenomenon in Taiwan. I can tell from most job postings that schools expect a “live in order to work” commitment. Can you tell us a little more about what kind of place you work at specifically and how you managed to find it? Feel free to DM me if you don’t want to go into specifics in the forum.
It’s not bad if you work for a multinational but if you work for a Taiwanese company things much have changed a lot since I last worked for one back in 2001.
Broadly agree, things have been changing slowly from what I observed. Even in my place , an international org, few people apply for overtime, local Taiwan managment set up a fake software reporting system to get around overtime regulations in Taiwan.
As soon as the Tsai govt setup new overtime regulations HR associations here were working to get around it and they have software to make it easy now.
But in our organisation basically no middle managers and up ever apply for overtime…anywhere in the world. Its all about the other benefits. I don’t generally work overtime though.
Yes still shady practices.
It’s hard to leave money on the table but working less is a must. Teacher burnout is a reality everywhere in the world but most particularly in Taiwan.
After a few years of teaching it all becomes second nature and you develop many tools and skills to make your job easier.
I’m a workaholic so I decided to start my own buxiban. There is no sense working more when salary increases are either meager or non-existent.