English Teaching in Taiwan is Finished

Allycat wrote [quote]100K a month has always been a myth.[/quote]That’s no myth.

nt$100,000 may sound like a lot of money to all those newbies who just got off the plane, and if you’re fresh out of college, it sure seems like a lot more than you were making at your summer job, but the problem is not how much money you can make in Taiwan. The problem is how much work it is to make that much money.

My Universal Currency Convertor tells me that nt$100,000 is cd$3,887.45 (us$2,942.82). That’s not a whole lot, even after tax. Pretty much anybody in their late 30’s or 40’s is making that much. The point is not and never has been that you can make $100,000 a month. The point is that making it teaching English in Taiwan is a lot of work. The work’s available, but how many hours do you have to teach? Is it so many that no Canadian in Canada would ever dream of doing it? Are you getting home at 9 or 10 PM? Are you working on the weekend? Try working two or three jobs in Canada; see how much money you make. But no one would do it there.

Don’t be too impressed by claims of $nt100,000mnth;everyone who has been around for a while knows how easy it is to get that much work. That’s why Taiwan veterans (like Maoman) don’t bother with the monthly amount and instead focus on how much they can command an hour.

I don’t make that much. But then, I enjoy my life.

Just curious, but don’t any of the long time teachers ever get to the point where they want to ‘broaden their horizons’? I mean, so even if you make $100 k a month, what compensations do you get? What kinds of retirement plans? Bonuses? What advancements? Open a buxiban? If the market is flooded as hexuan says, then in the north (Taipei) buxibans are bound not to do as well as they once did. I hear of more closings than openings these days.
Don’t some who’ve taught English in Taiwan plan to move on to more lucrative professions? If so, what? There are ways to get out of the rut, but that takes a different perspective and broader outlook than booking private classes here and there for $1000/hour.
How satisfied in your careers are you teaching the same again and again? Or are you creative and expansive teachers who absolutely adore this work? Do you call teaching English your career? Just wondering.

Alien’s right. Much as I enjoy what I do right now I can’t see myself doing the same thing in another two years.

My hourly rate has gone up a lot, despite having to compete with college kids who can’t speak English. And I can see that it might go up again to the dizzy levels described by Maoman. I know people who do it and make well over 100,000, but who cares?

I could make the elusive hundred K if I wanted to work hard, but 25 hrs a week does me very well, and I see no point in working hard for wages. As someone said, what is NT$100,000 in real money? Peanuts, that’s what.

You can have a nice life here without working too hard. You can have a nice life and save for your old age if you want to work hard. But you’ll never be rich, even at 1300/hr.

And are the ‘colonials’ who can’t speak the Queen’s English any worse than the druggies, backpacking scum, and other wankers that I am reliably informed have been coming here for ever?

Newbies get crappy jobs, in most cases. But they’re happy with them because they couldn’t do better at home. When you’ve been here a while you get connected with better paying jobs.

And then, in many cases, you carry on doing the same thing for years and years. And you try to justify sitting in your comfortable little rut by telling people about how much money you make. But there’s no career structure, no real progression after that.

Teaching is not a career. It may be a vocation, in which case good luck to you. But if 1300/hr is where your ambition ends then I’m not very impressed.

I make between 80 and 100K for a fairly light work schedule, but that only comes to about 20,000 pounds a year (equivalent after UK tax), the average income of a just-graduated Uni student in England. Mind you they have to work 40-plus hours a week for that, but they do get a pension.

I was going to start a thread about the whole pension thing. It seems to me without substantial savings or a decent pension plan, we’re all going to be in a lot of trouble when we hit 60 plus. Who here has a pension plan?

[quote]$50,000 salary a month, now that is poverty to me, [/quote]Well, I make a lot less than that, and I have to work proper hours for it too, 9 hours a day everyday, with no holidays or paid overtime.

$70,000 for 5 hours work must be hell for you :unamused:

Fluffy - what do you do? Why accept long hours and low pay? Are you saving anything for retirement?

OK. I’m going to say this. Take cover!

I teach because I like children.

Isn’t that’s what’s really important?

Michael Jackson likes children too.
:wink:
Do you imagine yourself a 55 year old children’s english teacher?

I don’t think many buxiban owners relish the idea of old fellers, unless they’re really desperate for foreign teachers.

Why not teach in your home country?

Putting things in perspective…

My classes are generally 1000/hr. I charge 2000 for 90 minutes for my Yangmingshan students, because it takes me an extra 15 minutes to get there. On Saturdays I put almost 100kms on my bike getting to my classes. I do speak Chinese reasonably well, so communication with parents is never a problem. I have no cancellation policy, i.e. students can cancel as many times as they wish, as long as I have at least a few hours notice so I can either reschedule someone else, or make plans for that time slot. (The bonus of this policy is that I can also cancel if I want to!) The 1200/hr buxiban job was negotiated so high because I don’t need a visa to teach there, thanks to my JFRV ARC status. My life has been pretty focused on making enough moola to open my own buxiban, so that I don’t have to run around so much. I don’t worry too much about money, or how much I’m making because I have enough and there will always be someone who’s making more.

As to what constitutes real wealth? Real wealth is coming home every day to a wife who loves me and whom I adore. Real wealth is paying your bills on time, playing fetch with your dog in the park, snuggling on the sofa with your other while watching a rented movie and drinking Kalua and milk. Real wealth is having a refrigerator stocked with all of your favourite food, and not worrying about restocking it. Real wealth comes from knowing that your situations, financial and otherwise, are getting better and better. Real wealth means you have a plan for the future. Real wealth is having lots of friends who support you. Merry Christmas, and may you all be blessed with this kind of real wealth!

[quote]Well, I make a lot less than that, and I have to work proper hours for it too, 9 hours a day everyday, with no holidays or paid overtime.

$70,000 for 5 hours work must be hell for you[/quote]

Not my fault, and I work 6 hours a day, not 5.

I am. I have a lot of hobbies and like to spend my time with friends and long rides in the countryside. I’m working on something now and I hope to go commercial this summer with it.

I think Maoman was quite accurate on the good points in life. I myself have a Roth IRA, which is getting maxed out earlier and earlier every year. I’ll start some DRIP plans in 2004 and an emergency fund in a money market acct to eventually equal 6 months of expenses. I enjoy my job and what I do. I know that someday I will rejoin the ratrace in the US, but don’t feel like being saddled down with it yet like my friends are.

CYA
Okami

Mr Soomers wrote:

My Chinese is pasable, if I do the tones with my head its pretty good.

I’ve been here for about 3 years. You have to do alot of foot pounding to find the jobs. Work some weird hours and be firm in negotiating. If you walk in to an interview and say, “Well I’d like $700 an hour” then you’re sunk. Have a package, vcd of your teaching anything to make them think wow you are worth the money.

Seek and ye shall find.

How in the world can you teach anything that even pretends to pass for a class with ten beers in you and what the hell is a kid doing having class in a bar? :slight_smile:

Thanks for the recommendation, Brian!

How do you do the gif file in your profile? Nice!

Jobs with MAs in Universities are more and more confined to private schools, not national ones. If you want a job with an MA, you might get one in the South, but not in Taipei area unless you’re very lucky/observant/connected etc. @ a national school.

Kenneth

Actually it’s not one kid but twins…and here’s the kicker their old man’s name is Heineken…priceless. Actually I teach in a quiet office above the bar. It’s clean quiet and sometimes the cute waitresses come and bring us water or cokes. This is the life.

[quote=“ScottSommers”]nt$100,000 may sound like a lot of money to all those newbies who just got off the plane, and if you’re fresh out of college, it sure seems like a lot more than you were making at your summer job, but the problem is not how much money you can make in Taiwan. The problem is how much work it is to make that much money.

My Universal Currency Convertor tells me that nt$100,000 is cd$3,887.45 (us$2,942.82). That’s not a whole lot, even after tax. Pretty much anybody in their late 30’s or 40’s is making that much. The point is not and never has been that you can make $100,000 a month. The point is that making it teaching English in Taiwan is a lot of work. [/quote]

I have done this before, used to Yahoo currency convertor and converted my salary back to Euro. Someone with maybe three years experience in Ireland is making the same or more as me.
Did this shock me ?
Yes and No

Yes cause of what I believe as the right amount I should be getting relative to someone with my years experience. But look, I am not living in Ireland now, I don’t pay 33 - 40% of my salary in tax, I don’t have a mortgage or ridiculous rent, I don’t have to buy a can of beans that has tripled in price in the last couple of years.

The exchange rate would only matter if I had debts in Ireland and watched the Taiwan dollar devalue in the last couple of months. When getting paid local, and spending local your salary is relevant to the cost of things here. I could rent an apartment for 70000 per month, or 20000 per month. To me being a practical person, it only matter that everything worked in the apartment, and if it does not have an elevator then so what, it makes me excerise climbing up the stairs. Therefore why should I spend or compensate by having to work more hours doing teaching to get a place with an elevator and a security guard, who could say hello in English

Sure it would be nice to be making tonnes of money, driving the BMW around the place, but how much of your life are you willing to spend attaining this, or trying to make over 100K+ per month, or simply trying to get rich from investing hours of your time when at the end all you get is money and nothing else.
I can gurantee that no matter how much money you earn, you will never have enough( its like the donkey and the carrot).

Of course it you are progressing and developing in what you are doing, this is good also, but just don’t become a slave to it.

I think Maoman hit it on the head, when spoke of the things you attach value and wealth to in your life, instead of trying to attain value and wealth through getting loads of money.

As he said as long as you have food on the table, a happy life, good friends then this is a sound foundation

I think it comes down to what you believe or know is important. I for one am beginning to think that there is too much talk and pressure generated about salaries, and mortgages and titles and some self created prestige, people have by calling themselves this and this in their job. Many of my friends in Ireland are killing themsleves or getting them along the way there, trying to pay the rent, pay for loans, pay for car insurance etc etc. But to them this is what is important and what they believe will make them happy.

In regards to contributing to a Roth IRA, someone pointed out to me that contributions to a Roth IRA are supposed to be post-taxed income. Thus, if you don’t have taxed US income, technically, that contribution is questionable. That’s the way I understood it. Do you know any more about it?

Is a 100000NT a month really nothing in US terms for someone with an arts degree and not much experience?

It’s different for those of us from NZ, South Africa etc.

As near as I can figure it out, I was making about 30000NT a month after tax for a 40 hour week (with an arts degree and a few years experience) back in NZ and I think that was pretty average. Last year I was earning 100000 a month for a 40 hour week here. Now I’m earning a little less for a 30 hour week (2 hours for lunch, finish at 5, now weekends). That’s pretty good money for the hours I reckon, and sure as hell beats working in an office, which quite frankly bored the crap out of me.

Brian

[quote=“Bu Lai En”]Is a 100000NT a month really nothing in US terms for someone with an arts degree and not much experience?

[/quote]

Heh. Try getting a job with a liberal arts degree in the U.S. Well, a decent one. I’ve heard of Phds. working as clerks in bookstores because they couldn’t find anything better. An arts degree simply isn’t very practical. To get a good-paying job you need to learn a marketable skill, or at least appear to have learned a skill because of your degree (I wonder what ‘skills’ they teach in business or journalism school that anyone couldn’t learn within 5 weeks on the job). A humanities degree doesn’t cut it unless you want to be a teacher. Universities are practically trade schools for half of the students these days - should’ve got that degree in chemistry, engineering, architecture, computer science, some subject extremely dull and tedious but at least useful.

I don’t consider teaching in Taiwan as a long term career. People change careers how many times 8-9 in a lifetime! Taiwan is a good place to be teaching in your 20’s and maybe even 30’s. The kids are great! I’d rather do this then ride a desk any day!

As far as how much money is in the bank…I can only look at my friends back home. They are my age and don’t have as much as I do…Most of them live at home with mommy and daddy anyways.

Taiwan is an excellent jump-off point for several great travel destinations that are beautiful and CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP!

Taiwan is what you make of it.

There will always be good jobs for good teachers here in Taiwan.

My mantra for this next year will be “I don’t hate Taiwan”.