[quote=“Dragonbones”][quote=“hardball”]What you do is this: teach like hell, improve your skills, get a good reputation, and then get a job at a school that provides real security in the form of a real ARC.
[/quote]
[color=#FF0000]No, what you do is take a job at a school that provides an ARC from the outset, and don’t risk everything by teaching illegally.[/color] AT such a school, teach like hell, improve your skills, get a good reputation, and then move on to a better job at a school (or elsewhere) that also provides an ARC.[/quote]
Ah, yes. I was taking the qualifier as highlighted as a given…
I was distracted by this:
I agree, there is that. But once you’ve been told it’s illegal, I have no sympathy for the smart Alecs who come up with:
Our school warns us before a raid and we hide out or go out through the back
Everyone is doing it, so we wont get caught.
If they’ve been told by someone they risk deportation they deserve it. At the very least they can keep their bitching for mommy once they get home.
Like you, I also taught kindy, but once I found out it was illegal and I could get deported I refused. As a result my hours plummeted from 27/week to 7 (for clarity, I lost four hours of kindy - my choice - and 16 hours of buxiban - because I wasn’t “cooperative”?).
I simply found another school and moved on. Screw them.
What should happen is:
The government should change the rules, or
Enforce the rules by fining and shutting down the offending schools.
It doesn’t really help if they deport Johnny Foreigner and a week later the offending school just hires another poor sap fresh off the boat.
Enforce the rules by fining and shutting down the offending schools.
It doesn’t really help if they deport Johnny Foreigner and a week later the offending school just hires another poor sap fresh off the boat.[/quote]
Of course, that would mean putting a stop to the fine hong bao tradition, in favor of the foreign saps who are a dime-a-dozen. In general, I’m fairly certain which side of the equation is more important (although there are some who will stand up for the saps).
Enforce the rules by fining and shutting down the offending schools.
It doesn’t really help if they deport Johnny Foreigner and a week later the offending school just hires another poor sap fresh off the boat.[/quote]
Of course, that would mean putting a stop to the fine hong bao tradition, in favor of the foreign saps who are a dime-a-dozen. In general, I’m fairly certain which side of the equation is more important (although there are some who will stand up for the saps).[/quote]
You, of course, are correct. Otherwise they would already have changed things. So, as long as foreign teachers are willing to run the deportation risk, things will remain as they are.
Buttercup, which one were you?
I think I fit the misfit and immature categories. I also hoped to become fluent in Chinese (though I knew it would take more than a year.)
As for the OP: The teacher who ratted out the newbie was angry with the school and his boss, and yet punished a foreigner he didn’t even know. The school and boss probably suffered no loss. That’s wrong.
However, I have been angry enough at a school that I was seriously tempted to rat it out in the same manner. I didn’t, but …
There was even a reward at the time for turning in illegal workers - maybe there still is.
Unless you come here looking for a job, get hired illegally before you know this is the case, then get caught and deported. Whose fault is that?[/quote]
It could be said that you should do a little research about the applicable laws before you come.
So who is this teacher/musician who got deported? I asked a couple of friends who know what’s what with bands in Taiwan and none of them have heard about anybody being deported recently.
Buttercup, which one were you?
I think I fit the misfit and immature categories. I also hoped to become fluent in Chinese (though I knew it would take more than a year.).[/quote]
Cool! People are always asking me why I came to Taiwan and until now, I didn’t have a really good reason to give them. Now I can tell them it’s because I was a misfit with no accurate sense of risk. You should turn this into a wheel with a spinner, BC.
I don’t like most people in general unless they give me a good reason to. If someone is cocky, I feel even less sympathetic towards them. And this whole “we foreigners gotta stick together” line of thinking is a thick steaming pile of bullshit. Yeah, we’re not from Taiwan. Neither are 6,975,000,000 other people but they aren’t pouting and bitching because I didn’t give them a shit-eating grin simply for walking on the same sidewalk as me.
Okay, the cranky oldbie soapbox is being put away.
What the rat did took balls… the guy has obviously read books like “Thick Face, Black Heart” and “The Art of War” and is well versed in the way of getting back with no remorse for anyone who gets in his way. Not saying I admire that style and I would certainly not use some idiot as a pawn simply because he was an idiot, but I can see where he is coming from…
In my opinion, if someone is willing to travel halfway around the world to make money without looking up some facts about basic work laws in that country, then hell yeah they get what they deserve. I was on this site 6 months before I even started my job search and that was when there were only two websites out there that even had extensive information about working in Taiwan (yes, back in the olden days before there was even a such thing as a blog).
Now, I can see if you come from some backwater country where the only internet is the one hanging from front doorway the tribal chief’s hut. Otherwise, as my mother used to say, “tough titties”.
[quote=“Dragonbones”][quote=“hardball”]What you do is this: teach like hell, improve your skills, get a good reputation, and then get a job at a school that provides real security in the form of a real ARC.
[/quote]
No, what you do is take a job at a school that provides an ARC from the outset, and don’t risk everything by teaching illegally. AT such a school, teach like hell, improve your skills, get a good reputation, and then move on to a better job at a school (or elsewhere) that also provides an ARC.[/quote]
Did you not read the next line?[quote]
What you do is this: teach like hell, improve your skills, get a good reputation, and then get a job at a school that provides real security in the form of a real ARC.
Getting the ARC should always be the goal of any long term teacher /editor/ proofreader / writer.[/quote]
Taichung has always been replete with “Student Visa” teachers. For many of them getting an ARC is secondary…if that. Getting caught teaching illegally is rare, but do it for 5 years and the odds of getting caught go way up. Maybe in the purfect world of Duloc they get an ARC before they start working, but in Taichung, they study Chinese for two hours a day, and teach in the morning and then in the afternoon, and possibly into the evening, possibly at several different locations/schools. Someone then offers them a job and they do a Visa run to HK.
Don’t teach unless you are doing it under the umbrella of an ARC. If you are here on a student visa, then don’t teach. If you need money for school, either take care of that before you come over here or get a job first and take care of the studying Chinese thing once you’ve got the money thing squared away. Not rocket science… not even addition. Just plain and simple common sense.
There are plenty of schools that will give an ARC to someone who has never taught before so getting the practice is not necessary.
And yes, I really did just advocate someone with no experience and only wanting to make money to teach English… forumosa history in the making. A dark day, but history nonethless. :eh:
It’s not about practice necessarily. Maybe they DID come to study Chinese and thought, “Hey, 10 hours and classes and studying a day sux. I’m going to teach for a bit a cash and to get out of the classroom”…they don’t go with Hess or Global Village, who will supply an ARC because the pay is so low. Go illegal with a Kindy and make double…or triple.
I’m not advocating their choice…just illuminating it.
It’s not a ‘hidden truth’. They shouldn’t be such dopey arses. They aren’t even talking responsibility for themselves, let alone anything else. It’s not 1988. They can google this stuff.
Yeahbut, what good does it do to repeatedly say it when the converse seems to be more true…that they won’t get caught. Exaggerating the threat does little good…
None whatsoever. And who cares whether it does good? This is a schadefreudey chuckle-thread, mostly, along with some ews for the ratter. Loads of folks get deported. You’ll get raided. You might be lucky. Looking at it from a purely selfish point of view, if you’d lived here for years, had a girlfriend, band, etc, why would you gamble? This guy obviously misjudged the odds.
nahbut…he didn’t miscalculate the odds…some wanker dobbed him in for no reason and fucked up the odds. i guess its a threat perception question. just as anytime any big nose gets on a stage for any kind of public peformance he’s likely illegal but how many get caught?. same as any time you play cards here and money is involved…same as any volunteer activities.
Wrong. Don’t teach/edit/proofread without an ARC.
As Buttercup points out, this isn’t 1988. Anyone – ANYONE – who ups sticks and moves halfway around world without planning and researching where they’re going so that they know what’s up is a dopey arse who has failed to take responsibility for himself.
Of course, we should try to do things legally but I think most of us have broken the rules at some stage.
Typically, you’re expected (and encouraged by visa processes and financial necessity) to work for an employer before your ARC comes through. Going the legal route means sitting around for a month (with minimum booze money) on an idle arse.
What’s “ups sticks”? Probably some kind of pervy rhyming slang. If someone does the research they find out that they can’t get a work visa from overseas, that employers will ask them to work before they are fully legal, and that it is standard practice to do so. In fact, I would be willing to bet my twin sister on that number being more than half.
[color=#FF0000]No, what you do is take a job at a school that provides an ARC from the outset, and don’t risk everything by teaching illegally.[/color] AT such a school, teach like hell, improve your skills, get a good reputation, and then move on to a better job at a school (or elsewhere) that also provides an ARC.[/quote]