Hello Everyone!
I’d like to share my experience as a teacher in Taiwan. Maybe I can help someone from going through what I went through.
I studied in Taiwan, and later on I applied to teach Math in a tutoring school in Tianmu, Taipei. Its name by that time was TutorME, but I think right now they changed it to TeachME, for some reason.
I’m from Central America, and I was in my home country when I applied for this job. I was interviewed a couple of times through Skype and was asked to give a Demo which the owner liked, and she hired me.
Ok, so great! I got the job, and I’m going back to Taiwan!! So the next thing I did was ask the embassy of Taiwan in my country about the visa procedures and things I needed to do.
They asked me to tell my boss to give me a copy of my work contract, this way I could enter the country with a resident visa, and apply for ARC when I was in Taiwan.
Ok, so I go and ask y boss and she goes like No! I won’t give you a work contract, I’ve had people of your country working for me before and no one ever asked for this, you should apply for a 30 day e-visa, and when you’re here we’ll do the rest. If you don’t do this you may have problems when you go through immigration here in Taiwan.
So I didn’t want any of that to happen or to have problems with my new boss and went ahead and did that.
Just Clarifying that I had to get a loan to cover the high expenses that it takes to get to Taiwan and cover rent, and personal expenses for the first month in Taiwan until I got payed.
When I got there, My boss treated me well, I sensed she had a strong personality but it was fine with me by that time. Until the second week. She completely changed! She treated me horribly, She screamed at me during team meetings, and for several days she asked me to leave my office (assigned by her) and made me work in common areas because she said she didn’t want me “hiding”. I remember my coworkers warning me about her at the beginning and telling me she was racist. (I am not white!!). Once she told me to hide my nationality and to not to tell parents that I graduated in Taiwan because it was bad for her business.
I can’t even describe how horrible this woman is, She works with children, and makes them cry. (I heard a boy crying in the bathroom by himself after she humiliated him in front of his teacher for not remembering his teacher’s name.)
Another thing she did to me is not applying for my work permit on time. All of this was completely convenient to her, She does this with all of his new employees, since we’re foreigners, we don’t know that showing up to work without a work permit in your hand is illegal. So she doesn’t tell you that, makes you show up for work and if she doesn’t like you, she just makes you leave. And you end up without having the option to report her ass to MOL or whatever office you can go to.
I managed to speak with a Lawyer when all this mess was happening, and all I could do was leave, and pray for her to pay me for the days I worked.
This woman, payed me 25% of my salary and a 5000 ntd because she was “sorry things didn’t work out”
And I was in Taiwan with a tourist visa that was about to expire, and a loan that by the end of this mess rised to 7000usd.
As a foreigner, you want to have a great experience in Taiwan. but Yes! there is racism with all people that are not white, even with Taiwanese. Specially in the education field which is completely ignorant and contradictory.
This Tutoring center teaches children from Taipei American School, and Taipei European School. It’s supposed to be preparing them to be competitive in foreign countries. This type of people are ignorant, materialistic, and mean. They shouldn’t be allowed to work with children.
When I left, around 6 of her teacher’s were leaving. They were lovely, but were completely Sad to work there. All she cares for is Money.
So Fellas, Don’t let this happen to you, be careful. There’s several ads online and she offers a lot of money and other stuff but it’s a trap. I wish I’d never did, My family and I ended up with serious money problems after this.