First, I'll ditto DS...
Both Dalian and Suzhou, by Chinese city standards, are pretty clean, relatively unpolluted, and in most cases not as congested (especially Dalian). Bear in mind that the words "by Chinese city standards" are important here...pretty much ALL Chinese cities have more pollution and crowding than you'll see back home. However, it's very easily possible to do MUCH worse than Dalian or Suzhou on these scores...
On to resumes...
I hope I can impress on people that when applying for teaching jobs in China, you can forget most of the rejection anxiety experienced in Western job hunts. Other than true international schools that cater to the children of upscale expats, almost no schools in China require teaching-specific education, certification, or experience. Quite a number of them will be tickled silly if you come from North America, Australia/New Zealand, or Western Europe; are some sort of mammal; and made it up the stairs for the interview. Most schools now require you to have a college degree, but this is only because the residence-permit-issuing bureaus require it- not because they care themselves.
The sad fact is that most curricula, especially EFL curricula, are pretty poor- even in universities. Most schools simply want a (preferably attractive and white) foreign face they can put in front of classes and keep the tuition money rolling in. This doesn't mean that you can't do any good as a teacher, of course, but this will most likely come from you personally, not from your employer. Most programs don't really value academics and themselves aren't "real", so they won't really care if you're a "real teacher" or not.
Most schools just want a short-term profit.
Most students just want entertainment that will lead to a shiny piece of paper.
Relax.
If you're really wanting to get all
Paper Chase about teaching and education and academics, China may well not be the place for you unless you're keen to wage a very uphill battle you're inevitably going to lose. Try Western Europe or the Middle East, or stay home and get a teaching credential and work in schools there. In China you're going to find a helluva lot of dysfunctional wankers, a core element of decent teachers who work hard and try their best to do good things in the classroom (but may also be dysfunctional wankers
), and a small but shrill lot who take themselves and their work WAAAAY too seriously to the edification of almost no one but themselves (and are usually
seriously dysfunctional wankers
).