My Chinese Teacher's Salary is SO MUCH LOWER THAN YOURS?

Has anyone mentioned that we teach more in one class than most of them in a day? 

Quality over quantity. Damn, I'm so tired of "I worked very hard today, from 8AM to 6PM" What did you actually accomplish? "Um, nothing, but I did nothing very hardly"

   hardly indeed

I think ETR needs a pay raise.  After all, tickets to a talking squirrel show should have a very high price.

Is there possibly something cultural about it. On a communitarian model, if you get more than someone else, you must be like a god or something. It seems like terms of employment are being made to represent institutional approval of you as a person within some moral or social constellation (as opposed to you as an individual agent within a resource market).

#notmakingsensetoday

Is there possibly something cultural about it. On a communitarian model, if you get more than someone else, you must be like a god or something. It seems like terms of employment are being made to represent institutional approval of you as a person within some moral or social constellation (as opposed to you as an individual agent within a resource market).

#notmakingsensetoday

I don't really understand your point, but that gave me an interesting thought (for another thread perhaps?)

The CCP with their authoritarian capitalism in place of a social contract, combined with one child policy and failure to tackle corruption may have ironically for something that started out as an attempt at Communism created the most selfish people ever

I meant, what if it turns out Chinese generally are evaluating employment conditions according to their communitarian background, and what if that turns out to be different from the background we use.

English speaking countries have their own rancorous employment condition debates. The differences in pay between men and women, for example. But within an industry and not accounting for gender, employment conditions are supposed to be individual agreements. (And here I tender my complete lack of a union background and own to the possibility I have imbibed the employment contracts koolaid. But...) Salaries don't reflect you as a person. They reflect your individual bargaining position within a resource market. Do Chinese generally have this idea? Do they assess the employment conditions of another person in terms of skills competition and acquisition by companies of resources?

I'm wildly guessing no.

I meant, what if it turns out Chinese generally are evaluating employment conditions according to their communitarian background, and what if that turns out to be different from the background we use.

English speaking countries have their own rancorous employment condition debates. The differences in pay between men and women, for example. But within an industry and not accounting for gender, employment conditions are supposed to be individual agreements. (And here I tender my complete lack of a union background and own to the possibility I have imbibed the employment contracts koolaid. But...) Salaries don't reflect you as a person. They reflect your individual bargaining position within a resource market. Do Chinese generally have this idea? Do they assess the employment conditions of another person in terms of skills competition and acquisition by companies of resources?

I'm wildly guessing no.

One thing you always hear from people is 'China has a massive population' as in 'so I shouldn't really complain about being shit on', I get the impression that they have that drilled into them at school
I'm not sure that that is collectivism. It's very different to what I experienced in Korea which seemed much more collectivist, although I wasn't there for as long as in China and didn't get to know any Koreans properly.
I think it's more the lack of workers rights that makes people put up with stuff here, the only reason that exploitation like that doesn't exist in Europe and America is because of unions and laws, it's exactly the same for illegal workers in western countries, they are exploited and they put up with it because they need the money, whether they are African, Asian, European etc

An otherwise skeptical and generally critical former student, now well on her way to a political science degree, explained once that Chinese are responding to foreigners' claims that salaries in China are low. But, they will tell you, you make more than a Chinese professor. Thus, said she, Chinese people are letting you know you can rest assured, you are not being treated badly.

This doesn't quite conform to my experience. And it only works as logic if those who reassure you this way genuinely do know nothing of other worlds. Which actually does sound like the Chinese mindset. Are there Chinese who have a balanced and proportionate understanding of Chinese terms in relation to world terms? They'd be quite the international statesman if they did.

I don't know. My facts are drifting away. I haven't actually had anyone use this furphy on me in what seems like a long while. However, it is, or was, sufficiently widespread that it seems like it must represent a mindset. But what mindset? I no longer know.

I've never had this complaint from my Chinese colleagues, but I've kept my income quiet from them.

I think if someone had said that to me, I would say to the following to them:

"If someone invites you to go teach outside of China on the other side of the world, after you paid a stupid amount of tuition, and offer to pay you less than the average wage of a Chinese labourer (Okay, maybe a store worker), with no pension and minimal benefits, would you go?  This is the reality of what our "exorbitant" wages are worth when we get home.  I make more than the typical foreigner here, and I make barely over minimum wage back home.  The school will give you and your family a place to live and a pension for the rest of your life.  We have nothing when we go home, if we still have a home to go back to."

Or....

"Life isn't fair.  Pay <cost of degree> and 6 years of your life for 2 degrees, then we'll talk."

A foreign worker comes with a non-revelant degree and little to no experience and makes a higher salary (regardless of perks), works less hours, less restrictions and generally has less work to do outside of classroom work and prep.

Native people all over the world may have problems with this justified or not. When you factor in how many foreigners that are incompetent and whose lifestyle may not be viewed as professional, it's not very surprising. They have paid their dues here and we swoop in and out often teaching a class that doesn't matter and taking away salary that could potentially go to a raise (perhaps in their mind only).

It may not apply to anyone in the Saloon but have you met all the foreign teachers in your city? Sure the locals annoyance is misplaced and should be with the school or system or whomever but it seems to me that this kind of thing is just a people thing rather than a Chinese thing. (sue me, I'm not a writer)

I've never had this complaint from my Chinese colleagues, but I've kept my income quiet from them.

Perhaps in your school your colleagues don't know but usually the foreign teachers' salary is known by all regardless how secret the foreigner tries to keep it.

A foreign worker comes with a non-revelant degree and little to no experience and makes a higher salary (regardless of perks), works less hours, less restrictions and generally has less work to do outside of classroom work and prep.

Native people all over the world may have problems with this justified or not. When you factor in how many foreigners that are incompetent and whose lifestyle may not be viewed as professional, it's not very surprising. They have paid their dues here and we swoop in and out often teaching a class that doesn't matter and taking away salary that could potentially go to a raise (perhaps in their mind only).

It may not apply to anyone in the Saloon but have you met all the foreign teachers in your city? Sure the locals annoyance is misplaced and should be with the school or system or whomever but it seems to me that this kind of thing is just a people thing rather than a Chinese thing. (sue me, I'm not a writer)

But Chinese teachers can earn a lot of money and do very well in China.

I can understand the resentment, and I agree with you that the amount of foreign teachers here who are essentially treating it as an extended holiday etc, but I disagree with the idea that the Chinese teachers have all 'paid their dues', many of them don't even speak English that well!

Lots of food for thought here.Some teachers have kinda "implied' this to us without saying it to our face.We replied that we have a house,2 cars,2 kids etc to maintain back home.WE pay extra Health insurance to come here and continue to pay all our home bills including municipal tax while we are here.Also compared to our salary at home this is a pittance but we come because we want to get to know China and the realities here not as tourists.This usually shuts them up when we tell them for example how much we pay for our empty apartment maintenance back home..

Lots of food for thought here.Some teachers have kinda "implied' this to us without saying it to our face.We replied that we have a house,2 cars,2 kids etc to maintain back home.WE pay extra Health insurance to come here and continue to pay all our home bills including municipal tax while we are here.Also compared to our salary at home this is a pittance but we come because we want to get to know China and the realities here not as tourists.This usually shuts them up when we tell them for example how much we pay for our empty apartment maintenance back home..

Sure, I agree. I make more renting my house in Canada out than my base salary in my school but this isn't a China issue in my opinion. Foreign workers anywhere in our situation would be looked at with envy and resentment. Many of us here in the Saloon do not fall into the average foreign teacher category in China whom have less education than their native co-workers.

but I disagree with the idea that the Chinese teachers have all 'paid their dues', many of them don't even speak English that well!

Their actual skill level doesn't matter here for the point I'm trying to make. What I mean, is they've jumped through al the hoops necessary in China to become a teacher, whereas some foreigners can get a job along side them with little more than a willingness to come. Many of the foreign teachers, in Changsha anyway, don't speak english well either.

A retired associate professor will normally receive something in the region of 6000/month as a pension.

Yes, this is more than he or she received as a salary whilst working.

After working for their danwei for four or five years, many academic staff acquire the right to purchase leases on property within the campus, this can be used by themselves and their family for the duration of their lives but cannot normally be sold on to a third party (unless there is some development work taking place and then woa ho ho!).  This property is normally sold at a massive discount, something along the lines of 80,000RMB for a two bedroom apartment and can be sold back to the university at any time for the same amount (you lose out on inflation obviously). 

In some cases, PhD holders will get the apartment for free after five years, although then it cannot be sold back to the university.  Unless things are very bent.

There are other perks as well.

I have no sympathy with the "you get paid so much" argument for foreign workers in the public sector because if you sit down with a pen and pencil and do the math then you realise that on balance you come out a little ahead, but not much.  Unless of course you are comparing yourself to entry level TAs and Assistant Lecturers, then you're a golden god compared to their dormitory dwelling existence - but so are established Lecturers and Assistant Professors.

My response to the whole issue is based on how hard people work and whether they do a good job: I don't care if you're black, white or blue, if you're good at what you do then you should be paid a "good" salary, whatever "good" is in your sector and locality.  If you spend all day with your thumb up your bum then you shouldn't get thruppence ha'penny.

I think it depends on the type of school you at whether or not this is an issue. In my school now I treat my Chinese teacher the same way I treat my foreign teachers. Everyone does the same amount of hours and no one is expected to be there any more than anyone else. I also have to say that my Chinese teachers have been around for several years and often socialize outside with us which I think makes a huge difference.

My first school way back in 2000 was a private school. At that time the average Chinese teachers (at least the less experienced) made about 1600 yuan per month and they were required to be in the office from 7.30am - 9.30pm. They only taught about 1 -2 classes a day and half the time they were sleeping but it was just the point of having to be there. In this school I heard quite am bit of the complaining about the foreign teachers salaries.

My next school was a college that had hired foreign teachers for the first time. To do this, they fired 7 Chinese teachers and told everyone that this was to be able to pay our salaries. Yeah that was not a fun year. The staff downright hated us

So I think it just depends.

To hire a foreign teacher the school has to expose itself to the external forces of supply and demand. To hire a Chinese teacher, they can be bought at a dime a dozen. Our admin staff has more credentials than our foreign teaching staff, but they could not do the job that the foreigners do unless all you need to hire are human calculators. I have a good relationship with these admin people, and they are resentful. I have no pity for them after about ten minutes of discourse with them. They have all the character depth of a Kardashian.

But, yes, they are SO sweet.! To the point of spreading diabetes upon contact. With no possibility of conveying knowledge, let alone wisdom. Unless, of course, you're wanting to teach students the finer points of clothing discounts or creative hosiery.