Is it worth applying for such jobs in HK if you are ....lacking a better word for it , not white? .....

For the 3rd time running I'm yet again leaving Hong Kong due to the inability to find a suitable job and I be damned if I'm going to be washing dishes for cafe de coral (in periods of unemployment in the UK I sometimes did similar jobs). This is probably why my report quota has fallen each time I am here as I spend more time looking for work and less time pooning.

And thought I might come back in December/January and maybe teach English to tide me over while I look for something that pays a bit better.

As the UK economy is utterly in the shitter right now and nobody is hiring , jobsdb.com has a ton of vacancies compared to UK websites , granted some may well not exist but when you see only 300 jobs for a city of 3 million there is something really wrong while JobsDb has a greater proportion.

In that in Korea I quickly learnt that you may be qualified up to the gills an have a ton of experience but only ONE thing counts your skin colour, hence the ton of jobs which have a requirement of attach a photo , I asked around and had a look at some school websites and found a common theme , that the 'meet the teachers' pages often had white people, even the HK government NET scheme has 95%+ white people.

Also I have an ulterior motive in that if you become an English teacher you can effectively travel for years and years rather than having to go home when the money runs out as you are effectively earning there sort of like a paid vacation, a mate who does this says its better than working for a living.

A youtube user called monkeytime http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owf7mHiTS4Q (chungking mansions video) has managed to travel constantly since 2006 and my own 'small' travels has allowed me to taste girls (WGs and non WGs) from each country I've visited which is a HUGE plus. , ontop of this teaching english in Korea / Taiwan pays well above the average wages in such countries meaning I can live like a king under such circumstances also.

Teaching in China/Thailand/Mongolia/Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos is NOT an option , although you will make more money than the locals convert it to HK$ or UK pounds and you will not be left with much while HKD$/NT$/KRW is worth more.

While if I work for say a bank or an investment house I am effectively rooted to the spot unless I quit , and I'd like to live up to the Chinese saying which translates as , before you are thirty go out and play , but once you are older you should try to make a living.......

Any thoughts?.

Thanks

Mate, I'm not sure your motive for teaching English is the right place to start (I.E. for travels and also for a stepping stone before you move onto something better). Teaching requires a lot of patience especially with HK kids.
If you're thinking of teaching at Kindergarten level, forget it; ourely cos you're a male. As for teaching in Primary & Secondary there are companies out there that will hire you (and they kinda adopt a 'I won't ask if you don't ask' attitude). Like I said to a friend, 'so you could be a paedo and they would have no idea? he said 'they have no time to check, all they want is for someone with genueine English to teach!'.

If you don't have a TEFL/TESOL/CELTA certificate, I suggest you attain that before you start looking again. If you've applied thru the EDB's website for the PNET scheme I'm sure you noticed that all of the requirements (except for one) require a teaching cert of some kind.

It's a shame you won't consider Thailand cos there are TEFL courses out there for less than half the HK price and you're pretty much guaranteed a job and you can chill out in Thailand until you get a another teaching job in HK....That's what I'm doing!

Have fun searching!

No those were the extra benefits of teaching , I didn't want to make a massive post regarding my full motives for a desire to change. Much like I won't stay in HK purely for the WGs they are a pleasant side effect if I do (crime , taxes , corruption all of which in the UK are very high are my motivations for HK over the UK).

I want to get into teaching because it is a secure job (more so than finance and accountancy) and more importantly I get satisfaction from it, wayy back in 1999 I taught people to use photoshop and 3Dstudio max 3.1 or was it 4 I forget and I got enourmous satisfaction out of it and people would sincerely thank me for it. I helped launched the careers of a couple of 3d artists and they still seem eternally grateful for what I did even 10 years ago.I teach adults in the UK on and off now and again and the people I teach are incredibly grateful almost enough to bring a tear to the eye that you've changed their lives...Finance and accounts doesn't seem to have the same satisfaction at all zero infact and I've done this for 4 years almost.


I say stepping stone for lack of a better word in that I want to try it for a bit and see what happens its like people who emigrate to say Australia they get a different view from being on vacation than actually living there. If I do it for a year and still feel the same way then I may make a proper move into it , if I dont I can move back into something else.

Also I hav had CRB (criminal record checks in the UK done against me which always come back clean its a std req to teach anybody in the UK).

I suppose it's a good start to have a clean CRB!
If this is the case and you still want to teach then I suggest you start looking elsewhere other than JobsDB.com
I've been looking there since the beginning of July and only found out recently froma  friend who's already teaching, that posts from JobsDB will only take on experenced and trained individuals (so unless you have that TEFL/TESOL under your belt and some experience, don't bother).

I know what you mean about the UK (I'm from London) and have been working for about 6 years now and finally decided to leave the place where I was born and bred cos I really wasn't going anywhere career-wise.

Good luck with your hunt and PM me if you need further advice or info.

(Oh, if you need more info on searching for jobs, I suggest you try the ex-pat forums and ask about it there... This forum has it's uses but not job hunting...unless...)

Colour is not a barrier, nor (judging by the teachers you meet) is a particularly strong level of English ... if you claim "native" level, you're already marketable.

Also disagree about kindergarten level - I've seen lots of guys in kindergartens.

Some sort of education degree is a major plus especially if it's related to teaching English to foreigners.  

Biggest flexibility is to work for a tuition centre or as a supply teacher on a part time basis, gets more money too.  

Having said all that, since you have IT skills, you might find a niche teaching IT in an English-speaking environment (e.g. school or tuition centre).  

Biggest hassle is a Work Visa - if you try to get work (e.g. casual tutoring) without one you're running the risk of being deported or possibly even jail time.

Look into Japan.  They have a big English teaching scene.  I'm not sure about the skin color thing but it may matter for some companies and might not for some either.  I think a pretty popular company right now is GABA.  Well, the living expense here is filthy expensive and the WG's are incredibly expensive so dont think about hanky panky if u want to go to Japan.

The Japan thing is called the JET program. Application ends at the end of Nov I think and you'll be interviewed during the course of the year and if chosen you'll be on your travels during the Summer.
Colour isn't a barrier but being ethnic Chinese does not do you many favours. It may not be the schools that are prejudice (as they will assess whether they think you're good enough based on what you have) but it's more the parents. HK parents as a whole are very quick to judge and if the 'English' teacher doesn't 'look' English then they will have doubts. So we Chinese have to prove ourselves before they think we can do the same job as our Caucasian counterparts. Thankfully, we aren't the first batch of ethnic Chinese English teachers and I thik the parents are now more acceptable to a non-white English teacher now

Hey if you're looking for teaching jobs it's actually not that hard to find. Have you ever thought of started out as a kindergarde/playgroup teacher?
The playgroup ones are actually easy to get into, I have a few friends that are doing that and make over 16k a month and the times are pretty short too. How ever cause you're not an hk resident i'm not too sure how that would go.

all totally true - and somewhat balanced by the fact that the guise of teaching English is a great way to pull pussy ...

The NET card works all over - preschool included - and Immigration is sensitive to the fact that it's hard to find HK residents who are native english speakers.  Makes it easier for the Employer to claim they can't hire locally.  

Best bet is to find a school that's relatively recently established, trying to trade on "international" somewhere in its brand.

HKID card check
NET check
TEFL check

Tbh I think I ran out of time more than anything else , but I shall be back for another try come January armed with some more experience and perhaps some more qualifications, it just seems TOO sweet for jobs to be paying 16-20K , when big accountancy jobs that need 5+ yrs of exp are paying 17-25K.

Thanks for your replies

Supply and demand Ken.  

To get a native speaker they have to pay enough to cover travel etc. plus quality of life.  You can't find them locally and HK Immigration will turn down visa applications that carry an ultra-low salary.  Once here those that qualify for residency can get HK$400 per hour for private tutoring further adding to salary pressure.  

To get a wannabe accountant, they pay peanuts to juniors on the fact that they need work experience to get fully qualified.  LOTS of themlocally, pushed by misguided parents into a highly competitive field that only gets really lucrative at the top.

[ Last edited by  DArtagnan at 13-9-2009 22:13 ]

i'm no expert, all of this is distilled from conversations with people i've met over the course of my residency in hk. it's up to you to use or ignore it as you see fit:
most hongkongers don't care (much) about skin color when it comes to their kids' teachers. most important to them, so i've heard, is where you graduated from. they'll prefer a teacher who went to harvard over someone who finished at hku even if the hku guy is demonstrably better. why? because the harvard guy is more likely to give their kids tips on how to get in.

I know this , my dad sort of pushed me into the accountancy direction and only saw those at the top and forgot the 100s of low paid interns and junior mid level staff who the big bosses step upon to get to the top...

you're not alone bro ...

Good news is if you're different from the majority of accountants, and are a little bit streetwise, you have skills and experience other managers lack to give you an edge if you get into a political battle and need to look good.  Nothing wrong with accounting, except that it's necessarily focussed on the past not on the future.

Erk , I've been back in the UK for 27 hours (stuck in London) and it just hammers home why I hate this place so much just getting into London cost me close to $270 HKD , and a night in a shitty 'hotel' cost me well over $500 , I miss HK already.... wonder if I should take on a shitty job in HK while studying and or looking for a job......

I don't know how helpful this will be, but around 2004-2005 I had seriously looked into and was considering teaching English.  Like you, I was tired of my job and surroundings and worked in an industry where someone staying in their job for more than a few years would be rare.

Anyways, I'm Chinese Canadian.  Being Canadian and a native English speaker was a positive.  Being Chinese was a negative -- a very huge negative.  Mind you that I had only looked into Japan, Thailand and Taiwan.  You already know about Japan's JET program, but after reading a lot of blogs, forums and contacting people, I found that most people just wanted to finish out their required 1 year in JET and then find their own better paying teaching English job.  From your own research, you've seen that the majority of English teachers are white.  I don't think the schools are racist, but rather they have to give the parents of students what they want.  The parents believe in stereotypes and think that native English speakers must be blonde and blue-eyed.  That excludes Asians and blacks.  Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule, but for non-whites it's an uphill battle.  I have no idea if gender makes a difference though.  And following up on eddielee's comment about what school you graduated from, in talking to people I've found that this only applies if you graduated from the top American universities like Harvard and Yale -- the names that everyone in the world will know.  Even if you graduated from the best school in the UK or Canada, companies won't see you as any different than someone who graduated from HKU.

I knew a Filipino girl who taught English in Japan, but she was in the JET program so it was no problem for her.  I also knew a Chinese girl who tried Hong Kong, and she kept getting turned away until finally getting a teaching job in Taiwan.  One Chinese guy (these are all Canadians) I met on an online forum spent 3 months in Hong Kong trying and in the end couldn't find anything and returned home.  A thing to note though, I think that this "anti-Asian English teacher" thing might only exist in Asia.

On a similar note, a Chinese friend of mine had recently spent 3 months in Hong Kong trying to find a job.  He's not a "returner," but like many returners was lured by the glitz and glam of Hong Kong.  He has a great education from Canada and great work experience.  For him, getting the job he wants in Canada is easy, but he wanted to be in Hong Kong.  But with the downtown in the global market, he wasn't able to get any job.  Related to this is the fact that a lot of English teachers all across Asia are out of work because of the state of the world economy.  It's an incredibly tough time to be looking for a job -- any job.

I would love to teach English in Hong Kong as well.  It's my one awesome skill -- speaking English!  But there are so many uncontrollable factors against you that you have to seriously consider whether this is what you want to do and if it's worth your time.  HK $16-20,000 is pretty rubbish.

Not sure if this is off topic or not, but I have a question for you English teachers going to foreign countries...

Do you have to know the language of the country you're going to teach in?

ie. Do you need to know Japanese to be able to teach English in Japan?

Is it recommended? Does it matter?

Just curious, because I'm under the assumption that knowing both languages is required.

As far as I know, it's not essential to know the language of the country you're teaching in. However, it is essential that you have a willingness to learn and adapt to the local culture. So in the case of the JET program for Japan, Japanese is not required (though basic understanding of the language will have obvious benefits!) but adjusting to their way of life (eg, being punctual or being courteous etc etc if you aren't already!) is absolute..

Dude, I personally know several people in Asia: Korea, Japan, HK, Thailand who are not 'white' and teach english...
I know millions more who are, but that is besides the point.
Its not about the color of your skin, its how wells you speaks the Queens' E! If you've got a tHUCK Broomie asscun't and look like you ready to rob someone, it ain't gonna happen, but if your smart, well dress and speak perfect E...
I know one girl who is rather a sore sight for the eyes who has been teaching in a school in bumfuck Tawian someplace .

word of advice if you got a valid HKID ? half a brain and a bit of get up and go... HK is your place...

[ Last edited by  test3 at 17-9-2009 22:06 ]