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and quality. Classroom experience and Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) certification is nice, but in many cases a Western face is all a native English speaker needs to land a teaching job in China.

In more reputable schools, most prospective English teachers don't have it so easy. I endured a weeklong interview process, including a series of teaching demonstrations before 300 stern-looking parents, all while I was still jetlagged and suffering from culture shock. I must have done something right, because I was chosen to teach at a top school in the province.

Being rice-wined and dined by my prospective employer over 30-course banquet dinners did not distract me from negotiating a fair salary. Many foreigners ("laowai") prefer to live in a cosmopolitan city like Beijing or Shanghai than a small town such as the one I had chosen, and I was able to use this preference as leverage during contract discussions. All deals in China, like the price of fruit at the marketplace, can be negotiated.

Most English teachers in China needn't speak Mandarin in the classroom. Instead, we instruct students through a process of language immersion and simulation, which in time invariably leads to proficiency. Diligence and a little creativity are all that are really needed, but like performing on stage five times a day, it takes its toll.

Over the next few years, I would meet a number of disappointed young Westerners who came overseas as English teachers expecting to party all night and spend their free time pursuing adventures in the countryside. That, I would tell them, is a lifestyle for tourists, exchange students and embassy brats, not the hardworking teacher.

As a foreign expert English instructor, I'm scheduled for up to 30 classes a week and spend most of my free time planning lessons. I'm up at dawn with the older folks practicing their Tai Chi and not back home until after 10 p.m., about when the migrant construction workers also are getting off work.

I never thought I'd be an educator. I didn't like most of my teachers when I was a kid. Teachers the world over are typically low paid, overworked and underappreciated. But the fatigue and the hit on my income - compared to what I might earn in the U.S. - are what I pay for being part of a rapidly-changing China. As it turned out, I'm not so bad in front of the chalkboard - I actually like it.

Learn more about this author, Tom Carter.
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