The pay is down from ten years ago, 250k yen per month, to about 170k per month, even though it is illegal to pay a foreign English teacher less than 250k per month because it is “unlivable” according to the Japanese government. Nobody stands up for teachers, including teachers, basically. Don’t come to Japan unless you want to be hurt, hungry, and without a way back.

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Sorry it took so long for me to get back to you. I saw your reply toward the beginning of my vacation and the email ended up getting buried in my inbox.

Dont be worried about Cantonese living in Shenzhen. Although its in
Guangdong, Shenzhen is a city made up mostly of immigrants from all over China. In the main parts of the city Mandarin is all you need. Its only when you get out to the factory districts or into some of the smaller neighborhoods tucked around the city that Cantonese becomes really prevalent, and even then it seems a lot of people are conversant in both. Traveling around Guangdong province is sometimes a different story, but even then as long as you can read a little you shouldn’t have too many problems.

One think I would urge you to consider is what you hope to get out of moving to China. If you’re looking to immerse yourself in old, traditional China then Shenzhen is probably not the best place for you. If you’re looking to make a pretty solid amount of money and use it to fund traveling then SZ is probably ideal.

Thats a pretty basic overview, but if you have any more questions youre welcome to message me at my matador profile: CptStKckr

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Here’s an older piece from BNT with solid advice…

http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2007/04/23/teach-english-china/

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This is just one example. Many ALT dispatch companies (which are rapidly replacing the JET program all over the country) also pocket anywhere from half to even 75% of worker’s monthly salaries, a practice that not only many workers are ignorant to, but even the local board of educations that pay the salaries via the dispatch companies usually don’t know about either. Similarly, most of these companies pocket a major percentage of (or sometimes all of) the workers’ vacation salaries, by telling them that they do not receive vacation salaries, or that salaries are reduced during vacation time (even though the local boards of education are still in fact paying the same amount).

Pairing this with the fact that the majority of English teaching positions in Japan are more glorified host entertaining than actual language instruction (not applicable to everyone however), and it becomes more obvious why it’s hard to keep qualified teachers in place within an environment that is often designed to exploit them heavily and then toss them out by the time that they become aware of their rights. This becomes quite literal, as dispatch companies typically fire (euphemistically, “not renew their contracts”) their employees right at the 5 year mark because Japanese law also states that after 5 years of service, workers must be hired on a full-time, permanent basis. They simply dodge the responsibility this would entail by ending the worker’s contract and look for a new worker.

Things are looking up a little bit however, in that because of various legal disputes involving issues such as these, a few prefectures have opted to hire their teachers directly without any dispatcher middle-men, which guarantees workers the legal benefits they are given by Japanese law but often deprived of elsewhere. English instruction in Japan is in a harsh stage right now, but hopefully major reforms will be coming down the road.

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