Should You Teach English in China in 2022?

With how much our world has changed since the start of the pandemic, more and more people are looking for a new job or new type of life. We’re looking for more adventure, more freedom, more experiences. Maybe you’ve been thinking about teaching English abroad. Should you teach English in China in 2022?

No.

I’ve been teaching ESL and living in China for almost ten years now. Before the pandemic, if you had asked me if teaching in China were a good idea, I would have absolutely pushed you to do it. Teaching in China gave me the opportunity to travel around the country and travel around the globe. I have tons of holidays as well as summer and winter breaks. Depending on how you teach, you can get a full-time salary and work less than 40 hours a week. I constantly learn about new cultures and practice having my mind opened to new ideas and perspectives.

Life forever changed in China in 2020. Things started to feel more balanced in 2021, and we started to believe the rumors of things ending soon, but 2022 pushed us to the point of no return.

In 2020, the biggest issue for foreigners was not being able to leave the country. At the beginning of 2020, the country closed its borders—for foreigners. Chinese citizens are still allowed to travel outside of the country, but if a foreigner leaves, they essentially, cannot return. That means, for the foreigners who are still left in China, we haven’t seen our families in years. You can imagine the homesickness and culture shock and culture frustration we’ve got over here.

The microaggressions towards foreigners are still there, even though foreigners are not allowed to travel outside the country, which means we can’t bring new cases into the country. Now, foreigners are unable to do more things than before. The amount of tracking has increased tenfold. You have to scan your health QR code to enter any building, and even building-less places like parks. However, many of the QR codes are not available to foreigners, since you have to sign in with your Chinese ID. That means I have to “sneak” into almost every location I go to. Multiple times a day, I’m stopped and pulled aside by security and I have to explain the situation. Sometimes, I can continue to my designation. Sometimes, I have to turn around and go home. That means not meeting friends for dinner or cancelling plans or not getting groceries for the week.

 Daily testing is the norm in many places. Since February, I have gotten a covid test every day. That sounds oppressive enough, but the inconvenience of it has added daily stress to my life and wasted a lot of time. From February to July, I spent 1-2 hours a day in line. So, in addition to an 8-hour workday, commuting, doing daily activities like laundry and cooking, 1-2 hours of my  day was taken up by testing. Since July, that number has decreased to about 30-60 minutes a day, but still, that’s a lot. Not to mention the inconvenience of scheduling. Before summer, most testing places were open from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Now, many places are only open for a few hours. If I meet a friend for dinner, I have to constantly be checking the time to make sure I leave by 8:00 p.m. to get in line for testing.

If I think about the tracking too much, I get a little freaked out. Like I mentioned, I have to scan my code at every location I go to, including my home and work. Each restaurant, grocery store, shopping mall, park, testing site, subway—I’m scanned into every location. Every day, I am required to send five screenshots to my boss. I send my health code, my travel code, and the test results of the past three days. In addition to a health code, and a testing code, every person in China also has a travel code, that tracks your location and saves it over the past seven days.

So, what are the problems with tracking, besides the obvious? Tracking leads to lockdown, inability to travel, lack of freedom. Let’s say there aren’t any cases in the city where I live, so I decide to travel to another city like Shanghai, where there also aren’t any cases. I come back on a Friday, and Sunday, a case pops up in Shanghai. Because it’s tracking everywhere I go and everywhere I have been, I have to go into quarantine, even though there were no cases when I was in Shanghai. That means it’s quite difficult to travel, and the added difficulty is that, if you work for a traditional school, you have to technically get permission from your school to leave your city. Before the pandemic, I would travel once a month. Now, I have gone to two different cities this year, and I consider myself “lucky” to have been able to do that.

Which leads us to lockdowns and quarantines. If there is one case in a city, you are in danger of lockdown. I recently went to a city 30 minutes away. While I was there, there was one positive case (in a city of 2.7 million). I was immediately put into a 24-hour lockdown, that was extended to 7 days. They changed their mind and allowed me to do a 3-day quarantine, then finish the last four days of quarantine at our own homes. When I arrived home, my city decided that the 3 days of quarantine I had already done didn’t count, and I had to do a full 7 days at home as well. That means, for one case, I spent 10 days in lockdown. Obviously, lockdowns mean you’re not traveling, but you’re also not seeing any friends or having any experiences outside of your apartment.

The side effects of lockdowns are not actually being able to maintain relationships or friendships. Many times, I’ve started a friendship and been excited about having met someone new, then haven’t been able to see them for months because one of us is in lockdown. It also means you’re not teaching like normal. Since 2020, I’ve had two semesters completely online. My current semester is a mess. We’ve only had 7 weeks of class so far, and 4 of them have been online. When we are back in the classroom, only about 75% of my students are there, because they’re in lockdown.

Now the dangers of lockdown. All of the situations I’ve described are “best case scenarios” of lockdown. Let’s talk about being forcibly removed from your home to live in a quarantine facility. The 27 people (who didn’t have covid) who died in a bus accident while being transferred to a facility. The children being taken away from their parents. The pets who have been beaten to death with lead pipes when their owners tested positive. Being bolted into your apartment. Not being able to order food or groceries and relying on government subsidies or being given no subsidies at all. The many possibilities for arrest. I live in fear of testing positive, not because I’m afraid of covid, but because I’m afraid of what could happen to me or my loved ones if I test positive.

For years, China was my home. I loved learning about Chinese culture. I loved the food. I loved learning the language. I loved communicating with Chinese people. And to be honest, I’m still here. I still love so much. There are still so many things to love and appreciate about this beautiful country and beautiful people. But if you’re interested in coming to China to experience it for yourself, I suggest putting your plans off for a bit until the pandemic has passed in China.

—Guest post, by Anonymous