The Weekly China Roundup from Sino News on TeachAbroadChina.com China’s Death Penalty is a Family Affair – If you are sentenced to death in China, your family is expected to pay for the bullet that will enter your head. This week in Sino News, I write about the death penalty in China, which is strongly supported by most Chinese people. In China, [...]

“We know that reunification with China is inevitable,” a Taiwanese friend told me recently. “The economy in Taiwan is not so good and many of our jobs are being transferred to China,” he explained. “Taiwan will have to cooperate with the mainland in order to maintain a healthy economy.” My friend told me these things with [...]

*** A Special Update from Robert Vance about Visas for ESL Teachers in China on TeachAbroadChina.com. Please click here for MORE information and discussion about work visas in China. My passport was finally returned to me this week by my school. I was very happy and relieved to open the passport and find a residence permit affixed to [...]

After you have signed your first contract to teach ESL in China, you have to start thinking about what you are going to bring with you to China. Packing for your trip to China may seem overwhelming especially when you know that you will be living in China for at least a year. So what [...]

“He was already dead by the time that I arrived,” a Chinese friend explained to me. “I rode my bicycle as fast as I could to the countryside to see the execution but in the end, I only heard the gun shot.” My friend was recounting to me the story from her hometown of a young man who had [...]

As an ESL teacher in China, I have always been fortunate enough to have worked for schools that have not deliberately attempted to cheat me. However, mistakes have been made by these schools in payroll and the ‘burden of proof’ was always placed upon my shoulders. Fortunately, I had been advised before I came to China [...]

The Weekly China Roundup fromSino News on TeachAbroadChina.com China Takes a Whack at Corruption — It appears that the CCP is becoming more serious about fighting corruption in China. In a post entitled China Declares War on an Old Nemesis, I discuss the firing of 12 local officials in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake as well [...]

For months, my friends and students in China have been accusing the world, and especially the United States, of trying to inject politics into the 2008 Olympics Games.Those who have dared to mention to mention the words Tibet’ and ‘Olympics’ in the same sentence are accused of mixing the sacred with the profane. The Olympics Games [...]

As a veteran ESL teacher, I have sent out literally sent out hundreds of email to schools expressing interest in teaching jobs. While this may seem like an enormous amount of emails, I have made the process very easy for myself by creating a package that can be sent with one click of a button. You can read more about creating a [...]

If there is one thing that the Communist Party cannot be accused of, it is inefficiency. Just 41 days after the deadly earthquake in China’s Sichuan province, CNN reports that  the anti-corruption arm of the Chinese government has announced that 12 officials have been fired “for dereliction of duty and misuse of earthquake relief.” Just 12, [...]