Things are getting tricky over here. The Government have made some pretty draconian new rules about teaching. First of all - ALL for profit out of school hours training centres - including ALL pre school centres were banned about a month ago. Overnight this put tens of thousands of teachers - foreign and Chinese - out of work. Parents who had already prepaid lessons will NOT get their money back. Then last week ALL private tutoring was banned. Students can no longer have teachers tutoring them at home OR by internet. It’s breaking my heart to have to do it but yesterday I had to tell the father of the girl I have tutored for 9 years that I can’t do it any more as there is a 20000 fine ($7000), deportation and possible jail if caught. As the law has been written it would be technically illegal for someone to help his kid brother with his homework as that would be tutoring. My school job is ok but that’s likely to go when I am 65 in April as they are also now enforcing a policy of mandatory retirement by not renewing work permits. Things do not look optimistic. I do not relish the prospect of returning to England and trying to find somewhere to live (after finding and paying for somewhere to self isolate for ten days!). In the words of one friend “pray that you get another extension for a year - England is shit right now”.

And on top of all that there is a food and medicine shortage in England because Brexit has destroyed the supply chains and supermarkets and pharmacies can’t get the deliveries. Welcome to the modern world.

That's rotten!

Bob, I was about to ask you what the govt’s motivation is for these decisions, but decided to google around first. Per this article, “In time, officials hope, a more equitable [education] system will encourage couples to have larger families and boost the country’s lagging population.” The timing of these decisions [July 2021] coincides with the lifting of all restrictions on the number of children Chinese families are permitted to have. According to Wikipedia’s “One Child Policy” article, relaxing from a one-child to a two-child policy [done gradually through waivers/ govt permissions, official for all in 2016] didn’t reverse population decline, nor is the abolition of restrictions likely to, because “most women and couples have already adopted the idea that one child is enough and to have more is not in their best interest.” Some analysts think China shot itself in the foot with the 1979 one-child policy, as it artificially lowered population by a half-billion during an era of steady decline in pop increase for other Asian nations [and all OECD nations].

Meanwhile the idea that banning private-ed supplemental ed services will somehow result in ‘equity’ is about as nutty as US ed policies of the last 20 yrs, where Friedmanesque ed-reformers believe the invisible hand of the market [publicly-supported privately-run ed like charters and vouchers] can do the same.

That's certainly one of the official reasons given. The problem is that they have adopted a "throwing out the baby with the bathwater" approach. What might have worked is to have a two policy approach combining a cap on fees that can be charged with tighter control on who can teach - insisting that teachers at all ages and levels hold a proper teaching qualification. A blanket ban on pre-school training, for profit centres and all private tutoring seems about as over the top as dealing with climate change by a total ban on anything at all that uses fossil fuel would be. (Sorry if you are an Extinction Rebellion hard-liner but that would plunge the whole world back to a medieval state.) It's a regressive policy that will set education back by decades. But they will realise that eventually and reverse it.

I don't think it's true that the easing in 2016 had no effect though. Suddenly two out of every three women I saw seemed to be pregnant and there are a hell of a lot of families now with two kids - one of whom is under five years old. Even most of my Chinese friends now seem to have two kids.

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What has always surprised me is how attracted you have been to China. Perhaps if I knew it better by living there, like you do, I'd feel the same way? However, it seems to me like an autocratic country with ridiculous rules and regulations. Because of your reports of day to day living, I can't imagine living there. And while I know England has its problems (like the U.S.), I can't imagine choosing a country that really doesn't want me and has such draconian laws/rules.

But again - I suspect I'd feel differently were I in your shoes.

You might be surprised. For day to day life for most ordinary people things go on much as they do back in England. It’s not that there are more controls or restrictions - more that there are different controls and restrictions. But on the whole I couldn’t say that everyday life here is much different.
As for living here life is pretty easy for a foreign teacher - I pay no tax (my office pays it for me), I get a free apartment, I have all my utilities including wifi free, since I stopped drinking (doctors advice) literally my only expense is food, the supermarkets are a hell of a lot better stocked than the empty shelves in Brexit Britain (chatting with my brother the other day he had just come back from trying to go food shopping - in his words, there was nothing to buy). I'm not trying to sing the praises of China here because of course the political system isn't something I like but I am just pointing out that it barely impacts on day to day life for almost everyone.

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And now - no waiting in lines for gas, as in the UK. The Nursing Times just released an article saying that nurses have first dibs on gas, as they are needed for public protection (or some such). That reminds me of the '70s...

Everyone doesn't have free housing though, do they? (I am thinking it shouldn't be "do they" with "everyone" as the subject, but "does he/she" doesn't sound right either.)

The free apartment, like most of those things, is because of my job. As for nurses and other essential workers getting priority on petrol... take a look at this

People are just selfish. They don't really think through that their attempts to avoid minor inconvenience might mean someone else's death. And if they do think they dismiss it. After all your life is less important than my being able to take the car to the shops instead of the bus. The petrol shortages are a result of selfish idiocy and panic buying, not a cause.

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