As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, our 2020 was a weird but wonderful year of adventures. We were incredibly lucky as far as peaks and parks were concerned, despite both the state of the world and us staying put stateside.
As far as employment, though…not so much! This is the story of our failures at work during the first year of the pandemic.
China
This story begins with the end of work as we knew it. If you’ve been reading these chronicles, you probably already know that we failed to return to China after Lunar New Year last year. At that time, the pandemic was wreaking havoc in China – but was not yet a national disaster in America. So we didn’t want to go back!
Although we were not spared any anxiety over the decision, ultimately a flight cancellation gave us an excuse. The closure of our school? Another convenient excuse. The truth was, we were wary of returning. Even as schools reopened and flights were rescheduled in the spring of 2020, we stayed put.
Against mounting opposition from our Chinese employers, we taught the remainder of our classes online. When our contracts were up in May, we had our stuff shipped home and closed that chapter in our lives.
But, it didn’t have to be like that: we genuinely enjoyed living in Qingdao! We had our fabulous Fushan to train on, a good friend in the making and plenty of great plants to eat. What’s more, we really enjoyed the academic rigor of our work – and the challenge of teaching high school seniors. There were some struggles, to be sure, but overall we were happy enough to be considering a second contract.
That is, until the pandemic. The emergence and subsequent spread of covid-19 resulted in the premature ending of our gigs in China, as well as any consideration of extending our stay.
Saudi Arabia
So instead, in the summer of 2020, we lined up lucrative positions in the Middle East. This is even better, I thought smugly. I was wildly optimistic about the end of the pandemic. My imagination set us up in Saudi by September, training for success in desert races – particularly our long-awaited return to Oman!
I couriered a sheaf of documents to Canada for processing, and Kent paid to expedite a national background check. We were just a month or so shy of our departure date when it all began to unravel.
First, I got a phone call about my visa. Suddenly, it seemed, everything I’d done up to that point to prepare was for naught: Saudi was no longer accepting Canadians for my position. Instead, it was suggested that I come on Kent’s visa – a few months down the line, after his residency was established. This was not going to work.
But before we had a chance to get incredibly stressed about that, we got a second call: a surge of cases in Saudi had closed our university. However, we could still work online – that is, if we agreed to half wages and working through the night. Well, we did not agree. Realistically, we couldn’t teach into the wee hours without keeping up everyone else in our current shared housing situation. Also, not to be blunt, but isn’t the whole point of working abroad the abroad bit? Our Saudi scheme just wasn’t going to work.
Still, I hated drafting our farewell email. I had wanted this opportunity to work out so much! I kept wondering about how we’d feel if the school reopened – and questioning whether we shouldn’t maybe teach online from, say, the Caribbean.
But in the aftermath of the job chaos, I received a message from the UTMB crew: our return to Oman would not take place in 2020. My first reaction was devastation, but in the weeks that followed, I no longer felt bummed about our lost Saudi gigs. The biggest motivation to work in the area had been the opportunity to train and race, and now that was off the table too, it was easier to move on.
Japan
Immediately after the Saudi situation, I leapt at an opportunity to teach in Japan. The position was for a big, reputable company, and we might get to explore and live on a brand new island! But before we’d put pen to paper on our new contracts, Japan closed their borders to international workers – halting the process before it even got properly started.
That was in late summer 2020. Almost the exact same thing took place exactly half a year later, in February 2021, when the borders were temporarily opened and then immediately shut again.
Japan is one of my favorite countries on Earth, so naturally, I was pretty disappointed. Twice. But perhaps it was not meant to be.
South Korea
After finally leaving South Korea in 2019, I was eager to continue working and traveling in new countries. We’d enjoyed our experience in China, and there was a whole world of jobs out there…
At least, there were jobs – prior to the pandemic. By mid-2020, the international teaching market had all but dried up. There were fewer and fewer postings, and the ones that were out there were a lot less desirable.
And so I reached out to an international recruiter for help with my search. Noting our wealth of experience in the country, she asked me if we’d consider going back. I said yes almost immediately. Of course. Maybe you’ve noticed: I really love South Korea!
The positions she offered us were attractive: they were at a large, well-known school in downtown Seoul. The job featured good benefits and great pay. Moreover, my mind was instantly filled with a long list of fun things to do: mountains to visit (or re-visit), races to run, bicycle backpacking trips… We signed our contracts right away.
But we would never fulfil them because…
Fiji
I literally could not believe my eyes when I saw an ad for a job in this country. It was September 2020, and I applied immediately. I was in no way disturbed that I got no response back right away: I imagined every semi-eligible teacher in the multi-verse must be applying. So I simply emailed, and emailed again until I secured an interview. In short order, we were hired, and began making preparations to move to Fiji!
When something seems too good to be true, that’s often because it is. I was in a frenzy of excitement over the prospect of going somewhere so sublime, but I remained skeptical initially. I kept our contracts with the Korean school, and made double the visa preparations.
But everything seemed to be progressing normally: we shipped our documents to Fijian Immigration and were granted working visas. We were in frequent contact with the school and with one of our new coworkers. As our departure date approached, it really seemed like we were going to Fiji – and it was an opportunity too amazing to pass up.
In fact, it wasn’t until the morning of our flight in January 2021 that our big move was called off. There was some mystery over why we couldn’t obtain our landing permission papers. Apparently, arrangements were being made. Initially, it seemed like this would just be a small delay while they sorted out the latest bureaucratic hurdle, so we agreed to teach online until the next repatriation flight to Fiji.
Suddenly, the warning bells that we’d been muting for months came blaring back full-volume. The director did not have a curriculum prepared, so he asked Kent and I to come up with our own the weekend before classes were set to start. My first class was double-booked with a local teacher’s, and Kent’s was outright cancelled so the students could play basketball. The school’s manager kept calling to tell us to book flights that didn’t exist. And when we asked about payment, we were informed that we not be receiving any salary until we arrived – both prospects seeming less likely by the minute.
And so, we quit. I wrote a resignation letter on the morning that would have been our third day of classes. I did not cry – but I also couldn’t bear to unpack our Fiji suitcases for weeks.
From the start, Kent and I had acknowledged that things at this start-up school might not go as planned. If that was the case, we reasoned that at least we’d have gotten a free flight to Fiji and maybe some good experience. Instead, we never even made it there! But it was a blessing in disguise, because the school existed in name alone. Much as we wanted a tropical adventure, we also need legitimate work.
Indonesia
In late January 2021, after our big Fiji fail, I reached out to a school in Sumatra. Everything about the opportunity was enticing: we liked the age level of the students, the housing arrangements, and the opportunities to live alongside orangutans in the rainforest, climb new volcanoes and yes, bask on those gloriously balmy beaches…
What I did not like, however, was how the coronavirus was rampaging through the country virtually unchecked. A few news searches later, we had to rule out this adventure. Feeling strongly like it would be unsafe to move to Indonesia in the immediate future, I ended our communications with the school. A real shame, because I adore Indonesia and would have relished an opportunity for in-depth exploration of a new island!
Kuwait
Another promising lead was at an international school in Kuwait! I eagerly pursued this gig for weeks in mid-winter 2021 until it became apparent that, for no good reason, they only wanted to hire single teachers.
Thailand
The next job we had in hand was in Thailand. In February 2021, we applied for positions that were far from lucrative, but would allow us to complete our in-class practicum requirements for our own education. Plus, living in Thailand would finally provide an opportunity to explore a country that I’ve just barely scratched the surface of.
But the company we’d applied to was strange. First, we were offered jobs in central Bangkok – which we liked. But those positions were suddenly replaced by gigs in outer Bangkok. We asked a question or two, and our contact stopped speaking to us for nearly a month. By that time, those outer Bangkok jobs had been switched out for jobs in a small city called Buriram.
In addition to losing faith in the company, we just couldn’t summon the enthusiasm required to work for minimum wage in the flattest area of the country. After imagining the hustle and bustle of Bangkok, and broadening our search to include the highlands of the north and tropical isles of the south, this one just didn’t entice.
And so we sent back our contracts unsigned, and closed the door on another opportunity.
Thailand, again
…but not on Thailand! Within a few weeks, there was another opportunity we were even more eager to pursue. Trang is a tiny town in Southern Thailand, sandwiched neatly between tropical beaches and jungle-carpeted mountains. Working just 20 hours a week at a local school, we reasoned that we could live a very good life indeed!
But the timing was all wrong. Immediately after we received our contracts, I also received an immigration update about my California residency. Now, there was no way we would be able to make a May start date. I therefore found myself once again reluctantly writing another email – after I slowly relinquished my dreams of living that good life in Southeast Asia.
Uzbekistan
However, roughly around the same time, another very promising set of positions popped up on my radar: an international school in Central Asia had work for us! The timing for this gig was right, and the location just couldn’t be beat. I poured my heart into an application and wondered if this, finally, was the one.
As you’ve likely gathered, alas, it was not. I loved the location, the salary was fair, and my appetite for adventures nearly ran away with me (into the Tian Shan, can you blame me?!). But there were weirdnesses, and this time we paid them proper heed.
Curious? It came down to two things, really. The single interview consisted of a warning lecture, and then an immediate job offer, no questions asked. When we had questions of our own, our contacts did not prove to be reliable resources. And so, despite a keen hankering for journeys along the Silk Road, we politely declined our offers and continued the search.
So there you have it! That’s about 14 months worth of opportunities lost, skipped or imploded across 2020 and into 2021. Kent and I have been under-employed for nearly a year. That’s not to say we haven’t been working: we’ve done some other, non-teaching work and spent time on the other side of the classroom. And we’ve been wildly busy with big adventures and building strength. Working out’s a better kind of work anyway, if you ask me!
The purpose of this entry into the Covid Chronicles is a peek behind the curtain to show how the pandemic has affected us, and perhaps more broadly, the world of international education. This is a strange industry and we’re living during strange times.
But this isn’t the end. Our job search continues, and heading into April 2021, the prospects are the best they’ve been since the Before Times. I’ll keep you posted. And in the meantime, I’m going to enjoy the heck out of the here and now – not working is not so bad, turns out!