Posts by Travis Lee

Sex, lies and English teachers – by Travis Lee

I was a foreign teacher in Wuhan, on the Yangtze river, for seven years. It takes a special kind of person to stay in Wuhan for seven years. But I differ from the other teachers in two key ways. For starters, I left. They don't, won't, and most of all can't. They've spent years working themselves into a nook of drinking, fucking, smoking, bullshitting, rambling and drinking. Trading all that away for the destitute lives they left behind is not an option.

Second, I admitted who I was and why I was there. They don't. Listening to some of these guys talk makes you wonder why they ever left home in the first place. I've worked with former CEOs, engineers, bodyguards, even one guy who told me he used to be a hitman. Men who were living gods back home, men who drove BMWs, slept with only the most beautiful women, owned three-story homes and just one day had an epiphany and swapped all of that for a few hundred bucks a month and a cramped apartment.

The truth is, most foreign teachers in China are total basket cases at best.