To Travel Hopelessly

English Teacher X, a shadowy and legendary figure in the world of TEFL, follows up his debut book with this raw, lurid, and vivid memoir of his first five years teaching English abroad. In 1995, after a year of aimless wandering, a young American backpacker answered an ad in a newspaper in Bangkok and inadvertently became English Teacher X, working, in the next five years, in 7 different cities in 5 different countries. From a tropical island paradise in Thailand to an industrial...
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English Teacher X, a shadowy and legendary figure in the world of TEFL, follows up his debut book with this raw, lurid, and vivid memoir of his first five years teaching English abroad. In 1995, after a year of aimless wandering, a young American backpacker answered an ad in a newspaper in Bangkok and inadvertently became English Teacher X, working, in the next five years, in 7 different cities in 5 different countries. From a tropical island paradise in Thailand to an industrial hellhole of Post-Soviet Russia, English Teacher X describes, in violent imagery, the life of an English teacher overseas, encountering dishonest and exploitative employers, degenerate colleagues, corrupt police, gold-hearted prostitutes and cold-hearted "English groupies", with drugs and alcohol for all, while questing in vain for the Authentic Cultural Experience.English Teacher X's world serves as a cautionary tale for young people going overseas to teach, or a titillating taste of the many perks of the darker side of English teaching.