Teaching English in Saudi Arabia
by Stan Lutz

Saudi can be a great place to make tons of money. By tons I mean about $3K a month. You will have no expenses other than food and telephone bills, so you can plan on saving about $25k a year at least. If you do this for a few years, you can find yourself financially free with a new take on life. It's amazing how much better your life can become when you have some breathing room. Granted, this is not free money because Saudi Arabia is no picnic. It's lots of dull classes attended by students who would rather be drinking tea and picking their toes. But the Saudis are what they are and you soon learn to pretend you're teaching in some exotic land that you really like. After a while you just become numb from Saudi Arabia's lack of stimulation, and it helps! Hurts so good!

Now don't go to Saudi Arabia if you can deal with arrogant, Koran-thumping, progress-hating idiots. That's the populace. They aren't logical, but there is nothing you can do about. They aren't configured like us; they have a different operating system. If you are lucky, you'll live on a compound where you'll live far removed from most Saudi madness. YOU DON'T GO TO SAUDI ARABIA FOR CULTURAL REASONS; YOU GO FOR THE MONEY. Avoid the people as much as possible. It's okay because most of them want nothing to do with you either. They will be polite to you to your face, but only god/allah knows what they say about you behind your back. Rest assured it's probably as bad as what you'll be saying about them. Let's just embrace our differences! Most of us hate them and most of them hate us. There is little to no common ground, so let's just get on with it. Which means: they pretend to learn and we pretend to teach them. Superficially, both parties were pleasant and respectful to each other, but we both knew the score. Them--medieval idiots. Us--whisky-chugging whore-chasers. I know which I fall under!

I encourage all males to give Saudi a shot if the Middle East situation cools down. I bet right now a job might be easy to find. I would keep a low profile until I got a feel for the situation because it could be very dangerous. However, you could make some real bucks. Isn't that what life is all about anyway? Go, save you money, avoid the Saudis, and get the Hell out. That's my recommendation.

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