The Humble English Teacher

It is through a Chinese friend whom I met while in college who helped me secure a job in China as an English teacher. I’m Gary Reagan and I come from South Central Los Angeles, USA.

I was lucky, because he helped me secure a teaching contract which had better working terms; 6 hrs/day, 5 days/week with split shifts. The school also provided me with my own apartment though it was a bit small (but comfortable for a single person), 14 days vacation and a 30 days holidays.

This was all okay with me. When I started working, I felt an urge to learn Chinese. There were some language barrier that I wanted to break especially dealing with my students as well as the people that I met and made friends with and hence learning Chinese became inevitable.

For the next two years, I taught English at the school while learning Chinese myself. At times some of my students would come to help me with the language and being a fast learner, I had a quick grasp of it. I always contemplated that when I get back to America, I would have an upper hand at securing a Chinese teaching job.

 
 

Career shift:

But while in China, theirs is something which thrilled me. Being a country fast growing in technology, there were numerous opportunities to learn a few things from them. At one time, I even thought of enrolling there to study a degree in engineering or technology, but I was oft deterred by the time frame.

One day, I met an American who had come to visit China and he changed my course of thinking. During the brief period that we shared, he explained to me how the American dream was being built in China. True to his words, the cost of labor and production of good in China was much cheaper than it was in America. Therefore most American business personalities were taking this to their advantage and sourcing goods from China back to America.

I analyzed a few factors and then I decided to start drop shipping of cell phones to America. This meant a lot of time for all this and it took me the next three months to put everything in place. My first goods to ship were sold through eBay. This went for the next two months as I analyzed the viability of what I was doing.

All this time I was still teaching. I realized how profitable the business was.

I had to expand it. This meant shipping more products. Within no time, I was selling through Amazon and other retail outlets and businesses were booming. That how I ended up quitting my teaching job and establishing BGY ventures, my private company.