Location: #
Gusu District, Suzhou
Expected date on board #
February 2026
Qualifications: #
a) Native English speakers from the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, or South Africa
b) Preferred qualifications include two years of teaching experience and possession of TESOL, TEFL, or PGCE certification.
c) Age between 24 and 45
d) Be able to apply for a Chinese Z visa for an English teaching position.
Job Descriptions #
a) Student age: 12-15 years old
b) Class size: 35-40 students
c) School timetable: Mon – Fri, 8am – 4:30pm
d) 40-45 minutes/lesson; 17-18 lessons per week; no office hours.
e) 2 days off on weekends
f) Class teaching, preparation, and related work.
g) Student activities
h) Continuously learning from current classes and self-created materials to improve teaching methods.
i) Maintain a good relationship with class members.
Salary Package: #
a) Basic Salary: 14,000 RMB-15,000 RMB/month
b) Insurance is provided.
c) 11 days of public holidays per year, plus Christmas, summer holidays, and winter holidays.
Work visa support #
a) Interview guidance and arrangement
b) Visa guidance, follow-up, and advice.
c) ground support, including orientation, apartment renting, banking, medical checks, etc.
d) On-going training and professional development
e) Opportunities for career development in teaching, course development, and as a regional trainer.
f) Foreign affairs, culture training, etc.
About #
Suzhou is a major prefecture-level city in southern Jiangsu province, China. It is part of the Yangtze Delta megalopolis.
Founded in 514 BC, Suzhou rapidly grew in size during the Eastern Han dynasty, mostly due to emigration from northern China. From the 10th century on, it has been an important economic, cultural, and commercial center, as well as the largest non-capital city in the world, until it was overtaken by Shanghai in approximately 1850. Since the initiation of economic reforms in 1978, Suzhou has achieved GDP growth rates of approximately 14% over a period of 35 years. Five million people were registered residents of Suzhou in 2023. The Nature Index 2024 lists Suzhou as the #4242 city by scientific output. The city is home to universities, including Soochow University, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Xi’an Jiaotong–Liverpool University, and Changshu Institute of Technology.
The city’s tourist attractions include canals, stone bridges, pagodas, and gardens. Along with Hangzhou, it is sometimes described as heaven on earth. The Classical Gardens of Suzhou were added to the list of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1997 and 2000.
Names #
During the Zhou dynasty, a settlement known as Gusu, after nearby Mount Gusu (Chinese: 姑苏山; pinyin: Gūsūshān), became the capital of the state of Wu. From this role, it also came to be called Wu as well. In 514 BC, King Helü of Wu established a new capital nearby at Helü City, and this location grew into the modern city. During the Warring States period, Helü City continued to serve as the local seat of government. It was dubbed Wuxian (literally “Wu County”) and Wujun (literally “Wu Commandery”) after the regions it oversaw. Under the Qin, it was known as Kuaiji after its greatly enlarged commandery, which was named for the reputed resting place of Yu the Great near modern Shaoxing in Zhejiang.
The name “Suzhou” was first officially used for the city in AD 589 during the Sui dynasty. Su (蘇 or 苏) in its name is a contraction of the old name Gusu. It refers to “satisfied place” in the Old Yue language. The zhou 州 originally meant something like a province or county (cf. Guizhou), but often evolved to be used metonymously for the capital of such a region (cf. Guangzhou, Hangzhou, etc.). “Suzhou” is the Hanyu Pinyin spelling of the Putonghua pronunciation of the name. Prior to the adoption of pinyin, it was variously romanized as Soo-chow, Suchow, or Su-chow.
History #
Suzhou, the cradle of Wu culture, is one of the oldest towns in the Yangtze Basin. By the Spring and Autumn period of the Zhou, local Baiyue tribes named the Gou Wu are recorded living in the area that would become the modern city of Suzhou. On the hillsides above the wetlands surrounding Lake Tai, these tribes established villages.
Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian records traditional accounts that the Zhou lord Taibo established the state of Wu at nearby Wuxi during the 11th century BC, civilizing the local people and improving their agriculture and mastery of irrigation. The Wu court later moved to Gusu, within the area of modern Suzhou. In 514 BC, King Helü of Wu relocated his court nearby and called the settlement Helü City after himself. His minister Wu Zixu was closely involved with its planning, and it was this site that grew into present-day Suzhou. The height of his tower on Gusu Hill (Gusutai) passed into Chinese legend. In 496 BC, King Helü was buried at Tiger Hill. In 473 BC, Wu was defeated and annexed by Yue, a kingdom to its southeast; Yue was annexed in turn by Chu in 306 BC. Remnants of the ancient kingdom include pieces of its 2,500-year-old city wall and the gate through it at Pan Gate.
The city was originally laid out according to a symbolic three-by-three grid of nine squares, with the royal palace occupying the central position
During the Warring States period, Suzhou was the seat of Wu County (吳縣, Wú xiàn) and Commandery (吳郡, Wú jùn). Following the Qin Empire’s conquest of the area in 222 BC, it was made the capital of Kuaiji Commandery, including lands stretching from the south bank of the Yangtze to the unconquered interior of Minyue in southern Zhejiang. Amid the collapse of the Qin, Kuaiji’s governor Yin Tong attempted to organize his rebellion only to be betrayed and executed by Xiang Liang and his nephew Xiang Yu, who launched their rebellion from the city.
When the Grand Canal was completed, Suzhou found itself strategically located on a major trade route, serving as the regional metropolis of industry and foreign commerce on the southeastern coast of China. During the Tang dynasty, the renowned poet Bai Juyi constructed the Shantang Canal (better known as “Shantang Street”) to connect the city with Tiger Hill for tourists. Famed poet and writer Fan Zhongyan founded the Suzhou Confucian Temple in AD 1035. It became a venue for the imperial civil examinations and then developed into the modern Suzhou High School in the 1910s.
Riots and unrest disrupted Suzhou after February 1130.
After 1229, Suzhou became a commercial center. In 1356, Suzhou became the capital of Zhang Shicheng, King of Wu. In 1367, Zhang’s rival Zhu Yuanzhang took the city after a 10-month siege. Zhu—who was soon to proclaim himself the first emperor of the Ming dynasty—demolished the old city walls at the center of Suzhou’s walled city and imposed crushing taxes on the city and prefecture’s powerful families. Despite the heavy taxation and the forced exile of some prominent citizens south, Suzhou was soon prosperous again. During the early Ming, Suzhou Prefecture supervised the Yangtze shoals, which later became Shanghai’s Chongming Island. For centuries, the city, with its surroundings as an economic base, was an extraordinary source of tax revenue.
When the shipwrecked Korean official Choe Bu had a chance to see much of Eastern China from Zhejiang to Liaoning on his way home in 1488, he described Suzhou in his travel report as exceeding every other city. Under the Ming, Suzhou was a prosperous center of the Nanzhili area controlled by the secondary capital at Nanjing; scholar-officials constructed the area’s most famous private gardens during this period in a “Jiangnan style” copied at the time by Shanghai’s Yu Garden and later by parts of the empress dowager Cixi’s Summer Palace.
After the Qing occupied the area in 1644 and 1645, it was reorganized as Jiangnan Province, whose “Right” Governor controlled its eastern prefectures from Suzhou until the division of Jiangnan into the separate provinces of Jiangsu and Anhui at some point during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor. The Taipings captured the city in 1860. Many of its former buildings and gardens were “almost… a heap of ruins” by the time of their recovery by Charles Gordon’s Ever-Victorious Army in November 1863. However, by 1880, experts estimated that the city’s population had rebounded to approximately 500,000, a figure that stayed steady for the subsequent decades. In the late 19th century, the town was particularly known for its wide range of silks and its Chinese-language publishing industry. The town was first opened to direct foreign trades by the Treaty of Shimonoseki, ending the First Sino-Japanese War, and by the most favored nation clauses of earlier unequal treaties with the Great Powers. The new expatriates opened a European-and-Chinese school in 1900, and the Suzhou railway station, connecting it with Shanghai, opened on 16 July 1906. Just prior to World War I, there were 7000 silk looms in operation, as well as a cotton mill and a large trade in rice.
This is an excerpt from “Prosperous Suzhou” by Xu Yang, which features a small section of a 1225 cm (482 in) panoramic painting depicting the city in 1759.
As late as the early 20th century, much of the city consisted of islands connected by rivers, creeks, and canals to the surrounding countryside. Prior to their demolition, the city walls ran in a circuit of about 10 miles (16 km) with four large suburbs lying outside. In 1937, the Japanese invaded Suzhou, resulting in the destruction of numerous gardens by the end of the war. In the early 1950s, restoration was done on the Humble Administrator’s Garden and the Lingering Garden.
Administrative divisions #
Suzhou is a prefecture-level city in Jiangsu Province, administratively divided into six urban districts and four county-level cities. The city’s urban core, Gusu District, is historically known as the “Old Town” and preserves Suzhou’s iconic canals, classical gardens, and cultural heritage. Established in 2016 through the merger of three former districts (Canglang, Pingjiang, and Jinchang), Gusu remains the political and cultural heart of the city.
To the east of Gusu lies Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP), a nationally designated economic zone established in 1994 through a landmark China-Singapore partnership. To the west, the Suzhou High-Tech District serves as a hub for technology and innovation, founded in 1992.
The city’s administrative structure expanded significantly in the 21st century: In 2000, the former Wu County was abolished and split into Xiangcheng District (north) and Wuzhong District (south). In 2012, Wujiang City, a former county-level city, was incorporated as Wujiang District, strengthening Suzhou’s governance over Taihu Lake’s eastern shores.
Suzhou’s integrated network of county-level cities, operating with significant autonomy under the prefecture-level administration, bolsters its economic prosperity. These include: Kunshan: A global manufacturing powerhouse and home to China’s first county-level economy to exceed RMB 500 billion GDP (2022). Taicang: A major port and hub for over 500 German-invested industries. Changshu: Known for textiles, machinery, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site (Mount Yushan). Zhangjiagang: A leading ecological city and river port on the Yangtze.
Together, Suzhou’s districts and county-level cities form one of China’s most economically dynamic regions, hosting over 16,000 high-tech enterprises (as of 2023) and contributing to around 20% of Jiangsu Province’s GDP.
