Job Discussion Forums

johnchina · Joined: 24 Apr 2006 Posts: 816

InTime - "POINT and SMILE at the nasty faces...while making a happy face"

I think that's great advice!

redpiston · Joined: 30 Sep 2007 Posts: 338

I had more resistance (when it comes to Asian men resentment for dating Asian women) in my home country (I would have said the US, but there are those who have a duck when you compare anything to the US) than here in china.

laska · Joined: 05 Nov 2005 Posts: 293

Good luck on your publishing career. I'm not knocking Peter Hessler, but your book will fill a serious gap. I know it's going to be a great success, and I look forward to reading it.

Anyone who is taking it up with the OP by making shamefully inane comments that expose your own sense of inadequacy, I wonder if you have the guts to post under your real name like he does?

With one or two exceptions, the posters of the rest of these well-meant but ignorant comments need to get real. I am depressingly unsurprised at the diarrhea of advice that has spewed forth from Dave's finest. Next time someone YOU love is bleeding on the floor, I would like to see how many of you are smiling like Confucius, playing the cultural ambassador. What a barrel of laughs!

BTW both Shanghai and Nanjing have been the sites of large-scale anti-black mob violence, so people touting those places need to do their research.

redpiston · Joined: 30 Sep 2007 Posts: 338

7969 · Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 5782 Location: Coastal Guangdong

redpiston · Joined: 30 Sep 2007 Posts: 338

I really don't see how my involvement would have yielded anything more than the outcome of two people being place in the back of a police car. Sorry but black rights are just not worth a night with the PSB, but hey if you want to be a caped crusader then by all means have at it "race relations man".

Sinobear · Joined: 24 Aug 2004 Posts: 1269 Location: Purgatory

1. Laska is your real name?

2. What and where is your advice?

3. Anyone who knows China knows that it is a volatile country. Rules change overnight, regulations are more like just "suggestions". Some people can stay here a decade and not encounter a single noteworthy complication - others have nothing but trauma from the time they get off the plane. Karma.

I suggested Shanghai simply because my good friend (same hometown, same age, same upbringing, and we're both designers by trade) has run his own very successful design business there over the past five years. He has a Chinese wife, and has never recounted any tales of overt racism in his personal or professional life during his time there. I was merely suggesting something rather than "touting". I was trying, in my own way, to help the OP rather than being patronizing.

Honestly, Laska, I am awaiting your assimilation/integration tips.

Cheers!

laska · Joined: 05 Nov 2005 Posts: 293

1. Irrelevant to my point.

2. I don't have any advice this time. The op obviously wasn't asking for it.

3. Yes, even the experience that white people have in China of being a "significant other" is too much for most to handle. But if it was YOUR loved one lying in a pool of her own blood, and someone suggested it was "karma," how would YOU react????? Give me a break!!!

7969 · Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 5782 Location: Coastal Guangdong

Mr. Kalgukshi · Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 6:25 am Post subject:

I've just deleted another posting for being off-topic.

Postings on this thread will continue to relate directly to teaching in China or they will be deleted.

In order to give everyone time to digest this point, this thread is temporarily locked.

Mr. Kalgukshi · Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 11:55 pm Post subject:

We'll try this one again.

Please stay on topic.

Postings that are not directly related to teaching in China will be deleted.

bearcanada · Joined: 04 Sep 2005 Posts: 312 Location: Calgary, Canada

I find this thread to be very curious. Granted, China is a large place and attitudes will differ in various parts of the country, but I have never heard the kinds of stories that are emerging here. My experience has in fact been much the opposite.

I have a good friend in Shanghai (Black American) who has a great teaching job (in a company, not a school), has been there 5 years and is liked by everyone. He has no stories to tell about racism. He just moved into a new 3-story penthouse apartment, and the owner reduced the rental from 20,000 to 13,000 RMB/month - because they liked him (and the flat was vacant, but still....)

I have done recruiting for universities across China, and without exception they have told me "We don't care about black; we care about native speaker." I know of many black teachers in China who have been here for several years without experiencing hostility or outward signs of racism due to their color.

Certainly, in any country, the ignorant and uneducated will be more prone to bigotry, racism, the whole list, but the places we frequent often affect the outcome of our experience.

In any case, and I'm sorry to say this, the story contained in this thread doesn't ring true to me. I think there is a bit more to it than the 'facts' we've seen presented here. I'm seeing a strange combination of pride, boastfulness and self-pity, all combined (in spite of statements to the contrary) with a condescension looking toward contempt. My guess is we're dealing with an individual who came here with a high opinion of himself that wasn't shared by the locals - and didn't mind pushing the point with them, including 'look at my girlfriend'. I know that it seems despicable to blame the victim, but sometimes that's where the blame belongs.

If I were black, I wouldn't let this thread discourage me at all from coming to China to teach. I would ignore it.

.

Ahchoo · Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 606 Location: Earth

I know a few black teachers here and none of them have problems. If anything they seem to get star treatment.
That might just be because they're good people.

Michael Nelson · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 3:56 am Post subject:

To any black teachers reading this (and there doesn't seem to be any), what would ring truer for you: a black teacher's account of being black in China or a white person's account of being black in China? You decide.

It's strange that out of over 2000 viewings and over 50 replies, there has only been one reply from a teacher who says he is half black. MOD EDIT

As far as the bragging and the boasting, someone tried to suggest that I had trouble finding work because my English was not good enough and I had to put him in his place. This suggestion by itself is racist. MOD EDIT

For all of you with your black friends who are doing so great in China, if you know them so well, well enough to speak for them, why don't you send them an e-mail and invite them to post replies here speaking for themselves (or maybe you have misplaced their e-mail addresses, I wonder?). You are the same kind of people who would say, I know plenty of black people in Mississippi and New Hampshire and Utah, etc. who are doing great and are living proof that there is no such thing as racism in America. Well, all I have to say is, I would definitely not want any white person speaking on my behalf as a black person nor would I pay any attention to what any white person has to say about black experiences.

I have met several blacks, Americans and Africans, since I've been in China and not one would deny the existence of racism in China. I have spent countless hours talking with them about this subject. Also, aside from this website, I created this same thread on an African-American website. Many responded by saying they were already well aware of China's racism towards darker people and wouldn't be caught dead in China!!