Job Discussion Forums

[delwyn]

I'm an ABC (Australia) and I just wanted to complain about these idiotic Chinese bosses who only hire Caucasians! I recently got rejected cos I wasn't white. I've been teaching for a few years and have come across these idiots quite often but this time I got really pissed off cos the school kept contacting me even after they saw my photo. I thought it wouldn't be a problem, instead I got my hopes up for nothing. And then she goes, if you really want to come to Suzhou, let's keep in contact, I can help you. Yeah right! Racist pigs! Racism is bad enough but it's worse when you're the same race!

[wildchild]

Just tell them that you really are white.

Or that you use to be white, that is, until your ancestors mixed with colored people, but deep down, where it counts, you're white!

Just tell 'em!

If that's not good enough, ask them for some time, you know, a few more generations.

Maybe, by then, you'll have got all of the colour out of you.

Discrimination is an interesting phenomenon.

I propose that we start doing it by the girth of ones big toe. However, to do that, folks will be forced to take off their shoes much more often.

Never mind, we'll stick to skin colour.

[mlomker]

Sorry to hear about your experience. I'd agree that stringing you along was an odd thing to do. Perhaps the DOS wanted to hire you but the boss vetoed the idea? It's hard to say what their reasoning was.

I assume that you knew this would be a problem before you left Australia? It's a very common question/issue on the forums.

[coffeedrinker]

This has got to be really crap to experience. I'm sorry that this happened to you and happens to other people.

And sorry, but questions like the last one frustrate me. Even if you do know about discrimination beforehand, it's not easy to experience. Prior knowledge of the prevalence of it is beside the point. Sure, prepare yourself for it if you can, but I am just not cool with "well, you should expect it."

On occasion I've received a strange reception because of the way I speak (the local/foreign language, not English). It's not been anything serious, but it really opens your eyes to experience something like that.

[delwyn]

Lately I've been telling people that I'm half half. For some weird reason I actually look it. I feel guilty for lying but it gives me more options, a lot more schools have contacted me, but most of them are ones that I dont' want.

[ls650]

[sidjameson]

I have total sympathy for you, but really it's not the schools fault. Parents walking past 2 private language schools would be more likely, if they could look in the window and see the teachers, to enter the school with the white faces. Fact of life I'm afraid. Everybody who has worked in one of these schools will know that at least to some extent private language schools are not really about learning English as such. It's a mixture of show time, baby sitting, status symbol, freak show and perhaps a bit of language learning.

A language school wanting a white face is a bit akin to a record executive wanting a good looking black guy to front his new rap group. It's just the way it is and probably makes good business sense. If a skinny ugly white dude don't get the job was the producer being racist or lookist? I wouldn't say so.

[Sheikh Inal Ovar]

[mlomker]

[Stephen Jones]

The problem is that the in the EFL business the consumer has little information about the quality of the product. The teacher could have grossly defective English and the consumer wouldn't know. The white face represents a guarantee as the consumer sees the white face as necessarily an English speaker (until she wises up to the more unscrupulous school's trick of telling Eastern Europeans to pretend they're native speakers).

[coffeedrinker]

[nomadykaty]

Coffeedrinker, I agree with you. I think people should be posting the names of schools that discriminate. But, I think in Asia, EFL newbies need to be aware of racism/ discrimination that goes on there. Asians are some of the most racist people in the world when it comes to looks.

Dave's used to have the journal board- where people posted up such things, named names, wrote about their experiences...

[delwyn]

I would go back to Australia to teach but there's a little problem... my husband's from China. He can't go to Australia yet (visa got rejected) so I have to stay here for at least a few years. I'm fully qualified- Adult Ed degree, CELTA, 6 years experience. How can I not find a language school? (I must admit, I'm a bit picky about the cities I wanna go to).

About posting names/schools and stuff, I don't think that'll work. If I were white I would still apply for the job, especially if they paid heaps. I would know that them being racist is wrong but that's about as far as I'd go. I wouldn't be able to change anything cos there would be other people who would work for them anyway. I think the only way to change it is if they actually gave people a chance, that way they would be able to see that it really doesn't matter. But that's not gonna happen if they're not willing to hire full stop. They would rather hire a Caucasian who did a 2 day TEFL course with no experience. Coffeedrinker, I doubt it's gonna change in the future. Racism is never gonna go away, same as war, poverty and all that stuff.

[mlomker]