Job Discussion Forums

[BigJim]

My wife is a native Chinese speaker and I was wondering if anyone knew of jobs teaching Chinese, or interest (of any kind) amongst people living in the UAE for learning Chinese. We are planning to come to the UAE in 2010, and the possibility of a job for her appeals.

[Never Ceased To Be Amazed]

Lotsa native Chinese speakers here. What kind of quals does she possess?

NCTBA

[Sheikh N Bake]

My Chinese wife from Malaysia worked in the private business sector in Dubai which kept her busy and her career went upward, but of course her salary was stingy...about half of what she started out for in the US.

[mouse5]

There's a huge demand for Chinese/Arabic interpreters in the UAE, mainly in the red light districts.

[veiledsentiments]

Bigjim... mouse5's post was a bit snarky, but points out one issue that a Chinese wife would need to be able to deal with... many will assume that she is a hooker.

VS

[johnkg]

"one issue that a Chinese wife would need to be able to deal with... many will assume that she is a hooker. "

BigJim - I think you can ignore this one as well as mouse5's. Yes, if your wife is going to hang out in certain Dubai hotel bars in certain areas wearing not a lot, then she might need to deal with unwanted attention.

If she is going about her daily business, shopping in malls, visiting museums etc, she'll get about as much unwanted attention as any other woman here, which I'm sure she knows how to deal with - unwanted attention is not limited to the UAE.

[helenl]

Sorry John but I have to disagree. As an Asian woman, she will get a lot more unwanted attention than a white western woman -in any circumstance and as VS has pointed out in the past - we get the whispered inquiry "ruski?" often enough to make us uncomfortable at best.

She can be walking down any main street in any emirate at any time of the day or night and there will be someone who assumes she is a hooker solely based on her physical appearance. Could this happen elsewhere in the world, yes - but the odds are about 1000% higher (yes those are 3 0s) that she will be "picked on" in the GCC than in any European or North/South American country.

[Sheikh N Bake]

Agree, absolutely.

[johnkg]

[Sheikh N Bake]

The OP did not ask about catcalls and whistles. The OP asked about employment.

My wife has not once complained of being sexually harassed in the U.S., while it is common for her in her home country and certainly even more in the Gulf. This is not a metaphor of which society is better or worse; it is a simple statement of personal history. By the way, her sisters visited Britain and then the Netherlands once. They were left alone in Britain but suffered a lot of whistles and catcalls and stares in Holland. These are anecdotes, not sociological studies. Still, you notice patterns if you stay in one place long enough. Women will also get harassed much more often in Japan, where I spent four years, than in the U.S. or the U.K. So what? Well, I mean "so what" from a dispassionate anthropological viewpoint. For women, it may be "so what" and then again it may not.

[johnkg]

My Asian wife says she has never been harrassed in the UAE. She says construction workers often stare her up and down endlessly, which is annoying. She dresses conservatively, which I think helps here.

Regarding other parts of the world, she has little regard for American, British, Australian... male English teachers who seemed to think Asian students were "easy". She was paying money to learn English and had to put up with "useless and ugly" westerners who did their best to get a date instead of teaching.

Unfortunately lots of nationalities think Asians are hookers - probably because of the Armies R&R in Japan, Korea, Thailand and the Philippines, carrying on today with sex tours.

The "1,000% higher" is untrue for my Asian wife in the UAE.

And to get back to the OP's thread - Google the Dubai Chinese Learning Center

[Sheikh N Bake]

1. Sex tours are most popular with men from certain Asian countries, but apparently you are not aware of that. How much time have you spent in Asia?

2. In educated and well-traveled circles, everybody knows that Asian women are neither easy nor kitchen slaves.

3. The difference between my "wife" story and yours is, mine is coherent while yours is flakey, to say the least, with all the racist sweeping generalizations.

[johnkg]

[Sheikh N Bake]

Ok, I can "trucify" since your reply is reasonable. I can well imagine how some or many of the language school flakes behave. I did not have a particularly good impression of them in Japan. I have taught only at universities and corporations and I never knew of anything like that in those establishments, although once in a blue moon I knew of a colleague with a consensual relationship. Some Japanese college professors marry former students of theirs, as well.

I was in Malaysia and Japan a total of six years, with decades of addtional short-term visits all over East Asia, and married to a Chinese Malaysian for 13 years.

It is also true that some Asian women prefer Western men, for various reasons.

[BigJim]

Well, what can I say? Seems like stepping into a minefield. Don't think I'll bother to comment on all the this vs that, but I will google the Dubai Chinese Learning Center, so thanks for that johnkg.