Korean Job Discussion Forums

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[ZIFA]

[CaliUSA]

The Princeton Review is a very good company to work for and, as far as I can tell, they prefer Asian-American college graduates. They have positions in both ESL teaching and in regular test prep (mainly SAT). On the other hand, they hire a lot of short-term people in the summer, and go with a smaller staff the rest of the time, so I don't know how easy it would be to "break in" with them during the off-season. One note: they seem to prefer people with degrees from well-known universities, since that's part of their sell to parents ("our teachers got high SAT scores and went to Ivies, and so will your kids"), but this isn't a rigid criterion for employment. If you worked at TPR over the summer, it would look good on your resume and might enable you to break in with some other hagwon. Maybe what I'm saying about this co. would apply to other test-prep-oriented places as well? Anyway good luck

[iRock]

it might not be a law but its still discrimination

[some waygug-in]

What you don't realize is

they are actually doing you a favor by the hiring practices they have.


Do you really want to work for someone who thinks of you as an

inferior sub-species?

Ask some of the whities they hired about their "experiences".

Yes, what a pleasure to have a bunch of screaming brats trying to rip your clothes off and or poke their fingers up your bum. Whooooohoooo!!!

Let the fun begin.


There are many people of color who have gotten employment in Korea, in all levels. (hagwons, public schools, universities)

Not everyone has discriminitory hiring practices.

[pest2]

From Webster's dictionary:

Discrimination: treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit: racial and religious intolerance and discrimination.

Racial: of, pertaining to, or characteristic of one race or the races of humankind.

Do Korean parents and hakwon owners treat job applicants, with respect to hiring them, different on the basis of their race-- ie, do they usually prefer to hire whites over other ethnicities? Do Korean teachers in Hakwons get paid less than white, NES teachers? Would Korean parents usually rather their daughters and sons marry Koreans rather than people from any other ethnic groups? Do Koreans generally reserve the worst jobs for people who are Asian but not Korean? Come on, it's not hard to see that Koreans love to discriminate, racially. The fact that they didn't pass a law to restrict such discrimination is neither here nor there. In fact, that very fact makes them even worse in this regard; in the West, we generally realize this kind of thing is bad and try to limit it with rules and laws. Koreans are like natural racists, letting racial discrimination flourish and grow in the dark light of ignorant minds.


It probably has more to do with the "segregation" mindsets in Korea than the "racially oriented" ones. Koreans love to divide, chop, and segregate every thing in every kind of way imaginable. Men sit on one side, women sit on the other. Old people over here, middle aged there, youngest over there. Working class here, white collar there. Join this social club or group, be excluded from this and that one. They seem to love to create these kinds of exclusions and are masters at making their own lives a living hell as a result thereof.

To the OP, I'd offer this advice: Everywhere in East Asia is more or less the same in terms of racial discrimination -- that is to say, it is rampant everywhere here. But Korea is probably the most extreme in this way (and many others). I'd hit up China, for sure. There is huge market emerging there as the economy continues to develop, and the market rate for pay and benefits has gotten better, recently. Now, you can get an apartment and almost as much as you would have gotten in Korea 15 years ago (taking into account lower cost of living in China, etc). From what I have seen personally (which may not exactly be a scientific study but its better than nothing), they are not as unwilling to hire non-whites in China. Check it out.

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[TheUrbanMyth]

[northway]

[pest2]

Obviously, some kinds of discrimination are necessary to appropriately fill jobs with the right people. For example, sports teams discriminate against people who cannot play the sport (which is most people). Hotels discriminate against people who do not have good customer service skills (except, here in Korea, you have to wonder sometimes if that actually happens) in not hiring those people. If you're not skilled in IT, what happens? As a class of people who are unskilled in IT, you won't get a job in IT. No big surprise.

But generally, discriminating on the basis of race is arbitrary to the intent of placing an able person in a job. If there are two people, one Asian and one Caucasian, with equal language skills and credentials, all things being equal, hiring the Caucasian will not bring a better employee to a job teaching English. As a matter of fact, there are very few cases in which hiring on the basis of ethnicity will purport to a better outcome insofar as work performance in any job.

No one said reverse discrimination is good, either. That is still racial discrimination and it, too, is definitely a problem. There are various kinds of ways to address the causes of reverse discrimination, ie doing away with hiring on the basis of filled quotas, enlightening and educating employers about the evils of hiring on the basis of race in any capacity, etc. In case, "anyone can just claim racial discrimination" in case they don't get hired, they must show clearly that a prospective employer has not hired them specifically because hiring them as such would not fill a hiring quota in most cases. But given that companies and employers might occasionally have a propensity to hire on the basis of race, there is no easy way, using rules and laws, to completely stop discrimination or reverse discrimination on the basis of race. At best, we can use rules and laws to change ideas and values to get employers to do the right thing.

However, two wrongs don't make a right. We can't say that we should just allow racially discriminatory hiring practices because proscribing such practices will result in reverse discrimination. Rather, the best route might be to take the bull by both horns and try to pull it to the ground.

And that's exactly what has NOT happened, in almost any way whatsoever, in Korea. Whereas other countries have at least attempted to address the problems associated with racial discrimination, Countries in East Asia and especially Korea have not. Rather, racism and racial discrimination is "off the radar" for most people. It's the kind of thing that is taken for granted in every day life like the sun rising in the East.

And come on! Families in Korea actually forcing their daughter to marry a white guy!!!?? That'll be the day. But I think, at any rate, it would be nice if the families would back off and let those women marry whomever they want, don't you? Then maybe Korean women wouldn't be so annoying! (but thats another topic)

[TheUrbanMyth]

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[northway]

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[cj1976]

Wow, who wrote that article in the KT? The author seems like an absolute joke. What a complete tool.