Korean Job Discussion Forums

Travelous Maximus · Joined: 15 Jan 2007 Location: Nueva Anglia

I always wondered why the rest of the English teachers here feel a certain level of animosity towards ESL teachers from the USA. It appears to me that from reading these posts, a certain number of teachers from England, Canada, Australia, and NZ, seem to take sides agains the U.S. posters. The same kind of animosity doesn't seem to be displayed by the US teachers towards teachers from other English speaking countries. Can someone please explain to me why teachers from the rest of the English speaking world are taking shots at America and Americans here on Dave's ESL. A simple discussion. P.S. The bashing bandwagon is full so get off.

VanIslander · Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 12:27 pm Post subject:

I've heard the Irish and kiwis feel a bit discriminated against, but Americans? *shrug* so?

There's an anti-Canadian undercurrent with several ESLers in Korea who resent the attention, cheer or sheer number of them around here.

(Travelous Maximus, if you are indeed sitting back in your home in America, why do you care? That is not meant out of meanness: it's just puzzling. Are you thinking of coming back? Or, as some suspect, are you a sock that has never left?)

Travelous Maximus · Joined: 15 Jan 2007 Location: Nueva Anglia

SuperFly · Joined: 09 Jul 2003 Location: In the doghouse

TM.

I'm always very careful never to chastise other posters about spelling and grammar mistakes, however - you might want to add to your list of reasons why posters from the UK and Canada like to pick on us Americans the fact that some of us can't spell our way out of a paper bag.

Ecumenist · Joined: 04 Mar 2007

Otis?

Travelous Maximus · Joined: 15 Jan 2007 Location: Nueva Anglia

SuperFly · Joined: 09 Jul 2003 Location: In the doghouse

Ecumenist · Joined: 04 Mar 2007

Fair enough. I wonder who this one is then... Question

huffdaddy · Joined: 25 Nov 2005

Ecumenist · Joined: 04 Mar 2007

Optimism on my part.

Really, how many people who get their amusement this way can there be in the world?

huffdaddy · Joined: 25 Nov 2005

SPINOZA · Joined: 10 Jun 2005 Location: $eoul

Milwaukiedave · Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Location: Goseong

venus · Joined: 25 Oct 2006 Location: Near Seoul

I'm English and have no problem with Americans, nor do any of my English friends here of whom I have a fair number.

It's more likely to be Canadians in my experience that bitch about Americans. And they're still a minority imo.

I have met a few narrow minded, not well travelled and usually very young (under 25) Brits here who jump on the anti-American bandwagon.

They're usually idiots, who go round complaining about Americans becasue they overheard someone else say it or because of the Iraq War or something.

Most of them have barely even met any Americans in their lives and don't realise that their own Govt is just as complicit in events in the middle east and that the average american guy / girl isn't George Bush and there is even a 50% chance they never voted for him anyways....

I feel embarrassed as a Brit when I meet these people. When I worked in London it was the common thing, almost a fashion to rant on about how stupid Americans are etc... Whenever I challenged these opinions, pointing out I had American friends and had had a couple of American girlfriends and asked them if they actually knew any Americans or had even had a conversation with one, the answer was usaualy 'no.' When you ask them why they as a Brit are better or why our culture is better etc, they usually can't string anything together other than some naive, misinformed sentence about Iraq and that British tv comedy is funnier...

What makes me embarrased to meet these people is that they are displaying such a stupid attitude by jumping blindly onto this bandwagon and writing off millions of people they never even met yet and assuming this naively conceived notion of their own country's moral (or whatever) superiority, they are not only proving themselves to be morons and are thus worse than the mistaken assumptions they've made about their target, but they also appear to know next to nothing about the realities of their own govt and national history.

Having a bunch of barely educated, nationalistic moronic Brits walking around is the last thing anyone needs....

But again, for any Americans reading this, the people I'm talking about are in the minority, or at least I'd like to think so...

SuperFly · Joined: 09 Jul 2003 Location: In the doghouse

The average American on the street thinks the world of their British cousins across the pond, imo...at least from my experience. It's usually only the embittered world traveler, who has come back from a sour experience in Korea that gets the wrong idea about the Brits. I went to Plymouth back in the 80's and had a wonderful time. It was a great experience sitting in pubs, talking to Brits and drinking Black & Tans (half-and-half)...just a great time. Never laughed so hard in my life.

By the way, I'm originally from Florida...so I guess I'm a 'southerner' haha