For Whites only: Teaching English in China

[ceejay]

behindthewall.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/15/11720584-in-china-english-teaching-is-a-whites-only-club?lite

Byron Vogue, who works for the corporate English training company Stanford English, said that Chinese recruiters will always prefer to hire Caucasian applicants over their non-white counterparts.

“There’s this concept that if you send your children to English class, the parents are expecting their children to be taught by a white English teacher versus an Asian-American or … a black American,” he said.

A post by Vogue on a popular online forum and classifieds site, The Beijinger, explicitly spells out the phenomenon:

“In Beijing this is the general pecking order in terms of a company's recruitment (by Chinese managers):

1. White Americans/Canadians

2. White British

3. White Australians/New Zealanders and South Africans

4. European Nonnatives/Black Americans/Black British

5. American Asians/Black Aussies (Australians) and Kiwis (New Zealanders)/Filipinos/Africans”

The discrimination comes, Evans said, because Chinese parents simply do not believe a non-white person can possibly be a native speaker. Thus, this logic continues, hiring a white person is the simplest and easiest way to ensure that the teacher is truly fluent.

“I was told that it was nice for parents to see foreign or white-looking teachers around the school,” Evans said, adding that he was encouraged to walk outside and greet parents.

Advertisements for English teaching positions are up-front in their bias. A search for “English teacher” in The Beijinger’s classifieds section reveals dozens of ads that include language such as “Job requires American or Canadian white teacher” or “white color is preferred.”

The ESL teaching industry isn’t the only job market in China where being Caucasian is an asset. So-called “face jobs,” where companies temporarily hire a white person to be a fake employee during an important event or business meeting, also are common in China.

Wanna sell something in China? Hire a white guy.

The preference for Caucasian employees angers many Asian-Americans and other English-speaking ethnic Asians.

“It makes you feel like crap,” said Lee. “We all came here on the same boat, at the same time, looking for the same opportunity. I didn’t know the color of my skin was going to be an issue. I find it weird to be discriminated against for being Asian, while I’m in Asia.”

[fernane]

I think this is pretty uniform throughout Asia. My H and I are teaching in Vietnam right now. h is Mexican, born and raised in the U.S., doesn't even know Spanish, yet he gets turned down from time to time bc he's not white. At the moment he has a contract pending with a hotel to teach their staff English, but they wanted to see his resume and want him to do an all day demo to prove he's qualified bc he's not white. We also have a Chinese friend here in the same position, born and raised in the US but faces the same discrimination sometimes. The cultures over here are just like that..their worldview most of the time is only their own culture so it's hard for them to grasp the fact that a race other than white can speak perfectly good English. They are also picky about accents, an American accent being preferred most of the time over a British or Australian; at least here.

[marie427]

I could understand preferring certain accents; you want to be able to fully understand the instructor.

But I am flabbergasted at the idea that non-white Americans are believed to speak imperfect English, as if the only people born and raised in America are white. I guess lessons about America in China don't include the fact that we're a pretty diverse country ethnically?