My Everyday English Blog!

              It was my first boss, my first job and my first sad experience on mainland China – this big country with a population more than that of an entire continent. It was in a small town called Yanliang about 50km away from the city of Xi’an.  The school which for personal reasons I won’t name here was an English language training centre. It was owned by a middle-age couple – Johnny and Cathy were their English names.

            It was a nice school, newly opened and facing a lot of competition from rival schools not very far away. So Johnny and Cathy were investing a lot in publicity. When I got hired, things looked pretty promising. More classrooms were made as more students trickled in. I got on well with the students and received constant praises and promises from my boss. I shared a flat with Tony another English teacher at the school from the Philipines. Some parents accompanying their kids to school in the afternoons would stick around to see the new English teacher a lot had been said about in advertisements. They would peer in to the classroom to see what I was doing. Some brave ones who met me in the hallway would ask “Where are you from?” The boss who was always hanging around watching things from the hallway would cut in just in time and answer the curious parent. Tony and I were not allowed to talk about our origins to students as well as to parents. The explanation our boss gave was that it was a marketing strategy. For Tony from the Philipines, he had to say he was Asian but had grown up in Australia or any other developed country. For me, I had to completely hide the fact that I was from Cameroon, Africa. I was a New Yorker.

               At first Tony and I wanted to quit but we needed the money so badly and our visas were running out. Tony said  he could stand it as long as the salary was regular, that he had had a similar situation in another school but to me it was the first time in my life to be asked to deny my origin. I decided to talk to a few African friends about my plans to quit. Some said to me “Welcome to China!” Others laughed at me and said I was stupid. They said I ought to count myself lucky to have found a job. They said I was lucky to have found a school boss that accepted Blacks. These reactions put me into serious thinking. For the time being, I decided to completely avoid answering the ‘Where are you from’ question. But the closer I got to the students the harder it became for me to keep to this decision. The boss took pictures of Tony and I and made wall papers and handouts to reinforce publicity.

            Four months rolled by and the school kept growing. Then a new dimension of the problem came up. The students who had now become so interested in us started asking a lot of questions about New York and America.  My colleague Tony was facing the same problem. The more we dodged the questions the harder and more embarrassing they became.

           I quit that same month after pay out. Tony continued but quit two months later. I decided to head for Beijing. The decision called for laughter again from my friends when I tod them. They said Beijing was the last place I could dream of ever having a job in because only Whites could teach there. So now it was not being American that mattered anymore. I now had to be White. To prove this requirement friends referred me to ads online like this one:

 -10000-13000 per month
-work visa provided
-Full-time native english teacher needed
-work in Yizhuang 6 hours per day
-Native english speakers(American Canada England)
-White person
-Former kindergarden experience needed

anyone who interests please send us ur CV and PHOTO to hr@chinawaijiao.com

any further information please contact Ben 13911211178 or 51660822

      It was so painful to think that teachers were hired not because they were qualified but because of their color. Yes, you want your English teacher to come from English speaking countries. That can be understood to an extent but – that the teacher should be White! I don’t get it.

     * Does being a native speaker of a language make one a teacher of that language?

    * Does having the nationality of an English speaking country make one a speaker and teacher of English?

     These are only two of many questions with contradictory answers about English teaching in China.

     I headed for Beijing against all odds. I rewrote my resume and included these lines in the introductory paragraph: ”I am not from America, England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. I am Black and I am from Cameroon – Africa. I am a trained ESL teacher…” I just wanted to avoid answering calls for interviews beginning with the question “where are you from?” and then the interviewer saying “Sorry bla bla bla….” I attached my recent picture to the resume and sent it out to atleast 50 schools.

The first response I got was from the Principal of a Middle School who congratulated me on my straightforwardness. The next school that called me asked me to do a demo lesson and hired me thereafter for their summer camp. During the summer camp they pleaded with me to sign a full time contract with them but I had found a better job with a Korean International School.

My Dad always says: “if you meet darkness, do not run away, light a candle.”

Staying away from racist persons only promotes racism. Working and living with them, proving that their mentality is wrong helps reduce racism.  A tree goes out in conquest of the sun only with its roots firmly buried into mother earth. NEVER DENY YOUR ORIGIN.