Haikou Or Hangzhou For A Black ESL Teacher?

[Pianote]

It looks like it's one of these cities for next semester. How is it for a black woman in the esl field in Hangzhou or Haikou?

I asked because esl in china is terrible for a black person. I don't want to a school and find out they're racist and want to get rid of me because of my skin color.

Also, I would like to work part time jobs.

 

Which city would I have better luck in?

[DavyJonesLocker]

why not try the bigger cities like Shanghai or Beijing? I really think that might the best of a bad lot.

 

It is really shameful to see some comments about black people in China even amongst educated people. It's hard to know if some people are down right racist or just plain uneducated.

 

I do try tell people here that western people do not eat KFC and McDonalds every day of the week. 

[Lu]

Consider applying with a photo attached to your resume, so at least the school won't be shocked when you show up black. (Some of the parents still might be, unfortunately.)

[Pianote]

@DavyJonesLocker There's more competition in the bigger cities. More foreigners means more competition. I fear being fired from a job and replaced by a white person since they prefer white people.

 

I want to know what you think of the aforementioned cities.

[DavyJonesLocker]

1 hour ago, Pianote said:

@DavyJonesLocker There's more competition in the bigger cities. More foreigners means more competition. I fear being fired from a job and replaced by a white person since they prefer white people.

 

I want to know what you think of the aforementioned cities

 

 

Yup, good point, I am not sure how saturated the job market here is in Beijing for English language teachers. I think in the suburbs there must be still a shortage but thats guess work

 

I don't really know about Haikou or Hangzhou sorry. 

[889]

This is just like your question of Hangzhou versus Xiamen. But in this case, Hangzhou even more so. Haikou is by comparison a small deadwater, devoid of any cultural history.

[ChTTay]

In contrast to what you’re thinking here, a smaller city might be more likely to have  parents with racial prejudices because their exposure to foreigners of all types is less than a large city. 

 

Also, it’s incredibly unlikely a school would hire you only to immediately replace you. It’s much more likely they just wouldn’t hire you. The process of getting a teacher a visa/residence permit (or transferring one) isn’t simple or hassle free. From what I’ve heard and seen it’s a fairly expensive and long process with many hoops to jump through. A school is unlikely to go to all that effort only to then fire you over appearance. They should have seen your appearance on your resume (I’ve found they usually explicitly say you need to add one) OR any video interview you might do. 

 

Regarding number of teachers, there is always a shortage. This is of both international, fully qualified teachers and also ESL teachers. The BIGGEST selling point you have is that you’re already in China. Transferring your residence permit is still a lot easier than getting a whole new one. Equally, any employer know you already accepted and adapted to life in China. Of course more desirable places have more applicants but when I worked in ESL in Beijing it was still a struggle to get enough teachers each semester. 

 

As a small aside, you could look to get into online teaching. ABCVIP and other app/iPad based programs are taking serious revenues away from training schools. If you were to become very experienced in online teaching it might stand you in good stead. There are bound to be some affordable or free courses online that cover this. Might be CV enhancing. 

[Dawei3]

Which ever you choose, it would be interesting to hear your experience.  

 

Race is a big issue for English teaching, even for Chinese.  One of my Chinese friends in Beijing has such natural English skills that when we are speaking English on the phone, I sometimes forget that she is Chinese.  In addition, she has excellent presentation & teaching skills & has a college degree.  Despite that she works at an ESL company, they won't let her teach English because the students would think she's not authentic.  She is allowed to teach Japanese (which she also speaks).      

 

It's such a different experience.  The high school & college foreign language teachers I had in the US weren't natives of that language.  

[Flickserve]

13 hours ago, Pianote said:

I don't want to a school and find out they're racist and want to get rid of me because of my skin color.

 

Hmm, there are people around. I have seen two in pictures on social media. 

[ZhangKaiRong]

There are racist people all over China (and also in Korea and Japan, due to historical reasons) - and there is no exact benchmark for Haikou having less or Hangzhou having more. Whichever city you end up working in, you will probably encounter some bad experience, this is something you need to be prepared to face and handle.

 

Out of the two cities, Hangzhou is a lot more developed and have more foreigners. Also the university scene in Hangzhou is much more lively than in Haikou, some of the claimed-to-be-best universities are also in Hangzhou,  attracting a lot of foreign students, including African ones. If you limit yourself to a decision between these two cities, there is a better chance that your average Zhang in Hangzhou will not be so shocked if a non-white / non-Asian person crosses the street. But as I said above, there is no guarantee that everyone will be open-minded and tolerant.

[Alex_Hart]

On 3/20/2019 at 4:20 PM, ZhangKaiRong said:

Out of the two cities, Hangzhou is a lot more developed and have more foreigners. Also the university scene in Hangzhou is much more lively than in Haikou, some of the claimed-to-be-best universities are also in Hangzhou,  attracting a lot of foreign students, including African ones. If you limit yourself to a decision between these two cities, there is a better chance that your average Zhang in Hangzhou will not be so shocked if a non-white / non-Asian person crosses the street. But as I said above, there is no guarantee that everyone will be open-minded and tolerant.

No comment about Haikou (never been) but I agree with this comment. There are tons of black African students in Hangzhou and many of them teach English or French in local schools part time (note, this is illegal in HZ and there have been crackdowns on illegally teaching part time. Not sure how it works for people on working visas). There are also many black American/British teachers. Hangzhouers also pride themselves on being well-mannered and more cultured than people from elsewhere. People will still stare and they might ask insensitive or rude questions, but I think it's likely to be less than elsewhere in China. 

 

I'm sure you've already considered it, but I'll also note that there are other factors worth considering: Hangzhou's weather is awful, it has pretty bad smog, but it has West Lake and lots of museums. Haikou is relatively near nice beaches while Hangzhou is close to Shanghai. While it isn't a Shanghai or Shenzhen, the price of an apartment in Hangzhou is quite high. There are probably more native English speakers in HZ than Haikou, which might be a good or a bad thing depending on your perspective.

 

I also don't think there is going to be any significant difference between Hangzhou'rs and Shanghai/Beijingers in terms of racism. I've heard pretty bad stories from black friends here, but I've heard just as many from those that lived in Shanghai. And you'll just suffocate and die in Beijing so don't go there. 

 

On 3/20/2019 at 1:06 AM, Dawei3 said:

Race is a big issue for English teaching, even for Chinese.  One of my Chinese friends in Beijing has such natural English skills that when we are speaking English on the phone, I sometimes forget that she is Chinese.  In addition, she has excellent presentation & teaching skills & has a college degree.  Despite that she works at an ESL company, they won't let her teach English because the students would think she's not authentic.  She is allowed to teach Japanese (which she also speaks).      

It's such a different experience.  The high school & college foreign language teachers I had in the US weren't natives of that language.  

 

Even worse, you'll find tons of ESL teachers with thick Ukrainian, Italian or Turkish accents here. They "look" white so they get a job, but I'm often barely able to understand them. 

 

But I'd note that my American uni only had native speakers teaching foreign languages - all of my Chinese teachers were from Taiwan or China, and I know the Japanese and Korean departments also only had native speakers. On the other hand, 浙大's Japanese department doesn't have a single Japanese person, and most of the English teachers are Chinese. I'm taking Japanese in China now and I was pretty shocked that a non-native speaker would be teaching a foreign language at the university level.

[Lu]

6 minutes ago, Alex_Hart said:

On the other hand, 浙大's Japanese department doesn't have a single Japanese person, and most of the English teachers are Chinese. I'm taking Japanese in China now and I was pretty shocked that a non-native speaker would be teaching a foreign language at the university level.

I had Dutch teachers teaching Chinese in my university (although I think nowadays most if not all Chinese teachers are Chinese). It can be very useful to have things explained to you in your own language, from a person who has themselves experienced the specific difficulties people with your native language run into. In secondary school, all my teachers of English were Dutch - in fact, I've never had a native English teacher. Same for French and German. All the Dutch courses in Chinese universities that I know of, have a Chinese teacher (and sometimes an additional Dutch teacher). This is very normal and I am a bit surprised that you would be so shocked.

 

Of course for a large part it is a matter of supply and demand: there are a lot more English departments in China than there are qualified native English speakers willing to work in China, and the same probably goes for Japanese. (Although in case of Dutch, I suspect they just haven't really searched. There must be three qualified Dutch teachers happy to work in China.)

[ChTTay]

1 hour ago, Alex_Hart said:

And you'll just suffocate and die in Beijing so don't go there

 

?

[Alex_Hart]

20 hours ago, Lu said:

I had Dutch teachers teaching Chinese in my university (although I think nowadays most if not all Chinese teachers are Chinese). It can be very useful to have things explained to you in your own language, from a person who has themselves experienced the specific difficulties people with your native language run into. In secondary school, all my teachers of English were Dutch - in fact, I've never had a native English teacher. Same for French and German. All the Dutch courses in Chinese universities that I know of, have a Chinese teacher (and sometimes an additional Dutch teacher). This is very normal and I am a bit surprised that you would be so shocked.

Of course for a large part it is a matter of supply and demand: there are a lot more English departments in China than there are qualified native English speakers willing to work in China, and the same probably goes for Japanese. (Although in case of Dutch, I suspect they just haven't really searched. There must be three qualified Dutch teachers happy to work in China.)

Shocked may have been a strong word.

 

Perhaps it's from growing up in an immigrant town - I had a Mexican teacher for Spanish in primary school, a Quebecois and a Haitian for high school French and Chinese/Taiwanese teachers for Chinese in uni. Obviously, I realize not everywhere is New York and there are many cities in different parts of China where it might be hard or impossible to find/attract qualified foreign teachers, but Hangzhou is a large and attractive city and ZheDa is a highly ranked uni within China, hence my surprise.  

 

Of course, you may be correct in suggesting that a professional non-native teacher might be a good thing (assuming they're fluent, e.g. not like the ESL teachers at all the local 培训班). I'll withhold judgement as my Japanese class is not taught particularly well. ? 

 

Quote

(Although in case of Dutch, I suspect they just haven't really searched. There must be three qualified Dutch teachers happy to work in China.)

?

19 hours ago, ChTTay said:

20 hours ago, Alex_Hart said:

And you'll just suffocate and die in Beijing so don't go there

 

?

I slipped that in for Davy, but you'll do. ?

[DavyJonesLocker]

32 minutes ago, Alex_Hart said:

I slipped that in for Davy, but you'll do. ?

 

I must admit I would like to go somewhere else now but the situation doesn't allow it. Shame 

[Midnight Velvet]

I am a bw from USA. Let me just start by saying anti-blackness is everywhere in the globe. You have to migrate your way through all the nonsense. There are 7.5 billion ppl on this planet. EVERYONE will not like you thats fine! Get rid of this mindset because it will cause you to limit yourself and possibly have a nervous breakdown. 

I taught in Shanghai for 6 months. Initially my center director did not like me; she was very cold towards me. Even the first day I showed up to meet her, I was elated. My center director looked at me disdainfully. After she saw me working hard and I was super zealous of promoting the schools mission, I gained her respect. After 1.5 months she told me if I had any friends from USA, invite them!

-There was even a time my center director told me I was scaring the children. I shrugged it off because I knew ALL the children loved me. (Laoshi Deborah! They greeted me every class session with hugs and affection). Even the parents wanted their children switched to my class because I was such a fervent teacher. This made my center director gravitate towards me more. 

 

-The other FT at my center she is a white lady with Middle Eastern background. She was gorgeous but her and I were not in a beauty contest. Her teaching style was very cold. If she could, she would have accepted a paycheck for FREE. She literally showed up during her schedule and did the least. I remember we came in for office hours at 1400 and classes started from 1645 to 2000. At around 1600 she would ask the local teacher "which lesson are we teaching today?". She literally used all her preparation time to play games and chat with friends. As a black person, do understand we have to work twice as HARD. I was essentially a yes-man. Every favor they required of me (that was in my means), I did. We can eventually change the mindset of some people, but it will take time. 

[ChTTay]

@Pianote Did you ever move to one of these cities? How’d it go?