I found this fascinating, that the phenomena so familiar to us here in the K is being repeated in China, the cultural motherland… perhaps that’s absolutely predictable, and we’ve heard some about this from bloggers before, but this is the first official media story I’ve seen on it:
It’s a new twist on globalization: For decades, Chinese made their way to the West, often illegally, to end up doing dangerous, low-paying jobs in sweatshop conditions. Now some foreigners drawn by China’s growth and hunger for English lessons are landing in the schoolhouse version of the sweatshop.
Read the full article here.
I wonder if we will start getting competitive comparisons, as to which nation’s schools are better at abusing young Western English teachers, who is the true “hub” of bad working-conditions and broken contracts… :-)
12 Comments
I personally think this is great news.
After years of being looked down on as suckers and fools by our expat brothers and sisters in Japan, now we finally have our own bunch of stupid idiots to look down on.
Really, what kind of moron signs a deal with a commie and expects it to be honored?
(See how much fun this can be? Now all we have to do is wait for the news that some guy from Vancouver got busted for growing pot.)
Sounds like some of those young English teachers in China are really pushed right to the ledge.
The couple left behind books, 200 DVDs and most of Davis’ winter clothes — now all too big for her because she had dropped 33 pounds from her 5′1″ frame.
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Good place to lose weight if you have weight problems.
‘Seems rather naive, but, I sometimes think these young people treat this as some sort of long vacation and wind up in this mess.
Well, sometimes when you’re looking for adventure, you find it, I guess. Not much recourse in a foreign Country not known for human rights.
Seems to me that’s why most everyone gets into messes here in Asia.
“China, the cultural motherland”
That’s equivalent to saying America is the cultural motherland of Canada.
Wow, this is like the Gum San thing of the late 1800s thing in reverse.
But look on the bright side, foreigners. If you had a choice between being a 19th century Chinaman laying railroad tracks in the wild, wild west where the idea of law or justice was whoever was quicker with the revolver or being an English teacher in 21th century China, which would you choose?
Privates
BJ: If you had a choice between being a 19th century Chinaman laying railroad tracks in the wild, wild west where the idea of law or justice was whoever was quicker with the revolver or being an English teacher in 21th century China, which would you choose?
Definitely the railroad worker. For one thing, the Chinaman (Chinese, Korean or otherwise) got paid more money in Gum San in a single month than he did in several years back home. In the case of the Korean Chinaman, even more, since Korea was way poorer than China back then. The American kids in China are getting paid a fraction of what they would have gotten paid back home, and the plumbing isn’t quite up to First World standards.
Bluejives,
“If you had a choice between being a 19th century Chinaman laying railroad tracks in the wild, wild west where the idea of law or justice was whoever was quicker with the revolver…”
Or, you could run off to North Carolina, get a job working for U.S. customs, get some local Confederate general to pay for your college education, be ordained as a Christian minister, return to China, go into the bible printing business, and resign from your ministry to pursue business, have three daughters, and marry them off to the likes of Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek, and H.H. Kung.
Yep, America was a land of zero opporunity for any 19th century Chinese. Unless you called yourself Harry Soong. ;=}
Good point…
For the young Westerners, it’s also about opportunity as much as “vacation” — for almost 20 years they’ve been taking jobs in China at relatively very low pay, just in order to get exposure to China, experience in it — looking toward their future in international business (or as a Christian missionary, or whatever). There is some of that with Korea, too, surely. China is just so globally famous that lots of people will work there for only survival-money, just to have the chance to be in China.
I had heard that they were usually being treated well, beyond the salaries ranging as low as $200 per month (plus housing and transport, however) — this is the first big official report i’ve seen of Korea-style abuse of teachers — tho i suppose it was entirely predictable, in view of the entirely materialistic and gangsterish nature of post-Communist Chinese society…
> gaemee from New Zealand
> “China, the cultural motherland”
> That’s equivalent to saying America is
> the cultural motherland of Canada.
No, it’s not in the least, not even close. Quite obviously,
merry old England is the cultural motherland of Canada, USA,
Australia and New Zealand all (tho there have been other
influences adding on in each, England is the main source).
Just as China is the cultural motherland of Korea (tho there
have been other influences adding on, including original roots).
I don’t understand what point you are attempting to make,
gaemee — if there was one, please clarify.
While some young people probably do go to these teaching positions looking at it as a vacation and not a serious job, I think its reasonable to say that even if they did go there for less than serious reasons, under some of those conditions anyone would find reason to protest, and its not as if you expect to have your life threatened for saying you’re being overworked. I’ve been thinking about doing a program like that to practive my Chinese and learn more about China firsthand, but this makes me wonder. But! I have been wanting to lose weight…