Authentic 외국인

There's an interesting type of discrimination among the foreign teacher demographic here in Korea: one gets paid differently based on the value of their race and nationality. Being American or Canadian can sometimes net you a higher salary than an Australian or Irish with the same qualifications, and being a minority can sometimes get you refused altogether.

Why? My guess this that it's because Koreans focus a lot on what is "authentic." You can see it all over. "Authentic" Chinese food (though it's not), the vestigal argument about which Korean government is truly legitimate, and "the one right way to teach a class" are some examples. You can also see it in the way Koreans use Chinese characters (漢子). Though Mainland China overhauled its writing system forty years ago to make things easier for the common man, Korea steadfastly adheres to the traditional writing system (as does Taiwan). From their point of view, you don't just change something because it's hard. You learn to deal with the one right way to do things.

For "authenticity" concerns, Western countries' minorities are rarely hired, and American accents are preferred; it's hard to find an English teacher of African descent (whether American, English, or Canadian), let alone a Latino. Those of Korean descent are sometimes hired (their A-4 visas make it easy), and I have friends who are Filippino-Canadian and Chinese-American who are both teachers, but their nationality and accent mitigate their minority status.

I met a Samoan from New Zealand once, but you'll never find an Indian teacher, no matter how clear their accent, nor will you see a colored or black South African. Non-whites are not as "authentic," and most hagwon directors will stick with hiring a white foreigner rather than risk ticking off the students' parents. If a parent feels they'll get a better education for their 천원 (about a dollar) somewhere else, they'll pull their kid out.

This isn't the case with every school or hagwon -- obviously, since I've met some of the exceptions. I'm talking about the trend. My school, for example, has 12 foreign teachers, all of us white North Americans. My last one had two Irish and three Americans, all white. Of the fifty or so foreign teachers of various nationalities in the Suji area, I remember seeing only about one or two non-whites during the whole year.

In the heterogenously cultured West, we're taught that race is immaterial, and we legislate against racial discrimination. If anyone believes differently, that person is decried as racist. It's a societal necessity to prevent one group from becoming second class citizens (not to mention it's right) .

Anyway, in spite of the public relations expediency in hiring only whites, I think hagwons collectively do a big disservice to their students by not hiring more minorities. Western countries generally have high minority populations, and each one has adds a valuable experience to its country's cultural heritage. To focus exclusively on the "authentic," white experience is to dismiss everything Western countries have learned in the past 200 years.

Maybe I'm exaggerating, but I wonder what my students would think if they one day travel to the U.S. and have to pronounce a name that's not typically "white." At the risk of sounding too racially conscious, I wish I had a few non-white coworkers who could speak with authority about their experiences growing up in America (or any Western country, for that matter).

I mean, I can speak from my experience, but what's the point if it's redundant?