He came from North America and is teaching 'proper English' in a language school in Singapore. She came from Jilin, China, teaching 'authentic' Mandarin at a local childcare centre here. Both are here for many reasons. His employment was due to the fact that there exists a preference among the expatriate community for their children (and themselves) to be educated by native English speakers. Her employment was due to the reason that there is a lack of local Mandarin teachers, who are willing and qualified to work under a miserable paycheck while running around the classes in the school facilitating language development (Mandarin) in an effective yet interesting manner. Both of their employment arised out of the fact that we have been perceived to be unable and not good enough for the job. Indeed to a certain extent (as much as I take pride in our language diversity), I agree that good language teachers are rather hard to find, especially when it comes to the Early Childhood Industry.
The former probably has a Degree in I. T., and the latter has a Degree in Education, specialising in Early Childhood. They have been here for awhile now, away from home and working in another country as expatriate teachers. However even as we see them in that light, the way they have been treated are totally different. Their living and working conditions are poles apart and it makes one wonder why? Does it have to do with a slight amount of racism and prejudice? Or have they been treated (and paid) according to the standards and cost of living in the countries they come from? The teacher from China has to tolerate long working hours while having a relatively low pay and at the same time deal with randomly ignorant Singaporeans who have been treating her (and counterparts) like a second class human being just because she speaks with a northern Chinese accent and is clearly from China. The North American teacher on the other hand enjoys a comfortable salary while work is not as taxing and people do not view him with tinted lenses. If you want to talk about passion and experiences, even though he might smack me on the head if he is reading this right now, I must say that she will certainly put him to shame anytime.
So one rainy Sunday afternoon, my Chinese teacher and I were on our way to our supervisor's wedding lunch at Goodwood Park Hotel from Orchard MRT. We walked past Marriot Cafe and saw the usual crowd of foreigners slowly enjoying their glass of wine, cup of tea and coffee, as well as some enjoying their cigar. I couldn't help it but wonder aloud why being a foreign professional, her world is such a contrasting opposite. She just gave me a humble smile that spoke a little of sadness and I responded with the same. However that sense of unfairness has never left my heart and mind even til today.
Guess my empathy came from personal experiences working in Shanghai with my foreign counterparts.
A good friend of mine from Scotland who I used to work with in the same school once commented to me that he hated children and teaching them as well. It was a genuine remark. Hearing that from the mouth of a senior teacher who had of course, a fatter paycheck than me plus alot more respect from the parents and staff, somehow filled me with a sense of injustice for a moment or two. I remember telling him to quit then, and let the people who genuinely want to teach do it. Competition was (and still is) high in Shanghai and many people would love to be able to teach as a native English speaker. Most of the time they just had to be white and they could pass off as one. As for me, it took great trouble even getting an interview because of my Asian origins. Even when I managed to secure a teaching job, it was not easy initially as discrimination was apparent ("We paid for an English teacher and you got a yellow skin lass to teach our children?" and "You were lucky because your ancestor migrated to a colony of the English and hence you are now equipped with the language. However that is not the reason why you should be getting an 'English' paycheck."). Even though the outward discrimination disappeared eventually for me, many people still did not think that Asians should be hired to teach English. Of course, my experiences in Shanghai was great and life was not too contrastingly different to that of the non Asian teachers'. Still, treatment was different if you think about it and had I been petty and overly sensitive about the whole treatment issue, I would not have stayed in Shanghai for 2 years.
Coming back to the local issue, all of these experiences made me value colleagues who put in effort to make a difference as teachers. I am sadden to hear that a good Chinese teacher will probably be leaving this country as soon as her contract ends, because the high cost in living is simply killing her right now. She came here with the fallacy that she would be more able financially provide for her mother but apparently she, like many others, found out that this wasn't too true.
Strangely, it seems that our country 'needs' native Chinese speakers who have the ability to teach and endure long hours of work at the same time but no one is willing to pay a little more to keep them here. Instead, people are more willing to pay shitloads of money to native English speakers who might well be just passing by before going to another third world country to teach. For some of these native English teachers, passion and knowledge is sometimes not part of the package. So I don't know... what are we paying for? What DO we want to pay for? Superficial package such as skin colour or knowledge and effort?
I leave it to you to decide.
Maybe we should also look into the possibilities of training more dedicated and qualified language teachers locally as well. I am sure that given the time and chance, any teacher who is so passionate about his or her work will gladly welcome training and improve his or her skills in terms of teaching approach and language fluency. Outsourcing afterall, is not the long term solution, while locals are left out of the lobang. They will eventually pack and go too, like some of my friends who have been given sponsorships to teach and study in Australia and New Zealand over the years by early childhood organisations and kindergartens there.
When that happens, some big man will start to complain about brain drain. What a bother.
(Pardon me for my 2 cents worth of rant yet again)
Strangely, it seems that our country 'needs' native Chinese speakers who have the ability to teach and endure long hours of work at the same time but no one is willing to pay a little more to keep them here. 