In work-related news, I got moved out of the office I was in and into the other one, because I no longer taught any S-level classes (the highest level I taught last term, and some of my very favorite students). The new office, rather than having nearly a balance of foreign and Korean teachers, is all Korean teachers except for Q (who also got booted) and me. They hold meetings in there pretty much every day, all in Korean, and it is very exclusionary. There is some traffic between the two rooms, but not terribly much, and I miss the casual camaraderie of my old office. I have furthermore been saddled with the only computer that can run the bell system, apparently, and the administration has resoundingly failed to line up those chiming little ducks. I have had my desk shanghaied three times during my prep time without warning, so someone could ineffectually poke at the bells. It is an annoyance which, piled on top of the fact that it appears to have done me no good at all to move to the new office, really bothers me more than it should.
I should note at this time, there is slightly more to that story. The assignment of classes in the new term reflects a bias for ethnicity over skill set and education (in terms of focus, not level). There is not one dumb teacher in the whole school, and in no way do I feel the people appointed are inadequate to the job, but I do believe that they were selected without regard to several factors (in at least one case, even their own preference), all outweighed by being Korean American. The school's director waited until we had two Korean American English teachers before - but for G, the most senior of us - summarily dismissing us as able to teach the highest levels. Apparently, Korean Americans are better able to do this by virtue of their Korean Americanness. Having taught one of the classes from which we were unceremoniously booted as instructors, I do not agree. I fell my skill set and areas of study more than qualify me to teach those classes, and what's more, I liked teaching those classes. To be physically dismissed from my office so that people who already speak Korean could be in the room that had been substantially English-speaking and I could sit in the Korean office where I am functionally blind, deaf, and dumb, as well as automatically shift the high-level courses to them without even the shadow of meritocratic consideration, is galling.
It is difficult to convey this in a way that does not seem to blame the Korean American teachers, but I do not mean to. They did not ask for this, and in at least one case, did not want it at all. The directorship has simply slid them into the place it thinks they should fill and thinks should be filled by them. And that's just the academic angle. There was also a special shindig just for the Korean American teachers. Not all the teachers of the levels they teach, mind you, or G would have been invited, too. Just the Korean Americans. For being themselves. I think they're both lovely people, and I do support a good ol' celebration of the special snowflake everyone is (after all, what are birthdays for?), but it is awfully hard to feel good about the place you work when you feel like your director is throwing a party for two people as if to say, "Thank God real human beings arrived, we've been stuck with these lesser races for ages."
I would be more understanding if this were clearly a question of needing bilingual fluency for a certain class, but a) that's not so, and b) one of the Korean Americans does not have that command of Korean. Mostly, this was not as bothersome as it could have been until the special snowflake thing last week. I came here intending to get the experience of being a stranger in a strange land. I expect to be treated as strange and freakish outside of work. At work, where they cycle into a new batch of foreigners every three months, I expect less bias. I wonder if I should not lower my expectations and remind myself yet again that I brought this on myself, I willingly went to a part of the world with some very definite ideas about importance based on some things I have been raised not to believe in. I don't even know if there are laws against discrimination here in the country with the most homogeneous population the world over. I am a guest of South Korea for one year, at the sufferance of Avalon. When does the imperative to self-advocate overcome the imperative to respect your host and its culture?
I would like to be a calm, composed observer of my own situation, but I am offended. Even as one part of me marvels at this first experience of racism against my own race to which I have ever been exposed, another part of me is gnashing its teeth. I have not spoken to the school about my feelings, but there is to be a meeting on Friday where I hope it will be addressed.
I have more than hope for this partly because while I have said nothing, G has not been so reserved. In fact, I got to witness another sociological phenomenon at work: privilege. G is a straight, white male from North America. He came here three quarters of a year ago and has still not learned any Korean more than "this," "that," "hello," "thank you," and "goodbye." He has no intention of changing this, and asking him about it will get you only vehemence and dismissal. Getting racisted (yeah, that's a word now. Why do you think I got a degree in linguistics?) Simply Does Not Happen To Him. He has... made that clear to the administration. I do not think the root of his content is wrong (see above), but his manner is far more abrasive than I myself would intentionally employ. I think, amateur that I am in these matters, his reaction to this and mine, especially contrasted with Q's, who has likewise been booted but is neither male nor white nor seeming to have any reaction to this at all, are a result of privilege in our home environments. Ascribing that word to my motivations makes me feel I am behaving in the worst of entitled ways, but I also find it difficult to pack up all the indignation and stuff it into the "::shrug:: This is Korea." box.
So, to sum up, the school passed over non Korea-Americans to teach the most advanced classes, including classes I taught last semester and which I enjoyed a lot. The director has spent money and time specifically on the Korean Americans in a show of appreciation for getting ready to do the same job others of us did last term (which did not merit any such show at the time). Then, they made my old office only for the teachers of those advanced classes, putting me in an office where the dominant language is Korean, and Q and I are only included when an administrative question arises.
Thoughts, Internet?
* (That's "blah" + "blog", not the independently evolved XKCD word of the same spelling)
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