I am a native Mandarin Chinese speaker but I was born in the United States and can speak fluent English. I was a law student and I first came to Taiwan trying to apply for my LLM (Master of Laws) degree at Taiwan University, unfortunately my application failed.
Without getting an offers, now I am trying to seek for a job in Taiwan to extend my stay, I tried to apply as an English teacher (I hold a US passport), but they rejected me because the interviewer claimed that I am āChineseā and not a āWesternerā (there is no anti-discrimination law in Taiwan). I can speak English, Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese and Cantonese, I am trying to look for a translation related jobs, what are my chances of finding a job in Taiwan. P.S although I am Chinese but I hold a US passport, I am considered a US national not a Taiwanese citizen as I have no dual Nationalities.
Donāt take this the wrong way (as Iām not trying to be insulting), but your misuse of punctuation and run on sentences kind of indicates that your speaking may not be the accent they are looking for.
If youāve got a US passport and a bachelorās degree then you are able to teach. Youāll have to push yourself because you wonāt look the part, but thereās no legal reason why you canāt teach in Taiwan.
Iāve yet to meet a Taiwanese buxiban owner who could tell the difference between any English speaking accent. It could be a kiwi, saffer, limey, yank or eskimo - they wouldnāt have a fucking clue.
aahz: This is a case where Iād say this guy wasnāt writing fluent Chinglish. The issues with his writing really arenāt that bad compared to what a lot of white Americans (and other native speakers) produce. If there werenāt key words in there telling me of his ethnicity, Iād just assume he was another American. Iām really guessing that if he was born in the U.S. (and has lived there all of his life), his accent is probably indistinguishable from most other Americans. Iād say this really is an example of the laoban just being a cock. I wonāt even write more than that about the laoban. Cock is the word.
His writing sounds very Chinese L-1 to me. Sorry, but there it is. More to the point, there are plenty of unemployed blonde people (native or not, who cares?) around, so why hire someone who looks Chinese?
Go back to school! Try some other programs that might help out your future in law, such as philosophy, business, biology or medicine. Donāt give up on school because one program didnāt accept you!
These are native Chinese pattern errors, not native speaker errors. There is also the tendency to make sentences enormous long things spliced together with commas, as in Chinese:
[quote=āMilitarygamerā]
now I am trying to seek for a job in Taiwan to extend my stay, I tried to apply as an English teacher (I hold a US passport), but they rejected me because the interviewer claimed that I am āChineseā and not a āWesternerā (there is no anti-discrimination law in Taiwan). I can speak English, Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese and Cantonese, I am trying to look for a translation related jobs, what are my chances of finding a job in Taiwan. P.S although I am Chinese but I hold a US passport, I am considered a US national not a Taiwanese citizen as I have no dual Nationalities.[/quote]
But that doesnāt really matter. Itās the color of the passport, not the level of the English that matters. But secondary to the color of the passport is the color of the eyes and hair, and just like gentlemen, buxibans prefer blondes.
Iām an ABC, so I can tell you what itās like. First of all, no one gives a damn that you are fluent in Mandarin. It does not help you land a job, nor does anyone even care. This is Taiwan, and the locals here are extremely racist. The funny thing is, they donāt even understand the concept of racism here. Second of all, itās hard to get a job in Taiwan at the moment. Iām teaching 18 hours a week at a couple of decent schools. What I mean by decent is that they pay me what should be paid to a native speaker. And, they treat me like an actual human being and look past my skin color. There are many, many unemployed teachers and teachers looking for more hours right now. If I were you, I would consider other options unrelated to teaching. It took me an extremely long time to find the jobs I have right now. It wasnāt easy.
Prior to living in Taiwan, I grew up in California. I always thought it would be the white man that discriminated against the Asian man. There would always be some minor events that made people seem racist there. For example, the Rodney King beating. That one ābad appleā made the entire LAPD look racist. Most cops there are just regular joes that are hard working and have families to take care of. Itās a different story here. I used to consider myself Taiwanese. Now, when people ask, Iām American. It took me months of people not calling me for interviews, and then actually showing up for interviews just to have people here tell you to your face that they donāt hire the āAsianā face. I remember one school in particular that pissed me off. Theyāre in Tienmu. I had an interview with them at 9:30 in the morning. It was nowhere near an MRT station. I got lost trying to find the school because the lady on the phone couldnāt give directions worth a damn. It took me over an hour to find the school. When I finally arrived, she was looking at the TEFL certificate and letter of recommendation that I had emailed her. She said, āIām sure you are an excellent teacher, but I had no idea you are Asian. We donāt hire Asians here.ā I looked at her with a pissed off look and said, āSo you couldnāt tell from my last name that Iām not white?ā I took off without saying anything. Since I grew up in California, and I donāt think like the locals here, Iām American all the way. Iām lucky to find jobs at the two schools Iām currently work for. There are not many schools in Taiwan that treat you like a human being. I wouldnāt give up these jobs for anything. Outside of work, life in Taiwan is okay. I enjoy everything else here. You just have to be careful with work related things.
Yup, especially when those jobs related with language teachingā¦I guessā¦ but from the stand point of the school, i will probably doubt a white teacher in Chinese class as wellā¦ but nothing related with racist.
My advice would be to forget about whatever youāre not passionate about. Make sure you have a reason to go to work every morning
iām passionate about teaching, but it is at the point where i am beginning to see the light i havenāt had a āteaching jobā in years, since i moved to Taiwan. I stood in front of a classroom, but it was more about page turning and workbook exercises. So now I have to move into another passion for my job, which will take a lot of work.
If the idea of working in law is crushed because you didnāt get into one program, I wonder if you were passionate about law or passionate about going to that one program.
Find what you love and attack it like thereās no tomorrow. If it fails, at least you worked at something you loved and learned a lot from it. Thatās all we CAN do in life.
Or you can make a shitload of money doing something you donāt like, [strike]as I am in English teaching[/strike], so you can retire early and then do something you like.
Well, there is little choice for me, the only job I could seek for is language related because I am a foreigner. My law degree is basically irrelevant in Taiwan, Taiwan has a different legal system, I cannot apply without a Taiwan law degree or a Taiwan lawyerās qualification.
[quote=āPuppetā]My advice would be to forget about whatever youāre not passionate about. Make sure you have a reason to go to work every morning
Iām passionate about teaching, but it is at the point where I am beginning to see the light i havenāt had a āteaching jobā in years, since i moved to Taiwan. I stood in front of a classroom, but it was more about page turning and workbook exercises. So now I have to move into another passion for my job, which will take a lot of work.
If the idea of working in law is crushed because you didnāt get into one program, I wonder if you were passionate about law or passionate about going to that one program.
Find what you love and attack it like thereās no tomorrow. If it fails, at least you worked at something you loved and learned a lot from it. Thatās all we CAN do in life.[/quote]
What I am passionate about is living and working in Taiwan, however I also have to face the reality, I only have a foreign law degree and it is very difficult for me to apply work in Taiwan. I am strong in English compared to the locals, I should seek for a career according to my ability not merely on my own interest.
A mix of interest and financial reward is fine. Thereās a trade-off for everything, usually not one or the other. I mean you can have a passion for teaching but get paid peanuts for doing it for decadesā¦I doubt the passion would last that long. Change comes fast these days, what worked one day might not work the next.
Iām sure there are some opportunities for foreign trained lawyers hereā¦as there are several on this forum already.
[quote=āMilitarygamerā][quote=āPuppetā]My advice would be to forget about whatever youāre not passionate about. Make sure you have a reason to go to work every morning
Iām passionate about teaching, but it is at the point where I am beginning to see the light i havenāt had a āteaching jobā in years, since i moved to Taiwan. I stood in front of a classroom, but it was more about page turning and workbook exercises. So now I have to move into another passion for my job, which will take a lot of work.
If the idea of working in law is crushed because you didnāt get into one program, I wonder if you were passionate about law or passionate about going to that one program.
Find what you love and attack it like thereās no tomorrow. If it fails, at least you worked at something you loved and learned a lot from it. Thatās all we CAN do in life.[/quote]
What I am passionate about is living and working in Taiwan, however I also have to face the reality, I only have a foreign law degree and it is very difficult for me to apply work in Taiwan. I am strong in English compared to the locals, I should seek for a career according to my ability not merely on my own interest.[/quote]
I hate to burst your bubble, but take it from me. I had to learn this the hard way as an ABC here. Nobody here gives a damn about how good your English is, or how well you teach. Itās mainly about the face. There are many people here who get jobs because they look āwhite,ā and English isnāt even their native language. Most buxibans will hire a white face over our asian faces. Itās all about appearance. Yes, they locals here suck big time. Schools here donāt even really care if the kids are really learning English. As long as they have good test scores and other material to show the parents. Iāve yet to see a school really tell the parents how well their kids are really doing. I have to lie to the parents all the time, and had to even help my students ācheatā so they have something good to show mom and dad.
