And, Fortigrun - trust me, the incident with me and my Rawandan friend was totally a racial one. These guys pounded him to an inch of his life, for one reason only - the color of his skin.[/quote]
I’m not disputing that they had it in for him because of the color of his skin, but it’s equally clear that wasn’t the main problem. The main problem was that you were there in the first place.
You escaped because you had some kind of connection with a boss man, not because you were white.
Even the accents from most dialects of British English (except for the less prestigious ones)?
Anyway, it takes a lot more than ignorance to discourage me…otherwise I would have quit long before I had accumulated 4 months of rejections before coming here. However, I don’t think my perseverence means much to the landlady, Taipei Gas Company, Taipower, or better yet, the federal government of the US who loaned me thousands of dollars to go to school and wants it back. Perserverance doesn’t pay the bills. Unfortunately, what does is controlled by people who aren’t willing to hire me.
An update in the job search -
There’s this certain preschool that I always go by on my way home from work. It looks really nice from what I can see: bright playground, kid-sized furniture, free-art art projects in the windows. For the life of me, I couldn’t find any info about it. No phone number on the outside. No trace of it when I googled its name. So I bit the bullet, dressed up in a nice business-like outfit, printed a copy of my CV and cover letter on nice, thick paper and went to the school.
I decided to go in the early afternoon when dismissal would have been finished for their full-day students and the admin would have been relaxing. Sure enough, it was pretty quiet and there were two Taiwanese women sitting at the front, supervising some kids playing in that spacious, colorful indoor playground in the front window. Trying not to show how intimidated I was, walking up to this place, I rang the front doorbell. The two women look at each other and I could feel my self-confidence, what little I had, begin to wither. I put on my best smile anyway and waited for one of the women to come to the door…
Me: “Hello there! I am interested in a position at your school and was wondering if I could leave my resume here.”
CT: “We’re not hiring now. We don’t need new teachers.”
Me: “Oh. Well, perhaps for the next semester if jobs are opening up…”
CT: “Everyone’s coming back next year. We don’t need new teachers.”
Me: (trying not to sound dejected) “Oh. Right. Well. Thank you for your time.”
This morning, I saw their ad on tealit looking for teachers to start working immediately.
This afternoon, I took my picture off my resume and sent it in response to their ad. As a matter of fact, I am no longer including my photo in my cv.
In my job hunt up to now, I’ve sent off my cv, which has been assessed as being well-written by two people who have worked in personnel positions, to more than 18 schools. All of the schools I’ve applied for are looking for people who can start now. On the front of my cv is a professional photograph which obviously shows I’m black. I’ve only received two responses (one of them being David’s Language School which claimed to have filled all of its positions).
Two responses out of eighteen…I haven’t even gotten rejections or cut-and-paste form letter responses of “blah, blah, blah, we’ll let you know”. Just dead silence. Must be the face thing. So to speak. 
They’re missing out big time.
Do you have letters of recommendation included in your CV? You should.
In NY, we have a saying for people like this. “Fuck um.”
peace
For my first job in Taiwan, I sent out almost sixty resumes. It was professionally done and included my photo. I heard back from five places. Hang in there and you will find a school that is right for you.
Maybe professionally done resumes scare them?
Maybe you should try an experiment and see what kind of response you get if you leave off half of your experience and your credentials.
I’m serious. Try it.
Chin up girlie. If a first you don’t succeed…
Got nothing constructive to say, just wanna give you some support. 
[quote=“Persephone”]Maybe professionally done resumes scare them? 
Maybe you should try an experiment and see what kind of response you get if you leave off half of your experience and your credentials.
I’m serious. Try it.[/quote]
This sounds like an interesting proposal…
However, I got one callback and interview because of my experience. I’m sitting in employment purgatory waiting to hear back from them, though. I was told to wait for an e-mail response. 
Don’t stop your search just because you’re waiting for one place to call you back. If they don’t call back, you’re wasting your time. If they do call back and so does the one of the other places you found while waiting…well, hey, you’ve got some room for negotiation. And, if they call back after you’ve taken another job somewhere else, turn them down nicely and stay in touch in case you need them later.
Being in purgatory is no fun, and you’re too good a teacher to be sitting there. Keep your momentum going. Keep putting yourself out there.
Okay, further update…
Got another response through forumosafieds… granted, I didn’t include my photo.
Let’s see…since that interview with the school I’m waiting for, I’ve sent off my cv to another 8 schools. Again, the odds are about the same. Considering it’s my vacation time, I have hardly been sitting around. I had just anticipated being able to do interviews with all this time off (and no money to go anywhere). At least my posting average has increased… 
[quote=“ImaniOU”]
Currently I am looking for supplemental work as I am trying to save money like mad so I can go back to grad school in 2007 and get my M.A. Ed. I’d hardly call myself a neophyte to the teaching industry, but damned if the rejections are not rolling in again. One in particular, from David’s Language School, not only sent me an e-mail saying all their positions were filled (at all four branches I suppose although their ad said they needed teachers at all times), but then two days after receiving their rejection, they put up a new ad on tealit.com. [/quote]
I was assistant manager at a David’s Language School. We hired our first black teacher about 6 years back. He hit on all the students…his co-workers…and his boss. He took home the attendance lists and phoned his students at home asking them out on dates. We fired him of course. Then we hired another guy who had his master’s…in something. I was at a BBQ with him and having some great conversations…until our host’s (the host was a buisness owner and customer of David’s)ex-wife showed up…and then he lost interest in talking with me and got grabby with the host’s ex-wife in front of her children. She was plainly uncomfortable…but he didn’t seem to mind. I tried explaining to the manager that we just had some bad luck with those two…but she became fairly biased after those two incidents.
That said, the smartest guy with the best Chinese I’ve ever heard was a British black guy from Taipei. Too bad I couldn’t get him to work in Chung-Li…he was cool.
I must have missed something here…
I’ve never put my photo on my resume at any time, anywhere.
I’ve always assumed that is the case in any English -speaking country. Seems that I was wrong.
No one in New Zealand at least, puts a photo on their resume. And I have never done that here, nor when I was in Japan or Hong Kong or Australia.
I know Taiwanese usually have photos on their resume though. (And often a potted biography too)
I did it to cut through the racist bullshit, but right now, my need for a job supercedes my desire for directness.
For a teaching job a picture is required so they can verify that you’re not old, black, or (otherwise to them) scary-looking.
I figure they can work out the other two things from my birthdate and my prior experience. I’m no longer giving them the chance discriminate passively. If they want to discriminate, I’m not going to make it easy for them to.
Seriously, I give up. I’m looking into plane tickets home. I’ve gotten my foot in the door for three interviews (by not including my photo on my resume) and every single one of them has turned me down. The double take when I show up and they first see me says it all. The “Wow, we were really impressed by your interivew, but the boss has the final word. Sorry, we chose another candidate…blah, blah, blah…” There must be some form letter being circulated by the MOE.
Nice to see some things really don’t change. 
You know, this shit is going to seriously influence whether or not the U.S. is going to actually put its fist where its mouth is when it comes to defending this shitty little country. And I for one, am not going to cry any tears if China swallows up this place, for exactly these reasons. No one has sympathy for backwards little redneck states, no matter how “friendly” the people are if you’re the right color (and they’re only friendly, after all, if they think that they can get some advantage out of you…what kind of friendship is that?)
I for one would not lift one finger to defend this country. Their government and their businesspeople have proven again and again that they don’t care about anyone but their own selfish self-interest. Let China have them. I do not believe that American lives (and it will be 99% American lives sacrificed…thanks a lot “Allies”) should be thrown away when half the people on this island, at least the elites, would rather escape to Vancouver than defend it. All they care about is money. They don’t care about democracy or principles. I’ve been on this island long enough to figure that out. This island is pure, totally amoralistic raw capitalism. Nobody cares about anything else except how to make a living. They don’t care about what’s fair, about human rights, about civil rights. So obsessed with profit they have forgotten what their conscience, the human soul is worth.
Give me one good reason that I should sacrifice my life defending an island of backwards, redneck racists who are too cowardly to fight for their own country.
[quote=“mod lang”]You know, this shit is going to seriously influence whether or not the U.S. is going to actually put its fist where its mouth is when it comes to defending this shitty little country. And I for one, am not going to cry any tears if China swallows up this place, for exactly these reasons. No one has sympathy for backwards little redneck states, no matter how “friendly” the people are if you’re the right color (and they’re only friendly, after all, if they think that they can get some advantage out of you…what kind of friendship is that?)
I for one would not lift one finger to defend this country. Their government and their businesspeople have proven again and again that they don’t care about anyone but their own selfish self-interest. Let China have them. I do not believe that American lives (and it will be 99% American lives sacrificed…thanks a lot “Allies”) should be thrown away when half the people on this island, at least the elites, would rather escape to Vancouver than defend it. All they care about is money. They don’t care about democracy or principles. I’ve been on this island long enough to figure that out. This island is pure, totally amoralistic raw capitalism. Nobody cares about anything else except how to make a living. They don’t care about what’s fair, about human rights, about civil rights. So obsessed with profit they have forgotten what their conscience, the human soul is worth.
Give me one good reason that I should sacrifice my life defending an island of backwards, redneck racists who are too cowardly to fight for their own country.[/quote]
Mod lang, you just summarized perfectly the way that most of my friends and I feel about this place. You are sooooo right…
Well, perhaps that was over the top. I know a lot of decent, ordinary Taiwanese people and I wouldn’t wish war and death on anyone. But their fucking government, and so many of the sleazy businesspeople here… :fume: :fume: :fume: My heart goes out to the decent, average Taiwanese bloke just trying to get by, because all the people who have any little bit of power are total fucking shits. I don’t know if I’m being hypocritical, but I like my landlord, I like my boss, I like the neighbours that I talk to, I like the kids I teach, I like my friends, but every time I read a newspaper or turn on the TV or hear a story like Imani’s, I just want this whole island to go to hell. I’m being excessively honest and thank god I’ve got internet anonymity to protect me.
right on mod lang. :bravo:
When I’m not on this island scrambling among the ants, I have more hope for the future of this place. When I am here, it’s a totally different story.
ImaniOU: good luck on your search.
Imani - at risk of revealing too much - but you’ve got one of the primo English teaching jobs in Taipei. What gives?
Why not just leave Taipei? Taipei is the area all the noob foreigners flood first. So they can really pick and choose. Out here in Chung-li I can think of 6 black teachers I’ve known and I never heard them complain about finding jobs. One got promoted to head foreign teacher and she had about 8 white foreigners working under her.
Plus you’ll save money on rent, living expenses…etc. Once you leave Taipei. You couldn’t force me to live in Taipei.