<< Nachos | Main | Harry Potter in Korea >>

Bleaching your teeth, smiling flash, talking trash, under your breath.

It may surprise you guys to know that Canadians make up a vast proportion of the foreigners here in South Korea. It seems that many of the hagwons want a North American accent without - erm - the American. Sure, there are teachers from the U.S. here, and plenty of them, but as far as I can tell the stern Korean hierarchy goes like so:

1) Canadians
>> perceived advantages: North American dialect, heavily stereotyped ability to withstand cold temperatures, not from the United States.

2) Americans
>> perceived advantages: North American dialect, know all the latest Hollywood hit movies like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
>> perceived disadvantages: official citizen of the country and government that the world loves to hate.

3) Australians
>> perceived advantages: often attractive with crazy-strange blonde hair and blue eyes, speak English (sorta).
>> perceived disadvantages: Don't speak English like they do in 'the movies', loss of exotica factor because Australia is relatively close to Korea.

3) Kiwis
>> Same as Australia, yo, only smaller. Of course, if you tell a Kiwi that, you'll catch shit the same way someone would if they said Canada was a smaller (bigger?) version of the States. Little brother syndrome - a worldwide pandemic.

4) British
>> perceived advantages: crumpets.
>> perceived disadvantages: apparently speak second-rate English despite the fact that they invented the language, calling cigarettes 'fags' repeatedly and unrepentantly, dark history of colonialism, culturo-sexual relationship with the United States.

5) South Africans
>> perceived advantages: guh?
>> perceived disadvantages: The word 'Africa' is in your country name. Koreans are hilariously racist against black people, despite a big-time emulation of hip-hop culture among the youth. Chad once told me about kids at his school putting together an impromptu lesson on hierarchy: "White people best, then Korean, then... black." Isn't it a pretty fucked up thing when you not only assemble an order of racial supremecy, but specifically one in which you aren't even the top rung of the ladder? Anyway, one of the weekly expressions at our school had to be "Don't be racist" because kids were calling each other negros and everyone was crying.

So there ya go. I didn't invent this order, nor do I especially condone it (although being at the top feels like I won some kind of politically incorrect lottery). But South Korea is crawling with Canadian teachers, and I'm pretty amused to find myself as part of a second-tier majority abroad. However, lots of Canucks have been getting the deportation boot lately for working illegally and drugs and debauchery, so maybe we'll have a reputation as a nation of untrustworthy harlots within a year, I dunno. Nobody loves a harlot.

Posted by Chris at 08:41 AM >> Commentations (3)