Bad foreigner (2)

By Deauwand Myers

In an unexpectedly controversial piece, "The Foreigner: remixed," (a continuation of an earlier piece, "Bad Foreigner") I wrote that "some" foreigners do all of us a disservice in poorly representing expatriates with behavior they wouldn't dare do in their home countries.

I also said that these folks represent a minority of foreigners in Korea and elsewhere. The vast majority of expats here are responsible people contributing to society, whether it be through teaching, the arts, business administration, journalism, volunteerism, and the like.

Even with these caveats, the brouhaha over that piece proved my point all too well.

Let's just admit it: criticism of westerners, whether it's by Koreans or by a fellow westerner, is sometimes viewed with angst.

Yes, some Koreans, Chinese, and Japanese, for example, are themselves racist and xenophobic. I've written lots about that. There are plenty of verifiable horror stories about foreigners and their Korean employers: unpaid wages/overtime, rank sexism, racism, and multiple and flagrant violations of the employment contract. Yet, that's not the point of this piece, or of "The Foreigner: remixed."

The unfortunate part of being in a minority group is simple, yet profound: the actions of a few within the few can be seen by some as representative of the many. I'm sorry; some foreigners living in Korea and Asia are ridiculous.

Examples of this quasi-racist, or at the very least, ethnocentric self-absorption, by some foreigners can be found at my university.

A little about my primary employment: I'm an E-1 professor. Foreign professors at my university work 14-16 hours a week, and we have, in aggregate, about five months of paid vacation, an adequate salary with a 2-3 percent annual increase in our base salary for cost of living, two bonuses, and free housing, or a housing subsidy. We have one or two mandatory meetings a year, and the administration is pretty fair and easy-going.

With few exceptions, the work conditions here are optimum. And as my late, paternal grandfather used to say, "There's no such thing as a perfect church. And if there is, don't you go to it, because you'd ruin it." Hilarious, and the same can be said about good places of employment.

Yet, some foreign professors weren't satisfied with the aforementioned working conditions. A few insisted on asking for extra, unsanctioned weeks off during the school year to attend car races or triathlons, despite our already generous paid vacation. Those professors in question weren't fired, either, even after they took the extra time in breach of contract, with the university having to scramble to find instructors to substitute for their classes.

Some former professors complained of the scheduling, because the hours didn't comport to their commuting schedule or non-work-related activities, even though they knew the university's location before taking the job, or in some cases, moved far from the university and expected their employers to arrange the schedule to make their new commuting times more convenient. This happened when our weekly working hours were actually lower than they are now: twelve.

One professor refused to pay for the utilities, like gas and electricity, though the university apartment itself was free. Some would abruptly quit, or quit after they received their vacation salary, right before the new semester started.

Question: what job in America or Canada or Britain would allow any of this without swift termination? None, of course. These professors would never expect to get away with the behavior I've enumerated in their countries of origin. But in Korea, all is fair game.

Some foreigners in Japan are no better. Many public school districts stopped directly hiring teachers. They use recruiting agencies instead. These agencies take a substantial cut out of the foreign teachers' pay. Why did the public school districts stop directly hiring? Because some foreigner educators would make loud and unreasonable demands and complaints: about scheduling, location, working hours, lunch menus, housing, etc. Now, all foreign teachers in said districts get paid 30 to 40 percent less, and with few or none of the benefits they would have had if the public schools directly hired them.

Some critics of "The Foreigner: remixed" went much further in expressing their displeasure with it. That I was a "slave" to my Korean "masters," that I'm a cultural sycophant and traitor to the expat community. Interesting how all those "master/slave" critiques came from white men towards me, an African-American.

They found no irony in their metaphors, nor their living in Korea for a decade without a basic knowledge of Korean, nor their posting snarky letters of grade consultations with their students (letters that should be, by law and professionalism, private) on Facebook as an emblem of their power, and the derision they hold for their college students.

Some of us are bad foreigners, and I have no problem saying so.

Deauwand Myers holds a master's degree in English literature and literary theory, and is an English professor outside Seoul. He can be reached at deauwand@hotmail.com.