*Sigh* Julia lost her ESOL teaching job due to declining
number of students (fscking vocal redneck politicians
scaring off our asian clients / fscking high NZ$ / fscking
backward study visa requirements / fscking anti-asian
policies)
Actually the situation is, unsurprisingly rather more complex than only those reasons mentioned. I have a mate who owns a school up in Wellies, who spends most of his time in China now doing marketing. In fact, the Chinese government is very pissed off at losing billions of dollars each year to foreign country education providers and is persuing an active slander campaign against NZ. We are easy to pick on, as we are of no consequence to them. We get ridiculously unfavourable press, when exactly the same things (schools going broke, extortion, etc) happen in Oz, US, GB, etc, and we are still cheaper than there...
Check some of the English language Chinese dailies (howz that spelt?). Its annoying, but I think you will find that there are plenty of racist policies everywhere, especially in our "competitors" countries. And for Pete's sake, have a good read of the visa requirements for other countries before slagging off at ours! We have unbelieveably lax immigration laws - I know, because plenty of mates are now carrying NZ passports. Three years and you get a passport. From arrival to citizen in three years, and that is not even if you get married (2 years). This is unheard of anywhere else (except maybe Canada). Everywhere is becoming more strict though, and by Jesus they need to be... I think you will find even Asian-born kiwis, once they have their passports of course, very often want to slow specifically Asian immigration. Too many too fast from ANYWHERE is a bad thing.
Anyway
Cheers
Anton
ps, and your reply-to is set!
-=-=- ... Always store beer in a dark place. -- Lazarus Long
