You say China, I say I'm worried about your students

One of the jobs I'll be starting on Monday is as an afterschool teacher at the local Kaimuki HS, literally a hop, skip and a jump away from home.

These afterschool global studies classes are run out of an organization called Pacific Asian American Council, and essentially they're a seemingly pretty cool nonprofit that promotes greater understanding between international affairs as it relates to Hawai'i's state, economically, politically, socially, and otherwise.

I went to a conference they put on today, just for the heck of it - if I'm going to be a part of this and meet great people (mostly older, white teachers - that's haole folk, for the local language-impaired, like me) I might as well take what they can offer.

Long story short - the conference was on China - 4 workshops on different topics. One of them was on the pop music culture in China, and I swear, there was this one teacher - a few even - who was saying the most ridiculously ignorant things. Things like, "what? Rock music? I didn't even know Chinese people did stuff like that!" or "yeah, I think Chinese students - quiet, you know, whatever, but they're totally not all punk like this!" or, my personal favorite - "when I saw your name, I thought you'd be you know, a typical Chinese professor, but then you walk in with your long hair and your Aloha shirt...."

I was seriously ready to shoot someone.

(in the figurative sense of course - you never can be too careful with these blog expressions)

It just made me think, at first reaction, what the fuck are these people doing here then!? You have these horribly stereotyped images of your students, and you expect to be able to teach them anything!?

I was disgusted.

I admired the lecturing professor for addressing her directly, acknowledging her dumb comment, and saying "then it's YOUR job to undermine those assumptions and stereotypes." I was just like, THANK GOD, but I would've been happier if he just told her she was an idiot.

Anyhow, so as not to socially and openly alienate everyone else there, I cooled myself down and tried to tell myself they just had a lot to learn, and were probably doing good work at their respective high schools.

Whatevs, I just had to share. Welcome to adjusting to White people in Hawai'i. It's a shame the educational system here is so problematic they have to bring more of them in here!



hahaha am I racist or what!? well shit. At least I can admit it.