Here's lookin' at you, kid. Over-exposed by Malcolm.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Monday, September 04, 2006
Moving On
The hectic summer schedule has finally ended and with the end of the summer came the end of my contract; I put in my letter of resignation more than two months earlier which means I am no longer a teacher of English to non-native speakers which means no more obnoxious little brats I've got to discipline, no more tedious lesson plans I have to prepare, and the best part of all no more prick of a boss I have to deal with. Hooray!
In celebration of this momentous event I went out for a scrumptious buffet lunch on Saturday and on Sunday I did what I'd always thought about doing but was to scared to attempt, I shaved my head. And it feels great, let me tell ya! It's so much cooler in the hot and humid climate of Hong Kong. I don't have to shampoo and condition my hair in the shower, I can use soap, don't have to comb it nor blow dry it or wait for it to air dry it before I go to sleep, it only takes one wipe of a towel. It's so effortless that I now can't believe how much time we women spend on our hair in a lifetime compared to our short-haired male counterparts.
One reason I chose this particular time to experiment with an altogether different hairdo (lack of hairdo?) was that I am temporarily leaving the workforce to study Cantonese five days a week for the next two months and then traveling to Southeast Asia the following month before heading back home to Jersey for good. By then, hopefully my hair will have grown to a reasonably acceptable length to land a decent job. The main reason I was reluctant to cut my hair short before was because I thought it would influence my job prospects which I now know after working for some of the most discriminatory people I've ever had the misfortune to meet to be true.
The things that I heard coming out of my co-workers' mouths about the job applicants that were to replace me were disgusting enough to make me want to vomit. And they weren't just racist comments but ageist, sexist, discriminatory against people who were over-weight, pretty much anyone who didn't fit the young, thin, Anglo-looking woman was ridiculed. That they shared their opinions with me I thought was really curious since I of course do not fit their ideal appearance of a teacher. They had known that my last day would be August 31st and by the time I left, they had still not found a teacher because they had rejected so many resumes on account of the applicant's heritage or sometimes even because the person had a foreign sounding name even though their nationality may have been from English speaking nation.
They had considered a former hairdresser with no experience teaching over a Mexican-American male named Sal with a BA in child development. It was baffling. Stephen, the center's self proclaimed "principal", interrupted my class to ask whether the name Sal was a man or a women's name. (They believed that men would not be able to teach kindergarten.) When I asked Candy, the assistant what she thought of Sal after his interview, her face contorted into an ugly expression when she commented, "He look... no good." "Oh, you mean he's ugly?" "No, look Pakistani or something..." "Ah, huh... I see..." And that was the end of that conversation.
But, now it's all over and I don't have to worry about any of that anymore. I'll be getting up tomorrow at 6:30 (I hope) bright and shine for my 9:00 Cantonese class in Wan Chai. Hope all goes well.
In celebration of this momentous event I went out for a scrumptious buffet lunch on Saturday and on Sunday I did what I'd always thought about doing but was to scared to attempt, I shaved my head. And it feels great, let me tell ya! It's so much cooler in the hot and humid climate of Hong Kong. I don't have to shampoo and condition my hair in the shower, I can use soap, don't have to comb it nor blow dry it or wait for it to air dry it before I go to sleep, it only takes one wipe of a towel. It's so effortless that I now can't believe how much time we women spend on our hair in a lifetime compared to our short-haired male counterparts.
One reason I chose this particular time to experiment with an altogether different hairdo (lack of hairdo?) was that I am temporarily leaving the workforce to study Cantonese five days a week for the next two months and then traveling to Southeast Asia the following month before heading back home to Jersey for good. By then, hopefully my hair will have grown to a reasonably acceptable length to land a decent job. The main reason I was reluctant to cut my hair short before was because I thought it would influence my job prospects which I now know after working for some of the most discriminatory people I've ever had the misfortune to meet to be true.
The things that I heard coming out of my co-workers' mouths about the job applicants that were to replace me were disgusting enough to make me want to vomit. And they weren't just racist comments but ageist, sexist, discriminatory against people who were over-weight, pretty much anyone who didn't fit the young, thin, Anglo-looking woman was ridiculed. That they shared their opinions with me I thought was really curious since I of course do not fit their ideal appearance of a teacher. They had known that my last day would be August 31st and by the time I left, they had still not found a teacher because they had rejected so many resumes on account of the applicant's heritage or sometimes even because the person had a foreign sounding name even though their nationality may have been from English speaking nation.
They had considered a former hairdresser with no experience teaching over a Mexican-American male named Sal with a BA in child development. It was baffling. Stephen, the center's self proclaimed "principal", interrupted my class to ask whether the name Sal was a man or a women's name. (They believed that men would not be able to teach kindergarten.) When I asked Candy, the assistant what she thought of Sal after his interview, her face contorted into an ugly expression when she commented, "He look... no good." "Oh, you mean he's ugly?" "No, look Pakistani or something..." "Ah, huh... I see..." And that was the end of that conversation.
But, now it's all over and I don't have to worry about any of that anymore. I'll be getting up tomorrow at 6:30 (I hope) bright and shine for my 9:00 Cantonese class in Wan Chai. Hope all goes well.
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