Good day,

Okay, I'm new here. Have read quite a few threads and would like to share my experiences with others. This topic had been discussed at another forum quite often, but is seems that it's a never ending story.

I've been teaching English here in LOS for nine years, worked for an agency, but was mostly directly employed by government schools. And still am.

I've experienced a lot of racism, coming from colleagues from the Philippines. But please read my post, before you come to any conclusions. I'm neither racist, nor do I dislike any people, because of their nationality, religion, cultural behavior, and more.

My first "bad" experience was when the time came to sign new contracts. One of them said straight into my face, that it would be time for me- again- to sell my white skin. She'd just started to teach and was not experienced at all. I wanted to reply, but finally bite my tongue, which was pretty though.

A few years later,. At another school. I had just started and the Thai superiors were positively surprised, as my teaching style, differed a lot to those from the Philippines.

That of course created jealousy,, as I was the only white guy there. One day, I saw the one Filipino, the only male at that school, producing a graph on the computer. I saw names, percentages, and later found out that it was a questionnaire that was given to kids and their parents.

Their evaluation was between 68 and 79 %, while next to my name was the number 16.

I was asking him and he told me that the parents and students had only given me a percentage of 16 % being liked as a teacher, including my teaching skills and ability to "control" students. This graph was meant to be given to the director of the school.

Bad luck for them, as the head of the level, where I taught saw that fake graph. She was furious, went to the head of the English department and started jelling at her.

She wanted to know where this information regarding me came from and it turned out that such an evaluation had never ever happened.

I became the foreign head teacher of that school and they really let me know that I wasn’t welcome at “their” school, as other relatives and friends were already planned for teaching positions.

Using ajarn.com enabled me to find some decent teachers, one of them was a fantastic lady from New York with a Master’s in education. None of them welcomed her, apparently they let her know that she wasn’t welcome either.

They always spoke Tagalog all day long, while we sat there and spoke English in the English department. Anything that needed good English skills had to be produced by us. So quite frankly, we had to do all preparations for seminars, camps, etc…

Any activities on weekends were done only by us two, as they covered themselves with their religious belief that they were not allowed to work on Saturdays.

The American lady quit her job after only eight months, as she couldn’t cope with such behavior. Then it turned out that all five of them had “used” my Thai culture certificate, put their names on and sent it off to Khurusapha to get a new provisional TL.

Their English language skills were maybe less than advanced. Using my document finally lead me to the decision to quit my position.

Please, let’s be fair, I’ve posted this, just to let you know what happened in my teaching career. It was never in my intention to give false information, nor do I want that anybody here on this forum might think that I have false information.

I do have some copies of their fake certificates, as I first wanted to inform the labor department, but then didn’t, as some of them have kids.

A befriended lawyer had told me that two of them wanted him to forge a document that says that their degrees are legitimate, as they haven’t even got transcripts. But he denied to do that.

I’m just curious, if I only had “bad luck”, or if similar things also happen at other schools.

My new “colleague” from the Philippines was without a work permit for the last two years, but the school paid him 5,000 baht for visa and work permit. So he was on his wife’s Non-b visa, who’s teaching somewhere else, for two years, but never told the superiors about that.

No racism, please. Only facts that people have really experienced. Thank you.

Here's one example I wanted to add in my post. One of them came back from Laos to get her Non- B visa. An English guy and I just wanted to know if Filipinos have to pay for visas, or not.

So I started: " When you went to Laos, did you have to pay for a visa to get into Laos?" The woman smiling, looking at me, doesn't get it. Okay,then the Londoner:

" Sorry, just a short question. When you're on your visa run, did you also pay for a Laos visa?" Same smiling face, she just didn't understand easy English.

Then to come to an end, I said: " When you go Lao, you buy visa, or not?" She finally understood that and said no.

I had some similar experiences when working at a primary school in Ubon Ratchathani. They're pretty racist and let me feel how much they disliked me. The guy who took their cousin's job.

I had to go through various backstabbing procedures, but could finally handle it. I've heard that too often that "white people" are making more money, just because they're white.

It's different when people are only in for the money. I decided to live here and have a wonderful family. While others have to send most of their salary back home.

I think they should understand the phrase live and let die. Speaking Tagalog in the English department all day long is indeed strange, also happens at my school.

It's not just very impolite to other foreign teachers, it's also pretty much unfair to the students, who sometimes use a computer and are surrounded by Tagalog.

This should never happen, as the English education should also take place outside of the classroom. When I'm at school, i always speak to them in English.

I'm pretty sure, soon you'll be bombarded with posts from the other end. Good luck.

So, no racism, but please trash Filipino Teachers??

//Closed//