Do you think South Africans are being looked down upon?

Question

I've been in Korea for 5 years and always felt as if these Koreans look down on me, because I'm South African. The Americans and Canadians get paid more for doing less and so on and so on...
But hard work recently paid off when I was put in charge of all the Foreign English Teachers at my school. My whole outlook on life has changed. Do you think we are looked down upon or do we have an inferiority complex? And why do we have to prove ourselves to get any respect. And don't blame our leaders. They have nothing to do with how we feel, but they do have a hand in how we are portrayed.

To shoe s: All South Africans from all different races share the same experiences in Korea. I'm not sure about others in other countries, so I won't speculate.

To sonicthehedgefund: Korea places South Africa higher on the list than what you noted. Third after America and Canada. In fact, more hakwons and schools are at this very moment looking for South Africans instead of other foreign teachers. They believe that South Africans are much more likely to finish the job. Check Dave's ESL Cafe and get on board with the latest developements, my friend! The problem is that even when directors are looking for South Africans, they still treat them like sh*t, regardless of race.

Answer 1

Some people can be very ignorant. I once took care of an old French woman, who once in her youth did a short charity stint for the summer in Africa (Ghana I think it was) feeding and caring for starving sick little kids in some rural area. She has never been anywhere else in Africa, but she use to be mean to me and her Zimbabwean Nurse, she'd do things like I'd put the washing on to help out, and she would walk over and say, don't touch that, you'll destroy the clothes, you don't have washing machines in Africa, you'll break it.
I think the final straw came when she took out her coffee machine and filter coffee, cause a friend was coming to visit. She called me over and said, you don't have these things in Africa, so I'm gonna show you how to make coffee now. When I replied that my mother actually had precisely the same coffee machine and brand of coffee as her, she told me I was lying and called my agency to have me fired.
Crazy old woman, but yeah, the only people who don't look down on Saffa's, are the ones who have been in South Africa itself. If they haven't, they think we all live backwards there.
As for the inferiority complex, yes we do have it. If a bartender serves a British bloke the wrong drink, he shouts; "Excuse me, get me the right drink, please. If the same thing happens to a Saffa, we reply with; "I'm sorry, this is the wrong drink."
What are we saying sorry for?

Answer 2

Well, for one "them" is a rather wide brush to paint with... but I shall attempt to bring some common sense into this thread (apparently, it's dead, but one can try). The xenophobia that has reared it's head here is rather alarming, not so much as the humanitarian issues it raises (they are bad enough on their own), but how it is illustrative of the fact that we are finding ourselves in a precarious situation. Foreigners from other African countries are now conveniently being blamed for high-crime levels. This I simply find ludicrous. Did all our corrupt public officials suddenly turn foreign? Is zuma a foreigner? Is Jackie Selebi? Is Tony Yengeni? As South Africans, we do not need anybody to teach us criminal behaviour; we are quite good at it all on our own. Of course it's always easier to blame somebody that's easily targeted (the Germans found Jewish people very useful for this purpose before and during World War II) when you don't feel like doing the difficult thing and put the blame where it really belongs, which in our case means blaming a political party that has become a dangerous liability to this country.

Answer 3

Sorry to have to spell it out, but I do think they are, a bit, especially if they are educated white ones.
People feel they should stay at home and be useful to their country, and that they kind of run away from its problems, and/or because they lost their privileges.

I know it's not as easy as that, I have both black and white friends living there, but that's still what many people think.

Answer 4

Its not necessarily because you're South African, its because you're not Canadian, Australian, Kiwi, British, Irish or American. Foreign language schools always prefer teachers from those six countries - some won't hire you if you're not.

Answer 5

Of course we are. The rest of the world just sees us as some backwards country in Africa. They do not even know what goes on here in RSA

Answer 6

to be honset it has nothing do with your nationality its your race