Earthling, I wasn't arguing about whether, students or schools in China prefer native or non-native speakers. If you look back at my post you will see that I in fact agreed with you that native speakers are generally preferred in China. That's an unarguable fact.

If I'm correct, the crux of your argument, is that you believe the reason why native speakers are prefered is because non-natives cannot easily teach Western culture. This was the point I was arguing. In fact it's a valid point on the surface, but after thinking about it a bit more I decided to state my disagreement with this view and gave reasons why I disagreed. Please let me reiterate.

Firstly, I again agree that if an FT is specifically teaching a course on Western culture it would perhaps be a bit more difficult for some non-native speakers to teach. I think most people will agree though that the great majority of English classes taught by FTs in China do not really focus specifically on culture but simply on teaching the English language itself.

That has certainly been my experience throughout the four years I've been teaching over here. Because of these reasons I think you are putting too much emphasis and importance on the teaching of Western culture in China.

Secondly, even in cases where the teaching of Western culture is a prerequisite and is a specified course in a school, as I said before I believe that many non-native speakers who have spent a considerable time studying or working in the West would not have to much trouble teaching Western culture to Chinese students as long as they were capable teachers, and speakers of English.

Thirdly, those non-natives who have spent a considerable time in the West in some aspects would actually have an advantage over many native-speaking teachers of ESL. First of all they can identify with the difficulties of studying and learning English with all it's grammar rules. They can also relate to the students by letting them know how they were able to cope with such things as prejudice, doing business, finding a decent place to live, and finding the right school to study in etc., not to mention all the other 101 things involved in going to another country to live, work and study.

I agree that it's a fact that native-speakers of English are preferred when it comes to teaching ESL in China, but when it comes to finding out the reasons for this I think it's not because non-natives find it difficult to teach Western culture. We have to look elsewhere to find out the reasons why Chinese schools often reject non-native speaking teachers of ESL.