It probably is because she's Asian that she is treated differently. As soon as somebody starts pushing their bets by playing the race card, the whole thing gets ugly. If you walk into my office and tell me I should hire you because you are Asian, or in spite of being Asian, I'll tell you to get lost. If you walk into my office and tell me I should hire you instead of somebody else because you have a better education, better training, more experience and you are more professional, you'll be at the top of the list--as long as you can back it all up.

Something that it seems most responders to the thread have forgotten is that employers in China are not restricted in hiring whom they want. If they want to hire blonde haired, blue eyed white folks from where ever it is they came from, they can, and they can certainly ignore the rest. It's entirely up to them. The employers and students are the ones that decide who is a native speaker, and who is not. If they decide they want an English speaker from a western country, with a neutral accent, it's their perogative to find and hire them. If they want to be suspicious of an Asian's accent that it may not be authentic, even if they are 4th, 5th, 6th generation Asian American from California, well it's their loss. Especailly if they decide to go with a loser white guy that's never had a legit job before and just playing teacher so he can see the world. They aren't any more useful to an employer or group of students than is the Asian that speaks English as a second language at a mostly competent level. How useful is a Filipino in an adult conversational English classroom when the book has lessons about--and the students have questions about--life in America or Europe and the teacher says "I don't know.....I've never been there. I'm from the Phillipines."

The whole discussion is really rather ridiculous. There's Asians that are stamping their feet demanding respect as teachers, but can't write effectively--even internet forum posts. On the one hand, they complain about how poorly they are treated when they do get jobs, and quit. Then they complain about being passed over for other jobs in lieu of a white girl from God knows where. And if their English is so smashing, why not just get a job in their own home town and probably live at least as good of a lifestyle as the fancy ESL teacher? And the Americans and Brits and Canadians and whomever else are all uppity and defensive because why? Because you have somebody that doesn't measure up to your standards working next to you? Jeesh, that just makes you look better. The only problem is that you have to pick up their classes when they get canned or leave town in the middle of the night. It's all just a bunch of office politics, and nobody even works with each other! How pathetic.