That sort of thing happens all over. Some call them 'young guns' or something similar. I call them 'granola types'. You know the person I'm talking about--the young 21-24 year-old fresh out of college who's now teaching in places like South Korea or Japan. Yeah, he/she looks like he/she belongs out on some hiking trail eatin' granola and wearing hiking boots.

The granola types have a more 'liberal' reputation back in the states, the source of most granolas. Most have probably written that term paper that talked a mile about the 'evils' of discrimination in any form.

Those same granolas throw that out when they touch down in their new digs as teachers in Asia. Give them the job of finding/interviewing potential teachers at their schools, and they will go with younger people just about every time. They discriminate against the older teachers, yes.

You're right- granolas don't really WANT their schools to hire teachers. They want their schools to hire 'playmates' for them so they go can do 'cool' things with someone else instead of doing those things all alone.

Welcome to the real world. You could open up a store that sells hiking boots in some of countries where granolas are plentiful. Maybe you could even reverse the discrimination practice when YOU start interviewing and give 'em a taste of their own medicine.