Black teacher seriously considering whiting up for job interview

Cầu Giấy, Hanoi – Growing ever more concerned that his BA in Linguistics, MA in Pedagogy, and PGCE teaching qualification may not give him the edge it should in Hanoi, black English teacher, Connor King, was reportedly weighing up the possibility of whiting up for his next job interview.

“It’s tough out here,” admitted King, who, having previously taught in prestigious schools across the UK, has struggled to make ends meet in Hanoi, “I see some very talented teachers here, but also these ukulele-toting backpackers waltzing into $25-an-hour jobs, turning up high for demo classes, and wearing their incompetence like a badge of honour – I think I’ve managed to determine the root cause of success though.”

Having left the UK, King had hoped that his proven dedication to the concept of education would be what employers judged him on, rather than the colour of his skin. This comes amid repeated calls from parents for ever-whiter teachers in the classrooms.

“Just out of morbid curiosity, I sat down and did the math,” he added, “At this juncture, I could have invested the money I spent on my education to have undergone pigmentation surgery, being white would’ve inexplicably paid for itself in just a few months of teaching here.”

With untold hordes of crusty, dreadlocked, pasty foreigners descending on Hanoi to suckle at the diseased teet of the ESL cash cow, black teachers like King face fierce competition from people who’d struggle to find work plucking chickens in their hometowns.

Noted ESL kingpin and Caucasian teacher John Johnson stated that discrimination towards native speakers of colour was overblown.

“It’s supply and demand, simple as that,” claimed Johnson, the human equivalent of the smeg that develops under foreskins, “I think they [people of colour] should just be thankful that police here aren’t shooting them,” unlike the US where 31% of victims killed by police are black, despite them making up just 13% of the population, “People may say that I’m complicit in maintaining an obviously racist status quo by failing to speak out against the issue, but people forget – I’m a white, middle-class male – I’m a living god in Vietnam.”

Discourse on the racially discriminatory policies of language centres in Hanoi has been carried out as intelligently as ever across various Hanoian Facebook groups, but for King and other teachers of colour, it’s simply not enough.

“Honestly, at this point I’ve got a big bag of chalk that I’m just going to douse myself in when it comes to my next interview,” he explained, “If you think the sun never sets on the British empire then the sun will never set on how far you can fuck off.”

Many white English teachers in Vietnam take no issue with being fleshy decorations in classrooms around the country, while teachers of colour are routinely rejected on account of parents’ predilection for paler educators.

Speaking on behalf of that sizeable group was former South African farmer Armand Smithson, 24, who fled his country to blunder his way through the Vietnamese capital’s education system.

“It’s paradise here,” he explained gleefully, “Things are just as they should be, with me being paid an inordinate amount for something I’m totally unqualified to do, while qualified people of colour are overlooked, I can’t see myself leaving, ever.”

At press time, Smithson was still unable to spell inordinate.