Well, it has now been exactly four years since I returned from Korea. What a ride it has been, a real learning experience. Here is what I have learned about Canada and the ESL industry in the last four years:

1) Down Homers are the Uncle Toms of the ESL industry. Whenever some scumbag school owner needs a nigger to do his dirty work, it is inevitably a Down Homer. I have seen Newfies and Down Homers do some pretty atrocious shit in the name of their masters over the years; all in the name of their shit jobs that pay shit money. I guess when you have never actually had a job that can pay your bills being an Uncle (or Aunt) Tom has some attraction but some day you are going to have to look in the mirror.

2) The ESL business is absolutely rotten to the core, in Korea, Japan and here. It is the last refuge of scoundrels and thieves. It is not better here than it was in Korea. The schools in Vancouver have proven themselves so greedy that Japanese have basically stopped coming. The last school I had the displeasure of working at had a revolving door and a core of Down Homer Aunt Toms. These women came with a beat-dog complex and went home at night and took their frustrations out on their husbands. Imagine being so chained to the wheel that you couldn’t leave such a hell even if you wanted to. All in the name of making interest payments to a bank for something you will never actually own anyway. I suppose if Export A, hockey and a 24 pack is your idea of a fun it would be fine. Come to think of it, that is the Down Homer idea of fun.

3) The real money is in tutoring. If you are good at it, and most aren’t, you can make bags of cash doing it. Most male ESL teachers have realised this and migrated into tutoring and most are doing very well. With the influx of Mainland Chinese into the West Side of Vancouver, opportunities have never been better. These people are stinking rich and if they like you, will refer you to ever more students. Even if you jack your prices to absurd levels they will keep paying because these people are so rich that it is pocket money to them anyway.

4) Anywhere there is a shit job that pays more than $10 an hour, there is a Down Homer. Look at Ft McMurray. If there ever was blighted place on the asshole of the earth, that is it. Forty fucking below in the winter and sixty-two billion ravenous mosquitoes in the summer. The place is full of Down Homers who think that they are making good money. I suppose of you keep yourself blind drunk any time you are not working you could stand the place. Come to think of it, that is how I coped in Korea. But I digress.

5) What is the motivation of Down Homers? Are they so perpetually whipped that they will settle for 23rd best? Even the educated ones settle for 22nd best and then they inevitably run Down Home as often as they can so they can drop out with their dope smoking buddies. Well, that about settles it. The only good thing is that Down Homers are such whipped dogs they don’t cause much trouble. They sure keep Air Canada busy, too.