GoKunming Forums

Is this exploitation?

Dazzer (2813 posts) • 0

Learn Chinese by working for food and housing
www.gokunming.com/[...]

They offer a roof and food, and the chance for you to immerse yourself in Chinese culture. NO PAY.
You work in their restaurant for no money but you get to keep the tips, complete with a list of duties.

Other locals miss this fine opportunity in an area where work may be hard to find. Paid work, by the look of it is even harder to find.

This 'opportunity' may even be illegal.

Perhaps I should open a nunnery. Free bed and bawd for young women.

bjtokm (193 posts) • 0

haahaha there is no tips in china!! I am looking for someone to work for me for free as well! What a bunch of cheap asses! How much do people pay waiters in yunnan? 1k-2k,,,hahaha3k a month at most.

Dazzer (2813 posts) • 0

It is a 'French cafe wine bar'.
More about white faces than internship opportunity.
I can hear the conversation now, "If anyone asks, say you are French, you all look and sound the same to us".

Shanghainese boss, hmm.
Smacks more of opportunism than opportunity.

Canuck11 (11 posts) • 0

Exploitation for sure. Same goes for all those "homestay" programs in China. They tout cultural experiences and language study to naive foreigners overseas. But if you read the subtext, whats really happening is underpaid or work for free English teaching.

chris8080 (226 posts) • 0

It's not exploitation. Exploitation implies forcing or pressurizing someone to do something they don't or ought not to want to do. For example, in exploiting slave labour usually the slaves don't have much choice about it, and they probably don't enjoy what they do. But if a foreigner were to go for this position, however dumb it may seem to me and you, they must have their own reasons for doing it, and must get something out of it. So everyone's a winner. Fair enough.

chris8080 (226 posts) • 0

But I agree some homestay programs can be exploitative - you naively think you're going to stay in a Chinese family to be immersed in Chinese, when actually you end up having to be a free Chinese teacher, and the rest of the time only hearing them speak Kunminghua.

chris8080 (226 posts) • 0

For that it's best to go to Beijing and a family without kids.

p.s. in previous post i meant "English teacher" !

GoK Moderator (5096 posts) • 0

Some people may naively come a long way, and spend a lot of money getting to there.
Only after they have been there a few days, may they think that they have been duped. If that is the case, they may also feel exploited, especially if on a travel visa and not enough money to stay somewhere else.

Canuck11 (11 posts) • 0

I don't think of the word exploitation as implying force. Just semantics I guess, and it doesnt really matter.

Yeah I had just spoken with a couple folks in a homestay program recently. None of what they said sounded good. So I thought it fit the bill under "exploitation."

I think its in the same vein as those placement agencies that make you pay to volunteer. They're all shams, that unfortunately a certain number of people will not see it before its too late.

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