Should Foreign Teachers in China Appear in School Advertisements?
I recently visited the city where I first taught English in China. I was suprised to find the photo of a foreign teacher, who had worked at the school three years earlier, still featured on colorful advertisements which were plastered on billboards and bus stops throughout the city. When I stopped in to visit the school, my old boss told me that soon they would be taking those ‘old’ advertisements down and replacing them with new ones featuring me. That was a surprise. I had not taught at the school in two years. I did, however, distinctly remember being photographed for an advertisement. I had been called down from a class on that day to pose with students in front of the school fountain; but I had never seen the result of the ‘photo shoot’. Some foreign teachers in China refuse to be photographed or videotaped for school advertisements. These defiant teachers complain that they are being ‘used’ by the school unfairly; they say that being asked to appear in advertising is an insult to
