It was a perfect question at a perfect time. Back in 2015, I put my mind, body and spirit to the test. In one of the most difficult races of my life, I saw everything flash before my eyes: ewwwww! Black man! Negro! Pimp! Black people are disgusting! — yes, these are the comments that Thai women spewed upon me. Not only that, in 2015, I worked for a company where a dutchman, who is known as a pedaphile here in Thailand, got more praise at a job (how does he have a job being a pedaphile in Thailand is beyond me) than me. 2015 was also the last stint of holding myself to being a victim. It was difficult.
So, like many people, I joined this competition to hopefully get over that mental hurdle. Did it help? Not only did it help, but it opened something within my mind that pressured me to better myself.
If it wasn’t for these redunculous competitions where I put myself through so much agony, I wouldn’t be where I am today, right? Something inside me needed to be turned around. My paradigm needed to change or else it would’ve driven me to pure insanity.
Back in 2016, I still remember working at a job in the heart of Bangkok and they said, “sorry, you can’t teach TOEIC (a test for non-native English speakers) because you’re black and the students don’t like you). I quit that job in a heartbeat and continued searching.
This is why I do these competitions because now I’ve re-created a reality that none of that trash from 2-5 years ago exists. Sure, I get the occasional racist looks, but hardly ever. I stayed away from racist Thai news websites that demonized black people….and now all of that has seemingly vanished. Let’s get into this in my podcast down below!
Arsenio's ESL Podcast 
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