A new angle on the non-native issue

[newspeak]

Hi all,

I've decided that my first post can be an outline of some of the info I have found so far. As an ESL newbie, I have been looking around for the past week or so trying to find answers. Some of the following has not been covered elsewhere, and so may be of use to someone.

Though I was born elsewhere, I have Canadian citizenship and have native-level fluency in English. As such, I do not expect, nor have I so far detected, any problems with attracting the schools. The destination countries' consulates is another issue, however!

To wit, Korea considers a naturalised citizen to be Native, for visa purposes, if s/he attained citizenship by the age of 12. Unfortunately, this does not apply to me. Hence, Korea is ruled out as a destination for me.
(For the record, I have never found a government site which specifies this. Park English is the recruiter on whose site I found the info:
Park English visa info.

The Korean government sites, G4F of KOREA and http://www.immigration.go.kr, do not specify this. However, a call to the Korean Consulate confirmed this regulation.)

Similarly, Japan's visa regulations require that one has to have completed 12 years of one's education in English in order to be considered Native for visa purposes. This, too, rules me out.
The corresponding regulation is at MOFA: Japanese Visas - Appendix 1: Ministerial Ordinance to Provide for Criteria pursuant to Article 7, Paragraph 1 (2) of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act.

Bureaucracy being what it is, they had to come up with _some_ definition for what "native speaker" means. Alas, this is the committees' best camel!
Moving on!

As I am not exceptionally picky about the destination, I have looked elsewhere. It has been noted in many places that China is open to hiring non-natives, and that that is due to the huge unfulfiled demand in that country. Hence, I will certainly be looking there.
Of particular interest to me is Indonesia. (I go where my stomach leads me; I like Indonesian food! Malay would be nice, too. ;-) To the extent which I have found, their definition of Native may include me. So that may well work out.
Taiwan, too, may have suitable visa regulations.
Would Middle Eastern countries be open? I don't yet know. Either way, the qualifications which some demand is far beyond me. And, since I was born there, I may be subject to the same rejections which fluent speakers of Oriental heritage face in the Far East!

I should note that most posters' idea of "non-native" is those people who do not have passports from the so called Native countries: US, UK, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa. Therefore, I suggest that a distinction may be made by using the term Non-Native for such peoples, and the term Naturalised Citizen for passport-holders of the Native countries who may fall short of some destination countries' visa regulations.

That's it for now.

P.S. I have a degree, and will soon be pursuing a CELTA certificate. Reportedly, the latter is not very necessary for China, but Indonesian consulates want it.