|
(from the Star Ledger for full article and pictures please click above)
As an American, this is hard to admit. The hardest-working, brightest kids at the Jersey Shore are from Eastern Europe and Asia.
While American kids chase Snooki and Pauly D with cellphone cameras, kids from Moldova and Romania run the Tilt-a-Whirl and Wild Mouse. While American kids drop Jager bombs and do Patrón shots and slur their words, kids from Turkey and Taiwan serve Kohrs ice cream and make Three Brothers pizza and perfect their English.
“I came to make my English better, of course,” said Vania Vladimicova of Bulgaria, who was spinning the ukulele wheel on Casino Pier in Seaside Heights. “It will give me a big advantage in life.” Vania is only 20, a pre-school education major at Sofia University. This summer experience is her first time out of her country. Her English? Already better than the cast of “Jersey Shore.”
Same with Asa Hsueh, who studies fashion design at Fu-Jen Catholic University in Taiwan. Her English is impeccable. Asked if she grew up in America, she said, “No, but this is my second summer here.”
From the sunglasses kiosks at Parkway rest stops to the Doo-Op Motels in the Wildwoods, the foreign students are the force behind seasonal shore labor. They work boardwalk piers and lifeguard at waterparks. They are waitresses, busboys, dishwashers and hotel maids. They scoop ice cream and sell t-shirts. All without attitude. The word polite applies.
“Of our 1,600 seasonal employees, 750 are foreign students,” said Denise Beckson, who makes all international hires for Morey’s Piers in Wildwood. “We couldn’t run the pier without them.”
The students at Morey’s, and thousands of others, are vetted through the Council on International Educational Exchange, an agency started at the U.S. State Department’s urging after World War II. The students must speak English well enough to communicate with the public, and submit to interviews and background checks at their country’s U.S. Embassy.
“It takes an organized person to get through the process,” Beckson said, in explaining the poise and intelligence of foreign students. Some larger U.S. employers, like Morey’s, then travel overseas to interview CIEE-approved students. “We go to job fairs at the universities,” Beckson said. “This year I went to China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Ecuador this year.”
Other Morey’s employees interviewed students in Bulgaria, Jordan, Egypt, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine and Russia. Those who do not make the CIEE cut come on their own with work visas. For all of them, is it the chance to see the America that has drawn so many before them.
“I like the American culture,” said Ognyan Chikov, a telecommunications major at Technical University of Sofia. “I like the fast food. I like the big cars with the automatic transmissions. In Bulgaria, the cars have small engines.” Maria Cheplya, who studies tourism at Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia in Moscow, has used her Wildwood location to venture to Washington, D.C. and New York City on her off days.
“In Washington, there is so much history. In New York, there is so much life! I love the American cities.” The students work 40-hour weeks, and bunk up in threes and fours in shore town boarding houses. “We have four people to a room,” said Abdel Rahman Sadek of Egypt. “It’s fun. We’re like a big family of people from different cultures.”
“I came alone, but I’ve made friends here,” said Julia Kucherniuk, who is studying international economic relationships at Kiev International University in Ukraine. “We come from all over, and we manage to get along.” The reality is, most smart people can. Function over dysfunction. Maybe someone should make a show about that.
 
| 
