Non-PC: Angelina Jolie

One of the wonderful things about Taiwanese women is they just don't understand that a woman can't be beautiful, sexy and intelligent at the same time.

I have heard it is getting better in the west (don't quote me, though), but my generation women were conditioned never to mention looks - looks were the enemy in the fight to get equality. With other women they did sit around discussing what a particular model looked like, but they would never do so with their boyfriend because of the fear that he would immediately devalue them. Of course, as a guy, it went without saying you couldn't say anything.

It came as a surprise therefore when you first got to Taiwan and your girlfriend would sit with a copy of cosmopolitan picking apart the bodies of the models.

"Her nose is a little flat," she would say.

"What," I would reply, because my natural sense of self-preservation told me this was a trick.

"Look. Her nipples are so dark. In Taiwan we like pink ones."

"Really?" I said. "So why is that?" Trying to change the subject.

"Makes you look younger," she replied. "In Taiwan they go dark after you have a child. You know you can get them replaced. It is popular in Japan."

"Which one do you like?" she asked.

"Pink of course," I replied. "Like yours."

"Oh. You lie. You know mine are not so pink. My mother always complain me that her daughter is too rough. That i suit - "

"The foreigner," I said.

"Yes. That i suit the foreigner."

"But they are not so dark..."

We then had about a half an hour conversation about the shade of her nipples and what shade I preferred. During the conversation i contradicted myself a million times, but it didn't matter. It was something that i quickly learnt with Taiwanese girls: they weren't trying to get to the bottom of what you thought, on a mission to find the truth, rather just get a compliment. As long as you started each contradiction with a compliment they were never going to pull you up on it; dump you because they had discovered the truth.

The world was tough. Most people were full of bullshit. Just make sure you cover the cracks, seemed to be the motto.

Anyway, after the years of middle class brainwashing, I think i never really got used to this non-pc behavior. This was my favorite from the wife a few years later:

We were watching The Bone Collector on DVD. In the movie Angeline Jolie plays a uniformed police officer.


I don’t know why she did this movie. It is not really her,” said the wife, referring to the fact that the only flesh on display was above the neck.

“Well perhaps she actually wants to be respected for her acting?” I actually felt rather strange explaining this to a woman. “She can’t get her tits out in every movie.”

“Why not," she said. "She has a great body. You know that is what we expect. It is her."

“I feel your pain," I said. "I will complain to the DVD shop tomorrow...Do you have a trade descriptions act in Taiwan?”