Taiwan culture: Shouldn't need to be said...

Many things in our relationship with our family shouldn't need to be said. Taiwanese it seemed didn't have the same rules.

A friend was discussing with his twenty-eight year old girlfriend about life as a child. He said his parents would give him a hard smack if he was too naughty. He then asked her to the effect of what about you, would your parents hit you?

"Sure," she replied.

"It is really bad," he replied. "I would never hit my children."

Immediately she started to get stressed. The foreigner had kind of indirectly criticised her parents and that was unacceptable - She was Taiwanese and she didn't blame her parents for everything. She tried to put a positive spin on things, defend her parents. "Not anymore," she replied. "They don't hit me anymore."

Expat Culture in Taiwan: How to be authentic

Most foreigners weren't in Taipei working for big banks in expat jobs, they had gone to Taiwan to: find themselves, or have a year or so out of the rat race - or pursue interests; in other words they were suffering from very high levels of needing to be authentic to themselves.

And, if you wanted to be authentic to yourself you had to get out of teaching whether you liked it or not: teaching was our immigrant job and 99% of people were English teachers.

We shouldn't be complaining too much: Chinese immigrants died building railways in the States, Filipinas have to clean floors and our old people; in the history of immigrant jobs English teacher has to about the cushiest number ever - but then again we weren't poor people trying to pay for a starving family but self-important, young middle-class westerners with degrees.

Unfortunately, because 99% of work for foreigners was teaching or editing the English language it was difficult to be authentic to yourself. Inevitably like the waitress in LA who was an actress, years later you would be telling people about your plan to get out of teaching.

The number one way to be authentic to yourself was to open a bar or restaurant. We foreigners went to all the western restaurants opened by the local Taiwanese and complained and criticised about something that wasn’t perfect – but wasn’t actually bad – they could, of course, do better. The number of foreigners who could open a better bar, restaurant or night club than the locals, stood as a higher percentage than the number of English men after eight pints who could do a better job than the England football manager.

Opening a restaurant wasn’t quite as cool as bar, but it was pretty much the next best thing you could do considering the independent, be your own boss lifestyle consciousness that dominated here. Opening a restaurant didn’t seem to hold the stereotypical position that opening a Chinese or Indian restaurant did for immigrants in England: the market was still new, and not so many foreigners had done it because we were outsiders, needing to get Taiwanese business partners and negotiate our way around government legislation and licenses; it involved a lot of hard work and risk.

The position of number one stereotype was given to opening a language school; everyone sniggered at these people – while they themselves were inevitably teaching English but telling themselves they were looking for something else. For example, after five years in Taipei when John had opened a school making lots of money, people would still ask him when he was going to start doing something he wanted. He would occasionally explode: "What the f...? I am not some stupid middle-class boy who criticizes the Taiwanese for having face problems all day but then has bigger ones of his own. Don't you understand the basics of life? - The pride of earning a wage to pay for a family and a nice sofa. To not being a loser having to drink beer from the 7/11 every night?"

John's comment had some truth. Inevitably if you wanted to show you weren't a real teacher you had to do several things that resulted in you not saving or having a lot of money:

1) Don't work too many hours a week.
2) Don't get promoted and actually improve as a teacher.
3) Don't stay at the same school for too long.
4) Have long breaks away in Thailand or somewhere that show how free spirited you are.
5) Don't get a work permit but fly to Hong Kong every two months to get a tourist visa and work illegally.
6) Spend lots of money on Chinese classes.
7) Apply, pay the fees, but never finish an online qualification from a university back home.
8) Sign up at a kung fu school and become quite good.
9) Try your hand at journalism and editing work which was still being employed for your English but paid extremely poorly compared to teaching.
10) Turn down all those opportunities to invest in or open a language school.
11) Tell yourself you want to keep your options open; you might be leaving soon, while secretly knowing you will never leave.

Of all the foreigners in our little group Pierre suffered worst from this.

Taiwan characters: Pierre and the immigration business I

Pierre's next attempt at not being pigeon-holed as a teacher was an immigration business. And, like all his other attempts at a business, it hadn't fallen very far from the teaching tree.
“I ‘ave set up an immigration agency to advise on emigrating to or studying in France,” announced Pierre.
“What the fuck do you know about emigrating to France?” said John. Since he saved Pierre's life he felt the right to point out the obvious at every turn.
Josh still hadn't learnt to stop considering Pierre's plans. “Not a bad idea, man, but I think this is already a competitive market with sophisticated structures in place. You need to generate a lot of contacts in France. Meet some lawyers there. It is going to take a while and a lot of money to establish a credible brand name...But an interesting challenge, I think.”
‘Anyway!’ said Pierre dismissing Josh's help with an expression that said why do you have to couch business in such bullshit ways when it was simple. “I have already figured it all out. I already have a friend of mine going to all the other agencies, pretending to be interested in immigrating. Once I know the procedures and costs I under cut them. I cannot afford advertising, but I have my contacts at the French school and I will keep it small. Let the word of mouth of what I am doing spread. You know I don’t mind talking to people…You know what the real fuckin’ clincher is: I am really sending them to England, but going via France because it is easier to get in.”
“Sounds a bit like a foreigner job to me,” spat out John. After teacher it was a few small steps to agency for sending students to your country, and then helping Taiwanese emigrate. You weren’t even stretching the sides of the cultural straight jacket.
“Not at all," said Pierre. "Most companies in this industry are Taiwanese and I am not telling people I can do this, or you should work with because I am a foreigner. I go to them and say, “me being a foreigner offers you nothing, but I am offering you a better deal as a person. It is better for you to work with me.”
We all felt very sick for 10 minutes or so.

Taiwan history: Do we belong to China?

Eric in his defense made attempts to know more about the history and culture of Taiwan than the locals. Hence his anger when they treated him like a dumb foreigner.
He was a big independence supporter and he spent all his time trying to convince us of the logic of Taiwan not belonging to China. Even when you were just relaxing in the bar.
“Man, I bought this book last week," said Eric and we all groaned knowing what was coming.
"You know it is bullshit that Taiwan has always been a part of China."
"You have told us that before," I said.
"I know," he replied. "But i didn't have the historical evidence to back me up before. Listen please."
"Do we have a choice?"
"Not really, man. Hey, you know, up until the 1600’s the island was populated by people of Malay and Polynesian descent, the aboriginals, then the Dutch took the island briefly, but were driven out by a small Ming dynasty army, which had fled the mainland because the Ming had been defeated by the Ching – much like Chiang Kai-Shek and the commies. The Ching came then to defeat the Ming, but did not occupy or annex Taiwan, because they were not really interested in the island, just getting rid of the remnants of the Ming. Over the next 200 years, Chinese from Fukkien province emigrated to Taiwan because of starvation. They weren’t sent by the Chinese government but had come seeking opportunities much like the Europeans going to the new world. And they inter-bred with the aboriginals.
In 1887 the China government formally declared Taiwan part of its territory for no other reason than they expected Japan to annex it, and they wanted to stop Japanese expansion. Eight years later they lost the Sino-Japanese war and signed Taiwan over to the Japanese forever. Up until then the Taiwanese had been living in a state of de-facto independence for 200 hundred years and, when they knew they were going to be given to the Japanese, they declared the Republic of Taiwan; so, for a long time they have had a sense of national identity.”
Josh: “And where did you get this information from? I don’t think from KMT or Chinese Communist Party sources.”
“Of course! You have to search hard for the suppressed truth,” said Eric.
“But they were whipped by the Japanese? – When they tried to declare independence,” said John.
“Brutally and swiftly! Yes, of course, but that is not the point. Taiwan was only ever a part of China for 8 years is the point. Josh, you are an immigrant, too. Your ancestors moved to a new land to give themselves a chance.”
“Didn’t the Taiwanese butcher the native population? I have no sympathy until they redress this injustice,” said Josh.
“Native populations get wiped out. Look at our own countries. Anyway, the government is trying to do something.”
“And I don’t live in Canada in protest. Next time tell us about what the government is doing for the aboriginals then we might listen to your claims of Taiwanese moral superiority,” continued Josh.
John and Pierre were realists but they nodded anyway because they knew it made Eric angry!

Expat Culture in Taiwan: Even the dogs are smarter

Taiwanese don't drive well. It has got better over the years, but they are still guilty of not stopping at crossing etc. But that is just the way it is, put up with it or leave. Like all things in life weigh up the pros and cons and make a positive decision. Most westerners did but there were a few people who just procrastinated in negativity. Eric was one. Even the dogs were smarter than Eric.
“Look, man even the friggin’ dogs have got more sense than you!” I shouted at Eric, as we crossed the road. On our inside for its own protection was one of thousands of stray dogs that wandered the city. It was a strange thing to get used to seeing, like some sort of super breed of street smart dog, these dogs had learned to use the pedestrian crossing and wait at the lights. In this case, the dog had spotted the car turning right selfishly and illegally cutting across the green man, and had stopped to let it go. Eric of course did not – one arm up, palm out, the other pointing to the green man, Moses-like – and also requiring divine intervention to succeed - he strode against the cars pouring across the crossing. The more mannered or aware would stop at his out stretched hand, but the rest would slam on their brakes and angrily spin the wheel of their car and attack another point in the crowd of pedestrians crossing the street. Anywhere else was fine because almost all the Taiwanese stopped and gave way to the cars. They knew how dangerous, reckless and selfish their fellow man was behind the wheel and they were not interested in arguing. Eric, armed only with his sense of right and wrong, felt that he was scoring little victories, but it was only a matter of time he stopped a group of young guys and then a hospital trip would be necessary.
I pulled him back determined it wasn't going to be when i was there.

Taiwan lifestyle: Going to the Filipino disco to get an Indonesian

Sundays in Taiwan were usually a haze of hung over self-reflection and rest, starting at two or three in the afternoon – The disco in Taipei ended at eight in the morning meaning you were either there until the end desperately trying to pick up or you had done…Either way, you were getting up late – but this week was different. John had stayed in on the saturday night desperately trying to arrange a romantic date to offset the loneliness from knowing he had been in Taiwan three years.
The date had back fired and now he was insisting we had to go with him to the Filipino disco on the Sunday afternoon.
“Come on, we are taking you to the Filipino disco to get an Indonesian,” said John.
If you hadn’t been successful on the Friday or Saturday, then there was still a chance on a Sunday. John had first discovered the Sunday afternoon Filipino disco concept by accident in Hong Kong a few years ago - After going to Neptunes in Wanchai at the normal time and taking a girl to a hotel, he had been racked by guilt and agreed to her request to meet her back at the same disco at three p.m. the following afternoon. The request to meet her inside bothered him, but he dismissed it as assuming she meant outside - both were unfamiliar to Hong Kong and language was a problem so why not choose a place they knew, he rationalized. It took a while to convince himself, but after standing outside for 20 minutes he accepted that the place was open, perhaps as a restaurant during the day – and besides it was hot on the street and he was getting a lot of strange stares so he decided to go down for ten minutes. It was not pleasant inside...
The Chinese girls like us in Taiwan, so he hadn't thought about whether the equivalent existed here. Then about a couple of months ago Matt (the whore accountant) had knocked on his door to inform him he had found a ‘great disco’ and ‘would he like to see what he had met there?’ “Amy, turn around once, please. Man, it like being with a whore again,” had said a proud Matt, a tear in his eye.
The disco was in the old part of town near the combat zone. We checked nobody we knew was around and then bolted down the stairs, before finding a table.
“It is a little lowlife,” said Eric for all of us. Our sensibilities were being assaulted by the sight of so many dark-skinned middle-aged women happily dancing away to Filipino techno music; women who you only normally saw in the street or in the park pushing 90 year-old pyjama-wearing Taiwanese people with drips and oxygen masks around in wheel chairs; worried faces for very good reason that their charge might croak at any minute and they would be blamed.
Just to clarify, said Eric. “On our part, that is! We are the lowlife.”
John spoke, “Boys, this is easy compared to Hong Kong. First time I went down those stairs out of the light and saw a packed disco of big fat old lairily grinning white foreigners in rugby shirts, dancing badly with the girls who were still there from the night before because they hadn’t scored yet, I had to summon all my reserves of scuzziness to hang around. Here there are not many foreigners - besides Matt of course. Give yourself a couple of minutes to get over the acute embarrassment and self-loathing at your own sadness and you should be able to get yourself something good.”
“Why is it the Filipino disco? Surely it should be the Indonesian disco,” asked Eric, hoping he could get a serious discussion topic going, and thus ignore where he was.
“Filipinos are the pioneers of the Sunday afternoon disco…” John started to explain.
His point was two-fold: all maids used to Filipino before, and, Filipinos are the blacks of Asia known for their laid back, outgoing nature and love of music and dance (a brief look at the traditional culture of surrounding countries and it is easy to see why) Because of this Filipinos have cornered the ‘Live Band’ market – in Shanghai, Hong Kong, all over Japan and in Taiwan pubs proudly display signs for ‘Filipino Live Band’, because it will bring in the punters like a picture of a blonde white guy outside your English school. Now, popular culture means everyone can sing and dance and the majority of maids are Indonesian because they are supposed to be more conservative, but “…still any shifting of the feet on the Lord’s day of rest in Asia will be affectionately referred to by its flipper heritage. Now, go and get something.”
Matt had just arrived with exactly what you would expect him to on his arm. “I have been with her for a while now. I like her,” mused Matt. That could have been the end, a sufficient reason for his going out with her, but once what he had considered what he had said his expression changed to I’m sorry, that is not a very good explanation and he felt compelled to continue, “She is low maintenance – only has Sunday off – she’ll clean my apartment and bring me food. If I come here with her, she’ll only want one drink…Oh, and I have to buy her a phone card once every two weeks. That is acceptable for a girlfriend I think?” He was genuinely concerned to get confirmation on the last part.
“So I am bored, give me today’s history lesson. I can see you have something to say, and I doubt it is a good joke you heard,” said John to Eric. He wasn’t going to go to the dance floor, because he knew we would disappear home at the first chance of seeing him not looking or busy. Eric always tried desperately to educate us all about Taiwan’s history.
“Man, I bought this book last week…You know it is bullshit that Taiwan has always been a part of China. A brief history goes like this. Up until the 1600’s the island was populated by people of Malay and Polynesian descent, the aboriginals, then the Dutch took the island briefly, but were driven out by a small Ming dynasty army, which had fled the mainland because the Ming had been defeated by the Ching – much like Chiang Kai-Shek and the commies. The Ching came then to defeat the Ming, but did not occupy or annex Taiwan, because they were not really interested in the island, just getting rid of the remnants of the Ming. Over the next 200 years, Chinese from Fukkien province emigrated to Taiwan because of starvation. They weren’t sent by the Chinese government but had come seeking opportunities much like the Europeans going to the new world. And they inter bred with the aboriginals.
In 1887 the China government formally declared Taiwan part of its territory for no other reason than they expected Japan to annex it, and they wanted to stop Japanese expansion. Eight years later they lost the Sino-Japanese war and signed Taiwan over to the Japanese forever. Up until then the Taiwanese had been living in a state of de-facto independence for 200 hundred years and, when they knew they were going to be given to the Japanese, they declared the Republic of Taiwan; so, for a long time they have had a sense of national identity.”
Josh: “And where did you get this information from? I don’t think from KMT or Chinese Communist Party sources.”
“Of course! You have to search hard for the suppressed truth.” Perversely, Eric’s support for Taiwanese independence was as strong as his hatred of people who like to practice their English.
“But they were whipped by the Japanese? – When they tried to declare independence.” John only liked to deal in hard cynical facts.
“Brutally and swiftly! Yes, of course, but that is not the point, anyway…Taiwan was only ever a part of China for 8 years is the point. Josh, you are an immigrant, too. Your ancestors moved to a new land to give themselves a chance.”
“Didn’t the Taiwanese butcher the native population? I have no sympathy until they redress this injustice,” said Josh.
“Native populations get wiped out. Look at our own countries. Anyway, the government is trying to do something.”
“And I don’t live in Canada in protest. Next time tell us about what the government is doing for the aboriginals then we might listen to your claims of Taiwanese moral superiority.” John and Pierre were realists but they nodded anyway because they knew it made Eric angry!
I was feeling uneasy for another reason. There had been a sizeable earthquake a few week ago and the paranoia hadn't settled down yet. “I feel uncomfortable here – if the big one comes my soul ain’t gonna rest easy knowing my crushed body was dragged from the rubble of the Sunday Afternoon Flipper Disco,” I sighed. "I mean, presumably, getting dragged broken and bleeding from the night-time disco next to a girl in a mini wouldn't be fantastic, but at least i would be going out next to something young and hot. This...Hmm...Ah...This is just a little above being found in the ruins of a whorehouse.
“I ‘ave set up an immigration agency to advise on emigrating to, or studying in France. I know it will succeed! As a side business!” announced Pierre, with another business idea and not wanting to be left out.
“What the fuck do you know about emigrating to France?” John pointing out the obvious.
“Not a bad idea, man, but I think this is already a competitive market with sophisticated structures in place. You need to generate a lot of contacts in France. Meet some lawyers there. It is going to take a while and a lot of money to establish a credible brand name, but an interesting challenge.” John and Eric frowned having no idea why Josh bothered to consider Pierre's ideas.
‘Anyway!’ dismissed Pierre his expression asking John and Eric why Josh had to couch business in such bullshit ways when it was simple. “I have already figured it all out. I already have a friend of mine going to all the other agencies, pretending to be interested in immigrating. Once I know the procedures and costs I under cut them. I cannot afford advertising, but I have my contacts at the French school and I will keep it small. Let the word of mouth of what I am doing spread. You know I don’t mind talking to people…You know what the real fuckin’ clincher is – I am really sending them to England, but going via France because it is easier to get in.” Of course, nobody else had actually thought of this.
“Sounds a bit like a foreigner job to me,” spat out John who was in a bad mood. "After teacher it is a few small steps to agency for sending students to your country, and then helping Taiwanese emigrate. You aren't even stretching the sides of the cultural straight jacket."
“Not at all. Most companies in this industry are Taiwanese and I am not telling people I can do this, or you should work with because I am a foreigner. I go to them and say, “me being a foreigner offers you nothing, but I am offering you a better deal as a person. It is better for you to work with me.” Nauseated we all turned around to try and take our attention off, what Pierre said.
“You want to sit here?” said the pretty Filipino at the next table to John. There were still a few left in the Filipino disco.
“You are not with those guys?” he asked because they were large Africans.
“No, they are bastards. I hate Indians and Africans, coming here trying to pick us up. What do they think they are?" she said. "Hey. It is unusual to see white guys here. I bet you have a Taiwan girlfriend, don’t you? Why you like the Taiwan girl?”
Coming here hadn’t worked out how she had expected – her cousin had got married to an Australian she met in Hong Kong and she had expected something similar; she had been told Chinese girls didn’t like white men, but this was Taipei not Hong Kong. Everyday she did a shit, menial job for Taiwanese and then at the weekend, she had her 2^nd class status shoved in her face again, having to spend it getting hit on by huge Africans in white suits and sneakers who could dance or middle-aged married Indian businessmen who couldn’t. And, the worse of it all was she was a passionate colorful Filipino, so how could the westerners prefer dull Chinese girls?
"Don't worry, we invented most of the world's sports but we are crap at them now," said John.
"What?" she replied. Then going back to her original subject. “I always want to go Hong Kong.”
“There at least you could have been taken the piss out of and used by guys worth being exploited by eh?”
“What?”
“Nothing…Anyway, would you like to go to a hotel?”

Taiwan dating: Top 10 list of things to say and do to charm a Taiwanese girl

John’s list of Top Ten Ways to be Romantic, Charm the Pants off a Taiwanese Girl and Get Her in the Mood:
1. Get here to take you to where she lived when she was young.
2. Get her to show you all her old schools.
3. Tell her repeatedly you bet she is a good daughter/friend/mother.
4. Ask to see any awards she received as a student.
5. Tell her you are sure she works extremely hard in school/for her company.
6. Ask her to show you where her company is.
7. Tell her she will make it to America to study one day – and she will thrive there.
8. Ask to see pictures of her family. When she says she isn’t carrying any, insist she brings some next time.
9. Show her pictures of yours, especially anything of child age that will get her broody.
10. Take them for coffee or to a bookshop, even better coffee in a bookshop.
Finally with her swooning and dreamy from having her Taiwanese buttons pressed, he would say: “You know you don’t really behave like a Taiwanese person” and she would get excited and ask “Why not?” and he would reply, “The things you like to do, I suppose. An attitude. You are more open and unpredictable. I don’t know.”
“John knew it was different, but he was used to it now. He didn’t mind being the teacher; it was kind of old-fashioned and sweet, igniting those me man, you woman instincts which were not exactly buried very deep anyway. And, most importantly, it kept his alcohol consumption down.
He stopped his scooter by the side of the road to pick up Phoebe. "So what would you like to do?"
"Hmm, no plan."
"Ok. Maybe, you can show me where you lived when you were young?"
Really...But it is in Taipei County. Quite far,” answered Phoebe.
"I am fine," said John.
She put on the helmet and got on the back of his scooter. “Maybe, we can also pass by my old elementary school. It is on the way.”
“I would love to. Let’s get going, it should be a long day…”