Same story here!! 
Same story here!! [/quote]
Oh yeah, that one. 
When I first came here my (somewhat ignorant) friends said âYou donât want to go to Taiwan, I hear Bangkok is really dangerous.â
I made up my mind then and there to come to Taiwan just to avoid the ignorance that prevails about Asia.
When my wife and I went to Phuket for vacation we got the dirtiest looks from other tourists, who must have assumed Iâd rented a local girl. I only told off a few of them. :x
Happens with men too! Went to Bali with business colleagues, Balinese boys assumed my Taiwanese boss (cute, gay) was my houseboy back in England! And my Taiwanese boyfriend was shoved and spat at in Phuket by gay Thai boys who thought he was a new rent boy muscling in on their patch! Same thing happened in Manila. Conversely, in Singapore, someone thought HEâD hired ME, so any white guys hard up for cash know where to go⌠
My way of dealing with that is obnoxiously loud and obviously fluent talking in an indecipherable Asian language, works every time! 
DPP Xenophobes?
Isnât this the party with a substantial number of members that consider about 20% of Taiwan citizens (the âweiguorenâ) to be foreigners (or, at the least, outsiders)?
You mean waishengren, not âweiguorenâ (waiguoren), of course.
[quote=âHakkaSonicâ]DPP Xenophobes?
Isnât this the party with a substantial number of members that consider about 20% of Taiwan citizens (the âweiguorenâ) to be foreigners (or, at the least, outsiders)?[/quote]
Isnât that the party whose last Taipei mayoral candidate promised to void all traffic fines if elected.
The DPPâs position is that anyone who identifies with (ren4tong2) Taiwan is Taiwanese. This means that people who consider themselves to be citizens of a fictional country (the ROC) or an enemy country (the PRC) are not Taiwanese. So âwaishengrenâ are Taiwanese as long as they see their political identity as Taiwanese. Most mainstream DPP members agree with this position with the exception of some hardcore bigots on the fringes. Most of those have left to join the TSU.
Waishengren actually. But as always, its never quite so simple.
I met the DPP mayoral candidate for Taipei (Lee Ying-yuan) at a friendâs place one night about a week before the elections. A very sincere and capable chap was my impression.
Oddly enough I was having some fun over my nationality (Australian) and said that I was an âao kayâ a play in Taiwanese on âAustralian guestâ which sounds to most Taiwanese like âbad guest.â I was startled to learn that the latter was also a derogatory term for Hakkas, which he happens to be.
The traffic fine thing was an attempt to highlight the heavy level of fines doled out in Taiwan. It was also to be a one-off write-off followed by a raft of new measures on how the cops book fines. Seems reasonable enough.
HG
A-Bian not only considers himself to be a citizen of this fictional country - he actually imagines he is its president. What has the man been smoking?
Li/Lee Yingyuan - the arch-enemy of Hanyu pinyin. Sincere and capable my buttock.
So⌠thatâs why your trousers fit you so poorly, Juba. 
Speaking of ignorant xenophobes, did you catch the editorial in todayâs Taipei Times:
Title: Illegal Immigration Root of Evils
Excerpts:
After cross-strait exchanges became more frequent, Chinese people began to find ways, both legal and illegal, to stay in Taiwan, so as to either work illegally or engage in prostitution. . .
In view of the cross-strait standoff, what does the daily increase in the number of missing Chinese here tell us? Are these people simply here to work and earn some money or are they up to something else? The government must probe this problem and find answers so as to safeguard national security. . .
The rise in the numbers of missing Chinese will surely become a time bomb hidden in various corners of the country. . .
. . . most prostitutes come from China. What is worrisome is that . . . Taiwan has relaxed the regulations concerning cross-strait marriages . . . Taiwan has essentially opened its gates for unrestricted entry by Chinese women. Besides prostitution, it has also become increasingly prevalent for Chinese to otherwise work illegally in Taiwan, indirectly robbing Taiwanese of job opportunities. The number of Chinese in Taiwan is increasing rapidly. To them, marrying a Taiwanese is still the quickest way to enter the country.
. . . divergent economic, political and social environments, and cultural values and educational systems on the two sides of the Taiwan strait have resulted in many unsettling elements in these marriages. . .
Only high-quality immigrants can bring progress to their new home. For example, the US acceptance of the elite from all parts of the world has made possible rapid rises in its economy. . .
More DPP xenophobia. I suppose itâs all wrapped up in their desire to classify âmainlandersâ as âforeignersâ and thereby emphasize their âdifferentnessâ.
I have a feeling theyâre all slightly mad, and that they would go to any lengths to pursue this agenda. Will we have witch hunts and burnings of Mainlanders ?
Will someone please point out to the DPP that without China, Taiwan is donald ducked. Time to stop behaving like school kids.
The situation is as follows:
A significant number of Vietnamese girls here legally on marriage visas end up in KTVs. Whether that was the idea in the first place or not is up for debate. I believe in many cases that is the reason they are imported.
However, it does not suit the government or the media to point this out to the public, due to complicated cross-ownership relations of said establishments amonst these groups. What happens instead, is that daily reports are run in the media of young mainland immigrant girls who attempt to exit one of the most controlled borders in the world, cross one of the most dangerous seas, and cross another of the worldâs most controlled boundaries.
Over the last week I have added up the figures. From last Monday up until this afternoonâs news, no fewer than 170 young mainland girls have been âcaughtâ trying to enter Taiwan. Thus the spectre of a âyellower than usâ peril is kept at the forefront of the publicâs mind, and the girls involved and mainland China in general get the blame. This afternoons story gleefully reported that a boatload of mainland girls were pushed back out to see where they drowned. Lovely. (Of course there is no way of knowing whether this story is real or not). Meanwhile, KTV owners rake in the cash.
Not that Taiwan is any different from home, where every failing from the fall of Singapore to late trains is blamed on East European asylum seekers.
What goes around comes around. For years the Taiwanese were treated like shit in their own country, now itâs time for payback. Unfortunately, theyâre going after the wrong people.
I think itâs odd that the DPP hasnât arrested and tried KMT hacks like Soong, Ma, etc, for crimes committed while they were in office. There were alot of political murders up through the 80s and Iâd love to see some of those scumbags publically tried and put in prison.
[quote=âblueface666â]What goes around comes around. For years the Taiwanese were treated like shit in their own country, now itâs time for payback. Unfortunately, theyâre going after the wrong people.
I think itâs odd that the DPP hasnât arrested and tried KMT hacks like Soong, Ma, etc, for crimes committed while they were in office. There were alot of political murders up through the 80s and Iâd love to see some of those scumbags publically tried and put in prison.[/quote]
Why havenât they arrested them? Ex-presidents in Korea were arrested, although not for murder and not for long.
hex. you right. these Vietgals are imported for the sex trade, pure and simple. good analysis. spot on. right an op ed for the TT and send it in. good!
In good time the TT (and the TV ânewsâ stations) will use this angle to bash those Vietnamese women who are here in genuine marriages. (If they ever get tired of bashing âmainlandersâ.)
Wonderful. I love to see the best aspects of taiwanese culture all work together with such a predictable result.
[quote]
Polygamist uses woman to bear child
A legislator decried the use of foreign brides as cheap surrogate mothers yesterday after highlighting the case of a married man who used another manâs identity to marry a Cambodian woman so that she could bear his children.
The man, surnamed Chan, decided to find a foreign bride to bear his children as he and his wife had been unable to conceive.
As he was unable to use his own name, Chan registered with a marriage agency using the identity of a man surnamed Yao and went through the marriage formalities in December 2003.
After arriving in Taiwan, his Cambodian wife, surnamed Chung, was forced to live with Chan and bore him twin girls. But after giving birth, Chungâs visa expired and she was unable to renew it, since her registered husband, surnamed Yao, had been killed in a fishing accident. In line with regulations, Chung was deported and the twin daughters were adopted by Chan and his family.[/quote]
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