I hope that’s in jest. Otherwise, 
This conversation is now no longer about either Taiwan or violence. 
we already agreed taiwan is less violent than most countries especially the west.
[quote=“forealz”]we’re very sports oriented here in the u.s. but we dont have those kinds of racial hatred among sports fans. if they have those feelings they generally keep it to themselves. i cant imagine anyone spewing racial stuff against minorities like blacks at major sports events especially when blacks make up almost all the sports leagues except hockey. maybe black people dont know how to skate on water due to their genetics. they dont dominant in tennis either for some reason.
I’m not justifying or rationalizing it. I’m merely pointing out that, in that context (football game, high rivality), radical football fans use whatever they can to piss off the rival, including outrageous racist insults. They are a bunch of rude arseholes, they don’t belong in a sports stadium, and the club should ban them for life. Of course, displays of racism and rudeness will be always higher in an environment like a hot football game than, say, in the middle of the street.
Well, I saw your post. But then, when a race is stereotyped and picked on in national TV just for laughs, I’d call that racism:
globaltimes.cn/content/83645 … vSUM3V_ulg[/quote][/quote]
Well, my first thought about sport related racial slurs in the US would be that since in the US the racial issue is so contentious and volatile, any action there would turn ugly really fast. A sports venue, with its huge masses, would be the last place you’d like to see such ugliness play out. The results would be deadlier. I can see the confrontation escalating, and hooligan like gangs armed with beer bottles are bad enough, lest of all heavier weaponery. So I guess not even touching this issue is also a matter of self preservation.
Furthermore, I do remember while on a visit to the US when I was a teenager that I was not allowed to go to a concert at a stadium because of the color lines. It was in the “dark” side of town. So I do not know if the same color divide would rule for sports events.
Not to mention that any slur carries heavy penalties from lawsuits. And publicity. Anyone remember the Howard Cosell bruhaha?
But yes, for whatever reason, it is a really good thing that this problem with racially insulting fans is not an issue in the US.
Interestingly, from my experience here in Taiwan, I think foreign sports players may encounter ocassional incidents with locals, but in general terms, they are well accepted by the fans. They are even mobbed more for autographs and groupies!
Having spent time in the UK and US, I found the UK a lot more racially integrated and yet there was definitely a racist element among football fans (which is common among soccer supporters in particular, as perhaps it is a working class outlet and the last ‘free’ bastion of the working class male…what goes on on the terraces is broadly not acceptable outside…not that I agree with the racism nor do the football authorities).
In the US, open racism is dealt with severely but communities can be completely divided along racial lines (I had some experience of LA, NYC and Long Island). In two of those places I was advised to leave the specific area for my own safety, and in one I was actually picked up by a police cruiser and actively removed to a safer part of town with my friends. You can guess which places were I had to leave quickly and you can guess which one was 95% white except for the help.
There’s no easy categorization.
an acquaintance emailed me a video on youtube with someone we know, and have to say it just goes to show how violent this place can get over nothing. I still agree it is far less violent than a lot of places, but there is a huge maturity/temper problem here that really should not be ignored… just youtube taiwan road rage or taiwan beatings or similar things. and the things that get published on youtube are the tamest of the tame.
There was a time when i got REALLY angry with police here stopping me from intervening with violent situations, but over time i am starting to think that maybe they were in the right and trying to protect third parties form getting involved. watching afew of these videos, its easy to see just how silly and retarded things are, and how fast they can escalate.
Perhaps a really good way of staying out of trouble would be learning how to say sorry in Taiwanese (sounds like pie say) and also not letting your ego get you into trouble and just let your pride take the beating instead of your body. These people can be our best friends or our worst fears. The neat part is it is very easy to make them either or.
edit: i know its not really violence, but traffic related. the video is just kind of funny, all things considered. shitty situations made light.
Taiwan is safe as, ill add a few more stories
I’m a hindrance when i drink more than i can handle, i turn into a Chinese main lander basically i wouldn’t even be that mad if someone punched me when i get that way, I’ve lost control about 3 times since I’ve been. I have been total blackout drunk and i have annoyed people but no ones ever hit me. My drunkenness is totally bad PR for foreigners i am truly sorry to the good ones and i have changed.
The worst one… I think i may have either left a bar without paying the tab or i karate chopped some guys car side mirror off i really cant remember, they followed me around for a while asking for money i gave them some but i just couldn’t comprehend the situation as i was full retard drunk. I then ran a block or so and paused for a bit then my next memory is the cops showing up with those guys, saying i owed an additional $400. So it appears i fucked them around for hours and possibly damaged their property and i didn’t get my head kicked in. That was my rock bottom and i have promised myself i wont ever be that guy again.
Few extra stories
Note: I was in total control not breaking my promise
I was at a club ordering my drink and a girl came and stood “dangerously” close to me, we stared talking and then this drunk blue balled Taiwanese pleb cut in the middle of us and proceed to say “You can talk to her” “That is my friend” “If you talk to her my bar friends will kick you out” i said ok then turned away but he kept con saying those same things and i said ok another 7 times then i screamed 我已經說了OK!! then his friends came over and apologized and took him away.
Another was with this obese 37yo american dude, i was bar hopping with a mate and we found him a bar and he said he would show us a good place, we got to his bar and had a ball for about 2 hours then he approached full retard levels groping anything with a pulse, going over to tables talking mandarin and pestering people (we were the only foreigners in the bar) and the owner kept asking me to get him to stop pestering people. I pulled him away from tables all up about 12 times no joke, every time i pulled him away he would hug me until i distracted him with some trinket or drink, on the 13th time i had enough he went in for the hug and i said i didn’t want it he bear hugged me, he being a big obese drunk wobbly dude had a bad center of gravity i put my hand on the back of his head, threw him to the ground the people at the table were shocked so i quickly bailed, at this point it was 4:30am and i wanted to call it a night.
As i’m walking away i hear a stampede brewing i turned around and i saw this ham beast was actually charging me, i stood still and he came closer and closer slowing down to a stop only to give me another hug and say he wanted too feel the love and he’s sorry. If anyone watches californication he looks exactly like Mia’s high school teacher that got high on coke and tried to fuck her, the guys name was lovegrove my friend and I now call him lovegrope. In Taiwan you can be that guy at a bar openly grope people GF’s, ruin nights, loud, obnoxious and not get your head stomped
Another was when me and my friend found a local guy would take us to a KTV if we paid, this guys only English word was “OK!” After we arrived and finished i realized my mate left his credit card at our hotel and we could pay, I told our new local “friend” and he already being drunk started sweating bullets. Picture an obese naked Taiwanese dude with a flaccid,gnarly, mauled looking dick frantically pacing the room only wearing brown leather shoes and knee high red sock i was in tears the next day. The staff came in and this guys was going off his chops screaming literally screaming at mafia that he owed money too, 4 security dudes entered the room and that’s when some shit felt real but coconut macaroon dick kept screaming more rants, i am guessing he was selling us down the river. The club manager came in talked to me and let me go get the card but my mate and king flaccid had to stay, i came back with the cash had a private word with the manager and he ended up giving me his number saying he wanted to take us to better clubs. While i had this conversation my mate saw the CCTV camera of the obese local “friend” frantically waddling off premise.
TL;DR Perfectly safe
Try to witness countless examples of situations like “No, you can’t use this piece of equipment that is absolutely vital to your work, because yourr Indian and Indians break stuff”, “I don’t like you because you’re French but you choose to hang out with Mongolians. Mongolians!!”’ “Aren’t you scared that in your workgroup there is a black man?” or “Your boyfriend is Italian, how can yoy accept all the mistresse he certainly has scattered around the city?” before you come here and tell me there is no racism in Taiwan or that their racism is totally harmless. Please note all the above comes from those who are supposed to be the most educated people in Taiwan.
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[quote=“Novaspes”]Try to witness countless examples of situations like “No, you can’t use this piece of equipment that is absolutely vital to your work, because yourr Indian and Indians break stuff”, “I don’t like you because you’re French but you choose to hang out with Mongolians. Mongolians!!”’ “Aren’t you scared that in your workgroup there is a black man?” or “Your boyfriend is Italian, how can yoy accept all the mistresse he certainly has scattered around the city?” before you come here and tell me there is no racism in Taiwan or that their racism is totally harmless. Please note all the above comes from those who are supposed to be the most educated people in Taiwan.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk[/quote]
That is not racism. Ignorance perhaps. Idiocy and generalisation, but somehow I could just scoff in their faces. I used to get ‘you are Indian you have beautiful eyes’ and I was like HUH? No. Or ‘You’re Indian you surely can dance well’. I never thought it as racism even when they said 'Ypu’re Indian, how come you’re not BLACK?". Dumb surely but nothing more. I never felt hated or looked down upon despite my brownness.
Racism and chronic racism is much more hurtful than that. When people DISLIKE you for being who you are. I found racism here on these boards far more rampant. The way you guys talk about the Chinese, and ridicule them and hate them and mock them is far more racist. I am sure these people have the same feelings about other races, but just somehow feel more PC to say anything about the Chinese while they shut up about other races.
A lot of that is venting because they are in a Taiwanese environment, and are dealing with the common frustrations of being an expat in a very different culture. I am sure Italians in Germany like to vent about Germans as well!
Then you add the anonymous nature of the Internet, and you get some exaggeration.
A lot of that is venting because they are in a Taiwanese environment, and are dealing with the common frustrations of being an expat in a very different culture. I am sure Italians in Germany like to vent about Germans as well!
Then you add the anonymous nature of the Internet, and you get some exaggeration.[/quote]
I am talking about the Chinese not Taiwanese. The hate and ridicule thrown at the Chinese seems justifiable somehow. Like they deserve it. That is racism.
Taiwanese may be ignorant and that, but you actually need to do something to them to turn them violent. Very rarely will a person here get physical based on anything other than a person doing something to offend them. The issue seems more in the lines of if you somehow offend a person here they can fly off the handle far quicker than expected. It may not be most people, but a lot of people have the temper of a 2 year old, and it can be so bad that it is a serious worry for people in Taiwan.
Violence in Taiwan, from my experience anyway, is an issue of maturity and education, not hatred.
[quote=“divea”][quote=“Novaspes”]Try to witness countless examples of situations like “No, you can’t use this piece of equipment that is absolutely vital to your work, because yourr Indian and Indians break stuff”, “I don’t like you because you’re French but you choose to hang out with Mongolians. Mongolians!!”’ “Aren’t you scared that in your workgroup there is a black man?” or “Your boyfriend is Italian, how can yoy accept all the mistresse he certainly has scattered around the city?” before you come here and tell me there is no racism in Taiwan or that their racism is totally harmless. Please note all the above comes from those who are supposed to be the most educated people in Taiwan.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk[/quote]
That is not racism. Ignorance perhaps. Idiocy and generalisation, but somehow I could just scoff in their faces. I used to get ‘you are Indian you have beautiful eyes’ and I was like HUH? No. Or ‘You’re Indian you surely can dance well’. I never thought it as racism even when they said 'Ypu’re Indian, how come you’re not BLACK?". Dumb surely but nothing more. I never felt hated or looked down upon despite my brownness.
Racism and chronic racism is much more hurtful than that. When people DISLIKE you for being who you are. I found racism here on these boards far more rampant. The way you guys talk about the Chinese, and ridicule them and hate them and mock them is far more racist. I am sure these people have the same feelings about other races, but just somehow feel more PC to say anything about the Chinese while they shut up about other races. [/quote]
How are ignorance-based racial stereotypes and discrimination (see the “can’t use this machine because you’re from a specific country I have a prejudice against” case, not to mention the “don’t want to rent to people from [insert country]”) not racism??
And why there are so many people in Taiwan that would resort to the argument “Oh, that is not racism, is just xenophobia/ignorance/fear”? Reminds me of the Filipino workers being asked to move out of a neighborhood in Taipei and of how the community rep said “this has nothing to do with discrimination, it’s just we don’t feel comfy with this people around, with their different skin color and their different culture”. Not racist at all, I suppose. (the piece of news I am talking about is fairly easy to dig out on the Taipei Times website).
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[quote]How are ignorance-based racial stereotypes and discrimination (see the “can’t use this machine because you’re from a specific country I have a prejudice against” case, not to mention the “don’t want to rent to people from [insert country]”) not racism??
[/quote]
Cuz it is ignorance. I don’t know why most expats have glorified Taiwan, but it is hardly a cosmopolitan haven. It is a small corner in the back waters of China and is obsessed with China and is an ignoramus paradise (That’s why Latvians get English teaching jobs for their blond hair and blue eyes). Ignorance can be educated.
Educated hate is sick.
Yeah I read that story on those boards, and I’m sure if what I read was true then those people are scum. And yet…I will say they are more ‘classists’ than racists. It’s like building a slum near a posh colony. My husband would often give talks about investment etc. to businessmen. And one day one of these guys said, well investing in India is blah blah. Look at us in Taiwan, we don’t have slums. To that my husband replied, we get construction workers from villages into the cities and they work there and end up living there. Taiwan gets its workers from Phillipines and Vietnam and that’s where its slums are. Just because you don’t see it, doesn’t mean it does not exist. All of them were nodding violently. The Taiwanese (very like the Chinese) are a class based society (for all its democracy). The Taiwanese people are alot of things, but they aren’t anything that the rest of us aren’t and they’re not vicious as us precisely because of being in the back of beyond AND ignoramous.
I still don’t get your point. You seem to be saying that if discrimination is rooted in ignorance, then it can’t be called “racism”. In that case, I think we only have a clash of definitions.
I agree with you that educated hate is sick. Unfortunately, as I pointed out, some of the worst example of discrimination I have personally witnessed came from peoole that pride themselves with being the most highly educated in Taiwan and that have, in most cases, extensive experiences of living and working in America, Europe or Australia.
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[quote=“Novaspes”]I still don’t get your point. You seem to be saying that if discrimination is rooted in ignorance, then it can’t be called “racism”. In that case, I think we only have a clash of definitions.
[/quote]
I just feel that as a populace the number and intensity of racists are far less than in other populations. I think the same vis a vis crime or criminal intent and total number of nutcases. The Taiwanese are incredibly naive and un PC and a lot of what we quickly judge as racism doesn’t come from a place of hate nor fear. I was mostly saying that sure there may be racism, but not all of it is and if you care to look closer, there’s more ignorance than conceit.
[quote=“divea”][quote=“Novaspes”]I still don’t get your point. You seem to be saying that if discrimination is rooted in ignorance, then it can’t be called “racism”. In that case, I think we only have a clash of definitions.
[/quote]
I just feel that as a populace the number and intensity of racists are far less than in other populations. I think the same vis a vis crime or criminal intent and total number of nutcases. The Taiwanese are incredibly naive and un PC and a lot of what we quickly judge as racism doesn’t come from a place of hate nor fear. I was mostly saying that sure there may be racism, but not all of it is and if you care to look closer, there’s more ignorance than conceit.[/quote]
I see.
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I must say that occasionally I get sentimental for those halcyon days when people could go out and leave their front doors and windows open all day.
But then again, I did used to be a burglar. 
Picture Taichung… 2003… Baas had just arrived in Taiwan. Clueless. But had traveled before (England, Israel, Egypt).
Knew there was a corner store near the guest house. There always is. Got some beerios. Headed to a club on the back of some gal’s scoot.
Arrive at club - stumble into to club, find some ‘heisihui’ dude chopping and hitting lines with his girls. I invite myself in, he chops, I hit. Good fun…
Wake up and clench-cringe - is this how I want my life to be in Taiwan…
It was a fun first night.
[quote=“crazyguymanhorse”]Dear forummers on Forumosa,
I have been interested in Taiwan for a while now and so have been browsing through the forum a bit. I have found many posts about road rage (people being pushed off the road after flipping the bird), attacks with baseball bats. Beerbottles smashing on heads. I am getting the feeling Taiwan is a pretty violent place. Now is it, or is it just because ive been reading the wrong posts? I know you have violence everywhere in the world. But lets face it, there are some places that are more violent than others. Liberia for example is a lot more violent than Germany. Of course we are now taking two extremes but you get the point. So overall do YOU as a person that lives in Taiwan personally perceive Taiwan as a violent country or not?
Thanks for your information in advance!![/quote]
Stay away from the bars and getting real drunk and you won’t have any problems.
[quote=“steelersman”][quote=“crazyguymanhorse”]Dear forummers on Forumosa,
I have been interested in Taiwan for a while now and so have been browsing through the forum a bit. I have found many posts about road rage (people being pushed off the road after flipping the bird), attacks with baseball bats. Beerbottles smashing on heads. I am getting the feeling Taiwan is a pretty violent place. Now is it, or is it just because ive been reading the wrong posts? I know you have violence everywhere in the world. But lets face it, there are some places that are more violent than others. Liberia for example is a lot more violent than Germany. Of course we are now taking two extremes but you get the point. So overall do YOU as a person that lives in Taiwan personally perceive Taiwan as a violent country or not?
Thanks for your information in advance!![/quote]
Stay away from the bars and getting real drunk and you won’t have any problems.[/quote]
Sadly that eliminates most of forumosa 