Why does Taiwan have so many weird foreigners?

For sure this is a big part of it for me. I no longer see anywhere near as many weird foreigners as I used to. I’m also not in bars at 2am anymore. I suspect the two are correlated. Another factor: I no longer enjoy the truly odd the way I once did, so I probably ease out of some conversations before I realize just how memorable my interlocutor could turn out to be.

Mind you, on “there used to be more”: have a look at the thread I linked to above. Even at my peak “Eh, it’s only 3am, the night is still young!” days I don’t think I encountered people like those - and I guess they’re talking about people from the early 90s, or even earlier.

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Or maybe you also became weird so you don’t notice :grinning:

One of us! One of us!

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That’s probably another factor. One becomes much more adept at spotting the odd 'ens early on and giving them a wide birth. They’re only amusing for a very short time. I remember the guy I met just after I arrived who seemed cool, albeit very talkative, and invited me to his place to watch rugby. He turned out to be a meth addict. The TV remote control had been taken apart (he wanted to find out what was inside it) and there was this bizarre shelving all round the apartment that he’d obviously knocked up while high. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

Oh damn, that went from ok seems like a normal story about a normal guy who enjoy rugby to he’s a meth addict reading it.

I thought the file was included in the pedi… :sunglasses:

Holy shit. That’s me. I qualify as a nutter. I’m honored

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(sticks finger between lips, twiddling and humming to make funny noise)

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can’t really agree, nor do i think taiwans laowai population is deserving of being shat on.

sure we don’t get the business suit and tie types here like in hong kong and singapore but taiwan isn’t on that level either. most foreigners are english teachers.(and students?) which is better than white monkeys like you get in china. better than sex tourists of south east asia and much better than unwashed back packers. i’d say we were pretty lucky here. i saw a ratty looking backpacker playing nursery rhymes on a recorder in a failed attempt at busking last time i was in hong kong. i’m thankful i’ve never saw such a pathetic sight in taiwan.

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Aww that was quite a walk down memory lane. Especially the names. Thanks.

Kinda allways feel like this.

I mean now really someone can explain me straight, what is there for white guy in taiwan ?

  • apartments are shitty
  • bosses are crazy and conservative
  • on family level there is a lot of politics. You must take a lot of bla bla, would never ever happened at home. But u know we are taiwanese, our culture, oh our face bla bla
    -Food is usually low quality with all those food scandals
  • Except labour, everything is expensive. Western food, cars, electronics, clothes brands, proper furniture, even flight tickets taiwan - europe are like double price comparing to europe - taiwan way tickets. . And taipei is allways like at least 20 % more than other asian cities. Even taipei mrt is not cheap… Ok local gas is cheap, ok utilities are cheap…
  • either low salary or no life balance at all, usually
  • hard to make friends with locals, they are shy, akward, poor english, work whole day, and spend weekends with mummy ( but thank god is crowded, so you can meet a lot of cool people)
    -air pollution

Let say you are hardworking, smart, inteligent, in shape with good degree. And out of nowhere you decide to come to taiwan? You must be a bit weird in the first place. I could make more money elswhere, but i was in taiwan. Probably am a bit weird. I mean in the end, taiwan is not “very likeable” by western standards. So you just must be a bit different with different priorities, to come to rock in the first place. Back in the west you can be seen as weirdo indeed

And you must be a hell of weirdo to stay. Or you can be just laid back guy, who likes warm weather, cheap stuff, and convience. Might get a luck wit job. Might get smoking hot wife. No all jobs are crap indeed,and happy, good , sexy wife = good life.

But sure yea, is such a high density of people, you will see extremes more often.Both negative and positive

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I think the sudden absence of ordinary social restrictions has an influence on some people who are on the odder side of the spectrum, perhaps pushing them out towards the outer boundaries if they are not inclined or able to reel themselves back in a bit.

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I don’t you’d be amused for very long either if you were having a wide birth. :hushed:

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Question 1: How many foreigners did you meet back home?

I didn’t meet foreigners until I came to Taiwan and people started pointing at me and using that word.

“I have met many cool foreigners here but I have many that are very weird.”

Question 2: How come you didn’t start a thread titled: “Why are there so many cool foreigners in Taiwan?”

Are you an oddball?

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Are you trying to tell me that the people where you come from aren’t weird? I think people are just weird in general. It’s, like, a feature of the human condition or something. Or maybe it’s just because I’m from Berkeley…

I’ve also lived in China and Singapore and they had their share of weird foreigners too. I believe there are several reasons for the weirdness:
-There are fewer established social norms (even for foreigners it’s not like one culture reigns–there are folks from US, UK, South Africa, continental Europe, Latin America, etc., with many subcultures)
-There are fewer penalties for behaving weirdly (I live in downtown Taipei and there are several parks/public areas where foreigner dudes hang out and drink; this wouldn’t fly back home or among downtown Taipeirs, but it’s just part of the culture for the foreigners) [basically what tempogain said more succinctly]
-There may be other people enabling your weirdness (so I actually love hanging out with a beer in the park, but would never do this alone and only do it here)
-Foreigners are sometimes treated with deference and there’s less pressure to “fit in” (or it’s harder to do)
-There is apparently some demographic weirdness (more foreigner men than women in many communities, probably fewer families, less extended family)
-There’s high mobility but also probably some subset that are basically stuck here

A lot of communities “back home” have some of these traits, but they’re more pronounced here.

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Much of this could be said of San Francisco.

Edit: I see that Dr. Milker is a Berkelean, whose university life has included a guy who went without clothes for nearly his whole four years.

Er, I find myself subject to numerous social restrictions. And that is why I wear clothes. Yes, tourists–or young people on their own for the first time–may well experience a sense of freedom, but that could happen anywhere.

I didn’t want this thread to die without acknowledging your quote from “Freaks.” Well done.

(And if anyone thinks that quote is originally from South Park, well then, I guess I’m a bit older than you).

You saw it in 1932?

:grin: It wasn’t even a typo. Just me being a fuckwit.

“But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVQ3-Xe_suY

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