Ah George himself had to put with a fair amount of abuse in his time.
lol yes having networks outside of work is important, but here in Taiwan I am expected to be at school all the time 
unlike in England where we get a reasonable 13 weeks holiday a year, here I am lucky to get 4 weeks in the summer and that’s a damned sight better than some of my colleagues…
I only found out recently that some colleagues come in on Saturday 
Does anyone know why many folks won’t ask you directly what you said? For example on the weekend a friend of a friend seemed to understand nothing I said and turned to my friend to ask 他說甚麼? to which my friend would repeat exactly what I’d said word for word
This just feels so rude and it’s so random. Some people just leave me feeling like I can’t speak Chinese, whereas some I can have interesting conversations that go on and on…
More’s the pity…While it is highly likely to find individuals anywhere who do not accept outsiders, it is also quite possible to find societies that do accept outsiders. Although, off the top of my head the only example I could come up with is an extreme historic case (the Taino people) 
The Han Chinese of the Qing era and early to mid Japanese era probably realized that the Aboriginals were less prone to malaria than they were, and thought they could gain that immunity by eating the Aboriginals. In fact they, or more accurately their children, would only gain that immunity by mating with Aboriginals.
Some people shut off when they fear a foreigner (or someone who looks like a foreigner) speaking their language; some people, willfully or not, don’t understand differences in pronunciation and accent.
As one old aborigine told me, “We are called mountain people because those bastards stole all the good land in the plains”.
Imagine the so called savages were no savage compared to those who were supposedly enlightened Such animosity as can not be imagined.
As one can imagine to hold far more than a grain of truth
Which no doubt is what happened as most Taiwanese who have ancestors who have lived generations on Taiwan harbor aborigine genome
In MacKay’s memoir, it is said that the Sinicized Plains Aboriginals would sometimes lure none Sinicized Aboriginals out and sell them out for money. In the same page that I posted, he mentioned that a band of hostile Aboriginals were lured by Sinicized Plains Aboriginals (pe-po-hoan, pênn-poo-huan, 平埔番) with promise of alcohol, and then the elder leader was captured.
Sometimes the savages are taken by the treachery of their kinsmen, the Pe-po-hoan. One famous old chief was on the top of a mountain with a band of twenty-four braves, when he was beckoned by a party of Pe-po-hoan to approach and drink one another’s health. After much hesitation the savages camel but hardly had the liquor been tasted when the crafty design was revealed and the savages attacked. After a desperate hand-to-hand struggle the men escaped, but the chief was taken a prisoner. He was handed over to the Chinese authorities, who gave a reward to his captors. After bring imprisoned, beaten, tortured, he was dragged through the streets, and women rushed forward, thrusting long needles into his flesh by way of avenging the death of their husbands, sons, and friends. When the signal was given for him to kneel, with diabolical glee he said he was not ashamed to die, for at his house on the mountains was a row of Chinese heads lacking only six of completing the hundred, every one the prize of his own daring skill. Around him were several Chinese border-men who had adopted the cannibal ism of the savages, and these cut away the skull and ate the brains, in the hope that they too would be brave like the chief whom they so greatly feared.
I’m not sure if the border-men weren’t part Aboriginal themselves, and I don’t know for sure if cannibalism was a part of the Aboriginal customs as MacKay suggests. However, it all sounds very similar to the Kai Tangata tradition of the Māori, where people were eaten so that their mana could be absorbed.
Either way, the history of Taiwan, especially the colonization is filled with dark pages.
evidence suggests the maori hailed from taiwan
admittedly we have detracted a bit from the topic at hand. But i guess in delving into taiwan’s near prehistoric past we can dive beneath the smiling faces to unearth the root causes or affects of racism in taiwan
That is some kind of “integrating”!!!
Guy
OMG man, I f***ing hate that. Sitting on a table with a friend’s friend and, no matter how many times I repeat “you can speak Mandarin with me, no probs”, he will keep asking my friend questions about me in front of my face. The 他説什麽 is an immediate 幹講三小 trigger from my mouth 
I don’t get that. I don’t doubt that it happens, though. Maybe because I’m half Asian?
Yeah I think the experience if one is white here,and probably black , can be pretty weird. Many people basically refuse to speak Chinese to me or at least try to force English into the conversation randomly. Depending on my mood I’ll go along with it. There’s some really weird things SOME people do around obvious foreigners in Taiwan . The sudden uttering of random English is one . Most people are fine though the main issue is avoidance and lack of confidence in dealing with people of a different colour ,hence I said you have to really up your EQ game here , go in with confidence while people are staring at you, break the ice with Chinese and get shit done…
I dealt with a bunch of different mechanics today. Most of the middle aged laobans were pretty cool and enjoy interacting with somebody out of their usual orbit , it’s their staff sometimes that get a little bit more twitchy and nervous, walking into the mechanics room sometimes will have a deer in the headlights effect if you aren’t proactive. And yes my vehicle Chinese isnt great so that was partly my fault. The usual conversations where you are from , what do you think of Taiwan, I went to France and Switzerland before etc until I steer it back to what’s wrong with my vehicle and how much will it cost .
I like this. Stay focused, don’t let things throw you off balance, remember what you’re trying to accomplish, keep your eyes on the prize. : D
Guy
There’s this Vietnamese lady who works at the local breakfast joint. Her Mandarin is really understandable to me, like as in I find it really clear and easier to understand than the drawl of some of the other locals working there. But the oldies that come in keep asking her to repeat herself, over and over. Fucking shits me to tears, as I can understand what she is saying, and they are supposed to be native speakers [I realise they probably learnt Taiwanese first]. I think because Taiwan is one of the least multicultural places in the world outside of some Middle Eastern countries, people are completely intolerant of even the slightest accent. Of course you could be butchering some tones here and there too. 
Someone mentfioned up thread or maybe elsewhere here, it seems like a competition between English and Mandarin, so true! Other parts of Asia, for example Japan they just bark Japanese at you. Wish they would do that here instead of trying to be so keqi all the time. Zero EQ.
Yeah, I’m glad it’s not just me. It’s a weird situation. Not particularly bad. Just weird. Hearing other people’s stories has definitely helped me put this into perspective. I spoke with my German friend who has lived in the UK for 20+ years and she said it was only after Brexit that she remembered she wasn’t from Britain.
I can never see that happening here. Not that I would want to either 
I have to be honest. What I’ve come into contact with of the culture was nice but it’s not really for me.
So is it my imagination or are the ‘most successful’ foreigners here just those who come, don’t bother with the language / culture, get a local spouse to do all the work for them and then spend the next 20+ years working at and maybe even one day managaing / owning a buxiban? These folks seem to be the happiest from my limited observations here.