Anyone else feel like interacting with young Taiwanese requires nerves of steel?

Where I am ate least, hiking groups, and all sorts of groups, are easy to find on meetup.com

I went to a few Mandarin learners group meetings. The group were mostly people from China fairly new to the US, but some other non- native speakers as well.

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Part of it is curiosity in trying to understand them, how they think and why. Because it seems quite different from the way I think, and even different from how the Chinese think, whom I can understand a little more, because my parents were also raised in the communist system. Part of it is a way to maintain physical exercise and my goal to be a better player than this one guy in the group (competition). Part of it is to practice Chinese. The final part is that they’re all non-aggressive, mild-mannered introverts (to varying degrees), and I value that in people as I am the same way.

The tough part is trying to understand them, since they aren’t really open. Asking them directly doesn’t seem to be fruitful. I think I have to listen, observe and read between the lines more.

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But why act passive aggressive? It really seems childish to me. How does a person mature emotionally if they exhibit this kind of behavior? I’m trying to understand the reason for these behaviors, and I know that person didn’t have the best of childhoods, growing up with a grandmother while the single parent was working in Taipei, but still, how does one shut another person down privately with a healthy dose of passive aggressive and then pretend everything is normal within the Taiwanese group setting? It’s perplexing to me.

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I am a male, but in posting this, I’m not really looking for a female, just an understanding of how to interact with Taiwanese, see where they’re coming from when they act a certain way and maybe how to break down that emotional barrier so that they could open up more. The group is mixed gender and all Taiwanese-born.

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Taiwanese are very worried about face. Maybe you made the one guy lose face?

Yes. Also easy to meet on the trail and in camps :slight_smile: different style as Taiwan, which is to be expected.

Either way. I second the hiking/outdoor activity recommendation. Find more mature, intelligent social groups and filter through those individuals.

If that’s the true goal, you may need to create long term friend ships and learn inner workings of family culture here. In my opinion, probably 90% of all …anything…comes from Family piety. Learn a person’s inner family abuse, early lessons, love etc and then it’s relatively easy to get along with a person. Quite a lot of people in Taiwan are psychologically abused. Like it or not, it creates a lot of un attended to mental health issues which require a certain degree of patience and respect in my opinion.

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High context culture :+1:

Seems like a complete waste of time there’s nothing to get to know , cracking open an empty shell to reveal what exactly ?

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LINE stickers. Untold numbers of LINE stickers.

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If that’s how this person / group speaks of you when you are there then can you even imagine how they speak of you when you are not there.

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I found out some line stickers you have to pay for with real money, why would anyone do that?

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Because it’s fun.

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Interesting point. The offending behavior was confirmed by two unrelated people as morally wrong. But if someone is really worried about losing face, even in private capacity, then would this lead to a distorted view that they’re always right, and others are wrong, for the sake of preserving face, which would lead to a fragile ego?

Exactly, unfortunately, they don’t seem to be open to discussing these things like family abuse, lessons at an early age, etc. The best I can do is probably pluck these clues from their behaviors or comments. It’s too bad, it would be easier if they exhibited more openness - or maybe it’s an issue of lack of self-awareness, not recognizing and analyzing your own thoughts and behaviors?

A group of people is much the same as a group of your coworkers

Some
Are your friends
Some pretend to be your friends but back stab you when they can

Some you like
Some you don’t

Some you can hang out with
Some you can’t

The dynamics are similar
You are a group joined by a common cause and perhaps not much else

Do you micro analyze your co workers ?

If you don’t why micro analyse your group

Why are you nosy ?

You see them as a science experiment ?

Go get some friends outside of the group

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In my experience, this happens after years of close and personal relationship
Be it marriage, helping a loved one from death helping raise a kid, even a veryclose teacher that spends their weekends with the family etc. Honestly, hat seems logical.

Ironically, you cna hear about strangers family abuse, debtors taking their house, drug addiction at any coffee shop or 711 :sweat_smile:

Long and the short of it, unless you enter some form of social work, expect thugs to take years of trust building. After that you can just keep learning, listening, understanding and helping along the way until one day they open up. This is the same for individuals as it is for society, culture and community.

:joy::joy:

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With such trust, young man, you too may eventually join the gang.

Guy

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Is it like the Yakuza where entry costs a pinky? Asking for a friend…

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So we have gone from ‘How to make friendly conversations with young professionals’ to ‘How to force strange thugs who don’t acknowledge your presence to disclose stories of family abuse.’

Ok, that checks out, pretty standard stuff, this one is coming along nicely. :grinning:

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