Are you a "normal" person in your home country?

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
1

Would you consider yourself to be a “normal”/typical person from your home country?

I think at one point or another we have all heard someone say expats here are often people who don’t fit in at home, or are running away from something in their home country (maybe they don’t feel they fit in there, so its easier to be an outsider in a foreign country than your own.)

Of course the real answer is that some people will be like this, but others are pretty normal, it depends on the person etc.

However I’m curious how forumosans view themselves.

I’m from the US, and I can definitely see how in some ways I’m not a typical American. I don’t know if this has always been the case, but after several years of living in Taiwan, with most of my social interactions being with my TW wife and her family, my views on cultural have changed dramatically. I know pretty much believe that culture is almost completely relative, even things like morality, and although I really dislike many parts of TW culture, I can now point out a ton of things about American culture that are equally as disturbing.

I wonder how things will go when I go back home in a couple years. What will it be like when I get a normal job and my co-workers are a bunch of people who have never lived outside their state, let alone country.

So how about you?

2

I’m currently looking for a planet where I can fit in . . .

3

I was just dancing in the parking lot at Wall Mart with a blue slurpee in my hand with no shirt on and no one even batted an eye. No…there wasn’t any music.

4

I love how whenever I am with some locals, whatever I do/don’t do, like/dislike, one local will always to comment to the other, Foreigners all like/don’t like . I find it quite amusing, especially since 50% of the time, they are dead wrong.

5

I dance in carrefour Taiwan, to the carrefour jingle :loco: No one bats an eyelid!

On topic, OP define normal. According to me I am normal. Others around me, no matter where I go, seem slightly off :laughing:

6

Ha, locals all like to do that.

7

Ha, locals all like to do that.[/quote]

I see what you did there.

8

Why isn’t that on the People of Wal-mart website?

9

Yup. For example, when I eat something, people here sometimes comment, “That’s what foreigners eat every day.”

10

I can’t milk a cow, ride a horse, or rope a goat, so I’m definitely not normal for where I come from.

11

Yea but what can you do with a sheep?

12

Yea but what can you do with a sheep?[/quote]
That would be normal.

13

What’s ‘normal’? Typical, mundane and boring? Someone with no drive to pursue quality in various aspects of their life? Or just someone who’s socially well adjusted? The OP seems to mix all these concepts up in a very muddled way.

I can’t be happy eating Pringles, Chef Boyardee and McCrap, speaking only my mother tongue (and that one badly), working an unrewarding full-time job, spending the rest of my time watching really low-quality television, drinking really, really bad American beer, and having little to talk about other than what’s on TV and which steroid-loaded jock threw or kicked how many balls in this or that way, and I don’t really fit in with people like that, so no, I don’t think I’m ‘normal’ if what you mean is that kind of stereotypical American. But America is a diverse place, and there are people who I fit in with there. In fact, there are more creative, unusual people there than here, more DIY types, more artistic types, and so on.

14

When I made a joke at home [Germanistan] most people got scared.

Here, nobody understands my jokes. Much better.

Recently wife starts laughing about them. That’s scary.

15

[quote=“jackalope”]Would you consider yourself to be a “normal”/typical person from your home country?

I think at one point or another we have all heard someone say expats here are often people who don’t fit in at home, or are running away from something in their home country (maybe they don’t feel they fit in there, so its easier to be an outsider in a foreign country than your own.)

Of course the real answer is that some people will be like this, but others are pretty normal, it depends on the person etc.

However I’m curious how forumosans view themselves.

I’m from the US, and I can definitely see how in some ways I’m not a typical American. I don’t know if this has always been the case, but after several years of living in Taiwan, with most of my social interactions being with my TW wife and her family, my views on cultural have changed dramatically. I know pretty much believe that culture is almost completely relative, even things like morality, and although I really dislike many parts of TW culture, I can now point out a ton of things about American culture that are equally as disturbing.

I wonder how things will go when I go back home in a couple years. What will it be like when I get a normal job and my co-workers are a bunch of people who have never lived outside their state, let alone country.

So how about you?[/quote]

I’m interested in what the people who come here are like as well. For me, I feel like I fit in very well back at home in the US … I feel rather out of place here in Taiwan (although I’ve only been here for over a month). I’m American born Asian, went to a pretty much all white school in the States, did cheerleading, went to college, joined a sorority … did pretty much everything the American way. I think it varies from person to person, depending on the environment they were brought up in, where they lived, what / who they were exposed to, etc.

16

6 years ago, a friend of mine introduced me to the 4 stages of culture shock. I didn’t think so much about it then, but 'm quite amazed at how accurate it has been for me. Below is what I roughly remember from it.

Stage 1: Fresh off the boat to about 2 months.
Things are different and exciting. You enjoy the unusual and the many new experiences. New foods. New customs. New smells. New things all around you all day long. This is why a holiday in an exotic place can be so refreshing. You don’t stay there too long.

Stage 2: 2 months to 2 years.
You want to go home. The food is weird, you want the food at home. The traffic rules here are weird, you want the rules to be like at home. (Why are there so many bloody scooters in Taiwan?!)
This will make lots of people move on, simply move back to where they came from, or isolate themselves in little expat communities that are altered to look like home.

Stage 3: 2 to roughly 6~10 years.
You learn to appreciate the differences and see advantages and disadvantages compared to your home country. (Hmm… if they didn’t have so many scooters, they’d probably use cars instead. Wow, then the roads would really be congested.)

Stage 4: 6~10 years to the end.
You prefer your new place.

I’ve been here 8 years and have gone through stage 1 to 3. I have not yet reached stage 4, but I can without doubt start to see more and more of the advantages of living in Taiwan compared to a few years ago. I have no doubt that if I just stay here long enough, I’ll prefer Taiwan over my home country. Despite the fact that people question me regularly why on earth I don’t move back to a country with one of the highest living standards in the world.

17

I was normal in my home country, then I came here. After many years here (8), I returned home for 2 weeks. I was a weirdo (I think). I felt my social interactions were odd, my manner of speaking different, my accent was off (Not Australian anymore) and I was much more extroverted (whereas before I was mildly timid).
Taiwan has changed me (In a good way, IMO).
Here I’m definitely a weirdo, unusual and in no way normal (compared to the average Taiwanese standards for a local). The same goes for when I was in Aus. I like it that way.

18

I no longer feel I know what’s normal back home. I probably never did, but now I really don’t. When Bush was elected the second time and the news seemed to show a large rise rise in conservative, republican politics and Christians taking over school boards and banning the teaching of evolution and the like, I felt America had been completely transformed and I might consider relocating to Canada, instead of the US, when my stay here came to an end. I no longer feel it’s quite that bad, but I suspect it will be a little strange getting used to all the obese people sucking down Big Gulps and the shopping carts overloaded with junk food being unloaded into massive SUVs, etc.

I’ll hold out hope that obesity and massive excess at everything else isn’t quite normal (ie., typical, average) in the US – surely there are bright, intelligent, fit, moderate, sensible people as well – but I’m sure it will take some getting used to life over there. But surely the shock will be only partly because they have changed but also because I have changed over here in the land of cabbage and tofu.

19

I’m the most normal person I know. Everyone else seems a little odd, but I tolerate their idiosyncrasies.

20

I am not much of a joiner, but I was always able to fit in most anywhere. I just prefer living in Taiwan.

Visits to the US are nice, but I’m always glad to be back in Taiwan after a few weeks in the States.

I recently finished a big project with a group of Americans and found myself bothered just a tad by some of the things they did and said that seemed typically American to me. Among groups of American businesspeople, there’s often a sort of overly self-assured, “I’m so cool” air that I rarely see outside of the States. I saw that quite a bit with this group and it was a bit irritating. If behaving that way means I’m normal, I guess I’m not normal.