[quote]“To say I’m disoriented is an understatement. I don’t feel like I’m any part of this place – just looking in on a culture and people I don’t understand. The streets are crazy – if there are rules, no one follows them … I haven’t seen one Caucasian female yet … is there a reason? The pollution is worse than I expected. Imagine putting your head over a sewer on a really humid day and breathing in as deep as you can. That’s what it’s like here, everywhere, all day, all night … Last night I met up with a giant black and orange beetle. Will I have to learn to live with all of this? I can’t even cross the street yet. How am I going to teach little kids?”
[/quote]
I really hate egomaniacs like this who slander a place so unfairly all because they couldn’t handle it. How ignorant can one stupid woman be, and how dumb is The Gazette for giving her a platform to spew her tripe?
Jesus Christ hunny, you can’t handle Taiwan, imagine if you went almost anywhere else? :roflmao:
[color=#FF0000]Mod Note: I didn’t lock the post, but if you change the title please keep it in line with the direction the thread has taken.[/color]
I know. It’s ridiculous. As many commentators wrote, this is a blog entry, not something a newspaper should publish.
I liked how among her terrible experiences were an old lady asking her is she had diarrhea (and making farting noises) and getting taked to the bus terminal and not the train hy a taxi.
My :
I thought it was hilarious. She writes like someone in their very early twenties, privileged, naive as well as arrogant (don’t we know a certain someone on the board like this, hmm?) and one who lacks tiger blood.
I see everything so clearly now. Now that I have tiger blood, I am a winning. Her, loser. Me, winning.
I read the article. I don’t get the “silly cow” insult from the OP and don’t really think it is necessary. The article is published in the “Life” section of the paper and is really about her own life experiences and what they mean to her. It is not meant to be authoritative, nor is it so much about Taiwan as it is about her own life and the lessons she has learned. Her experiences are hers, she is entitled to them and she has every right to speak them. Obviously, I wouldn’t agree with much of the specifics of what she wrote, and I think her emotional reaction to being back in Toronto is a little over the top. If anything, I have a strangely reverse reaction (“oh no, I’m back in the land of endless red tape-- how long is that line through customs going to be? Is this how much it really costs?”) when I go home. Still, her views are hers and I don’t see the need to trash her for them, nor get overly defensive about Taiwan, as if it were without fault.
But who wants to hear about some girl’s disgust at finding one or two cockroaches? Or how humiliated she felt because she (shock - horror) had to mime things to communicate?
I respect that Taiwan is difficult for many to adjust to and that she has a right to her opinions. But it’s sad that she actually wanted to publish how inept she was in adapting to another country.
And then she has the gall to write:
[quote]
I am thankful for what my experience in Taiwan gave me – strength, courage and an incredible perspective on the world and its people.[/quote]
At least, though, she does provide a cautionary tale which will hopefully encourage a few gits to stay at home.
I couldn’t get through all the whinning and just scanned to find out what you guys are onto about the MA. Sheesh! She had a scholarship and dropped out because her experiences here had been so tough on her that she just needed to run home? Wow. I just have no idea what else to say.
My impression is that she was fresh out of college, inexperienced and naive at the time of her visit; perhaps never having traveled outside of North America in her life before being thrust into the chaos of Taichung. She was inexperienced enough that she wasn’t very able to open her mind to this very new experience. I suppose if someone lives a sheltered life, then the sight of a pig snout in a market butcher shop or a cockroach could be distressing. She seemed unprepared for coping with expected difficulties that we commonly experience in life, such as the language barrier. She seemed easily shocked and overcome by trivial occurrences, instead of learning from them and taking them in stride. (The exception would be learning about the kid’s parents beating him.) Sure the food’s different, but there’s plenty of variety available.
She says that her experience in Taiwan made her stronger, but I don’t get the impression that she ever wanted to repeat the experience. She still seems to be whining about it, six years later. And though she says “I am also even more understanding of cultures and values that are different from my own”, I sense that this may be an unintended overstatement.
You guys are way overreacting. It’s just a bunch of words to fill space in a paper, so she can say she was published in teh Montreal Gazette and they can stick together enough pages to create a newspaper that they can sell. Not all news articles merit a Pulitzer. But it’s good to have an angle. Her angle is “Oh my god, you wouldn’t believe that crazy land, everything’s in Chinese, they eat weird foods and people drive on the sidewalks, it’s like totally crazy.” It may sound lame to someone who’s not FOB, as she was, but for most readers it’s probably more entertaining than a discourse on the Treaty of Shimonoseki. Ok, maybe it’s not, but at least she’s capable of writing her whiny little angle.
MT, it is very difficult these days to get freelance articles published in newspapers. Despite my experience and resume I doubt the Gazette editors would even respond to a pitch with a polite no thanks. Someone deemed this article, out of the many more that could be published (and were pitched by experienced writers) as worthy of seeing the light of day. If they did it because they wanted to help the woman, then they deserve all the scorn they are receiving. If they published it because they thought it was a worthwhile article then doubly so.
[quote=“Chris”]My impression is that she was fresh out of college, inexperienced and naive at the time of her visit; perhaps never having traveled outside of North America in her life before being thrust into the chaos of Taichung. She was inexperienced enough that she wasn’t very able to open her mind to this very new experience. I suppose if someone lives a sheltered life, then the sight of a pig snout in a market butcher shop or a cockroach could be distressing. She seemed unprepared for coping with expected difficulties that we commonly experience in life, such as the language barrier. She seemed easily shocked and overcome by trivial occurrences, instead of learning from them and taking them in stride. (The exception would be learning about the kid’s parents beating him.) Sure the food’s different, but there’s plenty of variety available.
She says that her experience in Taiwan made her stronger, but I don’t get the impression that she ever wanted to repeat the experience. She still seems to be whining about it, six years later. And though she says “I am also even more understanding of cultures and values that are different from my own”, I sense that this may be an unintended overstatement.[/quote]
First time I came to Taiwan (1992) I was shocked by all the garbage and smells, open sewers … but I was exited about all the new experiences … seeing a pig snout made me go WOW!, never seen that on a butcher stand, hadn’t even seen a butcher stand in my life. Yes Taiwan looked dirty, and probably was by western standards but you can hardly compare than and now, even 2005 and 1992 … cockroaches, never seen them in my life back than, only on TV … but bugs are my life now, :roflmao: or about … I really wonder that she didn’t mention mosquitoes, but that’s less spectacular I guess.
I got a scare tho, seeing all the red ‘blood’ stains on the street (I thought gang related violence) until I saw a guy spitting red … so, I thought it must be some kind of TBC, diseased lungs from smoking … or bad teeth … but found out later it was betelnut …
2011, I’m still here … wondering everyday, seeing things on a daily basis that I’ve never seen or experienced … even now … I didn’t get a scholarship or did my master … and I guess learning Québécois culture will be hard for me … complicated people … clean, French food, stubborn …
Oh, I forgot to mention my first trip on the bus form a countryside town to the big city Taipei … going there was fine … coming back, I had to decipher Chinese characters on the front of the bus … way back there was no English on the buses … and all friendly people I asked, couldn’t even understand what I wanted, or where I wanted to go … My town was way out in the country side, was I sure I had to go there?
I think the issue is someone who can’t see the humor in an old lady making farting noises to ask if she has diarrhea is a tad too precious and spoilt for this world and deserves to be caricatured not given an editorial.
[quote=“Mother Theresa”]You guys are way overreacting. It’s just a bunch of words to fill space in a paper, so she can say she was published in teh Montreal Gazette and they can stick together enough pages to create a newspaper that they can sell. Not all news articles merit a Pulitzer. But it’s good to have an angle. Her angle is “Oh my god, you wouldn’t believe that crazy land, everything’s in Chinese, they eat weird foods and people drive on the sidewalks, it’s like totally crazy.” It may sound lame to someone who’s not FOB, as she was, but for most readers it’s probably more entertaining than a discourse on the Treaty of Shimonoseki. Ok, maybe it’s not, but at least she’s capable of writing her whiny little angle.
Plus, she’s Canadian. Give her a break. [/quote]
Yeah, but she misrepresented a country that we happen to like, and people will read that garbage and develop an opinion of Taiwan that is just wrong.
I lived for 15 years in a completely different part of the world and had to grit my teeth every time a journalist poked his/her head out and trashed the place.
And, they do it because editors want a ‘spicy’ story and it’s easy to cut corners and write what you want about a tiny place like Isr-, I mean Taiwan.
[quote=“Got To Be Kidding”][quote=“Mother Theresa”]You guys are way overreacting. It’s just a bunch of words to fill space in a paper, so she can say she was published in teh Montreal Gazette and they can stick together enough pages to create a newspaper that they can sell. Not all news articles merit a Pulitzer. But it’s good to have an angle. Her angle is “Oh my god, you wouldn’t believe that crazy land, everything’s in Chinese, they eat weird foods and people drive on the sidewalks, it’s like totally crazy.” It may sound lame to someone who’s not FOB, as she was, but for most readers it’s probably more entertaining than a discourse on the Treaty of Shimonoseki. Ok, maybe it’s not, but at least she’s capable of writing her whiny little angle.
Plus, she’s Canadian. Give her a break. [/quote]
Yeah, but she misrepresented a country that we happen to like, and people will read that garbage and develop an opinion of Taiwan that is just wrong.
I lived for 15 years in a completely different part of the world and had to grit my teeth every time a journalist poked his/her head out and trashed the place.
And, they do it because editors want a ‘spicy’ story and it’s easy to cut corners and write what you want about a tiny place like Isr-, I mean Taiwan.[/quote]
The Vancouver papers tend to have better stuff on Taiwan, not surprisingly.
I can side with her in that: If it weren’t for the smokin’ hot women, Taiwan would by far be the armpit of the democratic world.
I always see white girls in Taiwan and think “Why are you here?” All of the skinny China girls will make you feel fat. The men are only interested in these same small framed, young looking natives, and as a woman, you are considered a second class citizen.
needless to say, this article makes her look bad, not Taiwan. She couldn’t even do a year abroad? What media company wants to hire a foreign correspondent that suffers ‘chronic culture shock?’ Wow, she was able to live in France and Montreal…a true citizen of the world!
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