Articles Criticizing Taiwan

I don’t see her asking for pity or playing the victim. :s

[quote=“Icon”]Imagine I make up a story to sell it to a newspaper. I make myself the victim of a robbery by a person of a racial minority. Would it be correct to expect sympathy for it?

My voabulary is faltering here at this hour but there is a word in English for that. Like false testimony, but for one’s benefit.[/quote]

Why do you think she made any of this up? How is her account anything like false testimony?

I’m not trying to give you a hard time. I just really don’t get how anyone could take offense at her story. :eh:

Agreed. She is just telling her experience the way she saw it.

As for me, I would agree to about 75% of the points she wrote about, and can understand how it would shock an unprepared person.

Personally I saw the benefits over the faults, but not everyone can do that.

[quote]The streets are crazy – if there are rules, no one follows them
[/quote]
severe hyperbole

[quote]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
[/quote]
complete and utter BS

Is she a paraplegic?

[quote]The tiny island is part of the Republic of China
[/quote]
Is she a circa 1950s KMT party member?

[quote]After three flights and 28 hours in transit
[/quote]
From Toronto? the fuck?

[quote]When we exited the airport, the smell from the sewers was worse.
[/quote]
this, also complete BS, outside the airport may smell like vehicle fumes, but sewers? C’mon girl, you know better…

[quote]he signs on the streets were all written in Chinese
[/quote]
and this is odd, why exactly?

congratulations! you are the first North American who has never had Chinese food! :bravo:

[quote]When I saw a pig’s snout hanging from a hook at a Taiwanese market, I was revolted. “This is what they eat?”
[/quote]
Oh my fawking GAWD!!! Why don’t you look inside your hot dog sometime sweetie, plenty of snout to go around.

[quote]The Australian who had been living there said it was “safe” during earthquakes.
[/quote]
Yes and ‘The Australian’ also used air quotations while explaining this. Correct me if I am wrong, but the building is still standing.

[quote]Cliff found a job as a science teacher at one of the wealthier schools.
[/quote]
I even think this is BS, I got a funny feeling Cliff did a lot more ESL teaching than science teaching. Just added this bit to show our storyteller’s aversion to accuracy.

[quote]Even worse were streets marked only in Chinese. Once, I had to find a doctor’s office by turning right “on the street after the sign with the apple.” Given that the apple was hidden in a smorgasbord of Chinese signs, which I had to scan while weaving in and out of cars, trucks, scooters, three-wheeled contraptions and the occasional dog, I spent half an hour searching for it, missed the appointment and had to reschedule. (Cliff and I eventually found it together).
[/quote]
yes, this because taxis in TW are so rare and so expensive.

[quote]The next day I made my first major purchase in Taiwan – a collection of RAID and a roll of duct tape.
[/quote]
First major purchase? RAID? Really? Spend a little on yourself darling…did ya steal your scooter?

[quote]Given that my rent contribution was less than $200 per month, it went a long way.
[/quote]
If you are putting well less than 10% of your pay towards rent, don’t bitch about the roaches, get a better place, then it won’t be an issue.

[quote]For example, every day I saw people throwing some sort of paper into roadside ovens. I initially thought they were burning garbage, but eventually learned it was “ghost money” – special paper people burned as a gift for deceased relatives.
[/quote]
Silly Orientals and their strange rituals.

[quote]When a taxi driver brought me to the bus terminal instead of the train station, I had no other recourse but to raise my arm and say, “Chug-a-chug-a-chug-a-chug-a-choo-choo.” (Thankfully, my ingenuity worked).
[/quote]
Sadly your ingenuity didn’t allow you to take ten seconds to learn how to say the word properly.

[quote]“You know, beat him, so he act betta.”
[/quote]
Oh, he act ‘betta’…I bet in class he make a good Englishee too! Man, Taiwanese, they be like: “ching chong ching chong chang!” And I be like: “Fix your English signs!”

[quote]I was trying to connect with my new world
[/quote]
Of course you were, which is why after a half year you didn’t even have the most basic phrases in the local language.

[quote]Taiwanese women treated Caucasian men like Hollywood stars. The bigger the nose, the more handsome the man, they said.
[/quote]
Gotta get my ass to Taichung!

[quote]In Taiwan, women don’t leave their parents’ homes until they are married
[/quote]
I knew those TWese chicks I knew in college were Mainlanders parading as Taiwanese, DAMMIT!!!

[quote]The impact of my experience in Taiwan was lasting. I’d accepted a scholarship to do my master’s degree at the University of British Columbia, but when I arrived, I didn’t have the energy to adjust to yet another new place. I wanted to go home.
[/quote]
lolwut?

[quote]I suddenly realized the impact Taiwan had had. A few hours later, I dropped out.
[/quote]

LOLWUT???

[quote]Having lived as a minority, I have a profound appreciation for the challenges new Canadians face.
[/quote]
Yes, because educated white people who are voluntarily in Taiwan to work and make a decent wage face the same obstacles and challenges as refugees and asylum seekers… :eh:

Yeah, I guess you are completely right, nothing offensive here, I should know ‘betta’. :wink:

I’m not saying I’m right. I’m just saying I’m not offended that this woman perceived Taiwan the way she did.

I guess if I wanted to be offended and outraged, I could stomp my feet every time my Taiwanese friends in the US opine that its boring there. Oh my! :laughing:

I’m not saying I’m right. I’m just saying I’m not offended that this woman perceived Taiwan the way she did.

I guess if I wanted to be offended and outraged, I could stomp my feet every time my Taiwanese friends in the US opine that its boring there. Oh my! :laughing:[/quote]

Yes, because that is as equally insulting. I get your point, but she is way off.

severe hyperbole[/quote]
—> Adjectives to Describe Taiwanese Driving

And so it goes: for every single item that young lady had difficulties with you can find a thread or similar comment somewhere in the archives of Forumosa. And similar stories by the dozen can be found on the web about Korea, Japan, and other places. And if you hang out with expats in Arabia (as i had the opportunity to do some time ago) you hear the same gripes about dirt, lawlessness, inscrutable natives and incomprehensible language even from people who’ve been there for years and should know better how to deal with what there is. Most of what you hear or read in those accounts can easily be confirmed as being true, in a way, but it is all so very “so what?”, and i am amazed at the amount of energy that gets expended attacking/deconstructing some such shrug inducing subjective commentary in some far-away newspaper. Have we gotten infected by that curious bug that was first discovered in Beijing when the government there got up in arms about someone who had insulted the billion plus citizens of that glorious nation?

Oh, and btw, i am in this game for the entertainment… :wink: :whistle: :popcorn:

My South African girlfriend came over to Taiwan in 2002 as part of a singing-dancing group who were put at the flower garden park up in Daken(g). She hated the job and Taiwan and repeatedly told me so in her letters and emails. I was still in SA and very resentful of her for leaving me to disappear off to some tiny island where plastic toys were made (that was my opinion of Taiwan at that time).

A year later I was in Taichung teaching Engrish at Joy (at least, that’s where I started the ESL ride). I was immensely happy to be out of SA and in a culture so different to mine. I’d broken off with the girl at the end of '02. And been offered my sister’s friend’s job at Joy.

My first year was pure honeymoon. Year Two and Three were not as easy and I left at the end Year Three.

The I went back to SA, and realised I missed Asia a lot. I wanted to head back to Taiwan but it wasn’t an option. So I headed to mainland China. And absolutely hated it, and left after six months (I wrote a piece about that six months - part humour, part hate).

But I figured I wouldn’t let myself be beaten down and headed back, this time to Xiamen. I’m wrapping up my sixth year and have had plenty of good and bad days. I’m heading over to Taiwan later this month to do a recce and see if I should resettle there again.

See ya’ll end-March!

My :2cents:

[quote=“Tigerman”]I’m not saying I’m right. I’m just saying I’m not offended that this woman perceived Taiwan the way she did.

I guess if I wanted to be offended and outraged, I could stomp my feet every time my Taiwanese friends in the US opine that its boring there. Oh my! :laughing:[/quote]

So, if you like 苦瓜, but, I think its vile and disgusting, and I said so, you would be insulted? And I would be way off? :s

How 'bout if you like basketball and I think its boring and I write an article saying so? Are you insulted by that?

If I think the Flora Expo is lame and say so… are you again insulted? :s

I’m not sure why people don’t get that this is an article in a newspaper and needs to be judged accordingly, not whether the facts merely report some experiences accurately (that is just the start and not the end of writing), but whether those experiences are presented in a way that is coherent, inspired, interesting, intriguing, or amusing. By any standard this article fails as a piece of writing. As DD shows, most claims are exaggerated so it doesn’t even have accuracy of reporting on its side. Now yes, writers often exaggerate for effect: but for fun, amusing, edifying, enlightening effects. Simply exaggerating is what we tell children not to do because it is a little too close to lying.

In any case, what is the effect here? To show how horrible a time the writer had in Taiwan in a way that is absolutely not pleasurable to read. And of course the writer didn’t have a horrible time but simply couldn’t handle some mundane difficulties. It was a waste of time to read. I would have been embarrassed to have written it let alone asked to be paid for it.

Yes, many people have had similar experiences, and when they post them that day on Forumosa, or Facebook, we may be entertained or distressed to read about them. But you know what we say to friends/posters who are still griping 6 years later about missing a doctor appointment or having a bad meal? Shut up loser.

I dont get how any foreigner can consider Taiwan a tough place to live. Most of us walk into jobs that pay a middle to upper middle class income as soon as we get here. Im going back home soon, now thats tough, competing in the real world. This girl is just weak and pathetic on so many levels.

[quote=“Tigerman”]I’m not saying I’m right. I’m just saying I’m not offended that this woman perceived Taiwan the way she did.

I guess if I wanted to be offended and outraged, I could stomp my feet every time my Taiwanese friends in the US opine that its boring there. Oh my! :laughing:[/quote]

So, if you like 苦瓜, but, I think its vile and disgusting, and I said so, you would be insulted? And I would be way off? :s

How 'bout if you like basketball and I think its boring and I write an article saying so? Are you insulted by that?

If I think the Flora Expo is lame and say so… are you again insulted? :s[/quote]

You still on about this?

How about if I told you your WHOLE COUNTRY smelled like an open sewer, everywhere, all day, all night, and it is the first thing you smell when you exit the airport? THAT is insulting.

It is like saying (I assume you are American)…“I did six months as a Chinese teacher in the United States, EVERYONE was morbidly obese, and dumb as a stump, not a single skinny person in the entire country, nor was there a person who could speak English properly, EVERYONE drove SUVs and ran smaller cars off the road, NOBODY walked (probably why they are so GD fat). They only ate fastfood, nowhere could one get a healthy meal, one time I took a taxi, and the stupid driver couldn’t understand my Chinese, I ended up at the FoxHILL Mall instead of the FoxWOODS Mall, it wasn’t until I gesticulated a hillshape that I got to the right place, IDIOTS (luckily my ingenuity is on point in this land of roly poly retards), perhaps all the fat cells clogging their arteries is slowing blood flow to the brain? When I came back to TW I was greeted by a Passport Control officer who was under 200lbs. It was the first time I saw a person who wasn’t morbidly obese in 6 months, I was overcome with emotions and immediately started crying.”

no matter how many facile analogies you draw, they still miss the key point.

The story was inaccurate, exaggerated and mean-spirited. I dissected the thing on the previous page, pointing out everything I thought was ‘dis-information’ not sure why you keep bringing it back to these nonsensical comparisons?

Oh I get it. It’s just that you’re right, it isn’t tough enough to warrant writing about in such a straight manner, so many years after the fact. I would have preferred a cliche such as “oh, after finishing a term as a teachers aid in Angola I really understand hardship. God to think that I used to think Taiwan was my toughest assignment.”

:laughing: Seriously, Deuce, you’re making my point. There’s a way to make this material gold and then there’s the way it was presented in the Gazette.

She just doesn’t love Taiwan enough.

It needs to be judged? :astonished: Would it be OK to, like, ignore it…?

Or is it that the 23 million citizens of this glorious island nation have been farted upon and a
فتوى
(fatwā) is in the making? :popcorn:

It needs to be judged? :astonished: Would it be OK to, like, ignore it…?[/quote]

It’s a timely topic so we are having fun discussing it. No problem with this. If you bring it up 6 years from now I probably will ignore it. :laughing:

[quote]Or is it that the 23 million citizens of this glorious island nation have been farted upon and a
فتوى
(fatwā) is in the making? :popcorn:[/quote]

You think that is what is going on here on Fcom? Seems a bit of a stretch to say the least. Have you read some of the stuff, Deuce for one, has said about Taiwan? :no-no:

:smiley:

I only remember this one:
viewtopic.php?f=92&t=93479&start=18

Anyway, agreed, in 6 years we WILL have forgotten this. :wink:

severe hyperbole[/quote]
—> Adjectives to Describe Taiwanese Driving

And so it goes: for every single item that young lady had difficulties with you can find a thread or similar comment somewhere in the archives of Forumosa. And similar stories by the dozen can be found on the web about Korea, Japan, and other places. And if you hang out with expats in Arabia (as i had the opportunity to do some time ago) you hear the same gripes about dirt, lawlessness, inscrutable natives and incomprehensible language even from people who’ve been there for years and should know better how to deal with what there is. Most of what you hear or read in those accounts can easily be confirmed as being true, in a way, but it is all so very “so what?”, and i am amazed at the amount of energy that gets expended attacking/deconstructing some such shrug inducing subjective commentary in some far-away newspaper. Have we gotten infected by that curious bug that was first discovered in Beijing when the government there got up in arms about someone who had insulted the billion plus citizens of that glorious nation?

Oh, and btw, i am in this game for the entertainment… :wink: :whistle: :popcorn:[/quote]

Thats the key then. Maybe people who are narrow minded and live a sheltered existence should NOT venture out beyond say 100 miles from their home, lest they suffer similarly.

Understatement of this thread :slight_smile:

You know? It’ll be perfectly OK for her personally to feel any which way she wants to feel about anything. Its a free country. And she can express such in a blog. But the paper ought to be ashamed of itself falling to such lows.

She had a sheltered life in whereeverthefuck Canada shes from and ventured out of her comfort zone …WAY THE HELL OUT OF IT… and suffered Brain Damage that still affects her to this day apparently.

She can be whatever idiot she wants to be but the paper should not patronize such narrow thinking. And yes to say a whole country smells like a sewer 24/7 everywhere is a major insult, no matter which country you apply it to.

Sewertopia?

The Big Stink?

The United Stink?

Old Zealand?