Yeah, congrats Poagao. I liked the article. My girlfriend told me how to pronounce your name too, but it’s hard, I can’t remember. She thought it was very funny. So how did you get adopted, was it a purely legal thing? My girlfriend asked “what about your original parents?”. Had they passed away? (please feel free to ignore if it’s too personal - just curious).
It’s not impossible to obtain ROC citizenship if you are willing to renounce your original citizenship. That was true when I did it and it is still true today. The only question is if you are willing to make that sacrifice.
I didn’t tell the reporter to call me that; the headline is from the Times, not me. I don’t insist upon any certain designation. People ask me if they should call me Taiwanese/American/Mexican/Russian/Choctaw/Martian, etc., but I think using my name is usually sufficient. For the purposes of this discussion, though, I don’t see why “Taiwanese” need refer to an ethnic group, since most “Taiwanese” are ethnically Chinese, except for the “real Taiwanese”, the aborigines. If you were raised in Texas you could be called a Texan, but that doesn’t mean you support Texan Independence (although some do).
What about Lin’s family in the States? Or was he an orphan? Or do I have to buy his book in order to get these answers?
So now how am I to make the case that “there are no white or black Taiwanese”? I suppose I must now qualify it “short of adoption” or “without making the supreme sacrifice” (original citizenship, I suppose, no, not genital warts). Anyway, I remember one day I was thumbing thru the statistics of the MOFA [wai4jiao1bu4] and I spotted that there was one USA person that had given up their citizenship that year… [wonder where that statistic is on-line, wonder if any other years had there been such an anomaly].
Anyways, drat, I must now modify my discrimination slogans to carefully avoid including you … or probably I’ll just keep on saying “Show me one white/black Taiwanese! Even Dr. XYZ, founder of hospitals, etc. was never given Taiwanese citizenship. Oh, Mr. Poagao? Special case! No fair. He was adopted or something. Show me one…”
Anyways, OK, so let’s say we go the supreme sacrifice route, and give up our original citizenship to get Taiwanese citizenship. So there is a stateless period that one must go live in Hong Kong or something… and what if plans back fire and you don’t fully qualify for Taiwanese citizenship. Now what do I do, make money with my new book “Look mom, stateless!”?
Or does the Taiwanese government have a deal where they first issue a approval guarantee certificate, that “we’ve done the checks, all looks good, all that’s left is you getting rid of that ugly original citizenship, go ahead, we won’t pull the rug out of underneath you, promise.” I suppose that is the way the Indonesian brides do it.
Is the option (including renunciation of original citizenship(s) not open to those who are married to a Taiwanese national? I had thought that it would be.
Yeah, it’s a bit of a risk I suppose, the stateless thing. I had thought it would take a couple of weeks at most, but I was stuck in Hong Kong for almost half a year, which was interesting.
I’m not an orphan. I still have family in the states; I just left them when I was a teenager to come here. The book is mainly about my time in the army rather than about other parts of my life, though, so I didn’t cover things like that very thoroughly.
Cool, let us know when you hold your book signing event.
For those interested in a Chinese version of this story, the most recent TVBS Weekly did a story featuring many hilarious photographs depicting how much weight I’ve gained in the last few years:
TVBS Weekly website, full story in the magazine. If you don’t read Chinese, you can just laugh at the pictures.
Poagao came down with typhoid fever last friday and has been in the hospital since. He’ll probably be released today, but I’m not 100% sure about that. Anyway, I know a lot of people on here know him (and even like him, who’d have thunk?) so if you get a chance maybe send him an IM or call him on his cell phone and make him feel better.
I know he’ll get embarassed and sheepish once he sees this – good! It’ll take his mind off the fact that the chef at *** ****** didn’t wash his hands after wiping his ass and now he’s suffering because of it! 
Chris
Mindcrime,
If Poagao contracted typhoid due to unsanitary conditions at an eating/drinking establishment, I happen to feel we owe it to the community to divulge this information.
After speaking with Poagao just now, he said that the doctor said typhoid has a three day incubation period, which would mean that overpriced Irish place.
But he got sick immediately after dining at a bar with the letter Q, and plans to avoid both establishments in the future.
I say, cook at home to be safe.
You know Taiwanese and their delicate stomachs… They just can’t handle foreign cuisine. ~sigh~
Alien, you’re absolutely right. The only reason I didn’t name the leprechaun joint next to the mobster grill the first time was that I don’t really know it was their kitchen that did it to him. I personally believe it was*, but I also don’t want to be making accusations that I can’t substantiate factually**. I mean, Poagao could have eaten lunch in a greasy noodle stand in a market and picked it up there, too.
Chris
- TIJMOPDSMIDWTBAPB
** I’m not about to go ask their kitchen staff to crap in a cup for me so I can run it over to the hospital and let the staff there compare it to Poagao’s monkey-ass stool either!
A stay in one of Tawan’s hospitals isn’t an entirely bad experience. I got to know a lot of charming student nurses when I had a spell in one of them a few years back. But I didn’t so much appreciate them using me as a guinea-pig for the student nurses to practice on – especially the one who made such a mess of finding my vein to draw some blood (I feared I was going to be pricked to death).
Anyway, I hope that Poagao is on the mend, and has collected a few more colourful anecdotes for his next book.
And while we’re on the subject, how about any interesting or grotesque hospital experiences here?
Well, actually, now that you mention it: When I lived in Hsinchu I had an ear infection and the doctor at the city hospital had me hold a hair-dryer with a red lightbulb on the end of it up to my ear. He said it was “infrared therapy.” Uh, yeah. Didn’t work. I ended up at another hospital and getting a handful of real medicine to take care of it.
Chris
What, like having knee surgery while the janitor crouches in the corner of the theater eating his biendang? (This in the Adventist Hospital, by the way).
Nooooo, I’m not going THERE again!
Well, Big Mactually, the Adventist has its advantages. It IS located next to a Burger King.
When I was in the Catholic hospital in Hsintien (Cardinal Tien, or something like that?), I was put in a two-person ward with their other foreigner, an 80-year-old Catholic missionary who had spent 50 years in China and Taiwan. He was on a respirator and in a very bad way. Not having any kin here, he was provided with one of those rent-a-carers to attend to his needs (the washing, feeding, etc. that nurses here don’t do). She was just about the most unpleasant, unfeeling, despicable woman I’ve ever encountered in my life. I felt so sorry for the poor old boy ending his life in such uncaring hands. She didn’t give a damn about him, and complained bitterly about any and every little duty she was called upon to perform. She much preferred to lounge in front of the TV and stuff her face with biandangs and snacks while yacking and arguing at full volume with her obnoxious daughter and lowlife husband, who treated the place as if it were their own home. When the poor fellow mercifully passed away in the middle of the night, her only concern was laying claim to as many of his possessions as she could before she packed up and headed off to “tend” to her next victim. What a terrible system!
Reminds me of my own happy sojourn in(on?) the Adventist in 1996. A 2 bed room - me with an open leg wound and daily carvings - the neighbouring bed being used as a production line for some internal op. The victim, ooops, patient in the next bed was deemed ready to leave when the catheter fluid goes from blood to piss. Drainage was into a large pickle jar. So of course it gets knocked all over the floor during the night. I only notice this when I step out of bed … lovely!!! Bare feet…lovely!!
When my girlfriend mentions to the nurse that there is bloody piss all over the floor, the response … ‘the mop is in the press over there’
Mind you the proximity to Dan Ryans saved me starving to death - used to slip out when they were changin the drip …
Had to leave the country in order to get discharged in the end.
Paogao- Do feel better soon, and ignore the horror stories that will soon following in this thread…
My Taiwan hospital horror story. I had to have a minor surgical procedure a few years back. Surgery was fine, doc was great, drugs were enough to put me under, OR was clean and appeared sterile…my procedure was on an outpatient basis…
I spent my recovery however… IN THE LAUNDRY ROOM! All of the recovery rooms were full apparently, so when I came to, I asked 2 times… now where am I?
Better yet a girlfriend of mine delivered her baby at Adventist hospital and spent nearly the entire time in labor, on a gurney, in the hall! Nothing like a bit of privacy eh?
Hospital food takes a real turn for the worse here in Taiwan.
Breakfast: Yucky pastry.
Lunch: Bian dang.
Dinner: Bian dang.
Everyday single day and all served in take-away containers.
Kitty and I both hope Poagao will get well very soon! He’s matched our almost perfect relationship.
Sorry, no hospital stories to share (toi, toi, toi!)
Iris