Bigotry in Taiwan. Perception and Reality

I think we need to break this down so we can have a concise way of describing this to people in the future as it is quite complex and contradictory.

There are a few angles with which to approach it and I think the most convenient (to use the old Taiwan axiom) way would be to break it down between intent (on the part of the local) and perception (on the part of the foreigner).

1 - Use of the words ‘waiguoren’, ‘laowai’ and ‘adogah’ immediately upon any dealings locals have with foreigners. Almost always, it is the first word out of their mouth. Also, lets pretend these words are of the same degree of insult for the sake of simplification (obviously ‘adogah’ is the worse but lets not open that can of worms).

perception: exclusionary, racist, uncouth, bigoted, and just plain rude.

intent: special case, not run of the mill, caution bumpy road ahead.

I fucking hate it when this happens, I speak Chinese, I know a thing or two about the ways of this Isle, why the fuck you always gotta dumb me down and single me out. But the longer I live here the more I realize that people here often behave like system analysts and not outside the box thinkers. They are just reporting on what they observe, almost in the same way that men flirt with women here by pointing out their flaws, locals deal with foreigners first and foremost by pointing out their ‘foreigness’. Perhaps it is to pre-excuse a potentially face losing situation, perhaps it is to warn others things could get awkward.

Is it racist? Absolutely, it is actually textbook racism.

Is it meant to be hurtful? I doubt it, people here are often focused on their own reality and haven’t given thought to your plight, and even if they did, many wouldn’t understand it.

Are foreigners too easily butthurt? yes, but it is because most of us (the Western ones, what the SE Asians go through is much rougher) come from a multicultural society and have been indoctrinated from youth to have racial and cultural empathy (though many choose to act out against this ideology, as I feel more and more people here will in the future as outsiders, especially Vietnamese, become full fledged members of society). People here have not been brought up with multi-culturalism, and when questioned on the matter think: “What? He is a foreigner, he isn’t from here, he is different than me, what exactly am I saying or doing that is false?”

To locals this perceived indignation is non-existent, and nothing more than someone being pragmatic, not hurtful, but the reality is to any foreigner living here it is a true barrier, and a fundamental building block to exclusionary behavior and clannishness in the future. I always think about issues like this when I hear complaints being lodge by Asian anti-defamation groups in the US, if they only know the other side of the coin…

I will add other scenarios later, feel free to add more or comment.

Why don’t you start some sort of national campaign? “The words you say hurt me, even though you don’t mean them to.”

You won’t change the mindset of a nation by preaching to the converted. Go get on your horse and champion the rights of the non-Taiwanese to be referred to as ‘him, her, that person there.’ Why not? Better than getting pissed off about it and doing nothing. You only have one life, go do something with it. Chewing through the fat with us idiots is futility defined. I believe in you, Deuce.

Deuce Awareness Campaign 2014. Officially backed by Superking.

Waiguoren are thin skinned, aren’t they?

No. Enough of these threads.

Nope, white-skinned, stoopid.

The vast majority of Taiwanese racists are only racist out of ignorance. But just about all racists in any country are pretty damned ignorant, aren’t they? So, I don’t see much of a difference. Somehow I always assume that the more time I spend here and the more Taiwan feels like home to me, the more I’ll just blend in and become accepted by locals. It’s frustrating sometimes when it becomes apparent that this could never happen. Even in a couple of decades, after living here for thirty years, some little twats will still point and stare. Whatever. Just felt like ranting.

Anyway, yes, as the OP said, most Taiwanese racists have no malicious intent, but that doesn’t make them any less racist. It makes the situation ever harder to bear with because they have no clue that they are doing anything wrong at all. As always, people really don’t give a damn about how their actions affect others.

Can we merge this thread with Fred’s Tree post :ponder: ?

I think it does get better. I am half taiwanese and people nowadays don’t really give me second looks like they used to (course that may simply be cuz im now older and uglier).

But i know this latina lady who lived decades in tAiwan. And shes still a hottie by the way. And what she said surprised me.

She said she got almost no second looks while walking . And even her hair dresser was surprised that she was NOT Taiwanese. STrange considering she is very white looking and certainly not taiwanese looking.

So I think it is getting better.

But you are right, they mean no harm. They are just not aware that the rest of the world doesn’t condone sticking your head out of a cab and shouting ADOGAH ADOGAH is ok. Well at least they don’t really do THAT anymore.

Well that is just racist! As the emphatic and well moisturized leader of The Occasional Socialist Spoon Party Of Taiwan (or TOSSPOT) I find your microagressions towards Brother Deuce to be racist, elitist, absurdist, orthodontist and nonsocialist. Probably not the 4th one. However, your subscription fees will be risen in accordance with Party Rule 8.2 subsection 4. “Don’t you be mergin no threads with the word tree in the title.” We have spoken about this before. If you do it again I will ask you to move seats to somewhere where you can’t look out of the window.

Viva TOSSPOT.

at times, but also at times righteously indignant.

Perhaps this is why you cannot produce solid stool, you are too easily wound up. Relax a bit and those bum clouds will turn into Tootsie Rolls.

I discuss this with my adult students every once in a while. I just describe things that happen on a day to day basis (pointing, staring, whispered waiguorens or shouted adogas, people giggling at me because they’re nervous about their English etc.), and explain that if it happens once, or if it only happened for a week, it wouldn’t bother me. It’s just years of it and when I’m already having a bad day that it bothers me. So I ask them to try to minimize it and try to be understanding if a foreigner acts a bit rude or annoyed.
They respond really well to this talk, and I get comments like, “I’ve never thought about what it would be like.” and “Oh yeah, I went to America and didn’t experience that, but that’s because there are already a lot of Asians there.”
As somebody pointed out above, it would be impossible to realize how annoying these things are unless you’ve experienced them. Only the most empathetic person would try to understand, and even that person would have no reason to think of it unless you pointed it out to them- kindly. Because if you do it rudely why would they want to waste their energy being empathetic toward you?

Anyways, I’m not sure if this talk changes their behavior or not, but I think it helps to make people aware in a way that’s not completely asshole-ish (shout out to the asshole in the other thread who told off the old lady!).

I mean seriously, like telling someone off is going to make an appreciable, positive difference in the world…no. It’ll just confuse people and make everything worse.

Disapproval does nothing to alter reality, because reality doesn’t give a shit about your disapproval. Disapproval of reality only serves to make you unhappy.

You’re channeling Xinhua here. :smiley:

:ponder:

Which textbook are you looking at? How is referring to foreign people as foreign people in any way racist?

And how is anything you have described even remotely bigoted?

Since when are the Taiwanese unable to tolerate foreign people?

The country itself is based on racial lines, the clue is in the name ‘中華民國’ and the old comments from Ma about being descendants of the yellow emperor, preferential treatment of 華僑 etc.
The locals pay lip service to a broad concept of ‘Taiwanese’ but I think it doesn’t go very deep. Things can change and change is happening but change will be slow without large scale permanent immigration (and not of the Chinese variety). Chinese immigrants will just push the line that Taiwan and China and Chinese are the same thing.

A good example of this is Jeremy Lin, who is Taiwanese because his parents were Taiwanese/Chinese, but who has never even lived in Taiwan. Meanwhile us non Chinese hued folks will never be Taiwanese no matter how long we live here. That’s racialism isn’t it?

This mentality gets doubled down the isolated island mentality to create a strong impression of ‘us’ versus ‘them’…them being characterised into massive brush strokes of ‘North Asian’, South Asian’, ‘Black People’, ‘rich Arabs’ and ‘White People/Americans’. The education system which doesn’t encourage personal growth or curiosity doesn’t help either.

Obviously Taiwanese need to travel more and have more exposure to different media and cultures. Some do, but most simply don’t have the opportunity or even the interest or time. There is a good basic level of education in general but it doesn’t get to mix with the real world enough…the island again! There’s also a bit of lack of real curiosity in various diverse cultures (in Japan it’s very different, the media and people have more varied interests), so a lot of questions are directed to simply get your opinion on Taiwan (acting as a mirror) rather than to find out more about the outside world.

[quote=“headhonchoII”]This mentality gets doubled down the isolated island mentality to create a strong impression of ‘us’ versus ‘them’…them being characterised into massive brush strokes of ‘North Asian’, South Asian’, ‘Black People’, ‘rich Arabs’ and ‘White People/Americans’. The education system which doesn’t encourage personal growth or curiosity doesn’t help either.

Obviously Taiwanese need to travel more and have more exposure to different media and cultures. Some do, but most simply don’t have the opportunity or even the interest or time. There is a good basic level of education in general but it doesn’t get to mix with the real world enough…the island again! There’s also a bit of lack of real curiosity in various diverse cultures (in Japan it’s very different, the media and people have more varied interests), so a lot of questions are directed to simply get your opinion on Taiwan (acting as a mirror) rather than to find out more about the outside world.[/quote]

To a degree, you could be speaking of the people where I grew up.

[quote=“Deuce Dropper”]1 - Use of the words ‘waiguoren’, ‘laowai’ and ‘adogah’ immediately upon any dealings locals have with foreigners. Almost always, it is the first word out of their mouth. Also, lets pretend these words are of the same degree of insult for the sake of simplification (obviously ‘adogah’ is the worse but lets not open that can of worms).

perception: exclusionary, racist, uncouth, bigoted, and just plain rude.

intent: special case, not run of the mill, caution bumpy road ahead.[/quote]
Laowai is not an insulting word at all; in fact, it can be somewhat affectionate. I can’t think of any situation in which anyone should feel offended by the use of this benign word.

Waiguoren is simply the word for “foreigner”. A more formal term would be “waijirenshi” (外籍人士). Waiguoren is a neutral term.

Adogah is more like “gringo” or “farang”. It can be used as an insult when the context is right; it can also be used in a jocular manner.

I can!

http://news.tvbs.com.tw/entry/529963

Listen to the repeated use of the word Laowai here, it’s a bit suspect isn’t it?
It starts out ‘foreign teacher’ and ‘Australian that’ but then devolves to ‘laowai this’ and ‘laowai that’.

It’s not the word itself – it’s how it’s used.

I am, legally, a foreigner. When this comes up in a legal or procedural context, i.e., 主管,有外國朋友要開帳戶,他沒有身分證,怎麼辦, it’s perfectly legitimate.

When it’s used as an identifier – 那杯星冰樂是外國人點的 – then it makes me extremely uncomfortable.

It’s the same principle that makes it uncomfortable when you hear something in English like: “An Asian walked into the convenience store.” “The black man driving the SUV” “The female doctor operated on the patient.” When it isn’t necessary for the sake of understanding the story, putting in words like “foreign” or any sort of ethnicity just underscores a mindset of us vs. them.