Well, it’s all out of the bag now.
She’s married to an old man and she lives with him and she has a kid.
She is full of shit.
SE Asians don’t just come here, and they certainly don’t get APRCs at 25.
sadly this is likely the situation:
-she got married and has kids and the kids are the reason she is still here.
-she is likely in a bad marriage (estranged) but still taking care of the kids because the father probably doesn’t want to be a full time daddy.
-or she is here illegally and hasn’t left because the kids are here and she sees them sporadically.
-she is not 25, probably in her 30s.
-she probably works in one of the Combat Zone bars.
If your friend really likes her maybe he can be sympathetic to the fact that ‘she had to lie’ as fishy as that seems, it probably made sense to her.
I see no long term good coming out for this for him.
Fuck!
read the thread first, read the thread first.
Wow, now that’s quite a development. How did you guys find out?
I’ve seen many marriages where the woman can’t leave because of child/visa issues. I know quite many that are divorced legally but have to live together because husband has debts on their name/have nowhere else to live/the hubby family has the kids custody. I’ve seen both arranged and non arranged marriages living separately under one roof, both pursuing other intersts outside, yet with the legal threat of infidelity charges as an ace under the sleeve. Under these conditions, one feels for a woman who sees a escape route but that does not justify not being honest at some point.
It came about because I pressured my friend to ask her ‘how can you legally work here?’. She kept sidestepping that question and refusing to answer it. Initially he kind of accepted the side-stepping, but my taiwanese girlfriend and I pressured him to dig right to the bottom of it and get all the information. At one point last night, it all came out of the bag at once.
Here’s where it gets worse, though; she also begged my friend (really begged him) if they could stay together and wait for her baby to get older. She said she would dump it in the old man’s care. 
.
That is seriously fucked up.
I remember the first time I was in India, I was crawling along in the back of a pedal rickshaw, sweatin’ like a pig, and some guy was jogging along beside us trying to sell me a whip.
He started off at about 15 Rupees, which was between a dollar and a dollar and a half. He must have detected some interest, and he stayed with me, eventually making the sale for about 70 cents. This was a ten-foot leather whip! I was so pleased with my purchase. 
Later, as I was happily showing off my whip, a local pointed out the poor quality of materials and workmanship. I was shown how much better a quality whip was than that crappy toy that I had purchased.
I still have that crappy old whip in a box somewhere. If only someone had intervened before I bought that piece of crap… :neutral:
How fortunate for your friend that you went the extra mile to help him see when he was lacking the cultural background/knowledge to make an informed opinion. And how fortunate that your friend wasn’t here visiting Sandman, who’d have left him to make his own mistakes and been content to simply observe.
Still, everyone does enjoy watching a train wreck in progress, eh?
And this guy is … a lawyer? I’m sure glad I’m not paying him US$500 an hour. 
Seriously, I feel very sorry for everyone involved. Your friend has obviously met a girl he’s infatuated with. The girl is (presumably) stuck in an unsatisfactory relationship. And the old guy is a loser who thought it was a good idea to buy an unsuitable bride from abroad, and is now having to deal with the consequences. Nobody wins.
Even if your friend leaves his job, girl leaves husband, and friend shacks up with girl, it’s going to be a load of trouble and strife. She comes from a culture where people imagine that they have no control over their own lives, and that other people exist only to provide what they can’t or won’t provide for themselves. I have seen this first-hand and I find it unutterably depressing. Your friend is (I assume) highly educated and has very different cultural values. The best possible scenario is that she bleeds him dry and then dumps him after a couple of months. The worst scenario is that she strings him along for a few years (like the old guy) and then moves on to a new target.
It’s possible her feelings for him are legit (I don’t think the work/visa situation is of any relevance) but from what you’ve said, I doubt it.
Unfortunately, you’ve said your piece, he’s an adult, and the only thing you can do is help him pick up the pieces and learn from the experience.
Depending on exactly what you intend to do with your whip, the build quality might not matter. Robert Mapplethorpe would have told you that most imperfections can be worked around, given enough vaseline.
Little did zender know that one day, many years later, that very whip would grow up to become none other than…
Philip Toone!!!
And now you know
The REST
of the story.
:no-no: That is not how the story went at all!
Anyway, good to see that the chief finally reconnected his keyboard.
Can you read? Evidently not. 
When i was a young whipper snapper in the chungle i ran into a girl (she worked as a receptionist at the tiny hotel i was staying at for a coupla weeks). Thought she was a virgin until we finally got horizontal and she whispered if it was ok that shes married? Talk bout coitus interuptus ! Married and has two kids (something like 8 and 10).
I kicked her out (in the morning of course) and gave her the cold turkey from then on. I dint want an instant family or to get involved where i perhaps shouldnt be.
But now that im older (and hopefully wiser) and see the world in shades of grey , rather then black and white. I realize i was very mean to her and she didnt deserve it.
LIfe is a bitch and one doesnt know how her husband is. He may have left town with her holding on and paying for two kids. She may be available for the right man to give her love and affection and help bring up her children. She was NOT the one that was immature. It was I.
IF a person is in a loveless marriage by bad choice , bad decisions or bad oversight or simply bad luck, should they be doomed to forever suffer or is there a hope for a restart and to love again?
She is 25, her husband may be 60. She has a child. Shes stuck on Taiwan and possibly in less then ideal circumstances. Her husband maybe shows her little affection or love and attention. Her children may be neglected.
Is she doomed to never have another chance?
We only live once !
If he loves HER, let him investigate further and take action as appropriate. IF her love is genuine and her situation is dire. Let him save her and maybe save himself in the process. For you know not what demons torment him? Do you?
Thanks for your perspective tommy, but, I don’t think this is a case of “oh no, i accidentally married the wrong guy”. This is obviously a marriage for economic reasons. I’d give a girl a chance if I thought her marriage was, or used to be genuine.
Suffice to say your friend is in an unenviable position. There are plenty of other fish in the sea, especially in Taiwan.
I agree this one has “bad” written all over it.
But i must contend one point. If she married for monetary reasons. That is to say she was one of those young ladies who left her country to be married to a (usually older) man who can provide for her due to say, abject poverty. And now is older and (presumably ) wiser and is discovering that there is a thing called “love”, should she not have a chance?
If circumstances were so dire that it forces a young girl to leave her home and be married to any old joe (and I mean OLD ) is that not a situation to be pitied, rather then ridiculed? Commiserated rather then belittled?
However, I am not pleased with her position on her own child . That she intends to abandon him/her. That shows a distinct lack of character.
At least the kind of character i’d want to be associated with.
In Taiwan surely there ARE better choices?
IMO you should talk to him immediately because she’s almost certainly married to some guy with a kid.
I’m rarely wrong in these matters 
for having worked with a few of those maid agencies, many of them treat those young girls abjectly and are often in the grey zone as legal is concerned.
I can only agree with Tommy, no matter why she married that old guy (hey she is probably only from an un educated part of the world and “convinced” to do so), there aren’t any reasons to make her “pay” for it… I just don’t follw the logic there.
Even with the best friend, yeah the breach of honesty isn’t the way to go but we ought not burn her on the market place. People get married for various reasons (haha especially women 
take a look at the ladder thoery) and can appreciate each other in different ways and for various reasons. the nuance is even accentuated from one culture to another. It doesn’t all have to be walt disney
well in any case thanks for the gossip like story ~ even if you were right after all at the begining i was laughing at the sight of “taiwanese girlfriend” and the words meddling popping up … 
It’s been quite a while since the last post, but now the government is considering a path to APRC for some highly skilled blue collar workers.
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Thanks Billy.
While it’s a good step forward, it’s too bad that it was based on there being a worker shortage vs. trying to do the right thing. If there was no worker shortage, would they still consider it?
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It’s my opinion that Taiwan never does anything because “It’s the right thing to do”! There’s always an angle or a benefit to Taiwanese in order for them to consider a change that somewhat benefits foreigners. But if it benefits foreigners, it’s just an after thought. I’ve got so many examples over the past 22 years.
Example: Taiwan will never change the requirement to renounce citizenship in order for foreigners to gain Taiwanese citizenship unless one of two things happen.
- Taiwan gets publicly embarrassed or humiliated on the world stage for this discriminatory and unfair policy.
Or
- America, England, Australia change the rules for Taiwanese who want citizenship by requiring them to renounce Taiwan citizenship. The law in Taiwan would literally change over night and the Taiwanese would crow about doing the right thing when in fact it would be simply to keep their privilege intact.
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