I don’t think its always that. I think hsiadogah hit the nail on the head, at least for some people.
I’ve been here for 20 years and I speak Chinese and I work in an office with 107 Taiwanese people (I’m the only foreigner).
And I’m pretty freaking comfortable here, in most respects.
That doesn’t mean, however, that I need to become one with Taiwan. Hell, I’ve never been one with where I’m from.
It irks me when people treat me differently based on my different appearance, particularly when I think they intend to take advantage of my differentness. I think being irked by this is a reasonable reaction, and I am definitely not suffering from culture shock.
Well, they don’t generally ask other Taiwanese… and that’s the rub.
I make my own way. Always have.
I do.
That isn’t quite the same thing as being asked to decide whether or not you want to “be friends” with a stranger.
Years ago, a foreign friend of mine who had a large walled-in yard where he lived in Taishan was having difficulty with neighbors who were abusing his kindness. My friend thought it would demonstrate his friendliness by leaving his grounds open to the neighbors. The neighbors, however, were littering in the yard and bringing their unleashed dogs in to shit and dig in the yard. Exasperated, my friend asked my wife (a local gal who speaks Chinese and Taiwanese better than you do) to ask her father what he would do in this situation (and my wife’s father speaks better Chinese and Taiwanese than you do, too)… my father-in-law replied that he would simply shut the gates and not let the damn neighbors into his yard.
I suspect my father-in-law is more Taiwanese than even you are. I tend to deal with strangers the same way my father-in-law does. I’m not openly nasty to them… but, I don’t open the gates for them either.
I think the crux of this is none of you can believe that Taiwanese, after speaking with each other for a few minutes, will, from time to time, ask if the other person (who was initially a stranger) wants to make friends with them. This is really the heart of the argument.
If you don’t want to accept this and would rather think you’re being singled out by exploitive Taiwanese who are swarming over you because of your foreign face, then be my guest.
I’m starting to get the sense some people revel in misery…
For the love of God, you’re missing the key point here - we’re not talking about people we’ve actually had conversations with, we’re talking about random strangers approaching people on the street and, for no apparent reason, asking to be their friend. This isn’t some big “Oooh the Taiwanese hate me/discriminate for/against me” nonsense, it’s random people coming up and asking to be friends.
If you have a REASON to talk to someone then you have the opportunity to become friends. A reason can be something as simple standing next to each otherwhile waiting for a bus and striking up a conversation - just like people do all over the world.
But pursuing someone who is trying to avoid you, that you have never spoken to or had any reason to speak to, just so that you can ask them to be your friend is not acceptable.
It’s not a case of us and them. It’s not about refusing to accept Taiwan. It’s simply that being hunted down by someone who wants something is discomforting and you don’t owe that person the same level of ‘friendship’ that you do to the woman at Wellcome who always tries to tell me the price in English. She’s being friendly, the creeps pursuing FOB are being weird.
I get this problem all the time. Usually it’s young girls begging for sex, but sometimes its blokes, in which case I ask if they have young exploitable sisters.
I think folks are making this a black and white issue while leaving zero room in the middle. I’m pretty sure I already said a creep following a woman around and hassling her is bizarre and unacceptable in ANY country, culture, or language. If not, then I’ve just said it.
But that’s NOT what I’m talking about when I say Taiwanese folks often have different habits and language patterns when it comes to meeting people for the first time. This is the massive gray area I’m trying to make people see. OK, first, take out the genuine creeps and obvious sycophants (your extremes). Now, what you have left is the majority of people who, after speaking with a, yes, complete and random stranger, in a public place, may ask the heinous question, in Chinese, Taiwanese, Hakka, or English (your standard MRT order), “Do you want to make friends.”
That’s all I’m saying, and having said it, I hope I don’t have to repeat it, because whoooooa, whooooa there Mr. Ed this is starting to smell like
Rereading some of this thread, I couldn’t help but feel we were performing…
Taiwanese people talk to you for one reason: to practice their English… and sometimes to make friends - TWO REASONS: to practice their English, make friends, and possibly try to pick you up - THREE REASONS…
Amongst Taiwanese people’s reasons for talking to you on the street are such diverse possibilities as: making friends, practicing English, and trying to find a long lost love…
A few years ago, when my wife and I lived in Taichung, one of her friends, a Taiwanese girl, had the same problems. She was tall, pale skin, and very attractive. When they would go out to have tea, invariably some young woman would approach the table and compliment her on her beauty, and ask if she could “make friends with her.” I think they saw her as a status symbol.
Just to ad a twist to this tale…
Yes, all people have agendas for meeting new people, even if the agenda is to just be friendly. I’ve had many very nice friendly chats with complete strangers over the years, and few of them ended up being my friends. Most of them started with “mind if I sit here.”
I suggest, the next time it happens, the askee respond, “Ok, let’s go have coffee, my treat.” This of course works better for single people who are responsible for only themselves, as my wife would freak if she saw me with some woman…“Uh, honey, she wanted to be friends, so I bought her coffee.”
We were in Song Shan market last night and my wife was followed by a madly giggling couple (boy and girl). When my wife turned around and said “shen me shi?” They told her she had bad acne and needed to buy their cosmetic treatment.
She told them in the strongest terms she knew (we’re both foreigners, her Chinese is good for someone who’s never studied it) that she thought they were “hen mei li mao”.
I thought back to this conversation, and the argument that gets put forward of “you foriegners don’t understand Taiwan culture” so I figured I’d just let it go.
Then I saw the same two accost two young Taiwanese girls and talk to them for a while. The two girls finally turned away, and neither of them looked very happy. I went up to them and asked them what they thought of the two ‘salespeople’. They both looked disgusted and said they thought they were ‘pian ren’. This could mean they thought they were either liars, cheats or crooks, right?
I guess it’s not always just a case of us foriegners not understanding the local culture.
Okay, I am trying to imagine being in that situation:
On the street in Taiwan, some stranger approaches me and says, “do you want to be my friend?”…“No!” Keep walking.
On the street in the US, some stranger approaches me and says, “do you want to be my friend?”…“No!” Keep walking.
On the street anywhere in the world, some stranger approaches me and says, “do you want to be my friend?”…“No!” Keep walking, or start running, depending on what time it is during the day/night and the location.
I am sure not all of them are creeps; I just don’t want to stick around to find out, especially if I were alone.
(Actually, this also brings back memories of growing up in Taiwan and guys always using the same line: “do you want to be friends?” Ai-ya-ya, get away from me. No, no, no, no, no.)
Having said all that, I don’t think you are being rude at all. You are letting them know that you are not interested in being their friend. After all, they asked, right? Be prepared to be answered lo.
[quote=“Jefferson”]
And yes, Taiwanese DO, after speaking with someone at a coffee shop, bus stop, or whatever, commit the heinous act of asking if the other person wants to be friends.[/quote]Can you not see that what we’re talking about here is quite different?
A. Some strangers with a common interest, like the buying and selling of cups of coffee, have a simple interaction which you could characterize as semi-scripted. It goes well enough that the door to slighly off-topic conversation is opened. That goes well enough that there’s a basis for striking up a relationship which may or not be pursued after this initial contact and it’s not very awkward for either party to suggest.
B. Some person you’ve never seen or even made eye contact with before strolls straight up and in-your-face puts you on the spot by asking the question “Can I be your friend?”
Perhaps my Mandarin is not as good as yours, and I’m a few years shy of 20 here, so you may well have better insight into this. Perhaps I do live in a bubble, perhaps I am still in deep culture shock and perhaps I do revel in misery. Then again it may be my autism that makes the two situations look and feel so very very different. Please enlighten me as to why they’re the same.
Maybe instead of business cards with rent-a-friend contact and pricing on them, we could just give out Jefferson’s number to these people?
Well not sure if anyones mentioned this since I didnt read all replies… but I know in discos/nightclubs many Taiwanese guys’ approach to talking with girls is “xiao jie, keh yih ken ni juo geh pen yiu ma?” <-- “miss, can I be friends with u?” So its like a convo starter in these places.
I’ve heard this a bit in the nightclubs and also from talkin to Taiwanese girls when I ask them how they local guys usually approach them.
Maybe instead of business cards with rent-a-friend contact and pricing on them, we could just give out Jefferson’s number to these people?