[quote=“Vannyel”]
And I forget at which level of culture shock it is when you start holding the foreign country you reside in at a higher standard than back home, pretending things like discrimination, etc. never occur back home but only here. Or that foreigners back home are treated exactly the same as citizens…duh, get real. [/quote]
I’ve never experienced that aspect of culture shock. My attitude about the differences between Taiwan and the US is one of “you hao you huai” - each has its advantages and disadvantages, as well as similarities you can take comfort in, and differences that can fascinate (or frustrate) you.
all depends on your life circumstances and the way you can understand what you hear and see.
On Forumosa I once noticed an American saying the Taiwanese mimikri US culture. I though he just sees the taxis and police cars (color like in US) and 7-11 and thinks that’s it, all a copy of US. Well I guess, he really saw only the bubble and thought there is no more.
Of course my Taiwan family gives me a different treatment. But treating foreigners like that is part of their culture and I am well aware of that.
I also think that living here as a racial outsider here is still living in this culture. It’s a very valid and real part of the cultural reality. I don’t believe the hothouse theory of cultural seclusion. Even when Taiwanese make allowances for my differences they are expressing their culture. At that time I am still experiencing the Taiwanese reality. I don’t see how Taiwanese tolerance for, and treatment of foreigners, insulates me from reality. We are all part of the cultural landscape of this place. Perhaps some of us don’t realise it, but we are part of the culture here.
well before we all put on our little Japanese monk suites and write haikus about triumphant beauty of rice seedlings reaching for the first rays of a Taidong sunrise, let’s just take a step back…
as you’ll note this subject of this thread is “civilizing Taiwan”, and that is what we were discussing… whether or not there is room to find beauty in the aesthetics of everyday life that are often overlooked is not the point… nobody thus far had argued that Taiwan is wholly evil place devoid of even the slightest positive mitigating factor and as Vorkosigan has already pointed out setting up straw men by citing subjectively romantic anecdotes of how Taiwanese people or the Taiwanese experience can be pleasant in some rare instance does not negate or justify the countless examples of how the Taiwanese experience for both locals and foreigners, regardless of the level of their
so plasmatron we are back to the assumption that it is up to the superior, civilized, white man to civilize these backwater Asian savages whether they want it or not?
btw, although my circle of Taiwanese friends doesn’t include everyone - of the ones I know, coworkers and friends - only three make over the $17962.21 you quoted, hell I barely make that much a year as a privileged overpaid foreigner.
If you want to see uncivilised just pop down to any inner city council estate in the UK. The residents in these scum holes make even the most uncivilised people in Taiwan look like aristocrats.
Sorry plasmatron but your description of things simply flies in the face of my experience. Lets take this week for example.
Monday - Make use of a super efficient transit system to arrive at first class of the week at 1PM. Student is waiting with the air con on and two cups of ice coffee waiting. Use drama, music and translation to make for an enjoyable good time all around. Paid rather well. Learn quite a bit of Mandarin. 6:30PM - Second class of the day. Student lived in Canada for fifteen years. Spend an enjoyable two hours discussing how to make buddhist psychology a part of everyday life.
Tuesday - Make use of super effecient transportaion system once agian to go to that reasonably attractive beach located beside fishermans wharf. Nude bathing seems to be catching on; however, so far only among the homos. Too bad. Tuesday Night - Help two young ladies prepare for a trip to England where they intend to study fashion.
Wensday 12PM - More English using music and translation.
Thursday 12PM - Use movies to teach English. It is an interesting technique but requires a huge commitment of time…etc etc
Do you see what I am getting at? If there were no Taiwanese interested in all kinds of things I wouldn’t have a job. How many students do you think you could get to attend a “Mandarin through Movies” class in Canada?
Vannyel wrote:[quote]so plasmatron we are back to the assumption that it is up to the superior, civilized, white man to civilize these backwater Asian savages whether they want it or not? [/quote]
that assumption is up to you Vannyel… i never claimed this to be the case… if you read the last paragraph in my previous post i wrote:
“whilst I do not for a second claim that foreigners are in any way especially qualified or capable of accomplishing this…”
do you really think i just made these facts up?.. anyway, to lay your underpaid mind to rest please consult : nationmaster.com/graph-T/eco_gdp_cap
just to clue you in the GDP is not in fact how much you and you mates make a year, but since we’re not economists here… FYI…
Dangermouse wrote: [quote]If you want to see uncivilised just pop down to any inner city council estate in the UK. The residents in these scum holes make even the most uncivilised people in Taiwan look like aristocrats.
We have no place to talk.[/quote]
sure, point taken… if you look in the right places i’m sure you could find scaffy uncivilized bastards on a par with the worst of the taiwanese in every county on earth… especially the supposedly civilized type nations like the UK and the US…
what I don’t accept is whether people of this caliber make up just as large a proportion of the population and represent just as large a proportion of public opinion as they do in Taiwan…
Bob wrote: [quote]Sorry plasmatron but your description of things simply flies in the face of my experience. Lets take this week for example.
Monday - Make use of a super efficient transit system to arrive at first class of the week at 1PM. Student is waiting with the air con on and two cups of ice coffee waiting…[/quote]
Bob… I sort of see now what Vorkosigan was getting at with his bubble argument… I am not in the least bit surprised that your experience is not what I have described in my posts… based on what you wrote here your experience is that of a foreign english teacher, living in metro Taipei, teaching private English classes to priviledged, affluent, Taipei based young Taiwanese people… your experience, valid as it is, is not representative of Taiwanese culture and society as a whole…
Sorry plasmatron but this dog’s still got bite. The thing that really seems to bother you is that Taiwanese somehow “choose” to be all of those things you mentioned. “Uncivilized” probably sums it up pretty well. The problem I have with that is that you seem to be showing so little patience with the basic human condition. We are all products of our environment. People here are the product of a society that prospered using imported technologies and gauranteed markets. In that situation it was possible for people to just shut up, put their noses to it, and get rich. Add to that the weight of Chinese culture and what you have is people who have never been given much chance to explore and experiment. There exists in them a desire to do so though and every day you see them do just that. There is more variety and more sophistication at every turn. I, for one, have no intention of berating a culture that is trying so hard. With the aid of cable television, the internet, international travel and a growing ex-pat population Taiwan shows every indication of becoming an open, vibrant society. Lets hope that they don’t lose that funky Taiwanese sense of humor in the process.
Okay, here’s my take on civilizing Taiwan, a little parable my dad told me around 1965, that I also happened to find on the 'net:
[quote][A] Boy Scout trying to earn a merit badge . . . insist[ed] on helping a little old lady across the street. . . . The Boy Scout found out later that she didn
Don’t let the other posters get you down. If you browse through the site you will see that if someone gets a bit too down on Taiwan, or the Nuprin, everyone rallies to save “face” for the island with the mantra “if you don’t like it just leave.” Some of my favorite arguments in defense are the “i know someone who…” Such as, “I know this one Taiwanese family and they treat me great because they give me a cookie.” Well, good for them.
To avoid pissing folks off, I suggest you come across as the hippie traveler who took a world religions class during their only semester of community college and now, for some odd reason, “gets the big picture.” Instead of saying, “these folks can’t do anything right,” you can come across much better saying, “I really love my Taiwanese brothers and sisters and would really like to help them in a positive way follow the teachings of the Buddha by helping them make positive changes for a positive future…” Or some such b.s.
That foreigner bubble in Taiwan does exist. Many foreigners live in a fragile one. All it takes is one traffic accident with a local for a 15 year foreign resident to go apesht with the “us against them” attitude. When you start complaining and pointing out things about Taiwan that “just don’t seem right” you threaten to burst their bubble of illusion. That is why many posters here are quick to shut you down. Your complaints are valid and real and threaten to fckup their reality.
Now is Taiwan fckedup? Absolutely. But so is every other fcking country on this planet. Are the Taiwanese completely mental. Yes. But I currently live in a country where 3 out of 4 people believe in angels, are obsessed with not allowing gay people to marry, have a strange perversion for bombing the sht out of counties inhabited by brown people who wear towels on their heads, where reality tv rules the airwaves, where black citizens still demand their 40 acres and a mule from the white man who actually took it from the Native American Indians (that is really fcked up if you think about it), where monolingualism is applauded, and kids graduate from high school without being able to read and will kill you just to joy ride in your car that took you nearly 7 years to pay off, not to mention the nation wide average of $7000 USD of credit card dept. Did I mention nearly 1/2 of the bankruptcies are due to people not being able to pay medical bills?
You see, everyone can complain. Don’t even get me started on Canada. I don’t want to wax philosophically about what is right or wrong. I just want to ask you, “is this how you want to spend your f*cking day?” The Chinese culture has been around for 5000 years, and don’t have much to show for it. I seriously doubt you will see in visible change in your lifetime. So instead of worrying about stuff you will not be able to change, and unnecessarily upsetting the majority of posters here, I recommend a good vacation to clear your head. Then, come back and make few changes in your living habits and see how it goes from there. I recommend watching some good porn if you need to distract yourself from the evils outside your window.
[quote=“xp+10K”]Okay, here’s my take on civilizing Taiwan, a little parable my dad told me around 1965, that I also happened to find on the 'net:
[quote][A] Boy Scout trying to earn a merit badge . . . insist[ed] on helping a little old lady across the street. . . . The Boy Scout found out later that she didn
I just got back from two weeks in Japan, and the comparison is not flattering to Taiwan in the slightest. It makes me wonder what Taiwan would be like now if Japan had kept it… :sigh:
The sad thing is the Japanese had done so much to civilize Taiwan, and then KMT came along and undid it all.
LBTW raises the point of Taiwan’s desire to internationalize, which along with the desire to become an Asian finance hub and a high-tech island, surfaces every few years. The thing is, as long as I’ve been here the government has wanted these results but has never shown any willingness to change anything to acheive them:
“We want to become a financial hub” Translation: We like our draconian rules, which are all to our benefit, and we’re too lazy to change them anyway. Please bank here anyway and just deal with the expense and inconvenience. Our banking motto is, “The answer is no, now what’s the question?” So cute!
“We want to become a high-tech island” Translation: We want you to invest lots of money building plant, hire our under-qualified workers at rates over what any Taiwanese boss would pay, and transfer your latest technology to us so we can reduce it to our level and then undercut you in your home market. We aren’t offering any tax breaks or other incentives. Deal with it.
“We want to internationize our society” Translation: We want you to accept us as a first-world nation (and let us join the UN). We don’t really like or trust foreigners very much, but we’re willing to kiss up to some top brass in order to get what we want. Substantive changes are out of the question, but thanks for asking. Just show us the respect we think we deserve and move along.
PS. The thread is about how Taiwan can be civilized, not whether it should be, or whether we have the right to try. “If you don’t like it…” whiners need not apply.
Have you been to the new Fisherman’s wharf in danshui? Beautiful place. There is a big arching walk way connecting the wharf to the shore. And as you come down on to the wharf what have they got? A noisy video arcade. The noise of that place blends with the noise of the mando pop blaring out of some moron’s sound system and the yelling and screaming of just about everybody and it occurs to you - Taiwanese can fuck up just about anything. But then you stop and remind yourself that they did build this thing. And they did connect it to the MRT with brand new buses and you realize that perhaps you are being excessively negative and critical. “How do civilize Taiwanese culture?” The same way you civilize yourself. With patience, compassion and determination.
Hard to do that when so many people here lack those traits … except for maybe the determination to make as much money as you possibly can, stepping on and walking over anyone who gets in your way, resorting to any means necessary and no matter how dishonest. Taiwan needs a serious wake-up call. It should have gotten one from things like SARS, being publicly scolded for the first time in U.S.-Taiwan relations by the US president, and by the fact that they’ve watched their foreign investment move to mainland China in droves over the past decade. Will they get the message? Maybe one day. Will it be too late? Probably.
Taiwan has the potential to become an amazing Asian tourist destination. There are some amazingly beautiful places to see. Taroko Gorge will just take your breath away. The pace of life in Taitung County is nice and laid-back and the scenery is beautiful. Kenting is a great little resort beach town. Jiufen and Jinguashi are interesting, quaint little places. Even Danshui can be a lot of fun (if you can ignore the stench of the polluted Danshui River). But the Taiwanese don’t know what to do with what nature has given them, or they go and destroy it. It’s time for the authorities to stop throwing bian dang’s and start doing something constructive, on both sides.
“We want to become a financial hub” Translation: We like our draconian rules, which are all to our benefit, and we’re too lazy to change them anyway. Please bank here anyway and just deal with the expense and inconvenience. Our banking motto is, “The answer is no, now what’s the question?” So cute![/quote]
Couldn’t agree more. I worked on a refinancing deal that involved several Asian jurisdictions, including Taiwan, and the US. Everything went smooth in each jurisdiction except Taiwan. A deal involving hundreds of millions of dollars was being held up because a participating Taiwan bank used the opportunity to extort an extra US$4,000 in trustee fees. I remember sitting on a conference call with lawyers and lenders from Japan, HK, Korea, Thailand, the US and the Philippines and listening to the Taiwan bank’s legal counsel completely (and intentionally) misinterpret a termination clause in a trustee agreement so that the bank could get the extra fees.
Translation: “We don’t give a flying fuck what the termination clause says, we won’t cooperate unless you pay us US$4,000 more.”
This came after the local bank had already received over US$100,000 in fees for chopping a few documents prepared by the trustor. You could feel the collective befuddlement of everyone outside Taiwan on the conference call. The bank didn’t give a shit about its reputation or repeat business. It only cared about the present moment and extracting as much as possible out of this one deal. Needless to say, none of parties involved in the deal will ever look to Taiwan in the future as a source for Asian financing. What a waste.
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