So it WAS a “shit happens” case. As TomHill notes, this seems to have very little to do with Taiwanese vs the Rest and far, far more to do with “bloody hospital staff vs frantic parents.”
Nurses are just people, who are as likely to be as bad at their jobs, stupid, insensitive, mean, or just having a bad day as teachers, librarians, train drivers, 7-11 clerks, etc.
People you pay to care about your kid never care as much as you do. And that’s not about accepting substandard service, it’s about accepting reality.
wrong
the doctor was not there - clearly her fault. She could have queued for the lift 10 minutes earlier since she knows about that damn lift-overload thing.
We were not frantic, we were simply having our baby, just like you had a while ago.
[quote]Nurses are just people, who are as likely to be as bad at their jobs, stupid, insensitive, mean, or just having a bad day as teachers, librarians, train drivers, 7-11 clerks, etc.
People you pay to care about your kid never care as much as you do. And that’s not about accepting substandard service, it’s about accepting reality.[/quote]
couldn’t disagree more. wrong answer in a questionnaire can be a matter of life and death, not in that case I guess but who knows.
to shrug the nurse indifference of as “reality” seems cynical to say the least.
Not cynical, just reality.
Unless she was delivering another baby or dealing with some other unforseen emergency? A life-or-death situation, perhaps? There are all manner of reasons that might make it clearly NOT her fault, that you as a layman would certainly not be privy to. This is standard hospital practice, for heaven’s sake!
You want the personal touch, you need to go private – and pay through the nose for the privilege.
Unless she was delivering another baby or dealing with some other unforseen emergency? A life-or-death situation, perhaps? There are all manner of reasons that might make it clearly NOT her fault, that you as a layman would certainly not be privy to. This is standard hospital practice, for heaven’s sake!
You want the personal touch, you need to go private – and pay through the nose for the privilege.[/quote]
personal touch?
are you saying that it is not standard hospital practice to provide a doctor for birth? wow!
Unless she was delivering another baby or dealing with some other unforseen emergency? A life-or-death situation, perhaps? There are all manner of reasons that might make it clearly NOT her fault, that you as a layman would certainly not be privy to. This is standard hospital practice, for heaven’s sake!
You want the personal touch, you need to go private – and pay through the nose for the privilege.[/quote]
personal touch?
are you saying that it is not standard hospital practice to provide a doctor for birth? wow![/quote]
I’m saying that hospitals have limited resources and gasp sick people. Things happen to sick people, sometimes unexpectedly. Its called “triage.” What doubtlessly happened is that your doctor had more than one birthing to deal with – ours was delivering at least three other babies when we had ours, we found out later. The nurses keep him updated on the conditions of each and he uses his professional judgment to decide where he should be at any given point.
Like I said, go private or get lucky if you want him all to yourself.
A nurse asked question and didn’t care for the answers and rules of playgrounds are non-nonsensical and a doctor was late for birth cause she did not care to be on time.
here 2 pics from the playground rules.
And why does that offend or surprise you?
So all the medical staff should just run up and down stairs, even when doing routine stuff like births? How many floors does the hospital have? Presumably you’d have been bitching if he’d run up the stairs and slipped ‘Why didn’t he take the lift? Typical thoughtless Taiwanese’. 
Are your wife and child Taiwanese? Are they stupid too, or is that different?
a doctor should be a the bed of the woman giving birth.
17 I think
I don’t think so.
sorry, the questions is based on a wrong assumption, I never said that Taiwanese are stupid.
If my wife and I were to see the same doctor regularly during pregnancy, who knew all of her specifics and details, and he/she couldn’t be bothered to be on time for the birth, after he/she had agreed to, giving some lame-brained, feeble excuse like “stuck in an elevator”, I’d be seriously pissed off, too. 
I think I already wrote that IMO [color=#FF0000]some people[/color] do nonsensical things like asking questionnaire questions and marking an answer that was no given “ever had a stroke? - yes! - nurse marks down No”
Even if the question is completely irrelevant, it irritates me if a person sitting right in my face disregards my answer and writes something else.
In the same way, I think it is nonsensical that playground regulations put in place by the government state that the usage of the playground is restricted to kids between 6 and 12, even though this clearly makes no sense.
and most of all I think it is irresponsible of a doctor to be late for a birth.
other than that, I am not offended and certainly not surprised.
[color=#FF0000]Edited by Moderator: Please refrain from making sweeping generalizations of entire groups of people.[/color]
One more thing:
So the other day I went out for Thai food. I like spicey food, so I asked for “spicy”. The waitress said “little spicy?” and wrote it down before I could answer. I said, no “spicy, like ‘ma-la’ spicy”. She said “ah, right. ‘little spicy’.” This agrivated me and I looked to the owner/cook and said “ma-la”. I think they emptied their bottle of spice on my food.
My point is that there are communication issues when someone assumes something because they want to assume that. Like in your situation, the nurse didn’t care about you or your answer. She had her own opinion of you, maybe because you are a foreigner or just because you are the husband. Who knows. It’s frustrating as hell. Mr. Touduke, you might not believe me, but I get you (albeit that your child’s health is more important than my dinner). In the end, miscommunication stinks.
English speaking waitresses are a whole different genre and a whole different thread. 
What the OP is describing is absolutely typical. People don’t listen to or think about what you say here because to quite an extent they could care less what you think. They just want things to fit with their expectations and if something doesn’t fit they carry on as if it did. They do it to each other too but they do it us worse.
That’s not an indictment of the whole society, in any given day you have opportunity to meeet all manner of absolutely sweet human beings, but if you seek to be engaged any any meaningful exchange of ideas, or to have your point of view considered at all you better build up some pretty effective means of asserting yourself. You better speak Mandarin flawlessly and you better be really good at giving off the right kind of “listen” to me vibe. Getting outright angry is all wrong, you have to give off a patient, then patient/irritated/insistant feeling. I dunno how to explain it exactly but I know it gets a bit easier somehow.
I guess. It’s Friday. Good luck.
Tom Hill:
Imagine it was a poster who you knew/respected that wrote the OP. You’d be bloody well agreeing with them! Or at least commiserating to a degree. I can go along with the Forumosa “initiation rites”, but IMO the OP is getting a bit of a raw deal here. Hardly “racist”. Perhaps a little insensitive, is all.
Nice one, BC. :raspberry:
Tom Hill:
Imagine it was a poster who you knew/respected that wrote the OP. You’d be bloody well agreeing with them! Or at least commiserating to a degree. I can go along with the Forumosa “initiation rites”, but IMO the OP is getting a bit of a raw deal here. Hardly “racist”. Perhaps a little insensitive, is all. [/quote]
I think anyone who knows me knows that I will call dickish behaviour right as it occurs, no matter who the dick is. Also the posters in this thread that I know and respect in real life (Buttercup and Sandman) have both shown their opinions to be similar to mine on this issue. I can’t imagine the other people I respect on this site (gingerman, cowboy, tigerman, baas babelas, joesox, asianmom, mick among others) would ever trip up over something as trivial as this. Also having been a member of this community for 18 months touduke is a newbie how?[/quote]
[color=#FF0000]Moderator’s Note: I can’t create a post for TomHill, so I cut and pasted the relevant part of his post in here and posted it above.
As for the continuation of this thread, please take note of the rules below.[/color]
[quote]Forumosa’s Rules – The Short Version
* This is a message board for people interested in expat life in Taiwan.
* [color=#FF0000]Treat people with respect. Don’t be rude or bigoted. Discuss the message, not the messenger.[/color]
* Familiarize yourself with the site before you start posting.
* Respect the wishes of the moderators and administrators.
[/quote]
If in doubt, see the Long Rules.
[quote=“touduke”]I don’t buy that we just have “different ‘values’, but both are on equal terms”.
let me play hardcore for a moment:
in that interview, the lady was not interested in knowing what I had to say, she was not interested in the well being of my boy, but insisted that she is.[/quote]
If I may weigh in with my perspective. Personally I’m also not a standard bearer of the “all cultures are equal” argument. That said, I’m not saying one is better than another either. There are some that are better for me, or from my perspective. Values are a different matter. Values transcend culture (although some, but not all may stem from a given culture) and some are good and some are bad, IMHO.
With that in mind, I wasn’t present when you had the convo with the nurse, so I can’t say anything with any certainty, but one thing is sure, any individuals perception of any given situation is tainted by there own perspective. Hence the saying, “There’s always three parts to every situation. His story. Her story. And the truth.”
But from what you noted in your OP I’m guessing that it is a case of misunderstanding each other (not necessarily linguistically or even culturally, but perhaps what the form and it’s questions entail). This is a big reason why I usually let my wife handle these sort of things. I stay out of it, because I get pissed off too easily. And to be honest, probably because I’m not interpreting the situation correctly.
This brings me to my next point. As a South African expat (of European descent) I (we, really) have a unique perspective in Taiwan. Being culturally western, we are also the only westerners (AFAIK) that are a minority in our home country where the majority aren’t western by any means. As such, these sort of things happen to us back home. Any Saffa who has ever been to Home Affairs in South Africa can attest to that! Before I came to Taiwan I always used to think they were rude and “didn’t care about me or my problems” in these kinds of situations. But usually it’s just a different way of handling something, or approaching it.
However, from my perspective, Taiwanese nurses, NIA officers, FAP, HHR Office personnel etc are much more polite (even if it’s only a surface veneer for “face” or whatever reason you want to ascribe it to) than gvt workers back home.
Try a government hospital in South Africa. In your case in the OP it would have gone something like this.
Arrive at the hospital at 5am to beat the crowds, but when you get there the waiting area is already packed like a sardine can.
Pay a nominal fee, get your file and wait.
If you’re lucky you might be helped before lunch. Depending on how busy it is that day, you may only get to see a nurse after 2pm.
Once there, you may wonder where the doctor is? Sorry. No doctor. They’ve all buggered off to Canada (I recommend you watch the video) or Australia.
The nurse is downright surly, because she’s been there before you and she’s doing the work of four nurses and a doctor for a pittance.
She may not even ask you a tenth of the questions you were asked, instead you’re likely to get, “What’s the problem?”
If it’s just an inoculation or routine immunization for a bay, they should have the meds. However, that’s not a guarantee and after all your waiting you may be told to come back another day or go somewhere else. For something else, they probably wont have the meds, but she’ll write you a prescription and send you to a pharmacy at your own cost.
So, from my perspective this is heaven, and I appreciate the politeness, even if it’s just for face or whatever other reason. And I’ve found that if I get my wife to do the talking there’s never a problem (grew up here? understands the local customs/undertone/whatever that I might not “get”?), or if I’m alone, friendly (sometimes downright flirty) and go out of my way to make the experience pleasant for them I get a lot more in return (mostly above and beyond the call of duty). The days when I’m having a bad day and react accordingly I get nowhere, more irritated and end up leaving all pissed off.
And yes, there’s a lot that baffles me about this place. Lots that doesn’t make sense, irritates me and frustrates me. But this is Taiwan. It’s not South Africa. It’s a different culture with different ways of doing things (although, a lot is unsettling similar 
-I’d be happy to elaborate for a laugh over a beer at a HH sometime. 
). But I’ll say this, if Taiwan was the same as where I come from I would’ve buggered off long ago, so I’m grateful it’s different. I also find that when I hit one of these snags and bitch to the wife about it, she usually has an interesting take on “what happened” which is totally different from the way I saw it. Did you speak to your wife about what happened? If so, what did she have to say about it?
As for the birth situation with the doctor. I don’t really have much to say about that than this. A monkey can deliver a baby. I know, because I have delivered two by myself. One in an apartment with a very sleepy gynecologist on the phone giving me directions. And another in the servant’s room of a neighbour’s house. Doctors are there for if the sh!t hits the fan, and to make us feel “safe”. But honestly, midwives (nurses) are pretty much the bomb. And in Taiwan you will get a doctor, even if it’s not “your” doctor.
Although, I expect that’s not where your issue lies, but with the feeling that the doctor in question was giving the impression that “you and your baby weren’t a priority/didn’t give a damn”. I have nothing to offer on that point because I wasn’t there, and I don’t know the doctor. But I’m partial to idea that this probably wasn’t the case, even if you may have felt it was.
Playground/park rules? Who gives a rat’s ass? If you want to take your kid to the park to play, go. I bet you no one will say a word about it, and there’ll probably be kids his age there anyway. If not, there will almost certainly be kids slightly older who will more than likely want to play with him and go down the slide with him etc.
There are signs all over the park by my house strictly forbidding dogs. Yet, every time I go there there are several dog owners walking and playing with their pets. No one cares or complains. Why? It’s nonsensical! But let’s be honest. The dogs don’t bother anyone and the owners pick up the dog sh!t after their dogs. I haven’t pointed this out to other park users, because I know they will just shrug and say something along the lines of 隨便. And anyway, is it really that important? No. Do the dogs bother me or my son when we go there? No.
My POV on these “nonsensical” rules is this: The rules are there to protect the patrons of the park and the city government, much like the warnings on packets of cigarettes. You use the place, but if your kid falls and gets hurt you can’t sue, because it clearly states it’s only for 6 - 12 year olds.
Like traffic accidents in Taiwan. If both parties are happy to pay their own damages, they simply sign a form stating so that the coppers usually have and off you go.
Simply put, you’re in an environment that’s different from the one you grew up in. You can accept that and adapt to it, or rage against it but achieve the same effect as pissing into the wind.
Unless she was delivering another baby or dealing with some other unforseen emergency? A life-or-death situation, perhaps? There are all manner of reasons that might make it clearly NOT her fault, that you as a layman would certainly not be privy to. This is standard hospital practice, for heaven’s sake![/quote]
Yeah, but that’s not what the doctor said. He could have said ‘I had to spend hours in Casualty’, or ‘Sorry, I needed to cut someone’s legs off to save them from Rampant Walking’, but apparently that wasn’t it. There was no emergency.
Doctor said he was waiting for the lift. Didn’t say why. Touduke thinks its because he’s a slack good-for-nothing. I suspect there might have been other reasons. Why was the lift so crowded? Perhaps sick people were being taken to surgery, perhaps there was an emergency, etc, etc. A doctor leaves a sickbed and makes for the lift to assist a birth on another floor. Damn! there’s a queue for the lift! That’s strange at this time of day. Oh well, its 11 floors away. Wait or take the stairs? Hmm. Quicker to wait.
But no. Touduke prefers to simply brand the doctor a good-for-nothing “typical Taiwanese,” whichh I think is a load of crap. YMMV.