Decade-Seasoned in Taiwan and Monolingual

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
61

I think I’m just developing a worse and worse attitude the longer I stay here, but the main reason I stay monolingual is that I really don’t think I have anything to talk about with Taiwanese people. I think because I’m here, I SHOULD learn Chinese, but what’s the point?

I semi-regularly live with Taiwanese people (Taiwanese girlfriend… I’m at least there on weekends, with her family) and they rarely care enough to directly talk to me, or even ask my Taiwanese girlfriend to pass a question on to me. They’re all nice, they’ll take care of me, they’ll give me things, but genuine interest in my life? Ha, yeah right. They won’t understand my questions about their lives if I use English, and they usually interrupt me if I’m speaking English to my girlfriend so she can translate, so it’s nearly impossible to get a question about their lives into the conversation. She’ll just ignore me and pay attention to her family, because they clearly have a higher rank (also they’ll get mad if she doesn’t).

I spend most family gatherings on my cell phone reading books. Her relatives talk to me when they want to improve their English or convince me to improve their kid’s English, effectively making conversation with them the same thing as work.

At work, my students have nothing to say to me, and though I’m desperately trying to move to an acquisition based class, anything I do other than directly read the book is treated as if I’m just wasting their time. They’ll come late because they think I waste time at the beginning and they only care about the book part. They don’t give a crap about input, they’re just trained to follow the book. If I try to help them in any way, they ignore me or retaliate by being extra silent, or push me to focus on the book, even though that’s truly the most useless part of class. They have no grasp of very basic things, but FIGHT if I try to help them improve them. They just want to waste their lives learning a million vocabulary words they’ll never in a million years use properly. Most of them have an English base the size of a pin with a huge load of vocabulary words and useless grammar rules balancing on top of it. Their English crashes and breaks into a million pieces the second they try to open their mouths, so to make sure that doesn’t happen they just never open their mouth! That’d be okay if they’d pay attention to my input, but that’s a waste of their time, so they just choose to never improve.

As a non-speaker of Chinese, my conclusion after about two years of living here is that everyone is a selfish asshole. I think I SHOULD learn Chinese while I’m here, but I have little motivation. I don’t really want to talk with many Chinese speakers, I’m not interested in their TV, their books… I just happened to land here after meeting a girl.

People here have three modes from what I can gather: Zombie, Selfish Asshole, and Oh Shit I Have to Be Polite Or I’ll Lose Face. A bunch of phonies with no personality.

The genuinely nice people I’ve met in Taiwan are extremely few and far between. That’s not limited to natives either, most foreign people duck around a corner or get really shy if they notice they’ve been even spotted by another foreigner. Even my co-workers refuse to say hi unless they’re cornered and can’t slip past without looking rude. Apparently they all like to backstab each other and play stupid games. I have no part in that drama, so they just ignore me. One closed an elevator door on me once. That’s the only interaction I’ve had with that teacher. Foreign people that were polite enough to chat with me generally are just trying to get me to do their work for them. Being in Taiwan for long enough apparently makes most people as selfish as the locals. I pray it never happens to me. So this rules out meeting friendly English speakers. I’m sure they’re out there, but apparently not where I live. I guess if you’re willing to put up with them, the Mormon missionaries will talk to you politely in English. Ha.

What should I talk about with these people? I really only care about talking to my girlfriend in Taiwan, and she can speak English. If we weren’t about to get married I’d be out of here so fast. I’m even worried about marrying her just because I’ll be stuck in or related to Taiwan for the rest of my life, even if I take her back home. The schools here train kids to be soulless zombies, so I definitely don’t want to raise kids here.

I learned bopomofo, but even with that and Pleco, learning is an utter chore. I’m trying to teach my girlfriend about circling so she can give me better input, but she just gives me a million sentences with vocab I don’t know so I’m constantly telling her to slow down because I don’t know what the hell she’s saying. She works a lot and really doesn’t have time to hold my hand through all that. We work on it sometimes, but not enough. She needs to relax in her free time too.

Even with direct access to native speakers it’s pretty tricky to accomplish much. Pimsleur is okay, but then I have no idea how to “spell” words, so I have half-learned words in my head with no tones (sometimes, I can recognize some tones better than others) or character to go along with it, and I really don’t even know bopomofo well enough to look it up other than searching in English and chancing upon the word.

I also don’t have time to take Chinese classes, because I’m busy wasting my time teaching idiots that don’t have any respect for me, and think anything but rote repetition is wasting time. These bores don’t even KNOW HOW to respond to “how are you?” in any way better than “good.” or “fine.”, despite me explaining it over and over and over. It’s just futile to expect them to learn. They come to class with their own attitude on learning (which they refuse to share with me) so whatever I do is wrong. Most of them won’t even lift their head out of their ass or the floor or whatever they’re looking at down there when I enter the room so they can say hello. Most of the rest are too shy to reply when I say hi. Talkative people just want to show off to everyone and get pissy and bored when I try to help anyone else… Taiwan’s students really are the worst, and the longer I stay here the more I think it’s just an intrinsic part of the culture. Just look at the traffic here. That alone shows you what’s in their heart: ME FIRST. ME ME ME. OUTTA MY WAY.

I really enjoy helping people but most of them pay money to fight me to NOT help them (I really really wonder if these people are literally insane; they try to learn English the same way over and over with no change in results and refuse to even consider another way). Kids are out of control spoiled hellions, teenagers have already lost their soul and do literally nothing but sit around zonked out from all the studying, adults are zombies or selfish pricks… Where’s my motivation to learn a language to facilitate communication with them? They don’t want to talk with me anyway, they want to practice their English with me if I DON’T want them to speak English. They’re silent if I do. Talking to them is a waste of time.

62

[quote=“TaiwanVisitor12321”]I think I’m just developing a worse and worse attitude the longer I stay here, but the main reason I stay monolingual is that I really don’t think I have anything to talk about with Taiwanese people. I think because I’m here, I SHOULD learn Chinese, but what’s the point?

I semi-regularly live with Taiwanese people (Taiwanese girlfriend… I’m at least there on weekends, with her family) and they rarely care enough to directly talk to me, or even ask my Taiwanese girlfriend to pass a question on to me. They’re all nice, they’ll take care of me, they’ll give me things, but genuine interest in my life? Ha, yeah right. They won’t understand my questions about their lives if I use English, and they usually interrupt me if I’m speaking English to my girlfriend so she can translate, so it’s nearly impossible to get a question about their lives into the conversation. She’ll just ignore me and pay attention to her family, because they clearly have a higher rank (also they’ll get mad if she doesn’t).

I spend most family gatherings on my cell phone reading books. Her relatives talk to me when they want to improve their English or convince me to improve their kid’s English, effectively making conversation with them the same thing as work.

At work, my students have nothing to say to me, and though I’m desperately trying to move to an acquisition based class, anything I do other than directly read the book is treated as if I’m just wasting their time. They’ll come late because they think I waste time at the beginning and they only care about the book part. They don’t give a crap about input, they’re just trained to follow the book. If I try to help them in any way, they ignore me or retaliate by being extra silent, or push me to focus on the book, even though that’s truly the most useless part of class. They have no grasp of very basic things, but FIGHT if I try to help them improve them. They just want to waste their lives learning a million vocabulary words they’ll never in a million years use properly. Most of them have an English base the size of a pin with a huge load of vocabulary words and useless grammar rules balancing on top of it. Their English crashes and breaks into a million pieces the second they try to open their mouths, so to make sure that doesn’t happen they just never open their mouth! That’d be okay if they’d pay attention to my input, but that’s a waste of their time, so they just choose to never improve.

As a non-speaker of Chinese, my conclusion after about two years of living here is that everyone is a selfish asshole. I think I SHOULD learn Chinese while I’m here, but I have little motivation. I don’t really want to talk with many Chinese speakers, I’m not interested in their TV, their books… I just happened to land here after meeting a girl.

People here have three modes from what I can gather: Zombie, Selfish Asshole, and Oh Shit I have to Be Polite Or I’ll Lose Face. A bunch of phonies with no personality.

The genuinely nice people I’ve met in Taiwan are extremely few and far between. That’s not limited to natives either, most foreign people duck around a corner or get really shy if they notice they’ve been even spotted by another foreigner. Even my co-workers refuse to say hi unless they’re cornered and can’t slip past without looking rude. Apparently they all like to backstab each other and play stupid games. I have no part in that drama, so they just ignore me. One closed an elevator door on me once. That’s the only interaction I’ve had with that teacher. Foreign people that were polite enough to chat with me generally are just trying to get me to do their work for them. Being in Taiwan for long enough apparently makes most people as selfish as the locals. I pray it never happens to me. So this rules out meeting friendly English speakers. I’m sure they’re out there, but apparently not where I live. I guess if you’re willing to put up with them, the Mormon missionaries will talk to you politely in English. Ha.

What should I talk about with these people? I really only care about talking to my girlfriend in Taiwan, and she can speak English. If we weren’t about to get married I’d be out of here so fast. I’m even worried about marrying her just because I’ll be stuck in or related to Taiwan for the rest of my life, even if I take her back home. The schools here train kids to be soulless zombies, so I definitely don’t want to raise kids here.

I learned bopomofo, but even with that and Pleco, learning is an utter chore. I’m trying to teach my girlfriend about circling so she can give me better input, but she just gives me a million sentences with vocab I don’t know so I’m constantly telling her to slow down because I don’t know what the hell she’s saying. She works a lot and really doesn’t have time to hold my hand through all that. We work on it sometimes, but not enough. She needs to relax in her free time too.

Even with direct access to native speakers it’s pretty tricky to accomplish much. Pimsleur is okay, but then I have no idea how to “spell” words, so I have half-learned words in my head with no tones (sometimes, I can recognize some tones better than others) or character to go along with it, and I really don’t even know bopomofo well enough to look it up other than searching in English and chancing upon the word.

I also don’t have time to take Chinese classes, because I’m busy wasting my time teaching idiots that don’t have any respect for me, and think anything but rote repetition is wasting time. These bores don’t even KNOW HOW to respond to “how are you?” in any way better than “good.” or “fine.”, despite me explaining it over and over and over. It’s just futile to expect them to learn. They come to class with their own attitude on learning (which they refuse to share with me) so whatever I do is wrong. Most of them won’t even lift their head out of their ass or the floor or whatever they’re looking at down there when I enter the room so they can say hello. Most of the rest are too shy to reply when I say hi. Talkative people just want to show off to everyone and get pissy and bored when I try to help anyone else… Taiwan’s students really are the worst, and the longer I stay here the more I think it’s just an intrinsic part of the culture. Just look at the traffic here. That alone shows you what’s in their heart: ME FIRST. ME ME ME. OUTTA MY WAY.

I really enjoy helping people but most of them pay money to fight me to NOT help them (I really really wonder if these people are literally insane; they try to learn English the same way over and over with no change in results and refuse to even consider another way). Kids are out of control spoiled hellions, teenagers have already lost their soul and do literally nothing but sit around zonked out from all the studying, adults are zombies or selfish pricks… Where’s my motivation to learn a language to facilitate communication with them? They don’t want to talk with me anyway, they want to practice their English with me if I don’t want them to speak English. They’re silent if I do. Talking to them is a waste of time.[/quote]

So all in all would you say you were happy here in Taiwan then? :sunglasses:

63

Ya, wtf is up with that? I get the feeling many are ashamed of their their culture…or came to Taiwan bc they were total fuckups or something, had a horrible life before here, are running from their past and don’t want to be reminded of who they truly are. Its super weird.

Another reason to learn to local lingo…(since I pretty much disagree with everything you said abt Taiwanese people) the locals rock, most expats have this ‘white fright’.

64

Check. Doesn’t mean I’m not crap at teaching AS WELL though.

65

TaiwanVisitor: I largely agree with you. I have a handful of foreign friends I really get along with who seem to be very much out of the normal loop that foreigners are in here. A lot of foreigners here make me want to jump off a cliff. Last year, I remember being at a dinner party and one teacher’s husband seeing some Taiwanese guy wearing a Michigan shirt. The teacher’s husband then cornered me for the next ten minutes to tell me about the rivalry between Michigan State University and some other team. I don’t even give a shit about Australian sports (I’m Australian), why would I care about American college football? These guys are all terribly nice to each other and to me, which makes me feel terribly guilty for being so anti-social, but I just really do just want to go and slit my wrists in the bathroom after such encounters.

Likewise, I know a handful of genuinely really cool Taiwanese people. I find solace in those relationships.

Generally, I think you’re right and it’s a large part of the reason why I just can’t be bothered learning Chinese. Everyone always tells me to practise speaking. I can say “I am Australian” and kind of give you a two minute run down on myself, but what’s the fucking point? If I tell them that I’m not quite sure if Full Metal Jacket or Barry Lyndon is my favourite Stanley Kubrick film, would they even know what the fuck I was talking about? That’s the conversation I want to have, but firstly, it’s way beyond my abilities, and secondly, it’s way beyond the cultural radar of pretty much anyone here. If, upon meeting someone here I skipped straight past the inane conversation about how Taiwan has great night markets or how Australia is not always hot or the conversation about the latest Vin Diesel movie and launched into waxing poetic about Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood, everyone would think I was a weirdo.

I’m sure there must be cool people here, though probably not too many around where I live. However, I think the relative percentages are fairly low. There are lots of reality TV watching, consumeristic buffoons in the West too, but the percentage of such people here is extraordinary. Near where my in-laws live in Neili, there is a cinema that shows second-run movies, and it’s a two-movie-for-one-ticket deal. In the main, it’s all stupid shit. Very rarely, something really crazy will happen. Once, they showed Blindness http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0861689/. To me, it wasn’t particularly intense, but it turned into a spectacle just being there. It was fucking awesome. I could literally hear everyone around me gasping and grinding uncomfortably in their seats. About half the audience didn’t last half-way into the movie, and when it finished and the lights came on, it looked like the remainder had PTSD. I could barely stifle the laughter. There they were thinking they were going to get another Michael Bay piece of shit and they got that!

My in-laws are mostly obsessed with trivial crap also and all interrupt or talk over one another. I teach kids, so that speaks for itself. I pretty much get all my intellectual stimulation from the internet or Western books, movies, etc. and I find myself retreating within myself in most social situations here, though I don’t even go out very much anymore.

66

Taiwnavisitor makes me happy I speak some Chinese as I have a much better relationship with my classes than he does. I speak it quite horribly as well and the students have learned first hand that mocking my Chinese is a generally bad idea worth about 30 minutes of stair time. I enjoy my job for the most part, but like GiT, most intellectual stimulation comes from what I do and not the general environment.

I think he needs a reset on his life and to step back and learn to change what he needs to change while just ignoring the parts that don;t mean anything.

GiT, “There will be blood” was great, but I have to say that “The lives of others” is probably my favorite film.

To the OP, I think that hiring an old hand can be extremely productive if you are discerning. The problem is you have to work through all the head cases and divas.

67

So, your girlfriend is hot? :laughing:

That’s a great rant. :bravo:

Define your free time. The family thing will come. The language will come. But you must go and DO something: hike, scuba, photography, biking, farming, fishing, martial arts, something. Too bad this site doesn’t have Happy Hours anymore. You’d meet a ton of people who would buy you a drink just for this post, and they might just might offer a few gems to get you through this rough patch.

I went through this after being here 7 years or so. I fucking hated everything. You’re not alone. I mean, I’m not with you, but certainly others are. :laughing:

Chin up. Switch whiskeys and beers. Upgrade you fun. :thumbsup:

68

I’ll bet she is or else he’d be hightailing it outta this joint called the 'wan.

A classic if I may add :bravo:

Indeed. Just go out and do something instead of kvetching.

Me too (and only 2+ years). God why the hell did I return :loco: :loco: :loco: :loco: :loco:

Maybe it’s time for some Sam Adams at Seven :thumbsup:

69

One of the greatest rants ever.

70

A few stray thoughts come to me here:

  1. your attitude change could change your reality
  2. even back home you will only have a handful of real friends and most people are too banal to listen to and find you likewise.
  3. you have to make your own life and stop hanging around with her family.
  4. lots of people dont like hanging out with the S>O’s family either, even in their own language.
  5. not everyone has a problem with the S.O.'s family (i didnt in a couple instances but did in other instances)
  6. you may be beyond the point of no return to salvage your sanity without changing you routine drastically.
71

I think Taiwan is in serious need of some Samuel Jackson.

72

The ranter surprises me. Why wouldn’t he go to a country that paid him more to deal with the same stressors? He could ignore the local language anywhere.

Also, if he’s so interested in input-based methods, why doesn’t he actually try them on himself?

If there’s a cultural divide, why wouldn’t he explain the culture? I learn a lot by talking with my girlfriend. She gave me a long Mandarin talk about why she (and supposedly most Taiwanese people) don’t like cinnamon after I bought cinnamon buns at Costco. I explained to her – half in English, half in Mandarin – who Triumph the Insult Comic Dog is, and then what happened between Conan O’Brien and Jay Leno, after I said Triumph’s joke about Bon Jovi’s pubes.

Other girlfriends and other friends are similar in this sense. Parents, too, like me more when I actually try to converse with them in Mandarin.

73

The attitude that is shown here is quite problematic.

74

Where and with what teacher? :loco:

75

…on the Interwebs? …with you?

76

I’ve been in Taiwan for over 12 years and speak virtually no Chinese at all. In fact, I can still speak more Korean than Chinese, after having lived in Korea for only 8 months in 1996. The difference, I guess, was that you can learn to read everything you see in Korea in a couple of weeks or less, and I’m a VERY visual learner.

There’s lots of reasons (excuses?) for not learning Chinese. I’ve got tons:
I would’ve learned Chinese if only…

  • it wasn’t so easy to get by without it.
  • it wasn’t so hard to read.
  • I wasn’t working so many hours, and feel mentally exhausted all the time.
  • my Taiwanese wife cared that I learn.
  • it would actually lead to my becoming naturalized as a Taiwanese Citizen without giving up my Canadian passport.
  • I didn’t enjoy it so much, having all the idiotic conversations going on around me being white noise.
  • I didn’t have less demands put on me at work, because I can’t speak Chinese.
  • the way they try and teach people Chinese in Taiwan didn’t go against everything I know about effective language learning.
  • it would actually help me make more money.
  • I actually gave a rats-ass.

And yet, I really enjoy living in Taiwan. I know that not speaking Chinese limits my experiences here, but I’m ok with that. I enjoy my life here for how I live it. I have many friends who could make just as big a list of things they felt they would’ve missed out on, if they HADN"T learned Chinese. Different strokes as they say.

77

you sound very much Taiwanese to me. I bet you speak a mean Tai Yu, hehe

78

So what is her reason? I don’t buy it.

There are Taiwanese who do love 肉桂. Perhaps it smells like Chinese herbal medicine and so people think we (I love the roll as well with coffee) are weird.

Still, I don’t buy it or else Starbucks wouldn’t offer it in the 'wan.

79

I agree here. I loved studying Mandarin, but must admit the first time I actually understood the conversation in the teachers’ room at Kojen, they were talking about farts. So much for learning a new language broadening my horizons and introducing me to new, exotic people and ideas.

80

I’m with you guys here. I looooooove being able to ignore what’s going on around me. I love being able to bow out of small talk because I can’t understand it. Especially looking different here- if I started spouting chinese to strangers, I’m afraid I’d never have a free moment alone.
Sometimes I wish I had the same excuse in America. Actually, once I pretended (in a club in Hawaii) that I could only speak Italian, hoping to avoid all the shouted chit chat and just DANCE. Unfortunately this ploy had the opposite effect as I was surrounded all night. :doh: Men. They just love me when I don’t open my mouth…or maybe when they just can’t understand what’s coming out of my mouth?

Still though, working on the Chinese. And enjoying it. I can always pretend I don’t understand later, if it’s the difference between having to engage in banal small talk or not.