I’m at the hospital in a waiting area, and all I can do is try not to be sickened by the amount of unabashed noisy body functions going on around me. Tooth-sucking (that bane of Taiwan movie afficianados), open-mouthed burping, and ear-splitting, phlegm-producing, throat clearing were going on around me in a cacophony of grossness. It’s not just in hospitals, either, where a certain amount of nose-sniffling is to be expected. It’s everywhere. Why oh why are good manners not valued here? Seems nobody in Taiwan has ever been told by their mother to cover their mouths when sneezing, burping or coughing, use a Kleenex instead of sucking back mucus or not to expectorate in public. To me, it shows a distinct lack of social etiquette. Yuck!
Taiwan is still a developing country … you’re not in Kansas anymore Dorothy … it’s even worse in China too!
When I was in some western countries I noticed some really disgusting habits.
People don’t shower in the evenings, preferring to shower in the morning. They go to bed dirty!
People wear shoes in their houses, leaving dirt all over carpets which they rarely wash.
People often blow their noses on little cloths that they then return to their pockets.
People yawn and pick their teeth without covering their mouths.
It’s all so filthy. Is the west really this backward and undeveloped?
Bri
What about the locker room etiquette here. Ever go to a gym?
It is disgusting. Many men walk around completely naked while scratching themselves (basically tantamount to masturbation). They will talk to their friends with their ding-a-lings hanging just centimeters from said friends forehead. Leave the shower door open although it is not broken nor difficult to close. Pee in the shower, without caring if anyone is watching. Sit in the sauna with their knees at their chest, thereby showing the world their hemmoroids and twig and berries. Blow-dry their genitals (what’s up with that?). etc.
Do they do the same thing in the girl’s locker room? If they did, would it be disgusting or erotic?
Bri, I hear what you’re saying, but the thing is, most of the behaviours you listed are recognized as being crass back home, whereas the behaviours that Queasy listed are not. In polite company, you can’t pick your teeth at all, mouth covered or not. Carpets are vacuumed regularly in the household I grew up in, and due to the cleaner environment in general, less dirt gets tracked in than would be in Taiwan. Blowing your nose in a hankie is a darn sight better than the “one-finger-on-the-side-of-the-nose method” that I see here.
As far as the showering thing goes, at least you are being dirty privately rather than publicly. No member of the public ever catches me having gone 20 hours without being washed, yet if you are a typical Taiwanese, that would be the norm if you sat beside someone on the bus at 6:00 pm. Still, this is a minor point. I know most other nations are not as obsessed with personal hygiene as North Americans, and I can live with that. What Queasy is talking about I think is rude behaviour, not just personal habits.
The Health Club stuff that DB mentions I have seen often also - especially the hair dryer between the legs. Ewwwwwwww! And the pissing in the showers - you can smell the urine in the steam 5 seconds after a guy steps into the showers sometimes. I guess I should be thankful, however. Whoever is pissing in the showers probably isn’t doing it in the jacuzzi!
… once again a thread about local behaviour as analysed by a bunch of whities with a belief they have all the answers.
These threads are getting so boring. You are a foreigner in a foreign land. Go home if these things annoy you so much or shut up and get on with life. Sure some elements of life in Taiwan annoy me too, but just hearing an American talk at full volume in ALL situations annoys the crap out of me.
Me too, but I do not limit my indignation to boorish Americans only. Anybody who talks at full volume in all situations is a neanderthal. 
This is to “oh good.”
Nobody in this room said they were white. Some probably are some probably not. You are making a generalization which is just as rude. I saw North America. But in North America aren’t there many colors?
This is the free to discuss anything forum. You have your right to complain, just like I do. But I have to agree with dbbowman, if you don’t like to see it, don’t read it!
This forum was added to let the expatriates in Taiwan express their feelings here, rather than outside.
Maybe it’s just that they don’t bring their own towels. Lots of people here have doubts about the cleanliness of public things. I understand that there are probably more than a couple of people on this list who regularly rub their genitals against, um, objects of uncertain cleanliness; but that doesn’t make the practice a good idea. Watch out for the cleanliness of pubic, um, public facilities.
But peeing in the showers? Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!
oh bosh.
I love it here for this exact reason. I can get away with so much here, bad habit-wise, and no one looks down on me, except for snooty Westerners. Hell, even if the locals did, they’d probably probably just group me with the rest of the uncivilized Western barbarians.
Hey Queasy,
Don’t worry, the longer you stay here, the more you’ll transmogrify, and those so-called ‘disgusting habits’ won’t seem so disgusting anymore because you’ve taken on a few yourself.
Example: The BELCH Phenomenon
It feels good to belch loudly with your mouth open, try it sometime. It’s very satisfying, especially after downing a soda or lager. In a dual-cultural dimension, I now tend to belch loudly and joyously, but my knee-jerk polite reaction is to immediately say excuse me afterwards.
This goes something like:
‘BEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLCCCCCCCCHHHHHHH!
Oh, excuse me!’
Then there’s the BONE SPITTING Phenomenon.
Since many seafood items here contain bones or shells, it doesn’t make much sense to try to peel the shells off with your fingers, or pick away the bones. Just do as the natives do and stick the whole shrimp/crab/fish in your mouth and spit the bones/shells carefully onto the table. It’s much easier, and you won’t need so many napkins.
Next, the HOICK phenomenon.
If you’re a smoker, this is particularly handy. When you’re on the sidewalk and feel a bit of phlegm come up, don’t reach for a tissue, just hoick loudly and spit onto the nearest scooter blocking your path. This satisfies several urges and rids you of that nasty phlegm.
But finally, don’t forget to cover your mouth with your free hand when dislodging food from your teeth with a toothpick. It’s very impolite not to.
Happy mutation!
ps>In the ladies locker room at the gym, I’ve yet to see genital blow drying, but there is a tendency for the oldest and dimpliest to roam about starkers wearing clay masques. And the undeniable essence of urine has on several occassions wafted past my nose in the shower. Cest la vie!
I don’t know if this counts as a local “habit” or not, but what’s up with the shit-paper baskets here? Why can’t people flush their paper? I’ve heard that it’s the plumbing, but I’ve lived here a long time without clogging up my pipes. And the 5 star hotels don’t seem to require them. (I’m sure the ladies rooms have them, but that would be for different reasons…) It’s just so gross. Today I was at a nice restaurant, went to the loo, and had to deal with the sight of shit-streaked paper in the basket right next to the toilet. The view, as unique as it was, couldn’t compare to the smell, though. Went back to the table and decided to pass on dessert. No surprise there!
Where does the tap water come from?
from the sewage water that has been purified and drowned in Chlorine.
23 million people live in Taiwan. Everytime you take a dump you use what maybe 6 feet of toilet roll(once up, down and the polisher)
23 X 6 = 138 million feet of bog roll going through the water purification process every day(based on one dump, and nobody having La Du Tz). This would clog the whole system up. Imagine the poor guy waist deep trying to rake up the bog roll in the water filtraion tank.
Must say though, that although Taiwanese like to think themselves as clean, I cannot understand, why they can use some better cleaning practises in the toliet. I nearly puked one day, and in the summer it is worse!!
And in a restaurant moving from a plate of Chow Mein to a bucket of shit covered tissue, I just can’t take that!!
I honestly believe that westerners percieve cleanliness in a different way.
Foreigners believe that you keep the environment and where you live and move around clean, then you will remain clean. Taiwanese believe that as long as you keep yourself clean, then it doesn’t if the whole place is disease infested and dirty.
I find in Taiwan, my clothes always get dirty quicker. I get on the bus, I rub up against something, and suddenly there is a black smear on my white shirt. I take it home to wash it, but the stain remains. I mop my apartment with detergent everyweek,and find in a couple of days, everything covered in a layer of fine dust. It drives me crazy.
The only hangup I have with Taiwan is this. I was taught to maintain your environment and keep it clean, therefore you do not have to watch where you walk, where you lean, where you put your hand. In Taiwan, the Taiwanese are trained instinctively where not to put their body to ensure they or their clothes don’t get dirty.
My mother’s washing machine actually washes clothes and removes stains. My top loader in Taiwan doesn’t. I have had to throw ten shirts out in the last year and I liked those shirts…
And this comment may cause an argument but…
Taiwanese might think themselves as very clean, but just cause you take two showers a day doesn’t negate the fact that the environment that you live in is dirty and is a reflection of how clean you are. And before somebody says if you don’t like it leave, this is an observation, go down the street and you will see it!!
Taiwan is yes maybe a developing country, but where does this total lack of concern for your living environment come from?
Is it in the culture… Is it general apathy as the population is so big and puts such a demand on the environment…is it cause anything outside your apartment, is not your responsibilty??
Like the guy in Hsi Shr I saw get out of his washed and polished car, and tippy toe around the garbage and then walk into his apartment.
Question: Would it not be better to clean this garbage up than to have to tippy toe around it everyday ?
And I caught the guy who owns the motorbike shop next to me, pouring 3 litres of waste oil down the drain… he said he had no where else to put it…so the drain was the best place
I’m surprised that you have not been informed that people in Taiwan do not flush toilet paper down the toilet. They throw it in the trash. Haven’t you noticed this?
I think thats what he was trying to point out…the fact that you can’t flush it…
we touched on this topic before. my taiwanese husband actually enjoys littering- it’s like he’s getting back at someone. but the inside of our house has to be very clean. i think this phenomenon of dirtying up the environment outside of one’s home is a cultural neurosis.
Well in Indonesia they do not use toilet paper, which is why you only wash your right hand fingers in the finger bowl at the table.
The security for toilet paper in the construction camp was only one step below that for money. When, late in the project, I stayed in the clients quarters I had to sign a receipt for the replacement toilet paper left in my room
So practices vary
I remember the first time I saw a person spitting out their beetle nuts out, it was horrific!! I just jumped to the other side of the street. My god, I thought he was dying or something, spitting blood from his mouth! haha
Its a pitty to see all the streets covered with spots of blood!
Before I came here, I was told that you might get a bill for littering on the streets, but heck no! You can spit and do what ever you want. Hope they had more trash cans on the streets. In my hometown we used to have 2 on each block.
What irks me to the limits of irkness, is that there seems to be NO END to the number of adverts they’ll shove in your mail slot! Why the hell doesn’t Ma Yingjiu DO something about that? I guess he must have an Indonesian maid to clean out his own stupid mail slot.
I yelled at one mentally disabled looking bloke for shoving some crap in my box one day, and he scurried along and filled up my neighbours’ slots. My cynical Scottish friend wonders why those jerks are so adament about that, if that were his job, he’d just dump the flyers in a bin, and go to a coffee shop…I mean, who’s looking?
It just creates more trash, or more recycling, whatever it is you do with them…and more trouble for us lazy gits who get tired of yanking them out of our mail slots and tossing them into the nearest bicycle basket.
reminds me of one of my local legislative candidates who had his people stuff flyers into every letterbox in our building touting his concern for the environment