Living in a foreign place is hard. I sympathize. I remember coming home as a kid being told we were going to move to America. I had no idea what that meant. I had no idea everything was going to be so different, I was just told it’s going to be a great opportunity for me.
I got on the plane full of excitement only and although it was interesting and full of new things I’ve never seen at first. Many things began to weigh on me growing up. It’s not easy just learning a new language but how to communicate in that language effectively. I remember my teacher got mad at me and punished me because I wouldn’t make eye contact with her when I talked to her when for me I thought it was disrespectful to make such direct eye contact to someone older and a teacher when I spoke.
Little things like that became more and more noticeable. Race became more and more of an issue. I will always love the US. But at the end of the day I made a decision to finally move back to taiwan.
Man the op in the 2001 thread had it so bad, sounds like he was about to blow up.
Just shows how cultural miscommunication intersects with mental health… I remember getting pissed with a guy who appeared out of nowhere and asked me “where are you going?” years ago. I thought it was rude, later realised he was just translating “ni qu na li” which is just a harmless greeting.
Best to keep an open mind and not give to much of a shit about most stuff. If you look at everything through an inflexible set of spectacles with very exact expectations then your asking for a wind up. Also I think people sense it if you couldn’t care less and ease off on the “othering”.
Because of what I saw on that Google page, I’m leaving Taiwan tomorrow.
But back to the topic: I admit that I’m an English teacher and I hate my life, but for a long time negativity worked for me, after a fashion. However, one day I was lost in the rain in Banqiao (and it was Easter time, too), and negativity just, well it just wouldn’t pull me through.
You know what the funniest thing is…Jokerofthepack…Was me.
Lol at leaving next year
As folks can see I didn’t exactly have an easy transition at the start.
To be fair I had challenges , Big challenges.
Could barely communicate
Couldn’t read
Never really ate Asian food before
Dealing with the very hot and humid summer and cold rainy winter
Lived in Taoyuan for a while
Very little money and debts
Homesick as hell and left a good bunch of mates
1000s of miles from said home and hasn’t been back in a year at least (was to go for 2 more years without going back )
Low pay
Hassle with visas
Stray dogs used to keep me up half the night barking
Buses that would go around in circles with no English or GPS to figure which way went where
No Facebook or social media to keep in touch with folks
Very few options for Western food and beer then
…and yes a lot of rude interfering and very curious people even though overall it was also friendlier . The attention could be very overwhelming when you were already struggling with things. Newbies or Asian looking folks might not understand how overwhelming the attention could be back then.
Yeah it sounds so attractive .
Why did I stay ? I’m a stubborn fool mostly and had a girlfriend. I wanted to learn Chinese. I had got a job in my industry fnally. I had made some friends too and enjoyed the adventure of a new planet Taiwan. Mostly I wanted to make it a success. The ego is a powerful force.
Hey I stayed through Typhoon Nari , SARS and 8 years of mayhem under CSB so things have only ever gotten easier for me. Now my life is pure luxury and comfort compared to back then.
Long story short I learned Chinese, how to read and write . I got over the homesickness a long time ago. I finally built a career of sorts with a decent income. I got married to a lovely lady and had kids. I manage to go back to the homeland maybe once a year. Got a car and abandoned the death machine scooter. Ride to work on gleaming MRT system. Take holidays around Asia and Taiwan every year.
So yeah I should give myself a break cos things were a lot tougher for younger me.
I still struggle with the Taipei Summers and Winters though!
I can’t read Chinese, but it looks like his friends are counseling him to give himself a chance to cool off, so as to avoid giving the media more to work with.
Anyway, does it look like he’s gonna recover fully, or is it too soon to tell?
Close enough I guess. Not sure myself any longer. I thought his family assumed he needed rescuing when he didn’t get in touch. He couldn’t make contact till much later.
Nice work. I heard he was carrying a GPS or something that could pinpoint his location but it smashed during the fall.
On the legislation part, requiring people like him hire guides wouldn’t make sense. There aren’t many people with the experience this guy has.
Thanks for writing something balanced up in the English media.
[quote=“Zapman, post:107, topic:161478, full:true”]
This thread was about me wanting to know the psychology behind someone living in Taiwan for a long time who consistently talks about how shit the place is, what they dislike/hate yet choose to just keep living here when they come from 1st world countries.[/quote]
People often feel better after a good old-fashioned gripe session. Living abroad, there will always be annoyances, and griping about them with fellow expats is a way of airing grievances and relieving stress. It can make people feel better to vent and unload their accumulated frustrations. They also know they’re not alone in their feelings of frustrations.
The problem is when it becomes constant. Nobody likes a chronic complainer.
Just for the record, I don’t think of myself as an if-you-don’t-like-it-here-leave type. It’s enough for me to figure out what I need to do, let alone tell someone how to make that sort of decision.
Your Jokerofthepack post didn’t look bad to me. You just looked like somebody at the beginning of the process of adjusting to a very new environment.
When you wrote that post, I was in Korea, having adjustment issues of my own.
[quote=“spaint, post:136, topic:161478, full:true”]
Nice work. I heard he was carrying a GPS or something that could pinpoint his location but it smashed during the fall.[/quote]
I read that his GPS device was washed away when the stream rose. But in the chabuduo (差不多) media, it could have broken when he fell, been washed away in the stream, or both.
This is not a criticism of Taiwan media. Media in every part of the world has the same problem. Some call it “the fog of war,” but the fog exists even outside of war.
[quote=“spaint, post:136, topic:161478, full:true”]
On the legislation part, requiring people like him hire guides wouldn’t make sense. There aren’t many people with the experience this guy has.[/quote]
This is a pet peeve of mine, and I don’t think it’s a recent trend — such complaints were rampant among the expat community when I first lived in Taiwan over five years ago. I’m inclined to treat such complaints as racism (often targeted at people, not living conditions), and don’t hesitate to call complainers out for making blanket statements about locals. That said, the people who tend to complain the most are also people who seem inclined to complain about ANYTHING. And perhaps their persistent dissatisfaction was partly what compelled them to leave their home countries in the first place.
You can say the same thing about South Africa. I used to work in a residential area for 5 years in a factory complex. All sorts of different companies there. Foam rubber, mechanics, steel fabrication, hardware suppliers etc.
That area was also home to low income housing residents. Basically a normal or small house that is DIVIDED into two house. It is pretty intense what a lot of people have to deal with and live with.
That area had no tree’s or grass really. Just a shit load of concrete, but obviously South Africa has beautiful greenery and landscapes etc, just like Taiwan does.
Minumum wage is $1.3/1.4 US dollars an hour. So keep that in mind too.
So living in Taiwan, for myself, is really awesome and just because the houses look “shitty” doesn’t bother me at all because I know the weather is to blame and they are built to withstand the typhoons etc.
I did live in a typical middle class neighborhood and it had trees and grass and looked nice, but I spent A LOT of time working in a low income industrial area and also delivering/seeing clients in even worse areas which were in/close to informal settlements aka squatter camps.
My friend used to replace water meters in informal settlements and the stories he told me would absolutely make you think twice about complaining about “busy traffic” or “kids sleeping in class” or “the rain won’t go away and it’s too hot”. Those houses have wire fences so you can see into someones yard super easily, and these guys had a big ass pig like a 70kg pig, and they had a machete and they were like “hey hey, do you wana kill it?” to my friend laughing and he was like “no I am good thanks” lol. You know what happened next.
I think perspective is what keeps me happy living here and grateful for what I have and the quality of life that I have. You may think your life is shitty but then it gets worse and you wish you could go back to your original “shitty life”.
