How long have you lived here for?

Cool - Holger can time travel!

Hmm. I feel I continued to be an expatriate even after I left Taiwan.
I was in Taiwan from 1983-1990, but I feel I never left. I have been back for vacations every couple years since then.
For years from 9-11 p.m. every night I watched Taiwan news and serials on the local T.V. station until it was bought out by a Spanish-language station.
I have worked at the Chinese American International School in S.F. for ten years.
I speak more Mandarin than English some days.
I eat Chinese food every day, including bringing a biandong to work.

If ABCs are bananas, then I am an egg.
Koo Koo Ka chu.

I’ve gone before the parole board every year to try and be allowed to leave, but have been turned down 17 times in a row.

Even if you were allowed out Wolf, I’m sure you’d be like the old man in a Shawshank Redemption. As soon as he left, he wanted to return. Can’t quite remember the Morgan Freeman line explaining the old man’s inability to function outside of what he had become accustomed to.

I’ve been here about 11 or so years. I am so tired of seeing people’s jaws drop while they exlaim, “You’ve been here 11 years!”
Counting my jaunts here as an infant in the early 70s (when the Grand Hotel was actually grand, and expats came here to buy pirated bestseller books-sort of like people buying pirated DVDs today) I’ve been here longer.
Ironlady-I’d love to hear more tales of Taiwan in the early 80s.

I have carved my name into a few things around here…

“There is a harsh truth to face. No way I’m gonna make it on the outside. All I do anymore is think of ways to break my parole. Terrible thing, to live in fear. Brooks Hatlen knew it. Knew it all too well. All I want is to be back where things make sense. Where I won’t have to be afraid all the time. Only one thing stops me. A promise I made to Andy.”

…that’s the line from Shawshank Redemption

I got here on one of the biggest days in Taiwan history. The 921 earthquake, ah what a day that was. No electricity, foreign place, couldn’t speak a lick of Chinese and to top things off, I had to meet my girlfriend’s family for the first time. Talk about culture shock. Anyway, I suppose I’m only a baby compared to some of you veterans.

Aye caramba! I’ve been to Taiwan twice, though only for a total of 1 1/2 years. Here in the U.S., most people don’t care what word you end your sentence in. I know English professors, lingustics professors, and other educated people who don’t worry if their sentences end in prepositions or not. Remember the purpose of a language–it’s to communicate. Rules are important, and I plan on teaching English again in Taiwan and teaching those rules. However, if a student or anyone else can communicate their ideas such that both speaker/writer and listener/reader understand the communication without much noise, then the purpose of communication is satisfied. In the classroom, I think it’s alright to correct grammatical errors. Yet, we’re all fluent in English here. Why do we need to worry if our English is 100% perfect according to grammar books if we communicate our messages just fine? Even when I’ve taught or spoken with Taiwanese friends in the U.S., when they communicate their message such that both they and I understand it well, I encourage them, rather than put them down because they may have ended a sentence with a preposition (though, I do remind them from time to time when they get “he” and “she” mixed up or when they forget to use an “s” at the end of the word…I’m sure you all are used to these classic mistakes). Ironlady, you’ve studied linguistics. Am I way off here?

Peter

Its weird to hear how long you guys have stayed in Taiwan. I’m a Taiwanese. And i’ve only been here for 3 years. What a world!

OK, so far I win, I came first (“Uh, wait a minute, is that what is that something to be proud of ?”). I arrived in January 1974, stayed for two years. Returned two years ago (don’t anyone make a comment like “Wow, that’s a quarter century between tours of duty!”). Between those periods of extended stay, visited more times than I can count.