Any stats on ABCs that become lifers in Taiwan? See a lot of ABCs moving back to Taiwan but wonder how permanent it is for them.
Can’t speak for all ABTs, but most fellow ABTs consider coming back to Taiwan as a stop.
Whether it be 1 year, 2 years, or 10 years.
Unless they are asked to move to Taiwan to take over a family business, I feel like the majority of ABTs will eventually move back to the States.
For me, I have never considered staying here permanently.
When I first moved here, I told myself I would probably stay 2 or 3 years and then head back.
I’m 3 1/2 years in and I am just re-evaluating my situation every couple months, but growing old and dying here in Taiwan was never an option.
ABT here; putting together a plan to move back for a couple of years as a career break/sabbatical.
Very unlikely it’ll be permanent unless my parents decide to retire there.
Leftywang81; what do you do?
[quote=“dajackal”]ABT here; putting together a plan to move back for a couple of years as a career break/sabbatical.
Very unlikely it’ll be permanent unless my parents decide to retire there.
Leftywang81; what do you do?[/quote]
He complains a lot.
[quote=“dajackal”]ABT here; putting together a plan to move back for a couple of years as a career break/sabbatical.
Very unlikely it’ll be permanent unless my parents decide to retire there.
Leftywang81; what do you do?[/quote]
I’m in the computer industry
[quote=“Leftywang81”]Can’t speak for all ABTs, but most fellow ABTs consider coming back to Taiwan as a stop.
Whether it be 1 year, 2 years, or 10 years.
Unless they are asked to move to Taiwan to take over a family business, I feel like the majority of ABTs will eventually move back to the States.
For me, I have never considered staying here permanently.
When I first moved here, I told myself I would probably stay 2 or 3 years and then head back.
I’m 3 1/2 years in and I am just re-evaluating my situation every couple months, but growing old and dying here in Taiwan was never an option.[/quote]
Do you think of yourself as an ABT or a Taiwanese American?
serious question…
I’m getting ready to get out.
I came back to visit family and to travel for a year or two. That soon became 5, then 10 and now I’m pushing 15 years. I’m going to be here for at least another 7 years, until my son finishes grade school here and then we may move back to the states. Does that make me a lifer? Maybe a quarter-lifer?
[quote=“nicacio”]Do you think of yourself as an ABT or a Taiwanese American?
serious question…[/quote]
I was born and raised in the States, so I would have to say I’m more (1) American than (2) Taiwanese.
x
Whats the difference between an ABT and a TAiwanese American?
I was always under the impression they were one and the same.
Ang Lee is Taiwanese American, but you can’t possibly he’s American-born because he was actually born in Pingtung. Jeremy Lin is ABT, even though his connection to Taiwan is tenuous at best.
I had a number of friends back home who moved to the US when they were really young, like 3 or 4, but can’t be called ABC/ABT because they were born in Taiwan.
[quote=“Leftywang81”]Whats the difference between an ABT and a TAiwanese American?
I was always under the impression they were one and the same.[/quote]
If the Taiwanese American left for the US at 1~3 years of age, then there would probably be very little difference. Although it really depends on the family. Some ABTs are able to read/write/speak Mandarin/Holo fluently, while some Taiwanese Americans can’t even when they left Taiwan after 12.
If we are counting Taiwanese Americans here, then there are many many Taiwanese Americans who become lifers in Taiwan.
[quote=“hansioux”][quote=“Leftywang81”]Whats the difference between an ABT and a TAiwanese American?
I was always under the impression they were one and the same.[/quote]
If the Taiwanese American left for the US at 1~3 years of age, then there would probably be very little difference. Although it really depends on the family. Some ABTs are able to read/write/speak Mandarin/Holo fluently, while some Taiwanese Americans can’t even when they left Taiwan after 12.
If we are counting Taiwanese Americans here, then there are many many Taiwanese Americans who become lifers in Taiwan.[/quote]
Wouldn’t Taiwanese kids who left for America at the age of 1-3 be considered Americanized Taiwanese instead? I have never referred to parachute babies as Taiwanese Americans. But then again, who does? When people ask us what we are, we just say “I’m Taiwanese”.
Its always funny when I come across someone who was born in Taiwan but moved to the States when they were really young and consider themselves ABT or ABC.
Jason Tang or [VJ] Jason comes to mind. For some reason, everyone thinks he is ABT, just because he spent a large chunk of his life in LA. The acronym has clearly lost its meaning…
[quote=“Hokwongwei”]Ang Lee is Taiwanese American, but you can’t possibly he’s American-born because he was actually born in Pingdong. Jeremy Lin is ABT, even though his connection to Taiwan is tenuous at best.
I had a number of friends back home who moved to the US when they were really young, like 3 or 4, but can’t be called ABC/ABT because they were born in Taiwan.[/quote]
Haha Jeremy Lin is clearly ABT, but because of his celebrity status, China tries to claim him as his own.
And because of Nike and Adidas relations with China, he refuses to give a definite answer whenever he is asked if he is Taiwanese or Chinese…
+1 Taiwanese American/ABT
When asked, I consider myself half Taiwanese and half American. I was born in the states and visited Taipei every summer vacation from preschool all the way up until university graduation. So I spent almost all my free time wandering around Taipei, while my friends back home were having pool parties, going to the beach, and towards hs years, drinking illegally.
Over 12 years of studying at Mandarin Daily news and I have to say that staying in China and Taiwan for the past two years, I’ve learned more than I did sitting in those classrooms. However, I won’t complain too much since I have made plenty of life long friends in those many years studying at that place.
I have to slight disagree on the last part of your statement. If they have lived in Taiwan (and not attended Taiwan American School) up until middle school age, I have to say many kids retain their fluency in Mandarin. Their vocabulary may not be up to par with someone that went through high school in Taiwan, but I had a lot of friends move over to the states in middle school and they had no problem speaking/reading/writing Chinese, even after staying in the states for over 10-15 years.
However, the level of fluency may vary between families that speak or do not speak Chinese inside the household.
I do have to mention the some of the TAS graduates I’ve met here in Taipei, that are of Taiwanese American Background, can mostly understand and speak Mandarin well, but have trouble reading. Now, I understand that the students there spend 6-7 hours a day in an all English environment, but what about the other 6-9 hours outside of school? Are they really in their own little bubble of a world that they can survive in Taipei without having to learn how to read Chinese? I know almost everything here in Taipei has Ping Ying and/or English translations, but I guess what I’m trying to say is, I think it’s a pity that they are living in such a great Chinese learning environment and do not take advantage of it.
As a Taiwanese American who left Taiwan when I was 13, I have no issues reading/writing/ speaking Mandarin, so I understand why you would find that scenario slightly improbable. But there’s a minority out there that’s like this. Also, I’ve met a girl who graduated from Taipei First Girls’ High School before coming to the states for college, claiming that she has already forgotten how to speak Mandarin. So there… I can’t tell if she was telling the truth (i don’t see any benefit of making such a claim), but if she was telling the truth, it wouldn’t be so strange for those kids who went to the US at 12.
I don’t doubt there’s a minority out there that’s like what we’ve been discussing,there’s no doubt in my mind that one day, I’ll run into said minority.
I do find your 北一女 girl a little peculiar though. I would think it’s very hard to just completely forget a language that you spoke and lived for 18 years. There’s some scientific reasoning that I’m sure can go into this argument, but we’ll leave that out. Also, the amount of studying one has to do to get into that school is not an easy feat either. I guess we’ll never know why 
I think it all comes down to what the environment is like back at home after the kids have gone to school for an entire day. In my household, my mother’s English is not very good, so we kind of had no choice, but to speak Mandarin at home. Whereas a few of my friends that were ABTs and lived their entire lives in the states, their parents’ English was good, so they could communicate in English without a problem.
I am ABT and TA. My wife is TA but is MIT (Made in Taiwan) and came over when she was 7 or 8. My Taiwanese and Mandarin abilities are both middling at best, and I can only read very basic Hanzi (children’s books and some menus!). My wife speaks Taiwanese pretty well but her Mandarin is only a little better than mine (although her accent is much better). Our 3 year old son seems to understand the very basic children’s Mandarin we speak to him (he also goes to a Mandarin pre-school); he mixes in a little Mandarin in his speech but largely speaks to us in English. The most I’m hoping for is that when he gets older he might be relatively familiar with the sounds of Mandarin such that he might be able to pick it up more easily through formal study. Compared to most of my ABT TA friends who grew-up, like me, on the East Coast (and not in Flushing, NYC), I’d say my language abilities are about “average”; some are better and some are worse - I don’t stand out in any particular way. Compared to other MIT TAs, I think my wife’s language abilities are slightly below average as we’ve met lots of other people who have similar immigration histories who speak both Mandarin and Taiwanese much better. I have one friend who cam from Taiwan at 12 and his Mandarin (and Taiwanese) is just phenomenal . . . . able to speak, read and write at an advanced, adult level (he can read, write and negotiate complex financial contracts in Mandarin, both simplified and traditional) and he never took a single Chinese language class since he came (just lots of exposure through Chinese-language books, newspapers and entertainment).
I identify as American, Taiwanese American or Asian American. I only ever say I’m “Taiwanese” or “ethnic Chinese” when the context is very clear that I’m referring to my ancestry. Interestingly, I don’t really identify with much of the Taiwanese American or broader Asian American community - I feel some cultural disconnect with many of them who grew up in California or other more diverse areas as I feel they have a very particular culture and viewpoint that is different than mine. I don’t mean this in a negative way; I find many of them bolder, flashier, more confident (and perhaps a little more materialistic) than I am personally comfortable with - but I hope that my son will have some of that. In that vein, out of all my close friends that are Taiwanese, Chinese or ethnically Asian, none were born in the US.
I’d generally agree, but I think the relationship is a little more dynamic in that I’ve known some of my friend’s who parents did not speak English very well at first, but since their kid’s Taiwanese/Mandarin was poor the parents had to improve their English as well. When I was a kid, my parents were very assimilation oriented (this was the days before multiculturalism was even a concept); I spoke pretty much only Taiwanese at home when I was a young kid but after I reached a certain age my parents made the conscious decision to only speak to me in English. Consequently, while my Taiwanese atrophied, they speak English very well now.