I wonder if native Americans agree with that.
[quote=“robi666”][quote=“ran the man”]
it’s a CLASS problem, not a race problem. you just can’t move into another country and make your own country there and change all the signs. a chinatown is fine. a Korea town is fine. a little italy is fine. but they just can’t keep spreading beyond their historical bounds and quaint niches.
[/quote]
I wonder if native Americans agree with that.[/quote]
LOL…owned!
ran, if anyone has a birth right to America, it’s the Native Americans. Not the white folk who have been there for a few generations. Now, if your descended from a Native tribe, that’s one thing. However, I’m thinking you’re not.
i AM descended, thru my mother. my grandfather was half indian/half french. most louisianians of my generation whose familes have been there 3 generations or more can claim Indian descent, that includes black people. a lot of louisiana black people are mixed with a Cherokee tribe from God knows where.
louisiana has the prettiest black girls you’ve ever seen, bar NONE! creole babes.
You need some good Kentuckey Bourbon and the Louvin Brothers played at very loud volume. My Bourbon is gone cause the Chief came to visit, and the cops came around and banged on the steel door for 20 minutes, now the giant-assed speakers that were attached to the stereos are slowly burning.
The world is filled with Liars, Perverts and Hypocrites- if I may quote J.D. Salinger. In the end its either living with them out there or sitting in a cold tiled apartment with no booze and a demolished stereo system watching your livingroom slowly ignite.
Let Jesus straighten them out-in the meantime…I’m buying.
[quote=“purple people eaters”]This post could probably apply to quite a few threads that bitch about Taiwan but has anybody considered the problem might be you? The majority of the white foreigners that come over here are trash. Your trailer has been replaced by a cement slab on the 4th floor with no elevator. Your job down at the “wash & go” has changed to “Sesame Street Buxiban”. Your drug & alcohol intake is the same if not much more now. Inter personal skills……well they had much to be desired back home and now you are in a place that’s culture is not the same and they speak a different language. What exactly were you expecting it to be like?
If you really want to live overseas I suggest going back to your home country, obtain an actual skill and then try to find a company that will take you on. If you can manage to get that far I’m sure your experiences in places like Taiwan will be more enjoyable.[/quote]
I’m not so sure this one applies here, but it’s difficult to explain why without sounding defensive. I’ll give it a go anyway.
I never had trouble finding professional work in England. I came here because I was bored, not unemployed. Now that I’m here, most of my income still comes from long-term contracting work for American / English companies.
I teach bushiban because it is the only work I can find here that I can get an ARC through, without working ten hours a day for no money (“here” being Taichung. Taipei was another story). I have tried and tried to find real software work here and have come to the conclusion that there isn’t any. There is horrible corporate intra-stuff work in bad Java, and there is pitiful web work in even worse PHP, but there is no real software.
I’m now looking at leaving and going back to the West for the sake of work, despite wanting to be here for every other reason.
Sometimes, the problem really is Taiwan.
Like Brendon, I came here out of boredom, not out of unemployability. Who on earth wants to live a life in suburban America at a middle class job? To me, that’s a living hell. Utterly boring as shite.
As far as birth rights go…no one in England has the birth right there, either. Your ancestors the Normans kicked out the Anglo-Saxons kicked out the Celts kicked out the Romans kicked out the people that came before. All of Europe’s history is all about barbarians raiding and kicking out the original inhabitants from their original lands. Aren’t the Germans descended from invading Huns, not from Celts? So where do you Teutons get off on sniggering on Americans and Australians for killing the natives? We only did what you Europeans taught us, from your thousands of years of history. Y’all Germans were the ones who destroyed the great Greek, Roman, and Egyptian civilizations, you barbarian bastards. You can’t blame America on the sack of Ravenna, Rome, and Constantinople.
Germans barbarians hmmm ?
Um, that’s pretty much conventional history, yes? The German tribes really did sack the Roman Empire and set Western civilization back into the Dark Ages for as least 500 years. This is not academic theory, it really happened, and is well-documented.
Well being German American has its perks, my anscestors have been kicking ass on multiple fronts for centuries. Whooa hooo where is my beer and suasage.
if you really don’t like something, work to change it at least in some small way, or decide that you will live with it by blocking it out of your life as much as possible. when i was in taipei, i hated the pollution. i cold called the taiwan epa (with a friend helping to translate) and was lucky enough to get a job, which led me to join an environmental group, which led to meeting interesting, inspiring people, which led to more friends and an outlet for my talents in purposeful, values-driven action. there was no seismic shift in the outside world, but my internal world changed for the positve to a great degree.
that’s because EPA is not a high profit thing. where i am , music teacher/pro musician, fuck. taiwanese will do anything to do your ass in. the nationalistic shit you have to deal with is beyond fucked.
the lack of respect is worse.
no matter what you do, the TWese will think “you must not be really good otherwise you wouldn’t be here. therefore there are much better than you in the States, therefore i don’t have to respect you”> they never heard of things like “life choice” ie i LIKE taiwan, or “inspiration” (the point beyond er ruan bi on the plateau where you can see both seas, you can feel God, you can walk straight into Heaven almost) they just don’t get it. if you’re really good you wouldn’t be here.
to be a music teacher is just to be a “dz liao ku”. no sooner have i taught them this little tidbit that they’re looking for, they’re finished or they want to go on to something else.
i’m going to charge 3000NT a session instead of 500NT and see if i get some better students. i’ve heard we’re in an “M” society (high market for both cheap and expensive, no market for mid priced things). but actually i’ll probably never do that. i don’t think you deserve to know something just because you pay me money.
too many fucking riff hounds. they just want to know some trick. then they don’t wanna expand it. i showed this guy 3 little forms that can be used to improv over ANY progression. then when i try to expand it, he’s finished. he’ll never really get it because he THINKS he’s got it. he’ll never really get the timing. his picking technique is mechanical. he thinks okay now i can practice it later on when i have time. i’m just a dz liao ku. not a teacher. a teacher is somebody you stick with for a year at least.
i would have NEVER treated my teacher this way. if i didn’t understand something i knuckled down til i did, not like the students here who just want a McDonald’s education.
so make money as an english teacher. i worked at the epa during the day and taught english at night. kids have always lifted my spirits no matter what culture they were born into. if you love music, i could see how it would get on your nerves teaching unmotivated students. on the other hand, if i could express myself through music, it would be an avenue to change what i didn’t like. sharing in music is in the ‘what makes life worth living’ category.
i remember we had some kind of earth day concert with foreigner/local bands. it was great!! these people you have contact with are bringing you down- but you need them for money. you must counterbalance them with inspiring people worthy of your admiration. you have to seek these people out for your sanity.
as far as your students go, if they are disrespecting you in an obvious way, i wouldn’t take it. like i do with my middle school esl students in the us, i say, ‘maybe it’s ok to talk while the teacher is talking in your country, but in america you can’t do that’. i know the situations aren’t parallel, but i couldn’t stand out and out disrespect. if your students want to be lazy - it’s their life and their loss. teach them and take the money. who cares if they think you aren’t the best- as long as they keep a smile on their face and give you face.
i remember an old, beat up VW bug my dad bought to fix and resell. it had painted on the back ‘i may be slow but i’m ahead of you’. this could be a useful life philosophy in certain situations. : )
thanks. i agree.
Hey Ran… They probably don’t think you’re worth much because you don’t charge enough. Cut the deadweights, start it at 1000 an hour for beginners, and go from there. Have an actual program, and teach that, rather than the riffs the little shits are begging for.
And remember all the fuckwits who wanted to be Steve Vai when you were growing up? Well, their kids want to be whoever Steve Vai is now. Cut the fat by raising the prices and being very selective about your students.
Ran, maybe it’s you. Actually, not maybe, it IS you. You bitch and moan more than anyone else here. I know lots of people, both old-timers and newbies who get along great here, making friends, making money and getting laid, yet you go on and on and on about how horrible Taiwanese people are. They’re not perfect, but man, there’s something else going wrong in your life, and it doesn’t have anything to do with Taiwanese people. Physician, heal thyself!
I know some fairly famous people who teach for less than 1000 an hour. Teaching guitar isn’t like teaching English. You aren’t going to be able to charge a whole lot more because you’re not local. Instead you might find that people who want to spend that amount of money will go to one of the famous teachers.
I am curious.
…famous because of what?
A famous English teacher in Taiwan?
I believe more people can teach English than guitar.
maoman,
i’ve been laid so many times my you-know-what hurts. i just complain about what it takes to get there. too many hoops to jump thru.
i agree. raise the price and screw the rest. thing is these little Zerox machines learn so well i’ll be in competition with them in no time. i’m going to self publish my books. that way at least everybody will know where these farts got it. is publishing hard like everything else here?
i’m getting evil in my old age. that’s because i was TOO fucking nice when i was young and that’s why i’m poor now.
No. It’s easy, cheap and fast. Have you actually written the books?
yes i have.rough drafts are pretty much finished. the charts are handwritten on chord boxes with a calligraphy pen. the texts will be typed on computer. i’m looking for a good guitar writing software.