I hate this country, and I can't wait to leave!

Discussion Open Forum
1

Sorry if I rant, but this Taiwanese behaviour around animals makes me sick. What do they teach the children in their schools? Don’t they teach them any social behaviour? I mean, I’m even talking about road safety for example. I often see groups of students on their bicycles or scooters driving side-by-side talking, oblivious to all the traffic around them. Or people crossing the streets, just expecting that all the cars would stop for them. How about the look-left-right-left again thing?
And then there’s the thing about garbage. They take their food with them to the park or beach or wherever and never throw it away or take it home with them. No, let’s just leave it here. We don’t love our country. Our country can look like a giant trash-can, it doesn’t matter.

I hate this country, and I can’t wait to leave!!!

2

[quote=“Sherryx”]Sorry if I rant, but this Taiwanese behaviour around animals makes me sick. What do they teach the children in their schools? Don’t they teach them any social behaviour? I mean, I’m even talking about road safety for example. I often see groups of students on their bicycles or scooters driving side-by-side talking, oblivious to all the traffic around them. Or people crossing the streets, just expecting that all the cars would stop for them. How about the look-left-right-left again thing?
And then there’s the thing about garbage. They take their food with them to the park or beach or wherever and never throw it away or take it home with them. No, let’s just leave it here. We don’t love our country. Our country can look like a giant trash-can, it doesn’t matter.

I hate this country, and I can’t wait to leave!!![/quote]

Bye bye.

3

I can easily relate to some of your frustrations Sherryx.

BTW, I know SherryX IRL and she’s a very nice girl. She’s just having a bad day so go easy on her folks, please. :notworthy:

4

How long have you been here?

MJB and I are always saying “How can people not enjoy this place?” when we’re sitting in a mountain stream, or diving on the north coast.

There is a LOT to do here away from the hustle and bustle and trash and dogs. LOOKfor it.:slight_smile:

Use this forum to meet folks and DO stuff.

hiking club
happy Hour
games club
naked pool club
rub chewy’s belly club

there is a ho rot a stuff to do:) don’t give up

5

[quote=“bobepine”]I can easily relate to some of your frustrations Sherryx.

BTW, I know SherryX IRL and she’s a very nice girl. She’s just having a bad day so go easy on her folks, please. :notworthy:[/quote]That was not worded right. SherryX is one of the nicest person I’ve met in Taiwan. Glad I cleared that up.

6

Exactly. I feel for your frustration. I love this place but I have black moods too. Days where I see nothing but garbage (even the leaves on the ground look like trash), days where I mumble curses under my breath at the ignorence around me.

But these moods pass. There is so much I do enjoy about this place. Look, it is crowded and there is not a lot of civic-mindedness (though much more than many think). How do you think our parks and beaches stay clean? Big work crews baby. If you think it’s cause we’re all good citizens and don’t litter you are naive and need to understand better how the world works.

There may be trash on your street but that same street is safe to walk on at 2am. It’s not where you come from. There are tradeoffs here, but for the most part they are worth it.

7

Sherryx [quote]I hate this country, and I can’t wait to leave!!![/quote]

Sorry to hear that. I can understand why you would feel that way. Mucha man and JDSmith are long-termers married to local lasses, so they have adapted to life here, long since got past most of the culture shock, and they also do occasional promotion work for the Taiwan Tourism Board.

So, JD, you’d be happy living here for the rest of your life? :wink:

8

As for animals, I grew up near farm country and it was common 20 years ago, probably still, to throw unwanted kittens in the river. There are thousands of cases of animals being used for sport fighting that are prosecuted every year. How many more do you think go unnoticed?

Remember one important thing: YOU personally have done almost nothing to make your society the civil place it is today. It’s all the people before you who made the sacrifices and fought the good fight. You’re just a spoiled receiver. How likely is it that you would have fought against public apathy and even hostility in the past to make progress?

Progress takes time. If nothing else use your time here to get a glimpse of how things used to be in our countries.

9

Sorry to hear that. I can understand why you would feel that way. Muzha man and JDSmith are long-termers married to local lasses, so they have adapted to life here, long since got past most of the culture shock, and they also do occasional promotion work for the Taiwan Tourism Board. [/quote]

No. I do no work for the Tourism board at all. What are you insinuating?

10

One of the things i like about Taiwan is that it is progressing in so many ways - sure, one step backwards for every two forward but still progressing at a pretty fast rate. And that applies to pet welfare and concern for the environment.

11

It was a joke, seeing as u r so positive about the place, in particular singing the praises (and justifably so) of Taipei and Muzha; a paid hand couldn’t do much better. i meant to put the smiley emoticon next to that remark but it ended up further down, and this being the temp forum i can’t change it. At least I didn’t mention the bus! :laughing:

12

Sorry to hear that. I can understand why you would feel that way. Muzha man and JDSmith are long-termers married to local lasses, so they have adapted to life here, long since got past most of the culture shock, and they also do occasional promotion work for the Taiwan Tourism Board. [/quote]

No. I do no work for the Tourism board at all. What are you insinuating?[/quote]

He’s saying you LIKE it here.

AJ, I may HAVE to live here forever, we just bought a house. :astonished:

13

It was a joke, seeing as u r so positive about the place, in particular singing the praises (and justifably so) of Taipei and Muzha; a paid hand couldn’t do much better. i meant to put the smiley emoticon next to that remark but it ended up further down, and this being the temp forum i can’t change it. At least I didn’t mention the bus! :laughing:[/quote]

No, no the bus. :laughing:

14

[quote=“Muzha Man”]Exactly. I feel for your frustration. I love this place but I have black moods too. Days where I see nothing but garbage (even the leaves on the ground look like trash), days where I mumble curses under my breath at the ignorence around me.

But these moods pass. There is so much I do enjoy about this place. Look, it is crowded and there is not a lot of civic-mindedness (though much more than many think). How do you think our parks and beaches stay clean? Big work crews baby. If you think it’s cause we’re all good citizens and don’t litter you are naive and need to understand better how the world works.

There may be trash on your street but that same street is safe to walk on at 2am. It’s not where you come from. There are tradeoffs here, but for the most part they are worth it.[/quote]

SherryX is married to a local lad and she lives with him and his parents in a traditional Taiwanese home. Her spoken Chinese is outstanding and she has a very good understanding of how things work here. She’s ranting an she already apologised.

As for devoting her time and energy to help our society, Sherryx has done more here in Kaohsiung than anyone else I know. :notworthy: Trust me on this…

Tomorrow is another day SherryX. :wink:

Cheers!

15

[quote=“Sherryx”]Sorry if I rant, but this Taiwanese behavior around animals makes me sick. What do they teach the children in their schools? Don’t they teach them any social behavior? I mean, I’m even talking about road safety for example. I often see groups of students on their bicycles or scooters driving side-by-side talking, oblivious to all the traffic around them. Or people crossing the streets, just expecting that all the cars would stop for them. How about the look-left-right-left again thing?
And then there’s the thing about garbage. They take their food with them to the park or beach or wherever and never throw it away or take it home with them. No, let’s just leave it here. We don’t love our country. Our country can look like a giant trash-can, it doesn’t matter.

I hate this country, and I can’t wait to leave!!![/quote]

I could have easily have written that as I feel much the same way a lot of the time. I think it was great for me when I first came here as I was single, and well at least Taipei is a selfish, self centered single, randy, foreign man’s idea of heaven. Times have changed me much though and now I’m married and with child. It is this transition in lifestyle that has awoken me from my self induced slumber and made me realize that Taiwan doesn’t have enough quality of life for me or my family to enjoy. Simply and not without much witling down already I can try to narrow it’s serious problems to severe corruption, lack of a decent police force, very poor education and I’m not talking about any failure to raise the general IQ, but more of a social and common sense education, lack of city planning or care, a huge general lack of respect of one another and manners for one another and lack of attention to family/children.
The greatest frustration for me is not even all of the fore mentioned, it’s that because of reasons of ‘face keeping’ that one can rarely, under any circumstances criticize someone or people generally without really upsetting them severely or even cause them to rage.
Even respective retoric isn’t witnessed in government meetings. You generally get one person screeming and shouting in another’s face, calling them all kinds of sh1t and then the other person takes a turn. My goodness, if these people can’t get together and work things out, then I don’t see a great future for people on a social level.
As someone mentioned though, our own respectice countries might not be at the higher levels of society as they are if it weren’t for the effort put in by our forefathers and mothers; perhaps Taiwan needs more possitive input in order to change things for the better. Well done to you if you are one of those people, willing to do that for Taiwan. Me though?! I feel it is a sacrifice far too great for myself personally and for my child’s wellbeing. I’m certain it won’t be too difficult to find a place more pleasing. Taiwan is perhaps the most beautiful and yet spoiled place I have visited. I wonder what it might have been like in earlier years. Maybe I came too late.

16

[quote]Taiwan is perhaps the most beautiful and yet spoiled place I have visited.[/quote]That hits home for me.

17

I understand what Sherryx is going through. I have been here for almost 7 years.

I live in Jiayi with my girlfriend. I’ve been here for about 9 months now but I still don’t know many people.

There are days when I wake up and hate this place. I drive down the street and think that the mass majority of people here are shit. Running red lights and almost hitting me, throwing bricks at dogs, pointing at me and laughing while saying hello.

Those days usually occur at a time when I haven’t done something for myself for too long. For me it’s going to the mountains, the beach (my favorite), going out to see something new, spending time with people I love.

I actually had one of those days today. I yelled at a couple of people while driving. I even yelled at the rain. It’s been pissing down almost everyday for a month or so.

As I said, I don’t know a lot of people down here so my days are mostly spent at work.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to pour myself into my work. Since doing so i’ve gotten a promotion of sort. I am feeling good about myself because I am doing a better job henseforth the people I teach (Both children and adults) are getting more from my classes.

I saved a cute little puppy from the street and she is amazing. Learning fast. Being a great friend to my other dog that I also saved and love(although they fight like…animals :wink: )

Isolation can be like a poison here. You have troubles and no one to share/rant them with and you want to run away.

You aren’t alone. There are people who feel the same way as you. Just go outside and look at some palm trees. That is a simple quick fix for me. PALM TREES. Don’t have those back where i’m from. It almost makes me feel like i’m on vacation when I look at them. The equivalent of “stop and smell the roses”

I just bought a new expensive American helmet and it fits well. Sometimes I drive down the street and do a Taiwanese Buddhist chant. It seems silly maybe but it works for me. The only thing I hear because of the lack of wind noise is my chanting and I ignore mostly everything else.

Talking shit here I guess, but all I am trying to say is that if you are feeling hopeless, just know that you are not alone.

Focus on what you love.

18

To deal with the garbage I mentally categorize it:

  1. That is cretin garbage.
  2. That is what am I going to do, carry this home garbage.
  3. That is it’s been on the street so long it’s been ground into the sidewalk and is now a permanent feature garbage.
  4. That is WTF garbage.
  5. That is I blew my nose in that, do you expect I will put it in my pocket now garbage?
  6. Those are leaves, not garbage, but I am so used to seeing garbage on the street I think they must be trash when I first catch a glimpse.
  7. Lazy mother fucker garbage.
  8. Obasan/ojisan who will be dead in 5-10 years garbage so don’t sweat it.
  9. Here sir, you dropped something garbage.
  10. Why would anyone do that garbage?

It really helps. Instead of letting your emotions take over when you see garbage your rational part kicks in.

19

This is a generalized statement,and feel free to agree/disagree as you choose but I think that as soon as the over 45 generation hurry up and die, the place will be much better off. :wink: Most of the irritating factors that are discussed within my network of friends mostly point this way, others can disagree but this is how we see it.
IMO, the under 35/40 generation are generally a lot more savvy in terms of social behaviour and common courtesy as they are well travelled and have had exposure to International education and culture. They understand the rules of social interaction better, as they see it among their peer group whereas the older folk tend to be less informed what is publicly acceptable or not.
Of course there are exceptions, and I know a great many older locals who are ashamed of their own for the same reasons.
Leaving trash at a beautiful riverside bbq, lack of manners, disregard for safety on the road, pushing, shoving…most of us that have been here for a while have been pissed off by this and I for one have certainly had my share of bad days when I let the other guy know that he’s in the wrong, but it passes and you somehow develop a tolerance for it over time and it doesn’t bother you as much
Things are changing slowly, but it will take another generation or two for things to be a shadow of what we are used to in our respective home countries. Talk about it, get it out of your system, punch somebody in the face (kidding), but don’t let it detract from the positives that Taiwan has, for there are many things outside the walls of Taipei that you may never see back home!
Andmost of al, don’t let it affect you- stay happy!

20

Huh?

How do you know what Sherry has or has not done to better this place?

:unamused: