"i see white people"

In the past two weeks I’ve seen more foreigners than I saw all winter. What’s the deal? Is this the peak period for students coming to Taiwan to study Mandarin? Or are the majority of them tourists? Or are these all locals who have been tempted out of their dank abodes by the sun and heat? (like the cockroaches, it seems)

Also, I’ve been in Taiwan 6 months now, and I’m wondering - what’s up with the “no eye contact”, people? I ride a motorcycle back home and we’re always signalling “hello” to fellow riders. Why can’t expats here manage a glance and a nod or a smile? It’s weird. You’re an oddity, I’m an oddity, we should at least acknowledge that we are strange together.

  • R

A lot of expats are either social inept or douchey lamewads. You’ll get used to it

I don’t go out of my way to say hi to every whitie I see, but it always amuses me when one notices me coming and does everything short of covering their face with their hands to keep from making further eye contact or acknowledging my presence.

A lot of expats are either social inept or douchey lamewads. You’ll get used to it[/quote]

:bravo: :bravo: :bravo:

That, and how to imagine you have one single thing in common including speaking the same language. The person next to you that looks like he is from Taiwan could really be an expat from your own home town. How to figure that one out? Go find a bar or church, there at least you might have one thing in common, beer or God.

Not all white people are expats, and not all Asian people are from here.

And what about black people…nod or no nod… albino… Asian albino…

If some random foreigner nods at me I’ll nod back, but personally I think it’s slightly weird to imagine I might have anything in common with said random foreigner just because he and I were not born in Taiwan :idunno:

[quote=“tango42”]

That, and how to imagine you have one single thing in common including speaking the same language. The person next to you that looks like he is from Taiwan could really be an expat from your own home town. How to figure that one out? [/quote]

I met a guy here that grew up in the same part of town I did and went to the same high school. I hung out on the same small street his dad lived on. It was pretty remarkable. The guy was a douchey lamewad though. That part didn’t surprise me though, considering where he’s from. It’s a small world after all

Back home do you acknowledge every stranger you walk past in the street?

Back home I always nod to Asians I happen to come across. There’s not so many of them around most parts

Personally, I don’t care if my pale brethren choose to ignore me. But when whities become visibly disturbed the instant they notice me, that’s what I find truly entertaining. They’ll walk past me like they’re in high school passing the bully in the hallway who took their lunch money last week, or like I’m a relative who walked in on them masturbating 10 minutes ago, or something to that effect. The best is when they’re with their girlfriend in a store without an easy escape route then they see me appear suddenly. A couple of times I’ve stopped and gazed in their general direction just to watch them squirm. Cracks me up

After roaming this planet for about three decades I now assume that only around 4% of humanity hold interest for me. It’s nothing to do with being misanthropic - I like people, generally, which is part of the reason why I chose to live in a big busy city. But I figure that most people do not share my very particular interests. Also, I talk bullshit all day at work so when I’m not working I really, really enjoy not talking. You could say it’s one of my hobbies. :laughing:

I was asking myself that as well ! Not than all winter but I should rather say than 3 years ! I juste came back to taiwan and I’ve never seen so many foreigners.

As a Half Taiwanese and a girl I can confirm that, what a pity… why ? does the local are easy to trap ?

YES! YES YES! It was quite confusing… today a young “white” man looked at me with bulging eyes like I was a witch from Uranus, man we are surely from the same continent you must be kidding me…

[quote=“thefool”]In the past two weeks I’ve seen more foreigners than I saw all winter. What’s the deal? Is this the peak period for students coming to Taiwan to study Mandarin? Or are the majority of them tourists? Or are these all locals who have been tempted out of their dank abodes by the sun and heat? (like the cockroaches, it seems)

Also, I’ve been in Taiwan 6 months now, and I’m wondering - what’s up with the “no eye contact”, people? I ride a motorcycle back home and we’re always signalling “hello” to fellow riders. Why can’t expats here manage a glance and a nod or a smile? It’s weird. You’re an oddity, I’m an oddity, we should at least acknowledge that we are strange together.

  • R[/quote]
    been here 8 years still can’t understand that one yet but I have watched threads that were 30 pages long with bitter arguments about why “I don’t have to fucking say hello to you” etc… If I was walking down the street and saw someone wearing a t-shirt from a marathon I ran I’d nod smile say hi whatever. I guess I’m going to go with the socially inept douche theory it actually explains a lot

The rule in the BAy Area is to smile if you catch a person looking at you.

I just manage a slight grimace though.

Then I look at them with a "what you looking at ? " look.

I’ve been here two days so far and have only seen 4 whiteys. 2 of which I smiled at, they smiled back. One who got on the MRT and avoided eye contact with me so I kind of did too. Otherwise It would just be odd, lol.

Another walked right across the path me and my girlfriend were walking to cross the road to the point we had to stop in our tracks…, and didn’t even say sorry, just kind of threw his hand in the air, it was a bit odd but we found it pretty funny.

[quote=“Jaffa cake”]I’ve been here two days so far and have only seen 4 whiteys. 2 of which I smiled at, they smiled back. One who got on the MRT and avoided eye contact with me so I kind of did too. Otherwise It would just be odd, lol.

Another walked right across the path me and my girlfriend were walking to cross the road to the point we had to stop in our tracks…, and didn’t even say sorry, just kind of threw his hand in the air, it was a bit odd but we found it pretty funny.[/quote]

Hilarious ! :laughing:

yeah lol, I got most evil looks off the local men though.

My girlfriend (fiancé actually, keep forgetting) who I’ve been with for 5 years all of which we lived together in the UK, is pretty gorgeous, I think they’re pissed at me for it. It’s the only thing I’ll miss about London, nobody gives a shit who you are, where you’re from, who your girlfriend is etc. Everyone just gets on with it and there’s never any staring. Not that people staring at me bothers me at all. I think I’ll miss how multi cultural it is. Going off on a bit of a tangent now but yeah.

Absolutely loving Taiwan anyway :slight_smile:

[quote=“thefool”]In the past two weeks I’ve seen more foreigners than I saw all winter. What’s the deal? Is this the peak period for students coming to Taiwan to study Mandarin? Or are the majority of them tourists? Or are these all locals who have been tempted out of their dank abodes by the sun and heat? (like the cockroaches, it seems)

Also, I’ve been in Taiwan 6 months now, and I’m wondering - what’s up with the “no eye contact”, people? I ride a motorcycle back home and we’re always signalling “hello” to fellow riders. Why can’t expats here manage a glance and a nod or a smile? It’s weird. You’re an oddity, I’m an oddity, we should at least acknowledge that we are strange together.

  • R[/quote]

Don’t take it personally. Some of us have been here a long time and we have seen so many other foreigners come and go that we feel the need for a context for communication beyond the fact that we are both foreigners.

But if some friendly stranger nods and smiles I will almost always give then a courteous response.

in my small town, yes.

Oh you people, I have only see 2 other guys here it town the last 8 months (have seen expats on the other cities though, and not only white).

But me and the other guys here have families and kids and somehow it feels pretty awkward, I think I said hello to one of them once and the other came to the playground with his wife and child just to walk away when he saw me I thought “uff that was going to be awkward”.

And yeah I’m guilty, I was having a silly conversation with my daughter on the bicycle coming back from pre-school and on a corner saw one of them pushing a baby cart, and I know he heard me chatting, even tho I stopped half sentence, but looked away, again I felt relieved.

I usually try and make eye contact with every passerby, though I don’t live in a shitty city. If they don’t make eye contact, then so be it. If they don’t say hello, then fine by me. Just another rotten shite in a world full of them.
If they don’t wanna know, forget 'em.

Makes it all the better, when one stops, makes some greetings, hangs outs, and converses. Broadens all our worlds.
The others, well, they have put their own blinders on.
Nothing to get all worked up about, as in point of fact some folks are best left with blinders on.

~~edit: what I posted above applies to all colour of skin, in case I did not make that clear.

I am totally guilty of not acknowledging other foreigners. I suppose I am just used to being in big crowds of Asian people, hailing as I do from one of North America’s more diverse cities. I’ve actually blogged about my lack of self-awareness of my own whiteness or foreigner-ness while travelling in Asia. It simply doesn’t occur to me until something really out of the ordinary reminds me that, oh, right, I stick out like a sore thumb.

This also applies:

But in my case I’m just not thinking anything at all. It simply doesn’t occur to me to wink or node or do the secret foreigner handshake on the way by. No sleight intended.

Maybe nodding or smiling to strangers who look similar is an American white boy thing? Maybe Europeans don’t do that as much.

Because in Europe they could be Danes, or Italians or French or German. Wouldn’t necessarily understand each others language. Whereas in the USA, most expect each other to be able to speak English if they are white. Unless you look like a tourist.

Was with a french guy (then associate of my, then wife) at a pub in Ktown one day.
The guy was burnt to a toast at kenting that morning. So this white guy, local to Ktown offered up an advice, drink wise. Ended up buying my friend said drink. I said thanks. And I said to my friend " say a few words, chat a bit with the guy cuz he bought you a drink (not meaning that in a pick up kind of way, just a friendly, howdy pardner kind of way)" . Was a very foreign idea to him.

So maybe Americans (abroad at least) are just a wee bit friendlier to others they think may be American?

But it probably is kind of weird to nod , or say hi to another white male in Taiwan. Just because its not done usually.

Taiwanese don’t do that sort of stuff either. You can have two Taiwanese run into each other abroad and not immediately say hi just because they both happen to be Taiwanese.