"i see white people"

Haha! You’re missing out. The secret foreigner handshake is one of the best perks.

in my small town, yes.[/quote]
If you come from a country where every second person is a suspected criminal, you wouldn’t. But most of us grew up well adjusted and properly educated so we at least smile when we have someone do that to us.

Haha! You’re missing out. The secret foreigner handshake is one of the best perks.[/quote]
Sshhh!
Don’t you know we can be excommunicated for even mentioning that!
:scooby:

[quote=“tommy525”]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.

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

Taiwanese don’t do that sort of stuff either.
[/quote]

I think this is pretty much it. It’s not that Europeans or Taiwanese are unfriendly; they just don’t have the habit of saying hello to each other on the street. When I was buying a train ticket in Paris a while back and simply asked (as you would in Taiwan) for what I wanted, the ticket guy pointedly said “Bonjour” first, and expected a “Bonjour” back. Well, why not? I guess it’s nice to acknowledge there’s another human there; it’s just not what we do over here. There are various countries where it’s polite to say “Good Morning”, or the equivalent, to everyone you pass in the street. Fortunately (and ironically) most of those countries are the ones sensible people get the hell out of, so there aren’t so many people around. It would get tiresome otherwise.

Nodding to someone because they have the same skin colour as you … um, not very comfortable with that, frankly. We don’t have to stick together against the yellow horde, you know.

What rot about the yellow bit!
I nod and say to hello to any bloke under the sun, simply because I was taught to.
By me granpa, who should have known well.
Served him well, in 1944-45.

In the Army, it worked well for us, under fire, in that so-called cuntry named Yugoslavia, as one could not tell if a runner was for us, or them (infantry), or even worse, for Battalion HQ, which might have entailed some of our so-called Allies such as The Dutch, or The Italians. Don’t even get me started on them.
As I said prior, if they don’t want to know, forget them.

In general the Eastern Europeans don’t do the smiling and say hello thing. Also big city folk will usually have different habits than small town and rural folks.

I guess it’s a bit weird for us who haven’t bumped into other ‘foreign’ people for a while, I mean we don’t really share anything beyond being foreign and having similar skin colour, that is until we can have a conversation and figure out any connections. If everybody was all fresh off the boat it might be a bit different, you’d have a point of connection immediately.

I do the directness thing a lot more now aswell and I don’t know if its a good thing or not.

Why does skin color matter? I have many Asian friends and colleagues that drop into taiwan, sometimes first visit, and comment to me about how “whitey” nod or say hi to me but not to them standing beside me. This world, and Taiwan, is more diverse than to simply use skin color as a factor to think we have something in common.

Having lived in Asia over 10 years, I probably have more in common with someone here than I do with someone of my own skin color. I know I eat differently for one. Z

[quote=“Jaffa cake”]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]

Welcome to taiwan… I bet many local guys don’t see your girlfriend as gorgeous. Tastes are surprisingly different.

Fixed it forya.

At least that was my experience in Eastern Europe (and everyone else’s I know who has gone there). Not including Poland though.

I think context is important. If I’m walking through Taipei Main Station and I see another white person I don’t usually run up and bear hug them with unbridled passion. Adogahs abound in TMS. Bear hugging every one of them would get tiring after a while. So, I don’t usually do that. Sometimes, but not usually.

On the other hand, if I’m traveling back in fucking time to bring medicine, civilization and Christianity to the natives in the jungle, and I haven’t even seen another white man for over five years, and my messenger suddenly bursts into my hut to inform me that another white man :astonished: is approaching my camp then. yeah, I’d probably say hi.

Nice try, but WHAT if they are ONE of them, i.e. Infantry?

[quote=“nicacio”][quote=“Jaffa cake”]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]

Welcome to Taiwan… I bet many local guys don’t see your girlfriend as gorgeous. Tastes are surprisingly different.[/quote]

Yeah, everyone has different tastes. I realised just after posting how twattish my post probably sounded. ‘my gurlfrend is sooo gurgus!’ - It wasn’t to show off or anything, just thought maybe that’s why I got the looks.
I got lots of smiles off a bunch of local blokes today. It’s not all bad.

in my small town, yes.[/quote]
If you come from a country where every second person is a suspected criminal, you wouldn’t. But most of us grew up well adjusted and properly educated so we at least smile when we have someone do that to us.[/quote]

Read my post correctly. I said do you acknowledge every stranger you walk past on the street. I never mentioned not smiling at someone who smiles at you.
You really need to start reading posts properly for meaningful debate.
I am not sure which country you are referring to where every second person is a suspected criminal? Please enlighten!

Where I come from, we have to. But then we have a lot less people.

As to acknowledging “stranger furriners” here, I do my best so they won’t catch me checking out their hairy arms/legs - :lovestruck: - or chiseled chests/faces. So, it gets a bit difficult!

Whitey in Philippinnes seems to nod and say hi more than here. Maybe because they have something in common more than skin color… Finding a wingman to hit the bars for a date. And people in Philippine in general seem to be more open to saying hi or chatting to strangers.

Yeah that’s another factor. Taiwanese don’t really do the acknowledgment thing to each other and after a while it rubs off on you.

[quote=“finley”][quote=“tommy525”]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.

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

Taiwanese don’t do that sort of stuff either.
[/quote]

I think this is pretty much it. It’s not that Europeans or Taiwanese are unfriendly; they just don’t have the habit of saying hello to each other on the street. When I was buying a train ticket in Paris a while back and simply asked (as you would in Taiwan) for what I wanted, the ticket guy pointedly said “Bonjour” first, and expected a “Bonjour” back. Well, why not? I guess it’s nice to acknowledge there’s another human there; it’s just not what we do over here. There are various countries where it’s polite to say “Good Morning”, or the equivalent, to everyone you pass in the street. Fortunately (and ironically) most of those countries are the ones sensible people get the hell out of, so there aren’t so many people around. It would get tiresome otherwise.

Nodding to someone because they have the same skin colour as you … um, not very comfortable with that, frankly. We don’t have to stick together against the yellow horde, you know.[/quote]

so if a stranger said hi to you wouldnt say hi back?

I would say hi back and smile back no worries. Even stop for a short convo if the opportunity presented itself.

Yeah, course I do. But to be polite, not because I think: “Glory be! A fellow foreigner, who may or may not be from the same country as me and may or may not speak the same language! We are not alone!”. OTOH, if (for example) I happen to be sitting in a bar or coffee shop and a foreigner starts up some casual conversation in English, I’ll happily have a chat. We might turn out to have something in common, and even if he/she turns out to be from Moldova or Lichtenstein, that’s interesting too. I suppose the difference there is, I’m not in the middle of getting from A to B, and the approach is different: the first question is most likely to be “where are you from?”, as opposed to an assumption that I’m an American abroad, lost and confused among people I never interact with.

Probably should merge this thread with the definitive discussion on the matter -

forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopi … =8&t=81289

All 57 pages over 10 years.