Is it so bad to be called a 'waiguoren'?

You get an AMEN for that one.

But really, I have days where I bitch about everything and anything, but they are all things my Taiwanese friends are at least as pissed about as I am… does that make my complaints unreasonable? If the ‘love it or leave it’ logic were applied to the local populace, we’d have a lot less than 23m to worry about.

The ‘waiguoren’ thing I could care less about. I think the need to label stuff is very low in the scale of perception. The folk that need to comment on your being a ‘waiguoren’ usually also need out to point out (to themselves mostly) almost all objects. ‘A tree’. ‘A car’. ‘A jogger’. ‘A foreigner’. Never mind. These are people whose shirts are always stained with something, whose jaws are usually slack, and whose beds always stink of stale urine. Who cares what they think or mutter to themselves as you go about your (infinately more productive) business? Let it go.

My Taiwanese husband gets worked up when he hears Chinese speakers constantly calling anyone not of Chinese ethnicity “waiguoren” in our American city.

“Don’t they understand? They’re the waiguoren now!”

As one of the “waiguoren,” I just find it amusing. He thinks of it more as an illness, a flaw in their worldview. He always reminds me that foreigners living in Taiwan talk about “Taiwanese,” not “foreigners.”

acearle -
Sorry to hear about your darkroom…good luck with the negatives…
As for not knowing anything about the south, I spent the better part of 45 years in the south - I might even guess that I know more southerners than you do but this isn’t a pissing contest. :sunglasses:
As for people mixing and mingling - you discarded the qualifying ‘whatsoever’ in my statement. :wink:

Very funny! :bravo:

[quote=“Vannyel”]acearle -
Sorry to hear about your darkroom…good luck with the negatives…
As for not knowing anything about the south, I spent the better part of 45 years in the south - I might even guess that I know more southerners than you do but this isn’t a pissing contest. :sunglasses:
As for people mixing and mingling - you discarded the qualifying ‘whatsoever’ in my statement. :wink:

Very funny! :bravo:[/quote]

Doh! I was wading and typing and reading all at the same time…I guess then you know how complex and fascinating the south can be then (45 years here, 45 years there, pretty soon you’ll have spent some REAL time there :laughing: ). Funny thing is that the south has a lot in common with Taiwan in many ways (errr, are we all living in the Ozarks of China?). I think you have about 3% more jackasses per 1,000 people than…err…in the North? Wait a minute, I just thought about that, nix that. In any case, maybe the jackasses are more agrressive in being jackasses. You also have the nice folks…the ones that you (or maybe I should just say “I”) don’t notice because I am too busy being pissed off at the jackass (who has just gone WAY out of his way to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Mr. Darwin was WRONG). Odd thing about Southern politics/families (is there a difference, lol) is that my dad’s family split into two distinct and seperate lines in 1965/6ish over civil rights. The first time the two sides met after that was 1985 and everyone was on their best behavior (except the crazy aunt that was trying to marry me off to my second cousin, cute girl, “relatively” speaking…you get my point).

So, what does this have to do with the topic at hand (and, by the way, negatives are now blow dried, books are sitting in a room with a AC on full and a dehumidifier…wierd thing is that the darkroom is on the second floor, the water was seeping through the concrete)…the incessant calling of non Chinese (even non-Chinese Asians are waiguoren) definitely, as Flicka (did I get that right? too lazy to go look at the spelling) shows a twisted world view of having our beloved host culture as the center of the known universe. I’m nearing 40, with well over a quarter of my life spent here, and a total of 1/3+ spent outside the U.S… After as long as I have been here, you’d THINK that some of my neighbors (been in this location 2 years now) would have gotten tired of “waiguoren” but it hasn’t happened. In the U.S., my Chinese wife also found the refering to Americans as waiguoren to be comical in its stupidity. Now, the people who do the pointing and catcalling are, in a word, the hicks of the area (which in my case explains the behavior of 60=70% of my neighbors). I don’t get it as much in cities or other places where people have actually figured out that it is the 20th century (we’ll worry about the 21st later, one step at a time).

I went up to Yeh Liu and had my eyes opened a touch (as if I really needed it) at the dolphin show. It was a great show, and I HIGHLY recommend it to ANYONE (especially if you speak Chinese, it was one of the funniest shows I’ve seen anywhere). It opened with a brilliant dolphin act (people were as funny as the critters), then went on to a delightful show with two seals. What do you follow a couple of great animal acts with? Well, a foreigner act, of course :wink:. It struck me that people were watching the foreigners in the same way they had been watching the seals, as a zoo exhibit (not everyone, but enough of a percentage that the observation made by some that foreigners are tantamount to some strange critter that managed to get loose seemed true).

I think when I am back in the U.S., I’ll point to someone from Taiwan and scream at the top of my lungs “ALIEN!” Gee…I wonder what the reaction would be? Better make sure my insurance is paid up :slight_smile:).

Now (I’m rambling, I know)…as to different people not being able to get along, my wife and I have managed to survive 12 years of marriage with no fatalities. For the most part, I let her be her, and she lets me be me. I say nothing when she goes to the local shrine and makes offerings for good business (I think it is a waste of time in reality, but important because it gives her a sense of well being). Her father decided when the new business should open for luck, I don’t think the time has anything to do with it, but it makes him happy. I do all sorts of things that they think are nuts, such as keeping a business open that is not profitable longer than 3-6 months. It took a year or so for our school to become profitable, and for 6 months they scratched their heads and wondered why I was throwing money down a deep hole. We all get along fine. My American family looks at some of what I do, and shake their heads in wonder, we still get along. The trick to two people of differing backgrounds getting along is not getting caught up in the right/wrong thing. More often than not, both people are right and wrong and ALSO right and wrong at the same time. I’m VERY easy to get along with until someone takes a poke at me or someone I know (but people who have known me a long time know not to do this).

So, my sister in law asked me “When will your photography business turn a profit?” I responded “2-4 years.” She responded “Crazy foreigner likes to waste money.” To which I responded “Crazy Chinese doesn’t know how to be patient.” She laughed and went home. We are different, we get along. The differences are entertaining.

That’s the funniest thing I’ve read in a good while, partly because of the way you worded it and partly because of its reminding me of a conversation in which I tried repeatedly to explain to someone, “I can’t teach here if I can’t be here.” Please don’t think I’m laughing at your misfortune, I know it didn’t seem funny at the time and may not seem funny now, but. . . .

Your post made me feel a lot better. It gave me some perspective. Thanks!

When I lived in the mainland ten years ago, I had to pass the university’s daycare center every morning. And every morning, all fifty children would hang on the metal fence in a line two or three kids deep, point, and scream “Waiguoren! Waiguoren!” in shrill, shrill voices. The teachers were never out in the yard with them.

After about three weeks of this, I’d more than had enough. I walked up to them, pointed at all of them, and yelled “Zhongguoren! Zhongguoren!”

There was silence for three seconds. Then the screaming began again.

“Ayi! Ayi! Come play with us!” That’s what I heard for the rest of the year.

[quote]I think when I am back in the U.S., I’ll point to someone from Taiwan and scream at the top of my lungs “ALIEN!” Gee…I wonder what the reaction would be? Better make sure my insurance is paid up ).
[/quote]

Ohh that is good. And if they try anything make sure you have a friend to snatch their cell phone from them :wink:

[quote]The trick to two people of differing backgrounds getting along is not getting caught up in the right/wrong thing. More often than not, both people are right and wrong and ALSO right and wrong at the same time. I’m VERY easy to get along with until someone takes a poke at me or someone I know (but people who have known me a long time know not to do this).
[/quote]

Amen to that!!! :bravo: :bravo: :bravo: I make the same arguement, called the Korean Dog arguement. They eat dogs in Korea, but we in the west keep em as pets. It works in both places, so who’s wrong? :astonished:

They are. People and dogs have been living, working and playing together for tens of thousands of years. Anybody that can’t feel the love and affection for and from a dog is missing something essential.

Okay bob (smack) I agree (licking lips) now back to my bbq dog

It is worth repeating at this point the theories that Ford had come up with, on his first encounter with human beings, to account for their peculiar habit of continually stating and restating the very very obvious, as it ‘It’s a nice day,’’ or ‘‘You’re very tall,’’ or ‘‘So this is it, we’re going to die.’’

Or… look! A waiguoren! Yes, I know it’s not quite the same thing - I just thought this topic needed a Hitchhiker’s quote :slight_smile:

Hey, you have a very good dog there…

:laughing:

absolutely right Bob!

I just finished reading this whole thread from the beggining…now I’m too wornout to comment.

OH! and the term 'dogs are good" works in both camps.

To answer the question, 外國人;

[quote=“WaterHead”]I just finished reading this whole thread from the beggining…now I’m too wornout to comment.

OH! and the term 'dogs are good" works in both camps.[/quote]

I just finished re-reading the last few pages and it dawned on me that… some people just don’t get it. That’s on both sides of the argument.

I roll my eyes at people who have been here for a few years in the same way that people who have been here over 10 years probably roll their eyes at me. :unamused: Heck, I even roll my eyes at some of my own, earlier, posts. :blush:

I ignore the term ‘waiguoren’ in general, but “atogah” still gets my goat.

Bassman, I know you are a nice guy, but what a useless post.

Tell us what you agree, and what you disagree with, man (imagine me using a British accent on the last word)!

Add something specific to the debate. When you write like this you are too scattered to provide any useful insight.

Jeez, I can’t believe this has run to ten bloody pages!

Get a life. I couldn’t give a f**k what people call me. If you do then you have a very low self esteem. Get over it!

Oh. BTW, I’ve been called lots worse…

[quote=“Tomas”]Bassman, I know you are a nice guy, but what a useless post.

Tell us what you agree, and what you disagree with, man (imagine me using a British accent on the last word)!

Add something specific to the debate. When you write like this you are too scattered to provide any useful insight.[/quote]

Ok, let me clear it up, now that I am not thinking of any poster specifically.

In other words, it’s the most pointless thread that I have read in a long time.

I didn’t want to provide any useful insight because there isn’t any useful insight to be made, by anyone. It’s just personal observation that is turned into sweeping generalisations. I didn’t want to call anyone a half-wit for their opinion, who knows, maybe that same opinion used to be mine or that opinion will be mine in the future.

Making statements about Taiwanese using the words “waiguoren” and stating how they mean it is just as unfair to them as we feel it is to hear the phrase. Grief, I even use the word “waiguoren” to describe other westerners when I see them on the street as I am driving past in my car with my family. Heck, my son even calls me “waiguoren”, should I lynch him.

What I agree with and disagree with is not the point, it’s only an opinion after all and subject to change. Perhaps in a few years “atogah” won’t piss me off nearly as much as it does now.

It just seems to be a pointless discussion to have in Taiwan.

BTW, it has been done to death, nothing original google.com/search?q=waiguore … art=0&sa=N

[quote=“Bassman”]
It just seems to be a pointless discussion to have in Taiwan.[/quote]

Really? Would it make more sense to have the discussion outside Taiwan?

The title of this thread is a question: “Is it so bad to be called a ‘waiguoren’?” This question was posed as the result of a rather hostile response I received when I jokingly referred to a Taiwan co-worker in Thailand as a “waiguoren.” Given her hostility to this joke, it made me wonder if we “waiguorens” truly understand the meaning of this word.

Since I am called “waiguoren” on a daily basis, I think it is very useful to know its full meaning. The comments made in this thread show that the word does not carry the same meaning as the English word “foreigner” despite what my Chinese teacher told me. Ha! I knew I was right! :smiley:

It is likely that I will be called this everyday for the remainder of my stay in Taiwan, whether that is one more day or an additional 50 years (please shoot me now if it will be the latter case :wink: ). I just wanted to know if being called a “waiguoren” is as bad as my co-worker made it out to be.

Apologies if you feel that your time has been wasted. But, hey, who invited you anyway? :wink: