Is it you or is it Taiwan?

It’s you. So what’s so special about Taiwan? all the gripes I just hear could easy be applied to other places

Tke NYC in the summer for example:

  • Why is Grand Central always 5 millions degrees? Especially on the lower levels?
  • Why is there always a track problem and the AC go out for 45min on Mero North?
    -Why does the “express” subway sometime take longer than the local?
  • Why does it take the local 40min to show up while the station is super hot, and then when it does show up its stuffed full of people?
  • Why does a monthly metro -north pass cost almost 500 USD? For that service???
  • Why do a-holes put thier bags and take up an extra seat on an already crowded train?
  • Why are the drunks always screaming so loud on the last train out?
  • Why does it cost me $10 buck for a POS takeway sandwich & drink midtown?
    -Why is my favorite restaurant filled with yuppy trash every evening?
    -Why can’t my cabbie find 6th ave in brooklyn?
    -Why do I pay 2k a month for a crap hole in CT where it takes me 1.5hrs to get to work?

those of you with the postive attitude have never had taiwanese try to sabotage you behind your back. you know, a guy in chinatown a long time ago told me" ran, i heard you had… problem " i said “who told you that?” he said " those people in the bread shop asked you … and you told them… they were laughing about it and told me. you REALLY DONT UNDERSTAND WHAT’S CALLED A CHINESE! they don’t give a fuck about your problems because they are all selfish. they just asked you to have something to laugh about"

another chinese kid told me:

'the preacher say chinese people worship the devil. i say chinese people IS the devil!"

taxi drivers always tell me: “chinese people are not worth loving”

so there you go. from their own mouths. of course i’m not talking about chinese people raised in a western education outlook. i’m talking about those who follow the culture here without questioning.

those of you with this glowing "i’m a foriegner that TWs like"attitude have never had to sue get your money.you’ve never been threatened by a fucking lao ban with violence. you’ve never been over charged or cheated on a purchase. say it happens the world over? only the 3rd world can compete with taiwanese for down right shitty behavior. is it me or here?
quite frankly, screw taiwan.

how about being refused a job because “you speak chinese too well”, or " the last teacher here was tall and really western. you’re too polite and ‘nod bow’ when old people come in. westerners don’t do that"
fuck! can’t win for losing.
how about the RECORD COMPANIES AND THE WAY THEY TREAT ME ALL THE TIME? DAMN IT!! tsai i ling and the whole lot of them.

What you’ve never been jacked by some bodega owner late night?

The nice thing about Taiwan is that if you can’t get justice, you can get even. It doesn’t cost that much to get someone thrashed, and noone will go to the cops

thanks el. i feel better now.^^

I think back to the old advice:

If you don’t like a place you can either leave, change the way you feel about it, or stay unhappy.

But this ignores the fact that Taiwan is not an inanimate object that cannot be modified. I may be deluded to think that I can change anything and it’s certainly a hard and usually thankless task attempting to do so. But the days when I feel there’s nothing I can do to make this place better that are the darkest.
There are a lot of things wrong with Taiwan, and there are a lot of things wrong with most places. Simply put, human beings are in general a selfish, lazy and vile lot. Location doesn’t have too much to do with it, though the broken window theory certainly fits here.
Taiwan’s problems do kind of jump out at you, as opposed to sometimes more serious problems that lurk under a veneer of civility in other places. It makes it harder to ignore the problems, but ignoring things never helps. Get off your ass and do something constructive. Working on a problem leads to a far better state of mind than sitting around bitching about it, whether it’s from a self-righteous buzz or just being too busy to stare at the train wreck for long.

Well, there are some things about your living environment that you can change For instance, when going out to eat somewhere, I generally tell them not to add salt or MSG. When looking for a decent place to sit down for a tea or coffee, I try to find places that are relatively quiet, clean, and smoke free. And so on.

But, no, we can’t wear blinders through life, for sure, and there are plenty of problems here. But what I was trying to get at with the OP is there’s almost a night and day difference in the way I see Taiwan, based on my state of mind, stress level, living situation, etc. Those are factors I can be aware of and control to some degree.

As someone pointed out, it’s a complex interplay between mind and environment, and sometimes it’s hard to trick out the causal factors. But I’ve noticed that just “taking a step back” when I get frustrated or when negative thoughts enter my mind makes a big difference in the way the rest of that minute, hour, and day goes for me.

I think that trying to maintain a sort of clarity and rational perspective helps my overall mental well-being. I’m one of those people whose gym, research center, and proving grounds are the streets, hallways, and handshakes of daily life. I want to maintain daily balance and clarity of thought throughout my waking day, and not relegate it to a few minutes of quiet thought or reflection at the end of the day (though that can also be helpful). Anyway, it’s a day by day thing, just like life. :wink:

That’s a great attitude Fortigurn and one that quite a few people are starting to take. If enough of us speak up then some day our governments will add another tax to gas to pay for environmentaly friendly mass public transport. It has to come sooner or later.

like everyone else, it seems, I go though phases varying betweeen being prepared to write off Taiwanese culture and society as whole as being void of any merit, foul and utterly worthless… to being fairly forgiving and open minded about it’s innumerous shortcomings and pitfalls and the fact that it

Well…I do find myself uttering the phrase…“Good move dumb-ass”…quite frequently.

But more and more I’m saying it with a grin and chuckling.:sunglasses:

Most of my Taiwanese friends are quite aware of the problems here. Matter of fact, they tend to be much bolder than I am about rattling off a list. Whereas they might not always be as optimistic as I am about Taiwan’s capacity and willingness to change, they are forward looking.

Personally, I’ve seen tremendous improvements here over the years, almost across the board. Take for example, Taipei: better recycling efforts than in most countries in the world, improved garbage collection, better roads, sidewalks, etc.

I tend to look at progress as small steps taken one person and one neighborhood at a time - the extra tree planted, the extra window or sign washed, the extra car that stops to let me cross the street (yes, it does happen!), and so on. I tend not to look to the government or “society” to fix things, since you, I, and our neighbors ARE society.

Small steps… :rainbow:

That’s a great attitude Fortigurn and one that quite a few people are starting to take. If enough of us speak up then some day our governments will add another tax to gas to pay for environmentaly friendly mass public transport. It has to come sooner or later.[/quote]

Anyone who complains about the pollution and the bad traffic, and then gets a scooter - and then keeps complaining about the pollution and the bad traffic - has a way of thinking which I don’t understand.

My quality of life is superior here to the quality of life I had in Australia (a 1st world country, last time I looked). But it’s all about how you define quality of life.

There are people who want a certain quality of life, without any of the inevitable problems which come with it. People who want the big city life without the big city problems. Who want everyone to have a car, but don’t want any pollution or bad traffic.

It’s madness. People are dreaming. They’re chasing a quality of life which does not, and cannot, exist.

[quote=“Jefferson”]…
I tend to look at progress as small steps taken one person and one neighborhood at a time - the extra tree planted, the extra window or sign washed, the extra car that stops to let me cross the street (yes, it does happen!), and so on…
[/quote]

I noticed a little improvement the last time I was in Taipei. It used to be lots of honking on the street and no cars would stop for any pedestrians. Now some cars would actually slow down or stop for you to cross the street. Less honking. Bus drivers have become a bit more patient and polite too.

One habit I often forget to “turn off” when back in Taipei is that I walk right ahead when I have the green light. Everyone knows that it’s very dangerous as people who are driving don’t give people who are walking a damn. Traffic lights often don’t mean much either. A few times I got “the are-you-crazy-or-stupid look” from taxi drivers but amazingly they didn’t honk at me.

fortigurn, I find it surprising that you say your quality of life is higher here than in Australia, although I have never been to Australia, could u plz elaborate as i find dat surprising.

I was in Canada 2 weeks ago, and omg i had forgotten how clean the air is there. I slept for 5 days without having to fear mosquitoes or some odd tick biting me in my sleep. I took pics of the sidewalks in Toronto so my friends in TW could see what a sidewalk w/o dog/betel nut crap on it actually looks like, what apartments adn houses wid lawns and trees looks like, and what a real park with soccer/football fields are suppose to be.

Many Taiwanese are not ignorant of the probs here, and are working just as hard as me to get off dis island permanently :slight_smile: Its not easy, but one day we will make it off, just requires some hard work and perseverance. For the rest, they live here and survive, they know the air and acid rain sux0rs but they can’t crawl up and die, they just deal wid it. C’est La Vie.

Number one - I have a 25 hour work week as opposed to a 42 hour work week, but I earn only 25% less than I used to in Australia. This has improved my quality of life to a degree I would never have considered possible. It has reduced my stress levels to near zero, and gives me the kind of time for my personal work and study which is invaluable to me.

My wife works 30 hours a week, and we have far more time with each other than my Australian counterparts. When we have children, we’ll be able to spend the kind of time with them which our Australian friends only dream of. I’ll be able to take my children to work with me, and teach them. This is absolute paradise, but would be impossible in Australia.

Number two - My work environment in both of my jobs is casual, relaxed, hassle free, without ridiculous deadlines, stupid budget issues, insane departmental politics, irritating colleagues, and petty, stupid, and utterly useless regulations.

Number three - I am paying almost half the tax I was paying in Australia, and my money here goes a great deal further. Food is cheaper and I don’t even have to cook, transport is cheaper (my transport costs are less than half of what they were in Australia), and accomodation is cheaper.

Number four - I don’t have to own a car or drive. This means I am always relaxed when I get to work, I have plenty of time to read and study, I don’t have to worry about traffic, insurance, accidents, or any of the other pains in the neck which are involved in private transport.

Number five - I can get cheap international air tickets here, cheaper than in Australia by up to 25%. I can also visit my international mates a lot easier from here than from Australia. This year I’ve visited Australia once, and will be visiting friends in Korea and China, before visiting Australia again at the end of the year. I couldn’t do that in Australia.

I miss Australian air (very clean in the suburbs, and amazing in the country), and Australian water (ditto). I miss my Australian mates and family.

But Australia locked me into a rat race which was taking a hideous toll on my mental and physical health, and denied me the opportunity to achieve the quality of life I sought. I much prefer to live here.

Zealflyer, when you say that you feel Taiwanese people “love their country” (if it’s a country), you don’t mean to say that they are patriotic, do you? Most Taiwanese that I know have no feelings of nationalism at all. My fiance’s brother is in the army here, and he told me that he, along with everyone in his platoon, would gladly wave the Mainland communist flag if an invasion occurred, and that he’d volunteer to wave flags on the runway strips to help Chinese jets land. He, along with most in the Taiwan military, wouldnt risk a nosehair for their ‘country’. I don’t think Taiwanese people love Taiwan. Most Taiwanese are extremely selfish. All me, me, me, me, me.

What they want actually is for themselves to have a car and for the rest of the population to walk. The automobile is all about personal freedom and is promoted as an expression of wealth and power. Unfortunately they leave a somehow strangely banal path of destruction in their wake. It is an absurd contradiction and we are beginning to see more and more acknowledgement of that fact.

[quote=“rantheman”]those of you with the postive attitude have never had Taiwanese try to sabotage you behind your back.

those of you with this glowing "I’m a foriegner that TWs like"attitude have never had to sue get your money.you’ve never been threatened by a f***ing laoban with violence. you’ve never been over charged or cheated on a purchase.
[/quote]

I was once cheated by a company whose boss I thought I had a good personal relationship with and had to sue. When I told my brother he laughed and said now you understand the true rapacious nature of business. Not Taiwanese business but business.

I’ve had a neighbor want to take my head off with an iron. When I told my sister about it she mentioned getting surrounded and attacked once by a gang of teenagers.

I’ve rarely been cheated on a purchase but have had some shitty work done that has cost me money to repair. When I told my father about he said I should be grateful I didn’t get work done by the Vancouver company that built all the leaky condos. Ten years later and the places still aren’t fixed.

In short, I think if you actually lived in the west, as opposed to just grew up there in a bubble, you’ll find that while Taiwan may differ in degree at time, it does not differ much in kind.

[quote=“plasmatron”] it

That is a very good summary.

It’s you.

Things kicked ass back home and things kick ass here.

Be the change you want to see in the world. :wink: