I have always found that older (by which I mean over the age of ~50 and up) men in Taiwan are generally absolute assholes. They smoke absolutely everywhere, especially places marked as non-smoking, they shove past people with the expectation that people should just jump out of their way (when they didn’t say “excuse me” or even pretend to be polite), they pick at and loudly suck through their teeth while eating, including and especially during formal events, they drive their expensive but not particularly expensive cars at 4x the maximum speed limit in dangerous conditions (we’re talking highways and mountain switchbacks during heavy rain and strong wind. It’s as if getting behind the wheel triggers an instant suicidal death wish that doesn’t go away after any amount of time. Usually this also happens after they’ve had at least a few drinks and screamed at whoever had been driving the car we’re in for driving too slowly “too many times”). And they come to a complete stop at green lights in order to “make sure there’s no cross traffic” while screaming at whoever in the car dared to tell them the light is green. It’s every freaking time I go out with friends or colleagues and there is a guy over 50 driving that these events take place. I can’t think of an exception to the rule. Even generally otherwise polite men seem to become sleeper agents of insanity once I’ve ridden in a car with them — they show they have no respect for anyone and that they truly believe the world is theirs to be an asshole towards as soon as they drive a car.
So I thought this was a problem of “most men in Taiwan are entitled man-childs” until I made the mistake of visiting my parents back in the States this summer. My dad (who’s most certainly in the older than 50 range) has become a suicidal crazy driver, getting up on the bumpers of boat-hauling cars because they’re “only” going 20 over on the interstate, screaming at everyone in the car because the driver in front of them did anything to make him angry (including having a car he doesn’t approve of or being from a state he doesn’t like). He drove 80mph on an on ramp and came seconds from crashing into a car in front of him because he was trying to get in front of the cars on the interstate that were going even faster than that (rather than slow down and get in behind them as any 16 year old with a drivers license knows). He tries to gun it any and every time the car needs to go into motion from a stop and he slams on the breaks for an immediate, passenger heads bashed into the dashboard stop anytime he needs to bring the car to a stop. Yesterday he was literally pitching a fit like a 3 year old because my mom told me to just sleep in the bed in “the office” (my former bedroom) because the sheets for the other beds in the house are nowhere to be found (and it was very late at night). Because the locks were removed from all the bedrooms when we were kids (long story, though not hard to imagine if you’ve had or even been a kid) he felt it was perfectly acceptable to storm into the room I was sleeping in and loudly gather his running shoes so he could go running during the very early hours of the morning. (With this storming into “my room” at 5 am after all of us didn’t go to bed until 3 a.m because we were on the road).
Are all older men just incapable of a basic, common sense respect? Do all older men have a death wish? Is my dad going senile? I really did think my experience feeling like all older Taiwanese men were assholes came from the sense of entitlement that comes from Confuciusian culture and hundreds of generations of enabling, but I now see it’s inescapable even in my own home, which means it’s quite obvious this isn’t isolated to Asia. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen many ah-mas sticking people with umbrellas and shoving past people in Taiwan, but they are nothing compared to what I’ve seen as the “typical” older man in Taiwan. I know my dad was always an idiot who only looked after himself (he’d leave my mom to get all of us kids ready while he sat in the car, not understanding why “I’m ready to go why is no one else ready”, as the prime example) but it seems like he’s really become a new level of self-centered and not looking out for anyone but himself as he’s gotten older. Do I have a skewed sample size? Most of my friends back in the states have similar stories about their dads and fathers-in-law being total jerks too.
I’m also being ready for many of you to absolutely rip into me, since this forum is mostly made up of men who have lived in Taiwan for 20+ years (which puts you in the same age range I’m talking about here). I’m looking for confirmation or contrast to what I’ve described above. Please keep comments civil, based on personal experience. Thanks.
