I searched the forums and found no mention of this very interesting piece by a Swedish anthropologist by the name of David Signer. These observations are only based on a two week stay, but they seem to jibe well with my own observations (if not a bit on the doom and gloom side). Definitely worth a read though I think:
Twenty years ago Taiwan changed from a dictatorial country towards a democracy. This process speeded up to a fast modernization of the country. Nowadays we see the strong Confucian working-moral besides gay-clubs and piercing studios. Colorful Taoist temples along side big glass skyscrapers and supermarkets that are open 24 hours a day. The Swiss anthropologist describes a mixed up society where everybody works as hard as possible and where love and sex seem to be of no importance.
(By David Signer)
How is Taiwan? There is no country in the world where the people make so many working hours as in Taiwan – 2282 hours a year. Over 30% of the people work more then 62 hours a week. Taiwan is the second densest populated country in the world. Only in Bangladesh live more people per square kilometer. Although Taiwan is smaller then Switzerland it belongs to the 20 most successful industrial countries; Taiwan is market leader in notebooks and there is no country that has more mobile phones (1,14 per citizen of Taiwan). Furthermore there are only three countries that have less sex then the Taiwanese, and according to the French magazine “Elle”, Taiwanese women are the unhappiest women in the world. Taiwan has also the most near sighted people. So how does this all relate to each other?
…
The rest can be found on the given link, English is below the Chinese (it’s long)
It’s interesting that this was a topic of discussion (mostly in Chinese) on the board at www.english.com.tw as well, but somehow was squashed since it moved quickly to politics. I didn’t read everything that was said but for those who read Chinese it might be interesting to see what the Taiwanese response was to this.
wow. i read that piece from the link you provided. the adjective ‘grotesque’ jumped out at me. i can see why a european visitor to taiwan would see it as grotesque, just from an aesthetic point of view. but there is a positve that the visitor didn’t catch. my impression of all the rush and hard work was of a people moving through life with a sense of purpose and optimism. the early morning hours of people exercising, dancing, etc at cks memorial hall were described as a ‘grotesque carnival’, but i find that kind of atmosphere re nao and invigorating. overall, though, i have to agree with the tone of the article. in their rush for the good life, i think many people on taiwan are missing out. just seeing my husband on the weekend? ok, that might work. but my kids? no way. they’re growing up too fast as it is. sometimes i wonder about what the pressure of having all those missiles pointed at you does to the psyche- especially if you don’t have an escape passport.
i know some taiwanese ladies who are pretty happy. And everybody knows that taiwanese girls are great horizontal and they can get as much of it (and do ) as they want.
DANG the article is written in mandarin (cant read a word)
Tommy525, you can’t read Mandarin? didn’t you study some in Taiwan or get some comprehension from watching TV shows with the characters at the bottom? You can get lots of sex and zero love- just ask a pro.
The english translation is on that same page, underneath the Chinese. Should I just post the entire article here?
I think the whole “underappreciated woman” syndrome in Taiwan is probably a direct result of the long work days. In any other country woman who aren’t getting what they need tend to find it with other men. Not going to work here, as there are no “other men” - they’re all at work too. Except for… the lao wais!
[quote=“necroflux”]The english translation is on that same page, underneath the Chinese. Should I just post the entire article here?
I think the whole “underappreciated woman” syndrome in Taiwan is probably a direct result of the long work days. In any other country woman who aren’t getting what they need tend to find it with other men. Not going to work here, as there are no “other men” - they’re all at work too. Except for… the lao wais! [/quote]
is it?? ok let me go back to that site.
errrr my (now ex) wife found that other man at HER work !!! ever think of THAT???
WOW read the article. Some parts of it true. But i do think that most TAiwanese dont forget to be ALIVE tho. And are not as robotic as europeans believe.
TAiwanese live under the fear of an earthquake or war. And are driven to strive for success by the very competitive society they live in. And this does cause a lot of mis-thinking. I think there should be a drive for more culture, for more Value in life, rather then that defined by pure materialism.
Taiwanese do appear robotic to europeans tho. And certainly are worker ants by comparison.
One european fellow wrote about his flight on EVa from london to/from Bkk. And he said the stewardesses all pretty much look the same, are all polite and equally efficient and speak perfect english and are robotic and “somewhere in TAiwan they must have a factory building them”
t525, if you learn pinyin, you could learn traditional or simplified or both fast. you just type in the pinyin, like ‘wo’, and you get the most frequently used character first for that pronunciation first, following by decreasing frequency. you don’t even have to put in the tone number. if you know some easy characters, you could almost learn independently. if not, you would need someone to proofread what you’d written. if you put in a combo word like ‘meiguo’, you usually just get one choice. i think chinesetools.com has that. it’s either called a pinyin editor or a chinese editor. interested? PS were you born in taiwan? how old were you when you left? do you feel that you identify as being taiwanese?
yes i was born on taiwan and was raised there. But paradoxically I only attended American schools on TAiwan and am ethnically half white and half taiwanese .
I was raised in a nation where its people insist that i am “a foreigner” no matter i am born there. Where the government treats me like a tourist and where i have only the rights of a tourist and was not allowed to have a car in my name or even a cell fone in my name, etc.
I was raised in a nation that always has reminded me that I am a LION and they are TIGERS. They refused to see that I am half Taiwanese and am born and raised there. Even among my closest Taiwanese friends I am somehow “different” and “think differently” (strangely not by virtue of my going to american schools because the taiwanese that go to the same schools dotn think differently). I am “foreign” no matter what. I obviously have a “different” viewpoint from them and obviously am not directly related to what happens in Taiwan becuase I am “foreign”.
And now i live in the usa where thankfully there are quite a few asians and what nots.
The white people think of me as being 100pct Asian strangely enough and obviously “chinese” and obviously “chinese-american” as opposed to being “american”
I am seen as a Tiger among the Lions (them)
so what do i think of myself?
I have long been aware that I am neither Lion nor Tiger but I am also both.
I am a Liger or a Tion. I am both different and the same. I AM Taiwanese and also American.
I am both and I am neither.
I happen to be more partial to Taiwan because Iv spent more years living there then the USA. I dont necessarily think Taiwan is “better” the then USA. Depends on for what?
But i often think that Taiwan is better for “me” because IM more used to it? And in fact feel “less foreign” there??
wierd or what??
Perhaps only other eurasians who grew up on Taiwan can fully appreciate my position?
so, do you want to learn to read Chinese? Anyway, that’s weird that your friends think that you are so foreign. Does seem like the visual is getting in the way of the rational. Just like when my daughters’ friends swear that my daughters have black hair (it’s brown). They see the asian face and that skews their perception. They have a deeply imprinted concept that all asians must have black hair. your friends see the caucasian features you have and in their minds a caucasian can’t be as close to them as a person with a chinese/taiwanese face. ac having a wai sheng ren mother might say that he never felt accepted as being part of Hoklo Taiwan, and that’s one reason he hates the DPP- they exclude him and look down on him. Can you relate to that feeling? PS instead of thinking that you are ‘foreign’, i think of you as very unique because you have a gentle disposition that comes through in your writing.
yes i was born on taiwan and was raised there. But paradoxically I only attended American schools on TAiwan and am ethnically half white and half Taiwanese .
I was raised in a nation where its people insist that i am “a foreigner” no matter i am born there. Where the government treats me like a tourist and where i have only the rights of a tourist and was not allowed to have a car in my name or even a cell fone in my name, etc.
I was raised in a nation that always has reminded me that I am a LION and they are TIGERS. They refused to see that I am half Taiwanese and am born and raised there. Even among my closest Taiwanese friends I am somehow “different” and “think differently” (strangely not by virtue of my going to american schools because the Taiwanese that go to the same schools dotn think differently). I am “foreign” no matter what. I obviously have a “different” viewpoint from them and obviously am not directly related to what happens in Taiwan becuase I am “foreign”.
And now i live in the USA where thankfully there are quite a few asians and what nots.
The white people think of me as being 100pct Asian strangely enough and obviously “chinese” and obviously “chinese-american” as opposed to being “american”
I am seen as a Tiger among the Lions (them)
so what do i think of myself?
I have long been aware that I am neither Lion nor Tiger but I am also both.
I am a Liger or a Tion. I am both different and the same. I AM Taiwanese and also American.
I am both and I am neither.
I happen to be more partial to Taiwan because Iv spent more years living there then the USA. I dont necessarily think Taiwan is “better” the then USA. Depends on for what?
But i often think that Taiwan is better for “me” because IM more used to it? And in fact feel “less foreign” there??
wierd or what??
Perhaps only other eurasians who grew up on Taiwan can fully appreciate my position?[/quote]
I can get what you’re saying. I recently was hanging out with an another white and asian american, and the asian american was dismissed as not being american. :loco:
HAHA thank you thank you. I try to keep my postal uniform where it belongs, hanging in the closet. Yes iv always appreciated and wondered how some foreigners can read mandarin and i cant?? But my girlfriends have all given up on me learning to read and write mandarin (too hard for old dogs to learn new tricks kinda thing). I mean I am so bad that when I moved to Taichung I had to spend evenings learning my way around by first using the Main Train station as ground zero so to speak and then driving in ever increasing circles till finally I knew the city and its environs. And i discovered my way around Taiwan simply by driving all around rather aimlessly. I mean you can only go so far till you get to the sea ! People couldnt do THAT in the USA thats for sure ! People giving me directions could never use the names of streets because I couldnt read street signs in Chinese. They would have to say “oh turn left when you get to the macdonalds” and the such. I managed in Taiwan without being able to read more then a few words. But I wouldve liked to been able to read though. Thats partly why a lot of eurasian kids today in TAiwan spend the first few years in a Chinese school so that they can read and write chinese. I shouldve done that as well.
And yes in many ways the human race has not evolved enough from our days as monkeys.
WE are still identified and classified by the species of monkey we are.
and actually most chinese have dark brown hair as opposed to black !! Many greeks have blacker hair then chinese do. And when you are gonna send me some pics of your kids so I can see what they look like ? I always am curious to see how eurasians come out like?
Anyway, back to the main topic. Surely I am not alone in being a normal guy who found it a hundred times easier to “score” with girls back home in North America than girls in Taiwan. The lack of a language and culture barrier helped, of course. But also…well, if you’re a young guy in his 20s dating college girls with lots of free time, of course it’s easy for you - it was easy for me when I was in college myself, dating college girls with lots of free time. But in my 30s, trying to date women my own age (as a mature guy should, you know, date actual real women as opposed to little girls), it’s difficult because the ones that aren’t already married are all serious career women working 50-60 hours a week. When do they have any free time for a man? Most don’t. Of course like anybody, I can take a transient fling at the closest fleshbar for temporary relief, but for something genuine and real, it’s difficult in Taiwan. Most of the good women my age are either already married (90%) or committed to their careers, and thus it will be impossible to meet them in a social situation (since they have no social lives and don’t interact socially with strangers, only interact with other people in work situations).
Anyway, fact is, the Asian fever for white guys thing is a myth. I know from experience, lots of experience, that if you set me next to a Taiwanese girl and Western girl, chances are the Western girl will go for me more likely than the Taiwanese girl. Reasons are that I can actually talk and communicate with one, and not with the other. Personality counts in one case, whereas in the other it’s solely down to exoticism and shallow good looks.
[quote=“Quentin”]Anyway, back to the main topic. Surely I am not alone in being a normal guy who found it a hundred times easier to “score” with girls back home in North America than girls in Taiwan. The lack of a language and culture barrier helped, of course. But also…well, if you’re a young guy in his 20s dating college girls with lots of free time, of course it’s easy for you - it was easy for me when I was in college myself, dating college girls with lots of free time. But in my 30s, trying to date women my own age (as a mature guy should, you know, date actual real women as opposed to little girls), it’s difficult because the ones that aren’t already married are all serious career women working 50-60 hours a week. When do they have any free time for a man? Most don’t. Of course like anybody, I can take a transient fling at the closest fleshbar for temporary relief, but for something genuine and real, it’s difficult in Taiwan. Most of the good women my age are either already married (90%) or committed to their careers, and thus it will be impossible to meet them in a social situation (since they have no social lives and don’t interact socially with strangers, only interact with other people in work situations).
Anyway, fact is, the Asian fever for white guys thing is a myth. I know from experience, lots of experience, that if you set me next to a Taiwanese girl and Western girl, chances are the Western girl will go for me more likely than the Taiwanese girl. Reasons are that I can actually talk and communicate with one, and not with the other. Personality counts in one case, whereas in the other it’s solely down to exoticism and shallow good looks.[/quote]
HAHA especially if you look like the guy in ur avatar !! But yes seriously you do have a point. NOt being able to find the 30 somethings cuz they are way too busy working and locked up in their cubicle at work. And thats why you need a circle of friends . Friends to act as match maker. I did for a german co worker . MY brother got married recently to someone who was introduced to him here in the usa even. INtroductions are the order when you are in your 30s and plus. Very true when in college, its easy ANYWHERE for young college guys to hook up with young college girls and vice versa. And way harder later on. And there are real gems out there in those cubicles yet to be discovered i bet.
t525, i don’t have a digital camera. i hope to get one soon because my older daughter wants to make a killing on ebay with the junk she hopes to trash pick, and we need the camera so she can advertise the junk and make a million before she’s 12. i think she got our family’s trash pick gene and my husband’s gotta make money gene. you could always pm me your address and i’ll send you their pictures the old fashioned way via snail mail.
Her email read (translated): “Tash, have you read this article about life in Taiwan? It sounds so depressing. I’m worried about [name of our Taiwanese friend] and other girls [Taiwanese women we know]. Is it really that bad?”
I told her I though the article was a bit exaggerated and not to worry.
But now that I think about the happiness and loneliness in my Taiwanese friends… most of them are very unhappy about their relationships. Some just ingore it and focus on work and restaurant-hopping, others look for foreigner boyfriends, thinking they’ll make them happy.
However, I couldn’t say if that’s any different from women in any other country.
I don’t think anyone talks about loneliness, though. It’s like a taboo or maybe just not part of the culture.
