Exactly celebrate what.
That’s my point . Taiwan is probably at its worst in the summer with no public holidays and grinding heat.
Even Chinese new year is a pretty muted affair.
And no , Summer in Europe definitely is a ‘thing’. People actually have vacations there and there are a lot of parties and festivals. Mostly there are a lot more public activities. In my homeland there are great national sports competitions which create a lot of excitement . There are also many music and arts festivals and even farmers and horse trading festivals. Every town has something going on almost. Taiwan has diddley squat.
And recreational drugs were pretty big here when I arrived in Taiwan which is when the fellow above left!
Muted? you call endlessly launching fireworks and firecrackers muted? I feel like they’re giving me PTSD already.
but maybe it’s different in Taipei, and most waiguoren live in Taipei.
limitless a/c is probably the only good thing about being stuck in office in summer.
How do you get your life “back on track” by being unemployed in a foreign country for almost 2 years? Was that part of your plan? “I’ll be an entitled lazy ass and not work for 2 years as part of my path to self-improvement.”
Probably because you didn’t work for almost 2 years, so had no real chance to interact with anyone.
Probably because you didn’t work for almost two years.
Yes, obviously. And it’s unwarranted bitching. You put nothing into these 1.5 years and thus got nothing back. What a shock, eh.
To the user above who said something to OP along the lines of “you can’t expect to get anything if you put in no effort towards Taiwan” Well, I disagree. I don’t give anything to people here except my time. I do nothing if I’m not getting something for it.
I’ve met some very friendly people here and some real stains on humanity. That’s life. I don’t speak Mandarin but I’m always invited out by locals for free dinner etc. Attending those is a good way to network and you’ll find yourself soon with a lot of “friends” or as I prefer to call them "contacts " since most pay large sums of money for spending time with me. I’m basically a rent a friend.
As foreigners here we stand on a fine line between perceived by locals as either a novelty or an annoyance. The former because it’s cool to be seen/ sleep with a foreigner - we automatically give the locals a status boost just by them speaking or being seen with us.
The latter because of of anti-foreigner sentiments towards evil banana throwing white devils.
I’ve seen that situation before.
Had it happen recently too.
I like to go to a certain hot spring on my day off. A worker, an older guy, was almost borderline harassing me to talk with him, coming by every 10 minutes… i was getting annoyed but kept a smile on. He got my phone number and said… you’re my English teacher. I reminded him that he can call but I’m not free all the time to chat. He said ok.
The next few visits he kept up chatting with me repeatedly.
The last visit he invited me for a coffee before I left the resort, I obliged. He made sure all his friends saw his new friend.
The next and subsequent visits?
He hides on me now, if i come in he says sorry I can’t talk , I’m working on the other side of the resort today. Anytime I visit he runs.
My usefulness is finished now that everyone knows he can speak English well.
Not that I’m disappointed but…
Actually they don’t. The guy who got busted a few months ago outside ATT and that people were convinced would be doing 12 years hard labor got, wait for it, 12 months of weekly urine testing. No criminal record, no job/ARC jeopardy, certainly no deportation.
[I couldn’t find the original thread for this which is why I jumped in here with a wee report]
I still don’t know if the OP was being serious…does anyone really believe that a teacher who enjoys the odd spliff is “a scary terrible thing”? My father enjoyed the odd spliff but he’s not scary or terrible in the least, he’s an upstanding pillar of the community.
