Idiots, the lot of them (who think that way).
I wonder, would they prefer to serve the south up to Kim Jong-un with fries or salad?
[quote=“Pop Fly”][quote=“Tomas”][quote=“Xeno”][quote=“Icon”][quote=“Xeno”]Wake me up when it gets this bad:
metropolitician.blogs.com/scribb … korea.html[/quote]
Just finished reading the comments section. 
[/quote]
I’ll admit that blogs like that caused me to bump Seoul off my list when I was pondering where to move to a month or so ago. I read some really horrifying stuff about the expat experience there… with brief moments of comic relief:
theunlikelyexpat.blogspot.kr/201 … -from.html[/quote]
So…you’re making decisions based on what strangers on the Internet write? Do you think that is a wise approach? 80% of what is written on these boards about Taiwan is written by people who don’t speak Mandarin or Taiwanese, have formed few or no close relationships with Taiwanese people, and how have no knowledge of the cultural environment they are living in beyond what they see. A lot of it is pure, unfiltered bullshit, rich in false assumptions and poor in empirical evidence and knowledge.
I go to various regions in South Korea 2-3 times a year for up to a week at a time. One of my best friends, an big blonde American, has lived there for five years.
I am as foreign-looking as you can get and I absolutely love going to Korea. Never an issue with anti-foreigner hate for me or my buddy. Never once.[/quote]
To be fair Thomas, you a) don’t work in a hogwan, and b) don’t date local ladies. Nor, as the blog warned against, do I assume you are loud and obnoxious in small spaces.
My first foray into thinking of relocating to this side of the 'fic, was to place a resume on Dave’s ESL Cafe. WIthin a day I had 50+ offers to be flown to The RSK. I immedeiately did some Seoul searching and within the hour, turned my attention fully on Taiwan. Even with an 80/20 rule negating the lion’s share of negativity about the place, there were far too many accounts of discrimination/bad business dealings and ultra-nationistic xenophobia to let me even consider one of the myriad offes sent my way.
As has been stated upthread, one creates one’s experience and Thomas has an aura around him of goodwill and positivity (me not so much) and would most likely not encounter what thousands before him have. Likewise, I have never personally encounterd prejudice here and the most negative aspect of living here has come from other expats.
Not sure what my summation here is, other than to lightly disagree with The Great T. Sorry mate. Korea is a no fly zone for this kid.[/quote]
My buddy, a very close friend, worked in a hogwan for a few years and now owns one.
Sure, they are nationalistic, but every study I’ve read about their culture indicates that politeness and decorum are very important there. Play the game by the right rules, and there should be very few issues on a day to day basis.
My point was not that South Korea is a heaven, but that it isn’t nearly as bad as some people would lead you to believe. That, and making decisions based on what you read on a blog or a forum? Kid’s stuff, seriously. Not for adults.
I agree with Tomas in regard to the idea it’s really hard to judge how things really are based on personal comments online. I know of a guy that taught English in Taiwan for about a year. He didn’t like the food and felt the women didn’t like him as much as he anticipated and hoped. He had problems with management the two places he worked at and decided to try S. Korea. He ended up liking Korea much better (has been there 5 years or so by now) and is getting married to a local soon. I never would have guessed that scenario by only reading online accounts
Having said that, the time I spent in Korea, although too short of time to really get a feel for the place, made me feel I would be a bit less welcomed there than I would in Taiwan. I did enjoy the food there more than I generally do in Taiwan.
I’m glad I had a few years of experience in Taiwan before I ever started reading and posting on this forum. Some of the comments here have enriched my understanding of the place and helped put some of my experiences in better perspective. Many of the comments are spot on and some of them don’t match my experience very well at all. If I read up about Taiwan before coming here it might have made some adjustments easier, as I would have prepared myself for some of the common issues foreigners have to deal with. But it also could have altered how I interpreted my environment in a negative or misconstrued fashion.
Bottom line, there’s no substitute for living in a country and having your own experiences. Also, visiting a place is much different than living there. You can’t form a genuine perspective via the internet. Sort of like my uncle back home who’s never been overseas but spends time corresponding with Chinese girls on matchmaker websites and lecturing me about what kind of country China is and what the women are like 
[quote=“Tomas”]So…you’re making decisions based on what strangers on the Internet write? Do you think that is a wise approach? 80% of what is written on these boards about Taiwan is written by people who don’t speak Mandarin or Taiwanese, have formed few or no close relationships with Taiwanese people, and how have no knowledge of the cultural environment they are living in beyond what they see. A lot of it is pure, unfiltered bullshit, rich in false assumptions and poor in empirical evidence and knowledge.
I go to various regions in South Korea 2-3 times a year for up to a week at a time. One of my best friends, an big blonde American, has lived there for five years.
I am as foreign-looking as you can get and I absolutely love going to Korea. Never an issue with anti-foreigner hate for me or my buddy. Never once.[/quote]
I have been rather methodical in planning my escape from the West. I visited every place I considered relocating to before making my decision, Seoul included. (And I enjoyed it a lot, hence placing it near the top of my list.) But visiting a place for a week is not the same as living there. I know that expat blogs and forums are mostly full of crap. Even so, they are not completely without value; blogs and forums can provide insight into the nature of the outsider experience in different places. Obviously this is confounded by the fact that certain destinations attract a certain kind of expat (cough, Bangkok) and the simple fact that the Internet’s pseudonymity has a way of amplifying complaints and negativity… but with these caveats in mind it is still possible to glean useful data from a subjective survey of the expat internet. The other thing is that these blogs are not completely without proof of their claims at times. Take, for instance, the HIV testing requirement in South Korea. That says something about their attitude toward foreigners.
Conduct a similar survey of the Taiwan expat blogs and forums and the results are much more upbeat. Sure, you’ll find some curmudgeonly old sods with an axe to grind, particularly around here, but by and large the outsider experience seems to be more positive than in Korea.
You have to keep in mind that I was only really reading these blogs and forums to pick up on things that I couldn’t sort out for myself in a few days of visiting a place. So, for example, people often complain about how ugly Taipei is. I knew from being here for a few days in March that the endless concrete and tile wasn’t going to get me down (and besides, Seoul isn’t all that different).
What I was more interested in finding out about was the general vibe of a place from an expat’s perspective. Are people friendly and welcoming to outsiders? That isn’t something I can pick up on in just a few days. I know that I cannot find conclusive answers to such a question from surveying blogs. My background is in science so I treat anecdotal data as everyone should: with caution and extreme skepticism. That being said, I didn’t have any better data to work with.
I found both Taipei and Seoul appealing for different reasons. I immediately fell in love with Korean food whereas I still struggle to enjoy Taiwanese cuisine. However, having just overwintered in Vancouver (a city I found to be very cold and isolating) I was looking for a more welcoming place to relocate to, food be damned. I know perceived friendliness is not the same as actual friendliness but that’s all I really need to stay positive and productive.
At any rate, I do not regret my decision. I am totally happy with my decision to move to Taipei and I am glad I did my homework. Of course, I might also have been very happy in Seoul right now, so there’s no telling if reading expat blogs and forums was useful without replicating the experiment (my inner scientist is speaking here). Not that it really matters though; I got what I was looking for even though I employed dubious research methods.
[quote=“Lo Pan”]
I especially enjoyed how several Taiwanese meat-products tested postive for higher levels of the beta-agonist in question but that news did not get as much play in the Taiwanese press and the whole issue seemed to quietly go away not long afterwards… 
[/quote]
and? how does this justify forcing a nation to change its laws redarding beta-agonist under political pressure?
Taiwan’s food safety has been pretty lacking, now it’s just going to give the pork farmers more excuse to justify their use of beta-agonists. American imports has them, why can’t we use them? The last thing they need is this kind of encouragement.
[quote=“headhonchoII”]
The KMT has never been overly friendly to foreigners (or non Chinese) of any persuasion, nor has the DPP for that matter when it comes to riling the masses up about American beef or some other such rubbish. [/quote]
That’s because the KMT only cared about enriching themselves. Still, I’d take that self interest any day over the xenophobic DPP pandering to uneducated farmers in the South. If Chinese from Fujian that came to Taiwan 300 years ago can hate Chinese that came over in the 1940s that much, is there any hope they can view real outsiders in a positive light? Hell no.
There are reasons for the hatred, they disappeared a lot of people down South (they went house to house whole districts in Kaoshiung kidnapping people and murdering them around 228) and they always treated the South as second status to the North, and still do.
I don’t think it justifies xenophobia, but I understand why they are not so friendly to mainlanders, although this is changing too and money is the real God here.
[quote=“ChewDawg”][quote=“headhonchoII”]
The KMT has never been overly friendly to foreigners (or non Chinese) of any persuasion, nor has the DPP for that matter when it comes to riling the masses up about American beef or some other such rubbish. [/quote]
That’s because the KMT only cared about enriching themselves. Still, I’d take that self interest any day over the xenophobic DPP pandering to uneducated farmers in the South. If Chinese from Fujian that came to Taiwan 300 years ago can hate Chinese that came over in the 1940s that much, is there any hope they can view real outsiders in a positive light? Hell no.[/quote]
I’ll take the DPP’s position that citizenship in Taiwan should be based on one’s love and identification with Taiwan over the KMT’s position that anyone who is a blood descendent of the Yellow Emperor is eligible.
The DPP have their backwardness but they are by far the more liberal and yes modern party of the two.
But I was never fired by either party so I guess I can be more objective. 
And yes, I know you will object and probably send me pms which I won’t read, but really Chewie, your position on the DPP is not well thought out, but is a visceral reactions to a bad personal event about a decade ago. Get over it and try try try to develop some modicum of understanding of a place you lived in for 7 years.
[quote=“hansioux”][quote=“Lo Pan”]
I especially enjoyed how several Taiwanese meat-products tested postive for higher levels of the beta-agonist in question but that news did not get as much play in the Taiwanese press and the whole issue seemed to quietly go away not long afterwards… [/quote]
and? how does this justify forcing a nation to change its laws redarding beta-agonist under political pressure?
Taiwan’s food safety has been pretty lacking, now it’s just going to give the pork farmers more excuse to justify their use of beta-agonists. American imports has them, why can’t we use them? The last thing they need is this kind of encouragement.[/quote]
But if local farmers are using them unhindered, while imports containing them are being blocked, this would be fair cause for complaint.
Only if the local farmers are using them with impunity.
[quote=“Tempo Gain”]
But if local farmers are using them unhindered, while imports containing them are being blocked, this would be fair cause for complaint.[/quote]
What’s the difference? Local farmers aren’t allowed to sell meat with beta-agonist. When the government checks it once in a blue-moon, those caught are punished. Not every shipment of Imported meat is check either, when sampling catches a shipment with beta-aginist, some measure will be taken as well.
The difference is some farmers in Taiwan deliberately put beta-agonist in their pork, even though it’s against the law, where as all american farmers but beta-agonist in their beef, and who cares if someone has a law against it, we’ll make them change it.
That’s what I meant by “unhindered.”
But all American meat contains it openly right? They’re not letting it all through except for random shipments which they sample and of course find contains it, which they knew anyway, right?
It depends on the degree. If it’s common practice for Taiwanese farmers to use them, and they’re not being punished, then it would tend to be a fair complaint. If it’s not so common and offenders are often punished, not so much.
The government can force all meat to be labelled correctly and educate them on the dangers, then consumers will have a choice.
I missed that…
[quote=“Pop Fly”]…the most negative aspect of living here has come from other expats.
[/quote]
So, recently. at a well known local pub, one foreigner was mouthing off at another foreigner and got broken bottled to the throat. He’s alive, but, egads we can play rough.
Seems a beer bottle is the weapon of choice for drunk and mad foreigners at the pubs? I guess its the easiest “weapon” to come in hand there.
Seems a bit like a British thing to me. Mouthy? That’s a bottlin’…
I was just engaged in conversation by a taxi driver and after the usual “how long have you been here”, “oh, your Chinese is very good” niceties, he started in with the “Do you like Taiwanese women” and telling me how easy it is for foreign men to get Taiwanese women into bed…
He was just sure he had one of those foreign sex maniacs that he’s heard about in on the news. You could see the expectation on the man’s face when he said a that I “must have had many Taiwanese girlfriends.” I could not help but wind him up by saying “no, I’ve had the same girlfriend for the entire three years I have been here.” 
He looked noticeably crestfallen… not to be dissuaded he topped it off with "well, how many Taiwanese women have you had sex with, it was probably a lot, right?” 
… “No just one, my girlfriend”
He looked very confused and stopped talking to me. Foreigner in a suit, speaking Chinese and not rutting his way through the island just made no sense to him… couldn’t be right.
Excellent public service. 
Ive been here a year this weekend. My experiences have been almost entirely positive. People helping me when i am lost on trains, or in the street. Everyone is patient when i ruin the Chinese language. People working at the gym, starbucks and the local bar teach me bits of chinese when i get it wrong. There have been many many occasions where random strangers have been friendly for no reason. I have often felt a bit embarrassed when i think about these guys would be treated in London.
Now my only negative experiences, werent involving me directly. But twice ive seen a woman being pushed around , kicked and generally roughed up by one or two men. A crowd just watching on both occasions. I on both occasions stepped in between, not aggressively, but pointing out you dont do this in no uncertain terms. Thats literally my only negative experiences here.