Nosy compliments?

The locals are always complimenting my nose, too. At least, I think they are.

Step:

  1. Tell her she’s beautiful and ask if she’s from Korea or Mainland China.
  2. Drop your jaw in surprise when she says she is Taiwanese.

[quote=“Puppet”]Step:

  1. Tell her she’s beautiful and ask if she’s from Korea or Mainland China.
  2. Drop your jaw in surprise when she says she is Taiwanese.[/quote]

Substitute Japanese for Korea or Mainland China. The latter is risky at all times since the Chinese are ‘low class’. Korea probably would have been OK until the Taekowndo fiasco. Less risky than China though.

[quote=“Feiren”]
French are pretty much the highest class of foreigners around…[/quote]

Fuck me, if that ain’t the mark of a sick culture, I don’t know what is…

Jesus! Don’t tell my wife! She had to pay very nearly NT$7,500 to get hitched to me.[/quote]

The last few years every time Mrs. the chief gives me a hard time, I threaten to call her Pa in Chia Yi and tell him I want my 10 goats back.

She still doesn’t get it.

[quote=“the chief”][quote=“Feiren”]
French are pretty much the highest class of foreigners around…[/quote]

Fuck me, if that ain’t the mark of a sick culture, I don’t know what is…
[/quote]

It really. Especially considering the way French behave here.

What? You want to make goat hot pot? Break out the mijiu!

Thank you for not including Ozzies or Kiwis in said department. :laughing:

[quote=“Feiren”][quote=“Puppet”]Step:

  1. Tell her she’s beautiful and ask if she’s from Korea or Mainland China.
  2. Drop your jaw in surprise when she says she is Taiwanese.[/quote]

Substitute Japanese for Korea or Mainland China. The latter is risky at all times since the Chinese are ‘low class’. Korea probably would have been OK until the Taekowndo fiasco. Less risky than China though.[/quote]

Japan’s not riding on reputation alone like the French are.

[quote=“Puppet”][quote=“Feiren”][quote=“Puppet”]Step:

  1. Tell her she’s beautiful and ask if she’s from Korea or Mainland China.
  2. Drop your jaw in surprise when she says she is Taiwanese.[/quote]

Substitute Japanese for Korea or Mainland China. The latter is risky at all times since the Chinese are ‘low class’. Korea probably would have been OK until the Taekowndo fiasco. Less risky than China though.[/quote]

Japan’s not riding on reputation alone like the French are.[/quote]

They also know how to work a shower.

[quote=“the chief”][quote=“Puppet”][quote=“Feiren”][quote=“Puppet”]Step:

  1. Tell her she’s beautiful and ask if she’s from Korea or Mainland China.
  2. Drop your jaw in surprise when she says she is Taiwanese.[/quote]

Substitute Japanese for Korea or Mainland China. The latter is risky at all times since the Chinese are ‘low class’. Korea probably would have been OK until the Taekowndo fiasco. Less risky than China though.[/quote]

Japan’s not riding on reputation alone like the French are.[/quote]

They also know how to work a shower.[/quote]
AND warm a toilet seat!

[quote=“divea”][quote=“the chief”][quote=“Puppet”][quote=“Feiren”][quote=“Puppet”]Step:

  1. Tell her she’s beautiful and ask if she’s from Korea or Mainland China.
  2. Drop your jaw in surprise when she says she is Taiwanese.[/quote]

Substitute Japanese for Korea or Mainland China. The latter is risky at all times since the Chinese are ‘low class’. Korea probably would have been OK until the Taekowndo fiasco. Less risky than China though.[/quote]

Japan’s not riding on reputation alone like the French are.[/quote]

They also know how to work a shower.[/quote]
AND warm a toilet seat![/quote]

Sheee-it, I know how to do THAT.

Thank you for not including Ozzies or Kiwis in said department. :laughing:[/quote]
Or Saffas, but I guess we’re not even in the running because the locals think all Saffas are black, and run around in animal skins dodging lions. No one ever believes me when I tell them I’m Sef Efriken. Kind of makes me feel like SatelliteTV when he tries to convince people he’s Taiwanese. :roflmao:

Sorry guys, I don’t make these hierarchies.

Actually, your nationalities just confuse most Taiwanese. Remember, ‘waiguo’ has only recently been extended beyond North America to the US.

[quote=“Yes”][quote=“the chief”][quote=“urodacus”]Take it as flattering, because that’s the bet you’ll get. And calling you French instead of American: that’s a HUGE compliment. For the rest of us, we’re ALL MeiGuoRen. All the time, even when we’re not from America at all.

Anyway, how can we make a valid judgement without pictures?

Oh, and welcome to forumosa. You’ll soon get the hang of insults if you wait around here long enough.

Yes, she’s a good poster, Doc.[/quote]

You’re BOTH right, why, she’s a heck of a poster.

I wonder if she’s trying to say in some Roundabout way, and forgive me if I’m kind of Close to the Edge here, or you think maybe she’s kind of Fragile, that she’s the Owner of a Lonely Heart?
Sorry for the Drama.

Ah, I feel much better now.[/quote]

I’m afraid this all went a bit over my head…

That whole conversation about good poster, insults, whatever, confused me terribly so I will just say thank you if those were real compliments, and ignore them if they weren’t.[/quote]

Yes is the name of a British rock group that flourished in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. “Roundabout,” “Close to the Edge,”, and “Owner of a Lonely Heart” were three of their songs. Fragile and Drama were albums of theirs.

“Calling you French is a HUGE compliment,” etc., refers to the tendency to assume a foreigner is an American. Urodacus is Australian, so I imagine he has encountered that sort of thing a lot.

The comment about “pictures” and “a valid judgment” was light-hearted teasing, in reference to Taiwanese remarking how pretty you are.

“You’ll soon get the hang of insults if you wait around here long enough” means we sometimes say unpleasant things to each other here on the board.

They were just kidding around.

[quote=“Feiren”][quote=“Puppet”]Step:

  1. Tell her she’s beautiful and ask if she’s from Korea or Mainland China.
  2. Drop your jaw in surprise when she says she is Taiwanese.[/quote]

Substitute Japanese for Korea or Mainland China. The latter is risky at all times since the Chinese are ‘low class’. Korea probably would have been OK until the Taekowndo fiasco. Less risky than China though.[/quote]
I am white, from Canada, with ancestors from England and Scotland. Nevertheless, people in Taiwan have asked me if I am Indonesian (very far from a compliment, I assume). Several have asked me if I am from China; one Taiwanese friend told me people think I am Chinese because I look poor. When I lived in Korea Koreans often said I looked Japanese (very definitely not a compliment there).
I guess my point is that the average Taiwanese person has no idea what the typical French or American looks like, so take any comments about your probable ethnicity with a grain of salt.

[quote=“Charlie Jack”][quote=“Yes”][quote=“the chief”][quote=“urodacus”]Take it as flattering, because that’s the bet you’ll get. And calling you French instead of American: that’s a HUGE compliment. For the rest of us, we’re ALL MeiGuoRen. All the time, even when we’re not from America at all.

Anyway, how can we make a valid judgement without pictures?

Oh, and welcome to forumosa. You’ll soon get the hang of insults if you wait around here long enough.

Yes, she’s a good poster, Doc.[/quote]

You’re BOTH right, why, she’s a heck of a poster.

I wonder if she’s trying to say in some Roundabout way, and forgive me if I’m kind of Close to the Edge here, or you think maybe she’s kind of Fragile, that she’s the Owner of a Lonely Heart?
Sorry for the Drama.

Ah, I feel much better now.[/quote]

I’m afraid this all went a bit over my head…

That whole conversation about good poster, insults, whatever, confused me terribly so I will just say thank you if those were real compliments, and ignore them if they weren’t.[/quote]

Yes is the name of a British rock group that flourished in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. “Roundabout,” “Close to the Edge,”, and “Owner of a Lonely Heart” were three of their songs. Fragile and Drama were albums of theirs.

“Calling you French is a HUGE compliment,” etc., refers to the tendency to assume a foreigner is an American. Urodacus is Australian, so I imagine he has encountered that sort of thing a lot.

The comment about “pictures” and “a valid judgment” was light-hearted teasing, in reference to Taiwanese remarking how pretty you are.

“You’ll soon get the hang of insults if you wait around here long enough” means we sometimes say unpleasant things to each other here on the board.

They were just kidding around.[/quote]

Nicely done, Chuck. :bravo:
I’ll talk to Mr. Man and Señor Huevo about getting you a nice Forumosa blazer for when you give the new guys the tour.
Like Babs.

Or is it Mandy?
I can never keep them straight.

[quote=“the chief”][quote=“Feiren”]
French are pretty much the highest class of foreigners around…[/quote]

Fuck me, if that ain’t the mark of a sick culture, I don’t know what is…

Jesus! Don’t tell my wife! She had to pay very nearly NT$7,500 to get hitched to me.[/quote]

The last few years every time Mrs. the chief gives me a hard time, I threaten to call her Pa in Jiayi and tell him I want my 10 goats back.

She still doesn’t get it.[/quote]
Thank you so much for this one, it just made my day.
I hope you don’t mind but I might actually borrow it, just have to substitute Jiayi.

It’s not so crazy when you consider how many of the South-East Asian women came to be married to Taiwanese men. The men have to pay a brokerage fee. Once, my husband had a guy guess how much I cost. Guy said, $150,000. Husband asked me to look for NZ friends who would like to get married here, and did ask around when we went home. I think he briefly saw a business opportunity.

People also note how smart my husband is, to get a free English teacher for his kids; think of all that tuition you wll save! Thing is, husband now realises it would have been cheaper to pay for classes than for our tickets home every year. I feel his pain.

It’s not all about him, though. People are really thoughtful, in awe that I would put myself through “the struggles to be a woman/daughterinlaw in a Taiwanese family.” I dare not tell them how much the opposite of that idea my life is.

I get this all the time and it drives me nuts. One such memorable conversation, on a bad day:
Him: Do you surf in the winter?
Me: Yes, a couple of times a week.
Him: But the waves are larger in the winter. It is too dangerous for you to surf.
Me: If it’s dangerous, I don’t go out, but the waves are rarely that big.
Him: But it is too cold to surf in the winter.
Me: Well, I wear a wetsuit, and if it’s really cold, a hood for my head and booties for my feet.
Him: But even with a wetsuit, it is too cold-
Me: Look, dude, do you think I’m lying to you?
Him: uh…
Me: If you respond to something I say with “but” and a reason why what I said can’t be true, it sounds like you think I’m lying to you.
Him: No it doesn’t.
Me: Yes it does. To a native English speaker, that’s how it sounds.
Him: No it doesn’t.
He’s an English teacher at my school, and his English is really advanced, but I have a feeling this style of conversation must be acceptable in Chinese and he’s just carrying it over. Another fav quote from said guy, when I was trying to scoot my scooter to get it out of a crowded parking lot-
“You cannot move the scooter. You lack the strength, because you are a woman.”
I about showed him how much strength a woman can have right there. :smiley: One of these days, that man’s going to get hurt.

Anyways to the OP, I get that stuff a lot too. Usually pretend I don’t understand. Thing is, I don’t think they actually think I’m “Piaow Leeang”, I think that’s just what they say to any youngish, blue-eyed foreigner. The fact that their compliments are invariably followed by asking how old I am doesn’t help. :eh:

Oh n once I asked my students to tell me the stereotypes they held about foreigners from different places- Australia, England, America, etc. They said we’re all the same, and when pressed, for American, the described my personality, and for British, that of my British co-worker. I think we really are mostly all the same to them, except maybe American because of the hollywood influence.

I get this all the time and it drives me nuts. One such memorable conversation, on a bad day:
Him: Do you surf in the winter?
Me: Yes, a couple of times a week.
Him: But the waves are larger in the winter. It is too dangerous for you to surf.
Me: If it’s dangerous, I don’t go out, but the waves are rarely that big.
Him: But it is too cold to surf in the winter.
Me: Well, I wear a wetsuit, and if it’s really cold, a hood for my head and booties for my feet.
Him: But even with a wetsuit, it is too cold-
Me: Look, dude, do you think I’m lying to you?
Him: uh…
Me: If you respond to something I say with “but” and a reason why what I said can’t be true, it sounds like you think I’m lying to you.
Him: No it doesn’t.
Me: Yes it does. To a native English speaker, that’s how it sounds.
Him: No it doesn’t.
He’s an English teacher at my school, and his English is really advanced, but I have a feeling this style of conversation must be acceptable in Chinese and he’s just carrying it over. Another fav quote from said guy, when I was trying to scoot my scooter to get it out of a crowded parking lot-
“You cannot move the scooter. You lack the strength, because you are a woman.”
I about showed him how much strength a woman can have right there. :smiley: One of these days, that man’s going to get hurt.

Anyways to the OP, I get that stuff a lot too. Usually pretend I don’t understand. Thing is, I don’t think they actually think I’m “Piaow Leeang”, I think that’s just what they say to any youngish, blue-eyed foreigner. The fact that their compliments are invariably followed by asking how old I am doesn’t help. :eh:

Oh n once I asked my students to tell me the stereotypes they held about foreigners from different places- Australia, England, America, etc. They said we’re all the same, and when pressed, for American, the described my personality, and for British, that of my British co-worker. I think we really are mostly all the same to them, except maybe American because of the Hollywood influence.[/quote]

I been out of that loop for a while now, it would be nice if it were no longer conventional wisdom that all Western women are inveterate nymphomaniac sluts who fuck like most people breathe.
'Cause it sure used to be.

Nope, I still get told: Oh, you Westerner’s are more ‘open’, right? knowing look

Still trying to find an appropriate answer. I think the next one will be ‘Well, we stop being scared of the opposite sex when we’re around 10, but we don’t go around fucking everybody, no.’