I live in Taichung, not too many foreigners beyond SE Asians and mainland Chinese knocking about. Same in most cities/towns outside Taipei. Even Taipei really doesn’t have many, they just stick out like sore thumbs.
There are more long-term Westerners married here with families as it fairly cheap, safe and easy to bring up a family and the environment improves slowly but surely along with the working visa getting more flexible . Before people used to get married and go back to their home countries, now a lot of folks stick around. Quite a few want their kids to learn Chinese and know more about Taiwan and Asia, it’s quite a different attitude than before. There are certainly less business people here than 10 years ago but maybe the trend has stabilised now of people leaving for China.
No way can that be true!
[quote=“pqkdzrwt”][quote=“urodacus”]
during the sydney olympics (2000) scores of yanks were getting off the plane at vienna airport and asking for directions to Homebush Bay (main Olympic Venue) or to their (Sydney) hotel.
[/quote]
No way can that be true![/quote]
You are quite right. They weren’t asking. They were demanding. With their noses in the air. And threatening dire retribution if Sydney and Vienna were not juxtaposed RIGHT DAMN QUICK!
[quote=“Quentin”]I thought everybody in Australia was an illegal from the UK.
[/quote]
You thought? Well you’d better do some reading then!
Assume that the Aboriginals were in charge of their land when we first starting arriving in Australia, and exchange ‘the UK’ with ‘various countries’, and he’s actually pretty accurate…
That’s what having no immigration control will get you! 
What rot. I don’t believe that.
What rot. I don’t believe that.[/quote]
But it would be hilarious if it were true! (:
That’s what having no immigration control will get you! [/quote]
It has nothing to do with immigration control… its more like forced entry. No amount of immigration control will stop that.
What rot. I don’t believe that.[/quote]
I do so want to believe it though. It would be SO awesome if that were true.
As for the Australian Border Control, I reckon if the Aboriginals were a bit more of a developed society with an army etc. at the time, then border control/immigration control would definitely have helped the situation there… Unfortunately, they never had a need to adapt their society at large until we got there.
That’s what having no immigration control will get you! [/quote]
It has nothing to do with immigration control… its more like forced entry. No amount of immigration control will stop that.[/quote]
sigh
I guess I should have used this 
instead of this …
Children are thick. Why else would they have to go to school every day?[/quote]
Er…I have to go to school every day. 
Weekends often too. That must make me even thicker. 
[quote=“pqkdzrwt”][quote=“urodacus”]
during the sydney olympics (2000) scores of yanks were getting off the plane at vienna airport and asking for directions to Homebush Bay (main Olympic Venue) or to their (Sydney) hotel.
[/quote]
No way can that be true![/quote]
The private university I pretend to teach at has exchange student schemes with various overseas institutions, including one in Austria. For my sins I often have to interview would-be Taiwanese student candidates, (in English, natch) as part of the selection process.
They regularly refer to it as Australia, an understandable slip of the tongue, but when I first started, a couple of candidates actually thought they were going to Oz, and started talking about kangaroos and stuff.
I dont know how this happened, since I’m told the Chinese characters are quite different, but I shit you not.
(I’d guess it’d be a no-brain web-recitation, which isn’t exactly uncommon)
In one of my so-called advanced classes today, I had groups of things and the students had to tell me what the common thread was. One had: England, the U.S.A., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The two students were baffled. So, I pulled out Taiwan and China from the group “Asian countries” and asked them what the common thread was. They told me they were both Asian countries. So I pulled out Japan and asked them why although Japan, Taiwan and China were all Asian countries, China and Taiwan were closer. Then I did it with Indonesia, China and Taiwan, and then Thailand, China and Taiwan. One of them told me Taiwan and China both speak Chinese. I thought they were onto it, so I asked them about the original five countries. They were still baffled. So I asked them which language people speak in England. They told me English. The same for the U.S.A., Canada and Australia. When I got to New Zealand, they were still baffled. I asked them which language they speak in New Zealand. Not only did they not know, but they could not deduce that it was English based upon my line of questioning up to that point. The mind really does boggle at times.
Are the Taiwanese as geographically challenged as the Americans? From your story it sounds a bit like it.
They’re shocking. Plenty can’t show you where half of the counties are on a Taiwanese map, and they’re bloody useless as identifying Asian countries other than Japan and China.
Worse. Last summer I gave a quiz to 20 junior high school classes (~24 students/class) and one of the questions was: “identify Africa on the map?”. Only a few per class got in right (and they all knew what Africa meant). They’re excuse was that they hadn’t learned world geography yet; they were still studying China
They’re bloody hopeless at Chinese geography too though. Very few can identify Hainan as Hainan. It’s a bloody great big island about the same size as Taiwan. Also, as I mentioned, very few can identify the counties of Taiwan.
Funny. Most of my classes love to get me to draw maps, and then ask me where Malaysia, Singapore, Africa, Saudi Arabia O.o;, America etc. is.
I guess they don’t get exposed to it much.
[quote=“Tyc00n”]You mean the registered teachers…
As a side note, the greatest number of illegals in Australia are from the UK Tomhill 
, but don’t feel bad, all the Americans are still in Austria 
[/quote]
No we aren’t!