I was doing a Technorati search for a subject I’m researching today and before signing off, entered “Forumosa” into the search engine. The second link that appeared was to a post in a Windows Live Spaces blog written largely in Mandarin. Here is the link: http://hsnu12118.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!502C7586FD7D794B!463.entry
Here is an excerpt:
[quote]Foreigner how to feel about Taiwanese girls
如果你上過Forumosa,看過一些討論串,
If you have been on Forumosa and seen some of the discussion threads, you will get the impression that many foreign men in Taiwan look down on Taiwanese women. Sure, you will sometimes see a voice of reason saying that Taiwanese women are just like women all over the the world, i.e. not so different. Still, I spent a half day reading various threads on the site, and came to the overall conclusion that most of the posters cast aspersions at Taiwanese women, with very few of them mentioning anything positive. [/i]
The post goes on to mention some specific criticisms of Taiwanese women that many posters harp on.
While I do not share this blogger’s opinion that the majority of posters look down on Taiwanese women, I can’t say I blame her for coming to the conclusion that there is a lot of negativity on this site, and for feeling offended by it. Lots of personal baggage being aired out in public on this site, often in an aggressive manner. Does anonymity obviate civility?
I personally find it very hard to care what that person thinks. Reading the excerpt-- in Chinese and the translation–I think this person came away from his F.com experience confirming, in his own mind, pre existing stereotypes and prejudices (ie foreign males come here to screw local women and take advantage of them whilst looking down on them as inferior). I think he came here expecting to read threads that put down local women and chose a reading of the threads he viewed here that would satisfy his expectations. Not surprisingly, I completely disagree with his take on F.com and its participants.
I don’t think we should censor ourselves just because some locals-- who probably misunderstand alot of the intentions, humour and subtle nuances of what we say and how we say it-- may not like some of what we discuss.
Well, it’s an expat site. People are going to come here and rant and that is an important safety valve for newish people to work through their culture shock and for longer-termers to work through their depressions and frustrations at being in a very different culture from their own.
Obviously, slagging off the women of a whole race of people is not cool, but confused, culture shocked people will always hit out as a way of trying to assimilate their own ‘otherness’.
The English speaking Taiwanese women I know have read forumosa and are sophisticated and intelligent enough to have figured that out. They are also not boring enough to hang around reading the anthropological minutiae of a group they don’t really have anything in common with.
There’s a lot of subtle humor and sarcasm used here that sometimes gets missed by native English speakers. For someone who has English as a 2nd/3rd language, it’d be easy to misinterpret a lot of what is said.
Hell, for some people who shall remain unnamed and are native English speakers, even they have trouble with basic reading comprehension
(on a serious note, subtle humor and sarcasm doesn’t always translate well in print ie without all the signals of body language, eye contact, rolling eyes, voice, the middle finger in your face, etc)
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised ] that you guys don’t see it, but from where I’m standing her observations are pretty accurate.
(Yes, cfimages, there’s the element of language subtleties, but only part of the posts can be explained that way.)
About the only really positive attitude about Taiwanese women on these boards is about their attractiveness. And that doesn’t count for much in my book, and I’m sure most mature, self-aware women wouldn’t find that appeasing when compared to other things that are said about them.
[quote=“tash”]I guess I shouldn’t be surprised ] that you guys don’t see it, but from where I’m standing her observations are pretty accurate.
(Yes, cfimages, there’s the element of language subtleties, but only part of the posts can be explained that way.)
About the only really positive attitude about Taiwanese women on these boards is about their attractiveness. And that doesn’t count for much in my book, and I’m sure most mature, self-aware women wouldn’t find that appeasing when compared to other things that are said about them.[/quote]
Seeing as how probably a third to half of the regular posters here are married to Chinese/Taiwanese women, the vocal minority (read: newbies, the recently dumped, the unlayable, the beatwithuglystickpeople, the angry, and transients, etc.) that have a slanted view (no pun intended) really are not representative of Forumosa.
Anyways, if Taiwanese girls/women are immature, shallow, one-dimensional, whose fault is that?
Well, what you do see here is men in their 40’s who can’t speak Chinese (either at all or beyond a basic functions level) complaining that 24 year old girls are hot but shallow and boring… Sure they are. Go figure. Do you hang around with 24 year old guys because they are really interesting people?
No insult to young women intended (or anyone who has met their equal and have an age difference). But you can’t be surprised if the locals laugh at you or accuse you of being a sex tourist. They can’t see your deep, interesting and unique soul either. Because they don’t speak much English. See how it works?
Standard White Female Expat Disclaimer* Yes I am a fat/white/bitter/crazy/old/feminist harpy/who can’t get laid. Delete as per your own prejudices.
I am off to the National Palace museum to spend time with one of the hottest girls in Taiwan. She’s going to teach me all about Song Dynasty painting.
I reckon it’s an even higher ratio, with more than half of us regular male posters married to Taiwanese women, and most very happily so.
And I’d also say it’s laowai females who are more likely then laowai males to post negative things about Taiwanese females.
But I’d bet that fleeting visitor didn’t read more than a smattering of posts, and probably just browsed through the titles and dipped into a few of the ones with more juicily provocative titles, which of course would give him/her the negatively slanted view of the flavour of this site that he/she was quite likely looking for.