20 years ago
Foreigners used to talk about or complain about almost exactly the same things. It sounds like a broken record. But things have come on a lot since then. On average western men seem to like Taiwan more than western women, in my experiences over the years. But there are of course many exceptions. The broken record comments include.
(1) Foreign men taking advantage of sweet innocent Chinese girls.(yawn)
(2) Taxi drivers and bus drivers (although in those days they would hit you with iron bars rather than their car doors).
(3) Chinese people saying one thing but meaning another.
(4) Useless cops
(5) Taiwanese not fighting fair and ganging up on foreigners, after big noses kiss innocent Chinese girls on the dance floor.
(6) Pollution
(7) Holes and bumps in the road
(8) Squatting toilets
(9) Dogs on chains (well used to be a lot of monkeys on chains and girls in cages)
(10) Backpackers on tourist visas with no degrees teaching English in high schools. (now they just do that in Global village)
(11) No large condoms
However things that have improved include
MRT, telephones that can call abroad, cash machines (used to be non-existent), internet accesss,
more human and workers rights, child protection (particularly reducing child sex slavery), language rights (used to be illegal to officially teach the Taiwanese language or for hill tribes to have non-Chinese names), immigration rights, democracy, environmental protection and the list could go on and on. Lots of improvements. Oh and the high speed train. That is impressive. Becoming almost a normal place to live. Things are changing fast and generally for the better.
The Taiwanese used to have girls in cages? Just like in my homeland of Kazahkstan?
Yes they did, (girls in cages) right in Taipei city. Mainly in the Wen Hua area. Along with exotic animals. I knew a couple of people that even had tigers chained up in the mountains. Probably ate them or had them for status. All of this I saw personally.
There is even a picture in Time or some mag like that, of a tiger chained up on its back in the middle of a high street with crowds of people watching. They then alledgedly cut out its heart while alive and most of the crowd then bought soup etc made from it.
Yeah so things have improved A LOT in thirty years.
Was this like Scooter Libby’s novel about life in Japan – where girls were kept in cages with amorous bears to train them for prostitution? Or was the cage to protect them from the foreigners outside the cages?
Well it was a Japanese colony many years ago and the girls were catering to Japanese and Taiwanese clients etc.
Never saw any bears though. And the orangutans were in different cages!
p.s.
I just looked up who scooter libby is on the google. Never heard of him before. hmmm bizare! Weird stuff.
[quote=“fenlander”]20 years ago
Foreigners used to talk about or complain about almost exactly the same things. It sounds like a broken record. But things have come on a lot since then. On average western men seem to like Taiwan more than western women, in my experiences over the years. But there are of course many exceptions. The broken record comments include.
(1) Foreign men taking advantage of sweet innocent Chinese girls.(yawn)
(2) Taxi drivers and bus drivers (although in those days they would hit you with iron bars rather than their car doors).
(3) Chinese people saying one thing but meaning another.
(4) Useless cops
(5) Taiwanese not fighting fair and ganging up on foreigners, after big noses kiss innocent Chinese girls on the dance floor.
(6) Pollution
(7) Holes and bumps in the road
(8) Squatting toilets
(9) Dogs on chains (well used to be a lot of monkeys on chains and girls in cages)
(10) Backpackers on tourist visas with no degrees teaching English in high schools. (now they just do that in Global village)
(11) No large condoms
However things that have improved include
MRT, telephones that can call abroad, cash machines (used to be non-existent), internet accesss,
more human and workers rights, child protection (particularly reducing child sex slavery), language rights (used to be illegal to officially teach the Taiwanese language or for hill tribes to have non-Chinese names), immigration rights, democracy, environmental protection and the list could go on and on. Lots of improvements. Oh and the high speed train. That is impressive. Becoming almost a normal place to live. Things are changing fast and generally for the better.[/quote]
Ahhh…the good ole days when 120 TWD per day was living well…Mr. Brown was the only coffee…there were only 2 mcdonalds in all of taiwan…kirby’s had cheap beer…the ‘combat’ zone really was one…you had to stand at movie theaters for the national anthem…sigh
[quote=“Elegua”][quote=“fenlander”]20 years ago
Foreigners used to talk about or complain about almost exactly the same things. It sounds like a broken record. But things have come on a lot since then. On average western men seem to like Taiwan more than western women, in my experiences over the years. But there are of course many exceptions. The broken record comments include.
(1) Foreign men taking advantage of sweet innocent Chinese girls.(yawn)
(2) Taxi drivers and bus drivers (although in those days they would hit you with iron bars rather than their car doors).
(3) Chinese people saying one thing but meaning another.
(4) Useless cops
(5) Taiwanese not fighting fair and ganging up on foreigners, after big noses kiss innocent Chinese girls on the dance floor.
(6) Pollution
(7) Holes and bumps in the road
(8) Squatting toilets
(9) Dogs on chains (well used to be a lot of monkeys on chains and girls in cages)
(10) Backpackers on tourist visas with no degrees teaching English in high schools. (now they just do that in Global village)
(11) No large condoms
However things that have improved include
MRT, telephones that can call abroad, cash machines (used to be non-existent), internet accesss,
more human and workers rights, child protection (particularly reducing child sex slavery), language rights (used to be illegal to officially teach the Taiwanese language or for hill tribes to have non-Chinese names), immigration rights, democracy, environmental protection and the list could go on and on. Lots of improvements. Oh and the high speed train. That is impressive. Becoming almost a normal place to live. Things are changing fast and generally for the better.[/quote]
Ahhh…the good ole days when 120 TWD per day was living well…Mr. Brown was the only coffee…there were only 2 mcdonalds in all of Taiwan…kirby’s had cheap beer…the ‘combat’ zone really was one…you had to stand at movie theaters for the national anthem…sigh[/quote]
I had forgotten about the standing for the national anthem. Yeah it was always a difficult choice. Stand up or fight/argue with irate locals (always a bad idea especially in those days).
Mc Donalds on Nanking and Linsen was one of the first I believe. Chinese used to go in buy a coke and eat their noodles. lol It was cool for them to be seen with a Mc Donalds bag etc
And of course MTV’s!
Anyways enough about the old days or I will be guilty of getting the needle stuck on the record.
This is the truth…
If Taiwanese boys want to spend all night trading fish on World of Warcraft then they can’t complain if other dick carriers have a crack at the local women.
If Taxi drivers didn’t insist on being racist we wouldn’t say a word. If bus drivers didn’t insist on being racist AND dangerous we wouldn’t say a word.
quote Chinese people saying one thing but meaning another.[/quote] Well, d’uh. That’s never gonna stop.
quote Useless cops[/quote] Yeah, the cops are trash.
quote Taiwanese not fighting fair and ganging up on foreigners, after big noses kiss innocent Chinese girls on the dance floor.[/quote] They just got out of the internet cafe and think you are trying to steal their fish.
quote Pollution[/quote] Pollution in Taiwan is attrocious, whichever way you argue it.
quote Holes and bumps in the road[/quote] Universal.
quote Squatting toilets[/quote] Better than in Japan, and Japan enjoys first world status.
quote Dogs on chains (well used to be a lot of monkeys on chains and girls in cages)[/quote] They should buy soft leads for their dogs to choke themselves on.
quote Backpackers on tourist visas with no degrees teaching English in high schools. (now they just do that in Global village)[/quote] Go for it. The loud voice drowns out the sensible voice. Bosses actively seek the underqualified. The underqualified attack the qualified and call them arseholes.
quote No large condoms[/quote] Take the sock off, THEN stick the durex on.