What stereotypical responses/comments have you gotten in Taiwan based on your nationality or physical appearance?
Here’s some of what I have got :
“Where is your Taiwanese wife?”
“Oh, Pakistan!”… (Mimicking sounds of Explosions)
“Where’s your restaurant/food stand?”
“You can have many wives, right ?”
“Where is your boat?” (In 2020, during a COVID test, when a nurse assumed I was a SEA fisherman)
“Indoren?”
“Making Namaste sign + head bobbling” (A neighbor did that just last week)
“You look like Iran” (a lady said to me the other day LOL)
TBH, I rarely ever get upset. I usually laugh and smile and don’t take any of this personally. I don’t think it’s a big deal. Just find it amusing.
Now here’s a fun experience just from last night. I had two encounters in 10 minutes.
I was buying drinks at the night market with my family. The seller lady asked where we were from. Pakistan and Philippines, we said. The lady asks me, “Ah, where’s your restaurant?”. I told her I didn’t have one. She responded, “Oh, you look like a Pakistani cook!”. We all had a little laugh. I told her I worked in a Taiwanese company. She was shocked and then proceeded to “welcome me to Taiwan,”
Just 10 minutes later, I went to a Turkish stand to buy Shawarma. The Turkish guy was cool. He was playing Turkish music and dancing while cooking. He was even smiling and playing with my daughter. Then proceeded to ask me, “You are not working tonight?”. It was 9:00 pm at the time. I told him I only work from 8 am to 5 pm. He said he thought I also had a food stand in the night market. LOL
Maybe it’s the beard and long hair. I am getting a shave and haircut today.
As an indian i often get asked why i am not brown and why i dont have an accent, Can i have more than 1 wife? how can i work and live here., do i eat curry all the time. Is indians smelly? will they get raped if they go to india , will they die if they go to india, do all indian men cheat on women or beat women and steal money.
Not joking, i get asked these questions by all ages in taiwan and they ask with such friendly smile too like they have no idea its extremely racist
Canadian people are so friendly
To which I respond there are assholes everywhere, but historically Canadians have been friendly on average. Getting violent in the cities these days…
Are you Turkish, or Iranian?
To be fair, my face is difficult to pinpoint. I think the local aversion to south Asians and Middle Easterners, coupled with my unapproachable demeanor, means I’m mostly left alone by random locals in public. If I were blond and blue eyed, the stereotype might possibly work less in my favor.
Overall I’d say, in my experience, Taiwan is the most blase about my foreign-ness, of all the places I lived. Other places tended to be more welcoming/interested, but also more xenophobic/dangerous. I don’t worry much about strangers targeting me for violence here but I don’t expect to be invited for dinner either.
Basically most taiwanese hasn’t really seen much outside of Taiwan so they tend to parrot whatever they hear from the news. Don’t take it too personally…
I thought taiwanese travel abroad all the time. I still haven’t met any taiwanese who haven’t been to any western country yet.
I know many would say traveling doesn’t mean ur mind is unlocked but it still should make people more aware of what’s happening outside their shell.
You must live in Taipei. Most Taiwanese I know here in Kaohsiung have only travelled to Japan, Korea, and Hong Kong. Perhaps also the Philippines and Thailand (as part of a tour group) if they’re the more adventurous type.
But you have to realize whenever they’re traveling to some western country they’re doing it as a part of some tour group, and are often rushed from place to place due to the little vacation they get. So they might be there a week at most.
It means they’re completely insulated from their social or economic situation and so they’re not learning a whole lot about those countries.
Basically many of them thinks that western countries all have it easier and that there are generous social welfare.
They don’t see all the poverty or realize how close most Americans are to ending up on the street for example.
but that’s about it. Never felt even the slightest of negative attitudes.
