Taiwan: Extroverted People, Introverted Society. Future?

The other thing I have noticed is the very high incidence of really eccentric behaviour bordering on mental illness. Part of my job involves dealing with between 150 and 200 new students from elementary schools all over our county every week, so I see a fair cross-section (at least of Taoyuan County). Leaving aside the fact that eleven year old kids can be a bit excitable, and leaving out the kids who seem to have fairly obvious conditions (kids who might not be so integrated into Western schools, such as those with cerebral palsy), there’s just a lot of really, really bizarre behaviour that baffles me. For instance, I had a kid once whose name was Dog (best names so far: Johnson Wang, Alien, Nike, Reebok). Then, this kid actually started crawling around on the floor with his tongue out panting. At first, I thought he was just being silly, but this went on and on. There’s crazy stuff like that all the time here. One of my colleagues had a regular junior high school student who would go from being virtually catatonic in the corner to getting so excited he threw up on himself once. I dealt with this kid once, and it was a very, very strange situation.

The kids I dealt with in the West who acted out usually acted out in fairly predictable ways (ie. being very violent or abusive) and a lot of that could be put down to growing up in households where they were obviously modelling such behaviour. I’ve encountered that too here to a minor extent, but there’s the whole above class of really weird kids whose parents are probably considered to be model worker bees in public and I can’t help feeling that these kids are so weird because their parents (and ultimately, Taiwanese society) are so weird too.

To be fair, I don’t values are really taught in the United States school system either. One of the things my dad was lamenting about one day while he was giving me one of his lectures is how when he was going to school in Taiwan as a child they were taught moral values and that it was considered normal to do so while in America it was up to the families and churches to teach values.

As for social skills, they aren’t formally taught in America but I do think the very nature of American schools make it so you pretty much have to learn how to socially deal with your peers or end up being ostracized. In Taiwanese schools, (I’ve only went to preschool in Taiwan so I’m not speaking from first hand experience) I’m guessing everything is more built on regime and order so you basically just have to obey orders to get through.

Ha! Ha! Ha! You’ve obviously never been to New Zealand! It’s common knowledge that the average Kiwi is the nicest, most welcoming, friendly and helpful human you could meet - until you put them behind the wheel of a car. Then they turn into raving psycopaths intent on breaking speed records regardless of how many cars they hit, how many red lights they run and how many pedestrians they mow down in the process…it is Jekyll & Hyde to a T.
But otherwise, they are lovely, friendly, down-to-earth people who go out of their way to help you and are very welcoming to foreigners…so no, I don’t think the way they drive necessarily tells you anything about a person! :slight_smile:

I would say values aren’t really taught in the Australian education system, at least not the government system. That in itself wouldn’t be such a problem if it weren’t for so many derelict parents. I won’t ever go back to teaching there. There are enough kids who are little rotters that they make it really difficult for anyone else to get anything done. I suspect Australian society is becoming a nastier one. The private school system is different. I found kids there to be far more civilized. There it’s a combination of the parents and the schools. The schools definitely try to instill certain values into the students.

That would be surprising, if true - I’ve never met an impolite Kiwi. I guess I’ll have to go to New Zealand to find out.

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Who wrote that crap?

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Funny when you look back eh? I’ve definitely had a few cringe moments

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Sometimes wish I could see what time a day a post occured. Maybe I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote something while sleep walking.

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Haha we’ve all done this over the years .

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They should add a time stamp

Feel like either i am a freak or Taiwanese really dont do small talk.

Went to subway yesterday. It seems i gave the guy the wrong money, then he made a mistake after that. I said ‘mei guan xi wo men dou cuo le’
Silence.

Today i bought a t shirt in H n M. The guy asked did you try it on. Its hot AF and half of my current T-shirt is wet from sweat(obviously so), i said no because ive been sweating. Silence again.

I guess i should have just said ‘no.’

I see this as an oxymoron

16 years later, this is not less true

The problem here is applying western standards of politeness to a culture which is inherently Chinese.

as westerners

Ayuh

Goes back to the comment about consideration for others, doesn’t it?

I find Taiwanese people pleasant enough, but quite introverted overall, and not particularly friendly

But how was he being considerate ?

He wasn’t. What I meant was going back to this:

I wouldn’t at this point expect considerate. You are thinking of other people who might want to try or buy. People who you don’t know, who aren’t even right in front of you. That does not compute.

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