It doesn’t sound as if he is trying to share information about something and then allowing you to make up your own mind. It does sound like he thinks that he is entitled to brow beat you into doing what he thinks you should do regardless of what you think. That makes him a control freak in any language. I would be very careful if I were you. Control freaks have no real respect and do not change without some really serious effort on their part. I should know. I have been one most of my life.
You all so might want to remind him of where most people picked up sars last year.
I had the same battle last year with my gf. Had a high temperature and just wanted a hot toddy, a couple of paracetamol and my bed. After much nagging I gave up and agreed to see the doc. ‘You have a cold’ he says’, ‘no shit Sherlock!’ i think. Then he says ‘do you want an injection’ and by this stage I cannot be bothered to argue anymore so I went ahead and had it. Saline or glucose solution I expect. Then the usual smarties from the pharmacy. Anyway I think I have now managed to convince the gf of the ridiculousness of it all.
I also managed to get a case of the runs the first time I met my ‘in-laws’. I was in and out of their bathroom every 20mins or so on the Saturday night and they were trying to drag me to the doctors. As the old drug campaign used to say ‘just say no’.
One of my co-teachers recently had a cold and got the smarty bags from her doctor. The packaging had a picture of mickey mouse on it - says it all really.
my advice, after years of cross cultural give and take, is this: you have to choose your battles.
in my mind, this falls into the category of battles where you put your foot down and say, fork off. i’ll go to the doctor when i’m good and ready and not until then.
the reason i put it into this category is this: presumably 
you are a responsible adult fully capable of making decisions about your own health. implications to the contrary are insulting, and if allowed to grow and fester, may actually prove damaging to your mental health.
better a few occasional arguments than slow festering explosions at some later date.
When I first got married my mother in law took it upon herself to try and tell me how and when to do just about everything. She tried to teach me how to use chopsticks (this really suprised me as I had not eaten with a knife and fork in years), when to go swimming, how to look for work, what to charge etc. And I have an agent who behaves in a somewhat similar manner. She will tell me that I need to get up earlier and deliberately arrange classes in the morning so that I need to do just that. Sometimes you will run into the odd stranger here who seems to think that he knows exactly what you should do in a given situation. Towards all of these people I have adopted a policy of complete passive resistence.
I don’t get mad. I don’t scream and shout. But when my agent thinks that she can choose material for my classes I tell her that I won’t teach it because it is stupid material. When my mother in law warns me that there is a typhoon approaching, I pack my bathing suit and head for the beach. There is no doubt in my mind that I am handling this correctly. Control freaks will control you until you refuse to be controlled any longer.
Tell him you don’t need medicine–you practice Falungong.
When your cold goes away, be sure to point out how Falungong cured you.
Whenever he nags, bring up Falungong. Nag back!
On the off-chance that he already believes in Falungong, say Mormonism instead. (Mormon gong?) Tell him they’ve got a secret ritual against colds.
… my TWN wife always says “don’t you trust Taiwan doctor?” What can I do when you are seriously ill and you do not trust Taiwan medicine? How can I take my resposibility for you? Just believe 100% in doctors and follow every word, our medicine is 5000 years old bla bla bla bla
She usually gets me to the doc who usually wants to operate (i.e. give me deeper voice to sound like John Wayne by injecting stuff in my vocal cords - I refused this doc who only giggled at me) and then I refuse and she nags me for weeks and weeks and weeks and I hear the bloody 5000 every hour of the day. I think tomorrow is our next useless hospital session. The doc mistaked some skin alergy for a skin disease which he wants to cut away 
I can’t stand anyone trying to control me like that, and I would never dream of doing likewise to anyone else. I do things the way that’s right for me, and let others do things the way that’s right for them. If I’m not sure what’s the right thing to do, I’ll ask someone about it, weigh their advice, and follow it if it sounds good – but I certainly don’t appreciate other people trying to browbeat me into doing anything that I don’t feel is appropriate.
Going to the doctor to get treatment for a common cold is crass idiocy and an inexcusable waste of medical resources. Although a Taiwanese may be forgiven for never having looked at it in that light, if they still fail to grasp it after it’s been explained to them clearly, then they are too stupid to be worth knowing and far too stupid to be worth keeping as a boyfriend or girlfriend.
Taiwanese can, apparently, be made to understand this: I never get pressed to go and see a doctor by the wife, in-laws, colleagues or anyone else when I have a cold or other minor ailment. I haven’t been to see any doctor in more than four years, and am sure I’m much the healthier for it.
He’s a control freak. And a hypochondriac too by the sounds of it. Imagine having an argument over whether or not to see a doctor about a cold. Doesn’t sound like much fun. Dump him.
Stated with eloquence.
I’ve never had to deal with too much “you’ve absolutely gotta go to the doctor” bullshit. With six daughter living at home, it seems like the coffee table at my in-laws always has at least a couple of sacks of medicine on it. My wife’s parents harass their daughters if they even sneeze, but they leave me and my wife alone. The reason is that my wife has hated doctors since childhood. She also hates taking any sort of medicine, not because she has the typical Chinese attitude that medicine is dangerous unless taken under the close supervision of a doctor, but because she thinks medicine is for “fucking sissies” (her words). She estimates that from her teenage years until her mid twenties, she only went to the doctor once a year, and that was mostly just for check-ups. She has always been athletic and stays in good shape. The only time she’ll go to the doctor without having her arm twisted is when she needs to get a check-up before getting more birth control pills.
We had to stay with her family for about a month last year. Both my wife and I came down with the flu during that month. The harrassment from her parents was way too much. After it was clear to my wife’s parents that there was no way in hell that they could get her to go to the doctor, they turned to me and started telling me what a bad husband I was for not making my wife go to a clinic (for the flu, of all things). Finally, my wife said that if they didn’t shut up with the doctor talk, we would just go stay in a hotel.
In the interest of equal time I think it should be pointed out that Taiwanese are not always wrong. Those shots that you get when you go to the doctor with the flu have a way of knocking you out for awhile so that you get the rest you need. Personally I quite enjoy them. It’s just having someone telling me how to live my life that I object to.
[quote=“bob”]Sometimes you will run into the odd stranger here who seems to think that he knows exactly what you should do in a given situation. Towards all of these people I have adopted a policy of complete passive resistence.
I don’t get mad. I don’t scream and shout. But when my agent thinks that she can choose material for my classes I tell her that I won’t teach it because it is stupid material. When my mother in law warns me that there is a typhoon approaching, I pack my bathing suit and head for the beach. [/quote]
Resistentialism - The spiteful behaviour of inanimate objects.
OK, I know that you are not an inanimate object, bob. But, your statements above make me think of you now as a type of resistentialist… 
Resitentialist. Hmm I like that. Perhaps that will be my new nick name.
Isn’t this sometimes euphemistically called “the path of least resistance”? 
I think here it is the way of the the tender bamboo shoot or something. Swaying in the breeze yet not being uprooted and all that. Maybe I will come back as grasshopper instead.
I think the bf is very nice. But you are an adult so he should leave things alone if you insisted.
I’m amazed by the number of people here saying stuff like “the guy’s a controlling arsehole - the sooner you get rid of him the better”. And you’re all making this judgement on the information from a single Internet post! 
Brian
And what possibly could be the harm in saying, “yes, dear, I will go tomorrow.” Then when he asked the next day if you saw the doctor saying, “yes, dear, he said not to worry. everything will be fine.” Naturally, for those of you who missed it, you don’t really have to go to the doctor.
Works for me every time. 
Well, we can safely assume that a relatiely large proportion of men here are a bit more conservative in many respects than western men… Therefore, you as a woman is someone needing some kind of protection against the world and in this case your own silliness… All he’s doing is to take care of you, since you are demonstrating that this is beyond your abilities… And no, don’t talk about that you can take care of yourself… We know you can, he knows you can’t. Discussion over.
Telling him to shut up will not work… Be Chinese and do as Vannyel.
bababa,
Why on earth would you go out with a gobbing, hydrochondriac Taiwanese when there are so many available stallions out there, like me, for example?
Sounds like this guy is immature.
On the other side of the coin, you should have just gone to the fucking hospital and got a fistful of meds just to shut this guy up. The fee is only about NT$200.
I am curious whether or not he tries to tell you how to live your life generally or only with regard to this isssue.