Normal or not aside…
It seems pretty obvious you did not enjoy this whole experience. It’s probably a bad match for you.
Sorry buddy, that was expensive.
As consolation there’s a gender pay-gap so you’re coming out on top in the end
/s
In Taiwan, the man is expected to pay for the first date, so it’s possible she expected you to pay as a matter of course and wasn’t necessarily gold digging. That said, for this reason, I wouldn’t agree to go to such an expensive restaurant for the first date.
Also, although I always go into the first date expecting to pay, I always watch their reaction. If they don’t at least put up a pretence of offering to pay for their half, then I won’t see them again. Most girls I’ve dated seem to genuinely want to pay their half. But I’ve never dated a stereotypically “hot” Taiwanese girl who gets tons of male attention.
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This is your fault. Never pick a place like that for the first date. Somewhere like this should be for date 2-3 when getting laid is a possibility.
Let’s hope your Dr. friend doesn’t “forget” to scrub up when prepping for surgery.
It’s fine guys, one of the things I will be taking back to the Board is that differences in culture and expectations in TW vs. the West means we need to be explicit and mention everything in contracts with the Taiwanese moving forwards. If this NT$5000 lesson saves the company from losing money then it is a lesson well spent.
While I was here I networked with some people from the expat business community and it probably deserves another thread, but they said to proceed with the Taiwanese with zero trust which means things like payment before delivery and to have contracts for everything.
Basically don’t let Taiwanese “politeness” fool you into a false sense of security that they are fundamentally nice people.
Someone else told me (can anyone confirm?) that the ability to legally cheat someone - e.g. an unbalanced contract the other party signed up on naively - is viewed as business cunning and acumen which is not necessarily a bad thing in the local culture.
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I read a book called Mr. China once. I think that many of the themes are relevant in Taiwan.
Sneaky + cunning = smart
Disclaimer: I am not a businessman, but I have seen this in the way bosses treat workers, landlords treat tenants and especially with the issues my wife’s family’s company had.
Hmmm. No, not really. A lot of Westerners seem to perpetuate this trope of “cunning Chinese”, but I’ve not seen much evidence of it. There is some truth in what you’ve said here, but there’s considerable subtlety that must be understood.
You need to do that in any contract. Not merely in case of litigation, but simply to establish expectations on both sides. Any contract that doesn’t precisely spell out what is supposed to happen is a bad contract.
In my experience it is not true that Taiwanese people are less direct than their Western equivalents. They’ll often be entirely clear about their position or intent. You just have to be aware that they’ll express it slightly differently - for example, by describing something as “difficult”, or ignoring some specific request.
No. Trust is as important in Taiwanese society as in any other functioning society. Business partners who cannot trust each other will not do business for very long. Are there untrustworthy individuals or companies? Yes, of course, same as anywhere else. Avoid them and go do business with people you can trust.
If you give the impression that you do not trust your clients or customers, they will pick up on this and be wary of you. They may well think that you are planning to cheat them. The overall experience will be ruined.
Of course, “Trust, but verify” applies here. Don’t extend credit to people who haven’t earned it yet - same as you’d do in any other country.
This would hardly be unique to Taiwan, would it? Businessmen all over the world - that is, businessmen with poor business skills - sometimes take this attitude. It simply doesn’t work. People who act like this get a bad reputation and go out of business. OTOH, there is a small grain of truth in this claim - it’s just rather more subtle and complicated than you’ve expressed it here. Perhaps it would be true to say that Taiwanese people are more likely to exploit power imbalances, but that tends to manifest itself in employer-employee or tenant-landlord relationships. It rarely appears in business deals because no such power imbalance exists. It is unusual to find someone trying to (say) wriggle out of payment for something, partly because it’s obviously going to jeopardize future deals (Taiwanese people understand the value of long-term business relationships), but also because behaving that way results in a loss of face. “Face”, in fact, can make things better as often as it can make things worse (which is why it has continued to exist). You just have to have some awareness how it works.
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Who asked for the date in the first place? Was it you or was it her?
If it was you, I’d say her reaction to not pay is totally acceptable. If it was her, it was weird she was expecting you to pay and didn’t even made a gesture to pay.
So its like the last minute of this video (a bit of humor , as Conan avoids the food bill )
[Conan & Deon Cole’s Soul Food Adventure | CONAN on TBS (youtube.com)]
It’s probably the same to her, not a good match, and she did not want to pay anything because she did not want to see him again, and did not care.
Weird logic.
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No. I totally agree with @RickRooney
Most Taiwanese are very calculating. It’s in their gene.
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Been on many dates and girls always offer to pay half. It might be because I’ve never used dating apps. I had a good friend many years ago who admitted to me that she used them to get free meals and swore off them.
OP was shown all the signs, he’s just either not familiar enough with the culture (of men paying) or possibly too ignorant (he’s still blaming others even though he was the one at fault)
The signs: She said she was a doctor, whether she is a real one or not doesn’t matter, doctor means you are high status in Taiwan.
She wore a fancy dress: This means she’s tarting herself up to be treated to a meal by a man. Would an easy going woman do this on a date? No. Only a certain type… which would be avoided by most on this forum i’m sure.
She literally showed him the restaurant and he saw how expensive it is, and still for some reason assumed she was going to be paying half. This was the biggest sign really. Who asks to go to a $5000 ntd restaurant on the first date? should have been a clear red flag.
I don’t think there was anything sneaky going on here.
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I would have gone to a coffee shop and found out she is a gold digger by having her talk for 70% of the time (and hearing her reaction to the choice of date), in the one hour we would be there.
Had she mentioned the restaurant when arranging a date, I would have said, ‘You want to take me out to a restaurant?’ Depending on her response, I would have said, ‘We can talk about that on our first date, at X coffee shop’.
I would never ask for any money on a date where I asked the woman out.
It is not a good look. Plus, if she offers to pay half, I would refuse.
If she insists to the point where it would be awkward to refuse going dutch, there is a chance she won’t be returning your calls, or messages again.
Have you heard from her since the date?
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yeah, this. It’s hard to explain why, but for the first date, the man pays. Which (as someone mentioned back there) is precisely why it needs to be cheap(ish), otherwise it looks transactional.
I guess “the man pays”, with a token sum of money, is a sort of modern symbolic ritual. He’s proving that he actually has a job and can afford to buy entertainment. And perhaps because it’s a ritual, the way he makes the payment is more important than the amount involved. It’d be a bad look, for example, if you have to scrabble around in your coin purse, or pay with bad grace.
Well, I just think she is just trying to “size up your wallet.” I think is good to just make it clear what each other can afford…or wants to spend on romance.
I remember going to a party in Singapore where two women shot alot of questions my way. All related to my financial status. Are you an expat? What company? Housing provided? Car provided? Club membership? I should have just gave them my HR department’s email so they can try to get into all the details.
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5000 without a shag is very pricey.
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It depends.
Well established guys won’t mind the 5000 (USD155) meal. Good looking guys don’t even need to eat at fancy restaurants to get laid because ladies would just line up at the gym to get his LINE.
The idea is to pay them to go away after the contract .