Taiwanese pretending to be your friend to backstab you

I read this on another thread some years ago, which stated that Taiwanese will sometimes pretend to be your friend in order to backstab you if you’ve made them mad.

I’m interested in more information about this. Is this very common, why the evil motivations, how will they try to accomplish this, etc.

[quote=“nonredneck”]I read this on another thread some years ago, which stated that Taiwanese will sometimes pretend to be your friend in order to backstab you if you’ve made them mad.

I’m interested in more information about this. Is this very common, why the evil motivations, how will they try to accomplish this, etc.[/quote]

Quick thoughts to kick things off:

  1. This type of situation can’t be endemic and exclusive to Taiwan. Don’t even get me started on the Philippines.

  2. Having said that, from experience, it is a real thing. However, the “false friend scenario” happened to me (on several occasions) very early in my residency and lesson learned. Nowadays, even among my long-term Taiwanese friends, I keep my shit close to the vest. There are certain things I would never say or do, or let them know that I say or do in private, for the exact reason you described. But that’s just me. Again, it could happen anywhere.

  3. It seems logical to assume that as a foreigner, you have to anticipate a certain level of distrust on the surface.

  4. There are many other Flobsters who can articulate the difference between low context and high context culture.

  5. I don’t think evil is the motivation. I think insecurity and feelings of inadequacy are at play. Taiwan has that in spades.

  6. It’s most likely more prevalent in the work place. I used to have many more local friends that I hung out with on a regular basis, and I rarely noticed any kind of backstabbing activity. Of course, there was always the “Us vs. Him” dynamic. No matter how good of friends we were, I would never be one of them, and at crunch time, I’d be the first fucker thrown under the bus.

[EDIT: word redundancy]

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
Agree that it’s more common in the workplace.

I remember the first job I got in Taiwan this dude came up to me one day and started introducing himself and being real friendly. Later it transpired that it was my co-workers boyfriend and he was fearful of the (then more) handsome foreigner stealing away his girl. :loco:
I have dealt with a lot of petty jealousy , insecurity and on more rare occasions backstabbing at times at work, but the worst backstabbing I ever received was from a dickhead 1000s of mile away in Cardiff. Not Taiwanese!
So yeah welcome to the world of work always be on your guard and don’t give them ammunition to shoot you down when you are not looking :2cents:

Generally (yes …please forgive the use of generally) Taiwanese don’t make friends with people unless there is some perceived material benefit, it’s the culture here. So the backstabbing bit can simply be a result of the perceived benefit having disappeared, it may not have bee the original intention.

I’m thinking more of the cases where the sole motivation is to get revenge on you. So they eat dinner with you, try to do you favors, go places with you, find out where you live with the intention that the information will be used for revenge when they find a weakness. That seems like a lot of effort.

I did have that happen, more than once, but in work-related situations. I was relatively new and the boss was always behind it. He basically told them, “Get close to the bignose and find out if he’s a spy.” Exact words. And after the second “new friendship”, it became completely transparent every time someone tried to befriend me. And it always started out as you described. They would take me out to dinner and ask every question under the sun. All of it an attempt to get some critically sensitive information out of me that could be reported back to the boss. Then the favors, then personal intrusions… The only time it came back to bite me in the ass is when I made the gross misjudgment of getting romantically entangled with a co-worker. That shit did not end well. And those so-called “friends” were the jackals who showed up at feeding time.

On the street, however, I think you’re right, that it does seem like a lot of effort. I can’t help but wonder if it’s some kind of character flaw? Or some kind of insecurity? Like, a lot of times the girl who really likes you is the meanest, the one who treats you like shit? I just can’t imagine someone putting in the miles to develop a friendship under the aegis that it’s eventually going to turn sour. I mean, it is Taiwan. That’s definitely on the table. But as a culture? In society? Nah.

Somewhat on a tangent, after I realized that every co-worker who approached me was basically Marcus Brutus, I started feeding them completely false and misleading information, just to see how long it would take to surface. The most memorable instance was telling this chick that I had inadvertently killed a man during a fight in the mid-90s (absolutely false, although I have seen people die in person). Man, the next day the boss came in and exclaimed, “You’re a killer!?!” Good times.

Taiwanese are OK socially, if you speak Mando and have been around for long enough, you know the social cues and can decipher when people are being sincere or not.

Generally in the workplace, they are total idiots. At most levels, absolute idiots who spend working hours sabotaging you rather than doing anything productive, and then complain how overworked and underpaid they are. Generalization there, but anyway

Taiwanese culture emphasizes heavily on manners. Being polite, smiley, and helpful are the basic etiquette and while most people are genuine about helping others, I believe there are always some who wear that just to fit in to the culture. There might be a chance that different definitions of “friends” brought that conflict up.

[quote=“nonredneck”]I read this on another thread some years ago, which stated that Taiwanese will sometimes pretend to be your friend in order to backstab you if you’ve made them mad.

I’m interested in more information about this. Is this very common, why the evil motivations, how will they try to accomplish this, etc.[/quote]

One would have to be a sociopath to be that way. I don’t think anyone in their right mind would intentionally want to make a friend in order to stab them in the back in the future. Who really goes about thinking “Let’s see. Who can I be friends with today so I can stab them in the back tomorrow?” :loco:

If anything, I think that the bulk of such happenings goes something like this:

  1. Person starts off trying to genuinely be friends.
  2. Culture clash causes the Taiwanese person to perceive an action as an intentional slight.
  3. Taiwanese person goes about getting revenge in some manner.
  4. Clueless foreigner has no idea what he/she did to piss off the Taiwanese person.
  5. Cycle repeats from 2 to 4.
  6. Relationship deteriorates until the two are no longer friends.

I think Westerners sometimes overread Taiwanese ‘friendliness’. They think they have a closer relationship than they actually do, because the custom here is to be politely agreeable. Many times people have assured me of support or assistance, only for me to discover it was mere politeness.

Likewise, many times foreigners have told me they have ‘gwanchi’ because a Taiwanese (much worse in the Mainland ) has told them, sure, they’ll take care of something. Gwanchi ain’t something that’s handed out that casually.

[quote=“super_lucky”]
I did have that happen, more than once, but in work-related situations.[/quote]

Ditto. Happened when I started my job. Long story short, co-worker in charge of training me did not do a good job. I made mistakes here and there, technically I was not taught the task, co-worker wanted to look perfect in front of manager, co-worker told manager they taught me the task, but they really didn’t. I get yelled at. Co-worker walks off scratch free.

I would’ve went with, played second base for the Yankees while Chien Ming Wang was pitching for them.

[quote=“ranlee”]

Ditto. Happened when I started my job. Long story short, co-worker in charge of training me did not do a good job. I made mistakes here and there, technically I was not taught the task, co-worker wanted to look perfect in front of manager, co-worker told manager they taught me the task, but they really didn’t.[/quote]

Just curious what task this was. I also had a co-worker train me poorly. But instead of blaming that person for not doing a good enough job training me, I used other resources to learn and master the skill.

It’s a pretty simple task. Let’s say field A had to include a 10 digit number, but I put in the abbreviated 6 digit number. It’s relatively the same thing because the first 6 numbers are the most important, but for this particular customer you need 10 digits otherwise they go crazy. I remember that co-worker just said something along the lines of “Don’t forget to include Field A in this doc, it’s important”

The doc got sent out with the 6 digit number in Field A. Manager found out. Co-worker realized they walked me through the process, but left this bit out. Told manager it wasn’t their fault. Manager not happy that things got delayed. I update it and never ask co-worker for help ever again.

Co-worker spends a lot of their time during the work day trying to derive mistakes or blame onto someone else. Like…they’re keeping score or something?

Seems like a lot of this pretending to be friends in order to backstab is related to work. By extension, it could also be related to anything involving competition.

Yes, first job, lazy bum won’t do shit but complain. On the smallest achievement, goes off as if everyone in the office owes him prize money. Tries to befriend you to ally against people. Allies with the other party to try to screw you. Jeez, talk about drama.

Second job. Pyscho xiaojie plus CCR. Not interested but showed concern for her intense staring. Keeps daydreaming and spreading nonsense in her small circle. Tried to understand why and asked some people. She blew up as it caused humiliation? She was, on records, dating someone at the moment but people tell me she was looking… Wow, intense drama and nightmare afterwards.

What I’ve learned? Keep it purely professional… And yes, they’ll do anything to find your weakness.

Um… for many of us, I wouldn’t recommend even coming up with a story like that. It may be the one thing you said that may believed and… there may be a string of coincidences that would probably link you to a murder.