Today's Anti-Foreigner coverage in the Taipei Times

Foreigners and Chinese nationals applying for visas to go through personal interviews under draft legislation.

Damn, sounds like interrogation at gunpoint is allowed!

Guess those of you refusing the current survey have pissed someone off.

Oh goody.

And then one of the most hilariously slanted headlines I’ve seen in a while:

Apparently, babies born to Vietnamese mother’s aren’t fat enough for local norms. FEAR FEAR FEAR the Vietnamese babies! Apparently they are branching out, now that the mainland Chinese immigrant bashing has been played out.

Look, Taiwan is not an immigrant country and is not going to be for a long time. You foreigners there are in the same boat as those of us in Korea, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia. Asia does not have immigrant culture. So get used to it. Actually we are lucky we are even allowed in for a visit. We are the hairy barbarians of the West who just want to bed their girls (and boys, now), make piles of cash and then buy our dreamhouse in the sunset years back in Home Country.

There is a reason they are fearful of us. We are not them. Would YOU let US in? Think about it.

Why? Taiwan wants our investment, our weapons, our political recognition, our business, our expertise, and our tourist dollars. They don’t want us though, and I don’t think it is unreasonable to point out the inequities of this. If the best answer is ‘get used to it’, well then I’m much less inclined to support what they do want.

Although some of the provisions of this proposed new law are rather troubling, in practice I’m sure it would not be actively applied to foreigners from the U.S., Europe and other First World countries. Clearly, it’s aimed at brides from mainland China and Southeast Asia, but has to be worded to apply to all foreigners to avoid giving rise to accusations of overt discrimination. Even if the interview requirement were actually implemented in all cases, I’m sure it would be just a token formality for people like us – perhaps conducted by telephone, with a conversation something like “Good morning! Are you Mr. X? May I ask what is your reason for coming to stay in Taiwan? That’s very good! I hope you have a pleasant stay here. Thank you very much and sorry to trouble you.”

It’s like the law requiring all foreign residents to carry their ARC or passport with them at all times, produce it on demand, and be subject to a fine for failing to do so. That, of course, is to enable the authorities to check out suspected runaway workers from Southeast Asia. Have you ever heard of any Western foreigner being stopped in the street and asked to produce such i/d, let alone being fined for not being able to do so? I certainly haven’t.

Sad but true.

HG

you want to trust the gov’t?

my first year here the police came to my residence three times to check my paperwork. the third time, they didn’t even knock. they merely walked in. wasn’t this a sublime joy: lying on the sofa watching the telly in tighty-whiteys then looking up to see armed cops in my livingroom. yes, i moved shortly thereafter.

gov’ts everywhere want one thing:control. the more control they have,the less we have. it would seem that all gov’ts in this age are tightening things up. it is part of our obligation ofeternal vigilance to fight them at every turn.

we cannot separate foreign residents into subgroups unless the gov’t also does.we must care about the asian brides.the gypsies said “aw, let em take the jews away.” they took the jews away. as well as the gypsies. as well as the…

live free

Why? Taiwan wants our investment, our weapons, our political recognition, our business, our expertise, and our tourist dollars. They don’t want us though, [/quote]

Precisely. What a delightful nuisance we are.

[quote=“jlick”]And then one of the most hilariously slanted headlines I’ve seen in a while:

Apparently, babies born to Vietnamese mother’s aren’t fat enough for local norms. FEAR FEAR FEAR the Vietnamese babies! Apparently they are branching out, now that the mainland Chinese immigrant bashing has been played out.[/quote]
It’s a stupid headline, and parts of the story don’t make a lot of sense, either. But if there is a discrepency between the birth weight of babies born to Taiwanese mothers and those of immigrants from Vietnam, there are health issues involved and they should be studied. There’s nothing wrong with that.

What’s wrong is the constant barrage of articles day after day reinforcing the idea that foreigners are different and a threat to society. I’m sure the doctors quoted in the article are quite concerned about the health issues, but the way the article was written was intended to say “this is yet another case of those darn foreigners coming in and screwing everything up.” Some of you just aren’t seeing the fnords.

I agree that the kind of racist slant put on such stories is highly contemptible. It’s the kind of thing that the lowest form of legislator (which is low indeed!) loves to take up and agitate about to the media, to get cheap publicity and court the worst prejudices of the general public.

But what is a “fnord”, jlick?

Should I always have my passport on me? I have had two people ask me where I’m from and then ask to see my passport. One was a cabdriver. The other was a stranger who stopped me on the sidewalk, while I was walking by with my two kids. I wasn’t sure what to make of it.

I don’t see that the interviews could be a bad thing as long as their purpose is to deny entry visas to the bad guys. Being that Taiwan has diplomatic relations with so few countries (and in the forseeable future this isn’t going to change), it’s going to look attractive to those on the run from the law in other countries.
I’ve always wondered just how many really, really bad guys (I’m thinking along the lines of murderers, drug barons and pedophiles here) are hiding out in Taiwan knowing that they’ll never be extradited to face justice.

As a foreigner you are supposed to have one of the following on you at all times: ARC or passport. I’ve never been asked, though the only two run-ins I’ve had with police didn’t really involve me. When I was on visas, I hardly ever took my passport with me. It’s ratty enough just from travels. Now that I have an ARC I do keep it with me. If you’re white and look respectable and don’t frequent nightclubs (which frequently get raided for drug fishing expeditions) then you probably don’t need to worry about it, but don’t go blaming me for bad advice if you get fined.

Guess you guys haven’t read much Robert Anton Wilson. If you aren’t familiar with him, see rawilson.com/ He wrote a couple of oddball books about the Illuminati, the secret society which controls all mankind, or at least Europe. Fnords, not to be confused with long valleys along the coast of Norway, are basically things hidden between the lines, in newspaper articles, books, speeches, etc. which are intended to frighten, placate, or otherwise manipulate your opinions, beliefs and emotions. Being able to see the fnords is one step on the path to supreme enlightment.

(If you are a fan of RAW, the new DVD for the film Maybe Logic is very very worth it. It includes not only the film but an additional double sided DVD packed with his TV appearances, convention appearances, interviews, etc.)

In some ways foreigners are different.

I think many on Forumosa.com have been downright paranoid about recent examinations in the media and at government levels of the immigration situation and its ramifications.

Given the relatively massive influx of immigrants into Taiwan, societal shifts and problems are to be expected. The government has the right and obligation to investigate the situation and to make policy adjustments as appropriate.

Just because some are xenophobes doesn’t mean that there aren’t real problems that need to be addressed.

After all, the last massive wave of immigrants into Taiwan in the late 1940s didn’t go so smoothly. :?

So how many foreigners are there in Taiwan ? And how many mainland brides ? Does anyone have numbers ? I’ll wager a pint of Guinness that less than 1% of the resident population of Taiwan is made up of foreigners and mainland brides.

Waaaaay haaaaaay haaaaaaaay, Wu Zhong Xian back again.

You guys can come in, you are so funny. I love to make jokes about you on my show and show your pictures in my former restaurant.

It’s a shame I can’t get any foreign girls to sleep with me, why is that?

That’s a great idea for a show. I can run through Taipei asking every foreigner I see to show me their passport. Yeah, I have them on film too, then when they can’t show it I get a phoney, or a real police officer to come and take them away. That would be funny, I think Taiwanese viewers would love it. Yeah!

The recent article about the foreign crime wave said that foreigners were 2.73% of Taipei City’s population. That seems incredibly high to me though. I can go days without seeing anyone of European descent unless I go to someplace like Tienmou. If I recall correctly the number of mainland brides was in the 200-300k range. Unless 99% of us foreigners are in Taipei, that 2.73% figure just doesn’t wash.

That includes tens of thousands of Indonesian maids and caregivers, as well as a large number of Filipinas.

The last time I saw any statistics on the number of Westerners residing in Taiwan, it was reporting a year-on-year fall, largely because of a lot of people relocating to China.

[quote]I’ll wager a pint of Guinness that less than 1% of the resident population of Taiwan is made up of foreigners and mainland brides.
[/quote]

Alright, I’ll take your bet. I seem to remember foreign labourers numbering 670000 or so. You can give me the pint when someone pulls up the stats.

Brian

[quote=“jlick”]
Apparently, babies born to Vietnamese mother’s aren’t fat enough for local norms. FEAR FEAR FEAR the Vietnamese babies! Apparently they are branching out, now that the mainland Chinese immigrant bashing has been played out.[/quote]

Oh shit! When my daughter was born a couple of months ago she weighed only 2.6kg!

My wife must be a Vietnamese in disguise!!!

:shock: :shock: :shock:

Actually she’s pure Taiwanese but she’s small and averages 45kg soaking wet. I wonder if the Einsteins in the government have thought that maybe if the the average Vietnamese mother is smaller than the average Taiwanese, the babies might be also tend to be smaller?