'Us and Them' syndrome

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
1

I was driving along cursing the way ‘they’ drive the other day, and mulling over a recent thread about ignorance among Taiwanese, and decided that I should post this.

Do you think that ‘we’, foreigners with (generally) a better education and more sophisticated outlook than many of our stay-at-home countrymen, tend to forget the realities of life ‘back home’? It’s very easy to say that because I, for instance, know the date on which WWII started then everyone else must too. Or because I can do all the basic arithmetic I generally need without a calculator then everyone must be able to as well.

And then we meet a Taiwaneser who can’t equal these prodigious feats of intelligence, and start labelling ‘Taiwanese’ generally as less educated, or educated differently, or unsophisticated, or intellectually lazy, or narrow-minded, as somehow inferior.

‘We’, the average expat, are not representative of what is considered normal in our own countries. Nevertheless, there is a tendency to judge all of Taiwanese society on the assumption that everyone back home is just like us. Like no-one in a western country has an inadequate education, or uninformed opinions, or a lack of opinions about important issues, or stupid superstitious beliefs, or poor driving habits, or eats disgusting unhealthy food, or has no artistic sensibilities, or leads a boring life. etc.

Comments?

2

  1. I borrowed a book from a friend recently. Guns, germs and steel.
    It really lays to rest the whole xenophobic thing and squashes the ugly superiority/ inferiority thing.

  2. On a real life level, the same friend who gave me the book (European) has been here for many years and has even developed the Asian habit of tapping the accelerator. We all bob back and forward nicely between destinations as the Asian car God intended.

I was amazed at this. Another friend from the USA passes on blind corners.

The driving is a cultural thing, a learned behavior. Not an Asian or Western thing.

Anyway, thats my slant on it.

3

I think we do tend to forget problems in our “home” societies, but that’s because they’re not under our nose every day.

I have to remind myself, now and then, of reasons why I left, but still think that ranting about stuff, right here, right now, is acceptable on the odd occassion, with two provisos:

a) No one has the right to tell you to “go home then” if you have a rant about a place where you pay taxes, BUT also

b) Acceptable rants do not include any variation of the phrase “The Taiwanese SHOULD do this” – see the “Civilizing Taiwan” thread in Living in Taiwan :unamused:

4

Why is it a lot of people leave their home country because they have problems with living in that country, and then try to change the place they end up at into a model of that country??? :unamused:

5

Thank you, thank you, thank you :slight_smile:

Suffice to say, I agree. There are certain generalisations I think you can make about Taiwan (or in my case, Taipei), but you’ve got to compare apples with apples.

For example, Taipei is filthy. However, I recently went to London, and walked the streets of Battersea Park at about 8am in the morning, before the rubbish truck had arrived. It was disgusting. The pavements were absolutely covered with rubbish. We even passed an abandoned mail trolley with rotting food inside it. Possible conclusion: Londoners aren’t necessarily tidier - but the council cleans its streets better. It takes money to do this. Taxes.

Pissing on trees - my friend told me about the open-air urinals they install at nights in Covent Garden, because people kept pissing in doorways. He also told me about the guy he saw coming up the train stairs after a night out who just whipped it out and pissed on the steps, walking as he went. Mmm, civilised.

I find inconsiderate, selfish bastards everywhere - it’s just in a big, crowded city, you’ll have more of them per square centimetre, and they’ll annoy you and get in your way more, just by sheer force of numbers. There are also nice, kind, considerate people, and there are lots of those, too, if you bother to notice them. Every day I see people who tell their kids not to bother people, who put their trays away when they’ve finished, who put their litter in bins. They deserve credit too.

I do think there ARE some things the Taiwanese “should” do, or rather, could do better - but for the health and safety of their population, not for my personal comfort. If it doesn’t bother them, that’s their business.

6

I believe we can make observations about behaviour here without resorting to an us and them mentality. One example mentioned was driving. I don’t believe it is exhibiting much more than the ability to see the obvious when someone states that driving habits here are generally poor. This is an empirically measurable reality. Look at the road accident death rates. There are a number of reasons for this phenomenon and they have nothing to do with us and them.

I support what someone else said about being able to comment on a country in which you pay taxes, so long as it is done without being overly patronizing or implying that Taiwan is somehow not civilized. I think alot of our complaints would be the same as those Taiwanese would make anyway.

I think there is nothing wrong with noticing things about our home as long as we aren’t implying superiority in so doing.

7

[quote=“stragbasher”]
‘We’, the average expat, are not representative of what is considered normal in our own countries. [/quote]

Yes, but also ‘we’ are, in general, hardly the ‘typical expat’ either.

To me a real ‘expat’ is someone on big bucks sent or brought in by a foreign company on a big salary package - Hong Kong this year, New York next year, Singapore after that… Among the ‘foreign community’ in Taiwan there are relatively few such people and few such jobs.

I’d say that most of us live in that twilight zone between being here temporarily and a real secure permanent involvement in Taiwan society. Because Taiwan is how it is we are more engaged with local society than most of our fellow countrymen and women who live abroad on a semi-permanent or medium-term basis. And yet, unless you’re married here it’s not that easy to build the kind of truly stimulating and satisfying life or career that makes you stay for ever.

I suppose the only point I’m trying to make is that (IMHO) most of us are not really like

 -- Our fellow citizens who 'stayed at home',
 -- Globe-trotting professional 'expats', or
 -- Real long termers who truly 'go native' and will never leave.
8

Why not? Some things are better than others. The Taipei Philharmonic cannot compare to the Berlin Philharmonic. Berlin’s is better. Taipei has better nightmarkets, though.

9

There are two kinds of people in this world.

Those that are smarter than me.

Those that are dumber than me.

The latter by FAR outnumber the former.

10

I think the thread should be renamed “them & me” :notworthy:

why because when gauging others (intellect, sophistication, lifestyle, habits, etc.) we are usually using ourselves as the reference. What does that mean, well everyone else on this planet is inferior to me regardless of race, color or creed :laughing:

Posting various observations from our daily lives that we find interesting or amusing is fine as long as we do not try to preach and thrust our values onto those we are preaching to or about. Its these humorous observations on life here that keep me coming back…

Taiwanese can make easy targets, they have a different culture and of course make up the majority of interactions you have. So naturally will form most of the things that stick in your head.

11

There’s no doubt that virtually all of us romanticize life “back home” to varying degrees. And no doubt if/when we return, we’ll romanticize life here. It’s human nature. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t things that are worthy of bitching about here, nor that we shouldn’t expect the shitty things here to improve. We just have to remember that things may not necessarily be that much better “back home”.

12

One aspect of the ‘Us and them’ syndrome living in Taiwan is the trap of blaming things that go wrong on ‘them’, on Taiwanese.

Whereas at home we might say ‘goddamn crappy drivers’, ‘fucking beureaucracy’, ‘rude arseholes’, ‘what a shitty day’ etc, in Taiwan the temptation is to say ‘goddamn Taiwanese drivers’. ‘fucking Taiwanese bureaucracy’, ‘rude bloody Taiwanese’, ‘fuck, I’m sick of Taiwan’ etc.

Not sure if that is whatyou were getting at, but it’s what I thouhgt of, when I read your post.

Brian

13

Nail. Head. Brian.

I bet no Taiwanese would have figured that out. Er…

14

This one isn’t necessarily true. If they’re a different ethnicity, odds are pretty good that’s how they’ll be cussed out: “Bloody Chinese drivers!” “Get off the road you black bastard!” etc. It’s not nice, but it’s what happens. So there’s a bit of us vs them at home too.

All the rest is pretty much spot on though.

Well, except the “what a shitty day”->“fuck, I’m sick of Taiwan” pairing. Lord knows I got my fair share of “fuck Hamilton”/“fuck New Zealand”/“God I can’t wait to get out of this fucking cowtown” days :laughing:

15

[quote]I think there is nothing wrong with noticing things about our home as long as we aren’t implying superiority in so doing.
Why not? Some things are better than others. The Taipei Philharmonic cannot compare to the Berlin Philharmonic. Berlin’s is better. Taipei has better nightmarkets, though[/quote].

Very true. However, I think my sentence “as long as we aren’t implying superiority in so doing” was a tad ambiguous. Sorry 'bout that. What I meant to say was something like: it’s alright that we notice (even compare and/ or complain about) certain aspects of our adopted home as long as we aren’t implying that we are somehow superior to Taiwanes people in the process.

16

[quote=“street dog”]
b) Acceptable rants do not include any variation of the phrase “The Taiwanese SHOULD do this” – see the “Civilizing Taiwan” thread in Living in Taiwan :unamused:[/quote]

That would be subscribing to the “Vannyel Principle” of living in a foreign land. Quite a few folks here vehemently disagree. Both sides have legitimate points.

In the balance of things, my attitude can be summed up by this little saying:

Conformity may give you a quiet life.
It may bring you a University Chair,
but all change in history,
all advance comes from non-conformity.
If there had been no trouble-makers, no dissenters,
we would have still be living in caves.
–Unknown

As for the “Civilizing Taiwan” thread, I would approach it is more along the lines of “how can we improve our standard of living?” Focus the issue on improvement, betterment, higher quality of life etc, instead of dwelling on how, what, why, wherefores of Taiwanese society and culture and then picking on it.

17

[quote=“Bu Lai En”]One aspect of the ‘Us and them’ syndrome living in Taiwan is the trap of blaming things that go wrong on ‘them’, on Taiwanese.

Whereas at home we might say ‘goddamn crappy drivers’, ‘fucking beureaucracy’, ‘rude arseholes’, ‘what a shitty day’ etc, in Taiwan the temptation is to say ‘goddamn Taiwanese drivers’. ‘fucking Taiwanese bureaucracy’, ‘rude bloody Taiwanese’, ‘fuck, I’m sick of Taiwan’ etc.

Not sure if that is whatyou were getting at, but it’s what I thouhgt of, when I read your post.

Brian[/quote]

This suggests to me that you consider yourself a Taiwanese person. In this case, it means someone who’s pretty much mentally assimilated to Taiwan society and living. Perhaps what some folks refer to as an “old-timer” :wink:

I think who we deal with on a day-to-day basis inordinately shapes our view of Taiwan and its society. Just how “civilized” Taiwanese people are will probably depend upon (1) the types of people you deal with daily, (2) your own background and experience, and (3) your own educational and professional achievements.

Before coming here, my friend who had been living and working in an MNC for 4 years, kept on trying to lower my expectations of the types of people I’m going to be encountering. For the most part, my experiences has been worse than what have been told to me by both locals who have had international experience and foreigners who have lived here. I figured that it was part of my due diligence failure (i.e. I didn’t ask the right questions or was blind to the facts) or that I didn’t give myself enough time to acclimate. Or perhaps, I’m not deluding myself but Taiwanese people living in Taiwan are through and through truly, backassward ignorant peasants with ego problems. I knew Taiwanese people growing up in the States and they are nothing like these people here. Which leads to a good number of comments by people who say something like: “All the smart ones left. What’s left in Taiwan are the bottom of the barrel.”

Some where in between lies the “truth”. Bottom line though is that you come back to Stan “the Man” words:

18

[quote=“Yellow Cartman”][quote=“street dog”]
b) Acceptable rants do not include any variation of the phrase “The Taiwanese SHOULD do this” – see the “Civilizing Taiwan” thread in Living in Taiwan :unamused:[/quote]

That would be subscribing to the “Vannyel Principle” of living in a foreign land.

[/quote]

No it wouldn’t, as there was an a) that went with the b) – my definition of the “middle ground” is just narrower than yours – and it’s been getting narrower the longer I’ve been here. But DON’T tell me I’m getting like Vannyel! :astonished:

19

Here is what I have noticed as a North American syndrome. This is not to say that all North Americans (US and Canada) suffer from this unfortunate inability to cope with a foreign living, but I will say, that the extremists seem to come from these two places, where air-conditioning and constant water supply are taken for granted.

Complaining is okay, but it is not okay to

-Choose to live in the Taichung area and complain about the omnipresence of Taiwanese mafia and ignorant drivers.

-Hate on “them” during week-long droughts and declare this a third world country. (If you don’t have water, the chances are that neither does your neighbor.) (“We” might still be a third world country but we don’t need you to tell us that.)

-Bitch about the noisy and stinking children at your kindergarden bushiban when they try to climb on you. If you had more credentials and are actually smarter than “them” you would be doing something more than being a monkey by the day and a drunk by night, probably at Brass Monkey or Carnegies.

If you bitch too much, go home. Taiwan doesn’t own you anything.

Besides from those who suffer from the North American syndrome, I very much enjoy the foreigner-scene in Taipei. It’s a much more livelier place with you around.

Cheers,
e, the parachute kid.

20

This one isn’t necessarily true. If they’re a different ethnicity, odds are pretty good that’s how they’ll be cussed out: “Bloody Chinese drivers!” “Get off the road you black bastard!” etc. It’s not nice, but it’s what happens. So there’s a bit of us vs them at home too.

All the rest is pretty much spot on though.

Well, except the “what a shitty day”->“fuck, I’m sick of Taiwan” pairing. Lord knows I got my fair share of “fuck Hamilton”/“fuck New Zealand”/“God I can’t wait to get out of this fucking cowtown” days :laughing:[/quote]

u from hamilton? u poor bastard…that’s a town that gives new meaning to the word “soporific”…i’d take sanchung any day of the week…