Well, if you don’t respond to the points I’m making, I have to assume that you aren’t getting what I’m saying, perhaps not to agree with it, but at least sufficiently well to discuss its merits. I’m giving you concrete examples. You, on the other hand, are saying “There is no such thing as absolute right and wrong.” Okay, let’s have some concrete examples from you, and some development of your points. Otherwise – well, I’ve said it already. There’s no point in discussing.
Well, if you don’t respond to the points I’m making, I have to assume that you aren’t getting what I’m saying, perhaps not to agree with it, but at least sufficiently well to discuss its merits. I’m giving you concrete examples. You, on the other hand, are saying “There is no such thing as absolute right and wrong.” Okay, let’s have some concrete examples from you, and some development of your points. Otherwise – well, I’ve said it already. There’s no point in discussing.[/quote]
Non response? IRL you are surely a person to let bigones be bygones look I didn’t even spell it right.
Mawvellous: I believe Gao Bohan has answered your points quite well. The most important point, which was my original point, is that despite the West’s often atrocious history (which not even the most strident supporters of the West would deny or justify), there have been very strong oppositional elements within Western culture.
Yuli: I’m aware of the fact that basically up until the past few hundred years, the West was “uncivilised”. I’m not claiming that the West has always been top dog, and I hardly think it will continue as top dog indefinitely. Indeed, some of my major complaints with the West right now are that they have compromised their own ideals, and they’ve also compromised their own economies (and a loss of economic influence is a loss of geopolitical/cultural influence).
So what though? It’s like saying several thousand years ago in the Fertile Crescent, someone had domesticated crops and animals and someone in Europe didn’t. Of course. I’m talking about the past few hundred years though, and more importantly, I’m talking about the ethical development of cultures, particularly over the past hundred years or so. Much of what we take for granted in terms of where we’re at, and the direction in which we’re moving, in terms of human rights and civil rights arose out of internal dialogues and struggles within Western culture. The kind of nationalistic jingoism that is par for the course in most parts of the world runs into real opposition in the West. Could we be heavily criticising the government in most countries? Despite people claiming the U.S. Government is (or was) some fascist dictatorship, it has a remarkably vigorous level of public debate. Universal human rights were born in the West. Honestly, you tell me if you were a lesbian who practised a minority religion (or you were an atheist), to name me your top ten countries in which you’d like to live.
To reiterate, I don’t think any of those of us who are pro-Western culture think it’s 100% perfect all the time, but as someone pointed out recently on this site (I can’t remember if it was in this thread or not), if Europeans think American “cultural imperialism” is bad, wait until they get it from the Chinese. More to the point, wait until several Western European countries get Sharia Law. Seriously, what’s a credible alternative to the West? Chinese culture? Islamic culture? The Russian way of doing things?
[quote=“GuyInTaiwan”]more importantly, I’m talking about the ethical development of cultures, particularly over the past hundred years or so. Much of what we take for granted in terms of where we’re at, and the direction in which we’re moving, in terms of human rights and civil rights arose out of internal dialogues and struggles within Western culture. The kind of nationalistic jingoism that is par for the course in most parts of the world runs into real opposition in the West. Could we be heavily criticising the government in most countries? Despite people claiming the U.S. Government is (or was) some fascist dictatorship, it has a remarkably vigorous level of public debate. Universal human rights were born in the West. Honestly, you tell me if you were a lesbian who practised a minority religion (or you were an atheist), to name me your top ten countries in which you’d like to live.
To reiterate, I don’t think any of those of us who are pro-Western culture think it’s 100% perfect all the time, but as someone pointed out recently on this site (I can’t remember if it was in this thread or not), if Europeans think American “cultural imperialism” is bad, wait until they get it from the Chinese. More to the point, wait until several Western European countries get Sharia Law. Seriously, what’s a credible alternative to the West? Chinese culture? Islamic culture? The Russian way of doing things?[/quote]
You are talking about the development of societies based on the ideas of the enlightenment such as universal human rights etc. While those ideas originated in Europe, they have been largely adopted in vast swathes of the world including East Asia. Japan made up its mind to become ‘modern’ in the 1870s or so. China decided at least 50 years later. Given their short history of remaking their societies into fully modern ones, I’d say that Japan, Taiwan, and Korea have done remarkably well. These ideas are no longer ‘western’ despite their origins. They have become universal with the major exception of the Islamic world which is still trying to make up its mind.
As for nationalist jingoism, the whole idea of the nation and nationalism is a European invention.
YEs when Gough Whitlam was thrown out of government by the Governer General of Australia in 1975.
Not so I spent more than 4 months in CHina in 2009… The PRC nationals are fare worse…
Best thing is that they do not ask you questions of how you came to learn Chinese tehy expect you to know Chinese.
But they still are xenophobic.
China would be my number 1 destination… 
followed by Australia
quote from bcup:
Taiwanese people in British EFL classrooms - talk Chinese loudly in class, mess with their phones all the time, are condescending towards their classmates, complain about stupid shit all the time (the teacher talks too fast, the teacher’s accent isn’t authentic, the class has too many blacks) and progress poorly because they make no effort, despite having paid thousands to be at university English classes. They then blame the teacher, even if everyone else in the class is doing fine.
unquote
Aint that the truth? Haha, this cracked me up 
If not for cute TW girls ,nobody would have any time for em.
Wow this is one hell of a thread. Iv skimmed thru some 13 pages or so and I havent read it all yet. But i wanted to say that Id rather have my kid (if i had one) in a TW school system then one here in Calif where they have guns and drugs at high school. Students are bringing guns in and shooting other students. Drugs are not your only problem now. Its gangs and being shot.
TW education is not ideal, lets all agree, but at least your kid wont get knifed or shot or be drugged up. You can always educate them yourself at home, after school and send them to a western college later on.
GuyInTaiwan: thanks for your comments. I appreciate your focus on the ideas you are presenting without implying anything derogatory about people who don’t agree with you. 
I have difficulties with your concept of “the West”: are you talking about countries where the English language is dominant? countries where Christianity is dominant? countries with populations that look predominantly Caucasian? countries that have a more or less democratic political structure? countries that have a more or less capitalist economic system? all of the above? other?
Just to remind ourselves about why we are having a discussion: a good part of this thread has come about from the assertion that there are two basically different approaches to conflicts - one that is said to be based on weighing the perceived good for a given group against that of an individual in conflict with the group and on favouring solutions that allow people to save face (the “Chinese way”), and one that is said to be based on getting to the bottom of a given problem by pursuing objective “truth”/the “facts” and applying standards of judgment that are objective and independent of culture (the “Western way”) - and that the former approach is inherently inferior to the latter approach. Some of us (strongly) disagree with that valuation, and since we’ve gone through a few rounds with this disagreement, i’ll be happy to leave it at that (never mind that other people argue my points much better than i do).
But let me follow this interesting tangent:
I 'm not sure what anybody’s preferences would prove, but i’ll bite: My first choice by a wide margin would be to stay in my own country (Japan, specifically Okinawa). After that, say, if Japan were to be unsuitable some reason, i could see myself go to Taiwan or a larger city in Canada. Next? Well, rather than thinking about countries i’d more likely think of cities that look like they might be suitable (in terms of my personal lifestyle preferences and, equally importantly, the language i can use) - so maybe Berlin or Munich or Buenos Aires, San Francisco, Auckland, (in a pinch even Stockholm or Rio de Janeiro)…
No, i don’t mind rhetorical questions. 
But i have real question (not specifically for GuyinTaiwan,but in general): why do (some) people come to live in Taiwan (Japan/Korea/China) and, then come to the conclusion that the culture of their host country is fundamentally wrong, and then stay even though they feel thoroughly aggravated or even bitter? One answer that has been suggested is that some people have started a family here, so they don’t feel free to move to a different culture. But obviously there are plenty of people who are single, so there must be other explanations. Just wondering…
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Its the Yin and the Yang, without the Yin there can be no Yang.
That question (which is not a new one on this board) puts me in mind of my youth in the U.S. (in the '60s and '70s), when one used to see this slogan fairly frequently:
Yuli, your tone is deceptively conciliatory.
The important part of this thread is about passing students who deserve to fail. You are saying that teachers who are unhappy about doing that should leave Taiwan, unless they have started families here?
Or is that only because of the subsequent, boring and only marginally relevant discussion about the relative merits of different cultures?
I think that’s a false dichotomy. Who gets to decide whether students pass or fail? I think that a teacher who felt that 80% of his students should fail because they were not properly trained to be in his class (in his view) or because of the critical importance of the subject (engineering, medicine) might also run into problems in North America or the US. After enough complaints, they would probably take the class away from him.
What the schools here are saying is that we don’t want to fail students in general studies classes like English. And we don’t want adjunct foreign faculty that we hire because we don’t have enough qualified Taiwanese faculty to do the job to rock the boat. Other than the face-saving story about students gong to the wrong class, this has little to do with culture and much more to do with the now-universal problem of everyone going to university instead of just a few select elite students. A vast education industry has been created that requires paying customers. You don’t drive your paying customers away by failing them.
The twats went to the wrong class, complained to the uni. The uni gave me some steam, I told them to sort out their administrative issues, they got the twat students to give me a very carefully written apology (word perfect).
[quote=“Feiren”]I think that’s a false dichotomy. Who gets to decide whether students pass or fail? I think that a teacher who felt that 80% of his students should fail because they were not properly trained to be in his class (in his view) or because of the critical importance of the subject (engineering, medicine) might also run into problems in North America or the US. After enough complaints, they would probably take the class away from him.
What the schools here are saying is that we don’t want to fail students in general studies classes like English. And we don’t want adjunct foreign faculty that we hire because we don’t have enough qualified Taiwanese faculty to do the job to rock the boat. Other than the face-saving story about students gong to the wrong class, this has little to do with culture and much more to do with the now-universal problem of everyone going to university instead of just a few select elite students. A vast education industry has been created that requires paying customers. You don’t drive your paying customers away by failing them.[/quote]
I am very hesitant to join threads like this, but I have to agree completely with my forumosa friend Feiren. This whole idea of ‘standards’ so often bandied about by white people teaching in Taiwan generally comes from those who lack any experience at all teaching equivalent material in their home countries. The reality of teaching in Western universities at a time when almost everyone attends at some time in their life is not all that different.
I have taught in Taiwan in both General Studies compulsory English classes and in departments of English. In compulsory English classes, I fail almost no one and tell my students that if they show up and do the work, they should all pass. When I have taught in our Applied English Department, I have a completely different standard. If you can’t do what I want, you fail. But the purpose of the course is entirely different.
My experience with white teachers running around complaining about ‘standards’ is that none of the ones I have worked with could or can speak any Chinese at all. They often complain about aspects of life in Taiwan that border on racism. The most vocal promoter of ‘standards’ that I have worked with was dismissed from my school for problems I feel was really mental illness. While I am sure there are exceptions to my point, I have seen this pattern so often, unless I have counter evidence, when I heard someone complaining about English ‘standards’ in Taiwan, I always start by assuming they’re having a miserable time here.
I have to agree with Feiren and Scott, large numbers of academically unprepared students are a large and profitable part of the university business model. It’s a problem that certain educator websites in the US have been harping on.
I passed Eng101 despite writing all my papers with caps lock on, because I didn’t know how to use a computer at the time. Looking back I cab only imagine how that must have looked to my teacher. 
:roflmao:
[quote=“ScottSommers”][quote=“Feiren”]I think that’s a false dichotomy. Who gets to decide whether students pass or fail? I think that a teacher who felt that 80% of his students should fail because they were not properly trained to be in his class (in his view) or because of the critical importance of the subject (engineering, medicine) might also run into problems in North America or the US. After enough complaints, they would probably take the class away from him.
What the schools here are saying is that we don’t want to fail students in general studies classes like English. And we don’t want adjunct foreign faculty that we hire because we don’t have enough qualified Taiwanese faculty to do the job to rock the boat. Other than the face-saving story about students gong to the wrong class, this has little to do with culture and much more to do with the now-universal problem of everyone going to university instead of just a few select elite students. A vast education industry has been created that requires paying customers. You don’t drive your paying customers away by failing them.[/quote]
I am very hesitant to join threads like this, but I have to agree completely with my forumosa friend Feiren. This whole idea of ‘standards’ so often bandied about by white people teaching in Taiwan generally comes from those who lack any experience at all teaching equivalent material in their home countries. The reality of teaching in Western universities at a time when almost everyone attends at some time in their life is not all that different.
I have taught in Taiwan in both General Studies compulsory English classes and in departments of English. In compulsory English classes, I fail almost no one and tell my students that if they show up and do the work, they should all pass. When I have taught in our Applied English Department, I have a completely different standard. If you can’t do what I want, you fail. But the purpose of the course is entirely different.
My experience with white teachers running around complaining about ‘standards’ is that none of the ones I have worked with could or can speak any Chinese at all. They often complain about aspects of life in Taiwan that border on racism. The most vocal promoter of ‘standards’ that I have worked with was dismissed from my school for problems I feel border on mental illness. While I am sure there are exceptions to my point, I have seen this pattern so often, unless I have counter evidence, when I heard someone complaining about English ‘standards’ in Taiwan, I always start by assuming they’re having a miserable time here.[/quote]
You forgot to add that we inexperienced, non-Chinese-speaking, borderline-racist white folks are also disruptive and afflicted with an exaggerated sense of our own importance.
But maybe that’s because Feiren already covered that earlier in the thread:
However, I hope you will be pleased to be informed that I’m on my way to becoming one of the better white folks. Having been here about seven years, what little I had before in the way of a set of standards has been considerably whittled down and enfeebled.
I am pleased to hear this. Good luck!
I also forgot to say that the bad white teachers also have AIDS and do drugs all the time, not like us good foreigners.
While fornicating with as many of their students as they can dupe or coerce into dropping their pants for them.
And I also agree that Feiren’s observations are spot on the mark.