Hmm, I seem to be missing this part of the expat equation in my life. 
[/quote]
Yea, same here. Sounds nice. For me life has been largely back and forth, back and forth, back and forth between my house and my office. If/when I land a job in the Bay Area, I’ll definitely need to make the most of my final time in Taiwan (before I return here again).[/quote]
Well, that was back in the “good old days” before the wife and the boy.
I had read this thread and I think the OP had worded it beautifully, so I was anticipating that loss of ‘luxury time’ one gets in Taiwan as an expat. I had plenty, with no relatives etc. I thought the prison analogy was right too, and yes I have trouble fitting in. But it is no biggie, People stare at me agape coz we haven’t invested in a flat or any other property till date, so that means we are not the ‘in’ or the ‘it’ couple, but who cares???Other than that (which is the only thing people talk of in India these days, soaring property prices) we have fit in beautifully. Atleast we are not missing our quotidien life on the rock. Not the pool, nor the lake, nor the food, nor the people. Weird. At least not yet. Maybe we always knew, it would end so we enjoyed it thoroughly, and we know this won’t last either so we are trying to make the best of it. Even the kids just kind of merged in here, despite numerous changes.
I guess, life goes on. Even after the 'wan 
What’s funny about that is so many posters complain about the well, insular view of most Taiwanese. Ah, but you’re in the UAE now. I’m sure “insular” doesn’t describe anyone in the Arab peninsula. 
they’d be known as ‘peninsular’.
Geez.
What’s funny about that is so many posters complain about the well, insular view of most Taiwanese. Ah, but you’re in the UAE now. I’m sure “insular” doesn’t describe anyone in the Arab peninsula. [/quote]
Which really proves the point! It is not that the US in insular, just that Indiana can live in a community of like minded people who have similar views when she lives abroad. It is interesting that New York University professor Nassim Nicholas Taleb goes ove this idea in The Black Swan. I cannot remember her name but he discusses an author who wrote fiction that was not mainstream until her fiction became a hit. He believes that she was able to keep going due to the fact she lived in a community of other artist and writers who were not worried about the mortgage or owning whatever car is in style. Most countries are probably insular. It just seems that as an ex-pat one is likely to hang with a ground of like minded people. I am sure that when I work on a Master’s in Speech Language Pathology in Pennsylvania that I will have few people with similar life experiences to discuss things with.
I think the key point is that it does not matter what lifestyle you choose to live, you will probably not be very happy if you choose to live in an area where people do not have similar views.
[quote=“urodacus”]they’d be known as ‘peninsular’.
Geez.[/quote]
Ooh, nice! :bravo:
Reminds me of the foreigners who complain they can’t stand the bureaucracy here, the headaches, the rudeness, the driving, the food, and the lack of law and order, only to end by telling you they are moving to China.
Or Fiji.
Or Fiji. [/quote]
Fiji was my tropical dream paradise when I was growing up. Then I went.
What’s funny about that is so many posters complain about the well, insular view of most Taiwanese. Ah, but you’re in the UAE now. I’m sure “insular” doesn’t describe anyone in the Arab peninsula. [/quote]
Of course it does!!! You know what’s weird though? It bothers me more when it’s my own peeps, does that make sense? 
What’s funny about that is so many posters complain about the well, insular view of most Taiwanese. Ah, but you’re in the UAE now. I’m sure “insular” doesn’t describe anyone in the Arab peninsula. [/quote]
Which really proves the point! It is not that the US in insular, just that Indiana can live in a community of like minded people who have similar views. It is interesting that Harvard professor Nassim Nicholas Taleb goes ove this idea in The Black Swan. I cannot remember her name but he discusses an author who wrote fiction that was not mainstream until her fiction became a hit. He believes that she was able to keep going due to the fact she living in a community of other artist and writers who were not worried about the mortgage or owning whatever car is in style. Most countries are probably insular. It just seems that as an ex-pat one is likely to hang with a ground of like minded people. I am sure that when I work on a Master’s in Speech Language Pathology in Pennsylvania that I will have few people with similar life experiences to discuss things with.
I think the key point is that it does not matter what lifestyle you choose to live, you will probably not be very happy if you choose to live in an area where people do not have similar views.[/quote]
Nail on head!!! :bravo:
What’s funny about that is so many posters complain about the well, insular view of most Taiwanese. Ah, but you’re in the UAE now. I’m sure “insular” doesn’t describe anyone in the Arab peninsula. [/quote]
Which really proves the point! It is not that the US in insular, just that Indiana can live in a community of like minded people who have similar views. It is interesting that Harvard professor Nassim Nicholas Taleb goes ove this idea in The Black Swan. I cannot remember her name but he discusses an author who wrote fiction that was not mainstream until her fiction became a hit. He believes that she was able to keep going due to the fact she living in a community of other artist and writers who were not worried about the mortgage or owning whatever car is in style. Most countries are probably insular. It just seems that as an ex-pat one is likely to hang with a ground of like minded people. I am sure that when I work on a Master’s in Speech Language Pathology in Pennsylvania that I will have few people with similar life experiences to discuss things with.
I think the key point is that it does not matter what lifestyle you choose to live, you will probably not be very happy if you choose to live in an area where people do not have similar views.[/quote]
Nail on head!!! :bravo:[/quote]
Actually, I’m not sure but I may feel exactly opposite. For many years I lived in Humboldt County, in extreme Northern California, on the coastline almost in Oregon. It’s a very beautiful area, with redwood trees, scenic coastline and pastures beside a bay, populated on one side by the raggedy blue collar working town of Eureka, with struggling loggers and fisherman and the like and on the other side by the college town of Arcata, crowned by Humboldt State University, which is renowned for its programs in forestry, fisheries, wildlife management, etc., but also has a slew of other good programs. Many hippies moved up there in the 70’s, never left, and their grand-kids are now at HSU. I moved there in 1982 to earn a degree Natural Resources (changed many times since then). I love the place dearly, with its farmer markets, samba parade, arts, music, good restaurants, good weed, and anti-war, pro-environment, anti-war, peace and love, sustainability-oriented folks. It’s a beautiful place and they’re nice people. But IT’S TOO DAMNED SMALL AND STIFLING. Sure, everyone there has traveled in Nicaragua or trekked in Nepal or gone surfing in Bali, but once you return to that tiny community of “like-minded people” you are forced to think and act like them. Not totally consciously, mind you. To a large extent one isn’t fully aware of the constant gentle, well-intentioned, sub-conscious pressures to think as they do, dress as they do, do as they do.
So it’s been immensely liberating for me to move to a massive city on the other side of the world, where people are nothing like me. They look different, act different, speak different, eat different, and have none of the prior experiences and assumptions that I do, so I am free to live and explore life anew, outside the prior constraints, and find all kinds of new avenues of thought and action that I find so much more satisfying than my old ways and which I never could have gotten to in that community of “like minded individuals”.
Damn like mindedness. Thank goodness for the freedom of different mindedness. 
A broadened mind can lead to a healthy body - tommy525
Ok, I thought it over further on my bike ride just now and a community of like-minded individuals offers both advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are comfort, support, recognition and confirmation for ones actions and beliefs, so long as they are consistent with those of the community. That’s all very well and nice and most of us need that from time to time. But the disadvantages are that they stifle creativity, diversity, exploration of the broad universe of possibilities, and discovery of what one believes in through trial and error, because the community has already selected the approved values and you are expected to conform to them.
And that’s why I like Taiwan. The greater community is vast and diverse and nothing like me (this foreign land and foreign people) so I am free to discover my life on my own, without being expected to behave and think a certain way. If I want a smaller, cozier community of like-minded persons I can turn to forumosa for temporary comfort, but then step back out into the great open city afterwards, where I’m free again.
Back in the small college town where I lived, that was not possible. One was always surrounded by peace, love, tofu, granola, no nukes, save the whales, free tibet and there was no escaping it. So I guess that was an extremely insular place, just the same as housecat’s Arkansas. I guess the answer may require living in or at least very near to a big diverse city, so one can have both community and non-community.
Mother Theresa, I partly agree with what you said. I will also say that being in a community of non-similar minded people will also lead them to trying to change your view and your view on life may change as well.
One thing I do believe that it is easier to avoid social expectations when you are living in a foreign country. That may change if you marry a local but for single people we do not need to be bothered as much with family pressures when living away from family and local time acquaintances.
I want to correct my post. Nassim Nicholas Taleb is currently working at New York University.
Good comments there, we can see the same stifling effect in any community. I’m from a small European country that is quite socialist, there isn’t even any right of centre media outlet or party in the whole country at present! If you don’t have the same socialist views (which is really pay me money for doing little/no work, be nice to the junkies that are taking over the city centre etc etc.) then you are accused of being a bad person, whereas in the US you could become a Presidential candidate or at least have a strange affinity for tea (the funny thing is, if I moved ‘home’ tomorrow I would obviously be far right of most of the population, but in the US I would probably be called a socialist…).
If you don’t leave your own country/region it’s very difficult to see how the world can operate successfully in different ways. I’ve learned so much from living in Taiwan, it’s changed my views on a lot of things and I have to keep my mouth shut quite often when talking to friends and family as they often see is as a criticism…I guess many people will encounter this problem. Interestingly I’ve learned a lot from both bad policies and cultural aspects in Taiwan aswell as a lot of good ones.
We will definitely leave Taiwan for at least a while as it is a small island, there’s still a big world out there to explore.
Yup. One of the prime examples in my life concerns my career. As I said, I attended college in a peace, love and granola hippie town. I loved the place, but one was expected to have a certain set of beliefs, the same as everyone else, because those beliefs were deemed morally superior to others (no war, meat bad, dope good, etc). Among those beliefs, of course, was the idea that corporations are evil. It was bad enough that I left that small town to attend law school. Aside from practicing environmental law, perhaps, such a career path was clearly questionable (acceptable jobs might include teacher, artist, bike shop owner, coffee shop proprietor, etc). But to become a big corporate lawyer, that would have meant I was hopeless, I had truly sold my soul, had no more link to the community and would surely burn in hell. After all, everyone knows corporation = big faceless money-grubbing environment-destroying entity, squeezing the life from its workers, spreading bland american culture around the world, supplanting diversity and squashing local mom and pop shops. In my town, that went without saying.
But here in Taiwan I’ve worked my way to the point that now I am legal counsel for a giant global tech firm. And you know what? They were wrong. Not only is it not evil – my job is merely to assist a company to manufacture and sell handy tech devices that people the world over (including those hippies back home) use and love, what’s so bad about that – but it’s a thousand times better than the nasty, confrontational, truly evil petty litigation that I did back there.
So, I’ve learned big corporations aren’t necessarily bad. They can be very good. But back home in that small community of like-minded individuals no one would dare make such a statement. To say such a thing would strike them as bizarre and traitorous. It would be a giant scarlet letter on my forehead, branding me as an oddball, a misfit, as one of THEM, not us.
Whatever.
A few more things I have learned since my last post on this topic.
1.) Look for opportunities to do a side business (or a full time business) based on your contacts in Taiwan. I have started importing some small tech items from Taiwan and the income is helping. That might help you if you move back.
2.) I see a lot of little forumosans being produced. Start saving for them NOW! My oldest will be a junior next year and so we need to start thinking about college. We starting saving for both of them when they were little (not so little now as my “little” one is 6 foot 5 and 270 lbs…you should see my food bill) and it has paid off. Dedicated, monthly investments will pay off in the long run.
3.) Along the lines of kids. I recommend establishing a will. We have a will, trust fund, and power of attourney set up. The cost was about $2,000 USD. It is a peace of mind thing and it make sure that your kids will be provided for if something happens…God forbid.
4.) Check over your monthly bills very carefully as they make mistakes or try to rat fuck you. Learn to say, “fuck you, I’m not paying for that” in a nice polite way.
Hope this helps.