SUCKS! Asked my folks bout it and my dad replied…"dont worry bout me, I can die tomorrow so don’t base any decisions on me.’ Mom said’ Go where your heart is’ and sent this wonderful photo of me and my aunts and uncles and a sunset.
AAARGH.
SUCKS x2. Never had one that worked, but probably because I end up moving, and the lady doesn’t move. Or she ends up going home, and doesn’t follow me or vice versa. Makes me very tired.
Jack, I can’t import music venues or fresh air. So until I can take him home (which requires us both to take vacation time) I must use food.
It seems to be slowly working.
So you haven’t broken it to him that there’s no stinky toufu back home then?
There’s no stinky tofu where you’re from?? I don’t wana go there!!
Our stinky tofu isn’t as good. But we have it.
There’s definitely a cultural difference when you’re both from different countries. I’m Australian and my beautiful wife is from KaoHsiung.
She has moved to Australia to live with me since we got married last year in June. The first 6 months were our honeymoon stage and everything was going really good. Until recently, we constantly fight.
I don’t really understand the way traditional chinese women think. I wish I could understand them a little more. But at this stage all I can say is… I can only live with it and try my best to change my life to suit it.
We have been together for 5 years.
We met in the US, after 6 months I moved back to France, she then moved to the UK, and I discovered the joy of the Eurostar (the under-sea train crossing the Channel).
We moved to southern UK, and lived there for 2 years.
She then had to return home, in Tainan, where i came to live for a semester 6 month after her departure. I was accepted in Cheng Kung University, but at too poor an equivalence, so I moved back to UK to finish my degree there.
She is coming back to me on Sunday for a little while.
By August we should be gone for India, where we will be working for the next 2 or 3 years.
There are places I love in Taiwan (Luodongfor example) but the influence from her family is too great of a pain (lovely people, but just too traditional and controlling).
So it’s either gonna be someplace far away from Tainan in Taiwan, either a third English-speaking country. I dont imagine taking her back to France, specially since my family has exploded after I left for the US, and since France isn’t that attractive a country right now in terms of opportunities.
Ultimately, i’d love keeping it on the road for a few more years, specially since there are quite a few other places i’d like to get to live in (Brasil, South Africa, China, Japan…).
what are you going to do in India?
we (my TW wife and I ) decided to return to australia for many reasons. the clean air, the easier lifestyle and more importantly, my IT job with the australian government at over 100k au a year. there is no way i can get such a technical job here and i don’t want to write technical doco and add to my wage by doing english lessons again.
plus, for our son, i think the education system in australia is much better as it doesn’t give the kids the stress that they get here, plus he also learns to actually think and not just to recite stuff. Just as important, i also want to give my son the lifestyle that i had when i was growing up - that is, room to play, fresh air and being able to have space and land to actually run around. so i’ve bought a 10acre block just outside of canberra and we live there very happily. a short 5 minute drive to a superb golf course, heaps of wineries nearby and a very good lifestyle. sure we come back here for family reasons but the quality of life in australia is just so much better. my tw wife agrees with me.
i really do feel sorry for the kids that grow up here. so much stress, so much hassle, not enough exercise and not enough physical activity and plus, almost a guarantee that they’ll be wearing glasses by the time they are in junior high.
No, but you have stilton. Touch it, then stick your finger into your bellybutton where its hard to wash - you tell me the difference.
I am an American and German Citizen, my boyfriend is a Taiwanese Belizean Citizen. With the atmosphere of the US in the field that I chose to study in college (international relations), and his distaste for the US after living there for several years, it is entirely possible that we may end up in Europe using my other citizenship. My language skills are not good enough to get a job in my field in Taiwan…otherwise that would be an option.
read above… thats still not exploitation… theyre working for it and they enjoy it, now, if you gave them coffee instead, or the other cocoa maybe that would liven things up (and increase production)
I’m still a college student and so is he. He’s in Taiwan. I’m in the US. He’s like the perfect guy, but I’m young and I’ve got lots of goals and dreams. He does plan and hope to study in the US, but I hear that’s getting harder and harder, so I won’t hope too much. I wonder if we should even bother pursuing a relationship.
Your relationship is going to consist of give and take. Eventually one of you will have to give more than you take, in a 80/20 split and if one if you is happy to do that, for whatever reason then things will continue. These are push comes to shove situations. and One of you will have to willlingly bear the shove.
Absence makes the heart grow weaker.
[quote=“gg1965”]
plus, for our son, I think the education system in australia is much better as it doesn’t give the kids the stress that they get here, plus he also learns to actually think and not just to recite stuff. Just as important, i also want to give my son the lifestyle that I had when I was growing up - that is, room to play, fresh air and being able to have space and land to actually run around. so I’ve bought a 10acre block just outside of canberra and we live there very happily. a short 5 minute drive to a superb golf course, heaps of wineries nearby and a very good lifestyle. sure we come back here for family reasons but the quality of life in australia is just so much better. my tw wife agrees with me.
i really do feel sorry for the kids that grow up here. so much stress, so much hassle, not enough exercise and not enough physical activity and plus, almost a guarantee that they’ll be wearing glasses by the time they are in junior high.[/quote]
That’s one of my biggest concern, but not in the way that you think.
Personally i dont really think the whole “clean air, no stress, and space to play” thing is so important (I grew up in a place like this though). I think what matters the most is the people and the culture that surrounds you.
You know that while your kid is going to be the fruit of what you and your wife’s cultures are, he will also be a lot of the place he grew up in.
To me this is the main question: what do i want my kid to be? a French? a Taiwanese?
I really love the taiwanese culture, as in their soft and gentle way to handle people’s relation, the simple happiness and familiarity, and this is something i really wish my kid could get if his mum was from the beautiful island. Now i also value the quality of life, food, culture, and roots that i was exposed to in France. I hope I can take him to visit the family’s castle, and get him to forge some memories of playing with a wooden shield and sword in the forest nearby as i did. I hope he can run through the woods carrying his younger brother in his arms (as my older brother did with me) as this one just managed to put the edge of an axe in his forehead 
But in between both influences, my heart balance. And I can’t help but feel that the question of their identities to be is just so important.
We’re from different countries. We both travelled to Taiwan, met, and the rest is history. (We’ve been married for almost five years).
For awhile we bought into the whole familial obligation theory, spending each vacation at one of our families’ many locations, and we’ve come to a few conclusions:
- When you visit family, you are beholden to everyone and you do not own your time.
- No matter what concessions you make in an effort to spend time with family and friends (when visiting them in another country), it is NEVER enough.
- With our families, less is definitely more.
- We came back from vacations more stressed and wound-up than before we left.
- This is home. Home is not where we were raised, it’s here. If people ask when we’re coming “home”, we respond that we’re already there.
We moved to Taiwan to make money, but somewhere along the line, we discovered ourselves. This is as close as it gets to being who we really are without the crappy obligations that seemed to mangle our lives in the past. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family to bits, and I find that it’s sometimes easier to love from a distance.
We recently had a “staycation” because of a lack of funding, and it was our best vacation ever. We just did things around home city here and left for a three-day getaway within Taiwan. Pure bliss! Totally the way to go.
As a result of our “epiphany”, we’ve drawn the following conclusions:
- Unless there’s an emergency, we’re staying put for at least two years. If family and friends want to see us, there are plenty of planes at the airport just waiting to be boarded; there is no onus or obligation on us to visit them or be at their beck and call. (In eight years, my father and stepmother are the only ones who have deigned to visit us; everyone else insists that it’s our duty to return “home”).
- We’re more financially secure when we don’t have to travel halfway around the world twice a year.
- We get along better with one another now. Not sure how related this is to the family thing.
Like all “blended-country” couples, we’ve had our share of misunderstandings, but for us, living in Taiwan has cemented us and helped us to grow as a couple. Here, we’re both “foreign”, so neither of us is at more of a disadvantage than the other. [/pointless rant]
Makes a lot of sense to me Nemesis
[quote=“nemesis”]We’re from different countries. We both travelled to Taiwan, met, and the rest is history. (We’ve been married for almost five years).
For awhile we bought into the whole familial obligation theory, spending each vacation at one of our families’ many locations, and we’ve come to a few conclusions:
- When you visit family, you are beholden to everyone and you do not own your time.
- No matter what concessions you make in an effort to spend time with family and friends (when visiting them in another country), it is NEVER enough.
- With our families, less is definitely more.
- We came back from vacations more stressed and wound-up than before we left.
- This is home. Home is not where we were raised, it’s here. If people ask when we’re coming “home”, we respond that we’re already there.
We moved to Taiwan to make money, but somewhere along the line, we discovered ourselves. This is as close as it gets to being who we really are without the crappy obligations that seemed to mangle our lives in the past. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family to bits, and I find that it’s sometimes easier to love from a distance.
We recently had a “staycation” because of a lack of funding, and it was our best vacation ever. We just did things around home city here and left for a three-day getaway within Taiwan. Pure bliss! Totally the way to go.
As a result of our “epiphany”, we’ve drawn the following conclusions:
- Unless there’s an emergency, we’re staying put for at least two years. If family and friends want to see us, there are plenty of planes at the airport just waiting to be boarded; there is no onus or obligation on us to visit them or be at their beck and call. (In eight years, my father and stepmother are the only ones who have deigned to visit us; everyone else insists that it’s our duty to return “home”).
- We’re more financially secure when we don’t have to travel halfway around the world twice a year.
- We get along better with one another now. Not sure how related this is to the family thing.
Like all “blended-country” couples, we’ve had our share of misunderstandings, but for us, living in Taiwan has cemented us and helped us to grow as a couple. Here, we’re both “foreign”, so neither of us is at more of a disadvantage than the other. [/pointless rant][/quote]
Your relationship sounds beautiful. Long may you cherish each other.
[quote=“nemesis”]We’re from different countries. We both travelled to Taiwan, met, and the rest is history. (We’ve been married for almost five years).
For awhile we bought into the whole familial obligation theory, spending each vacation at one of our families’ many locations, and we’ve come to a few conclusions:
- When you visit family, you are beholden to everyone and you do not own your time.
- No matter what concessions you make in an effort to spend time with family and friends (when visiting them in another country), it is NEVER enough.
- With our families, less is definitely more.
- We came back from vacations more stressed and wound-up than before we left.
- This is home. Home is not where we were raised, it’s here. If people ask when we’re coming “home”, we respond that we’re already there.
We moved to Taiwan to make money, but somewhere along the line, we discovered ourselves. This is as close as it gets to being who we really are without the crappy obligations that seemed to mangle our lives in the past. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family to bits, and I find that it’s sometimes easier to love from a distance.
We recently had a “staycation” because of a lack of funding, and it was our best vacation ever. We just did things around home city here and left for a three-day getaway within Taiwan. Pure bliss! Totally the way to go.
As a result of our “epiphany”, we’ve drawn the following conclusions:
- Unless there’s an emergency, we’re staying put for at least two years. If family and friends want to see us, there are plenty of planes at the airport just waiting to be boarded; there is no onus or obligation on us to visit them or be at their beck and call. (In eight years, my father and stepmother are the only ones who have deigned to visit us; everyone else insists that it’s our duty to return “home”).
- We’re more financially secure when we don’t have to travel halfway around the world twice a year.
- We get along better with one another now. Not sure how related this is to the family thing.
Like all “blended-country” couples, we’ve had our share of misunderstandings, but for us, living in Taiwan has cemented us and helped us to grow as a couple. Here, we’re both “foreign”, so neither of us is at more of a disadvantage than the other. [/pointless rant][/quote]
What a wonderful post, nemesis! I totally second everything you say. We’re in a similar situation, although we’re not in Taiwan (yet!) - I was born in Taiwan but grew up in various countries overseas, mainly the UAE - my husband is English, from London. We met in the UK when I went over for Uni (same college) - and then solved the problem of whose parents to disappoint and whose country to live in by moving over to the other side of the world and starting afresh in a totally new country! 
You’re right - if you’re both “foreign”, it helps to keep you on the same side.
We’ve been living in NZ for 6 yrs now and loving it - but can so relate to your points about the stress of spending every free vacation doing “duty” family visits and having all savings poured into that…we quickly made the decision to only go back every 2 yrs (and we usually do a loop trip of Dubai and London) - however, recently with parents ageing and getting ill, it’s beginning to look like we’ll have to make more frequent trips whether we like it or not.
At the end of this year, my husband is heading off to the US for a 1 yr research fellowship and I will be coming to live in Taiwan by myself (well, with the pets!) due to financial reasons. It’ll be the first time we’ve lived apart in our 11yr marriage, so it’ll be an interesting experience :s Everyone has been horrified at this “drastic” decision but Paul needs to do this fellowship as part of his training and it’s the only way we can prevent coming out of the year with terrible debt - and we thought that if a relationship is strong enough, it should be able to withstand some challenges. Hope we’re right! 
Looking on the positive side, I’m looking forward to “re-discovering” my own country and brushing up on my Mandarin!
H’sin-'Yi