Continuing the discussion from Your experience with racism in Taiwan:
I think I’m almost understanding who are nationals and who are foreigners.
What I’m not sure is who are westerners. Does the term
Taiwanese born and grown up in Canada without Canadian passport are not westerners?
#editted. I intended to ask a question.
Canadian born and grown up in Taiwan without Taiwanese passport are westerners. What if the Canadian’s parents are Taiwanese immigrants to Canada? Still westerners?
Sure they are. Why wouldn’t they have a passport?
westerner: a native or inhabitant of the west, especially of western Europe or North America.
Another way of separating east from west is philosophy, Socrates or Confucius.
Western thought or Eastern thought.
theoretically it is possible they don’t have a Canadian passport.
Then, Canadian born and grown up in Taiwan without Taiwanese passport are easterners?
I wouldn’t say so myself. They would seem to be natives of “the West”.
whether they are westerners depends on their cultural background more than nationality?
Though, no matter how much their thought is westernized, Taiwanese who have never been to the west and have no ancestors from the west are not westerners.
I think so!
Depends. Ethnically Taiwanese Americans are Asians and therefore Eastern. There’s no ambiguity there. But culture, identity and nationality are more fluid and don’t necessarily directly correspond to ethnicity.
Edit: In the west we don’t use Eastern in this sense usually but Asians quite often use Western when it comes to ethnicity.
I am Czech. Am I a westerner?
A lot of Czechs hate hearing that the Czech Republic is part of the Eastern Europe. The preferred category is Central Europe, after all, Prague lies further west than Vienna.
Since the fall of the Communist regime in 1989, the majority of the population yearned to to finally rejoin the west, and enjoy the freedom and fortune associated with it.
However, during my university studies in the Netherlands (mostly humanities), the notion of western was almost always described with the negative connotation. According to the left-leaning faculty, being a westerner carried a burden of violent colonial history, exploitation, oppression, racism, you name it.
The freedoms and fortunes the west should be proud of were explained as the misfortune of others, the non-western nations. Almost something one should be guilty of.
The thing is that as a Czech, my ancestors took no part in colonialism, and were historically more oppressed than not, whether by Austrians, Germans, or Russians. Yet, I feel pride in values of the west, freedom, individualism, capitalism.
I guess in the Taiwanese context, I am a westerner. White skin, blue eyes, and terrible Mandarin. Not many here would see a difference between me and a Dutch guy.
In the Western context, I do not know.
East Asian people even refer to middle easterns as western people so…
this post made me wonder the thread title question.
Taiwanese with dual citizenship or dual nationality from the western countries are westerners?
Kids between a westerner and a non westerner are westerners?
What if the parent with a western passport is an immigrant from a non western country?
Etc.
I think it’s more due to culture. If your parents are canadian but you’re born in japan, went there to school, speak japanese better than english, watch japanese tv, read japanese books etc. would you feel “western”?
Kingdom of Bavaria
When taiwanese say “westerner” they mean white people. Shades of skin tone, eye color and nose length. Dont put too much thought into it, they dont…
Kind of like how people say asians as if there is no obvious differences between say indonesians, vietnamese and han.
And when they say “foreigner”, they mean non Han and non aboriginal people.
I just wondered while thinking about estimating how many westerners are Taiwanese citizens, and what percentage is that of westerners living in Taiwan.
Usually taiwanese have pretty shotty geography education. Forwigner tends to often mean non han. If its westerner they tend to revert to taiwanese and go Adoga. Its fun to mess.with them because language symantics often isnt a strong point. When they are compring me to say a vietnamese, japanese etc i correct them to say they are foreign as well but they get a bit confused and go to adoga, which is right.
Non han and non aboriginal is right, bu its obviously wrong. Try talking to a local over 50 about how they are a foreigner to all the billions minus our 23million. Its quite fun. Especially as a drinking conversation.
It amazed me when I looked at my niece’s school books. They are at least three years behind what we learn at the same age in the UK for geography. Kids are at school all day every day, but what are they actually learning? Just math, science and Chinese?
Why are you focused on a passport?
A passport is just a document that the government issues you.
To give an example I don’t have a Taiwanese passport. But I still feel I have partially Taiwanese identity now.
It’s the passage of time and me making much of my adult life in Taiwan.
Did that change before or after I got the passport or after I gave back the passport?
A bit but not a lot. Identity is fluid but more related to where you grew up and how long or how much you have been working or living or participating in something or somewhere. Culture and time and beliefs.
You don’t just become something or not become something because of a piece of paper. You can claim to be something or be deemed something legally , but identity is bigger than that. No outside authority can determine that for you.
Pretty much. I would say 80% plus are just maths and Chinese . It’s frustrating. Teachers will sometimes review maths and Chinese in classes that they are supposed to be doing other things.