Why does a certain segment of the white population in Taiwan insist on calling themselves immigrants?

It is no strange that immigrants think of themselves as immigrants. If there are white people immigrating somewhere, but thinking of themselves as not immigrants, that is strange.

1 Like

Yep, I agree. But the whole idea of the thread… including the assertion that expats in other countries don’t think of themselves as “immigrants”… is dumb anyway.

This is extraordinarily high effort.

1 Like

5 posts were split to a new topic: Derpydogs.

this is a rainy. just your typical chinese girl. they also use the term vivian, as so many girls over there are called vivian. i’d have to agree as i met a girl called rain and another called vivian while i was living over there. its some memes made up by expats in china, funny but personally i wouldn’t lump taiwanese girls into the same category as mainlanders, but thats just me.

1 Like

I agree. Very different culturally, if not ethnically (and maybe even a little different ethnically at this point).

How long were you in the mainland for? Where were you?

I’ve looked up some more about this expat/immigrant issue and I’ve concluded that I am an expat and a higher quality white. That’s quite made my day.

I also know the difference between the possessive its and the contraction of it and the verb to be. I’m getting more outstanding by the minute.

1 Like

Usually takes about 1 year of being on this forum to realize this.

:beers:

1 Like

Immigrant is an extremely problematic term stemming from internalised racism and microagressions of whites in our western heteronormative societies that implies, perhaps subconsciously, the non-white migrant is worse or has a lower place in society - as an “other”. A white person referring to oneself as an “immigrant” exacerbates this by being completely unaware and insensitive to the plight of the People of Colour who are the backbone of our countries, and the generations of oppression inflicted on them


But in seriousness for what ever reason expat has the connotation of a wealthy probably white first-worlder living it up in a secluded expatriate community, whereas immigrant has the connotation of someone relatively poor moving to a richer country with the hope of an improved life. No one calls the lads crossing the Mediterranean expats although the Oxford definition above would apply to them

5 Likes

By the way, I’m more interested in the reason you separate white people with coloured people.

I’m a higher quality white expat. Fact.

4 Likes

That’s so current year!! Something like that could get you hired at buzzfeed or salon!

1 Like

Should be obvious. The majority of Western expats are white. Non-white foreigners in Taiwan are likely to be blue collar labour. Vastly different experiences.

this may be true.

this may be true too.

Majority of white collar foreign labours may be coloured people, though. Most of white collar expats from Asian countries are coloured people, and many from western countries are also coloured people.

But that’s not true. Think about the hiring practices of your local buxiban.

Majority of foreign English teachers may be white people. But there are more white collar foreign workers other than English teachers. There are several definitions of expat, but I think none of them limits its meaning to just English teachers. We can check workers’ numbers for occupations and nationalities on government statistic pages.

You’re also a forumosa user, so are you self-loathing or what? Is this some sad “I don’t want to belong to any club that’d have me as a member” Groucho Marx routine?

4 Likes

I find Forumosa more fun than Reddit. /r/taiwan is terrible, they shadowban people that aren’t rah-rah TAIWAN NUMBA 1. And of course they shadowban, not actual ban, as that would require confrontation – albeit virtual.

Reddit is just for those not worthy of 4chan.

1 Like