The same reasoning of "cultural differances"is usually the answer.At the same time when ever I step wwwwaaaayyyyy out of line in similiar fashion it’s “sze hay ren!”( die Black person!) What is up with that???
See,that tells me that culture differance explanation is a crock.Ethics exist here.They just aren’t usually applied!![/quote]
hah, well said. people will always give you this “chinese way” argument, hah until you try it and see how well it goes over.
i think somewhere deep–well not very deep–within the taiwanese mindset lurks the idea that being polite is a form of subservience. the corollary is that if you can get away with being rude you’ve scored a point.
I’ve never had much problem with wrong numbers, but what pisses me off about telephone etty-ketty here is hwo late people wring. Back home ringing after about 10PM is rude, maybe 11Pm at a stretch if you know them well. Here it’s like 12AM, no problem, 1AM or 2Am even with the inlaws. “Fuck off, I’m trying to sleep”.
My co-workers tell me that they are usually call-girls trying to solicit business.
[quote=“Poagao”]The other day I got a call on my mobile phone from a woman I had no recollection of meeting. She spoke to me as if we were old friends. Thinking I must know her but simply not remembered, I kept talking with her, hoping she would throw in a hint as her identity so that I could realize where I knew her from before she realized I didn’t remember her. But as we talked, I began to suspect she didn’t actually know me at all. “Where do I know you from, again?” I asked.
“We met at the thing, you know…” she said.
“What thing?”
“The thing, you know. The dinner. There were a lot of people; I don’t blame you for not remembering me.”[/quote]
Yeah, we had a discussion about this before. It seems that some telecom employees may be giving out the numbers of males to these agencies. “My” hooker calls me every Saturday. You could almost set your watch by it.
funny, my mate calls me every saturday to find out what time our horses are going off in the morning, i could set my watch by it for sure no hookers though
Usually, if it’s a wrong number caller, they usually realize it’s the wrong number after I answer. Very seldom do I have to ask who they are looking for. Guess I haven’t run into any characters yet.
I was gettong a lot of these calls and text message ads. I called up Tawian Dageda and said I didn’t want anymore. They said that the ads didn’t come from them. So I asked why they gave my number to other companies. They claimed they didn’t and it was just machines auto-dialling. I said they should be able to block these machines and also suggested that they might be allowing them on purpose or selling the numbers to other companies. The rep stressed agaon and again that there was nothing they could do to stop calling my ads. I said that if they couldn’t protect my number from thse calls I would have to consider using a different company.
That was three months ago and I haven’t got an ad on my phone since.
What really pisses me off is when Taiwanese people suddenly hang up without saying “Bye” or “zai jian”. It happens all the time, and it seems like almost all Taiwanese people do this, no matter if they’re young or old, male or female.
I have noticed that they are especially likely to hang up whenever I say “xie xie”, so I have avoid saying “xie xie” whenever I’m on the phone, but that’s very difficult to do. And even if I finally get to the point where I’m really ready to go and they still haven’t hung up on me yet, then as soon as I say “zai jian”, they immediatly slam down the phone without any reply.
I met some very interesting people this way. wrong number turned into a long conversation, on their dime! i love the lack of manners here. makes this island what it is. rude and crude.
Maybe it’s an influence from the movies, where nobody ever says “hello” or “bye”…it’s always “Whatcha got?” and nothing for goodbye. I personally don’t see saying exactly the same thing in Chinese as is traditionally said in English=good manners. It’s just the way people here talk, and you learn and adapt to it. It’s just part of learning a new language. I hardly ever say ‘zaijian’ to end my Chinese phone conversations, as it’s not expected and there’s no need.
Maybe it’s an influence from the movies, where nobody ever says “hello” or “bye”…it’s always “Whatcha got?” and nothing for goodbye. I personally don’t see saying exactly the same thing in Chinese as is traditionally said in English=good manners. It’s just the way people here talk, and you learn and adapt to it. It’s just part of learning a new language. I hardly ever say ‘zaijian’ to end my Chinese phone conversations, as it’s not expected and there’s no need.[/quote]
also because their time is precious… or maybe it is just a habit?? I don’t know, it has happened to me a few times and I got used to it now…
i actually get more wrong numbers than right on my cell…but the really funny thing is i dont actually know my own number so when the dialler asks me to confirm the number i can’t and chaos ensues since they can’t get there head around the whole concept…“what you don’t know your own number?..ah no…I don’t usually all myself…”
I remember my home number well enough, but I can’t for the life of me remember my office number, even though it’s been the same for the past eleven years. I always have to get out my name card to check it when I need to write it down. But then why should one need to remember one’s office number – that’s what name cards are for, isn’t it?
On the whole, I dislike phones very much, and try to live without them as much as possible. I do not like chatting idly on the phone – it gives me no sense of really communicating with someone when we’re just exchanging verbal messages through those pieces of plastic. Real communication means face to face contact, with words fleshed out by facial expressions, body language, and invisible chemical signals flying back and forth. So, I am one of the very few people in Taiwan who do not possess cellphones, and I often unplug my phone at home or just ignore it when it rings.
I’ve gotten a few wrong number calls where I can tell I don’t know them because they don’t speak any English and my Mandarin is too poor to be able to function socially with people who don’t speak English…I just got another one last night.
Caller: Wei?
Me: Hello?
Caller: Wei?
Me: Ni shuo ying wen ma?
Caller: Wei?
Me: Wo renshi ni ma?
Caller: Zhe shi shei?
Me: Ni bu zhi dao ma? Hao a. Bye bye.
[Click.]
no hookers though 
And even if I finally get to the point where I’m really ready to go and they still haven’t hung up on me yet, then as soon as I say “zai jian”, they immediatly slam down the phone without any reply.