Pet-Owning Redux

Who's afraid of Stupidface? Aren't you just a big genius? Yes you aaaaaarrreeee.
Who's a stupid genius? It's YOU!

Just thought I'd muse a bit on something I've noticed:

A fear of cats among many Taiwanese people - more so than I've ever noticed back home. I grew up with cats, and rarely would people decline to visit my parents' home or act nervous or afraid around my parents' cats (who almost never came out to greet strangers anyway). A few guests just didn't like cats, but that's not the same thing as being scared of them. 

So far since we'ved moved we've had three potential houseguests - all Taiwanese - who are terrified of cats. One is coming over later today and is hoping the cat stays away from her. One is going to be invited over soon (and he knows it) and "really hates cats" (his words). Yet another was invited over with her children, who I teach privately,  but her husband came instead. It might have been work or schedule related, but she's made it clear that she doesn't like any animal but is especially afraid of cats. A friend's mother also fears them - something about their big, searching eyes.

That's four people I know who not only don't like cats, but are actively afraid of them. Four people in five years, as opposed to zero people in 26 years in the USA. Of course they exist, but they're rare enough that I have never met one knowingly.

I don't really know why this is. It's just a thing I thought I'd note. Comments with explanations or ideas are welcome.

In other news, this article is worth reading* for anyone interested in animal rights, pet ownership or animal rescue. One great thing about Taiwan is that rescue groups here aren't so difficult: if you go to an event where Animals Taiwan has a booth, or visit their facility, you can adopt a rescued pet with very little fuss. I mean they still talk to you a bit to make sure you're a decent person who can provide a good home but otherwise you can bring a cat or dog home that day. It's similarly easy to adopt from veterinarian offices - my vet (near Heping/Fuxing intersection, a bit west on Heping, next to the Dante Coffee) often has rescued cats and kittens up for adoption and they're pretty easy to adopt.

I have to say, though, that my brief experience in the USA with rescue agencies mirrors this article. I was playing with adoptable cats in a PetSmart one day - I didn't have a pet at the time but was in there with a friend who had a pet - and I said that if I hadn't been planning to live abroad I would totally take one home, and that I preferred cats because  they didn't mind so much when their owners went to work and didn't need to be  taken out or walked.         

"Oh, you work full time?"
"Yes."
"Are you married?"
"No."

"Well, we don't adopt out to homes where people aren't around during the day. You can't leave a cat alone all day" (me, thinking: "you can't? Huh?") "so we only adopt to people who are home in the daytime."

"So, only unemployed people, housewives or those who work at home, huh."
"Certainly not anyone who is unemployed."
"So basically under your guidelines almost nobody should be allowed to have a cat."
"Well...but..."

I walked away. Even if I'd been seriously about to apply to adopt one of them, that was just too ridiculous for words.  We rescued 招財 - or rather my sister did - directly off the streets of Taipei and he's been a wonderful and happy kitty who doesn't seem to mind that the owners he often ignores go out during the day.

*my one issue with it is that Yoffe didn't really attempt to talk to any rescue organizations to get their perspective. I am on the side of the adopters, but the rescuers deserve a say.

Annual Party (尾牙) Culture in Taiwan

Here, be cheered up by nearly naked engineers dancing in diapers

Seriously, I got nothin'. I can't write anything except to say how disappointed I am in the election results, and what good'd that do?

So, I'm going to write about the 尾牙, or company year-end banquet that is held by most workplaces of some size in Taiwan. Smaller offices don't always hold them, especially tiny offices with just a few people in them working in Taiwan for a larger global company. Some of the larger companies, like Mediatek, hold them by business unit rather than for the whole company. Others, like Foxconn and Gamania, hold ginormous company-wide bashes (Foxconn even invites reporters; the others don't).

Not many foreigners get to attend these parties - large international companies that employ a few foreigners will certainly invite them, but otherwise there aren't many chances to attend. Some English schools have something similar (Kojen holds its annual banquet at the end of the summer, and my husband's company has one before Christmas), but they're not quite the same and resemble weddings or corporate events back home more than a  knock-down drag 'em out Taiwanese 尾牙(pronounced "wei ya" for all you non-Chinese speakers).

And I really mean knock down drag 'em out:

The lack of foreigners attending these parties could explain why they're not really talked about in expat circles, except to note that adult students take time off around this time of year to attend. And the expat versions are, in my opinion, not nearly as much fun.

There are different kinds of annual parties, of course. One company I work with has an extremely formal affair, which probably did not include engineers dancing in diapers.  Attendees are invited to wear ball gowns, but few actually do. Another has a 1,500 person mega affair in the NTU gymnasium, and this year featured an executive in drag and my student in a sequined top dancing to Lady Gaga (I was not invited; I saw the pictures). 

The one I was invited to last night was for a very local company - you can see the name displayed across the top of most of the photos I've included. They're based in Tucheng (土城) and the party was in Shulin (樹林) - yes, I rode the MRT to the end of the line and then took a cab from the station and back; I was that excited about attending one of these functions. This one, I  have been assured, was about as "local" as it gets, at a seafood restaurant in an old Japanese-era brick building, with backlit stage screen bearing the company's name, smoke machines (no joke!), lasers, confetti, sexy dancers, alcohol and insane talent shows and, of course, a lucky draw. It wasn't terribly formal - I wore a nice but not fancy outfit I might wear to work on any given day, adding only a light touch of makeup - and felt   as though I was dressed just about right.

Here are some sexy flight attendants for you

I believe I was invited at all simply because this company is extremely Taiwanese, locally based, not that large, started by one whip-smart, slightly kooky engineer who decided that he may as well open his own company, who is the CEO but very visible in the company offices. He is my former student (the General Manager is my current student). They have much more of a "come on, the more the merrier, we like you so come drink and eat with us" attitude than other companies I've worked with (although generally speaking I have liked every company I've worked with, even if they didn't invite me to their year-end banquets). My own organization was surprised at their hospitality: I decided that it was such an interesting chance to see a piece of local culture that I couldn't pass it up, even though it meant postponing another class.

The Taiwanese attendees will often tell you that the lucky draw is the most important part of the night, and the best part. Some will even say it's the main reason to attend. Companies do this differently, too. Some give out money and prizes. Some give out fewer, larger prizes (Foxconn famously has a prize in the millions of NT, paid out over several years. Other companies give out smaller prizes to more people. Some give every employee a red envelope with a few thousand in it, and have a few prizes on top of that). Bigger prizes have been things like cars or other luxury items. On the awesome but slightly less extravagant end, my friend's girlfriend won a purse from Tod's.

Many companies have a well-known rule that if an executive or high enough manager wins the prize, he or she has to donate it back to the company for someone else to win, and sometimes add more money on top of that (if it's a cash prize, they either give it back or double it). Some companies get a set amount from the company for the lucky draw prizes, and the higher-ups each put in another NT$20,000 or so to pad the prize-load. If an executive wins and does not do this, he or she is the object of much whispering and tittering in the cube farm the next day, and on Facebook.

I, however, think the best part of the night is the part you don't usually see at affairs full of foreigners (although Brendan's company holiday bash featured a watered-down version of one, which was, honestly, nothing like the one I saw on Friday), the talent show.
        

This is where all the shy, maybe kind of awkward, definitely not wild-n-crazy students you thought you had practice for weeks for the chance to prance around on a stage in Spongebob underpants.

Or do a sexy dance (these are all company employees).

Or do whatever this is.

Basically, they get up there and do things I just don't see foreigners generally acquiescing to, let alone coming up with the idea for.  They tried to get me to sing some random Christmas song from the '70s at Brendan's party, and I was conveniently in the bathroom fixing my lipstick when it was supposed to happen (there was no rehearsal, though. It was just sort of  thrust upon me). Nobody at the party full of foreigners seemed interested in  getting onstage.

And yet, these generally introverted, often (but not always) quiet guys who spend all day every weekday boxed up in a cubicle are willing to do...this:

And this:

And, uh, this:

And, you know, that's what I think makes a Taiwanese year-end banquet so much fun. I was quite literally stunned several times over by the increasing craziness of the talent show acts. Every time I found my mouth hanging open, that no group would do something nuttier or more self-effacing than what I'd just seen, I was proven wrong by, oh, I don't know, dorky engineers in clown wigs dancing with secretaries in black leather corsets.

I left at about 11pm, when the party at the actual venue was winding down. I probably could have finagled an invitation to KTV, but I was tired and needed to catch the MRT home (and wasn't sure who I trusted to drive me among those heading to KTV until 3am). So when the lights came up, I said my slightly drunken Chinese and Taiwanese goodbyes and caught a cab back to MRT Fu-da, stuffed and full of alcohol - but not that drunk, as I'd spaced it out between courses of food.

Although I did have a bit more than intended: my students are the CEO and General Manager, who are of course just the guys who came around with wine, beer and whiskey to "bottoms up" with every table, and they seemed to take great delight in coming by my seat more than once to see if I could handle it (I could). They were clearly much worse off than I was.

Not only did I pull off a decent night of socializing in Chinese, but I made some friends, too. These guys' costumes are probably offensive to somebody but who cares.

 One thing I really enjoyed was the challenge of socializing in Chinese in an entirely Taiwanese milieu for a night, with no chance to slip back into English. It was sink-or-swim social Chinese, and I am proud to say that I swam.  The chance to bring out my Chinese for a real-life event and have to use it all night - not a simulation, not "just for fun" with people who actually speak English, but all-out, all night, with people who don't speak English.

Just the sort of thing I encourage my students to do in English, which they seem to be terrified of (although less so when I am done with them).

It's a fun night - assuming you speak Chinese or the attendees have an overall good level of English, otherwise it could be quite confusing and not that much fun - and something I hope more foreigners get the chance to do. Certainly more fun, from what I've heard, than a typical Taiwanese wedding. Then again, that's hearsay: I've never been to one.

I do think the level of craziness has something to do with the fact that these guys work far more grueling hours than most Westerners, and get out far less often. We foreigners might go out at least once a week, and things like "beer on Friday with coworkers" would be a pretty normal thing to do. It's almost as though we have tiny wei-yas all year, and these guys save it all up for one crazy bash in which they shed all inhibition.

With my student, the General Manager...and his secretary, who won two lucky draw prizes.

Basically, I wish I could go to one of these every year!

So now, my goals for socializing and cultural experience in Taiwan,  beyond the festivals I'd like to hit this year, are:

- A wedding. It's been five years and I've never been to one. My friends just aren't into marriage.

- A street party or "ban dou" (辦桌), for a wedding or otherwise.

- Something featuring showgirls or dancers. Preferably on a truck that converts into a stage and is covered in LEDs (電花車), and as local as possible. I don't want high class professional showgirls, I want the ones who come in on a blue truck for the Pingdong Pineapple Factory annual bash. Or something.

- Something where I actually have to practice with a group and go on stage dressed as something ridiculous (no sexy dancing, though).

And with that, I leave you with a few more amusing photos from my ridiculous Friday night. I can only hope you all get the chance to go to one of these someday. They're a cultural experience not to be missed.

My two students, singing a Taiwanese folk song, completely off their heads

Obligatory group shot before the drunkenness commenced (the guys in suits are my students)

Spongebob, check. Not sure why he needs a Spiderman, but check. But...three Spidermen?

WOOOOOOOOOO!

These guys crack me up

And some more sexy flight attendants for you.

Of Sleep

I recently came across this post: Ten Photos Proving the Taiwanese Can Sleep Anywhere, Anytime

I'm not surprised.

I'll even say that there's more than a grain of truth to this: I too have noted a higher percentage of people sleeping in all sorts of places at all sorts of times in Taiwan.

It starts in childhood, when as kids they go to school all day, then to cram school, and they're lucky if they get home at 11pm. I used to get on the MRT at Taipei Main at about 10pm twice a week - the person driving me would race to get there before the cram schools let out at  9:45 and the MRT was crammed to the gills with students. Then they've got homework. No free time, of course, not during the week. My estimate is that the average Taiwanese student gets about 3 hours of sleep a night.

OK, seriously, maybe not 3, but not more than 6.

There are exceptions to this rule - I tutor two girls on the weekend (it's not really a "class" - it's English Fun Time and I do it more because I've become attached to the girls and invested in their future than for the money) and they don't attend cram school every night, although they are pushed to do well academically within the bounds of reason.

Then there are the casualties: the nephew of one of my former clients (she's left that company), who had to be out the door at 7am for school, then cram school, home at 11:30pm because he lived out in Taipei County (I believe his parents own a small apartment in Taipei City, allowing him to attend high school here, but don't actually live there - it's actually quite common among the well-off in Taipei). Then homework, which he barely kept up with, if at all, then finally bed. He did all the extra homework on the weekend, as well as taking additional classes. By the time my student told me her concerns about him, what she described in his personality fit the signs of depression quite accurately - although I'm not a psychiatrist, I'll at least say that he should have been screened. It's sad that knowledge and treatment of mental health in Taiwan is so lacking that that'll probably never happen. I can't say, of course, if that was caused by his *ahem* rigorous academic schedule, but I sure can take an educated guess.

Then you get four years of relative freedom in college before you're bounced into the working world (or for men, military service, which might actually be another few years of decent sleep) and are working until long after a healthy person should go home to enjoy their family - usually around  7 or  8, but also fairly often until  9 or 10, and not uncommonly are the newest employees stuck with work on the weekend - unofficial work, of course, so they don't get overtime or comp time for it. They're just given more regular work than they can possibly do in 8 or even 10 hours.

It doesn't get much better as you climb the ladder - my students regularly report getting home at 9pm, 10pm or later - and I tend to teach the higher-ups.

When I ask, the most common answer I hear for how much sleep people actually get in Taiwan is about 6 hours, often less. I don't know about you, but while I can live on 6 hours, after a week or so of that I'm drained. It's all I can do to stay awake no matter where I am. I start to doze off whenever I sit down. I tested the limits of this in the USA, when my natural bedtime (around midnight) clashed with when I needed to be up for work (around 6am, maybe 6:10). I couldn't afford the thing that would have allowed me to wake up later - that being a car - and couldn't force myself to sleep before 11:30pm, maybe 11. I sure could doze off on my lunch hour or on the bus, though!

So is it really any wonder that you see people sleeping in all sorts of contortions in Taiwan?

Maybe if they didn't feel the push to study and work themselves* to exhaustion it wouldn't happen.


*by "themselves" I don't mean everyone, it's one of those general statements that's meant to describe observations of trends, not individuals

The Many Faces of Face

I have a very complicated relationship with face.

As an expat in Asia, I have to deal with it almost daily - from those little social niceties that allow people to preserve their status, pride or dignity all the way to outright lying, doing anything to avoid admitting fault and back again to roundabout, indirect turns of phrase that ultimately mean nothing but preserve a semblance of social harmony.

Two events have caused me to think about face in more depth and pointedly explore how I feel about it and my relationship to it. After all, I have a sense of face, too - made all the stronger from having lived in countries where it is a strong component of national culture.

The first was this incident in Sanliurfa (a historic city in southeast Turkey). Yes, face exists in Turkey as it does in Taiwan, although within its own cultural paradigm. You can read the actual story through that link.

The second is something I'll speak about more vaguely, as it's currently unfolding: events at work. Basically, a series of screw-ups, poorly timed decisions, manufactured problems and outright incompetence have caused both of us to be dissatisfied. He's quitting now - I have a few things to finish up before I throw in the towel but rest assured I won't be there much longer, either (and before anyone leaves a comment to warn me that I shouldn't say so openly online, don't worry. I've stopped caring. I could figure things out if my workplace got ahold of this post. This is a bridge I don't mind torching - to quote some song lyrics, we don't need no water, let the mother****er burn). Their actions have generally not caused me to lose face - and when I do mess up (and I do, everyone does) I own up to it and apologize. I expect my basic dignity to remain intact and demand respect, but I won't use face for that other twisted purpose of covering up my shortcomings or refusing to acknowledge fault. They have, however, caused my husband to lose, if not face, then dignity, and he is absolutely right to reclaim that and leave. They've also got a bad - but very East Asian - habit of doing anything and everything to maintain their own face, even if it's to the detriment of someone else's.

What I've realized from this is that there are two types of face: the "it doesn't affect anyone else to preserve my dignity" face, which includes "social harmony" face, and the other, more insidious "this is a zero-sum game" face in which saving your own skin requires skinning someone else alive.

The first one doesn't bother me as much as it used to, depending on the situation. Culturally speaking, I'm predisposed to being direct, saying something is wrong when it is, and holding people accountable. Where I come from - New York, which I find to be a region of plainspoken people - the frankness of what someone says isn't meant to be taken personally, and isn't expected to do so. You messed up, say you're sorry, do your best to fix it, and OK. We can all move on. Nobody's going to harp on it forever, because you owned it. When I first moved to Asia, I was of the mindset of: well, you screwed up. Don't try to pussyfoot around it, and don't try to glaze over it with elliptical speech. Just apologize and do your best to make amends, and we can move on. I respected people who rose to this standard much more, and I generally don't hold grudges (with a few exceptions, but even those are passive grudges rather than active ones. I don't have the energy to actively hate someone for long periods of time). The mistake is no biggie - we all make them - but the vague, glassy speech of someone trying to save face (mistakes were made...happenstances were happened...you know...it's very difficult to...things...stuff...oh, ah...) is something I find deeply irritating. I didn't really respect it, and still don't.

What has changed is that now I understand it. I'm used to it, and I've been known to play the game to allow someone else to save a bit of face. I've even been known to do this at work by smiling and nodding through sheer idiocy, because it behooves me to allow the person to save face for now.

Other times, I really can't condone it: what happened in Sanliurfa was this kind of face-saving: oh no, they weren't trying to cheat you, it was a language misunderstanding. Oh no, they thought it was a tip. No, of course they didn't try to cheat you, it's just a culture gap - with the expectation that the other person will just play along. As Brendan noted in his post, the money wasn't important. Five lira really is nothing to us in the vast reaches of time. It was that we weren't interested in saving the face of someone who just tried to cheat us.

But the social harmony aspect of saving face is something I'm fine with, most of the time. You know, a newbie on the job screws up royally, and everyone glosses over it because she's new, trying hard, and she'll get better (and usually, she does). I have no problem with that. If it means not responding to every idiotic thing a person says, no matter how crazy right wing (or left wing) or conspiracy theorist it is, because you have to deal with that person in the future and it's best for you if you just let those things go...well, OK.

Of course, if there's a massive underlying problem, like, I don't know, an office that consistently makes huge mistakes, manufactures problems and acts to solve them with all the efficacy of a car whose wheels are spinning in the mud - and everyone's trying to pretend that it's all fine and everyone is doing an outstanding job and we should all clap politely - then no.

Then there's face as a zero-sum game. The kind where there are two people or groups involved, and one of them is either fully or nominally at fault, but desperate to do anything possible to save face even at the expense of the other. This is what started to happen in Sanliurfa before we walked away: what started as a stupid game to save the faces of two guys trying to cheat us turned into a zero-sum catfight. When we refused to smile and nod politely at the idea that this was just a language misunderstanding it turned into "don't be rude!". By not playing along, the only choice left to the cafe owners and the English speaking customer who came over to help us was to save their face by trying to take away ours by accusing Brendan of being "rude". Those of you who know Brendan know that basically the last thing he could ever be called is "rude"!

It's happened at work, as well - but I won't go into too much detail.

I don't feel that it's the norm in foreigner-Taiwanese interactions that it'll always be a "my face over yours, foreigner!" situation, although it does happen. I do feel that this is exactly what happened in Sanliurfa - the English-speaking customer, being Turkish, was more interested in saving the face of the also-Turkish cafe owners than in admitting the truth, right up to the point of causing (or attempting to cause) us foreigners to lose face as a preferable outcome to shaming the cafe owners.

I have felt at work that, while it was very rare (I can only think of one instance) in which they tried to make me lose face personally, that at times I felt that my face, as a foreigner, was not as important as the face of a local. I remember a time before we left for Turkey that my company made the same mistake three times in one month, a mistake that caused me to look like a bit of a dunderhead in front of clients. I told them so, even using the phrase "these mistakes have caused me to lose face in front of clients", and felt that the reaction was more than a bit apathetic, as in yeah, we'll try not to screw up again, but we don't really care if you personally look bad in front of clients because of mistakes we made. We care more if the company looks bad.


That's work, though, and I do not feel that these examples can stretch to encompass all Taiwanese people. It does happen, but I'm not going to point my finger at the entire society (something I feel happens far too often on expat blogs around the world).

So, in the end, it's a complex topic. Sometimes I play the game - and I admit to having my own sense of face - sometimes I won't even pick up the dice. Sometimes I understand it, rarely do I respect it. Sometimes I just can't condone it. Sometimes it has a relevant place in social interaction and sometimes it's a big ol' shield of lies and elliptical speech meant to preserve some idiot's fragile sense of status, even when he doesn't deserve it.

All Our Base Will Never Belong To You

"You will never understand Taiwan."

I haven’t heard this recently…but I have heard it. Heck, someone left it as a comment on this blog once. I’ve also heard it said about or to expats in China, Korea, Japan, India and plenty of other countries.

It used to offend me – who is this person to place limits on what I do or don’t understand? Why does this person think that my range and ability to understand a place is limited in ways they can arbitrarily set, despite the fact that they barely know me? What makes them think I’ll never really get it? Do they think that I’m that dull, that thick, that unadaptable?

Now, though, I have to say, it doesn’t really bug me so much. In fact, I think there’s some truth to it (but not that it’s 100% true). I believe this for several reasons:

1.) Think of first-generation immigrants to your own country – in my case, the USA. It’s a fairly well established trope: the immigrant parents who live their lives in the USA but never really quite ‘get’ America, and their American kids who still have ties to the Old Country but who do get the country they were born in – the country they are therefore from – and who often cringe at their parents’ hijinks. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about: it’s the basis for most of Russell Peter’s jokes, approximately 90% of all “immigrant to a new land” and “child of immigrants to a new land” literature (think Jhumpa Lahiri, Amy Tan, Khalid Hosseini and so many others) and plenty of movies (My Big Fat Greek Wedding, The Joy Luck Club, The Namesake).

We tend to be fairly forgiving of those immigrants – the occasional brain deficient yokel who shouts “learn English!” notwithstanding. We understand that it is hard to get all the subconscious, learned-from-childhood, ingrained-in-culture cues if you didn’t grow up in that culture and your intuition comes from an entirely different set of social rules. So why do we get all defensive when it’s laid bare that we, also as foreigners (some of us travelers, some of us expats, some of us immigrants) in a foreign land, irrefutably face the same issues? That we are not and cannot be any more culturally fluent than those who settle in our home countries?

Of course there are different levels and adaptations regarding cultural fluency – some people who move to a new place do adapt at astonishing speeds and to a great depth and some never stop splashing in the shallow end. I would say even those swimming at the other end of the pool still aren’t totally culturally fluent – just more so than others.

2.) To the person who says “you will never understand Taiwan” (or China, or Japan, or wherever), well, that phrase likely means something different to them than what it means to you. You might hear it as “you will never understand anything about Taiwan”, but honestly, I think it’s meant more as “you will never understand every little thing about Taiwan”. There’s a great gulf of difference in those two phrases.

Sure, occasionally you get some vindictive idiot who does mean to imply that as much as you learn you’ll always be a stupid outsider, but I find that most people around the world are good, and most don’t mean it that way at all, even if it comes across as rude. I used to hear “you’ll never understand _______________” (fill in at your leisure, I’ve been to a lot of countries) and hear an implication that I do not and cannot understand anything about that country. That is not necessarily what the speaker intended – you can understand a lot, you can understand a surprising amount, you can understand in some depth, without understanding everything. As much of an Old China Hand or Old Taiwan Hand or whatever that you are, there will still probably be social cues you miss, culture gaps you can’t bridge, and cultural tics you will always find unfathomable. That doesn’t mean you don’t understand anything, just that you don’t understand totally. There’s nothing wrong with that, nothing to be ashamed of. It’s not the culture you grew up in, so how could you grasp it on the same level as someone who did grow up in it?

3.) You don’t have to listen to people who imply that because you aren’t Taiwanese (or whatever) and so you can’t intuitively grasp the nuances of Taiwanese (or whichever) culture and therefore shouldn’t make any observations regarding it – that basically you have no right to speak. This is 100% wrong. It may be true that you are not totally culturally fluent, but that does not mean you have no right to make observations, give opinions or offer advice based on what you do know. As I said above, you might know quite a lot, and if you’re running your mouth, I would hope you know enough at least to support what you’re saying (I hope…so many people don’t, but I have faith in my readers that you’re not like that)! You don’t need to have been raised in a culture since childhood to

4.) Heck, sometimes I don’t understand my own culture. Or if I have a culture. I don’t mean this as “America has no culture” – it does. It’s just that America is a big place with a lot of different regions, groups and cultures and while there are threads connecting them, I would not say that someone from, say, New Orleans and someone from New York have the “same culture” because they’re “American”. Similarities exist, sure, but you can’t ignore the differences. The same is true in China and in India – both huge countries, neither of which can honestly say that every part of their territory and the people in it falls under an identical cultural rubric (I mean, the Chinese government and many Chinese people try to say that but they’re wrong).

So firstly, as a foreigner I might come to understand fairly deeply the culture of the region I’m living in, but that’s no guarantee if I live in a fairly large nation that I’ll understand the nuances of another region’s culture. I lived in Guizhou for a year – does that make me an expert on Tibet or Xinjiang? Hell no. It doesn’t even make me an expert on Guizhou, Yunnan or Sichuan, although I have far more street cred in those areas. I studied in Madurai, India. I know a lot about Tamil culture. I don’t claim to be an expert, but what I really cannot do is claim that this makes me somehow knowledgeable about Punjabi, Bengali or Gujarati culture. It doesn’t (although I have been to Bengal and Punjab, but only briefly).

Secondly, really, I don’t understand every little thing about American culture (who does?) - and it’s my homeland.  I really don’t get why Americans are so often happy to drive gas guzzling cars everywhere and yet complain about the price of gas and long commutes. DUHHHH. I don’t get why people are so opposed to decent public transportation. I don’t get the widespread – yet fortunately fading – fear of homosexuality. I really don’t get the puritanical ideas that Americans have about drugs like marijuana and alcohol (disclosure: I was allowed to drink at home well before I turned 21. At 13 I was permitted wine and beer and by the end of high school my parents felt they could trust me). I do not understand why the right to own a firearm is so damned important to some people. I don’t understand a lot of political beliefs (don’t even get me started on health care reform and the idiots who think the system we have now actually works). I do not understand big box stores. I do not understand McDonald’s.  I do not understand a lot of American cultural tics regarding personal space, topics deemed interesting and appropriate for conversation or…well, or many other things. I don’t understand why tipping is still a ‘done thing’ (although I do tip, and generously).

If there are things, people, groups, ideas and cultural issues I don’t understand in my own country, how can I claim to understand all the variety and complexity of views, thoughts and actions in another?

In the end I think that in some ways, it’s a strength. There’s an old Chinese idiom floating around that I can’t find now, but it goes something like: the chess game is clearer to the observers than the players. I have heard it used to describe romance, where two people who feel like everything is unclear are blindly feeling their way through whereas everyone around them knows what the deal is, but it works here too. I’m not saying that Taiwanese culture is clearer to me as an observer than it is to a player, but I do have a different viewpoint, and surely some things that are unclear to a local would be quite clear to me.  In fact, it’s happened when I’ve observed some social phenomenon and a friend or student has responded: I never thought about that before, but yes! That’s true!

So, you know, those people are right…sort of. I will never understand Taiwan – or at least, I will never fully understand it. I will never understand it in the way that someone who was born here understands it. That’s OK. As long as nobody tries to say that I don’t understand it at all, I am OK with the idea that I do not and cannot understand it in totality.

Navigating Friendship in Taiwan

Enjoy this horrible photo where only one person looks halfway decent of some of my friends here...before someone asks me to take it down because we all look pretty awful.

I’ve been talking a lot with expat friends about friendship in Taiwan, making local friends and maintaining a social circle in ways that we’re accustomed to, and found a few interesting trends among what those friends are saying (and my own experience).

One thing that people seem to universally agree on – people in Taiwan don’t seem to pick up ‘random’ friends or create diverse groups of friends in the way we do back home. I am sure it happens, but it doesn’t seem to be the norm. Back home, I counted among my circle of friends a guy I met because he was one table over at an Indian restaurant and, as he was south Indian, noted how I was eating like a local. Another I met at a bus stop. In Taiwan, one of my best friends – no longer in Taipei, sadly – I met at a swimming pool. Another few have come from Teh Internets. All of these people have met and more than a few are now independently friends as well.

Of course, plenty of other friends I met in more typical ways – through work, or a club or mutual friends, or my former college friends with whom I’m still close. Maybe I’m the weirdo here – one more shy friend from back home has noted “yeah, you meet people at a bus stop and a month later they’re coming over for dinner and bringing the wine. Some of us just can’t do that!”

I don’t think it’s that weird, though. I do think this happens far more often back home than it does here.

It was noted that it’s typical in both cultures to make friends in groups – classmates and former classmates, colleagues, peers in your industry, and it seems much more common to actually socialize with family as though they’re your friends (and I say this as someone whose sister is also counted as a good friend and who will happily socialize with her brother-, sister- and cousin-in-law). You see a lot more of “I’m going out with my cousins” here and a lot less of “yeah, we met at the bus stop”. It seems like there are three typical circles – colleagues, classmates and family…and not a lot more than that.

I guess my point is I feel more like my friendship “circles” back home are circles that have spokes flying off here and there, and I have a lot more independent attachments to people than many Taiwanese seem to, and I feel more inclined to invite them out together than many Taiwanese seem to. I stick less in tight circles of classmates, family and coworkers than the Taiwanese seem to.

I’ve been told by locals and expat observers alike that it is fairly rare that a typical Taiwanese person will go out of their way to talk to and socialize with someone totally new unless introduced by a mutual friend or that person entered a previously existing circle of coworkers, family or classmates.

Which is all fine if you’re local, but if you’re not it can make it difficult to make local friends. If you don’t have a milieu waiting for you – work, school or family – in which to enter those circles, it’s harder (and made harder still by the aforementioned linguistic and cultural barriers). It does, therefore, make sense that while most foreigners are likely to date locals, they tend to befriend other foreigners with the exception of possibly a few local colleagues and a language exchange partner.

I want to say before I continue that this hasn’t really been a problem for me – I have many local friends, if anything I’d say I have more local friends than expat ones (although I have a fair amount of both). I've written about this before but but it bears repeating: I do feel that there are expected and established communities and circles where an expat would typically make friends: at work or in class, or going out on the weekend with a larger group of people your own age - whether that's 21 or 51 - and joining clubs with those same people. I feel too old for the young buxiban and student crowd but way too young and in a different place in life vis-a-vis the older professional crowd. I don't quite fit into the ABC crowd.

And yes, that makes it hard to socialize, although I like to think I've been successful regardless.

So, some trends I've noticed:

The first is that I think it’s more than language and more than the expected cultural gaps that make it easier, and therefore more common, for expats to socialize with other expats and not as much with locals. If everyone around you tends to socialize with coworkers and classmates, then you will too: and your classmates and coworkers are usually other foreigners. If those around you are less likely to make random friendships, you’re less likely to have the opportunities for connection. So it’s not so much about misunderstanding or misinterpreting actions, and not about communication, but more about a mode of socializing that isn’t so easy to breach for outsiders.

However, I would guess that like me, most longer-term expats have a number of local friends. What I’ve noticed here is that they tend to be one’s girlfriend’s friends (this makes the assumption that a huge number of expats are men with Taiwanese girlfriends, but that assumption is of course based in truth), “Chinese teacher” colleagues from the English schools where they work, and language exchange partners turned friends. Of course, if you’ve got a non-teaching job or are in school with other local students your chances of cultivating more local friendships go up.

What I rarely see, which is a shame, are groups composed of expats and locals in a mix, socializing together. Maybe this does happen more often than I think, but I don’t see it because I’m not exactly a regular on the bar scene and I don’t belong to any local clubs or groups (my work, Chinese study, marriage and current social circle keeps me busy enough). This is where I’d love to hear experiences from other expats that buck the narrative I’m describing.
That said, when I do go out with my mixed group of foreigners and locals – a group that’s ever-evolving as friends are made and friends leave, including Taiwanese friends who have left to study abroad – I feel like we’re the only group like that around.

Another thing I’ve noticed – expat friendships with locals tend to be mostly female. I don’t mean relationships – I mean friendships. This is true for me, as well – and I can’t really explain why (but I’ve discussed it with other expat friends who agree. Making local female friends is fairly easy, but making local friends who are male just doesn’t seem to happen much). I have a few, although all but one are currently not in Taiwan due to work or study. I’d try to suss out some theories on this but none has ever really had enough sticking power that I can confidently post it and defend it. I’ve consistently found, however, that my very small handful of male Taiwanese friends tends to be the exception.

It also seems to be true that while plenty of friendships in Taiwan exist between men and women, it all seems to be in groups: Classmates, Coworkers, Family. Locals I’ve talked to (mostly students) have confirmed this: you rarely get an independent male-female friendship. If you do, people start to gossip and wonder. If a man and a woman are hanging out one-on-one consistently, it’s assumed that they’re in a pre-dating stage, and a married person (such as myself) who has a friend of the opposite gender will sometimes be suspected of an affair. One of my students came out and said that she lost touch with most of her male friends from before her marriage – it wasn’t that she didn’t want to be friends, but it felt “strange” to spend time with them now that she was married.

Which is totally not how I feel at all – one of my closest friends in Taiwan is male (another expat, but still). It would strike me as ridiculous to give up my friendships with men because I’m in a relationship or married. I know it happens in the USA, but it seems to happen on a smaller scale.

Yet another observation – and I’m not quite sure how to word this because it’s supposed to be an observation based on what many of my other friends have said as well as my experience but could so easily be misinterpreted as me complaining, which is absolutely not the intent – is that “foreign friends” of locals in Taiwan seem to get fewer invitations out from their Taiwanese friends than they do from other expats, or that they would back home. I do believe this has to do with the fact that we don’t fit into Classmates, Coworkers or Family, so it would be awkward to invite us to those gatherings, and if you’re the only expat friend of that person, there’s no easy place to fit you in. Almost like a curiosity (although that sounds bad, and conveys a tone I don’t know if I really intend). You might get invitations for lunch or coffee, but you wouldn’t often be invited to, say, a house party or a restaurant gathering. So what happens is that your local friends know all of your friends, but you know few or none of your local friends’ friends (again, exceptions exist in my own life and generally I am happy with the invitation reciprocity I receive).

I can see, though, how a typical expat might cultivate some local friendships and then, after awhile, wonder why he or she doesn’t seem to get as many return invitations, and wonder if he or she is being snubbed, when really the local friend just isn’t sure what sort of gatherings to invite their expat friend to attend. That right there is a huge cultural gap: I remember once someone I know was narrating advice she’d heard aimed at Taiwanese who want to practice their English, and one item was “maintain friendships with foreigners”. “But why would they have to be told to do that?” came the question. Honestly, I can see why. It can make you really think - and question - when your invitations are accepted with alacrity, but you rarely get the same types of invitations in return, and maybe not as frequently (or maybe it's just that I'm a planner and party-thrower and the friends I've made aren't like that).

Another culture gap – family coming before friends. I can see how a foreigner who invites a local out and then gets a cancellation at the last minute because “relative X wants to have dinner” or “mom wants the family to go out” might feel slighted. I’ve accepted that this is how it is – back home we’d tell Aunt Mabel we’re not free that day, sorry. Here, a local friend is more likely to cancel with you to have dinner with Auntie Chen.

I’ve also noticed that parties tend to be a lot quieter. To illustrate this, a tableau: imagine walking into a restaurant to find out it’s been booked out for a wedding that day. A Hello Kitty bride and Daniel groom top a pink-tulle covered arch, and a glittering Double Happiness hangs inside a heart above diners’ heads. Pink tablecloths with white and gold flowers. You are disoriented at first, not sure what’s going on, because it’s so quiet. People are talking quietly at their round banquet tables and music is playing, but you see little of the mingling and inter-table socializing that you would in a lively wedding back home.

This is exactly what we observed when we tried to eat at a famous restaurant in Longtan.

Many Taiwanese friends and students have told me that they and people they know are quite shy when it comes to socializing in a party atmosphere – think like your typical house party back in the USA. My local friends generally aren’t like that, with a few exceptions, but I’m speaking from a few experiences as well as talking to others about their experience. I can name several of my local friends who can be quite sociable at the house parties we occasionally throw (usually on Christmas).

Which – again, I look forward to comments that refute this and tell their own story – but my experience has been that house parties just don’t happen, or when they do, they’re small and contained within a group: Classmates, Colleagues or Family. You sit in a circle; mingling is just different. It looks more like this. (I don't agree with the entire post but the picture is quite evocative).

You don’t see a lot of the sort of parties I throw, where I basically invite everyone I know from every group: Classmates and Colleagues (I have no local family). Locals and expats. People I met at the swimming pool. Former students.

I would cover the psychological differences and toll it takes on people who are not extroverted to have to change out social circles every other year or so - especially if they are here long-term and primarily friends with other expats who come and go - but, I dunno, it strikes me as sort of obvious. I am quite extroverted and it can take something of a toll on me, because one goes through high and low periods. Periods where you have a ton of friends, then a chunk goes home and you have very few until you make some new ones, and then some of those go home, and you are less social until you make still more friends, and then BLAMMO! It's been five years and you're only still hanging out with one or two people from your first year here. If you're not naturally inclined to pick up friends, that can be really hard, and having some local friends who are less likely to leave can help stabilize things a bit.

Finally, I’ve noticed that friendships seem to be conducted mostly in English, even though I do speak Chinese. This is partly because my husband generally comes along and while he can understand most of what is said, he can’t easily contribute in Chinese, and I think partly because the Taiwanese are more used to using English because they have to, whereas Chinese is ‘fun’ for me.

And, you know, after five years I’m still trying to work through all of these things. I’m learning to accept that group gatherings here aren’t done in the same way that they are often done back home. I’m learning to accept that my own gatherings will be a bit quieter and probably end earlier (what often happens is that my Taiwanese friends show up and leave at 11:30pm, and the foreigners stay, talk and drink until 2am). I’m learning to accept that the kinds of reciprocating invitations I get will be different, and that that’s just how it is because I’m not a Classmate, Coworker or Family.

I’m also learning to accept that this is expanding my definition of how friendships are conducted, it’s making me more laid-back and giving me more chances to get to know people one-on-one. That it’s OK to have a quieter gathering, that I don’t have to take it personally when Auntie Chen gets precedence, and that I have to completely abandon my notion of timely and accurate RSVPs because it just doesn’t happen.

And, you know, that’s OK. It’s a new perspective. Some parts of it are awkward and difficult to puzzle out, but that’s life, and if you want to maintain friendships you have to learn to be flexible.

Dragon Boat 2011!

One of my favorite festivals in Taiwan is Dragon Boat - I like it because it reminds me a bit of the atmosphere around a good Forth of July celebration back home, even though the two holidays are celebrated for completely different reasons. The warm weather, the unhealthy food vendors, the carnival atmosphere, the people out and enjoying the day - it's a good reminder that we're all the same around the world, even if we come out to celebrate different holidays. A kid with a balloon and cotton candy watching fireworks or playing carnie games in the USA is no different from a kid with a balloon and cotton candy watching dragon boat races and lion dances (and playing carnie games) in Taiwan.

And because I'm still a kid at heart in so many ways, I love it.

There's also the fact that while dragon boat is a holiday in China, it's hard to find actual races. They do exist, but they're not as common or popular (they seem to be more popular in Hong Kong, actually).

Every year (except for the years when we travel) we find a different place in Taiwan to check out the races. Our first year we were in Penghu, which was cool although there wasn't much of a festive feeling and the races were far out in the harbor. The next year we went to Erlong, near Jiaoxi in Yilan County. One year we missed the races in Hong Kong, but last year we went to Bitan to see them in Xindian.

This year, we ventured out to the aptly-named Longtan (龍潭) in Taoyuan County but not far from Xinzhu, with a large temple holding court over the dragon-named lake - an event we all agree has been the best so far.

Beyond the actual racing, Longtan's dragon boat celebrations include a night-market style area with games and unhealthy food, ice buckets crammed with cans of Taiwan Beer, plays, fireworks (in the evening) and lion dancing over the water.

It's not really so much about the races for us - we don't even know who is competing most of the time - but the atmosphere around it as we're shouting "Go Red!" or "Go Team Blue!" despite having no idea which team represents which group or organization (groups such as schools, clubs, companies, churches, temples and aboriginal tribes will often form a team and enter).

And of course the cute dogs. I'm fairly sure this little guy's eyes were about to fall out of his sockets (his name is Lucky).

Longtan is a bit built-up and is a larger-size city than I expected. I've been through several times to teach classes at Acer's training/resort facility on a hill outside of town, surrounded by tea farms. I'd never been downtown and was surprised at the size of the place.

Despite the concrete jumble of buildings encroaching on the lake, it is a scenic place to watch the races and you can see the goings-on fairly up-close, with the temple in the background.
Longtan is also famous for its Hakka population - the big draw being lots of restaurants serving Hakka food. Our lunch was good - a bit mediocre by Hakka standards, but then there's no such thing as bad Hakka food, methinks, and in wider comparison I would say it was quite tasty.

Longtan is also famous for peanut candy (花生糖) - we bought assorted candies from the famous Longqing (龍情) peanut candy company as well as Chiwei (知味), which makes a coconut peanut candy that I like as well as a dried tea-leaf covered candy that I am fond of. Now we are the proud owners of a ton of caramel-covered peanuts, which threatens to destroy my continued attempts to eat healthier!

Longqing is right on the lake, so it's easy to visit if you ever pass through Longtan (worth it on a non-festival day mostly for the Hakka food, temple and peanut candy), and Chiwei is on the main drag out of town heading towards Zhongli (中壢).

For those not familiar with the history of dragon boat racing, the story is that an official and famous poet named Quyuan who lived during the same period of Chinese history as Confucius and possibly Sun Tzu (of the "Art of War" fame) drowned himself in Hunan province as a protest against corruption. The people tried to save him, beating drums and doing other things to keep evil spirits away. I always thought that people beat drums on Dragon Boat so the rowers could row in time, but it may also be related to this myth. After it was clear that Quyuan could not be saved, people threw rice into the water to keep his spirit from feeling hunger. Because dragons were eating the rice (okaaaay), they started wrapping them up in triangles - the origin of today's leaf-wrapped zongzi, or sticky rice dumplings. I like the meat, peanut and mushroom ones although many kinds are sold.

Side note: I once met a woman in the wet market near MRT Yongchun who made so many zongzi in her life, she said, that she'd worn down the skin on her fingers and as such no longer had fingerprints. She showed me her hands and indeed, she had no fingerprints...I do believe her story, but I have to say...wow.

So now, to commemorate the death of Quyuan, but mostly to go out and have fun as the summer starts rolling in, dragon boat races are held every year. Which, come on, most of us celebrate Forth of July for the same reason...you get a few patriotic sorts who really do celebrate the founding of the United States but really, most of us are in it for the fireworks, picnic blankets and corn dogs).

One thing that you can see in Taiwan is a "flag grabber" at the end of the boat who grabs a flag to determine the race's winner. This is done in parts of the world with large Taiwanese populations (such as Vancouver), as well.

One thing we noticed in Longtan was that instead of drum beats for the boats, there was a drum but they mostly played well-known Western songs such as the James Bond theme, Mission Impossible, Flight of the Bumblebee, something by the Beach Boys and El Cumbanchero. When the aboriginal team was racing, they played aboriginal music (the stuff that goes "oh hei-oh hai oh-ah") which struck us as...well, probably well-intentioned but imagine if a Chinese team had been competing and they'd played some sort of fakey Chinese music (ding ding ding dong dong ding)...which, come to think of it, they probably would do.

Anyway, enjoy some more photos from the day...including the giant roast pig above, the giant balloon orb with legs below, and more!

Musings on Intercultural Relationships

I want to start this post by saying that I have no answers, I have no conclusions – I only have my own experiences and am approaching this topic with personal thoughts and anecdotes, not proclamations. I don’t even have anything particularly deep to say, because it’s all been said before. All I can do is add my own story to the mix.

That aside, as I mentioned in a previous post, I recently received news that a friend’s marriage had dissolved. The marriage happened to be an intercultural one (American/Hispanic). I won’t give details – that would be inappropriate – but one of the things that caused the whole hot mess is something that is more acceptable in one culture than the other. I’m still not necessarily inclined to believe that the resulting split was caused by cultural issues – in fact, it’s more likely irreconcilable differences between two individuals.

Regardless, it’s caused me to muse on intercultural relationships – both of the romantic and friendly kind. I’ll be focusing on romantic relationships for this post, and am planning a future post musing on making Taiwanese male friends (as a foreign woman)…because, y’know, it’s quite hard to do!

Obviously, “intercultural” does not necessarily mean “interracial”. That’s the first thing I want to mention: I know plenty of couples of different races who share a common culture, and my husband has observed that while we’re very much the same race, there are a lot of cultural differences between our families.

When we first started dating, I didn’t think of it this way: I thought of it in terms of “I’m outgoing, and my family is predisposed genetically to be loud, boisterous and extroverted. He’s more laid-back, and his family seems more predisposed to a quieter approach to life”. It never occurred to me that it might actually be a cultural difference.

Then, in the middle of wedding planning, we rented My Big Fat Greek Wedding Subconsciously, somehow, I wanted him to see it – he had seen it but didn’t remember much, and I remember how the film really hit home for me. If I had such a strong reaction and he could barely remember it, there was clearly something worth exploring there.

After watching the comparison of the two families – one laid-back and the other a big pile of boundary-crushing madness - and as a result of those two environments, some of the differences between Tula and Ian in the film, Brendan turned to me and said, tellingly,

“Now I understand.”

“You understand what?”
“All this stuff with the wedding planning, and all of the stress…it’s cultural. It’s like with your big Armenian family, I just don’t get yet how they work because my family is more like that guy’s.”

Note that he did not say I’m like Tula – because I’m not. I have no problem striking out on my own, nobody tried to stop me from going to college, my family is devoid of the sexism seen in the Portokalos clan, and I am happy to stand up for myself (even if an argument ensues).

And that’s just it – the difference isn’t simply between two families – the fact that my family (at least the biggest component of it) immigrated to the USA in living memory and we have relatives who still speak the old language – an Armenian-based polyglot with elements of Turkish and Greek – does have something to do with how my family works, how I was raised, and as a result, to an extent, what my personality is like.

I do have Polish relatives as well, but other than my beloved Grandma G and aunt, I unfortunately see them far less often.

So we visit my family home and drive up to Grandma L’s. People begin arriving, often there are young cousins underfoot. Hummus, olives (real olives, not canned or jarred), cured string cheese and babaghanoush are set out. It’s mid-afternoon and uncles are already double-topping-up their drinks – often, Ararat Armenian raisin brandy. Grandma asks me when I’m going to lose weight and have babies. Like in a Taiwanese family, in my family this is considered fine (I personally consider it a major breach of boundaries, though). Jokes are made about sleeping arrangements - “She made us sleep in twin beds before we got married, and M was visibly pregnant at the time!” – all fine.

Brendan says nothing – “not my culture!” – or whispers something dryly amusing to me along the lines of “So apparently losing weight and having babies go hand in hand?”

Despite my own Daoist/agnostic inclinations, my family is fairly religious, and grace is said, often in Armenian. I am as lost as Brendan is for this part – I don’t have two words of Armenian to rub together (well, I have two: ‘vart’ means “rose” and ‘yavrom’ means “dear”). We eat at a big table – lamb kebab, pilaf and lahmajoun are served. The dishes match, but are kind of tacky. It’s too crowded. I’m asked again about the babies. We argue about politics. My grandparents still hate Turks (and Muslims generally) for the genocide Turks unleashed upon the Armenian people in 1915.

I don’t dare say that Turks alive today can’t be blamed for the actions of their ancestors, just as you wouldn’t shun a German woman born in 1975 because of Nazi atrocities. It’s a shame that they are educated to believe that the genocide never happened, but nobody has control over what their teachers tell them, and many lack the intellectual curiosity to question. I don’t speak; I think these things, though, and Brendan knows it.

(Yes, I realize my family might well read this, but I mention below that I’m OK with how they work and anyway, if they’re going to ask me at the dinner table about popping out babies, then they lose any right to wring their hands when I write about it).

Brendan smiles like it’s a particularly lively television show (and in a way, it is). We don’t quite get to the part where we start dancing in a circle and breaking plates, but I’d say we stop just short of it – that’s Greek, not Armenian and probably an urban legend, but my family lived in Greece for years after running from the genocide and before immigrating to America.

You know who doesn’t ask me about babies and weight loss? My in-laws. You know who doesn’t argue about politics and ask personal questions around the dinner table? My in-laws. You know who isn’t all up in everybody else’s, ahem, bidness?

And yet, I wouldn’t trade my family for the world. I love them and their intrusive questions to bits. It’s taken me years, but I agree with my husband. These differences are cultural, even though Brendan and I look similar enough that we could probably pass for distant cousins (it’s mostly the coloring – fair skin, blue or green eyes, light brown hair). I resemble Brendan more than some of my actual cousins, who tend to be olive-skinned with dark features and coal-colored hair.

Another point I’d like to make – I have been in more obviously intercultural relationships: the last two men I dated before Brendan were Jewish and Indian, respectively. This is where it gets quite hard to draw a line between the cultural and the individual – did those relationships fail because there were cultural differences, or was it entirely that we, as two individuals, were incompatible?

My experience? I do generally default to “we’re just two people who weren’t compatible” but I also think cultural differences had some role to play in why we were incompatible. I was simply not that attracted to the first, although part of that had to do with the fact that he sincerely wanted to have children and raise them in a Jewish home (I don’t even want kids, and am not religious – if I had kids I’d encourage them to follow an ‘ask questions and find your own path’ sort of philosophy, hippie that I am). While, in the end, it was really a lack of a physical spark that did us in, I admit that part of that lacking was caused by my being a bit turned off by such disparate life goals.

The second? Well, we had plenty of chemistry. Culturally I think the only real issue was that he did believe that couples who have children ought to have one parent stay at home, and that that parent ought to be the mother (I have no problem with mothers who choose this path, but deciding it’s the only correct path for everyone really rubs me the wrong way – and I hadn’t gotten to the “don’t really want kids” decision yet, so it was relevant)…and when he said it, I could really hear, behind his voice, a lot of the defenses of the traditional order of things that I heard in India. I’d like to say that this is why we broke up, but it wasn’t – it was (im)maturity on both our parts. Had we been more mature, though, this would have become a dealbreaker. (We agreed on religion and other issues such as telling his parents – mine were totally cool with it and even met him – never came up because it was fairly clear that we weren’t going to last despite all of our chemistry).

That said, such a dealbreaker could arise between any couple regardless of cultural background – I do feel that this sort of dealbreaker is more likely to arise between intercultural couples.

This is not to say that such relationships always face these issues, or that they can’t overcome them. As I’ve said before – and I’ll say it again (I’m secure enough in my relationship with my wonderful husband that I feel I can do so) – if the world had moved a little differently on its axis and I’d spent my time in Taiwan single, well, I’ve met Taiwanese men that I would have dated. Just because things didn’t work out with two other men for reasons that can be partially attributed to cultural differences doesn’t mean they never can.

And, as I said, I have no deep insights. I have no final proclamations. I have only my own experiences to add to public discourse.