Wednesday, July 11, 2012
The Dating Debacle
I wrote a piece on dating advice in Taiwan awhile back (edited not long ago), but of course, my thoughts in that area are to be taken with a grain of salt, seeing as I've never actually dated a Taiwanese guy. I was in a relationship with the man who is now my husband within months of first moving here.
I don't entirely agree with Bamboo Butterfly, but it's interesting and true enough that it is definitely worth a read.
Basically, my findings are this:
It's true that your average Taiwanese guy is generally more likely to prefer what you'd say is generally an average Taiwanese girl (note the very heavy use of "generally" and "average" here - I don't wish to stereotype): quieter than your average foreign woman (although not nearly always: I know plenty of very outgoing Taiwanese women and just as many very quiet American women), slender...I'd say "more modest" and "not as showy" but really, c'mon, with all the fake eyelashes and butt-shorts I see in this country I don't really buy that old cliche. It's true that your average Taiwanese guy is probably going to be just as judgmental about qualities he doesn't like in women in both personality and physical characteristics than your average American guy or wherever-guy.
But...you know what? I'm, err, curvy. And by curvy I mean overweight. I'm flamboyant. I'm loud. I have bright red highlights and my favorite color is eye-assaulting aqua or cobalt. I'm talkative. I'm aggressive. I'm tall - taller than many, but not nearly all, guys here. I am everything a "typical" Taiwanese guy is supposed to not like. And yet, I've had plenty of interest shown in me - I've been chatted up (in a totally not creepy way) on the MRT, had students who clearly had crushes on me, was once told it was too bad I had a boyfriend and had compliments on my looks (which aren't much of anything, really) and had guys who initially seemed interested later on show an interest in friendship (which I tend to brush off, it's a bit weird when you're married), indicating that it wasn't just an interest in a fling.
All this just proves that for all those guys who like what you'd expect, there are so many who like something else. I do think a lot of Taiwanese guys who like a foreign woman (or foreign women generally) are the ones who don't want what they see as "normal" in Taiwanese women (I have no doubt that plenty of these guys will go on to meet awesome, cool, outgoing, flamboyant Taiwanese women, in addition to foreign women, though). They're the ones who don't mind a little curviness, who don't want the quiet, sweet, highly manicured "presence" that Taiwanese women are encouraged to cultivate - please note, I don't think all Taiwanese women actually are those things, just that the culture here encourages them to be that way more than, say, American culture encourages women to do so. Who think a little bit of loud&crazy is not only fun, not only acceptable, but desireable. If those guys didn't exist, I wouldn't have any Taiwanese male friends, but I do.
I don't agree that men in Taiwan generally aren't into foreign women the way that women in Taiwan are into foreign guys: I've had more than one guy tell me that they'd actually love a foreign girlfriend, but don't know how to go about making it happen, or are too shy and know it. I think this perception that Taiwanese men don't like foreign women is a false assumption based on the fact that they don't show it as much when they do like someone, and they often won't show it at all when they like someone they know they can't have (or are too shy to go after). Not always - I had one student who had a pretty obvious crush on me and, while he said absolutely nothing inappropriate, it was just really obvious. You know what I mean - a lifetime of being outgoing but really a big dork at heart means I'm not the best at figuring these things out and even I could tell. He probably could have hidden it better - so no cultural observation is universally true.
I do think a lot of foreign women don't realize it when a Taiwanese guy does like them, because it is true (and I completely agree with Bamboo Butterfly on this) that he's not likely to be as forthcoming, not as likely to act on it, and not as likely to make the first move, or any move. It's been pretty well documented by my local social network here that what we see as "friendly" stuff that a guy friend might do with a girl-bro is seen as what we'd call "casual dating" in the West. By the time a local girl and guy go out on an actual date in Taiwan, they're far more "official" than we'd consider ourselves to be in Western culture. A few of my foreign female friends have noted this: dating just happens differently, and a Taiwanese guy could be thinking he is making a move by going out for coffee, hiking or whatever one-on-one where a Western girl might think he's just being friendly. He might not be aware that his intentions are not nearly as clear as they would be with a Taiwanese girl, and she may not be aware at all that he likes her.
I've seen it happen more than once! This is an extreme example, but it happened to a friend of mine who went hiking, jogging etc. with a local guy several times and thought of him as a friend. Then one day he started talking about how they'd have to compromise their cultural differences as a couple and she was all "wait, WHAT!?" Not the norm, I think, but it makes a point.
Final thoughts: laydeez, look for the cool, quirky Taiwanese guy who wants what you have to offer. Don't get discouraged thinking that they as a whole are not interested. Chances are, they are. Don't think you have to morph into some stereotype of a quiet sweetling (which doesn't even hold much water in Taiwan: it's a cliche for a reason) - there's probably a guy in Taiwan who likes you for who you are now. Be more alert: what you might think of as basic friend stuff might be, to that guy, more. So don't write him off because he isn't approaching the whole thing the way a Western guy might. Be on the lookout for cultural differences and attitudes: you don't want to end up with a guy who seemed great while you were dating but then ended up having some pretty sexist ideas about what sort of girlfriend (or wife) you should be. Guys who are happy to buck those notions do exist - find one of them instead.
And don't lose hope. There's probably a Taiwanese guy out there with a crush on you right now - you just don't know it because he's not showing it in the way you'd expect.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Of Balls
Sure, it only costs NT$250, but for that price it's a pretty decent wine. |
And then this: it's been five years. I'm applying for permanent residency after Chinese New Year. Would I have stayed this long if I'd been single.
No, probably not.
Why is that?
Of course, I covered this in Why Are There So Few Expat Women in Asia?, but it kind of got buried deep in the (admittedly long) post, and wasn't very personal. This post is my attempt to personalize that a bit.
I'd said there that a lot of expat women leave after a few years if they're single, because it's just plain harder to date (whereas in some regards it's easier for expat men), even if you like the local guys - which, for the record, I would if I were single. Married or enrelationshipped women - yes, I made that word up - seem more likely to stick around in the foreign country they've chosen - especially in Asia. It's been my experience in Taiwan that the long-term expat women I know here are all married or in relationships. In Turkey I noticed that it was quite a different tale: plenty of expat women stuck around, and more than a few married Turkish men, not unlike a lot of the expat men in east Asia.
Clearly, when the dating market opens up to reveal more opportunities, the women tend to stay just as long as the men. I'd like to think that a choice to move abroad or move home is one made individually, for reasons other than romantic prospects but rather for reasons ranging from desire to see the world, to learn a new language, to engage in another culture, for other academic pursuits or because you genuinely enjoy English teaching and the best opportunities for that happen to be in non-English speaking countries.
And it's true that I moved abroad without worrying about romantic prospects, and I happened to get lucky (heh heh). I wasn't here to date - I was here to see more of the world and learn Chinese. I didn't even know yet that I wanted to be a career teacher/trainer/whatever it is that I do because on any given day my job description feels different.
Yet these noble ideas - that one should make these choices without thought to dating - just isn't the case, and it wouldn't have been for me, either.
If Brendan hadn't existed, or we'd never met, or our relationship never worked out, here's what would have likely happened:
Brendan moved to Taiwan about halfway through my first year in Taiwan. I was not planning to leave at the end of that year; at the time my plans were to stay for 2-3 years depending, see if teaching was a good career fit (I'd started to love my evening teaching job back in the USA and hate my corporate desk job, which clued me into the idea that I would do better in a career such as teaching) and then either move home or move to another country. I knew before Brendan came that I would not stay at Kojen past my initial contract, so I would have still changed jobs. I might not have ended up at the company I did - although who knows? They were looking at just about the right time.
I probably would have stayed in my tiny, slightly crummy room in an otherwise nice apartment in Liuzhangli for awhile longer, until I got a new job and could afford a small studio or at least a better room in a shared apartment.
I probably would have dated a couple of guys, be they expat or local. Those relationships, as most tend to do, probably would not have worked out. Although I'm sociable, I'm not exactly an "every weekend at a different social hangout" girl, so there probably wouldn't have been more than one or two. I think that estimate is accurate because that's about half the number of guys I typically dated in a few years in the DC area.
My social circle wouldn't have been appreciably different, except it would lack some people, including one whom I consider to be a very good friend, because those friends came through opportunities brought about by Brendan.
So I probably would have a social life that involved seeing friends for one outing a weekend, occasionally going out on a weekend night if invited (I love making plans for meals or outings for friends, I make drink plans far less often and mostly go when invited). I would otherwise work, take pictures, go hiking occasionally, hang out at cafes and then come home and be alone. My expat male friends, few as they are, would be dating local women at either a far greater frequency or intensity than any dating opportunities I would have had.
Not too unlike my single life in DC, except I had more dating opportunities and, within my own cultural context, it was easier to make friends. I saw those friends more, because in the USA we seem to place a greater emphasis on time spent with friends vs. at home, with family or working than in Taiwan, where people seem to see friends less.
I would have looked at the expat scene in Taipei - nightlife that I'm mostly not interested in (with some exceptions! Going out occasionally is fun), maybe a few clubs I could have joined, but generally just as I see it now: something I dip my toe into and can enjoy, but never really felt I fit into (although I feel a bit more fitting-inny now that I am friends with a small group of younger married women like myself who also defy the young-guys-here-teaching-at-Hess-for-a-year and the older-family-types-with-kids-at-the-American-school, and I know a few student types - I tend to get on well with the grad school crowd). I would have concluded that, in part, I felt a bit out of it with the expat crowd. Not unwelcome, but a bit like "young single foreign women who aren't particularly pretty have a tougher time socially here than back home".
I'd have looked at local life in Taipei and probably dipped my toes into that more, as well, but likewise still not felt like I fit in: turns out people don't invite you out much when you don't fit into a circle of coworkers, classmates or family.
Then I would have looked back at my social life in DC, and then my dating life. I might not have chosen to move back to DC in particular, but I might have concluded that as a single woman, if I wanted a better shot at having good relationships and having one of those turn permanent, and if I wanted lots of friends to have good times with both in the interim and beyond, that my chances of that were far better back home, or in another country.
Perhaps I would have done the CELTA as I did in Istanbul, had the great fun that I did, made friends on the course, and decided that for a good social life, Istanbul would have been a great bet. And I might well have stayed, despite the fact that it would have left me a bit emotionally torn. Or I might have picked another Mediterranean country.
All through this I'd be a bit angry at myself, thinking what, are you not the nomad and adventurer you thought you were? Are you really going to go home now because poor widdle Jenna doesn't have enough widdle fwiends and nobody wants to be her boyfwiend? Awww. I thought you were made of stronger stuff, and I thought you knew that traveling the world would come with its share of loneliness. Are you just another Typical Girl, who needs people around her instead of fortifying herself? Are you weak? Do you not have the balls you thought you did?
(I admit I have a mortal fear of being seen as weak. That's a good post for another time, if I ever feel like revealing that much about myself).
And of course the final few sentences of the above are ridiculous, and in their own way, sexist, but it's only honest of me to say I would have thought them.
And I would have felt conflicted and angry and a bit sad, but I probably would have also felt lonely and lacking social and dating opportunities - even though they exist in Taipei, I would have found them, as a single foreign woman, insufficient - but in the end I probably would have moved on in my predicted 2-3 years. The fact that I didn't, that I instead married and nested a bit and started to feel a bit settled (and happy about that, which I never thought would happen) and like Taipei was home. But a big part of that is that I do have a family here. I have a husband - and a cat and (for the time being) a sister. I might have never felt that way if the whole marriage thing hadn't happened, or if I had not at least found myself in a serious relationship.
I'll leave it at this: in 2003 I celebrated my birthday in Pakse, Laos. I was in my early twenties and in Laos by myself (not long before I'd seen off Brendan in Beijing, from where he returned to Korea). I spent my birthday alone, hiking up the crumbled, rocky ruins of a temple carved into a bluff outside of town. It was humid and buggy and I'm sure I looked like hell. I'm also sure as hell that I didn't care. I got to the top and sat at the edge of the bluff, the craggy black building blocks of the temple tumbled down below me, mostly in a scraggy pile, but a few were strewn further out into the verdant landscape.
Nobody had yet sent me birthday wishes in e-mail and this was long before Facebook. My only birthday wish before the time difference made it my birthday on the East Coast was from myself. I was young and I didn't mind being alone. I looked out over the tops of palm trees to lush rice fields dotted with beasts of burden and I thought to myself: this is great - how often can one say that one climbed a ruined temple in Laos on their birthday?
But several years later when I hit Taipei, this was what my "birthday alone" was like. It was not good. It was not adventurous. It was not ballsy. It was just sad. I still wanted - and still want - to travel the world and have adventures, but what I realized was that I didn't necessarily want to do it alone.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Ninna Sun and the Strong List
Ninna Sun (Sun Xiaomin) |
She got fired for that.
Zhang Fangshan, my friend from Xiangshan (Fragrant Mountain) Temple |
These are anecdotes, but they describe a culture that was deeply engrained and deeply disturbing in Guizhou and, one can presume, other parts of rural China, at the turn of the millennium.
And I sincerely hope that, as we churn slowly and painfully towards the future, that the women’s rights movement takes hold in more and more countries and more women can realistically demand respect and other good qualities in a mate and not have to sacrifice chances at partnership and marriage for lack of suitable prospects.
Friday, May 6, 2011
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.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Why are there so few expat women in Asia?
Teaching English: Culture Shock
Now, I agree with one commenter on Michael Turton's post that this isn't really journalism and was fine for a blog but has no place in a newspaper, but that's not why I'm writing about it here.
Dealing with it all may have been easier if I’d been able to build a stronger network of support. Although I was there with my boyfriend, I longed for female friendship. I’d met a handful of foreign women, but we didn’t have much in common. I did become friends with an Aussie named Kate, but we lived far apart and didn’t see each other that often.
Foreign guys seemed to be having an easier time. Insects and chaotic streets didn’t seem to bother them as much, and Taiwanese women treated Caucasian men like Hollywood stars. The bigger the nose, the more handsome the man, they said.
and:
Pardon me asking the obvious question, but why come to Asia at all if you aren't interested in the men? Why voluntarily choose to live in a culture and society in which you have no interest in the people? That's what I don't understand about many foreign women in Asia - they whine about how their dating life sucks, yet snub their noses up at 99.999% of the population. Why just not move to Sweden or Brazil or wherever, where you actually like the men?
Which is echoed here, too:
"Maybe they're just not that interested in traveling, or they don't want to learn Chinese or they want to travel to countries in Europe or easier places?"
So, to this cacaphony, I'll add my own two cents.
We are adaptable, we can be tough when necessary and we are good at forming the social networks necessary at getting us through trying situations, something that some researchers say men often have trouble with. We are not the shrinking violets of yore who can't handle some spit 'n bugs.
While studying in India, I was in a group of 9 American students, and there was another student group in the same town. Our group was made of 7 women and 2 men, and their group was slightly more equal but still seemed to be skewed towards women. The women were the ones cracking up telling "Did I ever tell you about the time my Amma fed me so much idli that I puked on the table?" stories.
If anything, the reaction I've heard to most female expats who do stick it out to Lindsey's article is along the lines of "wow...she's not very tough, is she" and my own "well, she's going to need an all-inclusive bracelet if she ever decides to travel outside of Europe - most of the world is worse than her complaints about Taiwan."
I refuse to get into any tripe about how our "standards are too high" or we're "bitter and fat" or "we won't even look at what's available" or "we're not interested in local men" - a few anecdotes does not make a body of evidence and these are all unfair stereotypes. I have met very few (if any, come to think of it) Western women abroad who conform to them - it's almost as though this White Harridan is some sort of projection of a collective knock-kneed male subconscious. I certainly haven't met her in the flesh.
As for the reasons why, it's hard for me to say, and I'll have to stick to heterosexual couples for now. Someone more qualified than me can write about gay dating in Asia.
My college crush moved to Taiwan, we started dating, and now we're married. I don't really have firsthand experience with this issue to share. It seems to me, though, that the issue is not what most people assume: that Western women don't want to date Asian men, so they stay single. Only a small minority of Western women I've met in Asia feel that way - most are quite open to it, or have dated (or married) Asian men. However, I do think it's likely harder. The culture barrier to dating doesn't work in our favor, as Asian men are often less likely to be clear about their feelings and ask for concrete dates, or don't show interest in the ways we've come to expect. It's easier to be a very clear Western man asking a local woman out than it is for a Western woman to figure out if an Asian man likes her.
Of course, I'm the sort of woman who once asked men out. It doesn't shock me - I think more women should do it! Again, however, that's a contentious topic in the West, though I'm not sure why. In Asia it's even more rare and is more likely to put men off. Take that even further, and it means there are fewer local men who possess the feminist chops many Western women deem a dealbreaker: I wouldn't date a man who would be put off by my asking him out.
After that, the culture barrier vis-a-vis traditional families also tends not to work in Western women's favor. If you are dating the son of Asian parents, while it's not certain that they'll expect him to run his family the way they tell him to, live nearby or use your shared financial resources to support his parents, it is certainly more likely than in the West. The expectations of male and female roles in marriage are also more likely to be traditional (though, again, this is far from universal: feminist Asian men do exist. I count some among my friends). Some Western women might see this as a difficult adjustment. Others, like me, view it as a dealbreaker.
This is not meant to be a blanket statement on the state of Western woman-Asian man dating in Asia, of course. Differing stories and successful and happy couples abound. It's just an issue worth considering. However, if the obstacles to that sort of partnership are greater, fewer women are likely to meet, date, marry and set up a home with a local man. This means fewer have that particular pull to stay (though, again, there are many success stories).
And, of course, there aren't that many Western men to date and the ones that are here might - see below - be oddly hostile to Western women.
It is also true that a woman contemplating moving abroad might well do some advance research - something Lindsey Craig should have done more of - realize how few other foreign women she was likely to meet, and be less inclined to go (not saying she wouldn't go) than a single man of a similar demographic whose head is filled with stories of how easy it is to date the local women. She's hearing stories of woe and he's getting pumped up on a dating pool skewed in his favor. Who's more likely to go, and who's more likely to stay long-term? I'd say though that it is more a case of men being more inclined to go after hearing the stories rather than women being less likely...it's not less women, but more men. Add to that how much BS the average Western woman abroad hears about how all Western women are bad, bad, bad and that's why the men date the locals, and yes, she might be somewhat less inclined to go than the man who is told "you can date soooo many girls! It's a feast!"
Consider Forumosa before it got cleaned up a bit and they started a Women's Forum - it was very discouraging for any woman posting there. TEALIT? Full of people looking for hookups, even in the "just friends" and "language exchange" sections. Between the nightlife issues, the complaints about foreign women and the lack of other women, I can see why female expats might get discouraged and go home. Consider too how many times I've been mansplained to, talked down to or ignored because at expat events - at times feeling that quick appraisal of my (eh) looks and then completely dismissed. Why would any woman find that appealing?
Third, that women abroad feel challenged by basic tasks that men have no problem with, such as haircuts and shopping for clothes or shoes, and have to deal with cultural differences and expectations regarding weight that are unfairly (ahem) weighted against them - as though saying no to a French fry is going to make them as petite as the average Asian woman. As though it's their fault that Western women have body types that Asian women often (not always!) don't. We have to deal with the Old Taiwanese Lady weight and appearance comments, the forthrightness about size and the absence of basic necessities (tampons, gynecologists who speak English, clothes, shoes) in a way that men don't, and it can get very discouraging. When you are challenged with everything from personal care to clothes to shoes to hair, and made to feel gargantuan in the process, even if you aren't, it wears a woman down.
A few thoughts from a friend provide Nos. Four and Five:
Fourth, that women looking into moving abroad are aware of the fact that sexism is far more of an issue in Asia (not nearly as much in Taiwan, though it's definitely there), just in terms of local culture. That likely keeps some women away, and for those who come anyway, it may be a reason for those women to go home earlier: imagine how much greater the culture shock is for a foreign woman in a country with traditional (and therefore, by Western standards, sexist) values than for a man. Foreign women do get trump cards in many cases - basically, "It's OK that you're weird and you don't share our social values because you're foreign" - but there are still some real issues here, and the ensuing culture shock is likely a huge factor. It is tiring to work for a sexist boss, have to address sexist beliefs even among friends, go out and meet people only to find that you are again being judged through the lens of gender, asked yet again about marriage and family, having children, having your appearance commented on and treated as the most important part of who you are. Always wondering if you are being paid less, and if so, because you happen to have a vagina. Always wondering if you are offered the fluffier classes (e.g. "Baking in English!") and work teaching children rather than the more challenging work (e.g. "Presenting in English") because you are female. Always questioning why, exactly, most of your colleagues are male, especially if you teach corporate English, IELTS or other adult classes.
Sexism is also a problem in the West - the hate and vitriol I see from some American men is astounding - but coming up against older-school forms of it in Asia is tiring.
I want to add a few more points here to expand this piece. I focused mainly on expats like me above: women who came here on their own as students or independently in search of work. However, there is a whole class of expat that I don't interact with much - nothing personal, we just inhabit different worlds - the corporate expat here on a fancy package. In Taiwan this means the ones who have luxury apartments rented for them, drivers and live-in help, who send their children to international schools we couldn't hope to afford. That sort of money would be nice, though I'm not sure I'd like the life very much. In any case, corporate sexism is a huge issue, and as a result most of the employees being offered these stellar packages are male. They might bring their wives, but they are the ones drawing the salaries. When women are offered something like this, they may find they're in a tiny minority and that when they arrive, the non-Western corporate world is even more hostile and sexist than what they left behind. Professional Taiwanese women have more advantages than almost all of their counterparts in the rest of Asia, but corporate sexism here is no better, and likely worse, than what you'll find in the West.
And, finally, I'm going to add something that may anger a few people, but here we go. It is my personal opinion from observation that women tend to be less tolerant of mediocrity. What I mean by that is, those of us who don't come as students or well-paid, cosseted expatriates often start out teaching English. Few of us are qualified, and we are given a title ("teacher") that we don't exactly deserve. I don't exempt myself from this: I was once this sort of so-called "teacher". Most "English teachers" in Taiwan know this (though some don't seem to have figured it out). Some, like me, decide the work is meaningful and fulfilling and eventually become professional educators. Most don't. Some leave after awhile, others decide that teaching without any real qualification is good enough and stay. Guess which group I have noticed is more likely to not be content being an unqualified "teacher"? If you guessed women, then you get where I'm going. And guess which group I've noticed is more likely to decide that what they're doing is fine?
Yup. Men. In my personal observation.
So which group, if this is true, is more likely to stay longer?
Men.
For the record: