Starting a bleak year with a little joy in Taiwan

I am grateful that I had the time to attend an exhibition of Sanyu (常玉) works in December

It doesn't matter how you spin it or even if you try to make it cute -- a snake is a snake. And when your government has been overtaken by snakes, there's no way to frame that positively without coming across as disingenuous, brainwashed, bootlicking or just garden-variety stupid. 

I'm talking about the US here, but something similar could be said of the KMT-created constitutional crisis in Taiwan. If you don't see the similarities in tactics between them and President Rapist's crew, you're not paying attention. DPP legislators seem to be putting up more of a fight than US Democrats, but I do with President Lai would speak out more. 

Because of how the world is, Lao Ren Cha is probably going to get pretty dark. Uplifting words require hope, and we're currently veering down a slope on which my hope finds no purchase. We're not only sliding into fascism, we're doing it electorally. People actually chose this. I have nothing to offer them but contempt. 

It may seem as though I've hopped straight to the rending of the garments without much in between, but I've actually been attempting to keep a gratitude journal. The world is in a bad way, but I can't point to many problems in my personal life -- call it privilege, luck, perhaps a few good choices, but if the US weren't in some freaky simulation of 1930s Germany and China acting kind of like the old Japanese Empire, I might even be something approaching happy? Who knows. 

What I can do, though, is practice a little self-fortification and talk about some of the little things I'm grateful for. They're random and pretty inconsequential, but it calms the mind to do this. 

That, and I can't follow the news as closely as I'd like without my stomach curdling, and I've gotten at least two migraines from it, so I can't be the Taiwan politics blogger I want to be right now.

Although it has its flaws, and I have my criticisms, I'm grateful that I moved to Taiwan back in 2006. I half-joked at the time that I was doing it to get away from "King George II", which seems adorable now. In 2025, as I see more and more Americans talking about 'getting out' and trying to start lives abroad, I started one almost two decades ago. I have permanent residency, a comfortable home built up over a decade, a freelance career that's solid even when it feels a little unstimulating, and strong social ties in Taipei. 

I do worry that China will start a war here -- President Rapist isn't smart enough to understand Taiwan's strategic importance, and he isn't empathetic enough to understand the human rights implications of this issue. China must know it has a lot less standing in its way now. 

And yet, being here has given me a greater understanding of this part of the world. If I'd stayed in the US, it would have been easy to read about conflicts like the threats China is inflicting on Taiwan, and despite feeling empathy, see it all as 'foreign' or 'far away' -- even though such a war would affect not just Taiwanese people but the world. Every issue that's far off to us is local to someone else. Not that I didn't already know that, but knowing something and feeling it in one's bones because the death count might include you or people you care about -- I'm not grateful for the threat or the fear, what kind of monster would be? But it sure does induce clarity. 

There's a small part of me that regrets that I can't do more to fight for the future of the US. Perhaps the US doesn't deserve a future -- again, the electorate chose this -- but lots of people in it do. It has brought further clarity, though, that the US might be the country of my citizenship, and it's had a major impact on my cultural norms, but it's not really 'home' anymore and probably never will be again. 

Taiwan is my home, and it's worth fighting for. I've heard people here talking about running, trying to get away from a potential war. I'm a lot less sure. I don't know what help I could be, nor how I'd be able to stay just in terms of supporting myself, but if I'm not willing to stand up for my values and beliefs in my home, then I'm not willing to stand up for them anywhere. I don't know how I could live with myself if I ran. 

That sucks, but I suppose there's a sliver of gratitude in being able to put it so plainly. Knowing it is...something?

Here's how much the US is not my home: I'm reasonably committed to not visiting again while President Rapist and his sex pest goon squad are in power, and I don't know how long that will be. Four years? Two or less, if we can get all 1789 up in the White House? Undetermined? I don't feel any sadness about not going to that country, just at what it will mean for visiting loved ones there. How feasible is my stance with a wedding in September, a father who doesn't take long trips abroad, and wanting to spend Christmas with my in-laws next year? 

                       

My face while judging supporters of President Rapist

A friend asked me what precisely I was afraid of in terms of not visiting. I'm not sure. As a cisgender, heterosexual white woman who's probably past childbearing age, I'm not very high on their list of people to actively persecute. They're content with passive persecution of women like me who are still there by eroding all of their hard-earned human rights. Yet my guts rebel at the thought of setting foot on American soil: the leadership of a country do influence the culture, and right now the Rapey D and the Roofie Crew are ushering in a culture of misogyny that gives me the willies. Which random Manosphere Bro is gonna decide it's suddenly acceptable to threaten or assault me, because his Dear Leader did it without consequences? 

I also just don't want to be around people who think it's acceptable to attack, say, immigrants or trans women. I have friends in both groups and would rather live near them than their detractors.

Besides, I don't really know what to do to support my trans and nonbinary friends especially. It feels like performative allyship, but they're mostly American, and if they can't go back for safety reasons, perhaps I shouldn't either. 

In fact, I'm curious: if you're an American living abroad, are you intending to visit the US during this "administration"? No judgement either way, we all come to our own decisions for our own reasons. I just want to know. 

What were we talking about again? Oh yes, gratitude. I am indeed grateful to have a supporting husband and loving family (biological and in-laws) who are supportive and understand how much this has bothered me, because it bothers them, too. I'm at the point of cutting off anyone who supports the literal fascism we're facing now, and I am grateful that nobody in my closest circles is, well, a fascist. 

Here are some little things I'm grateful for:

I recently started up a writing project I'd abandoned a couple of years ago. It's going better this time and takes me out of time and place a little. That matters. It also means I'll likely be blogging less. 

I have a lovely side hustle going writing for various Taiwan travel magazines. You can see some of them republished by CommonWealth's online platform (not all of the results here are mine). Writing is a way to look at some other thing critically for awhile, rather than freaking out at the news all the time. 

In fact, all I think I can read these days is Sweets Weekly. 


                  

Sweets Weekly, your trusted source for news from Taiwan to Hamburg, Germany, which was originally a kind of fried steak. 

Here's one of their better pieces: 

Typified plus thick warm and cheerful grandmother, Tainan alleys hidden in a delicious good material. this is the most memorable I've eaten grilled sandwiches, plus skillful technologies raging fire fried egg. still retain moisture egg, like iron palm flip grilled toast Ruannen delicious, simple but most charming. 

Flip to the other side to read an insightful editorial about how sandwiches is placed in the middle of the bread. 

I am grateful for Sweets Weekly. 

In April, I'll leave Taiwan for a little over a month. Starting in London where I'll work remotely from my sister's place for a few weeks, I'll then head to Rome where I'll meet Brendan and my brother and sister-in-law for the weekend. Then we'll meet my parents-in-law for a Mediterranean and Adriatic cruise. I don't know if I am a cruise person; my typical travel is public transit, mid-range hotels, lots of faffing about drinking things in cafes and exploring old bookstores, maybe seeing a castle or church and joking about how this or that bishop put rubies on his hat instead of helping the poor. 

But family bonding matters, and I don't hate large boats (only small ones), and I get to go to Malta and Montenegro. At the end, we'll spend several days in Slovenia and I'll work remotely a bit from Ljubljana.

That's a privilege, and I'm grateful...well, not for the privilege exactly, but for the privilege of being able to go plus the understanding that it is indeed privilege.

Someday I might switch to a full-time job that will make it harder to do things like this, so I'm grateful that I get to do it now. Besides, who knows whether we'll be in the throes of World War III before I get my next chance? 

For this trip, I designed an 'ideal' travel day bag. Made with sturdy Japanese fabric and a water-resistant middle layer, it boasts a thick cloth crossbody, a zipper top and magnet-sealing flap for two layers of protection. It slides onto a rolling bag handle and has outer compartments for airport necessities and a water bottle. Inside, there are inner zip pockets and a keyring that can attach to anything you may want to secure. It has a dedicated laptop compartment and Kindle pocket. I daresay it is perfect, and it came entirely from my own head. 

                    

                    
I'm grateful for that spurt of creativity in a time when I feel creatively dead, and grateful to have a tailor in Taiwan who made it for me at a reasonable price. 

My cat -- the one who had the heart attack -- is still with us. He costs about NT$15,000/month between vet visits and medication, but his prognosis was 6-9 months. It's been 9 months now, so every day we have with him is a gift. I know there most likely won't be many more. I'm grateful for that at any price. 

Lastly, I recently asked my Taiwanese teacher to help me understand the full lyrics to Hometown at Dusk (黃昏故鄉). The most famous version is by Wen Hsia (文夏), but this version is the meditative one that calms me down. I'm grateful to have a teacher willing to help make the lyrics accessible, and grateful to have learned it. 

In a life where, thanks to a decision I made two decades ago, when I travel, the place of golden-hour nostalgia that I think of when I'm homesick isn't my actual hometown, nor where I spent most of my adult life in the US. It's Taiwan. 

I'm grateful for this perspective shift, and how permanent it seems to be.  

Oh, I almost forgot.

Remember that earthquake not long ago that caused a Dictator Chiang statue to fall into a lake? 

That was awesome. I'm grateful for that. 

Walls, cultural and personal

I've had both a series of medical issues these past months, in addition to my usual anxiety and overall executive dysfunction. Add to that a case of writer's block as cliché as it has been severe, and I simply haven't had it in me to face the world as a writer or as much of anything. 

It's not entirely debilitating, and I am not entirely splenetic. I can still work and have a social life, and I wouldn't say the American people voting for President Rapist again has completely broken me. But it's broken me a little bit -- what tiny shred of optimism I may have once clung to has been swept away in the swash of my complete and utter inability to forgive anyone who thought a known rapist would make a great president. Quite literally, if I find out someone I know voted for him, I will never speak to them again. 

In this intense anger and anxiety, various physical ailments and investigations, and not one but two ageing and unwell cats, I've been more reclusive and less engaged. I want to wall the world off, but I've mostly been turning inward, a marked change from my usual extroversion. It's not quite to the point where my subconscious has Cask of the Amontillado'd the rest of me, but I genuinely don't think the world will be okay. 

In an attempt to deal with this constructively,  I've been escaping from the world by methodically making over the smaller back rooms in our apartment. Mostly, I'm trying to make my space more functional  and improve overall flow. There's an aesthetic component to this as well, though. My home office, which my friends call my 'lady cave', is now drenched in a plummy color hilariously called Aubergine Burst. 

This chain of events led recently to a direct confrontation with one of the few things about Taiwanese culture that I don't like, even as I have sought to understand and accept it -- the indirect, high-context no. 

In addition to enplummification of my lady cave, I've been preparing to hang new art. And that's turned into a labyrinthine side quest of its own.

A few years ago, I became the new caretaker of a massive family heirloom -- a thick, heavy tome of my great-grandfather's that was either meant to be prominently displayed in a home library or office, or perhaps on a coffee table. A Historical Atlas of Armenia, published in 1953. I can't read most of it -- my Armenian is still not that good -- but the illustrations are plentiful and...how else to describe them? Luscious. Fine detail, rich colors, metallic accents. Various maps, historical coats of arms, portraits, prints of Medieval etchings, portraits of historical notables, artistic renderings of Mount Ararat, you name it. Slightly frayed at the edges of the binding, the cover a deep wine red with the gold stamped letters ՀԱՅ (among other things), it looks exactly like the sort of thing your Armenian great-grandpa would have had in his study to show off to his friends over a bottle of cognac.

I sought to have four of the most enigmatic images scanned, printed and framed, with the metallic accents faithfully reproduced if possible. The binding on this book is so thick that it cannot be scanned and printed directly, and one fold-out map is too large for the machinery at an average copy shop.

My usual print shop for this kind of work, River Image, seems to have gone out of business. So, asked for recommendations on where to get this done, and received just two replies -- a small custom printing firm in Wanhua that seems to have mostly corporate clients, and Sir Speedy. The latter couldn't do metallic accents, so I hauled my tome across town to Wanhua to inquire at the former.

This printing business is located in a narrow lane otherwise lined with old walk-up apartments. You know the kind -- clad in mid-century tiles in neutrals and greens, with iron window grilles and sprays of plant life in pots both along the road and growing out of cracks in the wall. You'd have to look closely to even notice the existence of a print shop on the ground floor of one of these buildings. Inside, there was so much printed material for various businesses, all beautifully done, that the employees balanced A Historical Atlas of Armenia on top of one pile to inspect the pages I'd selected. 

Then they discussed the matter in Taiwanese. I even understood most of it! The binding was the thing -- the only ways to avoid shadow-casted scans were to cut the binding, or digitally pretty them up. I didn't want to cut the book, and they doubted they could re-bind it well enough. They asked for time to look into how it might be done, which I granted. 

We all agreed the job was possible. They even had metallics! The question was more about how much effort it would require, and what that would cost. 

I got the distinct sense that they didn't particularly want to do it, at least not at a price a single person would pay, compared to a business. But, they assured me, they'd try. We added each other on Line and I went home, bookless. 

A few days later they got in touch: they could do the job, but the total cost would be around NT$40,000 for two color copies each of the four images, on good paper, with gold and silver accents. They wouldn't be able to do the work until January.

Honestly, I very much wanted these prints -- one set for me, one for my sister. But I knew, and I think they knew, that I wasn't about to pay over a thousand US dollars and wait over a month for them. I drafted a message saying I'd think about it for a few days, and I genuinely would, but deep down I knew that it simply was not going to work.

I asked a local friend to check my reply in Mandarin, as I wanted to avoid any inadvertent rudeness. She felt they were "treating the customer like a buffet", and perhaps she was right. She grew up in this culture, after all; I didn't.

But something about the exchange, and the way they responded positively to my reply -- of course we know it's a big expense, we quoted the upper estimate because we want to do the best possible work, and you can get quotes from other printers too -- made me think that they weren't trying to scam me, per se. 

Rather, they didn't want to do a fairly small job for what wouldn't have been much profit, but because they could do it and didn't want to outright reject the project, they quoted a price at which they would take it on, knowing full well I'd say no thanks and look elsewhere. All on good terms, of course. 

I then took the book to Sir Speedy near Da'an Station, and they were able to scan the pages, remove the shadows and give me two sets of pretty good prints (no metallic accents, though) for NT$1400, including digital copies.

I like to think I understood what was happening and responded astutely, but I didn't like it. I knew not to pay that outrageous sum of money, which no one ever expected me to fork over, but I’ve met exists with too much money and too little sense to understand that. 

The fake quote was a way to shimmy out of an awkward ‘no’, but it put me in the awkward position of having to say it was out of my budget, whereas I wouldn’t have found a direct rejection to be awkward. Research shows that when communicating across cultural divides, people tend to develop clearer styles with more nonverbal language to alleviate misunderstanding, so it makes sense to me to do this.

I'd rather be told kindly but directly that they weren't going to take the job. I accepted how the events unfolded, because I had no choice. Just because I can see it, understand it, accept it and respond to it doesn't mean I agree with it. 

Besides, this communication style makes sense to me, not to them necessarily. I’m naturally direct, it’s also my ‘home culture’ (New York). I communicate regularly in multiple languages with people from different cultures, and have done for decades. While I don’t want to make assumptions, they likely haven’t.

And what can I do but accept and work within the culture where I chose to live? Complaining does nothing. One must adapt.

My experience with the print shop reminded me of the other aspects of local culture that I don't care for -- not standing up to toxic bosses, but rather job-hopping to the next toxic boss, and the next, and the next, whenever the current one becomes too unbearable. Doing things one actively disagrees with to avoid arguing with one's parents, including signing anti-marriage equality petitions, not buying homes they don't want you to buy, or even having kids when you don't feel ready (or want them at all). 

In a lot of these cases, I think of them less as passively accepting poor treatment from others, and more as just making a choice that I wouldn't have made, and still wouldn't make even after almost two decades in Taiwan. Sometimes I even see the wisdom -- years ago I expended far too much energy standing up to a toxic boss, but in the end the only real solution was to quit. Perhaps there's something to be learned from declining to make the effort to change a dynamic that probably can't be changed. I'd choose to die on more hills; perhaps that causes me to die more often.

But you know what? I'll still stand up for myself if I think a boss or manager is wrong about something that concerns me. Diplomatically, even kindly, if they're not irredeemable. But at the very least, I will state my position.

All this to say, I'd rather interact in a still-foreign culture in ways that feel a little unnatural to me, to say "I'll think about it" when I know the answer is "no", to respond politely to an outrageous price quote -- understanding and accepting even though I'm not fully in agreement -- than speak to single person who voted for President Rapist.

Dancing the ol' Taiwanese Government Shuffle on dual nationality until we all die

 

I don't always use Wikimedia Commons for cover photos, but sometimes you just need an old lady dancing

It's no secret that once we decided Taiwan was our permanent home, we truly meant permanent. We intend to work, build lives, retire and die here just as millions of Taiwanese do, despite not being citizens. For people like us, dual nationality just makes sense. I've talked about this extensively before, and I'll summarize my case again below. 

But first, let's talk about the preliminary comments from Taiwan's Ministry of the Interior (MoI) on Crossroads Taiwan's petition to amend the nationality law and end the country's double standard on who can and cannot obtain a second nationality.

Those comments (translated by me) are a big fat pile o' nothing: 

 

Wu Hsin-te, Chief of the Nationality Administration Section of the Department of Household Affairs of the Ministry of Interior, said "Those with special distinctions and senior professionals can obtain dual nationality. This year's amendment allows senior professionals, who originally had to wait three years before they can apply for this period of residence, to do so in two years.”

Okay Mr. Wu, but that's not very helpful for those of us who are professionals and are skilled in our fields, but do not meet the frankly insane requirements in all but a few fields to be officially deemed "senior" or "special" professionals deserving of a path to dual nationality. 

In education, you have to be a professor. There is an exception for those who've published in "high impact journals" but this is a bit of a joke: who has the time or support to do that without the funding and access provided by universities? I have a Master's and I train Taiwanese teachers in exactly what they need to meet a specific government goal -- Bilingual by 2030 -- which happened to be the brainchild of President Lai Ching-te. I also help Taiwan's businesspeople better engage with international counterparts. I have been a teacher for two decades.

Yet I don't qualify. I'm not "special" or "senior" enough. 

I'd say that I "should" qualify (and I do feel that I do, without shame), but the entire notion of a class system of Deserving Foreigners vs. Garbage Foreigners is ridiculous. It should not exist at all. More on that below, too. 

 

The Ministry of the Interior emphasized that the country has a single nationality system...

 

This is false. Taiwanese can have more than one nationality, and so can the foreigners they deem to be not garbage. The MoI should not lie like this. 

...and the Nationality Law was just revised in May.

So? Revise it again. I don't care what you just did. Fix your problem, don't say it's half-fixed like that's sufficient.

Except for senior professionals such as senior engineers, or clergy and other distinguished persons who have contributed to Taiwan, they do not need to give up their citizenship, they can get ID cards.

Okay, so Taiwan doesn't have a "single nationality" policy. Why lie? 

What I want to know regarding this "single nationality policy" is why they think the double standard is acceptable. Most countries have the same law for everyone, naturalized or born. Either one can have multiple nationalities, or one can't. It's actually fairly rare to allow that privilege for born citizens, the descendants of ROC citizens abroad, and a very few Special Magic Foreigners but no one else. A few countries do this -- South Korea comes to mind -- but most don't. 

The US, for example, doesn't recognize other nationalities their citizens may have, but won't end their citizenship over it (most countries that allow multiple nationalities have such a policy). In fact, a few Americans who don't have ROC/Taiwanese heritage have obtained Taiwanese nationality without renouncing US citizenship.

Japan, on the other hand, has the same rule for everyone regardless of how you became Japanese: you can only be Japanese. If you're caught with another nationality, you either have to give it up or lose Japanese citizenship.

Besides, they think people like me and thousands of others who do work every day that do contribute to the economy, tax revenues and in other ways don't "contribute to Taiwan"?  My training Taiwanese teachers and helping Taiwanese business leaders do their jobs isn't "contributing to Taiwan"? 

Thanks. 

 

The revised law also solves the problem of the status of children born in illegal households. Stateless children can apply for naturalization with the assistance of social welfare agencies and guardians. 

 

That's great. Cool. But it doesn't really help the other mmigrants who have made their lives here but don't have the tools they need to retire in the country they call home. So it's a good start, but completely insufficient. 

Needless to say, it's disappointing. It's a nothingburger. 

And it underscores the completely bonkers caste system of Deserving vs. Garbage. I know there's an argument out there that Taiwan has the right to determine who gets access to dual nationality based on the talent it wants to attract. 

This is a stupid thing to think. 

First, the immigrants Taiwan needs the most are the blue-collar workers, mostly from Southeast Asia, who keep the factories and fishing boats running and take care of the grandparents. The Taiwanese government surely knows this, but doesn't tend to admit it. Without them, the economy would grind to a halt. 

Besides, having "the right" to do something (which Taiwan unarguably has) doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. 

I think what I do matters. I do believe I contribute in my way. However, if I left, Taiwan would survive. I'm white collar, but I am absolutely not as critical to Taiwan's core economic interests as the group who gets paid the least and treated the worst. The group that isn't even under discussion as having a path to dual nationality, even within Crossroads' campaign. 

Unfortunately, Crossroads' strategy is realistic: if the public can see that people like me deserve a path to dual nationality, it should be then a little easier to convince them that  similar path for blue-collar workers won't flood the country with job-takers, and most who come here to work eventually leave, anyway. Those of us who want to stay, including among blue-collar workers, are a smallish slice of the total foreign population.

With people who have ancestors who were ROC citizens having fairly easy access, despite the fact that their families may have no other connection to Taiwan, it's easy to see that Taiwan's preference is still based more on race and politics than actually "attracting the talent" Taiwan needs. The caste system is thus:

1.) People with Chinese (ROC) ancestry, under the assumption that this will make one "loyal" to Taiwan.

How? I cannot say. Loyalty isn't a genetic or race-based trait. I'm not against such people having that right, but can we just admit that it's also just an ethnic preference, like most jus sanguinis citizenship paths? 

2.) Relatively wealthy Westerners, most likely envisioned as "white people" in most Taiwanese government minds, even though not all Westerns are white, and Chinese spouses. 

In fact, Chinese spouses might be in the first group. It's debatable. 

3.) Regular Westerners (like me). White still probably preferred, because racism.

4.) Southeast Asian blue collar workers and most foreign spouses.


So please, please, do not tell me it's about "attracting talent". It's not. Taiwan needs the fourth group the most. But while I'm being hyperbolic when I say I'm considered garbage (I'm more like very nice recycling?), this crucial group is actually treated like garbage. It's not right.

It's all politics and discrimination. An absolute clownshow. Don't even pretend otherwise.

There is an optimistic reading of these comments, however. The Taiwanese government tends not to show its hand even if changes are being considered. It simply won't admit as much until the change is official. 

Take the economic subsidies. When Ma Ying-jeou's government handed out cash, permanent residents were excluded unless they had a local spouse. When we inquired, we were treated rather rudely. The subsidies were for "taxpayers". I am a taxpayer, but was told that being a taxpayer is not sufficient to get the benefits of...being a taxpayer. 

The government lackey who had the absolute stones to say that with a straight face has my eternal emnity. 

But then the COVID vouchers and NT$6,000 tax payback were rolled out under Tsai Ing-wen, and after a brief back-and-forth, permanent residents were included. This is certainly due in part to a different attitude toward foreign residents from different administrations -- Ma's people streamlined some processes for us, but at the end of the day, would never actually consider us part of the fabric of Taiwanese society. 

But it also means that a general attitude shift was afoot. We were rebuffed, but then the system changed.

It's an oft-made observation that the Taiwanese government does things in baby steps. Evolving nationality laws are part of that, and I have it on good authority that Tsai Ing-wen understood the need for them to change. Eventually, someday, Taiwan will probably relinquish the double standard, just as it's slowly fixing its mess in not making marriage equality truly equal. 

And I love Taiwan because here, things do tend to get better.

Here's the thing, though: it's too damn slow. Yes, I want this for Taiwan's own wellbeing -- immigrants are vital to its future. I want it for new generations of immigrants who move to Taiwan. 

But damn it, I also want it for me. And at the pace the government is moving, the change that will make it possible for me to truly call Taiwan home won't come until I'm too old to benefit, or long dead. 

What good is dual nationality, which would make it more possible for us to own a home where we can grow old in Taiwan, if we're 70 when it happens? Who buys their first home at 70? Who can? I'm not angry that it's a step-by-step process. I am very angry that it's going so slowly that I have less and less hope of seeing it in my lifetime. This doesn't just matter in general, it matters specifically to me. 

The only thing that does give me hope is that groups like Crossroads are making an effort. When civic groups get involved, it tends to speed up the pace of change. 

Why do I care so much? As a permanent resident, don't I have access to pension plans, labor insurance and health insurance? 

Yes, but it's not really sufficient. Leaving aside the more abstract desire to vote -- to have a civic voice and representation in the country I call home and would fight for  -- it matters for practical reasons as well. 

After building careers here and contributing to the country through our labor (we hope, anyway), access to the tools we'd need to retire here matter. Permanent residency is usually sufficient, but it does not give us access to everything we'd need to feasibly retire in Taiwan.

Home health aide and long-term care subsidies are out of reach. Although legally foreign residents can buy property in Taiwan, actually getting approved for a mortgage can be a challenge. If approved, we're likely to be asked for an infeasibly large deposit (I frequently hear 40%) and frankly insane interest rates. Programs to ease the burden for first-time homeowners? Once again out of reach. 

And yet, where are we supposed to live when we're old? Landlords don't like to rent to the elderly, but we don't have local family to take us in. 

Why don't we just renounce?

We have obligations in our country of birth that are not easily discharged, such as aging relatives. Post-renunciation resumption of citizenship is not a feasible option for Americans. As above, most other countries have the same rule for born and naturalized citizens, so we resent the double standard. 

More importantly, however, if we renounce, what are we supposed to do when our aging parents might need our care? We're not rich, we can't pay full-time health aides. We can't go back temporarily to be caretakers and not work as well. We just don't have that financial flexibility. 

I thought that Taiwan cared about family responsibility. Filial piety and all that. What is this if not the definition of filial piety, and yet Taiwan doesn't seem to value it at all when it comes from a foreigner. Does it only matter when the aging parents are Taiwanese?

Usually, we love that Taiwan is not like "most other countries". Life here is good. In this particular way, however, Taiwan diverges from the norm and for a country seeking to attract "foreign talent", it's a big fat problem.

Symphony in White, or welcome to my midlife crisis

"Did you make it to the NGA?" one of my oldest friends asked as I slid into the car near her office in northern Virginia. I'd planned to have lunch with my dad in Maryland and then metro to the National Gallery of Art to stare at James Whistler's Symphony in White for an awkwardly long time, just like I used to do in college. I hadn't even planned on seeing other paintings. 

The timing hadn't worked out, though, and like so many missed connections, I lost my chance to see one of my favorite paintings for at least a year. 

I wasn't even sure why I'd forsaken a free crash pad in New York City for the trees, school buses and starter homes of northern Virginia, but something under my outer skin of dissatisfaction and inner baseline happiness said that this was where I should be for a few days. It was the site of my last depressive episode late in college, which I'd mistaken for senioritis at the time. I was staying with a friend from that time, and we had plans to Facetime with another. The fourth member of our little group made up my cohort of bridesmaids in 2010 but wasn't available. 

Four women who graduated together and remained friends for decades, who'd all taken different trajectories in life. One became a lawyer, married and bought the Falls Church starter home where I was staying. She'd quit her respectable job in an instant if she felt she could. Another became a stay-at-home mom in the Baltimore suburbs. The third got a Master's in early childhood education, married, had two kids, moved to the West Coast, and is now battling mental illness. 

And the fourth? She spent a some time in Asia and tried to build a life in DC, but ended up quitting her boring office job with the greige cubicles to move to Taiwan and explore a newfound passion for adult education. She wasn't very good at it at first, but got better over the years. She owns no home and has no children, but lives in a beautiful downtown apartment, speaks Mandarin and spends her double-income-no-kids cash on globetrotting.

Add to that a recent family reunion which involved spending a weekend with a group of people who are mostly related to me but have chosen myriad different life paths. Things I could have done but didn't: doctor, park ranger, entrepreneur, marketing specialist, architect, product director, data scientist, schoolteacher, housewife. 

My friends' stories are their own, but all of us seem to have been wondering recently if we'd make different choices if we could go back. Personally, I know I made the right decision to stay childfree, but wonder if all those years of insisting that I'd intentionally not boarded the bus to a better-respected and remunerated corporate job and single family home was a big fat lie: had I missed that bus, and was presenting it as a choice a mere salve for the ego? 

It's unclear, but I can say definitively that something is amiss. It's not that I'm unhappy, and certainly I don't want to blow up my life like so many people in their forties who know something is wrong. 

I spent these days listening to my college friends' victories and tribulations, wondering if I wasn't a bit jealous -- but of what? If my marriage remains happy and loving, I don't regret not having children, and I like where I live, what exactly is causing this melancholy?

Work is an easy but incomplete answer. I haven't felt long-term challenge or mental stimulation in my career for a few years. The golden period when I was mostly doing teacher training has passed, and with it a series of novel challenges that forced me to be creative and use all my fancy certifications and degrees. The improved pay is gone with it; I still do some, but most of my work now is back to the regular classroom, plus occasional teaching material design. 

Even though I find it a bit easy as I've done it for so long, that would be fine if I felt I was bringing in a satisfactory salary and professional recognition. As I watch others in my social circle get promotions and earn progressively more money, I'll admit I do feel a bit trapped. I guess I thought my work would evolve into something more, with more challenge and money attached. It never did, at least not enough.

This isn't something I could have imagined saying even two years ago, when I was mostly doing teacher training and would have said without hesitation that teaching was a passion. Someone I saw as a mentor at the time assured me that the job can evolve, and with that you'll have both fulfillment and more financial security. The fact that teaching simply doesn't pay all that well compared to most other white-collar (and quite a bit of blue-collar) work was fine when it was a calling, a passion, a fulfilling occupation that gave life meaning. 

But when it started to get a little stale, a little this again?, I started asking myself why I chased a poorly-paying passion over corporate whoredom. If sustained passion for work is a lie, and I'm not going to be wholly fulfilled or challenged by my job even if I reach for that unicorn, then why did I limit myself like this?

I could have been a musician. I was good once, or so I'm told. I studied International Affairs; I could have been an analyst. It's too bad I don't respect the bad ones, and most of them are bad. I could have done anything else, but I chose teaching. Now, I'm not sure why.

The truth is, while I once would have clung to teaching no matter what, right now I'd quit without hesitation if something more challenging with better pay popped up. I don't know if this is a fleeting thought or a more permanent disillusionment.

It does go a little deeper than mere work woes: I have ADHD  and anxiety -- now fully diagnosed but only somewhat successfully treated -- so just about everything rots on the vine for me eventually. I get distracted or bored, and struggle to engage fully. I could have worked my ass off in that greige office for a promotion, or rather, I couldn't because my staticky, undiagnosed brain refused to care despite consciously knowing that I should. Perhaps my falling out with teaching as a passion and career choice is just another in a string of dots I simply cannot connect.

I want more money and more challenge, but if you asked me what actual thing I want to do, well, I haven't got a goddamn clue. I'm not sure I ever will -- how does the old quote go? I have no dream job, I do not dream of labor.

Perhaps I would have made different choices if I'd gotten diagnosed earlier rather than flitting to the next dopamine hit, the next challenge, the next country, the next set of coursework, the next language. Hell, I can't even concentrate on Mandarin and have abandoned it for Taiwanese because it's more fun, more in line with my politics and a hell of a lot harder. 

This is complicated heavily by my choice of home. I don't want to leave Taiwan. My husband and this country are the two best things about my life. As someone who's always sought a meaningful vocation, this is hard to admit. So my marriage and my home now mean more to me than my career success? In 2002, Depressed Senioritis Jenna would have never guessed. 

But what else exactly can I do if I don't leave Taiwan? There are office jobs if you speak Mandarin (and often if you don't), but I don't specifically want one. In fact, The lack of reasonable time off alone sours that idea. I can't point to any specific perks such a job would offer beyond a more stable (but not necessarily high) salary, but there sure are a lot of drawbacks. 

Even if I do leave Taiwan, I'm not sure what I'd do exactly. I have certainly limited myself as a teacher; every time a friend or family member brings up what I might do if I returned to the West, they describe a life which is a marked step down. 

That's privilege, of course. Living in Taiwan provides the privilege of a good life as a slightly-bored freelancer, and that is in no small part due to whiteness, foreignness, or both. 

One of those friends called it privilege without compunction. She pointed out that all of us are struggling in some ways and killing it in others. Those who are grinding at work might have unhappy marriages. Happily married couples face different challenges as parents. I agreed about the privilege but pointed out that I'm doing okay, but not as well as I'd hoped. I've wanted to be a homeowner for some time, but am priced out of just about every market. We have retirement savings, but not enough. In fact, it will never be enough. That's not hyperbole; I've done the math. I'm on this wheel forever.

"You live downtown in that gorgeous space and travel the world. You're doing fine," she said. 

A cousin at the family reunion expressed her admiration for how "accomplished" I am. The compliment felt good in the way getting a tattoo feels good: an endorphin rush from a million tiny needle pricks. I couldn't figure out how exactly I was accomplished, at least compared to the impressive careers of my relatives. I'm a freelancer in Taiwan with a lot of hobbies who hasn't done much with her life. 

Of course I didn't say this, and my cousin probably thinks I genuinely am accomplished, rather than just being some white rando who loves Taiwan, has lost her passion for her work, and is learning two languages. Maybe she's even right in a sense, but I couldn't tell in what sense. I have no idea how to come to terms with my own convoluted deixis. 

Being privileged but kinda sad is a trope, and often a pathetic one. It makes me think of a wealthy '50s housewife hopped up on barbiturates, washing the dishes as she stares out the kitchen window. But then there's that viral meme about how great it would be to vacuum the house while high on quaaludes like our ancestors. Honestly, some days it doesn't sound all that bad. 

The friend I stayed with -- the lawyer with the starter home -- has recently lost a massive amount of weight. That too is her story to tell, but it's more complicated than a straightforward celebration. She described a very unlike-her fantasy of moving out to a McLean McMansion to start her Hot Wife Life: yoga pants, Stanley cup, the lot of it. 

The Jenna who lives in Taiwan and has a lot going on in her life joked that she'd need a horrible pyramid scheme "job" to complete the tableau. The anxious Jenna whose career seems to have stalled and who never feels quite secure regarding money sees the appeal. 

On my last night in Falls Church, three of the old college gang were sharing memories. I love a good Terrible People story, so I talked about a Halloween party so bad that I took my bottle of cheap tequila home because I didn't want someone dressed as a sexy honeybee who was destined for the Hot Wife Life to have it.

Another recalled briefly dating my then-best friend (we no longer speak; it's for the best). The third asked if we remembered the time I bought a CD single of Live's Lightning Crashes at Eastern Market, an old song even at the time, and we laid on the floor in my Rosslyn apartment listening to it on a loop.

All I could do was exclaim that I couldn't imagine having bought a Live CD, but apparently I did. It reads a bit hokey now, a tad cringe, but then we were all cringe back then. 

But you know what has buoyed my maudlin thoughts on this train to New York, where I'll catch a plane back to Taiwan and a life I'm eager to return to while also feeling a little depressed about? A cringe 90s song about confusion setting in and forces pulling from the center of the Earth again.

It's the perfect lament for four hours gliding along a single track toward a final, immutable destination, alongside so many other inconsequential humans skittering like hard-shelled bugs to the myriad consequences of our privilege and our choices. 

Antique and secondhand shopping in Taiwan isn't always easy

I'm actually excited to tell you about this lamp

I've had a lot going on these past few months, from my cat's heart attack to a voracious return of my lifelong insomnia (it's ebbed and flowed since childhood). One way I find relief from this is physical activity, preferably paired with some sort of mental problem-solving. When we lived in Jingmei I'd take long bike rides along the riverside. I started blogging as an outlet. More recently, I've taken an interest in interior design, making my home look as good as it possibly can, while spending as little as possible. This usually means scouring everywhere I can go or Lalamove will pick up for secondhand finds. 

The problem: while secondhand shopping in Taiwan can occasionally yield some real treasures that it'd be difficult to find elsewhere, and is especially good for Shōwa-era vintage Japanese items, it is usually riddled with issues. 

First, however, I'd like to share a success story. I came across this old Japanese pendant light at April's Goodies a few weeks ago. NT$700 was an acceptable price, so I nabbed it. I removed the old light as it didn't look safe. I could have re-wired it as a ceiling pendant with a fairly straightforward lighting kit, calling an electrician for installation only. Instead, I saw its potential as a table lamp and ordered a wooden light bulb stand online (a 燈座, not 燈台, as I learned after an educated guess and a fruitless search). 

                    

I don't have much restoration experience, so while I theoretically know how to make old things beautiful again, I lack the practical application skills. This I could handle, though. I removed the acrylic panels, washed them and coated the yellowed ones in a baking soda and peroxide mixture to dry overnight. I cleaned the wooden base and applied butcher block oil to give it some new life. The acrylic was slighly warped with age, so they no longer snapped in place -- I added a small amount of plastic adhesive to each panel in turn, weighing it down from the inside to dry in place before replacing the next one. Plop the whole thing over the lightbulb stand and boom -- a gorgeous "new" lamp! It will be extremely easy to turn it back into a pendant light if I ever so desire. 


                      


A happy ending like this, however, feels pretty rare. Frankly, I find secondhand shopping in Taiwan a little difficult. I don't mean the language barrier; I regularly communicate with sellers on Facebook Marketplace. Rather, the overall secondhand scene is often not ideal. 

I'm a little wary of the markets under the bridges, which are probably the best places to hunt. I've heard on multiple occasions that some (though likely not all) of the best finds are actually stolen. In fact, our building had a shoe thief for some time, which prompted a security upgrade. I asked a neighbor once why anyone would continually scout apartment buildings for used shoes to steal and she said that's the origin of most of the shoes at, say, the secondhand market under Fuhe Bridge. 

The secondhand furniture and kitchenware markets on Xiamen Street and Chongqing South Road are more trustworthy, but also a bit more specific (and I've yet to find a piece of furniture I actually want on Xiamen Street, despite checking it out multiple times). 

Thrift stores seem to come in two varieties: clean and organized but small, like Kuang-ren Green Fashion (光仁綠時尚) or the small shops in some MRT stations, or big but -- how can I put this -- often a bit grimy, as with many branches of Flea Market (跳蚤本舖). There are some bigger secondhand furniture markets outside the major cities, but there's nothing quite like the thrift stores where I furnished most of my college and early-twentysomething apartments. I do understand that Taiwan isn't the US and I can't expect something like thrift store culture to be exactly the same, but an option that's even vaguely parallel would be welcome. Kuang-ren is the best I've found so far. 

The antique stores are a little better in terms of quality, and I usually have good luck at Shōwa Old Home Store, Qinjing Warehouse and April's Goodies, but every vintage fiend I know is still reeling from the end of in-store browsing at Treasure Hunters. Their Line group is a bit overwhelming and I'm not always free when the bidding starts. What's more, if you're not already in the group, it's now very difficult to join. I have to wonder -- do they really want our business or not? 

It's a real shame, as one of my favorite secondhand lacquerware items came from Treasure Hunters, as did the matcha bowl I use as a catch-all and my beloved live-edge coffee table.


                     


There's an exceptional antique market on the outskirts of Tainan City, with friendly owners and reasonable prices but, well...although I try to go every time I'm in Tainan, it's still far. There are also places that restore furniture, or make custom pieces out of reclaimed materials, but they can be hard to find and get to.

I've found all sorts of great things at these shops, from gorgeous lacquerware to the aforementioned pendant-turned-table-light. One has to be careful, though: mixed in with some real finds are random bits from IKEA and Zara Home. That would be fine at a thrift store, but I'm not thrilled to see these things at antique store prices. 

My best luck has always been with Facebook Marketplace. After months of bookmarking and training the algorithm, I managed to score this teak dresser/sideboard for approximately 70% less than it would have cost at Scanteak (and it is Scanteak). I scored a real marble bowl for NT$80 which is unreal. Negotiating with sellers in Mandarin has been good language practice, as well. I'm not even all that mad that some of the items are grossly overpriced. That happens in the US, too, although sometimes in the US the price reflects some effort put into refurbishing or restoring something.

In fact, most (though not all) of the items on this sideboard are secondhand. 

What bothers me is how difficult it is to find items with prices clearly stated. If I see a real price I can choose to pay it, try to bargain it down or pass. If I see something listed for NT$1 or $66 or whatever, I have to message the seller to get the price. If it's so high that I don't even think it's worth bargaining -- and it usually is, that's why they don't state it outright -- I've wasted my time and theirs. It's now to the point that I don't even try, even with items I want, if no price is given.

This happens in secondhand Facebook groups too. Often, leaving off price is the norm, so even frequent sellers who used to list prices no longer do. There are some bright spots, like Buy Nothing Taipei and various groups where people who see free curbside finds post photos and addresses (though this has never really worked for me in Taiwan), but overall the caginess around pricing really harms the usefulness of online secondhand shopping.

This isn't to say that secondhand shopping in other countries is easy. Its newfound popularity in the US has caused higher prices, and as someone who doesn't have to buy secondhand but rather chooses to, I am at least theoretically part of the problem. That said, I also don't want to buy new things that it took resources to produce when there is so much waste in the world. 

At least when we travel, I can hit up thrift stores in the US, charity shops in the UK, op shops in Australia. Even in Taiwan, I can't complain too much. It takes awhile, but I have found some real treasures. I just wish there were more or better options here. 

A Thin Comfort

Taiwan's eternal light

When I'm extremely stressed, I engage in a practice that is likely very common: curling up on my bed and covering myself completely in a blanket. Phone nearby but not within perfect reach, lights off. In the US, that blanket would probably be a thick afghan or quilt. In Taiwan it's usually some thin linen drape. It doesn't matter; I just need to be covered. I don't even take away the throw pillows on the bed. Yes, I'm the sort of person who keeps throw pillows on her bed. 

I've found myself curling up this way more often in the past few months, as I've dealt with a fair bout of career anxiety. It's not just that I'd be making a lot more money if I lived in a number of other countries, but that I'd likely get to take my work in the direction I truly want it to go. 

Since 2011, I've been more or less consistently enrolled in some sort of teacher training program. First CELTA, then Delta, then a Master's program, plus a few short courses here and there. That first CELTA course changed the direction of my life; I didn't just go from someone who was teaching English "as a job" to someone who wanted to lead classrooms of adults as a career. I also became a full-throated convert to the power of good teacher training. 

Obviously, I wanted to be a better teacher myself. As good as I could possibly be -- which, as it turns out, is not perfect. I mess up too. But I also wanted to help other teachers develop their skills. I felt I could make a bigger impact on the world, or at least the education world, by doing so. I haven't loved every teacher training course I've led, but the direction, in general, has always felt right. 

And yet I've realized over the past year or so that there are limitations to this career path in Taiwan. There simply are not enough teacher training opportunities. Those that exist often get outsourced to international firms based in places like the UK. This is a direct result of people who have the power to decide whether to take a training contract choosing not to take one, and the organization needing the training looking elsewhere. 

This is exactly the sort of thing I was hoping to avoid by taking the freelance route. I struggle a lot with the idea that decisions might be out of my hands. I can work with a team but I am not a natural follower. I wanted quite specifically to be in charge of what classes I take and when I'm free to take them. I never want to be told by anything other than my bank account that I can't take this or that trip.

Instead, I've found that I'm too far removed from those decision-makers to be heard, and it probably wouldn't matter if I was heard. After all, it's not as if they aren't aware that teacher training in Taiwan should be sourced as locally as possible, to people who know the local context. 

Please don't misunderstand: I'm grateful for every teacher training opportunity that comes my way. I find most of them meaningful, impactful, intellectually challenging to plan and execute and personally satisfying. As with a great deal of impactful work, whether it improves the world in some tiny way has become more important to me than whether or not I enjoyed leading it. And yet, I do generally enjoy them.

Friends have recommended I start my own local training business. I don't want to do that -- first, I'd be in direct competition with people who've been in the field longer, whom I like, respect and have perhaps even acted as mentors. Second, I want to be a teacher, not a business owner. Running a business is its own job and skill set; a job I don't want to do, and a skill set I lack and am not terribly interested in acquiring. Reading books about Taiwan or studying two unrelated languages at the same time -- one of them through Mandarin -- are more attractive than learning to balance books or engage in marketing. 

In other words, as a teacher (or teacher trainer) I have the time and energy to learn Armenian and Taiwanese. As a business owner, I'd spend that time figuring out how to make and keep my business profitable. No thanks! 

It is a thin comfort that I know I'm usually very good at my job, and I learn from whatever mistakes I make. It's not enough of a comfort, though, when I think about what I could be doing if I weren't committed to Taiwan.

I have found other career outlets that satisfy me. This is another thin comfort. I've been doing a lot of work in language learning content development and online materials design recently. It scratches the same itch of being meaningful, impactful (one hopes -- it's not live yet) and intellectually challenging. In my own training I found that leading other teachers and creating materials were two strengths. I've also been doing a lot more paid writing, some of which you'll hear about soon. 

These frustrations and their associated comforts have caused me to consider moving in a new direction, out of the classroom and into full time materials development. I haven't found the right job in Taiwan, and most jobs abroad are no longer fully remote, but it's an idea on the horizon if I can't make a full career of teacher training -- and it looks increasingly like I can't.

I had a choice: Taiwan or my career, and I chose Taiwan. Potentially leaving the classroom for something different feels like leaving a religion, but here we are. It bothers me quite a bit that my complaint isn't about pay exactly, or finding a specific full-time job, but about being able to explore a career direction at all. 

This leads me to my final thin comfort, which I alluded to in my last post about staying in Taiwan. It may seem tangential to this post, but in my mind, it isn't. To take that kind of personal and professional hit, there must be a damn good reason. It can't all be night markets and 711! 

As I explored in that last post, despite its problems, Taiwan's fundamentals are solid -- democracy, a push for equality and open-mindedness, crucial services like public transit and national health insurance. Society moves generally in the right direction, and that makes it worthwhile to stay. 

What I realized from writing that post, however, isn't just that Taiwan has a lot of great things going for it. It's that what Taiwan gets right are also benefits that Taiwanese citizens enjoy. They matter because they're not just good for me -- they impact everyone positively. 

So many of those "best countries for expats" type articles talk about superficial benefits that really only apply to white foreigners. You know, how much an expat can make relative to the cost of living, what great homes they can rent or buy on the cheap, job and life opportunities that locals mostly cannot access.

I hear the same from the occasional older foreigner in Taiwan, waxing nostalgic about the "good old days" when Taiwan was "exciting" or opportunities where "everywhere". Usually, they're talking about the late 1980s or perhaps early 1990s. 

Okay, but a lot of my Taiwanese friends were children or young teenagers then, and were still being told by their parents not to even have, let alone express, an opinion lest they end up in prison or worse. A student once told me he was warned by his family not to say too much or even speak Taiwanese outside the family, or a "white truck would come in the night." Yikes. 

Who gives a shit about excitement or opportunities for foreigners when that's the local situation?

Of course, many Taiwanese look back with maudlin candor on the Chiang Ching-kuo era. Taipei elected a whole mayor based on it, and that's bullshit. Such an opinion does not cancel out what my local friends have said they experienced.

That's what Taiwan offers -- a better society than the one it had. For everyone, not just expats. Would my life as a white American be "better" in these ways in most of Southeast Asia? Yes, absolutely. But it would be a superficial improvement; it would make only my life better. 

In Taiwan, perhaps I cannot always feel the impact of things like "democracy" and "same-sex marriage" directly on my own life. After all, I could probably have the career I want in, say, Vietnam -- but Vietnam is not a democracy and does not have marriage equality. I might make more as a corporate rat racer in the US, but much of the US no longer recognizes my bodily autonomy and in some states, it's straight-up illegal for some of my friends to exist. 

In fact, if I hear Westerners talking about a country that's great to live in because you can make so much money, or it's a lot of fun for them or they can score more women than they could back home, it's a good sign that I shouldn't live there -- I'm not interested in a fever dream for white people.

If long-term foreigners are talking about the problems they and the country face and how life isn't always perfect for them, then it likely means their lives are at least a bit more like those of locals. It will never fully be the same, but it means the advantages that country offers are probably accessible beyond expat enclaves.

The benefits Taiwan offers are good for society, and it's better for everyone if everyone benefits. Even if I can't vote, it's better for me, for society and for those I care about that my Taiwanese friends can. My opinion might not matter, but again, it's better for everyone that my Taiwanese friends can protest and not disappear.

That's not to say Taiwan is perfect, but again, the fundamentals are good. 

Is that worth what I consider a major career sacrifice thanks to one of Taiwan's many imperfections? Is that blanket sufficient to comfort one in times of distress? 

It has to be. It has to be.

Why stay in Taiwan?

It's the little things...or is it?

You probably don’t care about my life, but here’s the deal. I’ve had a somewhat tumultuous week professionally, although nothing that ended up being terribly deleterious. I don’t want to say too much about it, but I’ve been feeling frustrated about the limitations of teacher training opportunities in Taiwan for residents like me, despite how much we can help in the face of Taiwan’s push for internationalization. 

I have no desire to discuss the details behind this; it’s insider beef that you really don’t need, and might be wrong of me (or at least harmful to me) to divulge. 

I've also been feeling more frustrated than usual about Taiwan's naturalization laws. Nothing has changed since the 2007 reforms, opening up a pathway for magical stardusted special and senior foreign professionals, basically saying most foreigners who call Taiwan home -- whether they're white collar like me or blue collar like most immigrants here -- are garbage. Not worth caring about. 

Yes, the road to dual nationality may be narrow now, but there's room for it to expand. But I fear it will happen when I'm too old for it to matter. I'm not sure exactly how I will grow old in Taiwan as planned, because I can't get a mortgage and don't have local family, but landlords don't like to rent to the elderly. What am I supposed to do when I'm 80? If the law changes when I'm 60, that's a little too late to fix the problem. 

There's something to be said for fighting for something so that the next generation can enjoy fairer access. And yet, recently I've been wondering if this is enough. Wondering why I bother. 

With all this in the background, I’ve been trying to blog about politics to get my mind off it. Nothing comes out right, though. I have a few half-finished posts that I might wrap up and publish anyway, or perhaps not. We’ll see. Maybe I just need to not with the politics right now. 

Instead, I thought I'd examine something else. I know perfectly well that I'm not actually going to leave Taiwan (which, to be honest, is part of the problem. Maybe I should be more open to doing so). So rather than stewing in my own angry juices over this, perhaps I should talk a bit about why I stay. 

People love to ask why I moved to Taiwan. That story isn't very interesting. Studying in India made me want to learn more about Asia in general. I spent a year in China and didn't love it. And yet, I still felt there was a lot for me to learn, and I like the general feel and pace of life in large Asian cities. So, I came to Taipei mostly out of curiosity. I certainly didn't know much about it. 

Why I stay, though? Maybe that's worth discussing. I've been here for 18 years now. The pay isn't that good. Career opportunities are middling at best. I do have a fantastic local network, but most of my close family live on the other side of the world. Nobody loves Taipei's weather. My apartment is nice, but apartments in Taiwan generally aren't. There's the ever-looming China threat (though I imitate local residents in living my life as though that's not a thing). 

And yet here I am. Still. I've been thinking about this for awhile -- it's easy to rattle off reasons to leave. Any article about the "ghost island" can do that. The more fruitful area to examine is why I stay.

I've identified five very generalized reasons why, despite its faults, Taiwan is the country I chose to call home. These are five things that I think are important for any country I might live in long-term, and Taiwan happens to excel at them.

For my own reflection as much as yours, here they are: 

1.) Generally good infrastructure, including (most especially) public transit

Not all of Taiwan has good public transportation, but Taipei does, and it's fairly easy to get to any other town you might want to visit. Getting around that town might be a challenge, but you can always get there. I live in Taipei, though, and this city has some of the best public transit in the world. In general, I appreciate infrastructure that works. That includes buses that run on time, a clean metro system, convenient trains.

Compare that to the US, where the only city that has public transit that comes close to meeting my standards is New York. That also happens to be a city where I couldn't possibly afford to live. I tried living in Washington DC for seven years without a car. People say transit there is good. I say it's a nightmare. 

Still, assuming I'd never move back to the US, I could enjoy good public transit in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore. If we're talking inter-city, even Vietnam. Europe, too, but there aren't really good jobs for me there. China, generally, has reasonable public transit. What could knock some of those countries off the list?

2.) An open and democratic government

Well, there goes Singapore, Vietnam and Hong Kong. China is an obvious no-go. I once considered moving to IstanbuI, but I can't get past the importance of a reasonable system of government. I might not have the right to vote, but it's important to me that my local friends do; I would find it very hard to exist as an admittedly privileged American in a country where I could send my ballot back every few years, but locals I knew wouldn't have access to human rights that I consider fundamental. 

For myself, well, I like to opinionate. It's important to me to live in a country where I can do so without fear of government retribution.

Beyond that, there's just something depressing about living in an unfree society. You may or may not have access to good journalism. Random bullshit things may be banned. Your friends can't say what they really think; you may not even know what they really think, depending on how severe the repression is. 

Being in Taiwan for two -- soon to be three -- presidential handovers, countless protests, a legislative occupation, and all manner of public debates? That may seem unimportant or ineffable to some, but it matters to me. Taiwan's democratic society is a big draw. 

South Korea and Japan are democracies too, though. Why not move to one of those?

3.) An acceptable level of gender equality

I'm not saying Taiwan doesn't have sexism and misogyny. Of course it does. The gender pay gap is still above 15%. But, compared to the rest of Asia, I daresay it's doing fairly well. 

Brendan has told me stories about Korea, where he would see job ads that openly offered men and women disparate pay for the same work. 

I know someone in Japan who once detailed many little ways in which women face discrimination; she once saw a pregnant woman stand up on the train for a salaryman! Discussing why that would happen, locals told her that the pregnant woman has an easier, more restful life while the salaryman is tired from hard work, so of course he should get the seat. I don't know that this happens frequently in Japan, but that it happened at all tells me that it may be a fine country to visit, but it's not a place where I think I'd be very happy living. 

Everything from work culture to beauty standards feels so much harsher in those countries. The fact that women make up such a small percentage of the workforce in Japan and are deeply underrepresented in politics are other strikes against it. I'll take the country that elected a woman twice, thanks. 

Korea is similar; the gender wage gap there is astounding (Japan is almost as bad). I've enjoyed visiting both countries. As a woman, I want to live somewhere with more equality. 

That brings me to my next point. 

4.) A high level of public safety

It's not just pay, work, politics and beauty standards. All three countries have very high levels of public safety, including for women. As an American, this matters to me. It wasn't fun growing up in a country where it wasn't safe to be outside alone at night. But Taiwan manages the high public safety with a whole lot less of the ridiculous discrimination.

This matters not just for me, but for my LGBTQ+ friends. South Korea, for instance, is not a very safe place for many people dear to me. Public safety isn't just about whether or not you're likely to get mugged or pick-pocketed. It is also deeply related to who you are. I wouldn't want to live in a country where I might be targeted because I'm a woman, or where my friends might be targeted for being gay, nonbinary or trans. 

This, of course, knocks many countries off the list -- including the United States. 

I considered adding "a high level of overall development" to this list, because so many of my points are oriented around that. Advanced economies are more likely to have good public transit and safety, higher levels of gender equality and functional democratic governments. 

But not always -- the United States fails on most of these counts. Plenty of countries that aren't rich do have democratic governments. Besides, I don't think anyone wants a middle class white lady to prattle on about how she wants to live in an advanced economy. In fact, it's not actually one of the key criteria.

Instead, my fifth point is more specific but is still related to overall development markers. 

5.) National! Health! Insurance!

As an American, I cannot express how much this matters to me. I spent the first half of my twenties kinda miserable because I needed to see some doctors, but couldn't afford any of them. My lack of access to affordable health care in the US is directly responsible for the back surgery I needed during my first year in Taiwan. 

This really matters! Health insurance alone is enough to make me forsake the US forever. 

That said, this point has been bugging me recently, because I'm in the middle of a tooth implant that isn't covered by Taiwan's NHI. All told, it will cost me about NT$87,000. The dentist has been clear that for me, it's a necessity (another one of my crowns is in danger if I don't get a tooth put in next to it). And yet, it's entirely out of pocket. 

I think NHI should cover it. After all, it's an absolute necessity for me unless I want to literally be toothless in a few years. 

But, all of that aside, I'm grateful that the many times I've needed to see a doctor in this country, that I could actually afford to do so. 

I'm still not feeling entirely all right about the state of my life in Taiwan these days. It hurts to want to commit to a place, without seeing a clear future there, especially in old age.

There is another reason I stay, but it's intensely personal: I truly believe in what Taiwan stands for. To me, Taiwan means standing up to a dictatorship that landed on your soil and tried to force you to submit, turning the country instead into a functioning and peaceful democracy. It means refusing to shatter under the constant threats from yet another dictatorship that wants to annex you by any means necessary. It means building one of the more advanced and liberal societies in Asia -- if not the most liberal -- on the back of a tragic and bitter history of colonialism and oppression.

That, to me, is worth fighting for. It's worth staying for. It's not on the list because it's not a specific thing Taiwan has, it's more of a narrative that Taiwan embodies.

It does help, however, to think through the reasons why I've stayed, and run through the possibilities of other countries where I might relocate. None quite hit the five criteria -- gender equality, health insurance, democracy, public transit and public safety -- that Taiwan does. Most countries can be exciting, interesting, historically noteworthy, or absolutely lovely. 

But I can't think of another one that actually meets these five benchmarks, all of which are crucial to me. Can you?