I have a crush on Indiana Jones's mom

My first sighting of Taiwan was years before I actually moved here.

I was 19 years old, on my way to a study abroad program in India, and our plane from Los Angeles had a brief scheduled stop at Taoyuan Airport. As we cruised in, I saw rugged green mountain peaks jutting out from swirling white clouds and mist.

It was lovely, like coming across slabs of rough green and white quartz while hiking, but more vivid. Yet it was my first glimpse of Asia and second time to travel to another continent; it intrigued me.

Even Taoyuan Airport was of more interest then than it is now: a glass wall installation of Chinese calligraphy, a few shops, a new smell - my first whiff of the many scents of Asia which, while all different, are all entirely unlike those of North America. Perhaps now I find all this somewhat unimpressive - after all, who is impressed by Taoyuan International Airport? - but at the time I was taken.

One of my fellow India-bound students commented: oh, hey, we're in the Republic of China, cool! 

Cool!

I knew that the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China were different entities, but I did not fully grasp all I did not know. I did, I admit, think of Taiwan as the place where Chinese culture had been "saved and preserved". Worry not, I grew out of that absurd notion. I thought to myself that, although this time we would not leave the airport, I would very much like to explore the Republic of China someday. The thought was, to quote my nascent inamorata, inchoate. But it was there.

I didn't go immediately - we stopped in Kuala Lumpur and explored the city for the day, went on to Chennai, then Mahabalipuram, then Madurai, India, where my entire worldview was turned on its head. I returned to the US and finished my degree, fighting what I thought might have been a touch of depression but was actually a compound case of senioritis and the travel bug. I went to China - the People's Republic of China, the other one - traveled around Southeast Asia, returned to India, then the US, then worked a stultifying office job for a few years.

And then, it was time. The opportunity was there in that I finally had the freedom and savings to explore this Republic of China, and I was fast realizing that what I thought was a temporary, curable travel bug was actually a chronic illness whose only cure was to leave and basically not come back.

Only then did I realize I wasn't going to the Republic of China at all; I was moving to Taiwan, or perhaps Formosa. But this was no China. 

I am now an English teacher by profession, but I like to think (pretend?) that I am also much more than that.  

* * *

Why am I telling you this? 

Because almost exactly 100 years ago, the object of my affection boarded a boat in Manila bound for Nagasaki, passed Taiwan and noted how beautiful the cliffs plunging into the sea appeared:

Formosa, that little-known island in the typhoon-infested South China Sea, so well called by its early Portuguese discoverers - as its name implies - "the beautiful". Indeed, it was the beauty of Formosa that first attracted me....I shall never forget the first glimpse that I caught of the island as I passed it...there it lay, in the light of the tropical sunrise, glowing and shimmering like a great emerald, with an apparent vividness of green that I had never seen before, even in the tropics. During the greater part of the day it remained in sight, apparently floating slowly past - an emerald on a turquoise bed....

My desire to learn at first-hand something of the aborigines of Formosa remained, therefore, more or less an inchoate inclination on my part, and I turned my attention to other things. Then, curiously enough, as coincidences always seem curious when they affect themselves, a few months later...came an offer from a Japanese official to go to Formosa as a teacher of English in the Japanese Government School in Taihoku [ed: present-day Taipei], the capital of the island. 

Girl, I already want you.

You floated by, I floated over, but we both had the same thought - there is a reason why they call this the Beautiful Island, and I would like to explore it. We both set that thought aside for years, and then, for both of us, the right circumstances presented themselves. 

You even came as an English teacher, but you were so much more than that. 

Let this be a lesson to those who would disparage all English teachers as losers, wash-ups, backpackers and weirdos: the single most awesome foreign woman to ever alight in Taiwan and write the classic but oft-forgotten Among the Head-Hunters of Formosa, merely because she was inclined to do so and found the place beautiful as she passed by once, was also an English teacher.

You were not wealthy (in fact, it appears you often published for general interest of of necessity, which may have affected your reputation enough to keep you from publishing in more scholarly circles). You were absolutely a wanderer, absolutely fearless, and absolutely unapologetic. 

Brendan pointed out that you were the mother of William Montgomery McGovern, the possible inspiration for Indiana Jones. Although he did what a lot of adventurous male scholars were able to do at that time, whereas you bucked all sorts of expectations of women, let alone female scholars, and wrote a classic book on Taiwan, he has a Wikipedia bio, but you do not (guuuurl, I am gonna fix that for you, because you are my person.) 

I am not concerned with your son, nor am I concerned with Indiana Jones. It's easy to have a crush on Indiana Jones. I have a crush on his mother who, by dint of what she did despite the sexist time and society in which she was born, was so much more of a bad-ass. 

I can only lament that we were born a century apart. And that I like men, but that hardly matters: I'll make an exception for you, my star-cross'd love. If you weren't dead, that is. 

I am not going to recount the entire book for those of you reading this. It is available online, on Amazon, and can occasionally be found in Taipei (try The Taiwan Store). You will learn quite a bit about the indigenous people of Formosa: for a time, it is likely that nobody in the world knew more about them than Janet B. Montgomery McGovern. I especially enjoyed the marriage customs wherein a lovelorn "swain" (and yes, I adore the old-timey English usages) would play a small mouth harp or create a twenty-bundle monument of firewood for a woman's cooking pot in order to win her hand - and that she still had absolute right of acceptance or refusal.

Brendan and I decided to get married by basically saying to each other:
"We should get married, yeah?"
"Sure, that sounds cool."

So, this was nice. 

But why am I so enamored with Janet McGovern?

She came to Taiwan as a single woman in a time when that was fairly rare - and when it was done, it was usually by missionaries. I love that she had no interest in being a missionary. She never seems to have become fluent in any one Formosan language, but picked up some of many different, rare tongues: more than wealthier expats with more resources today often manage to do for just one language, which is far more well-known, with more learning resources created for it, yet isn't even the native tongue of this country. 

She trusted head-hunters that full-grown men, both foreign and local, were terrified of, and was in turn offered trust, kindness and hospitality. She had such a no-nonsense, take-neither-shit-nor-prisoners writing style (I like to think I also have that style, updated for a new century?) that you could see, emanating off the page like waves of hot steam, that she was also a take-neither-shit-nor-prisoners woman. She totally DGAF before it was cool for women to NGAF. 

Homegirl even said this to a Japanese official, in 1917: 

I explained that obviously I was not a Japanese, also that I was not at all certain that I was a lady, and that if the distinction between coolie-woman and lady lay in the fact that one walked and the other did not, I much preferred being classed in the former category. 

...Suddenly the light of a great idea seemed to dawn upon him. "Ah," he exclaimed exultantly..."but they will say you are immoral, and Christian ladies do not like to be thought immoral."
This struck me as being amusing - for several reasons.
"Yes," I said, "and who is likely to think me immoral?"
"Oh, everybody," he answered impressively. "And they will publish it in the papers - all the Japanese papers in the city, and in the island," he emphasized, "that you are immoral."

...."I am afraid I must continue to go on my wicked way without the protection of your companionship," I said; "and if 'they' - whoever 'they'  may be - annoy you with questions as to the object of my excursions into the mountains....tell them 'Yes' to anything they ask about me," I said, "if that will set their minds at rest."

GIRL. 

All I can say is this: Among the Head-Hunters of Formosa is an interesting book for its time-capsule like quality of describing Taiwan as it was in 1917, and is interesting for what one learns about the indigenous of Formosa, from a qualified anthropologist, although I would imagine much of the information is out-of-date.

But, I am a woman who once saw the beauty of Taiwan in passing and was inspired by that alone to make it my home, who DGAF or at least tries not to. I have some private but very few public role models of highly competent, fierce women  of knowledge and training - remember, I am trained at the graduate level in Education, though I do not claim the same level of ferocity that Ms. McGovern clearly possessed - who have called Taiwan home among a sea of Western men, some exceptional but most mediocre. I loved this book, then, for reasons entirely separate from its ethnographic riches.

I also love it because I'm not alone. Janet B. Montgomery McGovern walked this path a century ago, and although she ended up at a different destination, so many of her landmarks are familiar to me even now. I have a deep sense of sympathy, although the experience does not mirror mine, of being the woman who should have run the whole show and had movies made starring characters inspired by her, only for that prize to go to her son.

My inamorata is not perfect. She consistently refers to non-aboriginal cultures as "more civilized", although she points out later in the book that the indigenous people she visited themselves viewed other cultures who don't keep promises as 'savages' and themselves as the farthest thing from. I won't excuse this by pointing out that it was a common line of thinking a hundred years ago. I will simply apologize as I like to think she would apologize now, were she still alive. Formosa may still be "little-known", almost as much now as then, but things have changed.

McGovern herself seems to grasp this toward the end, where she questions whether the "civilized" world would be better off, or how different it would be, if they followed the moral and social mores of the people she routinely refers to as "savages", and opines that, at least, it might not be worse: you might lose your head, but your community would provide for you, and everyone would say what they meant and keep their word. She also considers the idea of a matrilocal, matri-potestal "gynocracy" and what an evolution within such a system might have meant for Europe - in this part, you can see a glimmer of first-wave feminism shining through, and I love it.

Perhaps she goes too far in the other direction, making indigenous communities out to be more perfect - more "simple" in their "primitive" ways - than I think any society can actually be, but at least she considers it, which is more than I suspect many of her white male contemporaries were ever able to wrap their minds around.

And I have to admit, as I have said above, I have a bit of a crush on her, and this is my paean - no, my love letter. 

The Archaeology of a Protester

I was born in autumn, at a liminal time between more distinct seasons. My birthday was technically in the summer but not quite summer. In New York it would be cool at night, and the school year would have started, but not really started - I had hardly had time to get to know my new classmates when my birthday rolled around.

Not to wax too poetic on this point, but that "what season is my birthday even really in?" feeling seems to have transposed from general childhood anxiety about who would come to my parties (when I had them, they were lightly attended because my old classmates were making new friends and my new ones didn't know me. Also, I was a huge dweeb but let's not talk about that) to generally feeling more comfortable in liminal spaces. I get a little nutty if the space I inhabit is defined too clearly.

People deride expats for going abroad because they like feeling like they don't belong, which seems to be taken as a symptom of being generally socially incompetent or a failure in your native country. This is especially assumed of the ones who went abroad by themselves and have never enjoyed a cushy expat corporate or government package. I see where that stereotype comes from but I'm OK with it. I get it. Charitably, it might describe me, though I was doing fine in the US and have had a thriving social life ever since society decided dweebs were okay.

Ten years later, here I am. I've been trying, sincerely, to get more involved in activism aimed at the US: Indivisible, protesting the direction the Republicans are taking America in (I do pin blame on Trump, but jellyfish Republicans are letting him do it and I harbor no sympathy), generally raising a ruckus. I've been feeling slightly 'meh' about it, though, despite being deeply against the new administration and horrified and upset about pretty much every news alert on my phone. Something isn't clicking. I have that familiar old grade school feeling of wanting to do something, seeing the goal, but for no clear reason, lacking the motivation to get started.

One could assume that my ambivalence was due to distance: there's not that much that a long-term expat in Taiwan can even do vis-a-vis issues in the US. Letters, I suppose, to newspapers. Calling one's elected representatives at hours when one really ought to be sleeping. Gaining political awareness through reading. I like that last part, but have been immersed recently in books on Taiwan, having realized that I am poorly-read, practically unlettered, in a subject I ostensibly know quite a bit about. It's the Taiwan books that are holding my interest. But all in all, the work that can be done from Taiwan doesn't seem like particularly effective work (it doesn't help that the biggest group doing the same thing meets in the evening, exactly when I am rarely free). Perhaps as I push ahead, I'll gain a different perspective and be heartened. I'm not sure though. Deep down I don't think it's the distance, or at least not only that.

So what is it, then?

Just yesterday, I unearthed - I mean, from my closet - my box full of all the flags, headbands, stickers and other paraphernalia I've been given at every protest, rally and parade or march over the past 8 years. It's all there: Furious, UN for Taiwan, Pride, marriage equality, the Sunflowers (I was there for the Hong Zhongqiu outcry too, but gave my headband to a student who wanted it) and more. It's like a time capsule of 8 years of showing up. More importantly, of caring enough to show up.

This excavation also churned around some fertile brain matter. I have cared enough to walk for hours, plop my ass down at Jingfu Gate with 200,000-400,000 other people to stand (or sit) for what I believe in, wave a flag in the air, tie ribbons to my head, arm and purse straps. I have been willing to physically be there for all sorts of issues in Taiwan (and I did attend rallies and protests in the US before I moved there, but more rarely). I tend to prefer non-party-affiliated single-issue protests - I am aching to get back out on the street for marriage equality, but was ambivalent about Furious. Yet clearly, I care about something.

Archaeology of a protester

But that something seems to increasingly be Taiwan - or rather it has been for awhile, but I'm just really noticing it now. It's not that I don't care about the US. I do. I'm horrified and disgusted. I'm somewhat ashamed to have a passport from there (and ashamed of the privilege that entails, and the privilege to even feel ashamed). At the end of the day that is the country I have spent 24.5 of my 36 years in, the country I was born in, the country of my citizenship.

I have to admit, though, that the visceral sincerity just isn't there. It's a shame, because being a citizen of the US, I have more standing to be active. In Taiwan, I do show up (boy do I show up), but I never get too close. I never get too involved. I don't organize. I keep my distance because I'm aware that this is not the country of my birth, I am not a citizen, and Taiwanese history and culture is not my history and culture. To do more than show up would feel inappropriate - my voice isn't the voice that should be elevated. I don't mean to bring in identity politics - I don't think it's wrong for me to speak up. I wouldn't have a blog about Taiwan if I didn't think that. I live here, things that happen here affect me, and I have the right to talk about that. Familiarity and impact on daily life do breed loyalty even when the passport doesn't match.

However, it's important when joining the struggle of another group to be aware of one's privilege and perhaps listen before one speaks. By dint of being born white and American, I have the privilege of having the voice that, in the past, as not only taken precedence (that is, the white Western voice) but drowned out other voices (anyone who was not white). I do feel it's crucial to understand that, and I feel more comfortable simply being supportive than trying to take any sort of organizational or leadership position. I'll have my voice, but I won't allow it to drown out people who could more appropriately lead.

Except not really. Yet I took the picture anyway (forgive me). 

This is perhaps the source of my annoyance when a friend said, not long ago, that I could "occupy Trump's office". Sure, I could try. I could fly back and get arrested or shot attempting it. I am a citizen of that country after all. The annoyance came from the assumption that, being originally American, that I would primarily care about American issues, or that my loyalties would be to the US.

That, right there, is what I mean about being in a liminal space, belonging where I don't belong. I am not Taiwanese, Taiwanese history is not my history. I'm not even a citizen. Yet I am loyal to Taiwan, at least, more so than to the US. I feel I belong here, even as I know I don't fully belong. There are limits on the appropriacy of my activism, perhaps, but ultimately this is my home, and I feel that full-throttle sincerity when advocating for Taiwanese issues that I don't feel when advocating for American ones, even though that is the country of my citizenship.

I have no clear answers to any of this, I just thought I'd put it out there. If other people feel this way too, comments or thoughts would be most welcome.

One of those stupid year-in-review posts (#8 will shock you!)

I mean, I generally don't like these and I am not sure I have ever done one. But I feel like doing one for 2016 because the general consensus seems to be that it was a shit year and we're thankful it's over. And on a societal level, that's true.

However, there's something I really can't deny - in fact, on a personal level, I had a pretty good 2016. I did! My shit year was Dec 2014-Dec 2015, for reasons you know if you know me.

So, this isn't to gloat, it's to point out that a bad year on a sociocultural level doesn't necessarily equate to a bad year in total. I am sure good and bad things happened to us all despite the fact that the world is in a political shambles and we're probably all going to die.

A look back:

1.) Taiwan elected its first female president and, for the first time in its history, is not controlled by the (awful) KMT (not that I particularly love the DPP) - I know this isn't personal but it's worth mentioning. A few of these are not personal, but I think good enough to include

2.) My cousin spent several months in Taiwan

3.) I published my first ever journal article

4.) I passed the final module for, and received the full diploma for, the Cambridge Delta

5.) I was accepted into grad school

6.) I visited the US twice

7.) American women had the chance to vote for the first ever female presidential candidate (no, she was not a perfect candidate, and yeah, that turned out kinda bad, but I refuse to give up on that milestone in political history)

8.) I accomplished what I feel is my greatest achievement to date

9.) The Taiwanese legislature got the wheels rolling on marriage equality

10.) Hong Kong elected a slate of pro-democracy, pro-localization candidates (that, again, didn't turn out well thanks to Stupid China, but it still meant something)

11.) I made a fair number of interesting new friends

12.) I went to the Grand Pasta'ai

13.) I went to Vietnam for the first time (post forthcoming) and Indonesia for the second

14.) I traveled a fair bit around Taiwan, visiting Tainan three times, Kaohsiung, Yunlin, Xinpu (again, post forthcoming), and probably more that I can't recall exactly as I try to leave Taipei frequently to keep in touch with the rest of the country

15.) My closest and oldest friend in Taiwan got married

16.) I went to Hong Kong for the first time in five years (again, post forthcoming)

17.) Taiwan actually made the international news (kind of a mixed blessing though)

18.) I was invited to observe a session of the Legislative Yuan - watch my video here!

I would call that a pretty good 2016, wouldn't you? At least, it offers a chance to see the good parts, or find a few gems among the burnt rubble of the political and social sphere. Don't get me wrong, things were bad. The whole world with the possible exception of Taiwan is trending towards reactionary politics and fascism. The climate is, well, getting worse and it will probably be a massive problem very soon. A horrific mass murder and total destruction of a once-great city took place very close to my ancestral home, and the West did nothing. We elected quite literally the worst person in the world to be the leader of the "free world", a thing (I don't mean the event, I mean the "person") I can never accept as my president. As a result, I no longer consider myself American in anything but name and have no loyalty whatsoever to the USA. There is no forgiveness for this.

So yeah, things are bad globally. But personally, I have a few gems.

Let's Get Physical

That guy in Tainan? He gets me. 

Every once in awhile a constellation of events helps throw an issue one has been mulling over in foggier terms into sharp relief.

On Wednesday, a friend says to me in a message: "You can occupy Donald Trump's office" when discussing occupations in Taiwan.

Something about that bothers me, but I can't put my finger on what. I am not afraid of physical protest or confrontation. I am not naturally an occupier, but it is not outside the realm of possibility. It also strikes me that in the US such an occupation would be unlikely, and not only for security reasons.

On Saturday morning, I get into a taxi in Tainan and as the HSR station employee, or the taxi company employee - it's hard to tell - shuts the door for me after a brief chat, he says "You're the New Taiwanese" (his actual words are "妳是台灣的第二代").

I am touched.
On Monday, I am out looking for a book I'd seen for sale in Tainan but didn't want to cart back to Taipei. I am chatting with someone who asks me "when are you moving back to America?"

I normally don't think too hard about such micro-aggressions - I have better things to do with my time - but it is such a stark contrast to what the person in Tainan said that it bothers me. Why would she assume I am ever moving back?

I live here. My body is here. Why would my mind and heart be elsewhere?

On Wednesday, I am having lunch with a friend (not the same friend I was chatting with on the previous Wednesday). She asks me if China were to invade, would America send planes to evacuate citizens, and would I be able to escape? (Don't ask me how we got onto that topic).

I am reminded of Facebook conversations about how people like me who claim to love Taiwan so much are just full of so much wind, because if everything really went to hell, we wouldn't stay and fight. We'd get the hell out, like plenty of Taiwanese would be trying to do.

And it is like jumping into an ice cold pool.

Would I stay and fight, or would I get on that plane?

My friend's comment about occupying the White House bothers me because I don't feel any loyalty to the US. It's almost like a foreign affair, something foreigners do, those weird Americans with their big lawns and houses with white siding. Why would I occupy a government office of a country I no longer call home? If I am going to occupy something - though I am not likely to - it will be in Taiwan, because Taiwan is my home. Why would he assume the change I want to fight for is in America, where I do not live?

The man in Tainan seems to accept my reality, though he has missed a crucial point: I can't be New Taiwanese because I am not a citizen and may never be. However, he shows more willingness to take at face value the idea that Taiwan is my home. In contrast, the woman in Taipei sees my face and makes an assumption about where I belong. She does not accept my reality. She sees me as a temporary fixture, a visitor who will eventually go "home". Taiwan cannot be my home, or the thing I call home. I don't look the part.

In fact, she goes on to ask me where my home is.
"Taiwan."
But where is your family?
"Taiwan." (This is true: both my husband and sister live here).
But where are you from?
The USA, but why does it matter?

Is Taiwan my home? Would I stay and fight? Is it okay if I say no, because I know many Taiwanese won't either (and those that do will have to - those that don't have to are more likely to run)? Does their turning tail not take away their Taiwaneseness (obviously, it does not, that's a rhetorical question), but mine does? Is there anything wrong with choosing to survive?

Could I even stay and fight - should I - when I am not a citizen? Is it not completely insane to dig in and put my physical body, rather than just the amorphous feelings of my mind and heart, on the line, for a country that won't even give me citizenship under reasonable conditions? Do I need to show loyalty for a country whose own government assumes I will eventually go "home", not that I am already home?

I come from fighters. Despite being generally a lazy, unpatriotic, establishment-loathing couch-hogger who hates fighting and is terrified of death, it is not inconceivable that, if everything truly went down the tubes, that something would break inside me and I'd dig in to do the right thing and put my physical self on the line for Taiwan (that said, it is not entirely conceivable that I would do this either).

I was going to share a bad-ass picture of my great grandfather posing with an Ottoman moustache and a gun, but instead you can look at how deeply I have always loved couches. 

I can't say either way whether I would stay and fight or swoosh away on an evacuation plane, but it feels somehow important to ask myself this rhetorical question of a country I have invested in, which won't invest in me. I like to think that if I were a citizen, I'd stay. In 1915 my great grandfather saw what was happening to his people - the Armenians in Turkey - grabbed his gun and fought. I would hope, anyway, that a tiny spark of that exists in me, somewhere, under my personal agenda and general enjoyment of not dying (for what it's worth, he didn't die fighting).

In any case, that leads me straight back to last Wednesday. My lack of loyalty to the US, or the fact that White House security would never allow an occupation, is not what strikes me as I consider how much of my physical self I am willing to put on the line for the country I call home, as compared to the country that is no longer my home.

I think at first that Americans aren't very physical in their resistance. Then I consider that I may be wrong, and the truth is that Americans in my demographic (white, well-off on a global scale if not on every scale) are the ones who are not very physical. I consider Wisconsin's Capitol occupation in 2011, Black Lives Matter and Standing Rock (agree or disagree, it is a physical resistance). However, I can't shake the feeling that we Americans just don't throw ourselves into civic action very much, or at least not anymore.

You would think we would be more physically resistant, what with our guns and our bar fights and the general lack of safety of women on the street, but we're not. We didn't occupy Wall Street, we occupied a park near it. We have a few marches - I went to a tepid one against the World Bank when I was in college (wasn't that into it, wouldn't you know), and marched with a bunch of other idealistic but otherwise dishwater demonstrators against the 2nd Iraq War in New York. They were about as effective as those DPP or Citizen 1984-organized protests in the Ma era.

I have a great deal of respect for the exceptions, but they feel like exceptions: good, but not enough to stem the general impression in my lifetime that we like to write thinkpieces and generally grouse about the state of things, but we don't seem to show up physically all that often. Those that do have more to lose, the rest of us can go back to our little boxes on the hillside made of ticky-tacky. We join Facebook groups, act supportive, use it as a place to vent or post motivational memes or share our personal stories - not really useful themselves, either, I've come to think - and then watch those groups get monetized. We focus on no concrete action, no policy change, no taking down the patriarchy. We do not take to the streets, or at least not often and not angrily enough. We do not effectively occupy. We could, perhaps, learn a lot from how the Taiwanese do it.

I don't think the White House will ever be occupied, because I don't think Americans are necessarily occupiers at this moment in our history. I have to hope a robust civil movement will grow to counter the tragedy that is a Trump "Presidency", but I haven't really seen it yet.

In my time in Taiwan, though, and looking back through Taiwanese history, it feels as though there is more of a tradition of physical resistance. From fighting the incoming Japanese to 228 to the Kaohsiung Incident to Nylon Cheng, the White Lilies and up through the Sunflowers and now marriage equality, people have had specific things to fight for, and have gone out and done it. With their bodies, not just angry words. Perhaps it's because it was the only option in a brutal dictatorship, perhaps it is a part of the national character. I am, however, continually impressed by the willingness of Taiwanese to physically show up and sit their bodies in the street or in a building to fight for something. There seems to be a physicality about social movements that, at least in my lifetime, feels sorely lacking in much of the US.

I love this. I don't want to share stories in lieu of action, although I realize that I began this post by doing exactly that. There is only so much action I can take in Taiwan (I'm not a citizen, I can't organize, and I speak Chinese but not perfectly enough to be as involved as I'd like to be). At least, I want to be a part of a country where the citizens take action rather than, I dunno, post pictures of flowers with insipid feel-good self-improvement quotes or whatever, or turn everything into a PR stunt.

It's what gives me hope for Taiwan, though I am not quite sure why.

It also may be a part of why, against all logic, despite the fact that I am stronger with words than physical actions, I have so much respect for being willing to fight for what one believes in with more than just words, but with deeds and with one's own body.

What does that have to do with Taiwan being my home, other than the fact that I am physically here? It means - and this is where the icy water comes in - a good hard think about the possibility of the unthinkable happening, and about what that means for me.

In any case, today someone asks me if I am going home for Christmas.

"I am already home for Christmas," I reply.

Tell Me Stories: Your difficult immigration experience

I would like to write a blog post on 老人茶 about immigration issues affecting permanent foreigners, considering my situation (wanting citizenship and not being able to get it).

I'm interested in stories about that, or having children who could not stay (or not being able to stay yourself), or being concerned this might someday affect your kids for those of you with younger children. Stories on trouble finding non-teaching work locally, being unable to get an APRC would also work, as well as issues buying property and obtaining credit - the focus will be on the ways that Taiwan discourages foreigners from building a life here so it all ties together.

So many articles focus on just one issue - Taiwan-born "foreign" children, citizenship, work rights - but they are actually all related and reveal they hypocrisy of talk in Taiwan about wanting to be more international and move away from ethnic nationalism.

There is a lot already out there I can link to, but if anyone has something specific they'd like to add, please let me know. 

You can leave a comment with your contact information - I won't publish it but will get in touch. Or email me at a lovely burner account I created just for this: stinkytofupants@yahoo.com. I would put my real e-mail here but I have been harassed before, so...no. Such is being a person with a vagina and some opinions on the Internet. 

I can't do much, but at least I can blog.

Black Island: A Review

So, over the course of June and July, with long breaks to research and write an article on learner autonomy through note management that will be published in September, I read J. Michael Cole's Black Island: Two Years of Activism in Taiwan. This came right on the heels of Officially Unofficial, which I appreciated for its perspectives on Taiwanese society and politics that I had also witnessed in the past ten years here.

All in all, I liked Black Island more than Officially Unofficial - first of all, it was free of the ridiculously irritating "using the third person to talk about oneself" narrative employed by its predecessor. It focused more on events in recent Taiwanese history rather than the author himself, which was a boon because, although I have nothing against J. Michael Cole, I am more interested in Taiwanese political history and current affairs than I am the personal history of a journalist I happen to have read. Being lightly annotated republishings of previous work, the present tense (employed because that's what those stories used for obvious reasons) gave the narrative a sense of urgency and contemporariness rather than feeling like "history" (and, in fact, the events documented didn't happen that long ago). The present-tense tone gives one the feeling, while reading, that these events are happening as you are reading it - it makes you want to go to Dapu and protest, rail against the destruction of the Huaguang Community or surround the Legislative Yuan yet again. Then you remember, no, this is all a few years in the past. It's 2016 now, Taiwanese society has processed these ideas and is looking to the future. You, the reader, must do the same. The interesting question that Black Island leaves open - as it must - is what happens next.

Like Officially Unofficial, Black Island was a good chance to go back and review my memories of the past few years of Taiwanese politics, and pick up on threads, ideas and smaller events I'd missed. Having, as I mentioned before, been more concerned with completing my teaching degree than being fully invested and informed of Taiwanese affairs, there are things I missed. I was more intellectually present during the actual Sunflower occupation - but I think that electrified and reawakened quite a few people; I'm not unique in that regard. I hadn't had a Delta course going on at that particular time, and I actually spent a great deal of time outside the Legislative Yuan, including heading down after work and staying until the MRT was about to close for several evenings in a row. I wasn't there to report on events, however - I was there to support the students. I enjoyed going back and reading (in some cases for the second time) actual reporting on the events of those weeks.

For someone who had already read a lot of the work published in Black Island (I experienced a distinct sense of deja vu several times not only because I had been in Taiwan when those events took place but because I had in fact already read that exact same article two to four years ago), it is a fairly strong compliment to say that it held my interest upon re-reading.

Finally, this is neither a point in favor of or against the book but, as it triggers interesting thought, I think it fits in the "good" section: Cole's work mentions more than once the idea of civic nationalism over ethnic nationalism beginning to take root in Taiwan. It can hardly do differently, not only because there are "ethnic" (if the entire concept of ethnicity means anything, and depending on where you draw the lines) differences in Taiwan itself, between waishengren and Hoklo, "Chinese" and aborigine as well as Southeast Asian immigrant, that must be overcome to realize the idea of Taiwan as a nation, but also because as much as many won't admit it, Taiwan is very ethnically similar to China (again, if ethnicity means anything at all). To differentiate itself from China Taiwan simply cannot turn to an ethnic base for their desire for self-determination as an independent nation. It must turn to a civic one; there is no other reasonable path...
...but this is not the main reason why I find discussion of that concept interesting. Instead, I am invested in it primarily as an immigrant in Taiwan. I call myself an immigrant because, while I am not a citizen and retain something of an American identity, if I had a reasonable chance at citizenship (the double standard of being forced to give up one's original citizenship to attain Taiwanese nationality, while Taiwanese are under no such edict, is simply neither reasonable nor acceptable) I would be highly likely to seek it, and because I have no real plans to return to the USA. It is true that we may leave someday for professional reasons or because we face difficulties as non-citizens, but it is unlikely that the country we'd leave for would be the one we come from.

If Taiwanese identity is one of civic rather than ethnic identity, and therefore anyone who buys into, contributes to and participates in that identity can be "Taiwanese" even if they can never be ethnically Chinese, then the next logical step is to relax immigration and naturalization laws. This affects me directly, for reasons stated above. It has the potential to change on a fundamental level how I relate myself and my past to Taiwan and life in it. To legitimize, to some extent, the contributions I want to make and the participation I would like to offer. To see Taiwan as a home that genuinely wants people like me here and feels we help rather than hinder the nation's progress.

Right now I have to admit that while I feel welcome here, it is not uncommon for events in my life to give me the feeling that Taiwan wants me to come and teach their people English and wants to give me very little in return, and certainly doesn't want me to assimilate or stay permanently or have a say in political goings-on that do affect my life. A "nation of ethnic Taiwanese" is not likely to see people like me differently. A Taiwan that values civic over ethnic nationalism, however, is one that might.

This is, again, why I am disappointed that the party of young activists, who seemed to be the most likely to welcome immigrants like me, instead want to keep us on the fringes. Yes, I will say it again and I will ever, ever, ever, ever shut up about it until things change. They are the direct results of the events described in Black Island, and so far they have not been great allies to the logical conclusion of civic vs. ethnic nationalism.

Anyway. There are some things I didn't like about Black Island, but I'd say they are considerably fewer and markedly less annoying than in Officially Unofficial.

The first is that, as this is a collection of previously published journalism, as is often the case when one journalist covers related or ongoing events, there is quite a bit of repetition. Editing some of that out would have made for a stronger narrative.

My husband pointed out, and I agree, that the little interlude of pieces focusing on the fight for marriage equality felt a bit jarring in its discontinuity. I would have rather seen either the book divided not only chronologically but also by events. What I ended up doing was skipping the middle section at first, reading straight through the student activist/Sunflower narrative, and then going back and reading about marriage equality and the outsize influence of churches with evangelical ties in Taiwan. It made for a much cleaner narrative.

I would have also liked even more detail on the actual Sunflower occupation, but I suppose I can read a history textbook for that. A bit of a deeper look into the Next Media acquisition would have also been of interest to me.

Brendan also noted that if you are looking for stories about other events of that time - such as the tussle between Ma Ying-jiu and Wang Jin-ping for power within the KMT, you won't find it here. I understand why, but I actually think the story would have been strengthened by including such seemingly unrelated events. In fact, as the Sunflowers and a few political commentators understood at the time and as most people understand now, Ma Ying-jiu having both KMT chairmanship and the presidency, and using that double-barreled power to not only twist arms to get the Legislative Yuan to rubber-stamp his increasingly autocratic-seeming demands, but for the president to try to fire the speaker of an entirely separate branch of government because he wasn't falling sufficiently in line was nothing short of a constitutional crisis.

If you think this attempted ouster of Wang and the power grab that represented was not done in part with forcing passage of the CSSTA, without proper review, in mind, perhaps you are not paying attention. I wouldn't say CSSTA was the only goal of that attempted consolidation of authority, but it was certainly one of them. One directly relates to the other. The smartest activists and commentators understand this, though they don't always elaborate on it because it feels like something of a rhetorical cul-de-sac. Pointing this out would have made the book that much stronger.

Finally, I did feel that a few asides in which Cole expressed more personal views and ideas detracted from the overall narrative. For instance, his rant about cell phones on the MRT and the feeling I get that he feels he has the right to pass judgment on how people pass their commuting time or other downtime. While I agree that using one's various electronic devices to keep abreast of current events, maintain professional and social ties and engage with the wider world is preferably to using it to playing Angry Fruit Crush or whatever, it doesn't matter. We all have our vices and our stupid things we like and it's just not a great path to go down to judge that. I'm sure Cole loves some music I hate or owns a shirt I think is stupid or has a habit I find a waste of time. So what? It's not for me to judge. Besides, while at the height of stress working toward the Delta, I played game after game of iPhone solitaire (I am nothing if not an electronic game traditionalist, also, I'm an Old). Why? It helped me de-stress, gave my mind something else to concentrate on without taxing it too much, and was almost meditative in its repetitiveness. It helped mentally. Don't judge.

The multiple references to hired thugs or other "unsavory" types as "high on betel nut" or as tattooed, smoking, beer drinking betel nut chewers were also off-putting. When talking of actual hired thugs you don't really need to treat their appearance or lowbrow habits as damning evidence - treat what they actually do as evidence. I would be willing to bet just as many tattooed betel-nut chewers showed up to support the Sunflowers. What substances they imbibe or what they choose to put on their bodies is simply not the point and reeks of condescending classism. There is just no reason to do it.

Two little extra things: I agree with Brendan about the lack of translation for quotes in Chinese. We can read them (perhaps with the help of the Chinese dictionary on my - gasp! - iPhone at times) but I would gather many can't. An editor would really help with these sorts of issues. And I really didn't need to read two or more (I didn't count) references to Cole being definitely straight and not gay at all. I literally could not care less if he prefers hot dogs or hamburgers. Doesn't matter and not relevant to the story.

 But, these are relatively minor complaints. The overarching narrative is interesting - and perhaps would be even more interesting to someone who hadn't read these articles when they were originally published - and would be a useful addition to the research of a political science student learning about student activism in Taiwan.

Teaching English in Taiwan isn't "well-paid", even compared to local salaries

I have the feeling this is going to be one of those posts I write once, and then link to from here on out every time the topic comes up in some stupid online debate. But I'm sick of writing it, so I'll write it one last time here and then can copy+paste forevermore.

First, a few things to make clear: yes, I acknowledge that the take-home pay of English teachers is considerably higher than that of many locals when you take hours worked into account, especially at the lower end of the qualifications-and-experience pool.  The same is true if you compare a foreign teacher to a local one, especially a local English teacher - which is, of course, unfair and native-speakerist. I'm not denying that.

Second, I'm coming at this as a professional, so that is of course going to color how I see wages in the TEFL field (I've started refusing to call it an "industry" because it is a field of education. Some private English schools do good work, some are parasites, but I won't descend to the lowest common denominator).

Finally, I realize that these factors are vary widely by country and region. I'm coming at this from the standpoint of a professional who expects a salary floor, a fundamental base idea of what pay should be, no matter where I go - just as any professional would.

And, finally, of course, I do realize we are much better off than your average Southeast Asian worker in Taiwan. That goes without saying, and their fight for a better life should not be ignored, either.

All that aside, English teaching in Taiwan really, truly doesn't pay that well, even compared to local salaries, and I'd like to explore the reasons why:


We don't get the benefits Taiwanese workers (often) do, including labor protections or even employers who follow the law

Here are some things I don't get that most Taiwanese workers do (and I'm a professional, I can only imagine it is worse for others):

- Paid Chinese New Year vacation - which is actually a legal requirement, even for hourly workers, but good freakin' luck getting it. Not even my comparatively good employers offer that.

- An annual bonus that is at or near 1-2 months' salary - I do get a bonus from one of my employers and it's appreciated. Truly. But your average Taiwanese can expect an extra month, or two, of salary. I haven't known many English teachers who got that outside of the universities and perhaps the public schools. 

- Paid leave - I'm willing to make this trade-off because I get more leave than your average worker, but still less than your average public school or university teacher. That said, it would be nice to have leave factored into a salary package.

- A stable income - one thing I do want is a fair salary with acceptable working conditions ("we own you" cannot be a prerequisite for mediocre pay). In Taiwan either you can earn more in take-home pay by the hour but get no benefits, or you can earn a crap salary and be your supervisor's butt monkey. Neither is appealing. I realize Taiwanese also have this problem, but compared to most of our home countries, this is a problem.


Plus two more that I do get, but most English teachers don't:

- Labor insurance - I had to fight for this, but I got it. I have heard varying reports on the legality of schools not offering lao bao, from "that's illegal, they MUST offer it" to "the employee can choose not to enroll but the school cannot refuse to enroll them". Either way, you should be getting lao bao, and you probably aren't. 

- The ability to change fields/industries - if they can get hired, a local can switch to another job in another field. Without 2 years' experience in that field or a Master's, a foreigner can't. Either we teach English until we get permanent residence, or we come in with those credentials already, or we teach whether we want to or not unless a loophole can be found. This doesn't seem directly related to pay, but it is: it's hard to find ways to increase your earnings if you are stuck in a field you may not want to be in, which doesn't actually pay all that well.


For professionals, the comparison is jarring

A lot of people who say "but we are paid so much better" are comparing those 22-year-olds above (and ignoring all the benefits their young Taiwanese counterpart enjoys that they don't). That's fine, if you are also someone who in any other circumstance would be earning an entry-level salary.

I, however, am not comparing myself to a twentysomething local who hasn't risen very high at work yet, because I'm not a twentysomething and I have risen. Looking at what I earn in relation to an entry-level Taiwanese worker is not a valid comparison.

I'm comparing myself to the thirty- and forty-something professionals I know in Taiwan - and I know quite a few as I've taught Business English for many years - and I have to say, my salary does not stack up. They can afford to buy apartments and drive nice cars as well as take good vacations. I could perhaps afford one of those (the car would not be my choice, of course). Right now, because foreigners can't easily get mortgages unless they are married to locals, I choose the nice vacations. But compared to the people I actually spend time with, I am not that well paid and have very little salary security. My engineer, finance/fund manager, sales rep, accountant and doctor friends and students do better than I do - not that I've asked my students their salaries, but because it's not that hard to figure out when they tell me about their lives.

Once you make that comparison, things don't look so great. 


Something like 90% of the teaching jobs in Taiwan are a joke

For someone looking to make real money and live a proper thirtysomething life - and I'm no materialist, I just mean you can eat real food and be confident that you can pay your rent without living in a crap-box - only the thinnest sliver of the TEFL pie in Taiwan is worth looking at. I've unsubscribed from most job boards with Taiwan jobs, not only because I'm not looking but also because, in the years I've been on them, I've seen exactly one job I would apply for. Maybe two or three if I were looking and needed to land something decent. Those are not good odds.

Better jobs do exist, but they don't come along frequently and they tend not to advertise much, because they don't have to. ITI-TAITRA (at least before the Ministry of Education lowered their pay scale), CES Taipei and its sister school UKEAS, LADO Management Consultants, Cambridge Taipei (I have heard), British Council and maybe a few other places (not sure about LTTC, for example - anyone?) pay pretty well, all things considered. Then there are the public school, university and (very good) international school jobs if you are qualified. Every once in awhile a more typical buxiban will pay above the standard rate, but they don't seem - from my outside perspective - like great places to work. My former "management consulting" firm, in scare quotes for a reason, also pays above the standard rate but I would never, ever recommend them to anyone with a shred of sense.

At these better jobs you are more likely to start at around $750-$800/hour (but you'll need the qualifications to get the higher rate) and go up from there - $1000 or even $1500 isn't unheard-of. Salaried positions are all over the place in terms of pay, but $70,000/month with perhaps a housing allowance isn't unheard-of either, though it could be lower.

That is a very, very tiny sliver of the market to choose from.

The rest, honestly? My first impulse was to call them "trash" but I'm sure someone will get mad, and I can see why people wouldn't want their job to be called "trash", but honestly...

Not great.


University pay? Also a joke (depending on the hours you are expected to put in)

Sure, you get an annual bonus and paid vacations, but your average university job seems to pay between NT$50-$70,000/month. That's...not good. Back when it was easy to get such jobs for a few hours a week it was a pretty sweet deal, and I think fair considering how much extra prep work one has to put into a good university course. Now that they pay those rates but expect full-time work, including meetings and all manner of extra work like judging those stupid speech contests, it's just not a great option.


There are no local opportunities for good professional development

Want a CELTA? In Taiwan? You're in luck - you get to pay for airfare, accommodation and food, the course itself and miss out on four weeks of pay because it isn't offered in Taiwan (yet). Lucky ducky you!!!!

You get to pay that yourself, because no school, not even the good ones, will sponsor you. Fun times!! Woo!!

Want a Delta? You can either do the same damn thing but for even more money and time, or you can do it online. Good luck finding a tutor for Module 2. I know like 10 people who could do it. Most are busy and one is leaving the country soon. 

Have fun parting with all of your hard-earned cash and then some!

(It's worth it, but still, have fun paying all that money out of pocket on your joke wages)


So much depends on your skin color

A lot of the estimates of teacher pay in Taiwan are based on the idea of a white native speaker teacher. However, I have friends who are Indian, Black or of Asian heritage who are quite clear that they are consistently offered lower salaries and fewer raises. Many are made to feel lucky to have a job at all, and many get completely inappropriate complaints that clearly stem from racism, which hurts their performance reviews and results in lower pay overall. It is important to take this into account and not just estimate the salary for Jimbo McBlueeyes.


Estimates of pay are all over the place, but I'd gather the lower ones are more accurate

I've heard "NT$65-100,000/month", I've had someone tell me they made about $51,000/month and someone say they had trouble cracking $45,000. The starting pay for 22-year-old Jimbo McBlueeyes is usually NT$600/hour, but I've seen lower. (I make more - a lot more - but I'm the exception. If you are good at what you do and get a Delta you too can fight with me for that tiny little sliver of the market. Fun times for all.)

If you make $600/hour and work 20 hours/week, you'll make about $48,000 before taxes depending on the month - remember how many hours you work in a week may not be up to you, and does not include all of the work you actually do. If you work 25 hours a week you'll make about $60,000 before taxes. Get a tiny raise (I've seen 5 and 10 NT raises! I almost quit over one!), make a tiny bit more. Five years later maybe after 5 10 NT raises you're making $650 - whoopty freakin' doo - and you get $52-65,000 before taxes, unless you get some certifications and go after that thin sliver of job market mentioned above, or get lucky with a better offer (it happens - I know someone at American Eagle who makes $750/hour).

All that is to say, it sure seems to me that for the vast majority of teachers, the lower end of the pay estimates are more accurate and you have to fall into some good luck to earn more. Those estimates are, to be frank, not that great. And remember, once you do hit a more professional level, your Taiwanese counterparts are often now making well over $100,000/month depending on the profession. You go from making more than your local peers to making far less.

I'll finish this section up with an anecdote: when I applied for permanent residence, the immigration officer who looked at my paperwork actually commented that I make very good money, and most foreigners' income tax documents she sees show much lower pay. That could be due to the buxibans cheating, but it's probably also in part due to pay being lower than people would generally like to admit. 


I'm not sure estimates of Taiwanese pay are that accurate either

Everyone says the average wage in Taiwan is around NT$30,000/month, and I do know people who are offered that joke of a salary or less. But, if so many people are making that, and logically speaking so many are then making less, how is it that people can buy apartments and cars, take vacations to Japan etc.? I realize part of it is generational wealth, part of it is being able to save everything if you live with your parents. But some of it, at least some, is almost certainly due to the rampant cheating on taxes that most Taiwanese companies do. If your employer cooks the books, your salary is likely reported as lower than it is - or maybe you have your own thing going and you under-report or don't report certain incomes - which makes the national average seem lower than it is.


Cost of Living, Moving and Traveling

The first one affects Taiwanese too: the cost of living has gone up, but pay hasn't in the last decade. I came here a decade ago (almost exactly). The pay then for English teachers was more or less exactly what it is now, but it does cost more to live (don't believe the government line about inflation being stable or even negative - they lumped in a huge decrease in fuel costs along with rises in everything else and called it even. If you are wondering why the official line is that inflation is not a problem when your rent, food, sundry and transport costs have gone up, that's why).

The second is that, honestly, teaching English here especially in the most common jobs pays better, especially compared to cost of living, than waitressing or what have you back home. Sure. But you are still basically spending thousands of dollars to uproot your life, move to a new place, settle in, get an apartment etc. all for what amounts to a wage that isn't that much higher than if you'd just stayed in your own country with your inexperienced self. People say you can make good money - no, if you do it, you do it because you want to go abroad, not for the money. The money, as I've shown, is not great.

Finally, as much as schools would like to crow that your visits home are not their problem - which is to a certain extent true - it would be smart to ruminate on the fact that if you want foreign English teachers, you've really got to understand that they have ties in their home countries and like any normal human being they want to maintain those ties. It would be wise to factor in the idea that people might want to see their parents every couple of years or be able to be there for grandparents in their old age. For older professionals, being their for your parents' old age is also a key factor. Schools are not obligated to consider this, but if they want to attract more talented people, it would be wise to consider it when putting together their salary offers. Visits home cost money, and if you have good reason to visit home every year or every two years, that can eat a huge chunk out of your savings.

It's yet another iteration of the universal truth that if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. If you happen to get someone better, they won't stay long because they want more than peanuts. It goes for Taiwanese workers as well as foreign teachers.

Considering these costs in light of what teaching jobs actually pay, from a financial perspective teaching is not actually a great choice. You do it because you want to.

That doesn't mean, however, that you don't deserve to earn a good wage for doing something you want to do.

Officially Unofficial: A Review

I thought I was a little late to this party, but a quick look online shows that no, the only other person I can find who has actually reviewed Officially Unofficial (and not on Amazon) is my husband. Seems odd, I would have expected it to have been widely read and commented on in expat circles though not necessarily much outside Taiwan, but okay.

Brief recap - this is a memoir about moving to Taiwan, working one's way to national and international recognition as a journalist, coming to care deeply about Taiwan, and about Cole's time at the Taipei Times and his not-so-amicable split from them, as well as his own observations of the political and military goings-on from the perspective of a journalist with access to the key players.

First, what I liked about it. I can't find the specific reference but it seems that Cole arrived in Taiwan about one year before I did, and is older than me, but not by a huge amount. Which is to say, we experienced Taiwan at about the same time and at not terribly disparate ages, so it was fascinating to look back at the experiences someone else with a very different trajectory had during a time I was also in Taiwan and also learning how things worked. At many points, reading this filled in the gaps of news events and other important issues I was either too new to know much about or too busy with my own life trajectory to pay sufficient attention to (I wasn't that interested in Taiwanese politics until I had already been here several years - my interest bloomed just as I was starting to realize this could be a long-term home for me).  I appreciated this quite a bit.

A few examples: I had been in Taiwan one month when the Red Shirts marched. I went and observed but didn't participate and didn't know much about it (nevertheless, being more knowledgeable now, I am glad to have seen it with my own eyes), so reading about how businesses at times paid employees to participate or donate was of some interest - especially as I went from a green organization (a large chain of language schools) to a blue one (a singularly awful 'management consulting firm' with great clients and terrible management) back to an apolitical-but-greenish-leaning one. I did notice that the blue one was a far worse place to work than the green or greenish ones, though.

I was also a Taipei Times reader when the quality started to suffer and I have to say, that one line in the book about how "readers noticed"...yes, we did. I did. I was one of them. I used to contribute the occasional reader editorial, but don't now.

Huaguang, Losheng sanatorium, Dapu, Want Want's Next Media acquisition? I was there for all of that too although, again, too busy with my own career path to pay as much attention as I should have. Reading this book filled in a lot of very useful blanks.

My mother was a journalist, so it was equally fascinating to me to read about how other journalists got to where they were and how they worked, as well. Although I have a lot of respect for (most) (good) journalists, the kind who really live up to the industry's standards of professionalism, it cemented my choice way back in the day not to pursue that career path. That is not meant as a jab at Cole, the profession, or any other journalists - it's just not for me. The low pay, long hours, poor treatment and lack of freedom and free time to pursue other interests? As a young arrival to Taiwan I was only willing to put up with perhaps one of the above, and now that I'm older I'm not willing to put up with any for any appreciable amount of time. The idea of only having 7 days off per year indefinitely, for example? Not acceptable.

In Cole's shoes I would have flamed out at the Times far earlier than he did simply because I'm not willing to do work towards an item for publication that will make someone else money on my day off, and not willing to put up with much bullshit. I also probably have a shorter temper. If that's what you have to do to break into journalism, then it's not for me and I'm quite happy I realized that early on (when I considered, and ultimately rejected, the idea of double majoring in journalism back in college).

It also helped me better articulate, oddly enough, how and why I chose teaching as an actual career and not something one does for a few years before moving on. It is a career - a profession. One would never call a math, science, history or literature teacher someone who "does it for a few years then moves on" (though some do) - they train to become professionals, and they are. So, when Cole subtly disparaged the teaching profession a few times in this book, as though it were somehow beneath him, it caused me to realize that no - I worked hard for my degree and my job is no less respectable than that of a journalist. It reminded me that I chose this and I trained for it in lieu of pursuing other careers (I used to work in finance, and have been offered non-teaching jobs which I have turned down) and no detractor can take that away. It is not 'beneath' anyone unless they don't know what being a professional educator actually means.

It reminded me, while reading about events that happened while I was busting my butt doing a Delta that, hey, it's okay that maybe I let my political observation slide a bit - I was busting my butt doing a Delta! It is absolutely fine that rather than go down and see the Huaguang protests for myself, that I was reading a book on discourse analysis. That rather than read every article on the Next Media acquisition that I was improving my knowledge of language systems. That it was perfectly logical for me to have been honing my knowledge of training practice and theory, language testing and assessment and various pedagogical approaches as well as doing data gathering on a group of real students rather than watching political events during the lead-up to the Sunflower occupation. I did it for my career, and now it's time to go back and fill in what I missed (you may have noticed that there were a few quiet years on this blog as well - now you know why.)

It was engaging, informative reading providing angles and backgrounds to things I either didn't know much about or missed due to my own studies.

In short, there was quite a lot to like.

Let's talk about the things I didn't like.

I noted there were a few inaccuracies in his portrayal of the ELT industry. Most importantly, that in his time drafting articles for an English teaching magazine, rather than realize that the reason it wasn't fulfilling was because he didn't know what he was doing, he just immediately reverted to the idea that it was "beneath him". Sure, it's easy to think that way if you have no background in second language acquisition, materials or curriculum development, scaffolding, early childhood education (for the articles aimed at kindergarteners), text-based language extraction pedagogy etc., it's easy to think any idiot could do a perfectly good job and smirk at such work. That's why so many such publications (and schools) in Taiwan are sub-par. For a real professional, such work would present a chance to grow and develop text-creation and other curriculum development and pedagogical skills. Simply put, he thought the job was beneath him because he was a hack at that particular job, and the crappy company he worked for doesn't do the profession any favors, either.

Moral of the story? Get your facts right before you write about a profession you know nothing about.

And finally, okay, look. This author didn't care for the book being in the third person, which creates not only wonky referencing but a sense of pomposity that just doesn't need to be there. It was a poor narrative choice that detracted - and distracted - from the otherwise very interesting story, she said. But, beyond that...how does she say this?

When a fairly large section, and several passages interspersed later through the narrative, reference how much one has  read in such a way as to come off as bragging about how well-read one is rather than telling a good story about a journalist's life in Taiwan which is all I really want to read about, one comes off as...well...also a bit pompous if not outright sybaritic. I didn't think those paragraphs added much to the overall story. He's a good journalist and well-read, we get it. If he had interwoven observations and references based on his wide and diverse reading it may have come off a little better. As it was I was not terribly interested in paragraphs about all the stuff he's read. Great. I've read a lot of it too. Do you want a gold star?

That, and his disparaging of English teachers (discussed above) and bloggers (discussed below) were the book's greatest weaknesses. I would not go so far as to say it caused me to dislike Cole. I have respected and will continue to respect his excellent work, and having never met him, it is not fair for me to make any such judgments. But, you could say it put me off a bit. I can see why Ben Goren called him "alienating", although I have no such personal story to corroborate that. That said, we have a rather large number of mutual friends, people I respect immensely, so perhaps he is more likable than he at times comes across in this book.

As for the bloggers, because I seem determined to make this review as long and messy as possible, I find a lot to disagree with. There are plenty of idiots, but there are also plenty of excellent Taiwan bloggers. I won't go so far as to group myself in with them - at the end of the day I'm a loud woman with opinions and a platform and that's about all, and I write Lao Ren Cha for personal pleasure rather than to try and get readers - but it is quite unfair to imply that excellent personal blogs that comment on politics, such as The View from Taiwan, Letters from Taiwan and Frozen Garlic are amateurish or beneath Cole's own work (I do not imagine that my blog was in any way considered as an instigator of those comments, simply because I assume Cole doesn't read it, nor, given my proclivity for sailor-mouthed vulgarity, should he necessarily do so!) What really bothered me was his assertion that such people, who don't have the access he does, "shouldn't" have a voice. To quote my ever-oratorically-appropriate cousin, you can fuck right off with that.

Nobody gets to decide who "should" and "shouldn't" have a voice. That's for a bygone era. Now, everyone with a computer and rudimentary writing skills has a platform, but that does not necessarily mean they have a voice. You can get a free blog and write what you want, but if what you write is crap, nobody is going to read you (or at least not anyone in any great enough numbers to matter). The readers decide who has a voice or not with their clicks and eyeballs. The downside of that is not that unqualified people comment, but that qualified people feel reduced to creating clickbait headlines and going after angles that will hook readers rather than the story people actually need to know. That's why Taiwan is so often shoehorned into stories about China. In the end, though, good people do tend to stand out and get readers, and incompetent ones don't get read and don't get link-backs. The readership tends to sort the wheat from the chaff pretty accurately I'd say.

I'd also like to note that towards the end of the book he writes about how mainstream media is failing and alternative media is increasingly becoming the place to turn to. Wouldn't that also include personal blogs?

Such comments, again, only serve to put readers off Cole's larger narrative by dint of making him seem like a less likable, more priggish person than perhaps he is.

I'm also curious who these bloggers who "revile" him and other journalists are. Seems to me most decent bloggers are big fans of Cole's work, myself included. He seems to group them in with the "white wise men" he so often references, but I honestly don't have a clue, blogger-wise, who he is talking about unless there are a ton of blogs I haven't noticed. For now, though, I feel like he's describing a world at odds with my observations.

A few quibbles before I finish this.

I was happy to see in the Afterword that he changes his previous "the KMT is not so bad, they are a modernized political party functioning in a democracy" into something more realistic. I may strongly dislike the KMT as a whole, but I do realize that individuals within it are not all necessarily evil, corrupt, chauvinistic or incompetent. I also appreciate that not everything reported as done by the "evil underhanded KMT" went off exactly as it was reported by pan-green publications and that not all pan-green politicians are great people or good leaders.

However, the idea that the past is the past and now they're a perfectly normal political party? No, again, you can fuck right off with that. A normal political party doesn't withhold transitional justice or try to ignore-away its past the way the KMT has. They don't keep records from the Martial Law era sealed to a large degree and hold the line that victims and their families - many of whom still don't know what happened to their ancestors - should just forget it and move on. As the descendant of genocide survivors who are also being told to "just forget it" by the Turkish government, in my gut I feel that that is simply not acceptable and is proof that the KMT is not, and likely never will be, a normal and modernized political party.

Furthermore, this idea that these "white wise men" Cole references parroted the DPP party line for years, which was both self-serving and self-defeating, and that they called the youth and their critics "brainwashed" by the KMT. Certainly a few did do that, but what I saw during the Ma years was those "white wise men" (who all seem to think they're freakin' Confucius) towing the KMT, not the DPP, party line! It was all about how ECFA was good (it wasn't), the economy was bad under Chen but good under Ma (not true), that closer ties with China was invariably and in every situation a good thing (wrong again), the DPP were "troublemakers" (nope) and pro-independence "agitators" were the "brainwashed" ones, and the students impetuous and naive. All that nonsense. Maybe it was because I stopped reading the Taipei Times soon after its quality dropped, but unless I'm living on a different planet, the commentary he heard and the commentary I heard was quite different indeed. Any given Economist article on Taiwan from that time period will show you what I mean.

I have a few things to say about noting that a journalist was "female" without that adjective being necessary, the ridiculous Taiwan/Israel comparison (don't get me started on that) and the unnamed-but-we-know-who-it-is reference to Ralph Jennings (the short of it is that my reasons for disliking Jennings have nothing to do with his wife, whom I hadn't known and don't care is Chinese). I'll save all that for another time, maybe.

I'll end with this: despite its flaws, it was an engaging book and quite fascinating to read about someone else's experiences in Taiwan just as I was having my own, very different, experiences. I enjoyed some but not all of the autobiographical elements, overall wanting to know more about Taiwan. So, in the end, I have to say it has whet my appetite for Cole's next book, Black Island, which I have the feeling I will enjoy even more.

Why are there so few expat women in Asia?

Female friendship, as Lindsey Craig noted, can be hard to come by in Asia. But it is possible to find if you hang in there.

There's been a lot bouncing around blogs, newspapers and other social media about this article by Lindsey Craig (which I did mistakenly spell as "Lindsay Craig" at first) - about culture shock and not being able to adjust to Taiwan:

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.

I've decided to examine - again, with no real answers because there are so rarely nifty solutions to these things - why there are so few female expats living in Asia, starting with this quote from the article:


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:

I haven’t seen one Caucasian female yet ... is there a reason?

Well, there isn't a clear reason but there is a lot of speculation and a few likely culprits. So...why aren't there more foreign expat women in Taiwan? Or in Asia, in general?

I'm coming at this from years of firsthand experience living in Asia - in India, China and now Taiwan. I can confirm that the general perception that fewer Western women come to Asia than men is entirely true. There are fewer of us across the board, although as vacationing goes I'd say the numbers are more equal (and skewed somewhat towards women in India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka).

So why is this so? I am specifically trying to expand the issue to encompass the rest of Asia - at least East and Southeast Asia, although my experience in SE Asia is more tourist-based than expat-based.

From my (Taiwanese) friend Roy:

"It's because they prefer to stay home and don't want to deal with the problems of traveling overseas, because they'd rather be near their loved ones, isn't it?"

From several folks on Forumosa, suggesting that it's about the dating prospects:

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:

Single "western" women don't have a very good chance of dating here. Single foreign men tend to date local women and there aren't many chances to date the local men either. If you're a single woman in your late 20's or older and want to date, then you may be disappointed while in Taipei. This is the case for every single foreign woman I have met in Taiwan.

(The sentiment of this quote has appeared elsewhere but I was so offended by the context of it on those other sites - implying that women should 'lower their standards' - that I'm not linking it).

There's also the "women can't handle it" approach (in the comments):

Western women or people coming from the a developed world with good social systems less likely to tolerate living in a place as the Mainland, rude people spitting, jumping queue enough to turn them off. Many men tolerate the place simply because they could save up more money by living in a 3rd world country.

and

Men can easily adapt to foreign countries. Maybe.

From a student:

"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?"

I look awful in this photo but I'll add it anyway - I stand by the idea that the best way to have a good time as a single female expat in Asia is to find a mixed group - male and female, local and foreign - in which to socialize

So, to this cacaphony, I'll add my own two cents.

First, the folks who say it's because women can't adjust to living abroad, or we're more disgusted by the roaches, the spitting, the dirt and the pollution? That's just bollocks. Complete and utter BS. Lindsey Craig's complaint about the giant roaches of Taiwan aside, I've found this to be exactly not the case. There is a fairly equal gender ratio of men and women who serve in the Peace Corps, despite the fact that female volunteers are at disproportionate risk of threats and sexual violence. We wouldn't see as many women excited about Peace Corps if "women couldn't handle life in a third world country".

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.

Western women in Asia (China to be exact), handling the spit, the bugs, the toilets and the pollution just fine.

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.

Years later, when I traveled alone around India and Bangladesh for two months, the independent travelers I met were disproportionally women. Sure, we didn't stay in truck stops or flea pits for basic safety, but we were the ones laughing ourselves red over pooping in a ditch only to realize that a dog was trying to lick your butt (true story), or making up insane recipes for some of the more horrific smells we encountered (two parts deceased, fetid cow, three parts urine, six parts moldy food, four parts dog droppings, one part vomit), puking at inopportune times, or trading stories about the largest cockroaches and worst bathrooms.

Adding to this is the fact that plenty of holiday destinations attract more women than men - you're more likely to meet groups of women vacationing in Bali or a mixed group in Goa, and just as likely to find women as men traveling across Vietnam, the beaches of Thailand or rural China - there are entire volumes of stories and compiled articles from women writing about their travels abroad.

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."

Trust me, we can handle it. In fact, here's a warning: don't ever get into a pissing contest (pun intended) over the "worst bathroom story" with me. I'll win.

For those who say it's that we "miss our families", "don't want adventure" or "prefer to stay home", well, that's not entirely true either (sorry, Roy). There is some truth to it - more women than men are starting to get Master's degrees, so it makes sense that a higher proportion of women who might otherwise consider life abroad instead decide to invest in graduate school, dodgy investment though that can be.

It's also true that if there is a romantic prospect back home, a woman is fairly likely to decide to see where it's going rather than picking up and moving abroad - although this is not always true. I have two firsthand accounts to draw from on this: my expat friend who lives in Japan (and is getting married in ten days, yay!) moved to Japan despite being in a relationship. She moved just because she wanted to and had been planning to, and trusted life to work things out on the "I want to be with this guy" and "I want to live abroad" fronts. Life did work itself out, though it doesn't always. She ended up staying for years because life was better than back home, and he eventually moved to Japan to be with her. That said, she waited a year after her initial planned departure date to let her relationship grow a bit before making the move and committing to long-distance love - which makes perfect sense.

Expats in Asia - UNITE! See, foreign women live in Asia, too.

(Japan 2009)

Another friend who did two stints in Taiwan returned to Australia for her boyfriend, whom she'd officially gotten together with at a distance, while he was in Australia and she was in Taiwan, but there were other reasons for the return (namely, graduate school).

I do understand this - if there is one specific person, and you are in a serious relationship with them (not just faffing around), and want/need to make some sacrifices because it's important to you to see where things are going with that person, then it makes sense to give up expat life for that, at least temporarily. That goes for men too, though: sometime sacrifices are necessary in life and when it comes to making a relationship work, both parties are on the hook.

In the absence of higher education or a specific relationship, though, I have seen absolutely no evidence in favor of "women generally prefer to live closer to home so they don't move abroad". As such, I'm calling BS on that one, too. I have found that parents of women living abroad tend to worry more or want their daughters to come home more strongly, or at least to visit home more often, but that doesn't seem to affect whether the women go in the first place.

I don't know if I can even seriously consider "women just aren't as interested in learning Chinese". (Note: or Thai, or Indonesian, or Japanese or Korean or Tamil or Tibetan). I don't think it's true at all, although I have no evidence to back it up. While studying Chinese formally, I met just as many foreign women as men. Women are often - not always, I refuse to over-generalize - more language-oriented and Chinese is a fascinating language to learn. It makes no sense to say that women are simply not interested in it or in other languages they could study in Asia, and at the student level I've seen nothing to support this.

In fact, if I had to pick one area in which expat numbers are roughly equal, I'd say it's among students. Nowhere else in Taiwan have I seen a more equal distribution of foreign men and women than in the various Chinese schools around Taipei. For the record, I've attended both TLI and Shi-da. The same has held true in my experience for students in other countries, including my stint studying in southern India.

Now onto the hot-button topic - dating prospects.

Sadly, I have to admit that there's some truth to this. There always has been, ever since moving abroad and not being an explorer was something one could conceivably do (and something women could also do) - which basically came about in Victorian times if you don't count the American colonial period (which was entirely different kind of "living abroad"). If you've read The Map of Love or seen Lagaan you'll know that unmarried or widowed Victorian and Edwardian women were at times encouraged to travel a bit in "the colonies", but even then it was far less likely that a woman would do so than a man, and also far less acceptable for a white woman to marry a local man than for a white man to marry a local woman. I think we all know why this was in the light of the status of women in their household. (In those days marriage was a real issue; we can substitute "dating" in the modern context).

It is true that, excepting some older foreign service officers, "I came, I loved it, I opened a backpacker cafe and I never left" types and businesspeople, the average age of a Western expat in Asia and elsewhere is between 20 and 40. It is true that this is the time when most people find a life partner (if they do at all). It is also true - as much as I hate to say it - that it is harder for Western women to date in Asia than back home. A lot harder, although not quite impossible.

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. 

Does it really keep Western women away from life abroad, though, or is the correlation entirely spurious?

A little of both. For women who want to travel, the dating issue (which has no easy answer) is not likely to keep them away, though it may cause them to choose shorter-term trips: a one-year stint as a student or one year abroad teaching instead of staying long-term, for example.

It is absolutely true that the nightlife, as well as any of the avenues by which single women generally meet men, is stacked against us. In India, with the exceptions of a few cosmopolitan cities, women do not go to bars. They just don't, and you better not either. Not that bars have ever been the best way to meet people with whom one might actually start a relationship!

In Bangkok, where I spent a few weeks once cooling my heels as I waited for a visa to come through, there is plenty of nightlife and it's mostly safe for the Western woman, but that doesn't mean the average Western woman wants to partake of it (go check out Soi Cowboy sometime - you'll see what I mean). Why go to a bar or club where you don't know anyone, you're quite possibly the only foreign woman there, and neither the men (foreign or local) nor the local women want to talk to you? The situation is a little better in Taiwan, fortunately, but I'm not sure I'd say it's appreciably better. I can't give an accurate viewpoint on that as I was single for less than a year while living in Taiwan and never went out to bars or clubs specifically seeking a dating life. Not that I ever did that normally - I am a firm believer that one most likely meets quality partners through mutual friends or shared interest groups. I did have one date in Taiwan before my now-husband moved here - it was a disaster.

In other areas there are chances for women to socialize, mostly in backpacker cafes and bars, although those are geared toward more transient traveler types.

Don't even get me started on expat bars or places like Carnegie's, by the way. Just don't. A visit to some of them (not all) is just as depressing as a visit to Soi Cowboy.

Actively trying to make local female friends, as well as coordinating larger friend groups, is one way to feel less isolated as a female expat. Making local female friends helps, too.

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!"

Of the women who do stay long-term, I can't help but note that the vast majority of them are in serious relationships or married - count me among them. The friend I mentioned above has been in a relationship, at first long-distance and then not, since she set foot in Japan five years ago. When I lived in China, there was another female teacher when I arrived - she was married and teaching along with her husband and two teenage daughters.

Yet another woman, now a good friend, showed up halfway through my stay - she ended up dating and eventually marrying the only other expat in town, a British guy. (Well, there was a haughty girl who never talked to us and eventually moved to Tibet, but she doesn't count). They stayed in China for a bit and then spent almost a year in Thailand before returning to England, and then the USA, to live. She now frequently travels to Guatemala for field work and he visits. Other long-termers tend to be married. The foreign women in my various Chinese classes? Mostly married or not planning to stay long term. Every foreign woman who's stayed even remotely long term at my company? In a serious relationship or married. Every. Single. One.

Of course, as I said, some anecdotes does not a body of evidence make, but it does present a strong case for we can handle life abroad, we are interested in it, and the second that the specter of dating is lifted from our shoulders it makes it easier for us to contemplate staying. It has nothing to do with having a man there (disclaimer: I do make my husband kill the cockroaches. I know, I am a disgrace to the feminist cause). It has everything to do with not having to deal with the complicated world of dating and relationships in a market stacked against you at a time when one's love life tends to be the most active and when people generally meet their partners.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I still would have come to Taiwan and likely stayed a year or two even if Brendan had never existed, but it is absolutely true that after two years I'd have just as likely moved home for awhile.

But, as I said, the dating issue isn't the entire reason. It is merely one important element, and I think better explains why women are less likely to stay, rather than why they're less likely to come. I am curious if the clear dearth of female expats is caused in part by the fact that the women go home sooner (for graduate school or dating prospects or whatever, or because the anti-woman expat scene depresses them), not that less women overall come in the first place.

Some other ideas I've come up with?

First, that once they get here, women are so inundated with complaints about them on expat forums online as well as in expat or traveler bars and cafes that they get a bit deflated about the whole thing - why even try to make friends if there aren't many other women staying long-term and the men they meet complain about how the Western women are "bitter and fat" - who wants to form a social network with people like that?

It is rarely remarked upon yet absolutely true that the expat world is man-oriented and, to an extent, anti-woman, or at least anti-Western woman. While I've found a space for myself and been welcomed by the better among male long-term expats here, at times it is clear that the overall state of things is inexplicably hostile to Western women. You would think men who'd traveled around the world would be more egalitarian and less sexist, but that seems not to be the case. The number of Neanderthalic opinions I've come across in the expat community here that expressly devalue women is shocking. It makes me not want to hang around such people (so I don't).

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? 

I would like to add here two things: one, that just because some parts of the foreigner scene (at least in Taiwan) can be discouraging for female expats, it doesn't mean the entire scene is bleak. There are book clubs, sports pickup game leagues, happy hours and plenty of friendly faces - both male and female (though mostly male) - and not every male expat out there bashes Western women - far from it. I'd say most don't but the ones who do are prevalent enough that it is all too easy to generalize and get discouraged or feel lonely. It's not all bad: there is just one very vocal segment of that population that can sometimes cast a discouraging pall over everyone.

Second, that it's a vicious circle: women move abroad, realize how few other women there are, how hard it is to create female friendship (though there is always the option of sticking it out and making local female friends), and leave earlier than they otherwise might. The support networks are just not there, and they need to be. That's why I do go out of my way to cover women's issues in Taiwan and, to some extent, in Asia. There needs to be more support for women abroad online and in real life.

Chances are, if you are looking for female friendship, other female expats are, too.

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. 

All I can say is that I hope someday, our daughters will grow up in a world where this isn't an issue and people won't hide behind bogus science or ridiculous claims of "it's our CULTURE to treat women badly".

...and fifth, as suggested by a friend, there is the idea that Western women aren't expected to be as adventurous as their brothers - that the urge to go out and explore the world isn't something people generally associate with women, even in the USA (or other Western countries) - women are more encouraged to nest rather than hunt (as one commenter below said - though I think that is just as 'nurture' as it is 'nature'), and as a result fewer women decide to live abroad.

I'm not sure I buy this, but then I'm from the liberal Northeast US and raised in an environment where I was absolutely just as encouraged to travel as I would have been had I been born male. However, I will say honestly that once abroad more permanently I felt more pressure to visit often (at my expense) and move home from my family than my husband has felt from his. That could be a difference between families, or it could be that I am a daughter and he is a son. It is possible that this is an issue as you head to more conservative parts of the USA, though I can't say I buy it regarding Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and other countries that lack America's rural conservative fervor. I can dismiss it regarding my own cultural background, but I don't have enough experience in rural American culture to definitively call BS.

That said, one friend and (former) expat, B., is female and from that part of the country, and despite being heavily pressured to stay home and follow a traditional (and religious) life path, she managed to spend a year in Shanghai and two stints of a few months each in Taiwan. Another comrade from the road, T., was someone I met in 2000 while studying in India. From a small South/Midwestern town, she too came from that background and yet not only studied in India but came back as a program counselor. These two examples show that if this social pressure is real (and it may well be), that it clearly doesn't work on every woman, and I'd say that men from these backgrounds, while possibly not as actively encouraged to "stay home", are passively not encouraged from moving abroad for long periods.

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:

Good haircuts in Taiwan for Western women - no more Japanese femullets!

Women's shoes in Taiwan that fit Western feet

Shopping in Taiwan - sorry, but you're probably stuck with Plus Size stores, as annoying as that is, or getting clothes made in Yongle Market

English-speaking OB/GYN in Taipei

As always, just some thoughts. Like everyone else, I don't have the answers - just a lot of questions and opinions. :)

Expat women of Asia, if you're reading this - your thoughts and comments are welcome (and men too)!