I apologize for not really blogging this week...it's just been a busy few weeks with seminars and weekend work, and when I do have free time, I'm too tired to blog coherently. There's nothing more to it than that - I have a long list of topics I've thunk up and want to write about, and no energy or presence of mind to do it right now. I hope you'll bear with me.
I did want to share a quick anecdote that made me wonder, though.
The first:
This was discussed at length in my first and second posts on the low marriage rate in Taiwan, but I had two conversations that highlighted a probable area of disagreement and likely cognitive dissonance between men and women here.
From a female peer: "Oh, Taiwanese men always feel they have to earn more than we do. So if you are a woman and you earn a high salary, a man you date will think he has to earn even more and maybe you won't find many men who can do that. They think they need to make more money than their wife just because they are a man. So they will not marry you if they are scared that you will earn more. I think that is so stupid."
From a male peer: "Taiwanese women! They always want the man to earn more! So if she earns a lot, he has to earn even more than that or she won't marry him. She will say 'you have to buy me this' or 'you have to have so much saved money' and if she makes more she will get angry with him, because she wants a better lifestyle. So it's hard for a Taiwanese man to marry."
Back to the female peer: "I don't care if I earn more than my boyfriend or my husband. If we can have a good life and he can also contribute, then it's OK." (Same woman later admitted that there are Taiwanese women who insist that they will only marry someone who can improve their lifestyle).
Back to the male peer: "If my wife earned a lot more than me, I would think it's OK, but she won't think that is OK! Then I feel like I have to work harder to make more!" (Same person later admitted that if his wife earned only a little more than him, he'd feel that he'd need to work harder to earn more than her because, ahem, "I am the man". It's only OK if she earns vastly more than he does).
So.
This is just two people - hardly a representative sample. Merely an anecdote. I do think it highlights something important, though. You could conclude from this that both men and women want husbands to earn more than wives, but I don't think that's what's going on here. It seems to me, from observation beyond these two conversations, that the men think the women want them to earn more (and are split on whether they themselves agree) and the women think that the problem is the men's arrogance, made worse by a few women who really buy into outdated ideas, which casts a stereotype over all Taiwanese women.
Which, you know, I don't know. Just some thoughts.
I want to start this post by saying that I have no answers, I have no conclusions – I only have my own experiences and am approaching this topic with personal thoughts and anecdotes, not proclamations. I don’t even have anything particularly deep to say, because it’s all been said before. All I can do is add my own story to the mix.
That aside, as I mentioned in a previous post, I recently received news that a friend’s marriage had dissolved. The marriage happened to be an intercultural one (American/Hispanic). I won’t give details – that would be inappropriate – but one of the things that caused the whole hot mess is something that is more acceptable in one culture than the other. I’m still not necessarily inclined to believe that the resulting split was caused by cultural issues – in fact, it’s more likely irreconcilable differences between two individuals.
Regardless, it’s caused me to muse on intercultural relationships – both of the romantic and friendly kind. I’ll be focusing on romantic relationships for this post, and am planning a future post musing on making Taiwanese male friends (as a foreign woman)…because, y’know, it’s quite hard to do!
Obviously, “intercultural” does not necessarily mean “interracial”. That’s the first thing I want to mention: I know plenty of couples of different races who share a common culture, and my husband has observed that while we’re very much the same race, there are a lot of cultural differences between our families.
When we first started dating, I didn’t think of it this way: I thought of it in terms of “I’m outgoing, and my family is predisposed genetically to be loud, boisterous and extroverted. He’s more laid-back, and his family seems more predisposed to a quieter approach to life”. It never occurred to me that it might actually be a cultural difference.
Then, in the middle of wedding planning, we rented My Big Fat Greek Wedding Subconsciously, somehow, I wanted him to see it – he had seen it but didn’t remember much, and I remember how the film really hit home for me. If I had such a strong reaction and he could barely remember it, there was clearly something worth exploring there.
After watching the comparison of the two families – one laid-back and the other a big pile of boundary-crushing madness - and as a result of those two environments, some of the differences between Tula and Ian in the film, Brendan turned to me and said, tellingly,
“Now I understand.”
“You understand what?”
“All this stuff with the wedding planning, and all of the stress…it’s cultural. It’s like with your big Armenian family, I just don’t get yet how they work because my family is more like that guy’s.”
Note that he did not say I’m like Tula – because I’m not. I have no problem striking out on my own, nobody tried to stop me from going to college, my family is devoid of the sexism seen in the Portokalos clan, and I am happy to stand up for myself (even if an argument ensues).
And that’s just it – the difference isn’t simply between two families – the fact that my family (at least the biggest component of it) immigrated to the USA in living memory and we have relatives who still speak the old language – an Armenian-based polyglot with elements of Turkish and Greek – does have something to do with how my family works, how I was raised, and as a result, to an extent, what my personality is like.
I do have Polish relatives as well, but other than my beloved Grandma G and aunt, I unfortunately see them far less often.
So we visit my family home and drive up to Grandma L’s. People begin arriving, often there are young cousins underfoot.Hummus, olives (real olives, not canned or jarred), cured string cheese and babaghanoush are set out. It’s mid-afternoon and uncles are already double-topping-up their drinks – often, Ararat Armenian raisin brandy. Grandma asks me when I’m going to lose weight and have babies. Like in a Taiwanese family, in my family this is considered fine (I personally consider it a major breach of boundaries, though). Jokes are made about sleeping arrangements - “She made us sleep in twin beds before we got married, and M was visibly pregnant at the time!” – all fine.
Brendan says nothing – “not my culture!” – or whispers something dryly amusing to me along the lines of “So apparently losing weight and having babies go hand in hand?”
Despite my own Daoist/agnostic inclinations, my family is fairly religious, and grace is said, often in Armenian. I am as lost as Brendan is for this part – I don’t have two words of Armenian to rub together (well, I have two: ‘vart’ means “rose” and ‘yavrom’ means “dear”). We eat at a big table – lamb kebab, pilaf and lahmajoun are served. The dishes match, but are kind of tacky. It’s too crowded.I’m asked again about the babies. We argue about politics. My grandparents still hate Turks (and Muslims generally) for the genocide Turks unleashed upon the Armenian people in 1915.
I don’t dare say that Turks alive today can’t be blamed for the actions of their ancestors, just as you wouldn’t shun a German woman born in 1975 because of Nazi atrocities. It’s a shame that they are educated to believe that the genocide never happened, but nobody has control over what their teachers tell them, and many lack the intellectual curiosity to question. I don’t speak; I think these things, though, and Brendan knows it.
(Yes, I realize my family might well read this, but I mention below that I’m OK with how they work and anyway, if they’re going to ask me at the dinner table about popping out babies, then they lose any right to wring their hands when I write about it).
Brendan smiles like it’s a particularly lively television show (and in a way, it is). We don’t quite get to the part where we start dancing in a circle and breaking plates, but I’d say we stop just short of it – that’s Greek, not Armenian and probably an urban legend, but my family lived in Greece for years after running from the genocide and before immigrating to America.
You know who doesn’t ask me about babies and weight loss? My in-laws. You know who doesn’t argue about politics and ask personal questions around the dinner table? My in-laws. You know who isn’t all up in everybody else’s, ahem, bidness?
And yet, I wouldn’t trade my family for the world. I love them and their intrusive questions to bits. It’s taken me years, but I agree with my husband. These differences are cultural, even though Brendan and I look similar enough that we could probably pass for distant cousins (it’s mostly the coloring – fair skin, blue or green eyes, light brown hair). I resemble Brendan more than some of my actual cousins, who tend to be olive-skinned with dark features and coal-colored hair.
Another point I’d like to make – I have been in more obviously intercultural relationships: the last two men I dated before Brendan were Jewish and Indian, respectively. This is where it gets quite hard to draw a line between the cultural and the individual – did those relationships fail because there were cultural differences, or was it entirely that we, as two individuals, were incompatible?
My experience? I do generally default to “we’re just two people who weren’t compatible” but I also think culturaldifferences had some role to play in why we were incompatible. I was simply not that attracted to the first, although part of that had to do with the fact that he sincerely wanted to have children and raise them in a Jewish home (I don’t even want kids, and am not religious – if I had kids I’d encourage them to follow an ‘ask questions and find your own path’ sort of philosophy, hippie that I am). While, in the end, it was really a lack of a physical spark that did us in, I admit that part of that lacking was caused by my being a bit turned off by such disparate life goals.
The second? Well, we had plenty of chemistry. Culturally I think the only real issue was that he did believe that couples who have children ought to have one parent stay at home, and that that parent ought to be the mother (I have no problem with mothers who choose this path, but deciding it’s the only correct path for everyone really rubs me the wrong way – and I hadn’t gotten to the “don’t really want kids” decision yet, so it was relevant)…and when he said it, I could really hear, behind his voice, a lot of the defenses of the traditional order of things that I heard in India. I’d like to say that this is why we broke up, but it wasn’t – it was (im)maturity on both our parts. Had we been more mature, though, this would have become a dealbreaker. (We agreed on religion and other issues such as telling his parents – mine were totally cool with it and even met him – never came up because it was fairly clear that we weren’t going to last despite all of our chemistry).
That said, such a dealbreaker could arise between any couple regardless of cultural background – I do feel that this sort of dealbreaker is more likely to arise between intercultural couples.
This is not to say that such relationships always face these issues, or that they can’t overcome them. As I’ve said before – and I’ll say it again (I’m secure enough in my relationship with my wonderful husband that I feel I can do so) – if the world had moved a little differently on its axis and I’d spent my time in Taiwan single, well, I’ve met Taiwanese men that I would have dated. Just because things didn’t work out with two other men for reasons that can be partially attributed to cultural differences doesn’t mean they never can.
And, as I said, I have no deep insights. I have no final proclamations. I have only my own experiences to add to public discourse.
I was working in Xinzhu Science Park last night and the subject of science park dating life came up (don't ask me how - it just did). I heard a statistic that hadn't come up before that very much affects not just the marriage rate, but the gender disparity in the tech industry. That's not just a problem in Taiwan, but I have to say it's quite striking here.
Remember how back in my last post about the low marriage rate - of which there have now been two - Catherine mentioned in the comments that a huge reason for this is that the Taiwanese simply work too hard? If you're in the office all day, slaving away for a wage far lower than you deserve (the average salary for those entry-level Office Ladies is about NT$30,000, and considering the hours they work, that's just sad), the odds grow against the likelihood of finding the time to meet, date, get to know and possibly marry someone.
That is absolutely true, especially for the Science Park, where people continually admit to working twelve hours a day not because there's a special project or something in particular that requires temporary extra effort, but as a matter of course because every project is urgent, understaffed and requires this effort. One can technically refuse and go home on time, but if that's you, expect to be the first person placed on mandatory unpaid leave and the last person to be promoted.
There's an added layer to all this, though: the ratio of men to women in the science park is 14 to 1. Fourteen men for every woman. Fourteen times as many men as women. Fourteen times. I shudder to think that a lot of the women who do work in the science park are generally secretaries or in marketing or HR, leaving the ratio of male to female engineers something astonishingly disparate.
(To their credit, Mediatek's ratio is about 8 to 1, which, while not great, is an improvement).
I've seen this play out in my classes - of my long term courses at tech companies, most of the classes are entirely male. At one company there was one woman working in R&D out of 11 students. I have another class with 4 students, including one woman, which is sadly unusual. I will say that at Acer, where I teach no permanent classes but do a lot of training seminars for recent recruits, there are generally quite a few women among the new hires...at least in my classes.
"So is there a 'science park dating scene'?" I asked.
"A little bit. People do date, even between companies because we all live in Xinzhu. It's not a big city...but how can we have a dating scene? Fourteen to one! Who would we date?"
"Besides," he added. "Many of my coworkers are 35 and have never had a girlfriend. They don't know how to speak to women. The ones who are married usually married a classmate. If you don't do that, it is really hard to date."
I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that the disparity between men and women in the Taiwanese tech sector is entirely discrimination or milder but still pernicious assumptions about gender roles - although that is probably partly the case.
That said, interestingly, the wealthiest person in Taiwan is no longer Terry Gou, it's now Cher Wang, the chairwoman of HTC (also the most powerful woman in the Taiwanese tech sector).
Note: contains some strong language (aka, Sorry, Moms)
OK, I’m writing this even though I don’t actually have any dating experience in Taiwan.
That’s not entirely true – I had a date in Taiwan before my then-soon-to-be-boyfriend-and-now-husband moved here. It was unequivocally the worst date of my life. Because I am a terrible and tawdry gossip (I know. I KNOW) I’ll tell you about it if you know me personally and ask.
I just feel that while the Intertubes are filled with floofy articles on expat women and dating – like this one and this one (and one blog post so offensive that despite it coming up fairly high in search results, I won’t link to it) - this one is pretty good though. Few have anything constructive to say.
Basically, they’re fine in that they do a good job of describing the situation, but, like Captain Hindsight, they don’t really confront the problem and give real, first person, been-there advice or ideas for single women living in Asia.
That may well be because they don’t want to say.
A lot of what I would say is universally applicable, at home or abroad, and yes, a lot of it is a bit hackneyed and even more of it is “prepare for a desert, a dearth of options”. In the end though, it all boils down to “be you – Super Awesome You – enjoy your adventures and let the rest take care of itself, luck willing”.
But I always know what to say – or at least what I want to say – so I’ll give you my own advice:
1.) For all that is good in the world, do not approach the dating scene with bitterness…
…even if you are single and looking to date, and you want to feel bitterness. It’s not that it’s wrong to feel that way. There’s definitely something to it. It’s just that letting it flow out of every pore or making it the topic of heated conversations, eye-rolls, complaints and smirks is the least conducive action you can take towards making things work for you.
I do NOT mean this as “be upbeat, ladies, because men like women who are happy! So if you’re sad, turn that frown upside down and pretend to be happy!”
Because a.) that’s a big pile of stinking dumb right there, and as Queen Cynic I am the last person to preach what I don’t practice and b.) it applies to men as much as women. Do you want to date a man who is bitter, angry and willing to start uncomfortable debates over it, and rolls his eyes at anyone who seems happier than he is? No, you don’t. And come on, not every male expat in Asia is like that. You’ve surely met That Guy and surely thought “not if the Apocalypse happened and it was between him and a mutant cockroach. I’ll take Roachie.” – but don’t judge all foreign men because of That Guy.
It’s not a gender thing, it’s a “nobody wants to date a whiner” thing. For both men and women.
Seriously – talk about your last solo driving trip across Chile, or the time you crapped on a pig because the toilet in the village was on stilts above a pigsty (the most awesome guys will love this). Talk about your language classes or how you went camping in the jungle, or how you were detained at a border but got out of it by smooth-talking the immigration officers. Don’t go on about how dating sucks for female expats in Asia (because everyone knows that it does – that’s nothing new and doesn’t make you sound interesting).
This is admittedly hard to conquer, because it’s so easy to feel bitter about a culture – expat and local – so clearly stacked against you. It really is unfair, and yes, it really is stacked against you. Yes, it sucks and yes, it would be great if there were a way to change it. But…
2.) …instead, jump into life abroad with an “I chose to be here, I know the downsides but I’m having a great time, there’s a lot to see and learn, and you can go stuff it if you assume I must be bitter” attitude.
Really. If you know the scene before you arrive and you come with an “I don’t care, I want to have this experience anyway” outlook, it will all turn out better for you. You may decide that you really like independent life and decide to stick around, or that being single is an acceptable likelihood of the exciting life around you.
And approaching it with calmness and confidence will simply make you more awesome.
3.) Don’t assume you definitely won’t date. You might.
As I said, I can name gaggles of women for whom the stereotype isn’t true. When worked in China with my friend Jenny – single, Western female – right around the time I left she snagged a musical Brit, the only other expat in town. They’re now married. I had a brief fling with Brendan in Beijing when we clearly like each other but before we got together (hey, it’s all good, we’re married now). When I lived in a shared apartment during my first months in Taiwan, the other roommates were all male and at least one of them partnered up, albeit briefly, with a South African woman. Out on a group outing, I met a couple who had met while they were both teaching in Korea. One does come across Western woman-Taiwanese man couples – plenty of Asian men are eminently dateworthy. Don’t dismiss them out of hand.
4.) Don’t dismiss all the male expats (or all local men), either. Or anyone, for that matter.
My now-husband was a single Western male expat in Korea, and he’s the sweetest, most non-judgmental, most openminded person I know. He’d be a catch for any woman, Asian or Western. There are good guys in the expat community. Don’t judge them all as a monolithic gaggle of dicks. They’re not. Contrary to popular belief, there are expat men who do in fact date expat women.
Similarly, not every local guy is going to conform to whatever stereotype there is of local guys out there. There are mold-breakers worldwide, and if you're confident and cool with yourself, you are more likely to find them.
Heck, don't judge Asian woman-Western man couples, either, unless they are clearly icky. I know they say that you never know, but honestly you can usually tell which couples are genuinely happy together and which are total ew-fests fairly quickly.
And while you're at it, don't judge Asian women. It's too easy to fall into the trap of "ugh, those Asian women all starve themselves, act coy, flirt, go all submissive! And the men love it! I hate that!" - but you know? No, they don't. At least not all of them, and maybe not even most of them. Don't assume. Don't hate on other women generally - you never know who is a stereotype-destroyer and the best way not to find out is to barter in stereotypes.
5.) Make friends. Join clubs.
Seriously. Most countries in Asia have various expat venues in which you can at least make friends. It’s not guaranteed but friends may lead to invitations and introductions that may lead you to a great guy (or gal, if you swing that way. I know almost nothing about the lesbian and bi communities abroad, so I’ll let a blogger savvier in those areas cover that). Even if they don’t, friends are great regardless. Who cares if you don’t have a date (dates can be excruciating anyway) on Saturday night if you have a bar date with your girlfriends or a pub crawl with a local group? If you’re religious, joining a church or other faith group is a good way to meet people, just as it is in the USA.
OK, sometimes this backfires – I heard a story not long ago about a Western woman who joined a photography club somewhere in Asia and while she wasn’t rebuffed, she was basically ignored during meetings and outings – the men there, who often brought their Asian girlfriends, didn’t want her there. This isn’t the sort of club you want to join, but I promise, most are legit.
So hey, is the place where you’re working having an outing or happy hour? Go! Is there a club, pickup team or whatever group meeting regularly? If it interests you, go! At least you’ll have social opportunities, you’ll probably make at least one or two friends, and it’ll put you in touch with the wider expat community.
I have to admit that I haven’t been proactive with this in recent years. I used to go out with my teacher recruiting company on their regular nights out, but I cultivated my own set of friends, got a boyfriend-now-husband and don’t feel the need to go out on late-night club crawls. If I want to go out, I invite some friends to Shake House or somewhere similar and drink good beer while talking.
Taiwan has plenty of these groups – as I said, my teacher recruiting company (years ago when I was a buxiban teacher and not in corporate training) has regular nights out, I know of at least one soccer pickup club, a Community Services Center book club and other groups you can join.
There are definitely opportunities to socialize, and if you make the effort, it’ll not only lead to meeting more potential dating partners, but even if that doesn’t happen (and it often doesn’t), if you have a full social life, you’ll be more inclined to be content with being single.
Finally, don’t be afraid to venture out to lively nightspots on your own (at least in Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong where it’s fairly safe – I can’t speak for the rest of Asia). Stay away from known seedy hangouts of men looking to ogle Asian women simply by virtue of them being Asian and go somewhere more young and studenty. Chances are you’ll have at least a few decent conversations.
6.) This is going to sound clichéd, but be yourself.
No, really! I mean it! I know it sounds downright ridiculous and is probably something a stupid self-help book also said, but really. You’re here because you love the food, the language, the whatever-whatever, and you regularly show up to Chinese Club or Hiking Club or pub crawl activities. You knew what you were getting into before you came, and you’re fine with it because you wanted to explore the world – and your desire to travel trumps any desire to settle down and attach yourself to a man.
Let that show, and while dating is not something all that common for Western women here, you’ll be far more likely to get…err…lucky. In the totally not-dirty sense, but maybe the dirty sense as well.
Because, seriously, what’s more attractive: a woman who is all “Oh my god, all the men here date skinny Asian chicks, that’s so gross and disgusting, and I can’t believe it!” or a woman who is all “yeah, I’m here, I’m learning Chinese, I’m taking a kung fu class and if you think I’m bitter because I’m single than you can shove it up your butt, in fact I’ll help kung-fu kick it up there”?
(Same goes for men: what’s more attractive – a guy who whines “Western women are so demanding/fat/nagging/opinionated/difficult! Why would I ever date one again!” or a guy who is all “yeah, I love confident, awesome women regardless of where they come from”?)
7.) Know when to fold ‘em.
I know – you go out with a group and there’s always That Guy who goes off on why he always dates Asian girls – it doesn’t even matter what his reason is (you can fill in the blanks for all the usual ones). You want to shout at him that he’s a sexist, pseudo-racist jerk.
Here’s the thing – that never works. It just makes you look bad, and it doesn’t change anyone’s mind.
Think of it this way: you don’t want to date That Guy, do you? (No, you don’t). That guy’s kind of a douche. My previous incarnation was the sort of woman who would give That Guy the what-for, and it never accomplished anything.
What you do instead is let him talk – he sounds like an idiot, everyone else knows it (and if they don’t, they’re just as bad) and he’s hanging himself with his own words. I’d say “don’t roll your eyes” because I like to think that I wouldn’t do so, but I totally would, so I’ll toast you for that. Another option is getting up and walking away, because nobody should have to listen to that drivel.
You’re entitled to your opinion, but if you don’t want to date That Guy anyway, and you don’t want to be friends with him either (who wants friends like that?), what’s the use of coming out with it right then and there?
Yes, it’s unfair, and yes there are plenty of guys like that across the expat communities of Asia. Yes, I’d love to change it to. The only way you can even come close to making a dent in it is to be Ms. Super Awesome. Rise above it, don’t give it the dignity of a response it doesn’t deserve, and keep on being awesomely you. Just by being that awesome, you’ll show everyone else that That Guy is a douche, and that female expats are worth their attention, friendship and romantic overtures. This is something that reacting with the predictable bile will never accomplish.
That said, a witty retort, if you have one, is always appreciated. If That Guy is being douchey and your rejoinder is funny, a bit ascerbic but not downright bitter, that’ll earn respect. If it doesn’t, hang out with different people.
And yes, while everyone is entitled to date only people they like and are attracted to, “I only date Asian women because of X” does have a ring of sexism and racism. You’re not wrong. The best way to show that for what it is is to be spectacular – even if that means walking away without a word – and the worst way is to start an argument in a bar on a night out.
Seriously – the best way to throw stereotypes in others’ faces is to be Super Awesome and anyone who doesn’t like it can shove it. If That Guy starts spewing a bunch of idiocy about Asian women and Western women, simply by showing that you don’t stack up to that idiocy, you’re making him look bad.
(Rules are different for Internet forums. I’m not sure that’s worthy of a separate post, though).
8.) Don’t lower your standards and don’t try to compete with local women.
This is the one piece of advice I found while perusing online – “lower your standards” because you’re not going to get the same guys here that you could back home.
That’s a big ol’ deposit in the bullshit latrine right there. Don’t listen to it. There’s no point in saying “don’t have unrealistic expectations” because that’d be true wherever you are. Same deal for “be openminded and let yourself be surprised by guys you might not ordinarily consider”.
Otherwise, if you wouldn’t like the guy back home, you won’t like him here, and that won’t lead to anything good. You have not lost any rights to set standards for yourself just by living in Asia. Stick with them – the guy you want to date will meet them (there’s no guarantee you’ll meet that guy, but if you do, he will meet them).
Basically, if you are who you are and know what you want - just like back home -
Likewise, you probably have a different complexion, life outlook, set of mannerisms, body type and bone structure that is fundamentally different from women in most of Asia. Don’t think that you have to try to force those things into a mold of what you think men – both local and expat - want. If you meet a guy worth dating in Asia (or girl, if that’s how you roll), he’ll like you as you are. If he doesn’t, he’s not the right guy to date. It doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a bad guy, just not right for you. And for all that is holy – be healthy by all means but don’t try to force yourself to look or act like something you’re not.
9.) Figure out what your goals are for dating.
If you’re just looking to have fun or something to do on weekend nights, recalibrate that to include group outings, and at that point by all means date guys you aren’t serious about (within the realm of safety and sensibility of course) if the chance arises. Organize events and invite people to bring friends – you might meet someone or not, but regardless you’ll be getting your fun nights out.
If you are genuinely looking for a partner, then apply all of your regular criteria for finding someone you want to spend time with. Accept that it may not happen – heck, it may not even happen back home – and do your best to attract that person by simply being your amazing self and getting out there to socialize as much as you can, including making friends you’d never date.
10.) Make a diverse group of friends and be socially proactive.
One of the best things about life in Taiwan is that I have a group of friends made up of expat men and women and local…well, mostly women but there’d be men too if the men hadn’t gone abroad for work or school. Having this kind of group can ease loneliness and lead to social opportunities that might – no promises! – bring dating opportunities.
It’s not as hard as it seems to make these friends – especially other female friends. Other female expats are probably just as desiring of female friendship as you are – so seek them out by joining clubs or posting on online expat forums for your country. Local women looking to befriend foreigners, but not looking for a foreign boyfriend, will also be on these forums.
Sometimes it takes a little adjustment – I love my local female friends but there are cultural differences: “I know I said I’d come out but my aunt decided to visit so I can’t”, “it’s almost 11pm, I should get home or Grandma will worry!”, “Oh, no beer for me thanks” – and you might find your social events ending earlier than you’re used to (at least in Taiwan), but that’s more cultural adjustment than anything. Get a group of expats together for late night shenanigans.
I guarantee that by branching out into local as well as expat friends – something surprisingly few expats do despite talking about how they’d like to – you’ll feel more connected and more grounded overall, and if you don’t date as often, you also might not notice as much.
11.) So you don’t want to date That Guy. Who do you want to go out with?
You want to go out with a guy who, while he may be happy to date local women, is just as happy to date foreign women – he likes women that he likes. He doesn’t like women based on arbitrary criteria of racial background, but rather, he likes them for who they are, end of (which includes physical attractiveness). You do not want a guy who will ignore you just because you’re female and not local.
You want to go out with a guy who hears your stories of life abroad and thinks they're fantastic. You want to go out with a guy who likes it when you get a bit cynical or debate-y, and who, while he may not like it, at least accepts that everyone - even women - gets crabby now and again.
Those guys do exist in the expat (and local) community. I married one. They are out there and while I can’t promise you’ll meet one, if you just come here with the intent of having a good time, having a few adventures and stories to tell, and being Your Awesome Self while engaging socially in a variety of activities, he is far more likely to appear.
And the other guys who are turned off by this? Well, you’re awesome, they’re missing out and that’s just too damn bad for them.
I know. Cliched and hackneyed - but how often do you get advice that can be summarized basically as "be awesome, have adventures"?
Not nearly often enough, I'd say!
12.) If you’re female and planning a stint abroad, don’t assume you’ll have as many opportunities to date. To be honest, you likely won’t.
I know that sounds depressing – I don’t mean it to be, but there’s a tragic knell of truth to it. If you’re planning to spend a year or more in Asia, and you’re female, there is a pretty good chance you won’t be doing much dating.
I’m not saying you definitely won’t date – I can tick off so many fingerfuls of expat women who defy the statistics and tell likelihood where to shove it.
That said, you know how “forewarned is forearmed” and all that? Like how if you know you’ll probably poop out half your body weight in India before you go, that it’s not nearly as traumatic when you do, in fact, poop out half your body weight, and it’s a nice bonus if it never happens – but if nobody tells you before you go, when you start with the unstoppable bathroom antics you feel all stressed out and infuriated?
It’s true. If you prepare yourself for the reality of life as a single expat female in Asia, and acknowledge the datescape for what it is, if you do date (and you may) then that’s great, but if you don’t date as much (or sadly, as happens sometimes, at all), at least you came prepared to face this reality, and so it’s not as hard to deal with once here. Having a prepared-and-forewarned attitude about it makes it both far more bearable and makes you far more engaging and likeable, because you’ll be fine with where you are and confident that you’re doing what’s right for you.
I personally came to Taiwan on the heels of a breakup – a fairly clean break, not a long relationship, already clearly better for all involved that we not be together, and we made a valiant effort to remain friends (in theory, we still are, but we haven’t talked in years). Despite this cauterized ending-and-beginning, I still wasn’t entirely “over it” and wasn’t immediately into dating or looking to date – I was happy to spend some time as single me enjoying life abroad. It was pure luck that Brendan showed up when he did – I don’t believe the whole “it will happen for you when you are happy with yourself” because plenty of women who are happy for themselves don’t see romance immediately bloom – just as I felt fine giving up my single lifestyle and yet was happy with where I was. It was a good time to come – not really into dating, ready to spend some time on my own having adventures. If you can find that “you” place where you can make peace with a stint as a single loose cannon, well, that’s just about the right time to come live abroad for awhile.
This also means not centering your life around men and dating, but that would be my advice regardless of where you live. Live for yourself, not some hypothetical (or real) boyfriend.
Yeah, I know I've been faffing about recently with talks of caramels and pineapple cakes, but it was a busy week, I didn't get nearly enough sleep until the weekend and I had a headache that just wouldn't quit. So anyway.
I think the main reason why I've been putting off writing this post is because, honestly, a lot of the reasons why Taiwan has such a low birth rate are, as I see it, similar to why the marriage rate is declining. It's hard to talk about it without sounding a little repetitive. I do think, however, that there are some really obvious factors that the government, in its zeal to promote having children, is forgetting.
I should start out by saying that as far as I'm concerned, the declining birth rate is a good thing for Taiwan (as it would be for the world if it were a global phenomenon) - at least in the long run. Yes, in the next few decades it presents a problem as fewer and fewer young workers are around to support the elderly, but I feel like that's a jagged little pill we simply have to swallow to lower the population across the board, and not in a bat shit crazy Chinese "you can only have one baby!" way. The Earth can't handle many more people, we can't feed many more people, the skies can't handle the emissions from the power usage and transportation for many more people...if anything we need fewer people. In total. Globally. Taiwan is in an especially sensitive situation as it is truly running out of arable land, settleable land and resources (including clean water and the ability to develop new land in an ecologically safe way). The government is so guns-blazing pro-baby that it's not accounting for these issues, or for the fact that more children now means even more children to support them later, and eventually Taiwan is simply going to run out of space. The entire world is. (In other words, David Reid said it well).
All that aside, I thought I'd take a look at some of the reasons why the Taiwanese are not having babies - it's not because they're worried about the environment or overcrowding (although these are things that as citizens, they should be thinking about).
Aside from reasons that could also apply to the low marriage rate, there is one glaringly obvious point that needs to be made: most Taiwanese don't think they have enough money to comfortably raise a child or multiple children.
This is a developed-world phenomenon, not just a Taiwanese one, but it seems to be more pronounced in Taiwan, despite the fact that in terms of purchasing power and living standards, Taiwan now outranks Japan.
I'm not sure where to draw the line on how much this is an assertion driven by a culture that values humility and savings vs. how much it really is not financially feasible to have a lot of children, or any children, if you are Taiwanese.
In some cases, I think it really is an issue of thinking you don't have enough money when really, you'd make do just fine if you were to have a kid. Some sacrifices would be necessary, sure, but you wouldn't grow bankrupt. You see this a lot in the USA: we'll have a kid when we have a house big enough for a nursery, and can afford day care, and we're at good points in our careers and in a position to start a college fund.
It is absolutely true that if you really want to have a child, but you want to wait until conditions are "perfect", you never will. If you truly want it, you wait until you can reasonably pay for things like food, clothing, care and medical bills but not until you can afford a fancy crib in a dedicated nursery.
Of course, if you don't want a child, no amount of being ready will push you towards it, and that's fine too.
There is also the fact, though, that square footage in which to raise a kid is an expensive proposition in Taipei - I can see why a Taipei family would put off having children or have fewer children because they simply can't afford an apartment big enough to house them. My husband and I make a pretty good wage and yet I'd balk at the amount of money we'd have to pump into a mortgage if we were ever to buy property in Taipei, and that's for a modest one-bedroom.
On the other hand, it's much cheaper to have a baby in Taiwan than in the USA. Taiwan actually has a healthcare system that basically works, unlike the broken, unaffordable mess we have back home - prenatal, delivery, post-natal and pediatric care are all covered, though you'll have to pay more for electives (such as specialized birthing centers and 'mothers' hotels' in which to take your month of traditional maternity rest). Day care/kindy/nannies are cheaper than the US, but not exactly cheap. Baby-sitting is unheard of, but often you still pay little or nothing for the equivalent: having your in-laws watch your kids, which is far more common here.
Furthermore, the least economically advantaged people in Taiwan still seem to be having babies - rather like in the USA, it's the middle-to-upper classes who seem to be slowing down (no, I don't have any stats to back that up, just my own subjective observations)...so it may be more a case of "we don't have enough money to raise a child without making significant sacrifices" rather than "we simply don't have enough money to raise a child".
Which, hey, I'm not criticizing. You hear a lot of criticism of that view, with the assumption that you should be happy to sacrifice certain things to have a child. I'm not willing to sacrifice travel, and a relatively free lifestyle to have a child - at least not right now - so those folks'll get no judgment from me!
Yes, people with far less money had children just a few generations ago, but let's look at some of the differences that made that possible:
1.) Daughters were married off, not educated, and the expense of school and university for girls was not an issue;
2.) Property was not nearly as expensive and settlements not as densely packed;
3.) It wasn't considered a "given" that your kids would attend university or would need to get into the best high school;
4.) An agricultural-turning-to-industrial society still meant plenty of people in the countryside with space to raise their children;
5.) Kids simply had less than parents today feel are necessary: from learning English to computers to cram school;
6.) If you couldn't afford all your kids you'd often give your daughters away to be raised by others (seriously, that's what they did - "you can't have kids? Need a farm hand? I can't feed her - here ya go!") - my neighbor Old Fang complains bitterly about how this was done to her - "they didn't care about me because I was a girl. They just threw me away, gave me to someone else like I was nothing".
7.) Mothers generally did not work and if they did, they lived with the husband's family who would raise the children;
8.) If both spouses worked and didn't live near in-laws, the children would go live with their parents (this is still fairly common).
The government's financial bonuses for having children is aimed at this issue: I believe the bonus is NT $20,000 (which is in the hundreds, not thousands, US, but is not a shabby amount either). Many women's rights groups don't care for that initiative, however: "We're not vending machines into which you throw some coins in return for a baby" said one activist. "What women really want is a high-quality public day care system."
Which brings me to other points that are similar to the reasons why Taiwanese women are marrying in such low numbers.
When you marry in Taiwan, there are a whole heap of gender expectations pushed on you - if not from your husband than from society and especially in-laws, although it's considered acceptable for your husband to have those expectations, too. You do find yourself in the position that many married women in the USA had to deal with decades ago: working either because you wanted to or needed to, but not expected to be a breadwinner, and yet still expected to keep the house clean and the kids, if you had them yet, reared. Taiwanese women do have mothers and mothers-in-law to help with those things, but that's not always a good solution (I adore my in-laws but this is a sentiment that not many people seem to share with me in Taiwan). It means having to deal with your in-laws ideas about child-rearing, their expectations of your home and who should clean it, and if you don't care for them, having to live in the same apartment or neighborhood.
Is it any wonder that Taiwanese women, faced with the choices of "let mom-in-law watch the kids" (assuming she doesn't like her mother-in-law, which is quite sadly common here), "or take on most of the child-rearing because my husband isn't going to help, while either working or taking a hit to my career", would choose to have no children, or as few as possible?
I've heard that the average salary in Taiwan is NT$30,000 per month, but let's say this is a more middle-class couple and they each make NT $60,000/month (for which you have to be at least in middle management in this country and work punishing hours that are really out of proportion for what amounts to $2000 US). A good kindy/day care or nanny is going to cost NT $20,000-$30,000/month, which is 25% of the couple's combined pay. That is, honestly, way too much - whether in Taiwan or in the USA where the percentages are similar.
So I see where women are coming from when they say that they want good public day care. Either they're faced with a quarter of their income gone (assuming each spouse makes $60K, which is twice the average) or with one of them taking a hit to their career...and let's be honest, that's usually the wife, not the husband. How is that in any way fair - in America or Taiwan? Can you blame a couple for not wanting to deal with that?
Speaking of work and having children -
Taiwan has a more mother-friendly working world, at least in larger companies - there is mandated maternity leave (no such thing in the USA), taking a month off (坐月子) is common and expected, stronger family ties make it possible for most families with babies to have someone care for their child - usually but not always a mother-in-law - while the mothers go back to work, and in terms of purchasing power parity, getting a day nanny or sending your kid to nursery school is more affordable here than in the USA.
On the other hand, in smaller companies it is fairly common for prospective female job candidates to be grilled about - or not hired because - you may be taking time off to have children. Horribly long hours at work - hours that no Westerner would ever find acceptable - make it harder to spend time with children, and if you work in Taipei and your family lives somewhere else in Taiwan, you may be faced with having your child live with his/her grandparents until (s)he is ready to start school at age 7: something not every parent wants. Under those circumstances, would you really be keen to have children?
I still think it comes down to three things:
1.) the expense of living space and child care (if family watching kids is not an option) is too high for most couples: I can't count how many of my students have said that they don't take high speed rail because tickets for them and their children are too high, and how lucky I am that we can still take it as we're only paying for two. Or how many have said that they only have one child because they can't afford kindy or a larger apartment in which to raise two...or who have said that they have made so many sacrifices to raise one or two kids that another one is out of the question.
2.) Women sick of the gendered expectations heaped on them as wives and mothers - we've come a long way in terms of gender equality in Taiwan, but it's still the wife who is expected to bear the burden of household duties and child-rearing. It's the wife who is expected to quit her job if necessary, the wife who is expected to take hits to her career, and generally the wife who shoulders all of the burden. She has more support (family nearby) and more legal back-up (mandated maternity leave, a month-of-rest culture) but more expectations, too. I'm lucky to have a great husband who would do his share if we were to have a child and who is great at helping around the house - he's almost certainly better at housework than I am! Not many Taiwanese women can say the same, though.
3.) Taiwanese people, happy at their newfound, just-in-our-parents-lifetime prosperity, are enjoying life as citizens of a developed country and don't want to go back to the financial sacrifices necessary as a developing one: sacrifices that they'd have to make for children. This is similar to the USA, although we've been developed and "prosperous" for longer: now that all these young Taiwanese can afford to shop at Shinkong Mitsukoshi, go to spas and take four-day trips to Bali, Guam or Hong Kong, they don't want to give it up to pay for day care and school fees. I can honestly say that while I don't shop at Mitsukoshi and I get my massages at local 按摩 shops, that traveling is a heap of fun and I don't blame anyone for hesitating about giving it up. Many Taiwanese still remember how hard their parents worked to send them to college, and how their grandparents lived in drafty brick houses and either farmed or worked in factories. Do you blame them for wanting to enjoy a better life for awhile?
I'll cover it in two sections - first revisiting the idea of marriage in Taiwan, and then I'll put up a new post above discussing the issue of the low birthrate. I'm very much anti short-form blogging (it has its uses but if you want to really get at the meat of something and consider every angle, it doesn't work and it promotes short attention spans) but it would probably behoove me to shorten my posts just an eensy bit!
I've already covered my thoughts on why Taiwanese women aren't marrying at anywhere near traditional rates but with the publication of this article, I thought it would be a good time to revisit the topic. I won't cover my reasoning and thoughts again - but I stand by what I said back then: the expectations of traditional gender roles in marriage and a rising consciousness and awareness that they don't have to stand for such treatment is probably what's keeping Taiwanese women from choosing to marry, along with feeling that Taiwanese men haven't kept up with the times and changing values brought about by modernity - the fact that hey, it's no shame to share an equal part in handling home, child and elder care duties and hey, it's OK if your wife out-earns or out-reputations you - yes, I made that nouny verb up - and hey, women ARE in fact equal to men. Different, but equal, and there is no shame in that so get over yourselves already.
To be fair, not all Taiwanese men feel that way. I am happy to be able to cite many men among my students whose wives are equally successful and of whom they are proud, not ashamed. I am happy that I can tell anecdotes of male students who, when asked what they did on the weekend, say things like "I took care of my baby" or "I visited my in-laws because my wife is on a business trip" or "I cleaned the house with my wife". Good for you. The world needs more of you.
To put it simply, encouraging the government to "instead of being pro-natalist, be pro-marriage" is just not good enough. The government, if it is to be pro-marriage, needs to do so in a modern, equality-minded way and maybe look into the reasons why women are choosing not to marry (again, covered in my last post, linked above). They need to take into account that marriage and children (mostly children) generally don't present a problem to men climbing the career ladder, but that they do present a problem to many women. They need to encourage men to accept more egalitarian household and child-rearing roles. Then we might see more marriages.
This story was linked to by Michael Turton, and I have to say that one comment on that post disturbed be a bit:
Dismissing marriage as simply a bad institution is a cop-out. There have been serious structural changes to Taiwanese society, economic in particular, that are not necessarily desirable. No, no marriage for marriage's sake, but we should think about what's changed rather than be so politically correctly dismissive. The decline of marriage, I think many will find, is a reflection of harsh realities for the generation coming of age and in its early adulthood. And the 1 year+ military draft on males just makes things worse (in a more traditional society, military draft didn't make as big of an impact, but today, that means women make more than men, at least early in their careers).
I would really, really like to know what "Anonymous" means by that. "there have been serious structural changes, economic in particular, that are not necessarily desireable...today, it means women make more than men, at least early in their careers."
Um...I can't help but read this to imply that the pro-female changes that have taken place in Taiwanese society are, according to Anonymous, "undesireable", and most undesireable of all is the idea that Taiwanese women often make more than men.
Really? Like, for serious? Why is this a problem, and while I admit that for some, it is a problem, why should it be? What is so bad about a wife out-earning her husband? Is this so shameful that it is causing women to choose not to marry, or that - even worse - it's causing Taiwanese men not to marry Taiwanese women (and if it is, why are we focusing on the women - the problem in that case is with the outdated attitudes of the men).
I did have a few problems with the article: namely, why is it that when we discuss marriage in Taiwan, we always focus on women? Why isn't any one discussing how men feel about this? If the marriage rate of women is down, wouldn't it also be so for men? There are two possible issues at play:
1.) That the marriage rate isn't really down for men, as many of them take foreign brides, something Taiwanese women don't often have as an option.
If anyone has a statistic that can prove or disprove this, I'd love to hear it. Yes, I am a lazy blogger who doesn't want to hunt for her own statistics, which is why I'm a blogger and not a journalist.
Yes, many more Taiwanese women marry Western men than Taiwanese men marrying Western women (though I can point to at least one real-life example of a Taiwanese man-Western woman marriage, so it definitely can happen). I'm not entirely sure why this is, but I think the answer is both obvious and multi-faceted. Taiwan is more progressive than other Asian countries, but I have found it to be absolutely true that there are still traditional gender role expectations among many (not all!) Taiwanese men that Western women just can't accept. If there's a language barrier, I've found that a Western woman is less likely to accept this in her relationship - here are two anecdotes that don't prove anything but do make a point:
When I first arrived in Taiwan, I posted on a popular travel forum that I was here and happy to meet up with anyone in town for drinks or a coffee (a fairly popular way for travelers to meet up in the age of the Internet). I ended up having lunch and tea with a Canadian in town for a week visiting friends, on her way to the Philippines to go diving. She told me about her last boyfriend, who was French Canadian - English was not his first language and she didn't speak French fluently. She clearly remembered a conversation they had in which she just couldn't make the nuances of her point clear to him in a way he understood. She said that she knew right there that that the relationship would not end in marriage - she couldn't be with someone that she couldn't express her thoughts to and couldn't communicate with fluidly in a common language.
After I'd been here for awhile, I changed jobs and had a coworker (who still kind of works for us, but in a limited capacity) - in order to make a point clear in a seminar we were co-teaching, he told the class about his wife, who is Taiwanese. He talked about how sometimes, she would try to say something and end up speaking pidgin, children's English because she knew what she wanted to express but just didn't have the words to get it out - so they ended up communicating in simplified language (there is a similar anecdote in the Amitav Ghosh book, In an Antique Land, which I thoroughly recommend, about his research into an individual who lived during the Indian Ocean trading decades in the 1100s. He was from somewhere in the Arab world, and his wife was south Indian - Ghosh surmised that they must have communicated in a type of pidgin language). He thought this was perfectly OK, but I remember thinking "Wow. Well, good for him, but I could never do that. I need someone I can have long, winding, tangled-up conversations with." I don't mean this as a slam against him - he's a great guy. Just...different strokes for different folks.
There's also the fact that, let's face it, there is still a prejudice towards couples where the man is bigger and the woman is smaller, and we Western women tend to be taller and curvier and so many Asian men are shorter and thinner. This is, once again, not always true, and I know many men in Taiwan who are taller and burlier than I am, but it probably is a factor. Is this fair? Well, no, but it's probably true to some degree.
And finally, there's the fact that Taiwanese men are - honestly - a bit more shy about asking women out and there is still a bias towards men asking women on dates (I've never felt that this should be an issue, but apparently it is).
2.) The more sexist reason - it's not seen as "important" or "an issue" if a man chooses to remain a bachelor, but heaven forfend that a woman might choose the same.
I would really like to think that this is not true. If it is, it's so deeply sexist that I don't even know where to begin. I mean, seriously [redacted] that [redacted]! (My in-laws read this thing - you can fill in the expletives).
Unfortunately, it probably is true, at least to some degree. Take these two paragraphs:
The largely single status of Taiwan's most popular female entertainers is also worth noting; if their chosen predicament is not a direct reflection of society, then it certainly serves as either affirmation or a consolation for the unhitched woman. Lin Chi-ling, top supermodel and considered one of the most beautiful women in Taiwan, turns 37 this year without an engagement announcement in sight. Pop Princess Jolin Tsai, despite her youthful appearance, is also pushing 30 and single. The same status goes for famed artists like A-mei (38), Vivian Hsu (36), Elva Hsiao (31) and many others.
On the other end of the public spectrum, both Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen and former vice president Annette Lu are single. Both women voiced their desire to run for 2012 presidential elections, although Lu publicly dropped out of the DPP primaries Tuesday, citing her concern for the environment outweighing her need to win in an election. Chen Chu, the incumbent mayor of Kaohsiung, is entering her 60s and has never married.
The first paragraph - "then it certainly serves as either affirmation or a consolation for the unhitched woman" - the writer makes it sound as though being an unhitched woman is some sort of disease that deserves neither consolation nor affirmation. Really? Seriously?
Then the writer goes on to name several high-profile single women - never once mentioning high-profile single men. Jay Chou is single - why not mention him? There must be a few unmarried male politicians and captains of industry in Taiwan, and I have met more than a few unmarried engineers working for Taiwan's major tech/IT firms.
So why is this only a problem vis-a-vis the women - particularly the successful women - of Taiwan? Why all the hullabaloo about the low marriage rate regarding women? Why this assumption that it's fine to be a single successful man, but worthy of a mention in the newspaper if you are a single successful woman?
Feeling generally annoyed with this double standard - that the low marriage rate is somehow a woman's problem and not a man's (AAAAAARRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!1111!!!!!111!!!!one! NOOOOOO!!!) - I've been asking Taiwanese men since I wrote my last post what their thoughts are on this issue.
I don't have a huge sample size, but I've gotten a few answers:
- Women aren't interested in traditional gender roles
- We (the men) who would have married in an earlier era are not doing so, because we work so hard that they have no time to date (notably, engineers)
- A lot of the women who would have married in an earlier era are not doing so because they also work so hard that they have no time to date (notably, accountants)
- Taiwanese women are more interested in studying or living abroad or advancing their careers (maybe in the cities, but the countryside? And even in the cities, I already addressed how most "office jobs" in Taiwan are so uninspiring and require putting up with difficult bosses and long hours that I can't imagine that that's why women aren't marrying - we aren't talking about a new generation of women who are passionate about their work)...and Taiwanese men want women who are more interested in family and children.
- We (the men) want women who are more traditional, and Taiwanese women aren't fulfilling that (if true - and I am not sure it is - that makes me really sad)
- Taiwanese women insist that any man she marries has sizeable savings and can afford to buy an apartment and a car (not sure how true this is, but someone did say that so it's worth mentioning)
- Taiwanese women are sick of putting up with the traditional expectations of in-laws and don't want to deal with the pressure to have a baby that they may not want, so they just have boyfriends, they don't marry
- We (the men) aren't changing our outlook fast enough and the women aren't going to tie themselves to someone who can't bring himself to do the dishes (this from one of my more progressive male students)
- We (the men) can get a foreign bride so we don't necessarily care why Taiwanese women don't want to marry
- We (the men) are so scared off by the white men that Taiwanese women date that we are too shy to ask the girls we like on dates (I smell BS on this one, personally).
And of course, the Internet, which is full of all sorts of horrible comments, has dredged up some other ideas, notably that Taiwanese women aren't keeping themselves as pretty as they used to - more body fat, less makeup, hair that's not done up - and so men are losing interest. I call BS on this one because I've met plenty of average-looking married Taiwanese women (and as an average-looking American woman I can say that not being "hot" is not much of an issue of you are looking to marry a man who isn't superficial).
In short, when looking at low marriage rates in Taiwan, why is everyone watching the women, and why isn't anyone looking at the men? Aren't they half the equation?
I've had this on my mind for awhile, but am only now really able to articulate it...and am not even sure I can articulate it well!
Basically, as you all know, I got married recently. And I did, against all my feminist impulses, change my name. Not because I thought I had to, or because I took it for granted that I would, or even to make life easier - because, if anything, it's made life more complicated what with all the document changes spread across not one but two countries!
No, I changed my name for aesthetic reasons. My maiden name is long and hard to pronounce in that special way that only Polish names are (it's not quite as mystifying as some you've surely seen, but it's up there on the impenetrability scale). Living in Asia with a name that is quite literally as long as four Chinese surnames all strung together was no easy thing. "And now, please welcome your seminar instructor, Ms. Jenna....err...Jenna....uh...K-K...Ka...Kw...umm...Jenna!" - and that from colleagues who know me pretty well! If you think living with a hard-to-pronounce name in the USA is tough, try doing it in a country where most surnames are monosyllabic. My husband's short, phonetically easy name is easily grasped by even those who speak no English whatsoever - which is a rarity in Taipei city. I changed it, in part, to make things easier on that front, so that I could be introduced or have someone look at my business card without scratching their forehead at a mass of letters. (To my name's credit, it has more vowels than the typical Slavic surname).
What's more, despite being very proud of my Polish heritage (hooray for kielbasa is all I can say), my husband's name plus my own first name are simply more aesthetically and aurally pleasing than the name configuration given to me at birth.
What's been tough is that, really, deep down, I don't believe in name-changing. I realize that a woman's maiden name most often comes from her father, but still, subordinating identity from father to husband? I'm not big on old-skool feminist speak (despite being a staunch feminist) but c'mon. Kind of reeks of patriarchy, does it not? (Don't even get me started on the "Mr. and Mrs. John Smith" method of formal address. If anyone ever calls me "Mrs. Brendan C." beyond some well-meaning but out-of-date ancient relatives, they are gonna get an earful).
I'd like to clarify thanks to the comments my reasons for hating the "Mr. and Mrs. John Smith" style of address: I don't care what the books say, I don't think it's proper usage anymore. It was originally devised as an etiquette rule, a social grace if you will. The point of etiquette is to be just that: socially graceful. To not offend anyone. To make others comfortable in social situations.
Well, "Mr. and Mrs. John Smith" offends not only me but plenty of other women, and as such it no longer serves its purpose. It doesn't make people comfortable, and it has stopped being "inoffensive". There is, therefore, no reason for its continued existence. If it's bad etiquette to offend others, then "Mr. and Mrs. John Smith" is bad etiquette by all reasonable definitions, unless its usage is specifically requested (in which case I don't care - someone can request to be called Mistress Bazoonga the Chimp and I'll do it if that's what she really wants).
I am not judging on any woman who chose to change her name; it's a highly personal decision and now that we live in an area of true choice, I do trust that any woman who chooses to change her name does so with full consciousness, as I did. The important verb here is, of course, chooses. Even if that woman is otherwise traditional or conservative, there is always a choice: I can name at least one good friend of mine, who got married a few months before I did, whose wife chose to keep her name. They are the most conservative Jews I know personally (though not the most conservative ones out there, by a long shot). My parents are Christians of the super-duper-liberal-love-and-acceptance variety which I respect (I have my own very complicated relationship with theology that I won't get into) and yet my mom admits that had the world been a more accepting place when she married, that she would have done so.
It also stinks that women still get a bum deal: we get a choice, but we get all sorts of baggage with that choice; we get invective and judgment that we never asked for and shouldn't really have to deal with. We get a choice between a father's name and a husband's (and, in some states, a made-up new name from letters gleaned from both). We still don't get the choice of a fully female-owned, self-owned name. I did inquire about changing my name to my mother's maiden name, but a.) it's not allowed for a marriage license name change in New York State, and b.) I'm not looking to offend my dad's family; I am fiercely proud of being part Polish. Taking a swipe at a patriarchal system isn't something I need to do at the expense of real people who are related to me by blood.
And yes, some get fiances who insist. Well, I didn't - and I wouldn't have because I wouldn't marry someone who would insist on something like that. So many women do, though (just read catherine_sr's comment for a particularly disgusting example). I don't hold anything against those couples; people make compromises all the time when they choose to pair off, and none of us has the right to judge what another person or couple has chosen to compromise on.
In short, it's been tough. I've been lagging on changing all my documents because, on some level, I don't really want to. I didn't know it was possible to be philosophically opposed to your own name....but here I am. Mrs. Jenna C., with a driver's license, passport, various investment documents, voter registration, business cards, Taiwan residency permit, NHI card etc. all under Ms. Jenna K. because I just haven't changed them.
(Which, I'd like to add, is my right. It is perfectly legal to change your name but continue to use your maiden name as long as you are transparent about it and not using it to hide illegal activity).
Yes, before you ask, I did bring up the possibility with my husband of coming up with an entirely new name for the both of us, but he didn't particularly want to change his own name which I respect given how much of a bother it is to change all of your documents and ID cards, and how hard it is to adjust to the new name - something I am learning firsthand.
Why am I writing about this now, months after making the decision? Two reasons.
The first is that I never realized the depth of my discomfort with the idea of name-changing.
The second is that I live in a country where women don't change their names.
In terms of maintaining identity as a married woman, it is honestly a bit jarring to realize that there's an Asian tradition that is more female-empowering than that of the West. I've never known a woman in Taiwan that has changed her name to her husband's, and while friends assure me that it has been done on occasion, that it's really quite rare and would be seen as "odd" by most people. Despite all of the hype about in-laws wanting the quick birth of a grandson, rather than granddaughter, despite the fact that children generally take their father's surname rather than their mothers, at least the wives themselves generally retain their own names. They don't get junk mail addressed to women who never existed and they don't get judged by random people for retaining their names.
The only time a woman in Taiwan is referred to by her husband's name is if the entire family is referred to under the name of the man ("The Chen Family") or if she's referred to as a Taitai (ie, Li Wen-ya, wife of Chen Baichuan, referred to as Chen Taitai). This is the term of address commonly translated into English as Madame - a la Madame Chiang Kai-Shek.
So, what with all the arguments back home for "It makes life easier if we all have one name", honestly, changing my name has been nothing but difficult so far (though given time, when I meet new people who only know my by my new name, it should get easier as my new name is so much easier to pronounce). People just don't...get it, and I don't mean that in an obtuse way. They don't get it because it's not in their cultural sphere, and until I explain things, it hadn't even occurred to them that women in the West do often change their names (or, if they already knew that, it didn't occur to them to remember it as it so often counts as an esoteric piece of knowledge, not applicable to daily life.) I get asked why, but thankfully without the judgment back home - on both ends, mind you - both the militant feminist sorts who think I sold out by even considering the change, and by the traditionalists who question why I am not enthusiastic about changing.
And it is true that back home there's judgment to spare: everyone has an opinion on what my (by "my" I mean me, as well as all women like me) choice should be, and why their opinion is the only correct one. It's one thing that's refreshingly absent here. I get curiosity; I don't get judgment.
That's so rarely done, though. I don't know any women under the age of 70 who are commonly called, or appreciate being called, (Husband's Name) Taitai.
As one student of mine put it, "I'm Chen S.F., or Ms. Chen. If someone called me Hong Taitai, I'd think 'who is that?' or wonder 'Really, am I so old?' But nobody ever calls me Hong Taitai, so it's OK."
So. Here I am, an American feminist residing in Asia, a woman who supports and fights for equal rights, equal treatment, equal opportunities and equal respect for men and women, going by my husband's name when the 12 million women around me who ostensibly come from a more sexist, anti-female culture happily keep their own names. They're all Ms. Chen, and I'm a Taitai.
No, I don't think that this is because Taiwan has a traditionally more liberal or female-friendly society than the USA does. Clearly that is not the case. I'm not sure why name-changing never caught on in Taiwan, but what I'm concerned with now is the fact that is decidedly not common - I'm curious as to why but that's for another post someday.
It's fairly common to change one's first name, or to have it changed for you by your parents: this can be done twice by law in Taiwan, and for any reason. One student of mine had her name changed from something rather "strong" for a woman to "Wen-ya", which implies grace and feminine demureness. "I was a tomboy and my parents wanted me to be more like a girl," she explained. "Did it work?" "No!" Considering how easy and common it is to change one's first name, I can't imagine there's a huge taboo on changing your surname (though I could be wrong). It's just...not done.
This raises a lot of questions, none of which I can answer clearly.
What does it say about me?
More importantly, what does it say about American culture? Could one not say that Taiwan has some interesting liberal aspects to its otherwise traditional culture that America lacks? Is the USA hopelessly mired in a conservative rut when it comes to women and families?
(OK, I can answer that question. I think the answer is "yes" but there is hope.)
How can I, as a super liberal feminist, keep going on about equality after changing my name because it sounded prettier?
Does keeping a name (or not) have anything whatsoever to do with a woman's status as an equal member of society?
Do I really need to feel as outdated as I do - like a taitai - in a society where the idea of using your husband's name is considered seriously out of date, something that your grandmother may have done but you'd never do?
