Today's Rally: Pass The Damn Marriage Equality Bill Already!

Or as I call it, the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Freedom, because it's really insane that this bill has been purposely delayed for so long, and insane-r that its homophobic detractors changed the language to allow three-way marriages, group marriages etc. in the hopes that that would kill the bill (assholes).

Especially when more than half of Taiwanese citizens support marriage equality.

So, LGBT rights activists, getting louder by the day in Taiwan, are getting fed up and starting to push for change.

And it's a good thing too. If Taiwan passes marriage equality, it will be the first country in Asia to do so. It will be a true thought leader, a truly modern and progressive society. (No, I don't believe it is possible to have a modern society without equal rights and that includes marriage equality). It will set itself apart in all the best ways. It will be a beacon of conscience in a sea of homophobia (not that the West doesn't have plenty of that too, of course). It will stand apart. Taiwan can, should...nay, must do this.

With Pride coming up on October 25th, this smaller rally had a more specific goal than "we're proud!" - it was to urge legislators to stop sitting on their hands and pass the damn bill already (it would be great if it didn't have all that 'group marriage' language in it, but I care so little about that that it doesn't change my opinion that the bill must be passed). The people support it. You know it's the right thing to do. You probably don't have any Bible-fundie "but it's my reliiiiiiigion to be homophobic, how dare you call me a bigot, God told me to think this way!" objections, so pass it.

I would estimate attendance was in the thousands - maybe not 10,000 as organizers had hoped, but pretty good for a small, poorly publicized (at least I only heard of it through a friend) rally aimed at the passage of a specific bill that, while the issue has broad support, is just not a "bring out the crowds" issue the way it is in the USA.



One thing the protestors did was put symbolic locks on the gate of the Legislative Yuan, to symbolize one's conscience being locked by homophobia (the legislators' names and photos were chosen, obviously, based on who opposes the bill). Legislators were invited to come and unlock their locks - three did, apparently.

Wang Jin-ping's presence on this wall does not surprise me. He has no conscience, and he likely doesn't think this issue is important enough that he has to use political capital to support it against the general will of his party.

Nor does it surprise me that the strong majority of those against the bill are KMT - a reactionary, conservative party who at worst actively inhibits and at best is apathetic about social reform (that wasn't always the case - a lot of advances in women's rights were passed by then-KMT-affiliated President Lee Teng-hui at the turn of the millenium). No surprise at all that if you want to overturn homophobia, you need to kick out the KMT. I can't find the source right now but will keep looking - I have read that about 4/5 of KMT legislators don't support the bill, whereas 4/5 of the DPP do.

What does surprise me is that it seems Hsiao Bhi-khim's name is on there. Brendan and I both thought of her as an American-style progressive - I can't imagine what's going on here. If someone could enlighten me I'd appreciate it.



Also, no rally is complete without a dog wearing a funny ribbon, sticker or outfit.



I would love this Pride flag superimposed with Taiwan if they hadn't included the "Taiwanese" (read: ROC) flag - I don't care for it and its KMT associations, especially as the KMT is the main reason the bill has not yet been passed.



Pan-green sentiments, such as Taiwanese independence, and LGBT rights tend to go hand-in-hand in Taiwan.



I have this water bottle that I take to all the protests, which serves as a repository for the stickers they give out. The Chinese for the marriage equality one says "homophobia is unconstitutional". I'm not sure if that's strictly true, but that's not the point. (I'm also a fan of "I don't need sex because President Ma fucks me every day!", which is on the lower left).







"A divorced Christian could marry a virgin - why can't a gay person?"



I don't get this one - "even the unmarried queens all marry"?

The smaller sign says, I think, 需要恢復的是我們結婚的權利 or "the need to resume (the passage of the bill, I guess) "is our right to marry".



More pan-green (and to be fair, pan-blue, but mostly for political convenience) sentiments intertwined with pride. This sign says that she hopes for real democracy in Hong Kong, and that we can have universal marriage rights in Taiwan.

Just A Few Delightful Things

Eat here: 台灣原味滷味， 新北市中和區景平路493－5號 / 捷運景安站

Original Taiwan Flavor Lu Wei (braised & boiled things) Zhonghe, Jinping Road #493-5, MRT Jing'an, fastest to grab a 262 next to Sushi Express and take it to Zhonghe District Office (中和區公所) and it's across the street and up a short walk further next to Five Flower Horse (五花馬), which is also pretty good.

First, I have finally discovered the joy of eating pig's feet. I never liked it when I got a big bowl of nothin' but pig foot - kinda gross, actually, it just looks visually unappealing - but I have found when it's sliced up into tender pieces of meat and trotter, that mixed in with rice it's really quite delicious.

I discovered I liked it, after all these years of being too unimpressed with the look of the stuff to take a bite, when I passed the place listed above and this unholy delicious smell enveloped me and I had to try their food that very instant. So I pointed to what some other people were eating, not aware that it was pig's foot with rice (豬腳飯), and ordered that. It comes with tender bamboo shoots, a piece of braised tofu and a braised hard-boiled egg. I also got Taiwanese tempura (甜不辣) - their tempura sauce is also delicious. So good I poured the remainder on my rice.

So that was a good discovery.

Also, this News In Brief feature is just full of gems:

Taiwan News Quick Take

I mean, first there's "Canada Warning Issued", which is the best headline ever. We all should be warned about Canada more often.

Then there's the entire paragraph detailing the state of President Ma Ying-jiu's butthole. It's really more than I ever needed to know about President Ma's ass, but there ya go.

I guess he needs to keep it in good condition so it can be reamed by China. (BAM!)

Finally, there's this website:科技心，醫師情.

It seems on the surface to be just a dating/matchmaking website for Taiwanese professionals, and in a sense that's exactly what it is. The application page (no, I'm not going to apply, obviously, I was just curious) says that not only are engineers and doctors welcome, but that all sorts of professionals, from teachers to entrepreneurs ("anyone with a proper job", to quote it, but I think that comes across a little less offensively in Chinese, more like "any employed professional") may apply.

A student of mine (female, doctor, married) said, however, that their real market niche is setting up single male engineers, who are often (not always!) too overworked, too shy and too socially awkward to go out and date easily, with female doctors, who are too overworked and not in a good place in society* to find a life partner if they didn't marry a classmate (apparently male doctors who didn't marry a classmate are more interested in nurses, and both these women and men generally prefer that a man be on an equal footing, career-wise, to his wife**). Another student, who is a fairly high profile person (tech industry, male, married), said that they called him to ask if he'd be interested in signing up (me: "you could've said 'just a second, let me ask my wife. Hey honey, am I available to sign up for this dating website?'").

I personally think it's brilliant. If female doctors really want men who are at approximately their level professionally (although some engineers in Taiwan might disagree that they are) or acceptably close enough, engineers fit the bill. And while the older generation of Taiwanese men, including engineers, might have preferred a stay-at-home wife (or a wife to help run the family business), the younger crop of single thirtysomething male engineers, observed from my interaction with them as a teacher, seem far more willing to have a wife with a demanding career and the high level of education that goes with it. They wouldn't necessarily be scared off by a female doctor (some would, but I'm speaking in generalities).

Two segments of society that often have a hard time dating, being specifically matched up because they wouldn't have many chances to meet each other normally (it's not like all the single female doctors and all the single male engineers go to the same bars after work) is pure genius. I wish I'd thought of it.

*which is totally sexist bullshit, I know, as it is in any society, but this is a legitimate issue single female doctors face in Taiwan

**I don't care for that opinion either. In the US I'd call it sexist bullshit so I'll call it sexist bullshit in Taiwan, too.

On Family Pressure and Female Expats

Now that I'm married, there is less expectation that I'll move back to the USA, but I still get asked...a lot.

Something I have noticed after years in Taiwan -

While there are fewer women than men living abroad long-term, especially single women (by "single" I mean "unmarried/not in a very long-term marriage-like partnership"), among those I know there seems to be a trend that isn't visible among men.

That trend is the pressure of family - specifically, the pressure expat women feel (you could call it "pull" for a less negative connotation) toward their families back home, or that is put on expat women by those families. This is not a personal post - although I admit that my family is more vocal about pressuring me to move home than my in-laws are, I think that has just as much to do with family culture (mine being vocal and opinionated with a tendency to overstep a few boundaries when expressing themselves, though I love 'em anyway and I readily admit I do it too - nurture over nature methinks) as it does with me being female. This is an observation of a trend.

When talking to female expats I know, especially those who have been here for over a year, I hear similar lines again and again - "my parents are bugging me to move home as usual", or "they're supportive of my travel but they'd really prefer I live closer to home" or even "my folks sure lay on the guilt trip about me living so far away, I think they want me to come home, marry a nice local boy and live less than an hour away for the rest of my days". They get asked more when (not if) they're moving back, they get more admonitions, or hear more worrying chatter, about how "dangerous" it is to live abroad - don't even try explaining to most of these worrywarts that Taiwan is not only extremely safe, but safer than the USA and possibly/probably safer than their native country, all they envision are white slavery markets, "Not Without My Daughter", "Brokedown Palace", rapists and robbers, or at least kung-fu movie-style Triad gangsters, passport thieves, drug mules and pickpockets.

I know many will say "but this is normal, all parents worry", and they do. I am sure the parents of all those male expats worry too. The difference is that they either don't worry as much or don't express it as much. They may not worry as much (even as they think they worry plenty) because there's an implicit narrative in most cultures that grown men move away, build lives, start their own homestead, go independent, and that that may take them to faraway lands - and that's OK, because they're Grown Men and they can Handle It. Early explorers were men. Early settlers were mostly men (women did come along, at least eventually, but almost always as the relatives or spouses of male colonists and settlers). Until very recently men held the jobs, bought (or built) the homes, earned the money, built the family. It's expected in our culture to foster this independence, to expect it, and when that independence takes a Grown Man Far Away, it's...OK.

Or they may worry, but not express it - a parent or grandparent worrying over a daughter far away will get lots of cooing sympathy noises. A parent or grandparent worrying over a son far away will get some sympathy, but there's an implicit cultural expectation that they have to Let Go because their son is a Grown Man and has his own life. The worry is reflected upon and then set aside, rather than repeated to friends, other relatives or the grown son himself.

Women, on the other hand, until very recently lived at home until they married and moved away only when their husband's job required it - of course, exceptions exist, but we're talking general social trends here - and lived as a helpmeet to the person who made it all happen. There might be talk of "building a life together" but it was quite well understood who did the building and who made it pretty. While single women did move away, it was more rare, and it was generally not quite so far away. Women explorers? Ha - can you name one? (If you can, please say so in the comments, I'd love to hear it). Women colonists? Look at this roster of people on the Mayflower. There were women, but they were all companions/relatives, wives and children of men. I see plenty of men coming independently on that list, and not one woman. Women expats? There are plenty, but not as many as there are male expats (see linked article at the top). Stories of women going abroad in the age of colonialism and sea travel are rife with wives, mothers and sisters accompanying or visiting their male relatives/spouses abroad. I can only think of one - fictional - account of a woman going abroad by herself without any male companion at the outset or destination (whether or not she found one later - well, I won't spoil it). Compendia of travel writing by women, or fictional stories about women abroad without men, tend to be modern.

You may disagree, but I see this as pretty compelling evidence that women just aren't expected to go that far from home by themselves, and so their families back home are granted more leeway by society to bray for their return. There's even a saying: "a son's a son until he takes a wife, a daughter's a daughter all her life". That's about marriage, but I'd argue that it opens a window into how society expects men to flee the family nest, possibly to remote locations, and for women to stick as close to home as possible. It's not difficult to see how this would impact female expats, especially single ones.

Usually this is couched in the very real language of "we miss you", and parents of children of both genders certainly do. It's quite rare that parents come right out and say "a single woman shouldn't be so far away" or "you should be home, you should get married, that's what good young ladies do" in their entreaties, but you know what? I've heard this too. The parents in question were extremely religious living-out-West-in-pure-evangelical-Republican territory and had Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum-like views of the world, but still. It's not unheard of.

The pressure gets pretty intense, too. I have heard female expats talk about family who wants them to return to help care for ailing relatives in a way I've never heard male expats talk - although I suppose the "anecdata", such as it is, may be skewed by the fact that fewer male expats may wish to share such confidences about family. Female expats, from my observation, tend to spend more time on Skype or on the phone with family back home, and the conversations tend to be more emotional in the "we miss you!" department. My husband is an exception, he e-mails his parents more often than I do mine, but my e-mails are longer.

I can say from firsthand experience that this changes once a female expat marries. I still get asked when (not if) I'm coming home, but less often now, and with more acceptance that I may stay. Now that I'm married, the expectation seems to be that I'll "settle in", and it's more acceptable for me to do that abroad, as long as the settling happens. It gets better - but not that much better.

All of this, plus other issues (see again the link at the top) create more pressure on women to return home, and so it's no surprise that they often do, often more quickly than men. If I had not ended up in a relationship I might've returned home, too.

So what to do if you're a female expat and you're feeling pressured by family to come home?

First, validate. Their feelings are important, and they deserve acknowledgement. "I know you miss me, and I miss you too" goes a long way. They want you home because they love you - don't brush that aside.

Second, be conscious. Understand that this is going on - if you know what's happening, and if you seen the attempt at a slow attrition of your desire to live abroad by people back home, the best way to prevent guilt from getting the better of you is simply to realize it is happening, and keep your stores of inner confidence well-stocked. In fact, being conscious - seeing clearly the areas where your gender affects how society views you and what society expects of you - is the most basic and in some ways most effective weapon in any feminist's arsenal. Use it.

Third, be firm and be clear. You can prevaricate if you want - sometimes that is the better solution if a direct "no" or an answer that the person doesn't want to hear is going to cause an argument and not get the guilt-tripping to stop. That said, in most cases it's better to just get right to it, even if you feel the question is starting to push boundaries. Let the tone of your voice and the sparse words you choose close the conversation for you. A simple "No, this is where I live now" or "I have no plans to move home" or "I feel settled here" or even "This is my home now" will go a long way towards getting people off your back. Also, stay on message. You are your own one-woman PR campaign for why your life does not require the intervention or worrywart meddling of others (and I say this with love - again, they wouldn't worry if they didn't love you, unless your family is totes dysfunctional).

Fourth, don't let the exchange go on forever. As with all debates (and this is a form of debate, if the discussion goes on and on), saying more than you need to get your point across either buries the point too deep, or provides too many openings for people to jump on and discuss/argue over (whether it's a discussion or an argument depends on your family, and in some families the line isn't very clear). "Taiwan is very safe, Nana, there is very little crime compared to the USA" is a far better reply than a list of statistics on low mugging, gun violence, murder and other crime rates compared to the USA. "National Health Insurance is fantastic, Mom, don't worry" is better than "I won't get sick, jeez! First of all..." followed by a long list of reasons why it's easier to care for your health in Taiwan. It's a discussion, not a blog post.

Be honest but keep it positive. That doesn't mean feign happiness or say everything's "fine" when it's not - it means, be honest about your life, but speak about it using positive words and a tone of voice. If your tone isn't positive, and you can't think of anything upbeat or optimistic to say, maybe you should be questioning why you live where you do. That goes for anywhere, not just Taiwan or abroad. I wonder all the time why expats I hear whining about how much everything in Taiwan sucks, constantly, don't consider leaving...or just leave (it's one thing to have the occasional rant or acknowledge the occasional sucky thing - that's normal. It's another to always have something to complain about and very few good things to say).

Bring photos and think of cool stories - this won't convince the most hardcore conservative "ladies should live at home!" families, but it has really helped with my somewhat more accepting one. Create a 30, 60 or 90 (after 90 it gets boring) photo slideshow, depending on how long you've been abroad and how good a photographer you are, load it onto your device of choice, and offer to show it, with some very short comments you can make as it plays. Throw some music in there. Go for wild, wacky, won't-see-this-at-home photos. In Taiwan, think temple festivals and moutain and coastal scenery. Have a few stories on hand to tell - think them through beforehand so they actually go somewhere - about the amazing experiences you've had. And if you can't think of any? Expand your horizons, brah. Make it happen.

Find ways to keep in touch more - they may just get off your back a bit more if you take more time to stay in touch. Write a few extra letters or e-mails (Grandmas love letters, don't you ever forget it). Skype more. E-mail photos, or for the technologically challenged ("I can't open photos embedded in e-mails" "You have a Mac, just drag them to your desktop" "I don't have a desktop!" was a real conversation I had with a relative over Christmas) have them printed and mail them. Make it feel like you are closer than you are, and they may relax a bit. After all, what they really want is to see more of you.

If you can afford it, try to visit home once a year - I know some people can't, but making that annual trek home makes it feel as though maybe you just live on the opposite coast, not on another continent. A daughter in California would probably only visit her New England hometown once a year, so a daughter in Taiwan won't feel that different if that's what you do, right? I know this is not always feasible, and a post on how male expats are often more able to do things like this as they're more likely to be over here on business, not teaching kiddie English or studying (and how freakin' unfair it is) is in the offing.

Anyway, that's all I've got for ya.

Have more, better or different advice, or an experience with family pressuring you to move home? Leave it in the comments, I'd love to hear from you!

The Dating Debacle

Some interesting thoughts on Bamboo Butterfly on Dating in Taiwan (Part I and Part II).

I wrote a piece on dating advice in Taiwan awhile back (edited not long ago), but of course, my thoughts in that area are to be taken with a grain of salt, seeing as I've never actually dated a Taiwanese guy. I was in a relationship with the man who is now my husband within months of first moving here.

I don't entirely agree with Bamboo Butterfly, but it's interesting and true enough that it is definitely worth a read.

Basically, my findings are this:

It's true that your average Taiwanese guy is generally more likely to prefer what you'd say is generally an average Taiwanese girl (note the very heavy use of "generally" and "average" here - I don't wish to stereotype): quieter than your average foreign woman (although not nearly always: I know plenty of very outgoing Taiwanese women and just as many very quiet American women), slender...I'd say "more modest" and "not as showy" but really, c'mon, with all the fake eyelashes and butt-shorts I see in this country I don't really buy that old cliche. It's true that your average Taiwanese guy is probably going to be just as judgmental about qualities he doesn't like in women in both personality and physical characteristics than your average American guy or wherever-guy.

But...you know what? I'm, err, curvy. And by curvy I mean overweight. I'm flamboyant. I'm loud. I have bright red highlights and my favorite color is eye-assaulting aqua or cobalt. I'm talkative. I'm aggressive. I'm tall - taller than many, but not nearly all, guys here. I am everything a "typical" Taiwanese guy is supposed to not like. And yet, I've had plenty of interest shown in me - I've been chatted up (in a totally not creepy way) on the MRT, had students who clearly had crushes on me, was once told it was too bad I had a boyfriend and had compliments on my looks (which aren't much of anything, really) and had guys who initially seemed interested later on show an interest in friendship (which I tend to brush off, it's a bit weird when you're married), indicating that it wasn't just an interest in a fling.

Bonus! Here's me looking like a drowned rat in Fugly Pants and hair plastered to my head while river tracing in Yilan.
So, as you see, I am not slender, I am not girly, and I am not afraid to wear Fugly Pants.
If Taiwanese guys could like me, they can like you. Your pants are probably not as fugly anyway.

All this just proves that for all those guys who like what you'd expect, there are so many who like something else. I do think a lot of Taiwanese guys who like a foreign woman (or foreign women generally) are the ones who don't want what they see as "normal" in Taiwanese women (I have no doubt that plenty of these guys will go on to meet awesome, cool, outgoing, flamboyant Taiwanese women, in addition to foreign women, though). They're the ones who don't mind a little curviness, who don't want the quiet, sweet, highly manicured "presence" that Taiwanese women are encouraged to cultivate - please note, I don't think all Taiwanese women actually are those things, just that the culture here encourages them to be that way more than, say, American culture encourages women to do so. Who think a little bit of loud&crazy is not only fun, not only acceptable, but desireable. If those guys didn't exist, I wouldn't have any Taiwanese male friends, but I do.

I don't agree that men in Taiwan generally aren't into foreign women the way that women in Taiwan are into foreign guys: I've had more than one guy tell me that they'd actually love a foreign girlfriend, but don't know how to go about making it happen, or are too shy and know it. I think this perception that Taiwanese men don't like foreign women is a false assumption based on the fact that they don't show it as much when they do like someone, and they often won't show it at all when they like someone they know they can't have (or are too shy to go after). Not always - I had one student who had a pretty obvious crush on me and, while he said absolutely nothing inappropriate, it was just really obvious. You know what I mean - a lifetime of being outgoing but really a big dork at heart means I'm not the best at figuring these things out and even I could tell. He probably could have hidden it better - so no cultural observation is universally true.

I do think a lot of foreign women don't realize it when a Taiwanese guy does like them, because it is true (and I completely agree with Bamboo Butterfly on this) that he's not likely to be as forthcoming, not as likely to act on it, and not as likely to make the first move, or any move. It's been pretty well documented by my local social network here that what we see as "friendly" stuff that a guy friend might do with a girl-bro is seen as what we'd call "casual dating" in the West. By the time a local girl and guy go out on an actual date in Taiwan, they're far more "official" than we'd consider ourselves to be in Western culture. A few of my foreign female friends have noted this: dating just happens differently, and a Taiwanese guy could be thinking he is making a move by going out for coffee, hiking or whatever one-on-one where a Western girl might think he's just being friendly. He might not be aware that his intentions are not nearly as clear as they would be with a Taiwanese girl, and she may not be aware at all that he likes her.

I've seen it happen more than once! This is an extreme example, but it happened to a friend of mine who went hiking, jogging etc. with a local guy several times and thought of him as a friend. Then one day he started talking about how they'd have to compromise their cultural differences as a couple and she was all "wait, WHAT!?" Not the norm, I think, but it makes a point.

Final thoughts: laydeez, look for the cool, quirky Taiwanese guy who wants what you have to offer. Don't get discouraged thinking that they as a whole are not interested. Chances are, they are. Don't think you have to morph into some stereotype of a quiet sweetling (which doesn't even hold much water in Taiwan: it's a cliche for a reason) - there's probably a guy in Taiwan who likes you for who you are now. Be more alert: what you might think of as basic friend stuff might be, to that guy, more. So don't write him off because he isn't approaching the whole thing the way a Western guy might. Be on the lookout for cultural differences and attitudes: you don't want to end up with a guy who seemed great while you were dating but then ended up having some pretty sexist ideas about what sort of girlfriend (or wife) you should be. Guys who are happy to buck those notions do exist - find one of them instead.

And don't lose hope. There's probably a Taiwanese guy out there with a crush on you right now - you just don't know it because he's not showing it in the way you'd expect.

Success and Having Children in Taiwan

Go read this now.

Why Women Still Can't Have It All

This is really a USA-based article, but still worth a read, very thorough and very articulate. A lot of it holds for Taiwan, too, but then I also think a lot of women in Taiwan choosing not to have children are doing so not for work related reasons (most jobs, let's face it, are not really worth the sacrifice, and those include a lot of low-to-mid-level Office Lady positions - although I fully recognize that a job that may not be "worth it" to me might well be very much worth it to another woman, so take my words with a Himalayan salt lamp-sized grain of salt).

I touched on this a bit the last time I wrote about the low birth rate in Taiwan - on how the main reasons are a feeling that they can't afford to have children, that they want to enjoy now-possible freedoms and comforts their parents didn't have, and gender-based expectations of who is going to take on more work raising kids is still a huge issue. It's huge in the USA, too, but, err, huger here. If that's a word. I also mentioned that the working world, if you work for a larger or international company, is actually friendlier to women, with guaranteed maternity leave and a culture where grandparents are more likely to provide free childcare (the same does not hold for smaller companies, where women are routinely kept back because of a fear they'll have kids and stop being useful to the company).

I didn't touch on what this article covers - women at the absolute top and their decisions on choosing to have kids...or not to.

In the course of my daily work I'm exposed to a lot of women at the top of their careers. CFOs, heads of departments, Taiwan CEOs, legal counsel, physicians and researchers, general managers. While I'd say it's 50-50 regarding whether those women have children, it's also far more likely that you'll find unmarried women and married women without children in those positions.

I'd say that of these - speaking only from my experience - about half don't have children, and of those about a quarter are unmarried. The unmarried women at the top that I know of seem to have no desire to tie the knot (good for them - marriage is not the be-all and end-all of a woman's life or the most important of her accomplishments): I can't come up with any examples of very successful Taiwanese women who are unmarried but have a desire to be. Far more common is marrying and not having children. One woman, who was at the top but has recently resigned from a very high-level job in finance (it even made the United Daily News), is unmarried with a child. Not notable in and of itself, but worth noting in a reflection on high-ranking women in Taiwan and the family decisions they make, especially as her departure was big enough to be reported on (I've met her - she is a very decisive woman).

The striking thing is that you'd expect, if you were so minded, to hear these women say "I would have liked to have had children, but I put my career first", or "I had always intended to have children, but then when I was finally ready it was too late" (something you do hear in the USA - at least in online comments: women who had always thought they'd have kids and then woke up one day and realized they'd never actually done so and it was either too late or almost to that point).

But they don't - most of them will very matter-of-factly tell you, if they are so inclined to tell you anything, that they had never really wanted children, or had decided early on not to have them.

I can't speak for the husbands of these high-powered women I know who do have children; I don't know them. I've been told that they're not that different from the sort of (stereo)typical "allows gendered expectations of child-rearing to continue" man you'd expect, but I don't have that on first-hand knowledge.

That's something - and seems to me to be a strong difference in attitude. A lot less ambivalence, and a lot more decisiveness. I guess if you live in a society where it's more expected that you'll have children (and a son at that! Gah!), you are more likely to be more decisive if you decide not to have them. This may have influenced a decisiveness in my own tone regarding not having children - had I stayed in the USA I might have continued to be a bit more ambivalent, because I would have had the social room to do so.

This leads me to believe that women in Taiwan who reach the top of their fields who don't have children are choosing not to not because being at the top of your field requires so much sacrifice that they forgo this kind of family life, but because they're the sorts of women who wouldn't have wanted children regardless. It's just who they are. I can relate to that - I don't want children, but it's not because of my career. I could realistically have both. It's just who I am (I might write more about that in a future post, or not).

In that way, they may be more like Peggy on Mad Men (bear with me - I've barely seen the show - please do correct me if I'm wrong and Peggy's wanted children all along) than the all-too-common-on-Internet-comment-threads American women who wanted children but wanted a career more, or who had intended to had children but ran out of time while chasing a career. My experience has shown that Taiwanese office culture is not nearly as much like America in the '60s (ie, Mad Men) as a lot of people assume it is, but still, this says something. It says something about the pressures and expectations women face in Taiwan and, as a result, who gets to the top and who doesn't.

In the end, this is true for women in Taiwan, the USA and elsewhere:

We currently live in a world where men make more money for equal work. This means that it's all too common that the parent who stays home or takes a hit to their career is the wife - because, hey, you've gotta earn a good wage for the family.

We also live in a world where, in order to get to the top (at least in the corporate world), you have to basically sacrifice yourself to your company. This is true everywhere. In Taiwan, I feel that many people have to do that anyway, even if they don't get to the top - in the USA you have more of a choice to work reasonable hours (but if you want to be "successful" in the typically expected sense, you'd better make the sacrifice). This means that the parent or parents who take that path will be giving up something - you can't have a real commitment to family and work those hours.

The difference? Women might be more likely to cut back as a result. It's not true that the working men of yore could have a career and a family - he could, but unless he was truly 9-to-5, he probably didn't get to spend as much time with that family as he would have liked. They couldn't have it then, and they certainly can't have it now, with working hours what they are.

So "making it" in the traditional sense, where you have to give up time with your family, isn't going to work if we want a truly equal world.

And we can't change things until we admit that and create a working culture where you can succeed and still have enough control over your schedule to spend real time with your family, and get rid of gender-based expectations of who will do the brunt of the child-rearing and who will take the hit to their career to make that happen.

Then, we need to create a world where a woman who wants children can discuss how it will work with her husband without the lingering expectation that she'll make the sacrifices. She'll be able to enter that discussion knowing that they'll work something out together and he's just as likely to take the hit as she is, and that the hit, importantly, won't be that bad, or that career-damaging.

Then, and only then, will we have equality, or something like it.

Big Diamond

Photo from here, not that I think you want to buy an engagement ring, but to
give credit for the photo

Not long ago, I was standing in a crowded MRT car as the train hurtled towards Zhongxiao Fuxing. I looked down at the guy in the seat directly in front of me. He was  quiet, self-contained, a bit nerdy, had the look of an engineer or first-year market analyst. Those ubiquitous black thick-framed glasses sat on his nose. I noticed that he was pallid, hunched forward a bit, and his hands were shaking.

I was about to ask if he was OK - mostly out of self-interest, because if he was as close to hurling as he looked, my shoes were right in the line of fire - until I looked again and noticed the handles of a small bag wound through his blood-drained, earthquake fingers.

A small, bright blue bag. From Tiffany. Inside was a ring box. And then I thought: awwwwwww. Even though I'm not the kind of girl who melts over diamonds, it was still sweet. I mean, he could have been buying his mother diamond earrings - this is the country where Listen To Your Mom (聽媽媽的話) became a hit song - but judging from his apparent need for a sick bag, my guess is that he was about to propose.

I wanted to then say "加油！" (good luck / you go!)  but didn't - didn't want to freak him out any more than he clearly already was.      

What got me thinking, though, was that diamond engagement rings are only a fairly recent thing in Taiwan and are still not all that common. Someone else commented on this story - saying ask your non-Westernized local friends if they bought or received a diamond engagement ring. They probably didn't, because it's not the "done thing" here the way it is in the USA.

But, you know, I was surprised. I did do just that even though I don't have a lot of married, non-Westernized local friends (I do have a few). The majority of those under age 40 said that yes, they did in fact buy their fiancee a diamond engagement ring. I mostly asked the men - I don't have that many married, non-Westernized Taiwanese female friends. They're generally single or at least unmarried. I do plan to ask a few, though.

One student I was chatting with said that his wife wouldn't marry him until he bought her a Cartier diamond ring (he's an executive at a well-known company, so don't feel too bad. He didn't scrimp and save and go without to do this). Two more admitted that they bought their wives or fiancees rings - both still from Cartier. So Cartier seems to be the default place to buy a ring if you're an under-40 upper middle class Taiwanese man about to get engaged.

My own engagement ring - I think I've posted it before. Check out the AWESOME DRAGON

The one person who said no, he did not buy his wife a diamond ring, was the student over 40. I didn't ask a friend of mine who is 40 because he married at about 20 - too long ago (back when it wasn't a "thing") and far too young and just starting out to be buying diamonds.

I was just surprised at how many "yes"s I got - I expected at least an equal number of "yes" and "no" answers, since there's no history of diamond marketing in Taiwan. All those LED-covered shiny "Bridal Diamond" stores you see - especially around Zhongxiao Dunhua, where Hearts on Fire's sign will make you go blind if you look at it directly - seem to be a new thing, not something that started gaining momentum in the early-to-mid 20th century as it did in the USA.

New as it is, it seems to be surging.

I can't say I'm happy about it: the diamond-is-the-only-acceptable-engagement-ring cult in the USA makes me a bit ill. People can like what they like and spend what they want on whatever they want and yes, diamonds are puuuuurty, but the marketing practices, the prices forced up as high as they are and the whole conflict diamond thing stirs great acrimony and sadness in me. I don't really want to see it come to Taiwan.

One thing that was great about living in Taiwan during my engagement was that nobody questioned the fact that I did not get - and did not choose, and would not have chosen - a diamond. In the US during our brief visit it wasn't a big deal, either, because I surround myself with awesome, loving people who wouldn't make shallow "but it's not a DIIIAAAMMMOOONNNDDD" remarks, but if I'd lived there for the entire engagement, someone who wasn't a friend or beloved relative probably would have said something like that - you can't be just around your loved ones 24/7. Sometimes you have to deal with others. Sometimes those others are great, sometimes they're, for lack of a better word, nincompoops.

But in Taiwan, it was totally cool. I didn't even really need a ring to be accepted as "engaged". No judgment, no problem. I would hate to see that eroded by Big Diamond.

My Taiwan Valentine

awwwwwwww

"My Taiwan Valentine" being different from "My Taiwanese Valentine", of course. If I had a Taiwanese valentine I think Brendan might be a leeeeeeettle upset.

First, enjoy this. Watch the video, too.

And enjoy this. I think next year Brendan is getting Easter candy and a bag of hammers.

So generally we're not big V-day celebrators. Not because I'm anti-Valentine's day, but rather that I'm anti-crappy chocolate (and most of what's sold on V-day is crap). I'm also, while not the sort who says "I don't want to feel pressured to express my feelings by marketing behemoths for their profit" (although there's some truth to that), I am the sort who has come to realize how unimportant the day really is when you're in a good relationship. I have found that stuff like this takes on outsized proportion when things are bad - like you need that planned expression of affection on the corporate-mandated day to prove to yourself that things really are OK. When things are good, you don't care as much about meeting these expectations.

For me anyway. Some folks are in great relationships and still place importance on days like this, and that's fine too.

But, Brendan and I still like to spend time together, and figure there's no harm in having some of that time be around Valentine's Day. This year, however, we're both working in the evening. In a few short hours I'll be back on the HSR to Hsinchu to teach in the Science Park. Since the day itself is not that important, we had our Valentine's Day Love Fest on Sunday - and took advantage of the gorgeous weather.

We took the Maokong Gondola   - I know a lot of people worry about its safety but I personally think it's fine. I've been on it many times and do not fear that something will go wrong. They should change the name, though. "Gondola" is a dumb name for a cable car, and it's doubly annoying to have to teach students what a "gondola" is and then shrug my shoulders when they ask why that was the name chosen for the cable car.

As you can see, we shared a car with a group of women from SE Asia. At first I thought they were Filipina (I thought they were speaking Tagalog) but now I'm not sure - they didn't say much. They could have been Thai. I know they weren't Vietnamese by the language spoken. They spent most of the time taking glamour shots of themselves, though, not chatting - so it's hard to say.

This is a tough time of year to take the Gondola - with the cherry blossoms on Maokong in bloom, if the weather is even remotely decent and it's a weekend, the thing is packed. We were blessed with a lovely, clear day on Sunday, so we had to wait about an hour to board. They were handing out required "reservation" tickets with boarding times. We arrived at 1:37pm and were handed a ticket for 2:30-2:45. We expected this, though.

There aren't as many cherry blossoms on Maokong as on Yangming Mountain, but enough that the easier task of taking the gondola - vs. driving or taking a bus up Yangmingshan - is a good alternative. They also bloom much earlier in Taiwan than elsewhere (esp. Japan) due to the warmer weather.

It's fairly common in every country where Valentine's Day has made some inroads - it's certainly known in Taiwan - for people to celebrate it when they're young and in love and forget about it when they're old fuddy-duddy marrieds (like me!). I kind of understand that: as I said, if your relationship is good, then Valentine's Day, birthdays, other holidays etc. stop becoming a barometer of your relationship status or "goodness", because you don't need them.

What I've noticed in Taiwan, though, is a different sort of not celebrating Valentine's - in the US you'll get the V-day haters, and the ones who are romantic but not on that day, or the ones who are fine without romance but don't really announce that. You get those who say "oh, we don't bother" but they rarely explain it with "because we've been married for so long". Usually there's an implication that there's romance elsewhere or at other times.

I think this couple had a similar idea
for how to spend the day

In Taiwan, you get the older married folks who not only admit to not celebrating Valentine's, but  say that it really is because they're older and married, and, you know, everyone knows that old married folks don't have romance (that last part isn't actually spoken, but it's implied heavily in the tone), that's for crazy young kids. Not that I ask, but I get the strong sense that there is an acceptance of less romance in these relationships overall. Not so much that they don't bother with Valentine's Day, but that they don't bother with that kind of romantic expression at all.


I can't be sure of this, of course - many American couples wouldn't necessarily cop to having a romance-free marriage, and I could be reading the tone wrong in Taiwan, and be adding an implication that wasn't intended: perhaps the tone used merely conveys a deeper sense of privacy about such  things.

But, you know, while divorce - at least in Taipei - is reaching numbers that rival the US's divorce rate, the whole concept of divorce being acceptable, or no-fault divorce, or even "wow, it's not the woman's fault, we can't automatically blame the wife for not being pliant or dutiful enough" divorce, is fairly new in Taiwan. The idea of remaining single by choice or because you  have high standards is new, too - especially for women. It's a more recent change, which means that old feelings of "you marry because it's socially expected, you have kids because you should and you stay in that marriage even if you're not happy, and even if that can't be fixed, even if your husband as a mistress" still linger. I could see how that would bring about a feeling of "eh, people who have been married for awhile don't have, don't need and shouldn't expect romance or love" which might be echoed in the comments I hear.

But enough dreariness. The weather was so balmy and rejuvenating that, between soft pink sakura and bright blue sky, who can help but feel that love is a beautiful thing?

After walking around - and dodging traffic - we settled in at Mountain Tea House, a short walk from the gondola station but beyond most of the crowds. We go there often, because the view is good and the food is tasty. I especially recommend the Lemon Diced Chicken (檸檬雞丁).

As per my blog's namesake, I brewed lao ren cha and we talked, chatted, ate snacks, and quietly read or studied Chinese. I don't consider retreating behind a book to be unromantic (retreating behind a computer or iPod is more unromantic to me, not sure why) - part of what makes our relationship so great is that we can both be quiet and doing our own thing, and still feel a vibrant connection. That's important - because who can talk all day and all night to one person? Even if you have that early chemistry that makes you want to just spill your guts and talk for hours, it eventually fades (not completely, but it does) and something needs to be there to replace it. A connection that transcends conversation.

We also spent a little time taking glamour shots of ourselves.  Here's my frank admission: while I'm fine with being curvy and average looking in real life, there are two things I know are true about my looks:

1.) I am really not photogenic. At all. Even if I look fine in real life, I look terrible in most photos. I'm OK with that, too, until I actually see the photos, which I quickly delete or de-tag.

2.) I have one really great feature. One thing that, when I look in the mirror, I think "wow, that's just great. That looks good". One thing that helps me be totally OK with being otherwise completely average-looking. I won't tell you what it is. I think I've mentioned it before, and anyway it should be pretty clear. 

So, when good photos of me come along - which happens about once a year, if that - I milk those babies for all they're worth, because it'll be awhile before more good ones are taken.

But first, some glamour shots of my super handsome, I mean really handsome, I mean "da-yum how did I land me such a hottie" husband.

I *heart* the green eyes

I mean I love him regardless, I'd love him even if his face got all messed up or he gained 200 pounds. I'd love him if he was not so good-looking...but you gotta admit, I lucked out in the Hot Husband department.

Then, Brendan took some shots of me, when the sun was providing good light:

We stuck around past sunset, because I love the night view from Maokong. I also have a camera now that has a timer, so I can set it on a flat rail and take decently focused night shots, as though I had a tripod.

Then we ventured down to Nanjing E. Road for dinner at Ali Baba's Indian Kitchen, but that's not terribly exciting - just tasty!

Marriage and Living Abroad, Part The Second

Beautiful flowers in a beautiful home housing a beautiful marriage

This hasn't happened to me in Taiwan, but what I've seen on various expat forums and even witnessed among expats in China (I was too young, and in a place with too few expats, to see it in India) is an expectation that marriages, when taken abroad, not only often fail for reasons specifically related to the expat shift, but are expected to fail.

Memorably, a thread on one major travel forum in which more than one person proclaimed - or insisted on, or pontificated on, your verb of choice really - the inevitability of most expat marriages failing (the discussion was centered on marriages where both spouses were expats). The main reason for this? If it was a corporate gig the man (it's always assumed that the working spouse is male and the trailing one female - ugh) would either work too hard and not be supportive of his wife getting used to a new environment, or, more likely, he'd inevitably want to, *ahem* dip his wick in the local pool.

Now, most of me wants to say that's ludicrous, and in my experience - both personal and in being around other dual-expat couples - it's not true at all. Various commenters might say it's not true yet, but I'm confident that they're wrong.

A small part of me can't ignore the fact that a lot of expat marriages do fail, and around the world, the community is strewn with examples of exactly what I said was ludicrous above. I've semi-witnessed it firsthand (a couple in China that I got to know during my brief stay in Beijing after my year in Zunyi was up), and it followed all of the tropes and cliches that I like to pretend aren't real. Guy gets job abroad, wife follows soon after, wife thinks marriage is strong (not sure what he thought), within a year guy is cavorting with local women and not-so-secretly thinks his wife is an "aging, nagging, irritating old hag". I'd like to pretend I didn't see it happen (I mean I did not literally see it happen, I just knew them at the time that this was going on, was aware of the issue, and it was more drama than my 22-year-old brain could process at the time). I like to pretend this sort of thing is a Grimm's Expat Fairytale, made up and full of mythical bugbears and boo-monsters, and it doesn't actually happen in real life except to couples that are poorly-matched or the guy's just a douche and his wife, when they married, didn't realize it.

I will say when I met them that they seemed well-matched, and that the husband seemed like a good guy, but I didn't know them that well and I didn't know them for very long - oh yeah, and I was 22 - so my impressions aren't worth much.

Of course there are other reasons why things might not work out, just as their would be in one's own country. People change, always slowly, rarely to a great extent, but they change over the course of their lives. Especially from their mid-twenties (when one is likely to get married) to their mid-30s (when one becomes more likely to be sent abroad). I've found the change is far greater when you travel for an extended period or live abroad. I've changed more in my 5 years in Taiwan than I believe I would have had I stayed in Washington, DC. Brendan  has too, I'm sure.

Culture shock and adaptation affect different people in different ways. I personally have mellowed out a bit - I know, I know, it doesn't seem like it but you didn't know me in college - whereas Brendan's grown a bit more outgoing. Of course, that could be our influence on each other, too. I recently realized that I sometimes take things too personally and how good Brendan is from depersonalizing himself from things other people say, and is better at seeing their quips as a reflection of themselves, not him. These differences in reaction have been small with us, but I could see how they might be huge with another couple, especially one in which each spouse has different experiences: if one spouse is working and the other is at home, their impression of the new country and culture will diverge, probably quite a bit, and they might face huge marital issues vis-a-vis these changes.

To wit - an example I heard online: classic working man and trailing spouse wife in Southeast Asia. He was having a grand old time entertaining clients, going to swanky restaurants, living the big business life. She was at home with little to do (they had a domestic helper) and her experiences mostly made her aware of the unspeakable poverty and rampant sexism skeined throughout the land and culture. She just didn't get why her husband dismissed her shock so blithely, and of course, he didn't understand what she was so shocked about. It was like they were living in two separate boxes, each denoting an aspect of the culture, and couldn't quite reach across and see what was happening in the other box. Exeunt.

Living abroad but having two different experiences can cause two people to
feel as though they're boxed off, eperiencing entirely different things,
even within one culture.

Another example - a couple, also known of online, in which the working spouse had lots of chances to socialize through work but the trailing spouse was having trouble reaching out and making friends, even among other expats. The trailing spouse's friends were basically the friends of the working spouse, and that was the extent of her social life. Financially, emotionally and socially dependent on him,  she felt she didn't have her own true friends or experience and definitely not a support network. She had no one to turn to when they started fighting, and she eventually left. Exeunt.


Then I look at my own marriage, where if anything, life has become more comfortable and culture shock experiences and changes have caused us to bond more deeply rather than grow apart. We don't quite fit the classic mold - we knew each other before but got together abroad and married while abroad, and we both work and hold similar jobs. There's no "working spouse/trailing spouse" and we're a bit younger than many (not all!) married expats. If anything, expat life has strengthened us and turned us into wiser people with a better marriage than had we never had the experience.

I'm not writing this out of worry - nobody knows a marriage like the people in it and I am extremely confident of mine, Internet blatherers be damned - but more that, in knowing that my own expat marriage is quite successful and seeing so many other successful examples - I want to rail against the greater online expat community's belief (or at least the belief of its shrillest voices) in the inevitability of expat marriages failing - and especially the deep-seated belief that expat men will always cheat with local women (for those of you who know Brendan, feel free to laugh at how hilarious that is when you consider his personality. He might cheat on me with a book - "sorry honey, I'm going to be out late tonight reading The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" - though).

In the end, while the "expat men will always cheat on their wives with local women" cliche does happen (and might even happen for the reasons cited by the worst of the sorts of folks who spout this rhetoric), I don't accept it as commonly true. I accept it as something that happens, sometimes, but not because it's inevitable and certainly not because "all men are like that", or "men prefer the women in Country X because they're Y whereas Western women are Z". Sometimes it's just one bad egg making all men look bad, and a wife who made a mistake in marrying him.

Usually, though, I'd say that the reason things like this happen is because there was a problem with the relationship itself before it got taken abroad. Maybe it would have been fine had nothing ever changed, and the issues that the move to another country uncovered would have never even been issues if they'd never left home, but that doesn't mean they weren't there. Like a buggy software program that you never open, they're still there and still buggy, and the only reason you didn't know it was because you hadn't opened the program.

What I don't accept, and never will accept is "men just prefer Asian (or wherever, but you hear this mostly regarding Asian) women". That not only generalizes about men and makes them look bad, but doesn't say anything nice about anyone else, either.

Being Married and Living Abroad, Part The First

Being a married expat is great, too.

I guess you could consider this the bookend to my earlier post on traveling while single vs. traveling as a couple. I talked about traveling there, but here I'll meditate a bit on married expat life vs. single expat life. Of course, my experience likely differs from many, partly because I'm just a big ol' weirdo, and partly because most expats are male, and partly because there are a lot of aspects of expat culture that are taken as givens that I don't participate in (because I'm a big ol' weirdo).

So I attended a tea and lunch yesterday, mostly other expats, and realized that I was the only married person there. At first I felt that it was a bit strange, because when I organize similar sized events of my own, I'm almost always not the only married person - expat or otherwise - in attendance. Then I thought about it some more and realized that this is true among my social circle - people tend to attract friends who share similar lifestyles after all - but if I were to venture out more among the wider world of expats in my age group (late twenties, early thirties), married folks would be in the minority. Possibly the vast minority. Then I look at my friends back home, and most of them are married (one is divorced). Of my close friends from my old life, only two are unmarried and both of them are in long-term partnerships. I look at my friends in Taiwan and while many are married, a higher proportion are single than back home.

Why? Well, my first gut response was "people my age who end up getting married, now that marriage is no longer the social imperative it once was, tend not to be nomadic types who would move across the world unless compelled to do so for work", which probably has some truth to it, although I know plenty of couples (me&Brendan included) who don't fit that mold. My second gut reaction was "fewer people are getting married at this age generally, which probably bumps the stats up to where they are".

I've also had the chance to live an expat life while single, and I can say that while some things haven't changed, plenty of things have. 

It caused me to contemplate a bit - what's different? What's not?

Well, the occasional bouts of loneliness are gone - and if you're an extrovert and single but don't generally fit into expat social circles where you live, then there will be bouts of loneliness. You go out, you come home, and when you do there's nobody there but you - and possibly some roommates, who may not count as people to talk to. Whatever just happened to you - whether it was an easy-to-digest night out or a deeply jarring bout of culture shock - unless you call someone (assuming you have anyone you're close enough to who you can call), when you get home, you process that alone. It can lead to unhealthy brooding without necessary outside opinions. That's something I learned in China, before the other two foreigners I befriended arrived: when you have no other-foreigner perspective on whatever issue you're facing, you have only yourself and the local perspective to listen to, and that's not  necessarily a good thing.

The financial scraping-by is gone: right around the time I coupled up, I also got a better "non-buxiban" job that can rightly be considered 'professional', and let me just say, being a DINK is great. On my income alone I could just about afford where we live now, but it would necessitate a much tighter budget. I'd probably still be living in foreigner flophouses with a bunch of roommates that I may or may not like. My furniture wouldn't be my own, most likely - although at a younger age I preferred it that way (if the furniture's not really mine, when I move I don't have to deal with it)!

What I think has changed the most, besides the greater financial security of two incomes, has been that "whatever happens, you process it alone"aspect of single expat life. Of course, if I were single in the USA I'd be doing the same thing, but when you include the added difficulties of life abroad, that need for company, that need to talk it out with someone, grows. At least it did for me.

This kind of scrapes the patina off of the "expat life as great nomad adventure, fit for eccentrics and loners"myth. It makes expat life more like my ideal back-home life, more so than my actual (single) back-home life ever was.

Married life has not ruined
the expat adventure!

It has not ruined the adventure, though. Sure, in some ways it feels like there's a universal law that when you're not by yourself, less crazy stuff happens (it could be that the stuff that does happen seems less crazy when someone else you know is there). In China, I was once on a bus that drove up a flight of (outdoor) stairs. I am not joking about this. Nothing of that level of WTF?! has happened since I've been half-a-social-unit. Adventures still happen, though. Pasta'ai, especially the first time around when stuff got crazy, was an adventure. Our unplanned car trip over the North Cross Island Highway was milder but still an adventure. Walking down Heping E. Road at 11pm and seeing a taxi driver with his pet goat - yes, you read that right - and learning that at night the goat drives around with him? Adventure. Sort of. It just hits you in the gut a bit less because there's someone there to share the impact, in the same way that culture shock or upsetting incidents don't cut so deeply, because either I'm not alone when they happen, or if I am, I come home to someone who I connect with deeply, can share some perspective and (if necessary) offer comfort.

Pasta'ai was still a great adventure, even though I did not go alone.

But let's be honest - if I were still single, I would likely have already gone home by now.

Of Balls

Sure, it only costs NT$250, but for that price it's a pretty decent wine.

While finishing off a bottle of inexpensive but good wine with Brendan last night, I got to thinking about all the usual stuff: you know, how great married life has been for the past year and a half, how lucky we really are to have such a strong relationship, and my doesn't this apartment look awesome, I could actually stay in most nights and not feel bored and hmm, if Tsai wins the election, will she be the sort of women's rights advocate in office that could really benefit Taiwanese women? and I should really read Shantaram, it's been on the shelf for a year and it's too bad that I love my career, really get on with my students, and yet am not happy with my company and it'll be a few months yet before I can make a change.


And then this: it's been five years. I'm applying for permanent residency after Chinese New Year. Would I have stayed this long if I'd been single.


No, probably not. 


Why is that?


Of course, I covered this in Why Are There So Few Expat Women in Asia?, but it kind of got buried deep in the (admittedly long) post, and wasn't very personal. This post is my attempt to personalize that a bit.

I'd said there that a lot of expat women leave after a few years if they're single, because it's just plain harder to date (whereas in some regards it's easier for expat men), even if you like the local guys - which, for the record, I would if I were single.  Married or enrelationshipped women - yes, I made that word up - seem more likely to stick around in the foreign country they've chosen - especially in Asia. It's been my experience in Taiwan that the long-term expat women I know here are all married or in relationships.  In Turkey I noticed that it was quite a different tale: plenty of expat women stuck around, and more than a few married Turkish men, not unlike a lot of the expat men in east Asia.

Clearly, when the dating market opens up to reveal more opportunities, the women tend to stay just as long as the men. I'd like to think that a choice to move abroad or move home is one made individually, for reasons other than romantic prospects but rather for reasons ranging from desire to see the world, to learn a new language, to engage in another culture, for other academic pursuits or because you genuinely enjoy English teaching and the best opportunities for that happen to be in non-English speaking countries.

And it's true that I moved abroad without worrying about romantic prospects, and I happened to get lucky (heh heh). I wasn't here to date - I was here to see more of the world and learn Chinese. I didn't even know yet that I wanted to be a career teacher/trainer/whatever it is that I do because on any given day my job description feels different.

Yet these noble ideas - that one should make these choices without thought to dating - just isn't the case, and it wouldn't have been for me, either.

If Brendan hadn't existed, or we'd never met, or our relationship never worked out, here's what would have likely happened:

Brendan moved to Taiwan about halfway through my first year in Taiwan. I was not planning to leave at the end of that year; at the time my plans were to stay for 2-3 years depending, see if teaching was a good career fit (I'd started to love my evening teaching job back in the USA and hate my corporate desk job, which clued me into the idea that I would do better in a career such as teaching) and then either move home or move to another country.  I knew before Brendan came that I would not stay at Kojen past my initial contract, so I would have still changed jobs. I might not have ended up at the company I did - although who knows? They were looking at just about the right time.

I probably would have stayed in my tiny, slightly crummy room in an otherwise nice apartment in Liuzhangli for awhile longer, until I got a new job and could afford a small studio or at least a better room in a shared apartment.

I probably would have dated a couple of guys, be they expat or local. Those relationships, as most tend to do, probably would not have worked out. Although I'm sociable, I'm not exactly an "every weekend at a different social hangout" girl, so there probably wouldn't have been more than one or two. I think that estimate is accurate because that's about half the number of guys I typically dated in a few years in the DC area.

My social circle wouldn't have been appreciably different, except it would lack some people, including one whom I consider to be a very good friend, because those friends came through opportunities brought about by Brendan.

So I probably would have a social life that involved seeing friends for one outing a weekend, occasionally going out on a weekend night if invited (I love making plans for meals or outings for friends, I make drink plans far less often and mostly go when invited). I would otherwise work, take pictures, go hiking occasionally, hang out at cafes and then come home and be alone. My expat male friends, few as they are, would be dating local women at either a far greater frequency or intensity than any dating opportunities I would have had.

Not too unlike my single life in DC, except I had more dating opportunities and, within my own cultural context, it was easier to make friends. I saw those friends more, because in the USA we seem to place a greater emphasis on time spent with friends vs. at home, with family or working than in Taiwan, where people seem to see friends less.

I would have looked at the expat scene in Taipei - nightlife that I'm mostly not interested in (with some exceptions! Going out occasionally is fun), maybe a few clubs I could have joined, but generally just as I see it now: something I dip my toe into and can enjoy, but never really felt I fit into (although I feel a bit more fitting-inny now that I am friends with a small group of younger married women like myself who also defy the young-guys-here-teaching-at-Hess-for-a-year and the older-family-types-with-kids-at-the-American-school, and I know a few student types - I tend to get on well with the grad school crowd). I would have concluded that, in part, I felt a bit out of it with the expat crowd. Not unwelcome, but a bit like "young single foreign women who aren't particularly pretty have a tougher time socially here than back home".

I'd have looked at local life in Taipei and probably dipped my toes into that more, as well, but likewise still not felt like I fit in: turns out people don't invite you out much when you don't fit into a circle of coworkers, classmates or family.

Then I would have looked back at my social life in DC, and then my dating life. I might not have chosen to move back to DC in particular, but I might have concluded that as a single woman, if I wanted a better shot at having good relationships and having one of those turn permanent, and if I wanted lots of friends to have good times with both in the interim and beyond, that my chances of that were far better back home, or in another country.

Perhaps I would have done the CELTA as I did in Istanbul, had the great fun that I did, made friends on the course, and decided that for a good social life, Istanbul would have been a great bet. And I might well have stayed, despite the fact that it would have left me a bit emotionally torn. Or I might have picked another Mediterranean country.

All through this I'd be a bit angry at myself, thinking what, are you not the nomad and adventurer you thought you were?  Are you really going to go home now because poor widdle Jenna doesn't have enough widdle fwiends and nobody wants to be her boyfwiend? Awww. I thought you were made of stronger stuff, and I thought you knew that traveling the world would come with its share of loneliness. Are you just another Typical Girl, who needs people around her instead of fortifying herself? Are you weak? Do you not have the balls you thought you did?


(I admit I have a mortal fear of being seen as weak. That's a good post for another time, if I ever feel like revealing that much about myself).

And of course the final few sentences of the above are ridiculous, and in their own way, sexist, but it's only honest of me to say I would have thought them.

And I would have felt conflicted and angry and a bit sad, but I probably would have also felt lonely and  lacking social and dating opportunities - even though they exist in Taipei, I would have found them, as a single foreign woman, insufficient - but in the end I probably would have moved on in my predicted 2-3 years.  The fact that I didn't, that I instead married and nested a bit and started to feel a bit settled (and happy about that, which I never thought would happen) and like Taipei was home. But a big part of that is that I do have a family here. I have a husband - and a cat and (for the time being) a sister. I might have never felt that way if the whole marriage thing hadn't happened, or if I had not at least found myself in a serious relationship.

I'll leave it at this: in 2003 I celebrated my birthday in Pakse, Laos. I was in my early twenties and in Laos by myself (not long before I'd seen off Brendan in Beijing, from where he returned to Korea). I spent my birthday alone,  hiking up the crumbled, rocky ruins of a temple carved into a bluff outside of town. It was humid and buggy and I'm sure I looked like hell. I'm also sure as hell that I didn't care. I got to the top and sat at the edge of the bluff, the craggy black building blocks of the temple tumbled down below me, mostly in a scraggy pile, but a few were strewn further out into the verdant landscape.

Nobody had yet sent me birthday wishes in e-mail and this was long before Facebook. My only birthday wish before the time difference made it my birthday on the East Coast was from myself. I was young and I didn't mind being alone. I looked out over the tops of palm trees to lush rice fields dotted with beasts of burden and I thought to myself: this is great - how often can one say that one climbed a ruined temple in Laos on their birthday?


But several years later when I hit Taipei,  this was what my "birthday alone" was like. It was not good. It was not adventurous. It was not ballsy. It was just sad.  I still wanted - and still want - to travel the world and have adventures, but what I realized was that I didn't necessarily want to do it alone.