"This is Taiwan", except it isn't, just no, it's total BS

This post about how the common-ish "this is Taiwan" and the helplessness it expresses is a dangerous notion, and how Taiwan is a country "without hope", in comparison to the USA, a country of relentless optimism.

People are passing it around with the tag "what do you think?" but nobody except Facebook commenters (including me in the Facebook commenter group) is attaching any sort of opinion on the post.

Well, I'm never one to just pass on a link without an opinion, so here's my opinion: it's bullshit.

Not only bullshit, but a dangerous generalization. It's easy to say "Taiwanese are defeatist, that's why they don't work to make things better as individuals". It's pat. It's a ridiculous stereotype, the sort of thing bandied about among groups of buzzed and drunk expats in Carnegie's and the Brass Monkey as a way of explaining away their culture shock (that is, as all Taiwan's fault, never their own for not understanding or never a simple difference in worldviews). It comes close to insinuating that Taiwanese are lazy or mediocre. At the very least it makes two ridiculously vast generalizations that have so little application at the individual level that I question their value and their truth. It borders on, nay, it is, a caricature of two cultures, and is an accurate portrayal of neither.

It's easy to revert to these cliches, these "things I've talked about with foreign friends at Carnegie's and they all agree so I'll blog it because it must be true if a bunch of white guys all agree on it after a few beers", these pat statements, these stereotypes.

It's also a bad idea.

First, the idea that America is a hopeful, optimistic country where it's instilled in us from a young age that things will get better, must get better, and the world is ours if we will only seize it. That may have been true a generation or two ago, maybe three, but honestly, I'm an American and I think our whole country is right fucked (with apologies to my in-laws as usual for my language). Between institutional discrimination, wage stagnation, a stifling corporate culture, the horrors of libertarianism, religious fundamentalism (and religious conservatism), science denialism, rampant bigotry disguised as 'freedom', the military industrial complex and the goddamn patriarchy, I don't feel a lot of optimism about my own country, and I certainly don't think we would be wise to have boundless hope for the future.

I'm so skeptical of how good the future of America will be that I left it! I couldn't do what I wanted to do with my life there, and I certainly couldn't have started my own little freelance business between not having a car (nor the money for it) and not being able to afford private health insurance (which is a little better with Obamacare but still not quite satisfactory). I could seize my future abroad, not at home, so why on earth would I think that the US is so great and the world is ours?

And that's not just me, that's how a lot of my friends feel too. Asked to come up with some fatalistic nihilist skeptical cynics I could go on for hours. Asked to come up with an unbridled optimist, I don't know if I could name even one.

Secondly, the idea that Taiwan "lacks hope", the people think that there is no future so "why bother", and this is why so many people say "cha bu duo" (close enough), "this is Taiwan", "this is how things are, they can't change" etc. Also bullshit.

Things Taiwan has done historically that belie a national outlook of hope: declaring independence in 1895, the 228 riots, the Kaohsiung Incident, the Wild Lilies.

Things that have happened in Taiwan recently that belie a national outlook of hope: holding out against an aggressively expansionist China, refusing against global and regional pressure to look toward a One China solution, and to insist on its self-determination, the Sunflower movement, the 3/30 protests, the November elections, especially the election of anti-establishment Mayor Ko in Taipei against the uber-establishment KMT candidate and consummate jerk Sean Lien.

A country doesn't see a group of students occupy their own nation's legislature because they feel it no longer reflects the will of the people if they lack hope that things can be better. 400,000 or so people (government estimates of 100,000 are pure bollocks) don't then show up to support them. Those same students don't end up somewhat successful - bringing the KMT's antics to public light, most likely influencing the elections later that year, and hey, has Fu Mao passed yet? Who knows what the future holds, but for now, the Sunflowers could be called successful.

This does not sound to me like a country that has no hope, that thinks "this is Taiwan".

For every "this is Taiwan" nihilist, for every cha-bu-duo person doing a mediocre job, honestly, I've seen someone with a goal, with a vision, with a willingness to take a risk or hope for something better. Among my students is one who could have emigrated to the USA (his brother did), but chose not to because "life in Taiwan is pretty good, why do I need to go there?", is one who says he hopes in his life to take part in something as momentous as the Kaohsiung Incident, is one who truly believes in doing a good job as a civil servant, is one who thinks that the academic reputation of Taiwan needs to be rehabilitated after the self-"peer"-review scandal and is actively working toward that goal, is one who puts in long hours of preparation and post-class feedback at the Mandarin Training Center even when their other teachers can and do get away with shoddy teaching.

That, to me, is not a country without hope. It can't be.

Now, that whole "this is Taiwan, what can we do" business is a real thing. I've heard it too. It's heartbreaking to hear, but two things:

1.) I've heard that sort of defeatism in the US too

2.) Remember that Taiwan is a collectivist culture (a generalization with a strong grain of truth in it, to mix my metaphors a bit). In the US we seem to revere lone mavericks who dare to challenge The Man and change the world. In Taiwan, for the most part, there's not a lot of credence given to that view, and solutions have to be collective, by consensus, not just One Man Against Them All. That man would be dismissed, because that's just not how society works here. There's nothing wrong with that.

Let me repeat: there's nothing wrong with that. It's not wrong. It's just different. Different doesn't mean hopeless or defeatist. It just means different. Solutions may come slower than we Westerners would like, but they also tend to enjoy broader support and therefore more complete implementation (see: national health care).

So of course one man or woman would say "this is Taiwan, what can I do?" because in that cultural framework, just one man or woman can't do much.

And you know there's a lot to recommend that view. Usually, one person can't change much. That's not defeatism, that's just the world. There are exceptions - but generally speaking, it takes a society, not One Maverick Standing Up To The Man, to really change something. I don't think it's hopeless to admit that, it's just pragmatic. Far more realistic.

Secondly, I don't think this is really related to cha-bu-duoism. There are people who strive to excel, and there are lazy people, or people who feel like it's not worth it. But you know what, those do actually exist in other countries, even the US, too! Why are we not ascribing the millions of lazy Americans to a national epidemic of hopelessness? (I know, some Republicans do, but mostly, we know better). Secondly, a lot of times that's an individual thing, and probably has to do more with individual personality, as well as (as my friend noted, and I agree) a reaction to a stifling corporate culture where hierarchy is prioritized over ability or innovation, where the way to survive is not to disagree or speak out too much, where being better at your job than your boss is at his or hers won't necessarily get you promoted, and where getting too much done just means more work and not necessarily any more reward.

But that's the corporate world. That's capitalism. That has nothing to do with the political future of the nation, and just because it's easier to keep your job now with no troubles so you put your head down and don't always do your best, doesn't mean that is your entire worldview.

I mean good lord, if my worldview were based on all the things I've done just to get by in my jobs (I mean, I waitressed at a Friday's in an airport and it was terrible, and I've declined to tell bosses in corporate jobs what I thought of the running of the organization because I needed to keep the job for awhile longer), how horrible would that be?

It's what I have done to get by, but not a final say on how I see the world.

And if I can feel that way, how can I possibly say that "cha-bu-duo" workers don't?

How Not Chinese is Taiwan: Rinbansyo, a teahouse review

Rinbansyo (eighty-eightea) / 輪番所
#174 Sec. 1 Zhonghua Road, Wanhua District, Taipei
台北市萬華區中華路1段174號
02-2312-0845

From here

I am so happy to finally realize my daydream of blogging while hanging out in my tatami-floored Japanese tea nook - the previous tenants of our apartment turned what was built to be a dining alcove (or, was called one when it ended up that way due to the building's overall floor plan) and furnished it with a large mirror, low table and tatami for a wonderful tea drinking and dining alternative. I'm brewing the very last of a tin of basic Alishan tea that I was given awhile ago - it's time to let that particular cannister go, brewed in an Yixing teapot, poured into a tiny celadon cup (well, faux celadon). 

Nice, yeah? It looks better now - I hung the teacup curio shelf on the wall and got an antique box to hold tea that now sits in the opposite corner.

And what an appropriate blog post to be doing this for!

This past weekend I was happy to be invited to Rinbansyo, a "Japanese style" teahouse in a traditional Japanese house redolent with hinoki wood, situated just inside the park with the Japanese shrine to the west of Ximending along Zhonghua Road (you have to go into the park area to get into the teahouse).

Here's the thing - I don't even feel I need to say "Japanese style". Sure, it was, but more importantly, it was also local style. 

What a lot of people forget about Taiwan is that, while the people are ethnically Chinese and many aspects are derived from Chinese culture (whatever that means - seems like there's more than one "Chinese culture" out there), many other aspects are not. That includes not only home-grown grassroots cultural facets that are unique to Taiwan, but also aboriginal and Japanese influences. 

In terms of tea, food and to some degree architecture and lifestyle, much of Taiwanese culture is as Japanese- as it is Chinese-influenced. So I would not say that Rinbansyo is a "Japanese teahouse in Taipei", I'd say that it is a Taiwanese teahouse in Taipei, which reflects Japanese cultural influence.

From here

Rinbansyo has two seating options: a large, tatami-mat room that you must remove your shoes to enter, where you sit at low traditional tables, or the more modern Western-style tables. Both are lovely, but I recommend the tatami room if your legs can take it (mine tend to fall asleep, and I always feel huge and cellulite-ridden among groups of locals sitting blissfully in perfect poses on tatami - one of the pitfalls of being a Western female expat - but I do it anyway). It's more atmospheric and you get more of the hinoki scent. Which, by the way, is like a combination of cedar and cleaning product, but in a good way, an organic way, like in the way tea tree oil has a bit of an antiseptic smell). 

There are no meals on offer, but there are lots of small snack options - it's a good  choice for meeting people for tea and dessert. We had a Chinese-style flaky bun with a sweet bean filling (green beans, not red), sesame nougat candies and little madeleine-like cakes with a matcha tea paste that was delicious, the perfect combination of vegetal, sweet and bitter. There are more ornate options too - little sculpted flower desserts and the like.

The tea is delicious, pricey by general standards but standard as teahouses go. I got a Sanxia bi luo chun, because I like bi luo chun teas but rarely drink them at home, as my Yixing pot is prepped for oolongs. 

With tea, you can either brew it in a leaf-filled bowl, with a ladle to serve it into cups, or they will cold brew it for you, and you get one large glass (the glasses are of especially fine white ceramic).

It's lovely and peaceful, and smells like my favorite thing in the world. And with all the tatami, matcha and Japanese screens and ceramics, it is very Taiwanese. 

Keep Her on the Pole

I'm sure some of you have heard of the just-common-enough-to-be-noticeable practice of hiring dancing girls or strippers (or both) at certain functions in Taiwan: notably weddings, funerals (yes, funerals) and temple festivals.



Well, I came across some at the Baosheng Cultural Festival this weekend, and it got me thinking about an old topic that I thought I'd written about but actually haven't: is Taiwan as "conservative", or at least as sexually conservative, as people think?









There's no clear answer to this but I would put my bets on "no". Not just because of the "pole dancers for the gods" driving around Taipei on the back of retrofitted Jeeps, but for a number of reasons.

My New Life in Asia covered this awhile ago, and his post is worth reading. However, I feel it only covers one aspect of Taiwan's (lack of) sexual conservatism, at least compared to the rest of Asia. Which is good - keeping focus and all - but there's more to explore.

He focused mostly on women leveraging their sex appeal for financial gain, and businesses and marketing doing the same. And there's certainly truth to that: between booth babes, beer girls, betel nut beauties and the blatant hiring favoritism of attractive women over unattractive ones or, in some industries, over men (even attractive men), there's definitely less taboo centered around leveraging female sex appeal in Taiwan - to the point that it sometimes makes my feminist skin crawl.

And the pole dancing girls definitely fit that aspect of Taiwan's relative progressiveness, so I'll talk about them first.

I can't explain the "weddings and funerals" thing when it comes to hired dancing girls - and it doesn't happen all that often at either - but it's common enough at temple festivals that a few of my friends have come across it so far. Once at the Baosheng Cultural Festival, once at God Pig in Hsinchu - and I did see my share of scantily clad "baton girls" with marching bands at the Matsu pilgrimage kick-off.




But why? To quote one of my students: "they do that to show respect to the god. That god probably wants people to have more and more babies and this...helps. And the god should enjoy it too."

And certainly nobody seemed to disapprove - men and boys watching obviously enjoyed the show, but notably, they were doing so right in front of their mothers, wives, grandmothers, daughters and sisters, who also didn't seem to mind (some were even cheering - even grandmas). The dancing took place in front of temples and nobody thought this was declasse or inappropriate (although certainly among Taiwanese who don't commonly watch temple parades for fun, you'll find folks who do think it's declasse). The women certainly didn't think they were doing anything wrong or shameful.

That's significant - there's truth to the idea that whether you approve of it or not, the female body and its appeal does move product. Sex sells.



Until the human race evolves beyond finding sexualized marketing appealing, it's going to happen (just like any number of social ills: abortion, divorce, premarital sex etc.. There's no sense railing against it, because it's going to happen. You have to build your fight for a better world around accepting that fact). The pragmatism of just accepting that rather than wringing hands and clutching pearls, while bracing at times, can also be refreshing.

But there really is more to Taiwan's progressivism than that. So, here are a few reasons why I don't think Taiwan is as sexually conservative as people think, and is definitely not as sexually conservative as most of East Asia.

1.) Love motels -







In the USA they're seen as gross, seedy places where all sorts of nastiness goes down. And certainly Taiwan must have a few grody love motels. But ask most locals and they'll say there's nothing wrong with pay-by-the-hour "rest" establishments, that they're a social necessity in a country where people often live with parents until they marry, and often afterwards as well, or share smaller spaces with multiple generations. Maybe it's a boyfriend and girlfriend looking for somewhere to go when they both live with their parents, or a married couple who needs to get away from Grandma and the Kids, or a truck driver and a prostitute, an extramarital affair or just some kids looking to party. Who knows, who cares, it's nobody else's business and people respect that. And I love it - no moralizing, no soapboxes, no bible-thumping, just not your business, stay out of it, sex is a thing people have.

Thanks to my Christian Guilt (I was not raised Catholic but the guilt thing is very real), the first time Brendan and I (unwittingly) stayed at a love motel, I was a bit embarrassed walking outside (we'd realized it was a love motel after we checked in). It felt like I was on a reality show, looking around shifty-eyed: Who's Judging Me Now? Once I realized nobody was, it made me wonder why this wasn't how things were everywhere else in the world.

And they're openly advertised as such, in ways that could ostensibly point to both male and female desires: Secret Love Motel (advertised with huge LED signs off the main road - nothing too secret about it, ey?), Eden Exotica (home of the Batman Room!), I Need Motel etc. and pictures of hearts or, in one establishment's case in Yonghe, a man and woman making out. The woman sure seems to be into it. The fact that the signs can get that racy at all means that there's just not much of a big deal surrounding them. I could see such a place in the USA being picketed by angry evangelicals.

2 - Prostitution exists (DUH) but it's less acceptable to be a john...not because sex is wrong, but because "decent guys" do it for love.

I feel like in a lot of other countries (*cough* China *cough*), it's still a social "thing" that a man can both be a "decent guy" in the eyes of society, and be someone who visits prostitutes and playboys it up, even when he is in a relationship (assuming it's not an open relationship). It's like, the fact that that guy blatantly cheats on his partner is utterly irrelevant to whether he's a good guy - perhaps because more people think that all men do it, so there's nothing wrong with it and it's women's job to accept and forgive.

Setting aside whether it's OK to visit prostitutes (I err on the side of "no" just because of all the exploitation of women that goes on in that industry, including, if not especially, in Asia, but I'm not against a woman choosing to enter sex work if she chooses to), I feel like while Taiwan has its share of prostitutes (I wouldn't, as My New Life In Asia calls it, say "Taipei is a city of lust" though - it's about as lustful as any other city or even group of humans who live together in a society, no more and no less), that if a man wants to be seen as a "decent guy", a 君子, in society, that man can't (openly, at least) sleep around when he's in a relationship or married.

Note: I'm not including men who sleep around or visit prostitutes when single in this analysis, because that's a different discussion.

I know, I know. Some of you are going to say "doesn't that mean Taiwan is more sexually conservative, not less?" No. To me, that's a sign of progressivism, not conservatism because it includes a feminist perspective into ideas about sex. Openly breaking your romantic promises if you're a man (but not a woman!) is actually a symptom of a sexually repressive society, not an open one. A society in which sex shouldn't be enjoyed by women, and is entirely the privilege of men. That's not openness, it's the opposite! In an open society, that sort of behavior tends to decline because people are more likely to form happy, healthy relationships in which both partners are satisfied.

Oh yeah, and male escorts exist too.

3 - There's been an uptick in using male sex appeal in advertisements and media -

DONE.

OMG Takeshi.

I have heard that apparently 3G service slowed down significantly at Zhongxiao Fuxing MRT when this ad took up an entire wall, and that it was mostly due to women taking pictures of it and sending it to their friends or posting it on social media. That could be apocryphal, but I really hope it isn't. Because OMG Takeshi.

4 - Sex jokes are surprisingly acceptable, especially at weddings but even in other situations -
No really, you wanna hear about the time my friends got married and their friends stuck a banana between his legs and made her eat it? I don't really wanna talk about that time, but I can't imagine most people from a "conservative" country thinking it's OK to pull those stunts in front of someone's grandparents.

What's more, I've found that if I have had a student or group of students for a long time, and they make mistakes that sound hilariously dirty ("I asked her if she could do my English tutor", "I gave my wife a Wang Steak for Mother's Day", "My presentation is in three man parts", "Be careful or he'll knock you up" (they meant "knock you out"), "I like to take out my member to play on Friday night" (he meant he liked to go out with his team members), "My salary is too low, I think. My other friends have big packages but I have a small package", "We will have an oral contest next week to see who does the best oral" etc., I can usually just tell them why they can't say that, and it's wonderfully funny.



Plus you can buy these t-shirts and much, much more in terms of horrible things on clothing.

5 - Sex ed advertisements and pamphlets are much more "open" here than in the USA -




Some of you "enlightened topless Europeans" may disagree, but in the USA it's quite rare to see too many sex ed public service announcements, and how much of it you get in school differs by state. I know Taiwanese schools aren't great at this, but they seem to do a better job of it than any other country in Asia (correct me if I'm wrong), and I've definitely seen pamphlets like the above (nevermind the English - a workman must sharpen his tools if he is to do his work well indeed!) and TV ads on the MRT station TVs that show two cartoon lovers going to a motel, then the cartoon motel starts shaking, and there's an admonishment to wear protection.

Of course, there is a flip side to this - plenty of women don't seem to know how their anatomy even works ("if I wear a tampon, won't I lose my virginity? If I wear a tampon, won't I be unable to pee?") or think that sleeping in the same bed with a man carries a risk of pregnancy. This could definitely be improved.

6 - A majority of Taiwanese are either not opposed to, or actively support, marriage equality, family planning and reproductive freedom -

You don't really hear any objections to the use of contraception (except perhaps by in-laws who want grandchildren yesterday to carry on the Chen family name, because it's in danger of dying out or something), I've not really heard many people ever speak out against the legality of abortion (which is only covered by health insurance if done for certain reasons, but is legal) - at least, the dialogue never gets as vehement and sexist and downright hateful and shameful (on the part of certain conservatives) as it does in the USA, and recent surveys indicate widespread, even majority support for marriage equality.

I've never heard of a "conservative" society being mostly in favor of granting marriage rights to all.

Oh yeah, and support, at least in artistic form, for transgender people exists, too!

7 - There's been an uptick in PDA -

A lot of people writing about Taiwan write about how PDA just isn't done here, it's kind of rude to do that in public, whatever-whatever. I have to wonder what part of Taiwan they're in. Perhaps that's true in rural areas, but I see all sorts of PDA in Taipei - butt-touching on escalators, kissing, hugging, all that stuff. And then a few extreme examples that have attained national prominence, too, like this one, which produced some amazing viral meme material (known locally as "kuso", from a Japanese word), much of which you can find here, including the image above. Or the time a couple made the news for riding a scooter together, the woman sitting astride her boyfriend as he drove (clothes on) - can't find the link for that, but it happened.

8 - For every "using a hot girl to sell product" advertisement, there's another one either implying that their product will give you a big dong, or that guys with big dongs use that product -

I've been trying without success to find the link for some of these products - I don't exactly need them, seeing as I haven't got the organ in question, so hunting in English would be difficult enough. Can't find it at all hunting in Chinese.

But every time I take a taxi with a little TV in the back, there's this commercial where a guy in a blue shiny suit dances around happily until he goes to his girlfriend's house, and it's obvious what they're going to do. Then you see a cartoon blue bird wave at you before growing huge muscles - the product is basically some sort of male enhancement ("blue bird" is local slang for that particular appendage).

And let's not forget how readily available Chinese medicinal remedies are for men who need a little help.

9 - The Kaohsiung Sex cafe exists, yes, and even outside of it I have seen more depictions of sex organs (and underwear just dancing in the breeze, or worn outside by old guys) in Taiwan in 8 years than I saw in 24 years in the USA -



Just not sure I believe many people in a "conservative" country would hang their underwear to dry on an old placard carved with Chinese Nationalist slogans. For women's unmentionables, scroll through here. 

10 - The slang. Oh, the slang.

Taiwanese swearing, when not referencing shit ("shit face", "shock you into shitting green", "Eat shit!"), references sex acts and sex organs far more than you'd think the language, even the dirty language, of a "conservative" country does. There's a slang term for "like throwing a sausage down a hallway" (the Taiwanese translates as "a stick of bamboo in the well"), the two worst insults out there are stinky (man parts) and stinky (woman parts), and an effective way to say that one is angry is to say "My dick is full of fire!", and of course the usual slew of slurs directed at one's mother, but that's true in every culture. I just don't see a "conservative" culture translating "I'm SO ANGRY" as "my dick is full of fire", I'm sorry.

11 - Well, as I said above, pole dancing for the gods. Not only is it totally normal, but the crowds in the street cheering on the pole dancers weren't just men of all ages, but women too. 

12 - Magazines in 7-11 and Zhu Geliang movies - 

Seriously, any kid or grandma can see this at the checkout at 7-11 (sometimes they put it in the magazine rack in back, sometimes they don't, or what's at the register is far racier). 

Brendan disagrees with me about Zhu Geliang, whom I have most recently seen on an advertisement on the side of a bus for his new movie while a woman, ostensibly measuring him for inseam length, is actually measuring his man bits. In another movie, someone kicks him in said man bits and the shot cuts to two eggs cracking over a frying pan.

from here

I say that's a sign that Taiwan is not that conservative. Brendan says "well, it's really no racier than old Benny Hill movies. You know, sex jokes for our grandparents." But for me, the fact that softcore pornographic magazines are not only sold in 7-11, but are right there on the checkout counter where every child and grandma can see them, boobs out and everything, seals the deal. Every country has porn, but "conservative" ones don't put it right at the cash register.

Oh, and one of those magazines is called "Sexy Nuts", which I think is hilarious.

13 - Reproductive health and contraception are all easy to come by, and for women, everything but contraception is free (contraception should be free, but that's another post) - 

"Conservative" countries don't provide free pap smears to women after age 30, nor do they make it extremely easy to buy condoms and birth control pills with no shame attached, no stealing about, no red faces.

* * *

Of course there's more work to be done. Abortion shouldn't only be covered for certain reasons, we need better education towards gender equality, contraception of all types should be available for all at an affordable price for all (see the comments of that post for more on that topic), sex ed in schools needs to be more comprehensive, and there are still folks out there who have old-fashioned ideas about what families should look like, who can be gay ("I don't care if some stranger is gay, but NOT MY SON!" is a common sentiment, but then that's true in the USA too), and how "pure" a woman should be before marriage (again, that's also common in the USA where slut-shaming is surprisingly common).

But overall, I would not say that I find Taiwan to be terribly conservative. I would not say I find it to have rigid, old-school morals. I'd say, if anything, it's the most progressive country in Asia vis-a-vis these issues and in some areas, can compete with the USA when it comes to open-mindedness.



After all conservative societies don't have very many protesters who make signs like this, and have their message get so popular that someone makes a series of stickers based on it to pass out to the public. Which happened. I have one.

Culture Fatigue: "I get it but I don't like it"

I had a conversation earlier today (OK, a thread of Facebook comments, DON'T JUDGE ME) about "cultural fatigue" - vs. culture shock - with a friend. The context: the curriculum where she works in Japan requires that a certain article on the topic be assigned, but the article itself is outdated, and not in a "this is foundational" way.

"Culture fatigue" is a concept I came across awhile ago, when I did some searching (OK, Googling, DON'T JUDGE ME) to figure out what was bothering me on a near-daily level, like a low-grade chronic ache, about my life. It wasn't depression. It wasn't my marriage. It wasn't my job. It wasn't my apartment. It wasn't my social life. It wasn't living in another country per se, and I wasn't unhappy with Taiwan overall. But it was something.

After our conversation, I did another search to see if anything new had been written on the topic, and came across this. It more or less perfectly encapsulates what sometimes bothers me about life in Taiwan (or long-term life in any country). His examples are generally money related.

Although occasionally, very occasionally, I've felt nickeled-and-dimed in Taiwan (a taxi driver taking an obviously inferior route, a dry cleaner charging me a touch more than I thought dry cleaning usually cost, a guy showing me a price on a calculator for a scarf (299) and telling a local woman the price in Chinese for the same kind of scarf (250 - and I did call him on it and I got it for 225 - "you should knock off 25 more for giving me the foreign price" I said, and he did!), mostly money isn't a problem. Things cost what they cost and yes, friends and relatives get a discount, but you the foreigner generally get the price that an unfamiliar local would get. At least in Taipei.

So these aren't my issues. Taiwan is a very different place from Colombia (I think I just won the "duh" award with that statement), and the culture fatigue issues I face are, understandably, quite different.

My examples for Taiwan are below.

Before I get into them, please keep in mind: I really do love living here. I don't mean these as an ad hominem attack on Taiwan. I could write a similar post of similar length on great things about life here and aspects of the culture that I find positive or preferable. I do not mean to imply that these happen every day to me (they don't) or that I think they make people here crazy or "inscrutable" (they really don't). I don't think all of these are "wrong" per se, just a very different way of looking at the world. My point is that these are the cultural norms that give me trouble; they are the ones that cause culture fatigue. It doesn't mean they are "wrong", just that I find them difficult to deal with.

In fact, because this sort of post tends to get people angry, I've gone ahead and highlighted in pink the areas where I try to empathize with, or at least understand, the other side of the issue.

- - Never knowing if "sorry, I'm just so busy these days. I still want to hang out and see you, I'm just very busy", after you haven't seen a friend in months, is really "I'm busy" (it can be - considering working hours and family obligations in Taiwan), or if it's a polite brush-off. In the USA I'd know.

- - The concepts of respect for rank and giving "face" to people higher in rank than you (I naively thought face was something everyone got in equal measure. Boy was I wrong), meaning that if you have a dispute with someone higher-up than you, even if you are right and everybody knows you are right, they may well not support you. This can happen in the USA too, but it isn't as common. I do get it - face is a big deal, and if you are judicious in giving it and then trying to get what you want through other means, it's not that hard to be successful. It just wears me down to have to do things this way so often.

- - Not imparting important, or even just pertinent, information if informing somebody of something too early (or at all) could make waves in the placid surface on the lake of social harmony. As in, the other day I was in the Eslite Dunhua cafe after a class, and I was hungry. It was about 2:30pm. I asked for the menu, saying "I'm quite hungry, so I want to order some food" in Chinese. They give me the menu. I pick out something healthy and light - the smoked salmon salad. They say "oh, I'm sorry, the kitchen is closed".
"OK, but I said I wanted to order food when I asked for the menu."
"You can have a cake!" (pointing to the cake display).
"If I wanted a cake I would not have asked for the menu because I can see the cakes."
"Oh, yes, that's true."
"So why did you give me the menu?"
"Excuse me, I don't understand."
"I asked for a menu saying I wanted to order food. If you knew the kitchen was closed, why did you give me the menu? Why didn't you just say the kitchen was closed in the beginning?"
"Uh..."

I mean I guess it's possible that the server was either a.) not that smart or b.) not having a good day (we all have Stupid Days, it's OK), but this sort of thing has happened many times before. It's happened enough that I recognize it as a cultural tic and not just One Ditzy Waitress.

I get this one too: social harmony is more important than individual wants, and social harmony must be achieved and maintained (that's why we smile and shake hands after an argument at work when nothing's actually been resolved. OK). So you just go with it and assume the other person gets this on a cellular level too. The waitress probably figured, when it was clear I did not want a cake, that I would be all "oh, OK, well, thank you!" and not call her out on giving me a menu when I couldn't order anything. My calling her out disturbed social harmony. Her giving me the menu, however unthinking it seemed to me, was trying to maintain it. I get it, but it wears me down.

- - Related to the example above, the whole listening to your requests and suggestions, the person nods that he or she understands...then completely disregards them. Or, as you make a request or list a requirement, the person says that would be fine, and then proceeds to go against everything agreed on to try to get you to bend even after you've already said you can't or won't. Again, nodding and "understanding" uphold social harmony. Nobody can say directly that they don't agree or can't grant your request. So they don't say it. You are just expected to understand. And again, when this happens I know why it happens and I try to handle it with grace. But it wears me down.

Example: let's say you are asked to create material for and teach a series of workshops on some business skill. You agree, and you get to work. You say you will need a projector and screen in class. to show a short video in the workshop. "I understand." The morning of the workshop - no projector or screen. "Oh, we don't have that, sorry. You can teach without it." Yes, by changing my entire lesson plan with about ten minutes to spare, I can. ARGGGHHHHH. (One day I decided I was done. Done. I just flatly refused to do that when confronted with material changed without my knowledge ten minutes before class. "You can just teach this instead." "No." "But..." "NO. You get me the agreed-upon material or I won't teach. I am not joking. You have ten minutes." "But..." "Do it or this class doesn't happen." It felt so good.)

Or you tell someone you need a month's notice to clear time to do something on weekday nights, but weekends are generally fine. Then they call you up and ask when you are free in two weeks. You list weekends and one weekday night because it happens to be open. They call you and say "what other weekday nights are you free?"
"None."
"Oh, well, we want to do this on weekday nights. You said you could do that?"
"Yes, with a month's notice."
"Oh. I see. Well, could you try to free up those nights now for two weeks later? You have two weeks!"
"No, I'm sorry."
"Are you sure? We really want to do this on those nights."
"I already told you, to get those free I need a month's notice."
"Well, maybe you can try?"
"No, I'm sorry."

And then you are made to feel bad - well, if you let them make you feel bad - for declining to try, because you look like the uncooperative, inflexible one. The point is that they want to do something, and that means they'll try to bend every factor to fit in place to make it happen. That means asking you if you can also be flexible so they can make it happen (which often, but not always, may also benefit you). What you told them before...yeah, it means something, but if they need to ask for something you said you couldn't give to achieve what they want, they will anyway. It's not that they didn't understand, it's that this is a country in which almost everything is flexible if you know where to press, push, twist or bend, so they're hoping they can bend you. It's not personal. Again, I get it but I don't like it.

- - Lying, especially at work. Either employees lying to avoid being blamed for something, or bosses lying to try to manipulate employees into doing something they might otherwise resist (this covers 99% of "please finish this tonight, it's an urgent issue!"). Related: when you call someone out on that lie and the mood of the room turns against you, not the liar, because they lost face when you called them out for...blatantly lying. I do get that "lie" doesn't quite mean the same thing in Asia as it does in the West, but it doesn't blunt the force of the culture fatigue.

- - Not apologizing. I understand this one: apologizing puts an unnecessary spotlight on you in a situation where everybody already knows you screwed up. Not apologizing is a way to save face, but it's not like you're not accountable. People know. If you say it openly people don't let it go. Totally different from the US where apologizing is what you do to get people to let it go. I get it. I do. But I still get irritated when someone screws up royally and doesn't acknowledge it.

- - Very strange assumptions, to me, about what constitutes a "good relationship" or even "a marriage". Like, the idea that if you are moved to hire a private detective to spy on your spouse, that the problem isn't the marriage itself but his mistress (or her "mister"). Or that it's OK if a husband stands with his parents against his wife on some issue, and the wife is expected to cave (so happy that I don't have this problem: and it involves things like "my mother wants us to have a baby so we're going to do that", and if the wife makes a fuss she's the bad guy). Or that if he retreats emotionally and gives her, basically, The Fade, and she shows up crying on his doorstep, and he reluctantly goes back to her, but she has to sa jiao him to get him to do anything at all, that this is apparently a happy ending.

Let's be fair here - not all, not even most, relationships in Asia are like that. It's one subset of people, one cultural meme among many. And plenty of Taiwanese would find certain Western relationship norms odd: I mentioned to a class I've had for awhile that of course Brendan knows of my not-terribly-many ex-boyfriends. We were roommates twice as friends: he's met most of 'em. It's really not a big deal. I know his history too. NBD. It's normal. Your past is a part of you. It would be odd to withhold it (of course you don't give lots of details, but you know, the general outline).

Well, they were shocked. SHOCKED! Apparently none of them had told their wives about their ex-girlfriends (not even general details - nothing at all, as though they never existed). They knew nothing of their wives' ex-boyfriends. "It's better that you don't get into that," they said. "That can create bad feelings. So there is no reason to say it."

My thought: if it creates bad feelings, there is a problem in your current relationship. And if you don't know at least the general outline of someone's past, I feel that you don't really know them. But those Taiwanese guys don't see it that way at all. My way is culture shock to them (not so much culture fatigue: they don't live in my culture; I live in theirs).

- - The acceptance of sexism as "that which we cannot change", even as someone espouses generally feminist ideals. It's fine for a woman to be President of Taiwan, or for a woman to be powerful (Cher Wang, Chen Chu, various General Managers and politicians), wealthy, successful. It's fine if other people's wives are breadwinners (among the younger generation, it's apparently more acceptable for their own wives to be breadwinners). If I mention that I am a breadwinner, nobody gasps. And yet, it's just accepted as "that's the way things are" when asked how they feel about how Taiwanese women are so harshly judged on their appearance and age, how divided-by-gender some industries are, how a wife is expected to submit in small but significant ways to her husband's family, that her husband's family is always the one given priority on holiday visits (nobody thinks to question how patriarchal it is to always give Chinese New Year's Day to the husband's side, and the less important day after to the wife's), that the husband's family has a lot of say in when they start trying for a baby, that a man can have support for women's rights and yet still feel that his son should grow up to be a provider, but that his daughter need only find a good husband.

Related: "women do X, men do Y". Men can say bad words; women shouldn't. Men are strong, women are not. Men prefer pretty women, women prefer rich and powerful men. Women love babies, men like 'em well enough. Women don't drink as much. When they do, they prefer light drinks, sweet cocktails, low-alcohol fruit beers, and fizzy, white or pink, light wine. Men drink whiskey and Kaoliang. Men shake hands with men, they don't extend their hands to women. Women may extend their hand to men. I am sorry, I just don't like this. I can try to empathize but this is a hot button for me and...well...no. I just want to scream "講三小!"

(That's Taiwanese for "WTF are you saying?")

Same with racism by the way. Seems everybody has egalitarian views on race, and yet everyone considers racism against non-white foreigners including Southeast Asians to be something that can't be changed.

This one? Well, if you come from a culture that values harmony, conformity, stability and tradition, it's understandable that you might throw up your hands at a difficult situation and say "it's our culture, it's always been this way, we can't change it". I can't come up with an "I get it" beyond that, though. I really can't. It just sucks.

- - "I have to" - when someone who doesn't actually have authority to tell you what to do...tells you what to do. "I have to diet this much, people will think I'm fat if I gain weight". "I have to have a baby, my mother-in-law wants us to". "I have to stay late at work, my coworkers will think I am not loyal to the company." "I have to make my kid go to buxiban for 200 hours a week, everybody else does so I have to, too". "I have to have a big wedding and invite 500 people I don't know." "I have to invest in my brother's idea for a milk tea stand even though I don't want to because my parents say I should." 'I have to buy an apartment near my parents even though I don't want to live in that neighborhood." The boundary violations...my god. My boundaries are such that they're practically guarded by an electric dog fence (and all of y'all except Brendan are wearing special collars - sorry). I want to scream "You don't HAVE to. You are CHOOSING to! And that's OK! You have decided that you'd rather go along with this social expectation than fight it. You think that's preferable for you. FINE! That's great! You do you! But YOU DO NOT HAVE TO!"

But, I've come to realize that what "I have to" really means is "I choose to, because going with the flow is preferable to me, but I want to express that the expectation is very strong and that maintaining social harmony is still more important to me than getting my own way, while also expressing that I am not really happy about it." So...okay.

This happens in the USA too: "I HAVE TO wear white on my wedding day because it'll upset my mom if I don't!" 

But I do kind of wish that people generally (not just in Taiwan) would be more cognizant of the differences between what they actually have to do, and what they choose to do, albeit under pressure.


- * - * -

If you've gotten this far and are fuming angrily about how much I hate Taiwan, how whiny I am, how I "just don't get it", well, mosey on back and read the stuff in pink, thanks.

I do feel, though, that this is difficult to talk about for a few reasons. One is that I do feel as an expat, that either I'm supposed to happily embrace my the culture of the country where I live, and if I really love it in that country, I can't show any irritation or criticism of that culture: either you love it or you don't, goes that binary thinking, and if you complain at all, you don't love it. It's not true, and people surely know that on some level (I get annoyed with constant complainers, but will defend anyone's right to vent a bit or complain for awhile even if they love a place).

Another is that I feel that as openminded, 21st century folk, that we're supposed to approach culture differences at all times with "it's not bad, it's just different" or even "their culture is BETTER than ours", and no criticism shall pass our lips lest we be labeled 'narrowminded', 'ethnocentric', 'culturally imperialist' or just 'racist'. Believe me, there are ways in which I do feel Taiwanese culture is superior, but there are times when I really want to say this: there are other ways in which I do feel American (narrowed down to my home country for simplicity's sake) culture has one up on Taiwanese ways of doing things. I don't think that makes me narrowminded or racist. Examples: I think that in Taiwanese companies, when you want to get rid of someone, strongly encouraging them to quit rather than firing them is better. People screw up, people are sometimes just not good fits. That's no reason to poison someone's chances, in a small country with a very interconnected culture, of getting another job and making something of themselves by firing them publicly.  But then the American way of insisting on accountability and prizing efficiency and "it's not personal, just fix your mistakes and get it done, don't waffle, don't get defensive, don't hide behind 'face' to avoid accountability" is probably better than the Taiwanese way of often getting defensive (due to loss of face) when publicly or even privately-but-directly called out on a mistake. Not that everyone in either culture always conforms to these norms, just that they are common.

Finally, the idea that "under our skin, we're all the same" applies to all people in all ways. It does not. Sure, under our different races we are all born with similar ranges of intelligence and stupidity, aptitudes and idiosyncracies, good and bad people. There's no gene that makes "Asians smarter at math", or "Jews better with money" or whatever. That's ridiculous and we all know it. But we actually aren't all the same under our skin. Not for genetic or racial reasons, but that our cultures make our outlooks and fundamental worldviews, well, fundamentally different. We're the same in so many ways, but different in others, and it's time we acknowledged that more openly. I don't think it's un-PC to say so.

What are your "culture fatigue" issues in Taiwan (or elsewhere)? Got anything to add? As long as you don't just dump on Taiwan (and even if you do, although I'd hope my lovely, intelligent commenters would be the sort to attempt understanding and empathy), I'd be glad to add to this list. I am sure someone else out there in Taiwan in the throes of cultural fatigue will come across this post and be able to see the source of their anger and frustration more easily. Maybe it'll keep an expat from exploding somewhere, or giving up and flying home in a fit of rage. And that would be all worth it.