Symphony in White, or welcome to my midlife crisis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pill popping nation? Yes, but also Overworked Nation

I've been taking time off blogging for a bit, because there's just too much going on in my life and I don't have energy to deal with it all and keep a blog. What's more, most of what I have to say is a big fat downer guaranteed to not help me win friends or influence anyone, so I'm waiting until I can say it more neutrally. 

Then I read Pill Popping Nation in the Taipei Times this morning, and felt like popping in -- pun very much intended -- with a quick reaction.

Even here, it's going to take me awhile to get to the point. Please bear with me; I'm writing this on the fly when I don't really have the time.

I'm a chronic insomniac, and have been for as long as I can remember. Some of my childhood memories include staring at red-blaring numbers (remember those clunky fake-wood alarm clocks from the '80s?) as they ticked past midnight on a school night, feeling my cat hop onto my bed as Mom's snores in the next room grew deeper, falling half asleep until I dreamed up black snakes under my pillow and jolted me awake, or lying there as the same six bars of some song I didn't even like played over and over in my head. 

Once, I wandered into the kitchen for some water and found Dad awake as well, typing away. I think we were still using real typewriters back then. Turns out staying up late to write runs in the family. 

I struggled through adolescence and early adulthood. I rarely excelled at office jobs because flextime wasn't popular in the early 2000s, and the usual 9am start time was deeply incompatible with my rebellious brain chemicals. The anxiety diagnosis came in my late 30s as I was wrapping up graduate school, the ADD diagnosis on its heels. It made sense; my solid academic work was churned out despite my study habits, not because of them.

Sleeping pills worked, and they were available in Taiwan. They were prescribed by a highly-recommended psychiatrist who did take the time to talk to me, so it didn't feel like I was reaching for an easy answer. Then pandemic travel eased slightly and I visited the US in May. Turns out my Dad and I are not the only ones in the family with these issues, and I was introduced to the magic of edibles and CBD tea.

Nothing has ever worked so well as those plant-based solutions. I was anxiety-free for a month. I took no pills. I slept like a child who'd snuck a few too many sips of her parents' drinks. I even wondered if it was New York City easing all my issues. But no -- the solution was herbal all along. And no, I do not mean Chinese medicine (which I've tried to no avail.)

What does any of this have to do with Han Cheung's excellent article?

Well, I know a thing or two about being up all night, most nights, to the point that it affects your concentration and work. I know about hanging out on the couch waiting for the Lendormin to kick in, because if I try to lie in bed all I'll get is a repetitive and unwanted brain concert, six bars for each song.

Frankly, I was surprised to learn that one in five Taiwanese people share the same issues. That number does indeed seem high.

Because I take sleeping pills, I know that the fundamental point of the piece is correct: Taiwan's National Health Insurance is fantastic -- I pay next to nothing for my tiny white solutions -- but it doesn't promote holistic care. My anxiety and insomnia are probably baked in, but if I wanted to figure out what else was going on, if anything, I'd probably have to take two weeks off to see a long list of doctors to have a look at everything from my heart to my ****. There would be no general practitioner guiding me or facilitating any of it.

Not that I'm complaining -- at least it would be affordable. In the US, I'd probably just suffer and get fired a lot because I can't sleep the way a 9-5 job demands, and probably still wouldn't be able to afford adequate medical care. Now, people actually think I'm good at work!

But there's more to the story of a nation of insomniacs than "you need holistic care, not pills". 

You know what this country is? Wonderful, but also overworked. Managers tend not to be particularly flexible; 9am is 9am even if they know you were working on that project until midnight, because they assigned it.

I've had accountants fall asleep in their English class because they were working 9am-2am for months straight. I know people who've gotten emails at three in the morning, and woken up to someone angry that they hadn't responded yet. Kids go to school at 7am and return from after-school school at 10pm. On the weekends they have expensive weekend school. How could one not expect those kids to grow up with severe sleep issues?

Regular business hours appear to be 9-8, or 8-10, or 7-11, or simply It Never Stops. Calling a meeting at 6pm, or handing someone an urgent assignment on Friday night (due Monday!) is so mundane that I can't even give you a specific example. They all glom together like a big goopy ball of exhaustion. 

I don't think office workers take 1pm naps because of some cultural thing. Although daytime naps can mess up a sleep cycle, I think they're common in Taiwan because everyone is overworked all the time. The napping starts in school because the kids are overworked, too.

You'd think exhaustion would help one sleep better, but it does the opposite. 

As for me, well, I'm freelance. I bring it on myself. I'm not tormented by bad managers. I like my work and I like money, so I say yes to everything and work out the scheduling later. But I can't deny what I see in everyone else: they signed up for a regular job and a salary, not to be tormented by garbage management after years of being tormented by taskmaster teachers handing out pointless busywork. 

Truly, I love Taiwan. And yes, holistic treatment matters in reducing dependency on sleeping pills. 

But the solution isn't "acupuncture", "relaxation methods" or "traditional Chinese medicine". 

Those things might help, though I'm not an enthusiastic supporter of TCM. 

The solution is two simple things that Taiwan is not even close to prepared to do:

The first is a comprehensive overhaul of work culture in Taiwan. Most managers probably know that they are terrible (maybe this is why they have trouble sleeping, too!) Society needs to come together to pressure them to be less so.

The second is to legalize medical marijuana, especially edibles (because smoking is bad for you, period.) At the very least, CBD needs to be made more available. It's a healthier, non-addictive alternative to Xanax and Ambien, which seem to be what most people take. In other words, the most effective herbal remedies are specifically the ones that aren't legal in Taiwan, but should be.

There's no acupuncture or breathing technique strong enough to fix the problem until we address not just the internal factors causing Taiwan's insomnia issue, but the external ones as well.

It's very hard to stand for Taiwan and work for a corporation at the same time

Let me say at the outset of this post that post-dissertation life has been a mishmash. That's where my headspace is at, so until the fog clears, I'll probably be writing more like a casual blogger. Not only did work pick up immediately after I submitted the thesis, but I've come to realize that I need to take at least one year off, and probably more than that, from academic work and not even think about the possibility of a PhD for now, just to keep myself on an even keel. (To be clear, a few people have thought I was doing a PhD but in the UK, a "dissertation" is for a Master's). I realized when I hit that 'submit' button that I've been engaged in some sort of high-level teacher training since 2013, whether for a professional or academic degree, and it's time to stop for a bit and breathe. It's time to think about how I can put all of that challenging, time-consuming and expensive training to good use contributing to Taiwan. 

Anyway, let's talk about corporations, and how much they suck. I won't give too many details now, but I'm currently embroiled in a battle with one of my (former) employers over my political speech, and Lao Ren Cha as a blog is directly related. I'll tell the whole story when it's finally over. For now, the main issue is that I criticized the political position taken by a large corporate entity that I used to have a professional association with, and was essentially fired for it. They had changed their website to say "Taiwan, China" instead of "Taiwan", and I spoke out. I complained in the office -- an act I was willing to agree not to do again -- and here, without revealing exactly what my association with them was. 

Frankly, I only continued to do minimal work for them after this change because I genuinely like my coworkers in the Taiwan office, who are generally (if not unanimously) on my side. I hoped that continuing to shine a light on the issue, along with the Taipei office itself expressing strong disapproval, would eventually cause them to see the lack of logic and moral integrity in their choice to take a political stance, and change it back. That didn't happen - instead, I was told I would have to remove any posts mentioning the organization. I refused, and continue to refuse. The reason is simple: in Taiwan, despite any contracts one may have signed promising not to criticize one's employer, it's actually protected speech to criticize them publicly for political reasons, which I did. The linked article specifically discusses unions -- I'm not a member of a union, but honestly, that protection should cover all professional relationships. 

I don't expect I'll ever work for that corporation again. Despite this, I appealed the decision on ethical principles. I want them, as much as possible, to face the full measure of their actions. I won't quit - they will have to fire me. It's deeply unacceptable to me that an employer might take a political position (especially that Taiwan is a part of China) at the behest of the Chinese government, and then insist its employees are not allowed to publicly disagree with this in any way. If they can take a political position, so can their workers, even if that position directly criticizes the employer. If an employer doesn't like that, the simple solution is not to take a political position at all, especially an ethically bankrupt one like calling Taiwan "China". 

This particular corporate entity, which I will name once my appeal has gone through (and is most likely rejected), doesn't stop at restricting the speech of people who openly admit to having some sort of relationship with them. There's another post out there, by another person, criticizing them for the same reason. That writer never explicitly states that they work with the company, and is written only under their first name, with no photograph. And yet, that person also faced a disciplinary interview and was asked to remove all reference to the company in their post - effectively, their political speech was being censored at the risk of losing their job. The outcome of that is still unclear, but I have a feeling I'll be writing about it in time. 

Despite this, I still believe that when political speech intrinsically includes a criticism of an entity, it is impossible to separate the political belief and its expression from the right to free speech. 

I discussed this issue with a friend who works for a large corporation. She complained that her employer also takes a pro-China stance and does not support the protests or fight for democracy and freedom in Hong Kong, because China is such a big market. Some high-level people have quit over this, but she said there is a feeling that one can't publicly state, under one's own name, that they disagree. It may not even be acceptable to simply state that you support Hong Kong under your own name, without mentioning where you work, if you can be linked publicly with your workplace in other areas. We discussed Cathay Pacific, and how rank-and-file employees can be barred from expressing political opinions in their private life (and how even higher-ups who want to stand by them face scrutiny or may feel they have no choice but to resign). We discussed how the reality is grim: some big boss types might take that bullet, but most won't. China's a big market. They'd rather risk the moral and ethical (and in some places, legal) dubiousness of firing employees rather than stand up to a genocidal government, even as they know it's wrong. 

So how do you hold down a corporate job or even contract, knowing that at any moment your political beliefs could make it impossible for you to continue working there? How do you support yourself? 

I've managed to build a pretty solid freelance career with mostly local employers who would not take action against me for my political beliefs -- pretty much all of them are aware of how I feel, and being local, they generally would not take a pro-China political position as a company. This more corporate contract job was just one of many, and my income from them was not large. I can afford to lose it, which means I can afford to stand by my beliefs and my principles. Not everyone can, though, and I wish I had a better answer for those who can't just refuse or quit. 

It's easy to retreat into leftist platitudes like "dismantle corporations", and on some level I agree with that. They suck, and better ways of organizing workforces, services and production exist, from cooperatives to local enterprises. But, that's work that takes generations and we don't have a few generations' worth of time as China grows more aggressive. I could say "don't take corporate jobs" but that's not realistic for many people who need to feed themselves today (anti-corporate sentiment is great but putting food on the table does matter).

I could say the CCP simply needs to fall - and it does! - but that won't solve the more general problem of employers restricting employees' political speech on other issues.

All I can say is this: firing me won't solve the problem, because the problem is their decision to call Taiwan "China". The issue won't go away unless they change their political position rather than fire people who speak out against it. 

And also this: my contract stated that I was obligated to "maintain the integrity" of that organization. But if the organization is displaying a lack of integrity, what exactly are they demanding I maintain?

Humiliation

I just think this picture works with what I am trying to express here, though I couldn't tell you why.

A few years ago, I wrote a long, rambling post that nobody read about a short trip to Athens. One of the central plot threads of that post - which was more of a story that jumped across generations - was the nature of an attempted betrayal of my great-grandfather. As I understand the story, before the 1915 genocide, Armenian children in Turkey were already being taken from their homes and sold as 'adopted' children to Turkish families. The people spearheading the abduction campaign were not Turks hell-bent on persecuting Armenians, although some were surely involved. Rather, it was an Armenian family harming their own.

They attempted to have the Turkish authorities detain my great-grandfather (a fellow Armenian) for stopping the child trade, but it was a Turk who saved him: the captain of the law enforcement unit that tracked him down had served in the military with my great-grandfather and respected him immensely. 

That story wedged itself into my brain last night - my last night in China - built a little nest there and simply will not leave.

The night before that, I was invited to a fancy dinner and drinking with two of the "big bosses" of the company I was contracting for. One was Taiwanese, the other Chinese, and others were present, including another Taiwanese employee of this Chinese company. I was there to deliver a training session; I'm not an employee. I'm not a big fan of the 'company culture' there - I don't like enforced patriotism - but I keep my mouth shut because I'm not an employee and I don't live in China. My opinion is irrelevant.

After several beers, and speaking Mandarin exclusively, the Taiwanese boss asked me if I would stay in Taiwan forever, and I affirmed that I would. In fact, my dream would be to retire to Tainan. He scowled and called it a "DPP city". I indicated that I didn't mind and warned him not to ask me my opinion on the matter. I could tell he was deep blue and pro-unification - he'd made a joke that "we're already unified, at this dinner!" with his Chinese colleague - and was prepared to just let it be.

I know that seems odd for me, but I was in a foreign country, working as an outside contractor. I just didn't think the conversation would be necessary or helpful. Eventually, however, enough beer was drunk that I did affirm my support for Taiwanese independence and general pro-Taiwan leanings, while diplomatically saying "it's not about green or blue, I just love Taiwan." (I don't believe that - it is about green and blue: mostly that green may be imperfect, but blue is made up of China sellouts and former mass murderers, but I wanted to keep the banter friendly.)

I added that while I am not Taiwanese - I don't have citizenship or ancestry tying me to Taiwan - that in my heart, this was my home. He joked that my colleague and I had lived in Taiwan so long that we were in fact Taiwanese.

The Taiwanese boss indicated that he was fine with my views, and I further joked that I couldn't vote anyway, and I would never mention my views to the trainees in China - what would be the point? We ended the night amicably, and I thought that while we would never agree politically and didn't have to be friends, that we could work together. I even kind of liked him as a person, and thought I wouldn't mind drinking with him and others again.

The next day was the closing ceremony for the training session. The Taiwanese employee - not the boss - recounted my description of these classes in Taiwan being 'more relaxed'. Trainees show up with coffee, we chat a bit before the class starts, nobody wears matching shirts, we sit around a table as equals. It's laid-back, democratic and fun. He spun it into a story about how the Chinese trainees were harder working and more organized (which is true, but they all work for the same company, and that company has an authoritarian bent to their working culture, so of course they would be). I was slightly annoyed, because I hadn't meant it that way: I don't think either approach is 'better', just different, though my personal preference is for the more relaxed Taiwanese classes.

I decided, however, to let it go. Again, this may not sound like me, but I don't feel 'at home' in China the way I do in Taiwan. I'm a visitor and I act accordingly.

Then the Taiwanese boss took the stage. After some general motivational talk, he also told the story of our night of drinking, and said:

"Jenna says her heart is Taiwanese. And she and [her colleague] have both lived in Taiwan for a long time, they're Taiwanese! [Our employee] is Taiwanese, and so am I. You are all Mainlanders. So together we are all..."

...and in unison he, the rest of the staff and the trainees all shouted: "Chinese!"

The word they used was 中國人, of course - with the implication that we're all residents of the same country.

Everyone applauded but me. I sat there, not clapping, shooting daggers at the stage. In Taiwanese they call that look a "shit face" (賽面) and that's exactly what it was.

Honestly, I felt stabbed in the back. Betrayed. I may not be Taiwanese, but this is my home, and to have a Taiwanese person say that - and sell me out like that, by throwing my words back at me in a way that I couldn't possibly counteract.

All the while, the Chinese staff of the company have been nothing short of amazing. I genuinely like them all, and they do their best to make sure we are comfortable and have what we need to do our jobs. My students have been wonderful, and they are truly hard-working. The other boss - the Chinese one - never said a single impolite thing. Obviously, my beef is not with the general concept of 'being Chinese', if you have the ancestry and identify that way. (I shouldn't have to say that, but you'd be surprised the way some people interpret what they read.) It's with deliberately twisting my words into a narrative I do not endorse in a way that makes me seem complicit, and forcing an identity on the majority of Taiwanese who do not accept it. And it's harder to swallow coming not from a Chinese person whose entire worldview has been shaped to believe in that perspective, but a Taiwanese person quite literally selling out his own people.

Doubly so, as I'd never say something like that publicly to them. Speaking frankly after several beers in a private room is one thing, going on stage and doing it is quite another. I do believe that if I extend the courtesy of not publicly discussing my pro-Taiwan views, that they can sing their anthem and do patriotic chants all they like, but I also deserve the courtesy of not being forced against my will into being woven into a pro-China speech as though I endorse it. Yes, even when I am in China. I doubt many Taiwanese would do that to Chinese in Taiwan, and it should go both ways.

Honestly, it felt like a form of harassment. A bullying tactic. Sure, he's playing a role and knew the trainees would enjoy it, but it wasn't compulsory, like singing the national anthem or doing group chants (which they have to do, Taiwanese employees included, and I make no comment on. Not my company, not my country, not my issue.) He chose to say that. He did it intentionally, knowing it would anger, or at least bother, me. He did it knowing I would have no tools whatsoever with which to fight back. I would have to sit there and take it, because I'm a freelancer and he's the boss, even though I am also a trainer and that commands respect. Because I'm in the audience and he's on stage. Because everyone in the room agrees with him, not me. Because it's a formal ceremony and the 'face' was thick in that room. Simply not clapping and twisting my face into a look of disgust was already quite bold.

He knew all that and did it anyway. I wouldn't say it was an intentionally personal attack - he probably didn't think too much about it, assuming I'd just take it and it didn't matter, and was more using me as a setup for his own political gain. But I don't forgive that sort of sideswipe easily, and do feel it's part of his job to make the trainers they hire feel comfortable, and instead I felt sold out. I'm not even trying to describe my fury, because I simply cannot.

I know this sort of thing happens to Taiwanese in China all the time, and they have even fewer resources to fight back with than I do. I have read - and friends have told be - about being forced to publicly agree with "One China" while in China or dealing with Chinese counterparts - and not even being able to refuse to comment, look disgusted or metaphorically "not clap". And all that while being truly Taiwanese - I'm a foreigner who calls this place home, nothing more. Because of my relative privilege, I don't think I can ever know on a deeper level what that feels like to be in their position, but I've now had a brush with it and even that was unbearable. I'm still incensed. I can only imagine the gut-wrenching torture and lingering ache of being forced to vocally affirm an identity you don't believe in just to collect a paycheck that you might truly need.

It also happens in international organizations. I'll write more about this later, but even when Taiwan does something that earns international recognition, there are people who give the credit to China. Again, there are few tools available to Taiwan to fight this, though I am happy to see that as time goes on, everyday Taiwanese less willing to just bear it.

So, I meant two things by the title "Humiliation" - how I was made to feel in that moment, but also how pro-China people frequently seek to humiliate those who support Taiwan. The humiliation of a nation and identity, with few channels to stand up for ourselves.

I left the ceremony at the earliest possible opportunity, declined a second drinking session that he personally invited me to, skipped breakfast the next morning and was quiet on the way to the airport (he drove). I cited being 'tired' and 'having a migraine'. Those excuses were true, but caused by the situation. In other words, I was passive-aggressive about it. Those were the tools at my disposal.
What reads to me as 'passive aggression', however, reads in this part of the world as 'making your thoughts known without causing trouble'. What I consider professional - to bring up the matter at a later date - would be seen as overly aggressive here. My reaction that night and signaling in the hours following the incident probably made my feelings clear enough. Nobody commented, but nobody asked me why I'd suddenly become so withdrawn - and even declined free alcohol! - implying that they knew.

Of course, there's also this blog. I'm aware that there might be professional repercussions to writing this, but feel the need to say something anyway. I deserved better in that moment, and Taiwan deserves better in general.

It still bothers me, however, that I have no professional channels through which to ensure it doesn't happen again. I could tell the company in Taiwan that sent me, but I truly don't think they'd care. They'd just expect me to suck it up. Or perhaps they would care, but wouldn't say anything about the actions of a high-level boss at a company they have a highly profitable relationship with, even to ask that Taiwan-China issues please not be brought up publicly as it makes the foreign trainers uncomfortable. I'm not even convinced they'd understand why I was so upset - to them, what he said was just an obvious truth, so what could my problem with it possibly be?

Will I return to China? I don't know. The money is nice but I'd be fine without it - it's not about the cash. On one hand, I feel deeply upset at the notion of returning to a place where my words were twisted and mocked in that way. On the other, he's one person in a company of people who have been otherwise wonderful hosts. As I can't even publicly acknowledge (to them) how I feel about what happened, those who are less aware of my perspective on Taiwan and China might privately wonder if they had somehow upset me, when that simply wasn't the case. I'm not even sure how I'd tell my company in Taiwan that I won't go back, if I know that telling them about the incident at all would lead nowhere and might get be labeled as overly demanding.

It just still kills me, two days later, that it was the Taiwanese person's words that denied the existence of a unique Taiwanese identity and history and caught me in the gut like a well-fired arrow. I hear a lot of complaints in Taiwan that "Chinese" are rude, or bullies regarding Taiwan and Hong Kong. While I am aware that happens, it's just not been my experience. It's the deep blue Taiwanese who are the worst. They have freedom and access to better information, and yet they still choose a path that takes freedom away from their own country.

A good reminder, I suppose, that being respectful and doing the right thing have nothing at all to do with national boundaries. 

Taiwan needs more strikes!

As you've no doubt heard if you follow Taiwan news at all, Taiwan ugh China Airlines pilots were on strike until very recently. Notably, while part of the negotiations to end the strike included an annual bonus (de rigueur in most Taiwanese workplaces, so I was surprised to learn that apparently pilots did not receive one? Huh), overall the strike was not about higher pay, better 'perks' or other 'benefits' not related to health and safety.

At the core of their demands were that more pilots be assigned to longer flights, so that total working hours for pilots could be brought down to a reasonable standard that would not leave them overworked and overtired. It also prioritized hiring Taiwanese pilots (including foreign pilots residing in Taiwan) over foreign pilots.

I have no particular opinion about the latter demand, but the former is simply reasonable. Nobody wants an overworked pilot; that's how disasters happen, and let's not forget that until very recently China Airlines had a poor safety record (in recent years things seem to have improved). Although China Airlines says its safety and working hour policies are within international standards, considering said safety record and how overtired pilots can be a factor in plane crashes, I question this.

Besides, it's simply not that culturally ingrained in Taiwan to strike at a particularly busy time for your employer (the strike began over Lunar New Year, one of the busiest travel times in Asia), especially if better compensation is not the employees' core demand. To take an action like this, the pilots themselves must have known that overwork and lack of sufficient cockpit crew was a major issue. The only real rebuttals to these demands were, essentially, "but that would cost money!" (yeah, a safe work and customer environment usually does) and "but we'll lose passengers!" (yup, but you'll lose more if there's a major crash and people will die), which underscores how strong a case the pilots made.

The thing is, this kind of strike has been a fairly rare phenomenon in Taiwan, especially in earlier decades. Up through the 1980s, generally pro-business, anti-labor laws governing collective action made strikes difficult if not impossible (not surprising given the repressive Martial Law political atmosphere more generally), and even in the 1990s, despite some strikes taking place, "legitimate union strikes" were still rare, and difficult to legally carry through. Although strikes have become more politically possible since then, they're still fairly rare, with an exception being the China Airlines flight attendant strike in 2016. (That the ground zero for highly-publicized strikes seems to be China Airlines also points to an anti-labor bent to their workplace culture).

The lack of strikes in previous decades wasn't just about anti-worker labor laws - there is an overall lack of a strong labor movement in Taiwan for a number of reasons. There are surely some cultural reasons for this (think of stereotypical "East Asian" work culture which values hierarchy and collectivism; there's a kernel of truth to it, although Taiwan is certainly more chilled-out than South Korea or Japan in this way).

But, more importantly, it's the result of an intentional political attempt to keep labor from organizing so as to advocate for its own needs. This has been done in a very devious way: not by union-busting or trying to dissuade workers from organizing, but by preemptively creating worker "unions" and "trade associations" that employees in a company or industry may belong to, so as to create the veneer of organized labor, but which is ultimately controlled by the companies or government, not the workers themselves. Such organizations have typically represented the best interests not of the workers but of management (or the government) and did not necessarily take on labor advocacy at all. In fact, what "management" and "the government" might want were not always different, given the history of nationalized industries / state-owned enterprises in Taiwan and how government control of industry and labor was used as a tool for political repression.

Of course, as independent labor movements coalesced, these came into conflict with the old-style "unions", there were disagreements on whether to improve the lot of labor overall or to address specific needs of specific groups of workers and...it's all very complex but essentially, that's the reason why not every political party, group and organization which claims to represent the interests of "labor" is on the same page, or even gets along. For more on this point I recommend Yubin Chiu's chapter on trade union movements in Taiwan's Social Movements under Ma Ying-jeou (I'm sorry that it will probably cost you $50 to buy the book if you wish to do so, though that's better than the earlier price of $150 - and although Chiu obviously comes from a Marxist viewpoint on labor issues, he's good at explaining the fundamentals and historical complexities of trade unionism in Taiwan).

Under such conditions, it's not surprising that the labor movement has not been particularly robust and strikes have been fairly rare in Taiwan.

Anyway, taking all of this together, Taiwan simply needs more strikes.

First, because the typical Westerner's idea of a "strike" seems to involve the workers demanding better compensation. An anti-union libertarian friend of mine has even said that he imagines that only mediocre workers support collective bargaining, because the most talented employees have a strong position from which to negotiate better remuneration - it's only the employees who are not particularly distinguished who need to rely on collective action to improve pay and benefits.

That's wrong for a number of reasons, most notably that it assumes that all collective bargaining is aimed at better compensation for each individual rather than improved working conditions for everyone as a collective whole (it also assumes that more valuable workers don't care about whether their less-highly-performing coworkers are compensated fairly, which isn't always true.) But the flight attendants' and pilots' strikes show that this simply isn't that common a motivation in Taiwan: although compensation played a minor role in these actions, the crux of what the workers in both cases were demanding had to do with overwork and general working conditions.

Although I also support strikes for better collective compensation, there's a moral high ground to striking so that you can do your job better, not just to get more "stuff". Salaries in Taiwan are quite low and organized labor has not made any strong moves to push for better pay overall. There are a lot of hurdles for labor to jump simply in terms of social awareness of this issue: it's still taken as normal that one cannot challenge one's boss; changing jobs more often to garner wage increases rather than asking for a raise at one's current job is still seen as a good strategy; and it's still quite common for workers to defend long hours in the office because they prioritize making more money over having more personal time (even though one could argue that workers deserve both reasonable pay and reasonable hours, the rejoinder is that if management won't even give workers one of these two things, it's unrealistic to expect both).

 Of all the good reasons to strike, strikes in Taiwan seem to happen for the best possible reasons. So, more strikes please.

What's more, modern labor movements in Taiwan tend to be tied to other important social issues -
this labor protest attendee is marching to "end overwork", and also showing his support
for marriage equality

Second, given the cultural and historical reasons outlined above, there's no reason to believe that Taiwan's economy or infrastructure will grind to a halt (as seems to happen regularly in France) due to a large number of strikes. Despite the two prominent China Airlines strikes, they are still seen as a last-ditch strategy by labor unions that have only fairly recently coalesced outside of management control. Without a strong history of striking, it's unlikely to become a popular or even particularly common strategy. I don't foresee any sort of slippery slope here where there's a strike every few weeks over every little issue.

And if workers feel that their complaints are valid enough, and their conditions urgent enough, that this 'last ditch' strategy is necessary, there's probably a good reason for that. More strikes please!

Even if there were a slide into strikes taking place over a greater variety of issues - pay, sex discrimination in the workplace or the gender pay gap (still real problems in Taiwan), long hours - this would overall be a good thing for Taiwan. These are intractable issues that have been allowed to fester. Employers in Taiwan have taken the attitude that "I hired you and pay you, so you have to do everything I ask of you exactly when I ask for it, even if I take up all of your free time and I will take it as a personal affront and loss of face if you challenge me in any way on this or even attempt to discuss your working conditions" for too long. Labor standards are a joke. If strikes are what it takes for management to wake up to the fact that their employees are not their chattel, then more strikes please!

Working conditions, culture and compensation have been problems entrenched in Taiwanese society for far too long, and have arguably hindered Taiwan's economic development overall, as it loses its Millenial generation to better career opportunities, pay and working conditions overseas. Greater labor organization that is not under management control will become easier to attain as workers take stronger collective action, and will be the final step to eradicating the old government/management collusion which has been both historically politically repressive and anti-worker. It has the potential to bring various social movements together (see the image above).

Yet strikes are not likely to become yet another entrenched problem in Taiwanese society given how they are already typically viewed as an action that ought not to be commonly taken.

To put it simply, Taiwan needs more strikes.

Making a fuss is worth it: IELTS gets a well-deserved smack for calling Taiwan "China"

I was banned from commenting on IELTS's Facebook page because they're a bunch of dictator-loving pissbabies,
but I'm glad to see others taking up the fight.

Recently, 46 members of the UK Parliament came together to castigate the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) for changing its designation of "Taiwan" to "Taiwan, China" on its website and admonish them to revert to the original wording. The charge was led by legislators from the UK's version of the Taiwan caucus, and to be frank, is a breath of fresh air in a world that seems all too happy to sell out to China.

While it's highly unlikely that any of them read my post, my other post or my husband's (better) post on this topic, I do think it's worth it to make a stink, even in the tiniest way. As a friend pointed out, all that accumulated stink can sometimes build up to something, and cause people with real power to take action.

And all I can say is that I'm annoyed that my own country's government didn't, as far as I know, do anything similar when TOEFL made the same change.

And that's just the thing - the hardest part of advocating for Taiwan is being utterly powerless. When a major testing organization, which is meant to be apolitical (as language proficiency testing shouldn't have blatant political biases) makes such a political move for obviously profit-driven motives, a lot of damage is done. The more organizations with 'prestige' give in to China's demands for how to refer to Taiwan, the likelier it is that everyday people around the world will see that wording and just automatically file 'Taiwan' under 'a part of China' - and there's very little that people like me can do about it or only a very limited sphere in which we can raise a fuss. Or worse, if the topic ever comes up, they'll point to organizations like IELTS and say "oh, look - but IELTS calls it China, so there must be something to that!" and stop listening to reason when people like me, who as individuals don't have the cachet of a generally well-respected organization, point out the clear issues with such logic.

It's also simply psychologically damaging to Taiwanese people, who have to see their country referred to as "China" all over the place, with very little recourse and no warning as to when it might happen or where it might pop up.

These things do matter - the war over what things are called, what language is used. When every major company, organization and website calls Taiwan "China", people start thinking of Taiwan as, well, China. 

It's also difficult to keep up the fight because, to be honest, we lose so goddamn often. It's brutal, it's neverending, it's a psychological beatdown (which is part of the reason why China does it). It's really a thing of beauty to see that we cut deep on this one, and perhaps (perhaps?) a group of MPs will be able to accomplish what people like me simply cannot. Do I dare hope for more? Reader, I dare: perhaps this isn't just a speck of light on a bleak horizon when it comes to IELTS, but a sign that the tide could turn.

And, of course, it's personally challenging as well. As I've written, I have some work through IELTS, the nature of which I'm not allowed to publicly reveal (of course, by telling you that, I've essentially revealed it, and since I'm furious at IELTS, I don't even care.) Fighting this has taken a toll on my income, as I now sign up to do work for them as little as possible, when I used to do it pretty regularly, for pretty decent pay. I had to proactively decide that principles were more important than cash, and I was privileged to even have the choice open to me. It stands to hurt my future plans as well - there's a fair chance I'll do a PhD in the United Kingdom, as full-time study is the only way to get funded. Doing IELTS work would theoretically be better-paid than a lot of other things I could do to bolster my funds while there, but if I'm committed to my principles, it's not really open to me. It takes a hard, personal toll.

Alongside that is how difficult it is to get other people involved. I know the local administrative staff is upset about the change as well, but their entire full-time jobs depend on working for IELTS. I have the ability to tell IELTS to take a hike, but they don't. Other foreigners who do similar work are either tepid about fighting back (thinking it's too much trouble) or not financially able to cut into their work.

It's a brutal, brutal slog. More often than not, we lose. But sometimes we don't, and we're on the right side.

Make no mistake, IELTS's decision was evil, and they deserve a smackdown for getting political about such a sensitive issue. I'm just happy to see it was delivered.

And IELTS, if you're reading this...

...screw you. 

Forget the butt-wiping, let's talk about sexism on EVA (and other airlines in Asia)

Gotta say, dudes, I don't want to write about this. I just don't.

I tried to avoid it - like, okay, this was pretty gross and could be a post about sexism in the Taiwanese workplace, especially as it relates to flight attendants (one of the most sexist work environments in Asia, to be frank, and EVA Air is known for specifically hiring beautiful flight attendants). But...do I have to? Maybe it'll just go away as some sensationalist garbage and I can write about something that doesn't make me want to gag.

But, as the story progressed, I realized that, gross-out factor and tabloid-like sensationalism aside, it was a real story of sexist workplace culture, and therefore...ugh. FINE.

So, as I'm sure you all know because we're all news bottom-feeders at heart (myself included), earlier this week news broke that an EVA Air passenger with mobility issues requested that a flight attendant help him lower his underwear, keep the door open and wipe him after using the restroom onboard. She initially refused, but he insisted he could not do these things on his own. He also, according to Focus Taiwan, made some disturbing comments at the flight attendant, which I won't publish here but you can read about literally everywhere else. While the passenger did have mobility issues, frankly, if he is going to fly but can't use the bathroom on his own, he needs to be traveling with an assistant who performs these duties in an official capacity, or not at all.

That's not what I'm here to gawk at, specifically. This should be open-and-shut: passenger harasses flight attendant (this surely counts as some form of sexual harassment, given his comments), flight attendant complains, airline intervenes, supports their employee, and at a minimum, the passenger is banned for life.

But no, of course that's not the end of the story, because the world is a horrible place and really it ought to just burn.

According to the Focus Taiwan article linked above:


Moreover, it was revealed that the passenger in question defecated in his underwear on a previous flight in May 2018, after which the airline did not place him on a blacklist, but rather left frontline flight attendants to deal with the man every time he flew with the airline, the union said.


CNN reported that EVA Air is insisting his previous flights were without incident, but that:


At the Monday press conference, the flight attendant was accompanied by a representative of the local flight attendants' union and fellow EVA employee. The union representative told reporters the man had flown EVA from the US to Asia numerous times. He had defecated in his seat during a flight last May after the crew rejected his demands, causing a foul smell in the entire cabin for over 10 hours, the representative said.


Taiwan News provides some potential background to previous incidents, so although they're not a source I care to link to, I will here.

So, this isn't an issue of a one-off incident in which a passenger made an unreasonable request, and the flight attendant was too flustered to forcefully refuse him (after all, her job is in customer service). It's entirely likely that this passenger has a history of such behavior, and that EVA Air, in the past, has not protected its flight attendants from it.

Like I said, working as a flight attendant one of the most sexist work environments in Asia. While I have said that of all the countries in Asia, Taiwan has the best gender egalitarianism (and meant it, and will defend it), that doesn't mean it's perfect, or even particularly good. Just better than other countries in the region, and that's not a particularly high bar to clear. And in this particular sector, the company culture is a throwback to the 1950s.

What's more, the same article reports that he has another flight with EVA booked this May, with no sign from the airline that they are intending to blacklist him or refuse to let him fly. It's quite likely that the company will, yet again, "leave frontline flight attendants to deal with the man".

EVA also noted that:


Later Monday, EVA issued a press statement saying flight staff are perfectly entitled to refuse passenger's requests they consider inappropriate. They also pointed out that the male cruise captain also helped the passenger in question during the flight.

The company also said it backs the flight staff completely and are prepared to offer assistance, if needed, to sue the passenger.


Translation:

"You've spent your entire career being told you have to do whatever it takes to please customers, and you know on some level you were hired mostly for your looks anyway. Our official rules state that you may refuse passenger requests, but let's be real. If the passenger complains, you'll be in trouble for not providing good service. However, we will be sure to tell the media that you could have refused the request, even though we both know you couldn't, really."

I don't expect every reader to understand this, but many of us who's held a customer service job have dealt with this tacit set of rules. There's the rule the company touts as official policy (you may refuse the customer), and the rule you know you are actually expected to follow (you'll be in trouble if the customer complains). If you're a woman, there's a whole new layer to it in which official policy may state that sexual harassment is not allowed, but everyone knows the real rules are "if a customer gets angry because you shut down their harassing behavior and complains, it's going to be a problem for you."

Note, for instance, that EVA is essentially saying here "we back our staff....buuuuuuut we're still going to let this man fly again and they'll have to deal with him". And, of course, "we'll help you sue him if you want, buuuuuuut we're not going to take any action ourselves."

That, readers, is how you know there's a tacit set of rules in place. If the rules actually were the rules, this guy would've been blacklisted already.

And that's what makes Asia such a frankly difficult place to work. Laws typically prohibit gender discrimination and sexual harassment. If you file such a complaint (especially a gender discrimination complaint to the government), they will take it seriously. I would know - I looked into doing so once, to a former employer who had sexist work practices, but ultimately chose not to as had no documentary evidence aside from one contract with some vaguely sexist guidelines, only eyewitness testimony.

But...good luck getting your employer to back you. And you know that men who target women at work tend to be quite good at making sure not to leave a paper trail or even witnesses. It's one of those rights that women in Taiwan often call "看得膽吃不到" - you can see it, but you can't eat it. You know you have the right, but good luck actually exercising it.

And this is gearing up to be just such a situation, with EVA continuing to take a weak position on the customer's behavior and not doing much to actually protect its employees. Or as CNN put it:


Supporters of the cabin crew have also blamed the corporate culture of many Asian service-sector companies that insist the "customer is always right" while, according to critics, ignoring employees' welfare -- especially after it was revealed the passenger appeared to be a repeat offender.

This post wouldn't be complete without a tirade about why, if this is service culture in Asia, it's no wonder there are so many creepo Western guys here looking to get off on their fetishes with Asian women (who, as in this case, may not be consenting). When employers in all manner of hospitality industries take this attitude (or, in some cases, cater specifically to it, but at least at hostess bars/KTV you know what you're getting into), men who think they can treat women like garbage come here and, well, get away with treating women like garbage. It's no coincidence that this man had repeated incidents on Asian airlines. He knew he could get away with this, and it looks like that just might happen.

There is something we can do. We can write to EVA and let them know that as potential customers, we expect them to treat their flight crew better. This is one time when voting with our wallets might have an effect: not buying EVA tickets in solidarity with the flight attendants would surely get the airline to reconsider its weak-kneed response. When we see behavior like this in public, we can stand up and say something, even if it might be awkward or uncomfortable.

And I don't just mean Westerners. I know I have plenty of Taiwanese readers. We - all of us - can do this. Because the treatment of women in these positions has got to stop.

IELTS takes a political position (and my ongoing battle to fight The Man)

Jerks.

As my husband noted in his nail-on-the-head post on the same topic, pretty much every IELTS teacher and examiner we know is horrified by the change on IELTS's website of "Taiwan" to "Taiwan, China" (Notably, Hong Kong and Macau bear no such designation. If I didn't already know this was all about politics, I'd say that's odd).

Many of us have written to IELTS to protest the change, including me. I'd include a screenshot, except that e-mail contains references to the nature of my employment which I cannot divulge, but which when blacked out render the letter incoherent. Suffice it to say, it was an angry but basically formal letter of protest and complaint.

We all got the same completely irrelevant form letters in reply, which didn't actually address the issue we wrote about:

"Thank you for your enquiry and comments. The IELTS Partnership is updating IELTS websites and materials in order to ensure that IELTS remains available to test takers in Taiwan. The IELTS Partnership will continue to deliver IELTS tests in Taiwan, ensuring that the widest number of Taiwanese students and professionals can benefit from the work and study opportunities that the test provides."

You can write to them too, by the way, their email is globalielts@ielts.org. See if you get the same bogus form letter! It'll be a fun international discourse comparison!

Of course, I wrote back to point out that their form letter reply was irrelevant to the protest lodged and got a snottier, though I suppose more relevant, reply:

"Thank you for your feedback. Please be aware that your position has been noted. Our priority continues to be to ensure that the widest number of Taiwanese students and professionals can benefit from the work and study opportunities that the IELTS test provides."

This is where I got a little testy. I'd say "I have a short temper", but several days on I decided to send this anyway. It won't make a difference, so please enjoy it as a retort created for your entertainment:

"If you consider them 'Taiwanese students', why do you list their country as being 'China'?"

Here's the thing. I know perfectly well that we're probably not going to win this, because The Man doesn't care about our tinny complaints. It pretends to be apolitical while taking a political, pro-Beijing position. And that is what you're doing when you list Taiwan as "Taiwan, China": you are taking a political position. You are saying Taiwan is a part of China, a position most Taiwanese do not agree with.

It's hard to fight the power, which as a friend pointed out, is the entire point of having power - so it's harder for people to fight you. IELTS pretends to be a dispassionate language proficiency test, but it's also a source of power: are you a non-native speaker who wants to study in the UK (or other countries) or get certain kinds of visas? You have to take it. It's tied to the government through British Council and the UKVI service. That's power. It's not just a test.

It wants to think it's not The Man, but it absolutely is. And as The Man almost always is, IELTS is wrong.

For me, this is the point at which "Taiwan, China" stops being an abstraction: it's not just an unfair, stupid thing that terrible companies do for money. It affects me personally: I'm associated with the brand. Some of my income comes from them. If I refuse to accept this, there is a real impact on my life, moreso than boycotting airlines or slagging off TOEFL. I don't earn money from those companies. I don't know how I can take dirty money now, so for the first time in a very long time, I'm faced with a choice between a chunk of my income, and my principles.

As China expands its forcefulness, more people like me will start facing that choice. I have to hope enough of them will choose principles, as I'm headed towards doing, but I know that many won't.

This isn't a small issue relegated to Taiwan and China. It affects people like me. It affects international workers and foreign residents.

And, as Brendan pointed out in his excellent post (which you should absolutely read), IELTS is essentially helping China accomplish its political goals, which serve as precursors to its military goals:


The government of the PRC would like nothing more than to take over Taiwan and incorporate it into their territory....This is not the ranting of a conspiracy monger -- China isn’t even trying to hide its intentions. 

 Whether China takes Taiwan by force or by “peaceful” coercion, it doesn’t want the rest of the world to see it as a larger country taking over a smaller, less powerful country. That would look very bad. Instead, China wants the rest of the world to see Taiwan as a recalcitrant part of China that needs to be brought to heel. That’s why (among many things) it’s got people pushing to change “Taiwan” on those drop-down menus to things like “Taiwan, China” or “Taiwan, Province of China”. It’s all about changing the world’s perception of Taiwan so that if Invasion Day comes, the rest of the world doesn’t see Xi Jinping as another Hitler invading Poland. 

And every airline that lists Taiwan as China and every educational institution that forces students to declare their country as “Taiwan, China” is complicit in this. With Beijing -- not politically neutral.


I don't know how to fight that. I don't know how to tell you to fight that. I'm still weighing my options, although I know that not acting is not an option. I don't know what to tell my students, except not to take IELTS.

I know some Taiwan-based examiners read this blog. I know a lot of Taiwanese do, too. I don't know what to tell you.

I considered suggesting a strike, and still think that might be a possibility. I worry, however, that it will hurt local centers like IDP Taipei, who are not our enemies (I suspect a lot of the local employees of IELTS centers are on our side, in fact) without really hurting IELTS as a global organization. It might be our best shot, however, at getting this story to stay in the news and embarrass IELTS as much as possible.

I considered a petition, but TOEFL ignored the one directed at them, and IELTS will too. That's what The Man does - he ignores petitions, because he has power.

I considered saying you should change your scripts and say explicitly that Taiwan is NOT CHINA, but that could hurt candidates' performance and that's not fair. It's not their fault (even with the Chinese candidates, it's not their fault at all that their government sucks).

Of course I will continue to encourage Taiwanese students not to take the test.

Something more should be done, but the result has to hurt IELTS Global. What should that something be? I don't know yet. But I have no intention of going away and I have no intention of quietly choosing money over principles.

All I can say is that I encourage you to organize (and feel free to get in touch with me, by the way. I'm easy to find). Be creative, and don't back down. The Man usually wins, but that doesn't mean you have to sit down and obey meekly.

I wish I had better advice, though. I'm not sure what the next move will be, but I can assure you we're not done here. 

Taiwan has made me more skeptical of free market solutions

It is really hard to love Taiwan sometimes.

From The News Lens, which really hits it out of the park when they want to, Taiwan's bus drivers face atrocious conditions, and it impacts public safety:


If the driver is at fault for a major accident they will have a strike against their name, and if they accumulate three major strikes then they will be dismissed; the drivers who have accumulated two major strikes will usually spend their days off making up for their “accidents.” This is seen as a "voluntary service" so their names will not show up on the work schedule, but of course they only have time for this when they are not working.

The result is that even though they have a day off, they end up working every day of the week, and the day after volunteering, they have to drive the bus, but as they are still tired, they will probably cause another accident, receive another strike against their name and will therefore have to volunteer again… completing the vicious cycle.

and

If the driver causes an accident, the Public Transportation Office (PTO) will check their work hours within the last three days, but the company will have the legal team tamper with the shift records, so that it says the driver only ever worked a maximum of 10 hours a day, even if they have worked more....

This meant that each person in the law team shouldered the responsibility of forging documents, something we could not hide as the documents have our seals stamped on them. If the company was charged with fraud, then whichever team member was on duty that particular day would have to bear all legal responsibilities, and would be seen as an accomplice....

If the records were not changed, the company forced that team member to bear the financial burden of the fine, either upfront or from their salary. I have also witnessed the company force the rest of the legal team to pay for a fine, after the original team member had resigned. It was the most ridiculous situation ever and really emphasized how unjust the company was.

...and so much more, but go read the article. 

All of this could be avoided, and service remain the same, if they just hired more people.

But they won't, because there is no mechanism in the market that incentivizes them to not be two rungs above slavers (I'm being generous - they get two rungs!) and politically, everyone knows about these endemic problems, everyone knows companies skirt the law, and yet enforcement remains lax. It can't be anything other than intentional.

This is also why I'm skeptical of total free market solutions to problems: free market solutions generally hinge on consumers having the power to create change, but I see no way to do that here. Many people must ride the bus - some for economic or location reasons, others because they have reasons why they can't drive (I'm not willing to drive in cities, for instance, and it would be compromising another value of mine to buy a vehicle.) They can't refuse to board until conditions get better for drivers or the buses are safer to ride. They might prefer happy, rested, fairly compensated drivers, but they will have to get on that bus whether it happens or not, so companies have no market-based incentive to change their exploitative behavior.

Neither is there a solution in which people just don't take those jobs, forcing companies to offer better conditions to get new hires in the door: they just plod on, understaffed.

I simply do not see a solution here that does not involve some enforcement of government regulations. 

Yet, not solving these sorts of issues is not acceptable.

The government has sure fallen down on this one too, but unlike corporate overlords (whom we have no power to wrest from their cushy jobs), we do have some power to insist on elected officials who take labor violations seriously and are willing to fight the rot they know is in the system. Even the proposed solution in the article: to note the driver, time, place, license plate and route number - involves engaging the government, not using the miniscule droplet of power the market affords you.

I don't hold out much hope that a political or governmental solution would do much good either - not yet, anyway. Taiwan just hasn't developed a labor movement the way some other democratic have, most likely because they left Martial Law (and the rampant exploitation that could not be escaped under that system) not long ago. There hasn't been a lot of time to evolve.

While there may be some slight cultural factors, generally I believe people are people. They all know what overwork means. They all know what it is to be exploited. There's no "Confucian" ideals here keeping rotten work conditions and low pay in place. It's not passivity either: have you been to the major protests, the ones that have changed the country? Taiwan may pose as a passive country on its face, but when it gets down to tacks, it's not.

Y'all pirates. And that's great. I just want to see Taiwan take that "let's protest this shit 'till their on their knees" attitude they have toward political problems and apply it to businesses and labor issues too. And really do it. Like, occupations and hundreds of thousands, strikes across the country. 

You've burned it down before - you forced the KMT to allow democratization. That was you, not benevolent leaders kindly giving you freedom.

Now it's time to burn it down when it comes to labor. Don't wait for bosses and CEOs to do better - they won't. It is only by great force of will that I am not overtly calling them "scum". Bring them to their goddamn knees. Force them.

You've done it before, and you can do it again. 

Of peanuts and monkeys

This is perhaps the third time I've written about this in a week, but I just have more to say.

I've been thinking about a few issues I'd like to [try to] tie together: reactions to my post about how long-termers in Taiwan aren't here for the money but are aware they're being undervalued, the general state of English-language media in Taiwan, and English as a second official language in Taiwan.

When I wrote about long-termers and low pay here, most reactions were supportive. The negative ones landed into two groups: those who think NT$66,000/month is fair, or even good, pay for a job that requires several years' experience, high level skills and (unfairly) a Master's from abroad, and those who said the pay wasn't important because the job would be good for someone who would be in Taiwan for a few years and would likely just want to beef up their resume.

So, let me toss some word salad about why both groups are wrong before I move on.

In terms of fair pay, the fact that pay is too low in pretty much every other sector doesn't make $66k for this sort of job acceptable. If you can make just as much money (or more) as a Dancing English Clown at a cram school, a job that requires no qualifications, experience, education, training, professional development, skills, talent, work ethic or consistent sobriety, why would you seek to improve yourself so that you might qualify for a higher-level job, especially one that states right in the ad that you'll be doing consistent overtime in a stressful environment?

And why would you want to take all of that education, experience and skill to make just about enough money to drink at Bar 7 and live in a shared flat or rooftop cesspit with paper walls, if you have any hope of saving meaningfully? Because after you pay your student loans on that foreign Master's degree and save NT$30k each month, that's about what you can afford, if you have no dependents. If you've gotten a postgraduate degree, learned Mandarin and acquired translation skills and experience, you are probably not 24 anymore, and would rather live like an adult.

Others say that this job is aimed at young Taiwanese Americans spending some time here but not planning to stay, or for those looking for a springboard to gain experience. This also misses the point: first, this isn't a newbie job. This could have been an excellent post for an early-mid-career bilingual professional writer, editor or translator, who might well have stayed on for years improving not only their own work, but elevating the English-language output of MoFA as a whole. It could have been a boon to both some lucky long-termer and to MoFA, who would get excellent work in turn.

That is, if it had been positioned that way: as a good but demanding job with a great salary, rather than as a short-term lark for an ABC kid with a Master's who's in Taiwan.

This whole idea of getting some experience in Taiwan and then leaving actually bothers me quite a bit: there are those of us who wish to stay, and as I've written three times now, we try to contribute and give back to Taiwan in gratitude for what Taiwan has given us. Although I won't spend paragraphs bashing them, I have less respect for those who come, take what they can get from Taiwan, and then leave. It strikes me as a little selfish. I have a more profound appreciation for those who want a fair shake from Taiwan, but also want to give back to this country in a sustained way. And yet, one of those grab-and-go types will probably get this job. MoFA will have a revolving door of people who never really develop themselves and get merely passable work, and Taiwan won't benefit.

Which leads to my next point - if the national government is serious about sweeping initiatives like making English a second official language in Taiwan, it's going to have to shake up its whole attitude toward a lot of things. It can't have a MoFA attitude towards English education, asking for everything and offering nothing.

The government needs to think about employing the right people (which it can attract with the right offers), taking seriously the idea that teaching, writing, editing and translating in English are professional careers that people do over a lifetime and seeking out those people, and basically getting quality by paying for quality in terms of remuneration, benefits and work environment. There are those of us who want to stay, who can do good work, but who aren't going to be attracted by what's currently on offer. We're here and we don't want to go anywhere - if the government is serious about bilingualism, internationalism and multiculturalism, it needs to provide more enticing reasons to stay, and stop creating jobs aimed at grab-and-goers.

And it needs to take those people seriously when they point out the flaws in the status quo vis-a-vis English education in Taiwan: from a poorly-regulated cram school industry to, as a friend pointed out, the fact that students who only learn English in public schools generally don't come out having learned any English, to the way the exam system, through extreme negative washback, hinders the whole process. It needs to hire people who can then develop something better, and that's where long-termers looking to contribute to Taiwan come in. We - not just me, I'm nobody, but we - can actually do this alongside and in support roles to talented, passionate and qualified locals, but only if the will is there. We can't take a grab-and-go attitude.

This isn't true only for the government, but for the education system as a whole: from buxibans to universities, if you want talented educators who can actually help Taiwan achieve English as a second language, you need to not only give those who are already working toward this end a better environment in which to succeed, but to offer jobs that entice talented professionals, not a revolving door of Chads and Braydens who aren't implementing even so-so curricula well, and will go back to Idaho in a few years anyway without seriously considering whether they actually contributed to Taiwan.

Oh yeah, and if you are serious about multiculturalism, how about treating the many Southeast Asians who come here for work with a little more kindness and respect? Even just better working conditions and pay, not being all racist towards them, and not raping or enslaving them would be a good start.

This bleeds over into English-language media as well. Why is Taiwan News, which is essentially a gossip rag peddling the same sensationalist articles translated over from Chinese-language gossip rags, now the most recognized English "news" source in Taiwan? How'd we hit the bottom of that barrel?

Because there aren't very many jobs for talented journalists in Taiwan, either. By all accounts, the Taipei Times made a go of it once, but are now so under-resourced that even if there were talk of updating its website and media strategy for the 2010s and beyond, the resources just aren't there to make it happen. It was (is?) the English-language paper that both the expats and the Taiwan advocate Beltway crowd read, and probably never would have been a huge money-maker given its smallish target audience, but it could have sopped up the market that Taiwan News is currently engaging.

Great people have worked at the Taipei Times - and some have even worked at the China Post (believe it or not) - but they all leave. Few people build a career and stick with it, because the jobs on offer just aren't that great. We all know about the one guy who wrote a whole book on it (though you'll need a nacho bowl for all the shoulder-chips it comes with), but I've heard this from many sources. Low pay, long hours, hardly any time off (typical Taiwanese annual leave, which means not much at all), difficult environment. No wonder the best journalists they hire, if they can attract them, cut their teeth and then leave. The state of English-language news reporting suffers for it.

A friend pointed out that this has real-world consequences: she was talking about racism in Taiwanese society specifically towards Black foreigners (which is absolutely a thing), but it also has international consequences. If Taiwan News is the best we can are willing to do, and Taipei Times is offering peanuts and putting out thin content, what news about Taiwan from local sources is reaching the pro-Taiwan influencers abroad? What effect does this have on Taiwan advocacy internationally? What effect does it have on reporting on Taiwan from outside sources? Would that improve - because the state of it is pretty damn bad - if local news put out better, thicker, more compelling stories in English (and Chinese, but this post is about the foreign community)?

Could they perhaps accomplish that if they offered better jobs to committed long-termers looking to make a difference?

The long-termers will stick around - most of us, anyway.  We'll continue to fight for Taiwan in whatever way we can, and carve out niches for ourselves. I do the work I do (I have no single employer, by design) because I can get some satisfaction that way, and make sufficient money. If Taiwan wants us to come out of our little self-carved niches and join the fight for real, there have to be opportunities for us to build real careers in important and useful places, which offer adult remuneration and conditions for real skills.

If Taiwan engages the long-termers who are looking to contribute more meaningfully (and the locals too), the country will be better for it. Media, education, the government.

But if this work continues to toss peanuts our way, we aren't going to pick them up.