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. 

Why are Taiwan's emergency rooms overflowing?

 

The photo isn't really related to the post; I took it in Japan last year. But I like the visual concept

A friend’s husband was recently in a serious accident.

"Well, fortunately we're in Taiwan," you might think, "so he'll get a stay in the hospital and effective treatment, and it won't cost much."  After all, Taiwan’s accessible, affordable healthcare is consistently well-ranked. The Taiwanese public seems to agree: in general, satisfaction with the system reaches heights that most Western nations could only dream of, reaching almost 90% in 2019. All of this is possible through far less government expenditure than in most other nations, including the US – just 6.6% of GDP. Despite this, you'd only be partially right.

My friend’s husband will indeed get affordable treatment. However, he ended up spending two days and two nights in the emergency room, in critical condition, before he was allocated a hospital bed. And his condition was -- is -- so serious that he'd been put at the front of the queue to get that bed at all! My friend had some very complicated feelings about this, noting that others had been in the ER for even longer. Some would be waiting for a bed for up to a week. 

It's not news that Taiwan has a hospital bed shortage. News outlets have been reporting on it for at least a year. A physician who spoke to United Daily News earlier this year estimated that 10-20% of hospital wards have closed. In 2023, CommonWealth reported that emergency room stays lasting more than a night had tripled, and the wait for hospital beds had doubled. Around the same time, TaiwanPlus pointed to Taipei’s Mackay Memorial Hospital closing 200 beds.

How does a system that was founded on the idea of streamlined access, and informed by research on the benefits and drawbacks of systems in other countries, end up with such a massive bed shortage, and emergency room visits that, in some cases, are as long as typical hospital stays?

The surface-level cause is clear: insufficient nursing staff to attend to the patients who would usually occupy those rooms. Nurses are quitting in droves, they say, resulting in crisis-level turnover. Taiwan regulates the nurse-to-patient ratio at approximately 1:9, with higher patient loads during the day and lower ones at night. A shortage of nurses, therefore, translates directly into insufficient beds.  

The reasons for this mass exodus are as predictable as they are insidious: as with female-dominated professions in general, nurses in Taiwan are overworked and underpaid. Taiwanese nurses are frequently asked to do overtime and have trouble taking time off, but even experienced ones earn on average just $46,000-$55,000NT per month. Although Taiwan graduates more nurses than it needs, so many quit the profession out of frustration, exhaustion or both that new graduates aren’t stemming the shortage. Despite a surfeit of students studying nursing, Taiwan is almost always several thousand nurses short of what it needs for its hospitals to function at capacity. Taiwan has approximately 310,000 registered nurses, but only about 60% are currently working.

The good thing about obvious problems, one would think, is that they tend to come with obvious solutions. Offer better working conditions with less overtime for more pay, and all of those nursing students will remain nurses. Despite this blindingly obvious fix to a problem that should have never existed in the first place, the media, the government and hospital leadership all seem to be giving themselves enemas with their own heads. 

Initially, the government threw money at the problem without taking concrete steps to ensure nurses were paid well to work reasonable hours. Billions were given to hospitals through the 2010s to address the shortage; slightly less than half of those hospitals hired more nurses or increased pay. Many did nothing, or decreased their nursing staff.   Last year, the government also announced plans to ease the examination requirements for new nurses. While allowing nurses who would have otherwise failed the exam to practice seems likely to lower-quality care, the bigger issue is that it doesn't solve the core problem: bringing in more nurses won't stop the hemorrhaging on the other end. If nurses are not paid well to work reasonable hours, even potentially less-skilled ones will eventually quit.

More recently, the government has introduced new rules that increase the nurse-to-patient ratio and overall offer night shift bonuses. Of course, higher patient loads only increase stress on nurses, and bonuses to keep nurses working to their physical breaking points do nothing to address the overwork causing them to quit in the first place. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Different levels of hospitals can offer different bonuses to nurses; unsurprisingly, district hospitals, where nurses have the highest patient load, would offer the lowest bonuses.

As one might predict, nurses aren’t keen on the scheme. Nearly 57% “reject” it, saying it won’t alleviate the shortage, isn’t fair to day nurses, and will make scheduling shifts even more difficult. 

Apparently “pay nurses fair wages to work reasonable hours” is simply too difficult for those in power to comprehend.

Taiwanese media isn’t helping much to report on the issue. UDN mentions overwork, but doesn’t discuss improved pay and promotion schemes. Instead, it examines the enrollment quota for nursing students and recommends improving safety measures, neither of which are in the same galaxy as the real problem. In the Liberty Times, the head of the Yunlin branch of National Taiwan University Hospital suggests streamlining nurses’ work to make it more efficient and less repetitive. While this isn’t a bad idea, it’s also, still, not the problem. 

Chi Shu-ching of the Taiwan Union of Nurses Association said recently that there is "no one policy that will replenish the ranks [of nurses] straightaway", but that's not entirely true. Though it will also take some time, the obvious solution of paying nurses more to work reasonable hours will be the fastest possible way to convince nursing students not to quit their programs, and registered nurses to stay or return to the field. The government keeps setting aside funds for other initiatives and incentives, so clearly it's willing to throw money at the problem. How about throwing some of that money at nurse remuneration, and not just in exchange for more work? In other words, everyone seems to know "why" Taiwan has a nursing shortage that seems more entrenched and unsolvable each year, but few really seem to understand why.

Or perhaps they do, but they can’t bring themselves to pay women a fair wage for reasonable hours of professional work. Until this changes, Taiwan may well not live up to its global reputation for accessible, prompt healthcare.

A Thin Comfort

Taiwan's eternal light

When I'm extremely stressed, I engage in a practice that is likely very common: curling up on my bed and covering myself completely in a blanket. Phone nearby but not within perfect reach, lights off. In the US, that blanket would probably be a thick afghan or quilt. In Taiwan it's usually some thin linen drape. It doesn't matter; I just need to be covered. I don't even take away the throw pillows on the bed. Yes, I'm the sort of person who keeps throw pillows on her bed. 

I've found myself curling up this way more often in the past few months, as I've dealt with a fair bout of career anxiety. It's not just that I'd be making a lot more money if I lived in a number of other countries, but that I'd likely get to take my work in the direction I truly want it to go. 

Since 2011, I've been more or less consistently enrolled in some sort of teacher training program. First CELTA, then Delta, then a Master's program, plus a few short courses here and there. That first CELTA course changed the direction of my life; I didn't just go from someone who was teaching English "as a job" to someone who wanted to lead classrooms of adults as a career. I also became a full-throated convert to the power of good teacher training. 

Obviously, I wanted to be a better teacher myself. As good as I could possibly be -- which, as it turns out, is not perfect. I mess up too. But I also wanted to help other teachers develop their skills. I felt I could make a bigger impact on the world, or at least the education world, by doing so. I haven't loved every teacher training course I've led, but the direction, in general, has always felt right. 

And yet I've realized over the past year or so that there are limitations to this career path in Taiwan. There simply are not enough teacher training opportunities. Those that exist often get outsourced to international firms based in places like the UK. This is a direct result of people who have the power to decide whether to take a training contract choosing not to take one, and the organization needing the training looking elsewhere. 

This is exactly the sort of thing I was hoping to avoid by taking the freelance route. I struggle a lot with the idea that decisions might be out of my hands. I can work with a team but I am not a natural follower. I wanted quite specifically to be in charge of what classes I take and when I'm free to take them. I never want to be told by anything other than my bank account that I can't take this or that trip.

Instead, I've found that I'm too far removed from those decision-makers to be heard, and it probably wouldn't matter if I was heard. After all, it's not as if they aren't aware that teacher training in Taiwan should be sourced as locally as possible, to people who know the local context. 

Please don't misunderstand: I'm grateful for every teacher training opportunity that comes my way. I find most of them meaningful, impactful, intellectually challenging to plan and execute and personally satisfying. As with a great deal of impactful work, whether it improves the world in some tiny way has become more important to me than whether or not I enjoyed leading it. And yet, I do generally enjoy them.

Friends have recommended I start my own local training business. I don't want to do that -- first, I'd be in direct competition with people who've been in the field longer, whom I like, respect and have perhaps even acted as mentors. Second, I want to be a teacher, not a business owner. Running a business is its own job and skill set; a job I don't want to do, and a skill set I lack and am not terribly interested in acquiring. Reading books about Taiwan or studying two unrelated languages at the same time -- one of them through Mandarin -- are more attractive than learning to balance books or engage in marketing. 

In other words, as a teacher (or teacher trainer) I have the time and energy to learn Armenian and Taiwanese. As a business owner, I'd spend that time figuring out how to make and keep my business profitable. No thanks! 

It is a thin comfort that I know I'm usually very good at my job, and I learn from whatever mistakes I make. It's not enough of a comfort, though, when I think about what I could be doing if I weren't committed to Taiwan.

I have found other career outlets that satisfy me. This is another thin comfort. I've been doing a lot of work in language learning content development and online materials design recently. It scratches the same itch of being meaningful, impactful (one hopes -- it's not live yet) and intellectually challenging. In my own training I found that leading other teachers and creating materials were two strengths. I've also been doing a lot more paid writing, some of which you'll hear about soon. 

These frustrations and their associated comforts have caused me to consider moving in a new direction, out of the classroom and into full time materials development. I haven't found the right job in Taiwan, and most jobs abroad are no longer fully remote, but it's an idea on the horizon if I can't make a full career of teacher training -- and it looks increasingly like I can't.

I had a choice: Taiwan or my career, and I chose Taiwan. Potentially leaving the classroom for something different feels like leaving a religion, but here we are. It bothers me quite a bit that my complaint isn't about pay exactly, or finding a specific full-time job, but about being able to explore a career direction at all. 

This leads me to my final thin comfort, which I alluded to in my last post about staying in Taiwan. It may seem tangential to this post, but in my mind, it isn't. To take that kind of personal and professional hit, there must be a damn good reason. It can't all be night markets and 711! 

As I explored in that last post, despite its problems, Taiwan's fundamentals are solid -- democracy, a push for equality and open-mindedness, crucial services like public transit and national health insurance. Society moves generally in the right direction, and that makes it worthwhile to stay. 

What I realized from writing that post, however, isn't just that Taiwan has a lot of great things going for it. It's that what Taiwan gets right are also benefits that Taiwanese citizens enjoy. They matter because they're not just good for me -- they impact everyone positively. 

So many of those "best countries for expats" type articles talk about superficial benefits that really only apply to white foreigners. You know, how much an expat can make relative to the cost of living, what great homes they can rent or buy on the cheap, job and life opportunities that locals mostly cannot access.

I hear the same from the occasional older foreigner in Taiwan, waxing nostalgic about the "good old days" when Taiwan was "exciting" or opportunities where "everywhere". Usually, they're talking about the late 1980s or perhaps early 1990s. 

Okay, but a lot of my Taiwanese friends were children or young teenagers then, and were still being told by their parents not to even have, let alone express, an opinion lest they end up in prison or worse. A student once told me he was warned by his family not to say too much or even speak Taiwanese outside the family, or a "white truck would come in the night." Yikes. 

Who gives a shit about excitement or opportunities for foreigners when that's the local situation?

Of course, many Taiwanese look back with maudlin candor on the Chiang Ching-kuo era. Taipei elected a whole mayor based on it, and that's bullshit. Such an opinion does not cancel out what my local friends have said they experienced.

That's what Taiwan offers -- a better society than the one it had. For everyone, not just expats. Would my life as a white American be "better" in these ways in most of Southeast Asia? Yes, absolutely. But it would be a superficial improvement; it would make only my life better. 

In Taiwan, perhaps I cannot always feel the impact of things like "democracy" and "same-sex marriage" directly on my own life. After all, I could probably have the career I want in, say, Vietnam -- but Vietnam is not a democracy and does not have marriage equality. I might make more as a corporate rat racer in the US, but much of the US no longer recognizes my bodily autonomy and in some states, it's straight-up illegal for some of my friends to exist. 

In fact, if I hear Westerners talking about a country that's great to live in because you can make so much money, or it's a lot of fun for them or they can score more women than they could back home, it's a good sign that I shouldn't live there -- I'm not interested in a fever dream for white people.

If long-term foreigners are talking about the problems they and the country face and how life isn't always perfect for them, then it likely means their lives are at least a bit more like those of locals. It will never fully be the same, but it means the advantages that country offers are probably accessible beyond expat enclaves.

The benefits Taiwan offers are good for society, and it's better for everyone if everyone benefits. Even if I can't vote, it's better for me, for society and for those I care about that my Taiwanese friends can. My opinion might not matter, but again, it's better for everyone that my Taiwanese friends can protest and not disappear.

That's not to say Taiwan is perfect, but again, the fundamentals are good. 

Is that worth what I consider a major career sacrifice thanks to one of Taiwan's many imperfections? Is that blanket sufficient to comfort one in times of distress? 

It has to be. It has to be.

The online teaching cloister

I moved to Taipei to enjoy the city, not to be stuck in my apartment all day

A few weeks ago, I began my first face-to-face foundational TESOL training course since COVID hit Taiwan. We'd gone online at some point and were struggling to resume in-person learning. 

It had truly been so long that in the fog of the late pandemic I no longer remember when it happened, only that trying to teach that course online presented a host of problems. I couldn't really demonstrate various in-person interaction patterns, for instance. Nor could we discuss classroom management components such as boardwork and layout in an impactful way. A practicum (demo) is a vital component of this course, but it's harder for inexperienced teachers to lead interactive demos online. Everything takes longer online, too, and it was a challenge to cover the course requirements. 

When we finally opened a face-to-face course, on day three someone tested positive for COVID. Within a week, about half the class was infected, and I was teaching face-to-face with four students and a computer running an online meeting with the other three. I then tested positive, and it was back online for all of us.

My heart sank when I realized how it would go: back to my home office, back behind a screen. Yes, it's an incredible privilege to have a spare room for a home office at all, but it is draining to be stuck in there for days on end, without many chances to go out while Brendan left everyday for in-person work.

Gently put, it's a cloister. More critically, it's a prison.

While I've transitioned back somewhat to in-person teaching and teacher training, enough of it remains online that my latest stint at home prompted me to reflect anew on teaching and teacher training as a profession now that someone like me is just as likely to be working at a screen as in a room with their students or trainees.

To be blunt, I don't like teaching or teacher training online. At all. I've become accustomed to it, and of course I can do it. And yet, while some say online teaching brings people together -- it's possible to take classes you never dreamed possible if teachers and students can meet remotely -- I feel as though the screen divides me from the learners. It causes a rupture, a block. 

Everything takes longer, everything requires more planning. It's more difficult to develop rapport, especially when I have to put my foot down about cameras being left on if at all possible. Some never do, and there are situations where I can't (or shouldn't) force the issue. Imagine having students whose faces you've never seen, whom you'd never recognize on the street. I didn't become a teacher to interact with black squares all day, and I find it very hard to develop rapport this way.

Even with cameras on, I find it difficult to build the same connections with learners and trainees. To "make eye contact" I have to look at the camera, not the face on the screen. It's the same for the learner. I can toggle between these and create a simulacrum of actual, in-person, we-see-each-other eye contact, but it's not actually the same. The effect is ineffable, but definitely there, and entirely negative. 

One-on-one classes aren't so bad, as you only have to do this back-and-forth with one face. The effect is deeply felt in groups, however, especially if one of us is presenting.

I had an office job in the US all those years ago; lots of screen time, very little face-to-face contact. I hated it, and became a teacher because this is exactly what I don't want. It's kind of like attending meetings all day (something which can be tiring if you're working remotely), and you are the coordinator and host of every single meeting. I'm good at this in person. Online? Honestly, not so much -- because I don't want to be at a computer, period.

Pre-pandemic, my various jobs required me to jet all over Taipei and beyond for work. I explored parts of the city I'd rarely or never set foot in otherwise. 

Again, I realize this is a privilege. I understand that most people take the same route to the same office every day if they’re not working remotely, so “going in” isn’t particularly desirable. I get bored easily with routine, which is why I chose a career path through which I’d frequently find myself in different places. It got me out of the house, and I was able to see different parts of the city. My schedule changed often enough that there was always something at least a little new in this; it never got monotonous and I didn’t resent the extra time it took. I like to be on the move. 

You know what I don’t like? Being stuck at home most of the day, unable to leave my neighborhood or even my apartment, sometimes for entire days. If I have a training course in the morning, then an afternoon and evening class, the furthest I’m likely to go that day is the nearby 7-11. If I’m really lucky I might get to go to the ‘everything store’ down the street! 

I hate this. Plenty of people like working from home as it frees them from tiring commutes and allows them to be comfortable in their work setup. That’s great for them. It’s not for me. Mental health walks are uninspiring; I’m not good at walking with no destination. I’ve found myself making up reasons to go outside, which usually involve coffee or shopping, but they rarely take me anywhere new. No new cafes, little local restaurants or novel bus routes. No “hey there’s an Indian restaurant near Sanmin Road!” 

There is nothing worse for an extrovert than being at home all day, usually alone as Brendan still teaches face-to-face, and not feeling the rapport bump from work, either.

I have had more in-person opportunities recently, having started a new part-time gig that I'm enjoying quite a bit and pays very well. It's partly face-to-face, and that helps -- but they also underscore that being mostly online is a problem.

In fact, let's talk a bit about boredom and big career questions.

It’s easy to say I’m transitioning from teaching to more teacher training because it pays much better (to be clear, it does), but I’m also motivated by the level of challenge. It seems as though it should be easy to coast at the sort of work I’ve been doing forever, but I tend to get distracted and stuck if I do the same thing for too long. I know stagnation affects my performance, so it’s time to reach. This means more work overall, but that's the fundamental truth of what it means to seek challenge.

If all of this sounds vague, it’s because I don’t want to give too many specifics about work for all the obvious reasons. Besides, I genuinely like the people I work with. Most of them run their businesses well, or at least well enough that I don’t walk. I don’t want to hop on my blog to gossip about good people. 

Yet internally, I’ve been fighting…something. Distractedness? Demotivation? The delicate balance of work with my sub-optimal health? It could be any or all of these, and 

one of the leading causes is the pivot to online teaching.

Of course it's not the only reason. Working in Taiwan can be tough in certain ways: raises are rare, there’s no such thing as a paid holiday, it’s a battle just to get employers to do basic things like contribute to labor insurance and pension. In general I do not feel that teaching in Taiwan pays enough at the higher levels of ability and experience; I stay in Taiwan because I love Taiwan, but the honest truth is I could make more money in just about any other Asian country. 

Teacher training is a lot fairer in terms of compensation, and I won't lie: that's another reason why I gravitate towards it.

Every day I fight the notion that I’m good at my job simply because I’m a white native speaker. I think I am indeed good at my job, but that’s not the reason! 

None of those are the core of it, though. I’m used to the lack of benefits, and beyond wanting to be comfortable I’m not particularly motivated by money. (I'm only somewhat money-driven.) I didn't start to feel this distractedness until work mostly went online. Period, end of story, that's it: everything else is manageable but remote teaching is not what I want, and never will be. 

What's worse, because I don't actually want to be teaching online, I'm not as good at it. I'm less careful; teacher talking time shoots up; interactions don't vary as much as would be optimal; I'm less innovative. I'm less motivated online, full stop.

Online teacher training is even harder to pull off, but at least the level of challenge keeps it interesting.

Just to clarify, I’ve been forthright about this at work. Nobody reading this who knows me in real life would be surprised to hear it. It doesn’t really change the current situation, though — how could it? 

There are benefits to being online, however, that almost negate this (almost). Collaborative documents, chat boxes, interactive whiteboards: all things made possible by an online interface. It would be harder to schedule my own Taiwanese lessons if we met face-to-face, and I will probably start Armenian lessons online in the near future -- something that would have been impossible not that long ago. Trainees who can't attend my sessions in person are able to log in for the online ones; they get a benefit they wouldn't have been able to access in the Before Times.

That said, all this new technology never runs quite as smoothly as it should to be considered a true advantage. There’s always that one learner who can’t figure out how to access the materials on Google Docs (or can’t access it at all if they’re in China or have some sort of work-related block to that function). Zoom’s interactive whiteboard is clumsy and annoying. My noise-canceling computer is fantastic when my cleaner is vacuuming, but not great when we need to use audio recordings, as they don’t tend to play clearly. Getting everyone to mute themselves to listen on their own takes — you guessed it! — more time. 

Teaching online doesn’t even come with the only real benefit of remote work, which is freedom to travel and do your work elsewhere for awhile. I can’t go to a cafe — it’s a class! I suppose I could head south or east, but I can’t, say, fly to Europe or the US and work from there unless I want to keep some very weird hours. I’ve tried (ask me about 6am classes at my sister's old apartment in Hoboken someday) and it never really works out. 

It's caused me to ask some Big Career Questions. I love teacher training and don't want to give that up, but if I took on less teaching work and picked up, say, an editing or materials development job, at least I could go to a cafe for a change of scenery instead of spending the entire day in my little office cloister. I won't turn down online teacher training because I enjoy it too much, but I have considered refusing online language teaching to do this. I haven't pulled the plug on that yet, but we'll see. 

There’s no clear solution here; this is just my life now. If I had a different sort of job where I was desperate to escape the fluorescent horror and greige cubicle walls of an office, I’d probably welcome remote work. I became a teacher in part to avoid that! One of the reasons I’ve sought out more work is for those face-to-face hours; it will make the online portions of my job more bearable. At least I’ll have more chances to go somewhere! 

The Fissure

                       

When I first moved to Taiwan, I didn't have a lot of free time. Like most buxibans, my first workplace expected six-day work weeks. A coworker rightly described this sort of job as "not really being teachers, it's the education industry equivalent of working at The Gap." He wasn't wrong.

The only real upside was public holidays: on those preposterous work/school "make up days", we didn't have Saturday classes. Feeling a bit trapped in Taipei -- you can't really do much when you work six days a week -- I decided to use one of these to check out Taroko Gorge. 

I did this with the wisdom and forethought of a turnip. I used none of my intelligence in applying my experiences in China to my expectations for Taiwan. Namely, that one can turn up close to a destination and pay someone a small amount of money to just take you there. So, instead of getting off the train at Hualien and taking the bus through the gorge like any other young person on a budget, I hopped off at Xincheng because it's geographically much closer to Taroko. 

I found no transport and walked -- walked! -- the several kilometers to the park entrance. I even walked most of the Shakadang Trail. Realizing my mistake, I then grabbed the bus to Hualien and got a bed in a hostel, having seen almost none of the actual gorge. I did get a very nice view of Asia Cement's, um, cement garden. Local children laughed at me. I deserved it. 

Years later, I told students what I’d done. They laughed at me too. I still deserved it. 

“Never do this!” I said. 

“We never would,” one of them shot back. 

On my next trip, we hired a taxi. I wanted to go to the Qingshui cliffs in addition to Taroko, but he wouldn't take us. My Mandarin wasn't good enough yet to really communicate much. It rained, and I had a headache. On the third trip, I rented a car with friends and for whatever reason we ended up driving over the North Cross-Island Highway first (don't ask). It was gorgeous, but we were too tired the next day to truly appreciate the beauty of our actual destination. We picked out a random local hotel with terrible beds and thin walls; someone was having a great time spanking their boyfriend in the next room. Good for them, but not fun for us.

We drove back, in the rain, over the cliffs but it was getting late and we didn't really get to appreciate those, either. 

Years later, despite all that bad luck, I wanted to take my in-laws. They'd been to Taiwan a few times but never really gotten to see the country's natural beauty. So we bought tickets -- to Hualien this time -- on the Puyuma Express and I hired a private driver through KKDay who promised to include the cliffs. I asked local friends for a hotel recommendation, and booked Just Sleep. We had a marvelous time, and I was able to manage the family trip in Mandarin with no issue. I was able to replicate this travel itinerary with my sister years later. This time, our KKDay-booked driver was named Bread. Not Brad (I asked). He wanted the universe to fill his life with bread, he explained. 

This little walk through time is metaphorically related to what I want to say, but I'll let you decide on exactly how.

But here is where it begins: while my sister and I gazed up at those impossibly steep marble walls, I reflected on all the criticism I’ve heard recently about Taiwan.

The traffic is horrible. Raising a family in Taiwan’s drudgery-heavy work culture is so impossible that many people either aren’t doing it, or have moved abroad. Salaries are too low. The banking system has long been the subject of mockery. There is no real path to citizenship for most of us permanent folks. 

Friends complain (quite rightly) that “make-up days” for extra days off are ridiculous; Taiwanese people already have some of the longest working hours in the world — just give them the day off! Even my sister, who used to live here, said that she left initially because she felt she’d “outgrown” Taipei. What she seems to have meant was that there were no useful career opportunities, and that meant it was time to go.

Worst of all, I remember watching coverage of abuses against migrant workers in Qatar preceding the World Cup and couldn't help but think, the system we're all pointing fingers at there doesn't sound much different from what goes on in Taiwan. It's a glaring issue, and the main systematic problem that makes it impossible to say that Taiwan is a wholly wonderful country.

I considered all of the upcoming critical posts that I haven’t written yet. They’re pretty diverse — one discusses the new and absolutely hellish system for sending packages abroad. Another is more personal, about health issues I’ve been facing that are somewhat related to my reduced blogging output. 

Is Taiwan really that bad? I thought. Is it so horrible that people are pushing to get out, and nothing works as it should?

It’s difficult to accept this, even when the various criticisms are either correct, or debatable but not wrong per se. Traffic problems really don’t compare well to, say, Japan. The banking system is indeed archaic; I’m unlikely to ever be a homeowner because I’m seen as more of a flight risk than some rich Taiwanese asshole who actually would flee the country to avoid debt. Like I could do that! I’ll probably never be a citizen and am not satisfied with “change is slow” explanations. Salaries are low. Work culture is unacceptable. People do leave. Career opportunities are not particularly robust. Even as a teacher — the easiest career path for an English L1 user — I could make more in many other countries in Asia. I stay in Taiwan because I want to be in Taiwan. 

But then I look up again at all that beauty and have a hard time accepting that it really is that bad. Of course, I’m not Taiwanese and I’ll never know what it’s like to live here as a local. The closest I’ll ever get is an approximation as a person with a middle-class income (and no local support beyond the friends I’ve made). 

Despite issues surrounding citizenship and securing the basics of a normal middle class life — like, say, a mortgage — it’s hard to argue that Taiwan has been bad. I can’t imagine I ever would have become a teacher, let alone a teacher trainer, in the US. In Taiwan I’ve built a career I’m happy with, enjoyed a wonderful marriage, made good friends both local and foreign, and had the opportunity to travel extensively. 

Of course, as a foreigner, I can never say that’s the whole story. There’s surely some selection bias, but local friends and students have also expressed a love for Taiwan that’s impervious to criticism. Life is more affordable here than Singapore or Japan, they say. Some have lived in China for a stint, or spent extensive time there for business. It sucks, they say. Taiwan is so much better. No one harasses you for being Taiwanese or not wanting to be part of China. They ask how Americans cope with our garbage “health care system”. 

“We mostly don’t,” I say. “Basically either you’re lucky or you die too soon.”

They ask how we cope with Gun Culture. 

“We mostly don’t,” I repeat. “If you’re white you’re probably fine. Otherwise every day, every traffic stop, every public festival, is a gamble.” 

“Yikes,” they reply. They’re right. 

Compared to China’s authoritarianism, Japan’s sexism, Singapore’s cost of living, and America’s various dangers, unruly traffic just…doesn’t seem that bad? The banking system is annoying but not life-destroying. I don’t know what to say about low pay and horrendous work culture. But it’s not like other countries are problem-free. Most say they have no real desire to leave Taiwan. It’s not perfect but it’s a pretty good place to live, they insist. They don’t think it’s puzzling that I’d leave the US and decide to live here. 

That said, it’s not as though the criticisms are incorrect. Every last one makes a salient point. 

And yet, despite all this plus my own personal criticisms, I just can’t bring myself to spend all day slamming Taiwan. I visit other countries, including the country of my birth, and in most ways, Taiwan compares favorably. Occasionally I land in other cities that, in another life, I might have considered home. Istanbul was glorious (but as an Armenian, I’m just not sure how I’d feel about it long-term). I’m writing this from Mexico City. I could live here, but ultimately I know I won’t leave Taiwan. 

Why? Seriously, why, despite all the valid criticism? Well, I often get asked why I came to Taiwan, and I can’t answer that. I was curious, and not planning to live there forever. That changed, and I can answer why I chose to stay. 

My ideal home would have a few key points in its favor: it has to be a democracy with basic human rights enshrined in law (I understand that no country on earth makes these rights perfectly accessible). I tried living in a country that lacked this -- China -- and it turned out to be untenable.  Taiwan isn’t perfect in this regard (no country in the world is), but it's on a trajectory of progress.

I also want to feel comfortable as a woman. All countries struggle with endemic sexism, but compared to the rest of Asia, Taiwan offers pretty solid women's equality.

Health care is important too; I left the US in part because I didn't want to wake up one day and find out The Machine decided I was too poor and deserved to die.

I want to live in what might typically be called an advanced or developed country (I don’t think a politically correct way of expressing this exists). Maybe I’m a bit of a princess, but I do want to live somewhere where things generally work. 

And, of course, I want to live in a country that is at least making progress toward liberal ideals. I don't think any country has actually gotten there yet, but again, compared to the rest of Asia, Taiwan is doing alright.

Taiwan checks all those boxes. It’s not perfect, but it’s not the screaming shithole many portray it to be. And over the years, as my local competencies have improved, and my understanding of Taiwan increased, I feel far more affection for the country than dislike. That’s true even when I have sincere criticisms. 

Back in the early 20th century, my problematic fave described her first view of Taiwan: 

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

Most likely, she was off the coast not far from the gorge I was standing in when I began to think about all of this. After all, is there a more beautiful sight of the Taiwanese coast than the Qingshui cliffs?

It’s preposterous to dismiss valid criticisms of a country because, hey, there are some beautiful views! At the same time, it’s exactly those views that can make one feel ever so small compared to the ebb and flow of history.

Considering the ways Taiwan rose from inheriting mostly disadvantages, told one authoritarian government to get bent, is now refusing to bend to another, and still managed to (more or less) get rich with (again, more or less) low wealth inequality, it's hard to declare that it's really so awful. 

I want to except human rights abuses against migrant workers here, as there is simply no excusing that. Everything else is as terrible as it is valid, but I have a hard time thinking of a country that doesn't have problems that are equally horrifying, or worse. Like any other country, Taiwan isn't perfect or terrible; it's messy and complicated and difficult to put into words. 

Of course I'd say all this: I chose Taiwan, and choose it every day I wake up in Taipei. I wasn't born here, and a big chunk of my life is steeped in white privilege. Theoretically, I could leave.

But then my local friends run businesses, cultivate interests, fall in love, get married and have children here. Plenty of people I know have left for a time to study or work, but I rarely meet people who want to build a whole new permanent life abroad. They seem more proud of Taiwan's success than they are interested in bashing it.

That doesn't mean there's no need to address the problems that do exist, just that Taiwan simply isn't an intractable garbage heap. 

In other words, maybe Taiwan isn't always great, but it isn't all bad, either. 

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.

The reasons for Taiwan’s low birth rate remain simple

I was in Tainan over the weekend — I have no specific post about it because I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary, but I’ll share a few pictures. A lot of the temples there have those wooden plaques you can write a wish on, pray, and then hang your wish on a board or tree. If you actually stop to read other people’s wishes (and I do), you’ll notice that one of the most common is to “marry and have kids” or “have a little treasure as soon as possible”. Health, peace, love, family and career/financial success are also popular, for obvious reasons. 

But it struck me — for a country with a population that the news keeps saying doesn’t want to procreate, a lot of people sure do want to procreate. 

In fact, recent statistics show that Taiwan’s birthrate has continued to fall, remaining at or near the bottom of global fertility rankings. There’s some variation, with numbers being higher in Changhua, the outlying islands, Taoyuan and to a lesser extent, Hsinchu.

I wrote about this a very long time ago. The article probably sucks and I don't feel like going back to read it again, but I think it’s time to take another look. Mostly, I want to point out that people do want to have children. The question isn’t how to change people's attitudes; it’s how to make what most people already want possible. Shaming them simply won't work, as this Taipei Times article rightly points out.

Tricky Taipei has already published a good piece focusing on the availability of fertility treatments to unmarried people and same-sex couples, so I won’t cover that here. (I also hit this topic in 2016, so there's no need to repeat). The gist: anyone can freeze their eggs, but one must be legally married to a person of the opposite sex to pursue treatments like IVF. That’s not right and it really must change.

For those who aren’t seeking fertility treatments, however, the reasons why the fertility rate is low should be pretty obvious. Here's a brief recap:

1.) Salaries are too low

When you think about the cost of having children compared to Taiwan’s famously stagnant salaries, would you want to constantly worry that you can’t pay bills or raise them the way you want? 

2.) Housing costs are too high

It’s not unusual to want to own your own home before starting a family, or be close to that goal. Although it feels like new apartment complexes are going up constantly, they’re often half-empty, with many units acting as tax shelters or investment properties, not living spaces. Everyday people can’t afford enough space to raise a family comfortably close enough to work and school, so they delay having children. 

3.) Working hours are too long

In other words, when you’re grinding yourself to a pulp a hundred hours a week for some crappy boss, you just don’t have the energy to bone down.

In addition, if you're a double income household but don’t have family who can help, but both parents work, childcare is expensive. This is probably why so many parents pay for cram schools: most of the time, it feels like fancy daycare because that’s exactly what it is. 

4.) Straight-up sexism

Adding to this, a lot of Taiwanese women describe the country’s pretty strong maternity leave policies as “看得到但是吃不到” — we can see it, but we can’t eat it. In theory it's guaranteed, but we can’t access it. I work with a lot of career-minded professionals and over and over, the women tell me that they absolutely face passive-aggressive (or just plain aggressive) repercussions at work for taking their full allotted maternity leave, or are discriminated against in hiring because employers fear they’ll have children soon. 

And, of course, the gender wage and work gaps don't help. Taiwanese women still earn less than men and typically 'female' jobs tend to be lower-to-middle white collar. Women who feel satisfied with their pay and career trajectory are probably more likely to feel ready to have children. 

5.) People are marrying later

Single parenthood is fairly rare in Taiwan, although of course it happens. The government actively discourages it -- the abortion laws are intentionally eugenicist, not egalitarian.

With people mostly intending to have children after marriage, getting married later means fewer years to have children. That's a good thing. Personally, I don’t think my sense of self was fully settled until I was over 25, and I was closer to 30 before I felt mature enough to actually make a marriage work. There's even research backing this up, so it's probably true for a lot of people. In the past this could be papered over somewhat with traditional gender and family expectations, though I would bet just as many marriages were what we’d now call ‘failed’ in the past, even if divorce was not accessible.

6.) Lifestyles are changing

This isn’t a bad thing. It’s not wrong to want to live in a desirable area near work and school, with enough space, near but not with family, as Taiwanese youth are coming to realize the benefits of some privacy. It’s not wrong to want some of the trappings of a good life for your family — everything from travel to new clothes when you need them to not stressing about bills to sending your kids to good schools. Stagnant salaries mean fewer children, period.

7.) Gender roles are changing

Women have known for awhile that having more children means more work for them, if their husbands don’t step up. This is especially true if your support network can't step up to help. Some women have the desire and ability to be stay-at-home mothers, but even for families who can afford it, not every woman wants to give up her career, even if the hours are punishing. Can you blame them for not wanting to take on more in a society with this kind of work culture, where men still do far less housework than women?

This is also why people are marrying later: in the past perhaps one didn’t get as much of a say over what their married life would look like, because expectations were so set. Men earned money, and women could work (often running the most important parts of the family business) but had to do all of the traditional ‘women’s’ work, too. Even the Taiwanese feminist movement of the 1970s accepted this. Now, people want to marry a partner, not a role.

An interesting aside: the birth rate doesn't seem to be affected that much by educational attainment. There's a  drop-off in bearing children between female Master's and PhD holders, and a dip for women with Master's degrees in their twenties, but otherwise, the birth rate for women with Master's degrees in their 30s and 40s exceeds those with college degrees. This is likely because they delayed having those children, so the uptick in births appears in higher age categories.

This explains a lot

This is probably why Changhua and the outlying islands and, to a lesser extent, Taoyuan and Hsinchu, have higher fertility rates. I can't prove this, but in my experience the outlying islands are more conservative generally, so expectations of gender roles and family life may not have changed as much. Plus, young people who stay instead of moving to Taiwan likely live near family.

Changhua has some good things going for it, and the Taichung job market isn’t far away. And, again, if you’ve decided to raise a family in Changhua, it’s likely because you want to be near your own family support network. Hsinchu has comparably lower housing costs relative to higher science park salaries, and Taoyuan is commutable to both Hsinchu and Taipei, as well as being its own logistics hub due to the airport.

So what can we do?

Personally, I’m not sure constantly growing the population is the best way forward. Taiwan has limited space, and it’s already densely packed. Other solutions to deal with a super-aged society until population can level off would probably be better, but I don’t have any to offer beyond increased assistance to seniors. 

And of course, the statistics could be improved immediately if we just created a path for dual nationality for all immigrants, including the majority who are workers from Southeast Asia. 

But let’s say we do want more babies in Taiwan. How do we get people to have them?

Family subsidies are an acceptable start, but they are insufficient and don't seem to be working well. Measures to promote increased wages and lower work hours — yes, both of these, at the same time — would have a stronger impact, but it's hard to say what would achieve this and how enforceable it would be. Crappy bosses wouldn't like it because they would have to hire the number of people actually needed to get the work done and pay them fairly, but the goal would also be to reduce the number of bosses who can get away with being crappy. 

Affordable housing is something that can be addressed immediately. Instead of big infrastructure projects (I’m looking at you, F***ing Taipei Dome and every unnecessary new "Aerotropolis" and science park plan) while greenlighting housing  nobody can afford to live in, why not focus on affordable housing, renovate unoccupied urban structures and incentivize (not force) private construction companies to build human shelter, not tax shelter? At the same time, create or expand a mortgage or deposit subsidy for people with dependent children that can help them buy a first or larger home. 

Affordable childcare would help too. France has a subsidized “crèche” system; why can’t Taiwan? While we're at it, increase the availability of low-cost or free public pre-school, and create more engaging after-school programs for children that don't involve sitting at a desk for a few more hours memorizing facts to regurgitate on tests.

Finally, the government can and must listen to gender equality thought leaders. With progressive laws that don’t stigmatize or render inaccessible single or same-sex couple parenthood, enforcing gender equality laws and a strong “step it up, men (and bosses)” message, chances are we can make Taiwan a society where having more children is once again an appealing choice for women. 

Some of these changes would be complex and difficult, but others would be relatively straightforward. Some do require an outlay of political capital: reasonable work hours and pay will anger employers used to exploiting workers, and some of those companies skate by on razor-thin margins. Homeowners and development companies won't want to see the value of their properties decrease as housing becomes more affordable.

While I do understand the reasons behind such push-back, the changes that would actually solve the birth rate problem will also result in greater socioeconomic and gender equality. A robust middle class creates appealing conditions for people to grow their families. Funny how that works, eh? I'm not particularly sympathetic to those who resist because they thrive on inequality, keeping salaries low and housing prices high.

The government has a choice here: either take the necessary steps to actually address the low birth rate and face the inevitable resistance head-on, or don't -- but then don't whine that young people aren't having children because the financial and housing security they need is out of reach.

Most people do want children. There is no problem with young people’s attitudes and even if there were, they’re not going to change so all we can do is work with them. So we need to look at society for what it is and create targeted solutions that actually address the underlying issues that cause people to decide against having more children.