How living in Taiwan has helped my career

The other day I was talking to a friend who'd relocated from Taipei to Hong Kong (a journalist). He called Taipei a "professional backwater" and for a lot of industries, I can see where he's coming from. I don't think it's right or fair - I mean the city is about the size of Chicago and is the capital of one of the most prosperous and modern-industry-heavy countries in Asia - but he's got a point that successful professionals in Taipei are underpaid, the best tend to leave for Shanghai, Beijing, Japan or the West, and that a lot of times you just have to move because, I dunno, your crappy joke rich-people-are-trolling-us newspaper has decided to close down its Taipei office because now I guess it's OK to report on Taiwan from a totally different country - China. (I'm looking at you, Wall Street Journal, though that's not where my friend worked). I do think this is in part due to bad domestic policy - this is what allowing wage stagnation to continue has wrought - and in part due to purposeful and strategic marginalization by China that the crappy joke rich-people-are-screwing-us Ma administration has let grow unchecked.

But, with a few posts in recent months that included criticisms of Taiwan as a difficult place to build a career as a foreigner, I felt that perhaps a post about how Taiwan has actually benefited my career was in order. This will mostly be useful for English teachers, of which I am one: one of the few jobs it is fairly easy for a non-Taiwanese to come here and do.

Most obviously, Taiwan gave me the chance to actually try my hand at teaching longer term and as a possible career goal. That's not something that's so easy to do in the USA or, I gather, most western countries. I am in the USA right now for a family visit (for once there's no bad news) and I reflected during my recent trip to Hong Kong, where I spoke to this friend, and this morning in my dad's house, on what my life would be like if I hadn't chosen Taipei to spend the last decade.

If I'd moved on from Taiwan to another country to teach, I can't say for sure what it'd be like but I'm not at all sure I'd have the same level of professional development (CPD) that I have gained from living in Taiwan, simply due to time and funding. More on that below. Most countries underpay English teachers, and those that don't often require long hours, are very expensive, or just don't have the technological infrastructure to do well in online classes if they don't have in-country CPD.

If I'd stayed in the USA...oh god. I know many people prefer the stability of a salaried office job, but anyone who's met me knows that sort of work just doesn't suit me. I get restless if I'm in one place too long, or have to spend very long hours there. I get bored with routine more easily than many. I don't like being expected to clock in and out at certain hours when that's just not how my best work gets done. I have a strong personality that doesn't quite fit with most office politics, where 'normal' is the new beige. It sounds very self-centered and entitled and "kids these days" although I'm in my 30s, but better that I know this about myself and act on it than put myself and others through the torture of my trying to work such a job, yes? I find most office work meaningless on a personal level, even as I acknowledge that some of it must be done and others do find meaning in it.  So, with my remarkable lack of talent at doing office work I don't find meaningful, and my penchant for saying what I think regardless of the social consequences, and my intractable inability to act 'beige', I probably wouldn't have gotten promoted very quickly and would probably still be wondering why I'm on the bottom rungs at a company that's given me a job that I could do far better at, but lack the motivation to try. I wouldn't even be able to afford training for something different, so I'd feel stuck. I'd still be taking the bus 2 hours to work and back each day and struggling to pay rent on the fringes of a major city, working a 2nd job to have any savings at all, watching my 20s melt into my 30s with little change.

Doesn't that sound lovely?

Taiwan, in short, gave me the chance to do something else. I can't imagine I would have been able to afford the path to becoming an English teacher in the USA.

Anyone who reads this blog semi-regularly knows that I'm a big proponent of teacher training. I really don't buy the argument that all you need is the right personality or talent and some classroom practice - if anything it's condescending to teachers who have worked hard to perfect their craft to imply that any reasonably extroverted upstart who isn't a total dullard could just sort of figure it all out in a few months through magic or something. But, what I haven't perhaps made clear is that I'm also a fan of experience, and getting someone fresh off the plane into a job where they can see for themselves if they like it and are suited to it as a career before committing to an expensive degree program is something I support.  After all I got my start that way. I'd only insist that such opportunities come with somewhat standardized, respectable on the job training and continuing with the job would require getting (school-funded) qualification such as CELTA after a year or two.

But you can't do that in the USA - you might be able to volunteer or get a job at an unaccredited school/institute, but you won't be able to get a real job paying a living wage teaching English in the USA unless you commit to perhaps more money than you want to spend getting certified to do something you've never even tried. Most such jobs seem to require a Master's or teaching license. I can see how promising new talent may decide to just take office jobs rather than commit to that.

So, thank you Taiwan, for making it possible for me to discover a career that suits me in a way my home country could not.

You could say that a lot of countries provide this - you can teach English anywhere. Yes, almost anywhere, but Taiwan has the advantages of being more livable than say, China (or the Middle East for women with strong feminist beliefs), with better wages than most of South America, all of Europe, Turkey and most of Southeast Asia (I hear wages in Vietnam are pretty good but are awful and exploitative in Thailand). It's not as expensive as Japan or Europe - perhaps only in Korea can you save more as jobs there tend to provide perks such as flight reimbursement and free accommodation.

So, in Taiwan you can live fairly well and potentially save enough to pay for CPD - which schools should be paying for or helping to fund but generally don't.  That's actually pretty rare in this profession! I'm not sure if I lived in a more expensive country if I'd have been able to afford Delta at all, or if I'd had to commit to one full-time job. You may have to go abroad for CPD in Taiwan - more about that and other issues below - but at least for me, Taiwan has given me the flexibility and funds I need to get it done.

Taiwan also allowed me to become a permanent resident fairly easily - not something a lot of countries necessarily do. This allowed me to sort of 'create a job' for myself in which I work part-time in corporate training, part-time in the IELTS world, and part-time for my private clients. This is not something I could have done as easily (and legally) in, say, China where permanent residency is hard to come by, or Korea where you need a job offer and work visa to even come in, and so that job - paying for your flight and accommodation and all - is more likely to expect you to work for only them. Even in Taiwan without permanent residency schools that sponsor your work visa can and do ask you to be available for them at set hours - you lose a lot of flexibility, but the fact that I was able to get PR fairly painlessly is a big plus in favor of Taiwan. That sort of freedom has really helped my career because I've had more chances, through being free to work whenever and for whomever I like, to not only get a Delta in my spare time (something that may have been torturous at a full-time job) but also to expand into other ELT specialisms. I don't know that I'd have had the chance to do both specialized private teaching, corporate training and IELTS in a more traditional job setup, and it has been very good for me professionally.

Notably, I could not have done this in the USA either, in part because there's just less demand for English teachers (and what demand there is seems to mostly be in public schools, and I don't teach kids) but also because that sort of freelance work requires a fair amount of bouncing around the city. I do not like to drive. Other than possibly New York - and maybe not even there due to long transit times - I couldn't do the sort of all-around-town commuting that I do on a reasonable schedule without a car. It's a life goal for me to never have to own a car, so this is a big deal.

That's not to say that Taipei is a totally professional place for English teaching, or that it's necessarily the best place to start a career. Certainly about 99% of the cram school industry, where most untrained "Engrish teechers" work, is also a crappy joke, Taiwan has no important professional conferences in ELT, whether academic or professional, and even real employers don't always treat you as a professional. I've been lucky in this regard but even friends of mine who've worked at actual universities complain about treated like grunt workers. There are no good training or qualification programs in Taiwan - you have to go online or go abroad. Most jobs don't care if you're qualified or not. Those in ELT research who actually want to participate in the academic side of the field rarely publish from Taiwan, and professional development is almost never paid for or even encouraged (again I'm lucky in that for me it is encouraged, but I can't help but notice it hasn't been paid for, and that's one other reason why I freelance rather than committing to one employer. No employer has a package quite good enough to get me full-time). The idea of working at a university and having a research budget as well as funding to travel to international conferences, as my friend in the same field in Japan does, seems to simply not exist in Taiwan. So, there's room to improve. A lot of room.

But it would be unfair to slam Taiwan totally. We have a very small community of ELT professionals - I probably know the majority of Delta holders in the country - but I've found a great deal of support in that community. I met my Delta tutor randomly through an online forum post. Other professionals have allowed me to observe classes, accepted me into training programs and given me advice on my way up. Those who 'get it' really get it, and there are few enough of us that perhaps it does mean we support each other more.

And on a more personal note, I grew into my own in Taiwan. I am not the same person who got on a flight from Dulles to Taipei 10 years ago - now I know how to work hard, I know how to deliver results at work (even if I am a bit temperamental or have high expectations at times), I know what I want and I feel like I have an actual career. I discovered that career through working in Taiwan, and I'm not entirely sure the conditions would have been right for it to have happened in another country. I couldn't stay in China, I love Japan but have serious reservations about what it would be like to live there, Korea is not as laid-back, and other countries don't pay particularly well. I've had the chance to try out different types of teaching and had work opportunities I likely wouldn't have had elsewhere. I recently had the opportunity to work in a professional capacity with a public figure I happen to personally admire and respect, on a topic I am very passionate about, and I enjoyed it greatly. I never would have had that chance if I'd just stayed in the USA and worked some crappy joke office job or slogged through work at a cram school in Japan. I wouldn't even be the same person - the professional English teacher who is passionate about her field - who would have had such an opportunity.

So, while my friend has a point about Taipei as a "professional backwater", I just can't entirely sign on to that perspective. Taiwan made me the English teacher and person I am. I  have come to love Taiwan as a second home, and care about it as a nation. I had none of those things in 2006 and while I suppose I could have the same feeling about any country I'd chosen to spend these years in, I chose Taiwan, so Taiwan means something to me.

Work for it, Tsai.

Despite this being a blog that focuses, or tries to focus but often fails, on women's issues in Taiwan, I haven't written about Tsai's recent election much at all. This is in part because I said my piece back in 2012 when she last ran: that I didn't think being female made her unelectable; that I appreciated that one former fighter-for-democracy-turned-slightly-crazy-person's comments on her sexuality were effectively dismissed by blue and green voters alike which shows the maturity of the Taiwanese electorate; that I admire how she is a self-made woman - she didn't come from any political dynasty founded by a father or husband as basically every other female leader in Asia has. Edited: I originally mentioned Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, but hadn't realized her father had been president as they don't share a surname.

I don't think I said, however, that her election isn't the end. Having a female leader doesn't mean an end to sexism in Taiwan. It sure didn't for India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh or South Korea. Even China - which in my personal experience is far more entrenched in misogyny than Taiwan - technically had a female head of state. America hasn't solved racism because a black man is president. That's just not how it works. But, I didn't think it needed to be said. Seemed obvious, right?

Well, along those lines, not only is it important to remember that the fight for women's equality didn't end with Tsai's election, but that we can't necessarily expect that the KMT being gone automatically means things are going to get better in Taiwan in general. I supported Tsai, and the vast majority of Taiwanese voted for her, on faith that she was the best choice. That doesn't mean magic will fix everything though - Americans made that mistake with Obama, and while I'm a Sanders supporter, it seems to me that the mistake is being repeated by others who 'feel the Bern'. She has work to do, and the people are going to expect to see improvement fast.

In terms of women's issues, this is where I personally - and I gather Taiwanese feminists will agree - feel that Tsai has to work to be a true advocate for women's issues in Taiwan. I will be disappointed if certain issues aren't addressed at some point in the next four to eight years:

Amending the abortion law so that married women may obtain abortions without the consent of their husbands
Increasing public awareness of and support for the victims of domestic violence
Making it more feasible for abused women with children to leave marriages with the assurance that their child will not be given in custody to their abuser or his family
Amending divorce laws - it's ridiculous that adultery is a crime and nobody should need to seek approval from the state to get a divorce
Expanding health insurance coverage for OB-GYN visits for women under 30, a greater range of birth control and other women's health issues including more complete coverage for abortions
Increased public awareness campaigns and other initiatives to advocate for greater equality in the home - in decision making, child care, housework and more...for many women this is where equality really matters
To better enforce existing gender discrimination laws so that women who face them have a real channel to seek justice

...and probably others as well, this is just a top-of-the-head-list.

Work for it, Xiao Ying. I trust you and support you. Prove you deserve it.

In issues not related to women specifically, I also hope to see change in the political status quo. I don't have much faith that the DPP has less cronyism than the KMT, which is why until recently I leaned toward TSU (but without their overly nativist rhetoric - mostly on the independence issue) and now am an ardent supporter of the New Power Party - a party that supports Taiwanese identity and independence but is more inclusive and less nativist than the TSU, with strong pro-democracy and transparency rhetoric, backed by the leaders of the Sunflower Movement, which as you may remember I supported strongly enough to give up most of my free time to join in the streets.

This is what I want to see - a DPP government is fine, but they'd be wise to look towards the "idealists" (they're not really idealists - they enjoy the broad support of much of the Taiwanese electorate, which tends to the pragmatic if anything) and those fighting for transparency and democracy to take their cues as to how to conduct their affairs. I suspect that, despite New Power Party alienation with the DPP establishment, that many in the DPP quietly support the NPP's more high-minded, leftist platforms while taking a more centrist path themselves simply to get elected. If this is so, and I think it likely is, then the DPP can and should seek to learn quite a bit from this young party. Not only generally but in their progressive views on marriage equality, gender equality, diversity, identity, and social change.

So do it, Tsai. Work for it. Do better than your predecessors. You have the smarts and the support. Do it.

And this mistrust in the DPP's ability to be more transparent and less power-grabby than the KMT seems to already be justified. In years past, I didn't think I could despise the KMT more than I already did, but their decision to allow Ma to be both the Presidente and the chairman of the party - a complete table-flipping of a delicate system of checks and balances that allowed him to consolidate control over the legislative branch and party funds - managed to make my dislike even more sour.

I had hoped that the DPP would do better, but it appears I may already be wrong in that naive dream: the DPP has confirmed that Tsai will retain a dual role as chairwoman of the DPP and President of the country.

All I can say to that is "NO!"

No no no no no no no no no no.

Tsai. Come on. The Taiwanese elected you because they wanted something different. They didn't like it when Ma did it and they shouldn't like it when you do it. Don't fall into the same old power structures and establishment bullshit. I understand that to some extent you are part of the machine - but you don't have to go full political Borg. You can do better.

One of the biggest reasons behind my support of the Sunflowers and the NPP over the DPP is that they are emphatically NOT the machine...and that's the sort of influence I want to see them have on the DPP.

Don't do this, Tsai. Do better. It will be harder, but you can and should work for it.