Sexism and the Taiwanese Workplace

“’This is how it is’, she said” I remember a friend telling me of her own conversation with a mutual friend. I remember that we both grimaced and shook our heads.

“How can that be ‘how it is’?”

“Apparently, it just is and she has to deal with it.”

The mutual friend had revealed that her job at a mid-sized local company in Taoyuan County paid her approximately 20% less than her male counterparts earned.

“This is how it is – I can’t do anything about it. It is what they do.”

I remember my stomach churning in disgust that someone I know could be on the brute end of such discrimination, and feel so powerless against it.

I know she’s not the only one – there is still a great deal of salary disparity in Taiwan for women working in smaller companies and in local companies. Often the employers make no attempt at hiding it. These same companies will openly ask about childbearing prospects in interviews (and are less likely to hire a woman who is considering having a baby in the foreseeable future) and it is not unheard of to see employment ads targeted at women that list desired physical attributes (although I am assured that this is really quite rare now – it’s far more of a problem in Korea).

It’s a rights issue that ranks right up there with the necessity of quashing employers’ sexist attitudes toward taking all of the maternity leave a new mother is entitled to – “encouraging” female employees not to take it at the risk of a downgraded performance review or fewer opportunities for advancement, or even implying that she won’t have a job to come back to.
Here’s where I admit that this hasn’t been my experience, either personally or observationally in the offices where I work. As one of the longest-standing employees where I work, I do bring home what my seniority merits (although that doesn’t stop me from asking for raises). I do get respect at work – I have great freedom with materials, nobody looks over my shoulder, I have a lot of leeway when it comes to meetings and paperwork, I get many of the best clients and the office has a general “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” attitude.

Take a recent seminar I co-taught with two others for example. Before the class began, students (generally older, male and in suits) came in. It wasn’t said but I could sense that they expected that the only foreign man in the room – a co-teacher – was the lead trainer or at least had the most seniority. There was no lead trainer, in fact, but it’s undeniable that I’m the one with seniority and the confidence to make that clear without having to say so directly. I walked around, socialized, attempted to read the students’ Chinese names (that never fails to impress). This approach to, well, approachability, I find, cements my place as the person of authority in any room.

When we began and introductions were made, my company’s director passed the microphone directly to me, despite the fact that the male teacher was standing closer to him. I took this for the sign of respect and recognition that it was, in a country that values gestures and the stature they imply in the workplace. Younger and female, but I’m the one with seniority. It didn’t bother me that the first impressions of the students had to be silently but forcibly changed. The thing of import was that they were changed, and that my company had subtly backed me up.
It saddens me that my friend doesn’t have access to the same respect.

I tend to work in offices that are larger and, generally, international (although this is not always true). The women I have worked with and built a close enough relationship with that we can discuss such things have overwhelmingly said that they face and fear no such discrimination – although, yes, I have considered the possibility that despite the seeming trust between us, that some of them are fudging their truths out of a desire not to broadcast how they are treated at work.

This is a big part of why hearing about a mutual friend’s struggle for gender equality at work bothered me so much – this isn’t Korea, China or Japan where this sort of thing is so common that it’s large-scale depressing (so depressing that I don’t think I can ever live and work in any of those countries. Even if I were to do well, knowing that I was earning money in a system in which so many women were being stepped on is not something I could stomach). It doesn’t have to be this way. Taiwan can do and has done better, and the Taiwanese professional world owes her more than this – both literally and metaphorically.

The “good” news for foreign women coming to work in Taiwan is that most of them will land in jobs – primarily in English teaching – where gender discrimination, if it is an issue at all, is actually in their favor; as teachers, women seem to be preferred far more than men for many such jobs. (Note the quotes around the word “good” – it’s never a truly good thing where discrimination exists). Salaries do not tend to be disparate between men and women if you’re teaching kids in a cram school.

I happen to work in a related but different field where men seem to be more common than women and are often seen as more knowledgeable, but have also reaped a bit of this advantage: I have found that bringing a different sort of female voice to the Asian corporate world – even if I am in the role of trainer, not employee – has made a difference, albeit a small one.
Yes, at the risk of bragging, I do think that the voice I bring to these gatherings is different, if only because I’m a foreign female and there aren’t that many of us in Asia, and there are even fewer of us who aren’t students or teachers to over-schooled children. My personality – think bright colors, crazy jokes (even in a business setting, although I do keep it work-appropriate), no makeup, a love of presenting and public speaking and Dan Pink-style expressive body language – is also somewhat different from what you might call the average Taiwanese woman (although I can name several notable exceptions even among women I’ve personally met).

But I digress.

There are still gender discrimination and sexism issues in the workplace that need to be addressed in Taiwan. A few that I have encountered:

- I mentioned above that I have no qualms about asking for raises. Getting them, however, is a different story. I won’t reveal my success rate but you can assume it’s about average. Part of me wonders if this is a gender issue – there have been better-paid men on staff in the past, but not now – and part of me wonders if it is economic. I certainly wouldn’t be the only person of either gender who earns less than former counterparts once did because of this tiny little thing called the 2008 economic crisis. Given the circumstances there is no way to be sure.

- There is still this prevalent belief in Taiwan that appropriate business semi-formal attire (not business formal but not Friday casual) for women still involves pantyhose, high heels, makeup, no open-toed shoes and collared shirts with sleeves. Some of this is still true – I avoid sleeveless tops, for example – but so much of it is out of date and puts too much pressure on women to dress for work – far more than men face. Back home makeup, collared shirts and stockings are business formal additions and not necessary for a regular day at the office unless you’re in a high-visibility role. Flat pumps, non-collared necklines and modest open-toe shoes are now perfectly acceptable. It’s time Taiwan caught up to a more contemporary dress code. And those ridiculous uniforms that so many companies require have simply got to go. They wouldn’t bother me so much if they weren’t a gender issue: they are foisted on female employees far more often than male ones. It is fairly common in the same company for women to have to wear uniforms whereas men have more freedom to wear regular business-appropriate attire. I would love to see a work culture in which women didn’t feel as though they needed to suffer in heels and stockings and ruin their skin with makeup unless they wanted to. This is where it’s going in the USA, and it should be going the same way in Taiwan.

- A working culture in which women who want to get to the top have to sacrifice family time. I’d love to see a society in which “how do you raise a family and have a high-powered career” was a question asked of, and by, men and women equally. I’d love even more to live in a society that could provide a suitable answer. Why are Taiwan’s most successful women by and large single (and yes, most of my most successful female students are disproportionally single)? The answer is right here.

- This has worked to my advantage, but it is something that I file under “gender inequality”: classes in which the students or even HR specifically request a female teacher. I have never heard of a case in which a male teacher was requested in my field, although I suspect that might be because it is generally assumed that unless requested otherwise, they will be male – which is not that wrong, as there aren’t that many women in this field. More often than not it is a class of all male students, and generally speaking those students tend to work in technical fields. Other than the obvious “it’s nice to be around a woman after working all day with men”, I do wonder if they expect a different attitude from me than they might get from a male trainer. While I do have a different attitude simply because I’m me, I also feel they are surprised by how not typically feminine I am, at least not by Asian standards.

- While I was not directly asked, it was implied at work that they were afraid I might quit after getting married. I consider it a sign of progress that nobody asked outright, but a sign of room for improvement that they so clearly wondered. The sigh of relief was palpable when I told them, without being asked, that of course I’d be signing another contract.

- There is some old proverb that goes along the lines of “A man’s mind is like an ocean and a woman’s is like a river – when a man and a woman marry, the river flows into the ocean and the ocean can decide what to do with the water.” I have no idea of this is Chinese, Buddhist or just plain old Bullshit, but suffice it to say that my now-husband was actually given this advice at work not long before our wedding. For serious.

- And, of course, there is the aforementioned pay disparity as well as fears of taking full maternity leave.

If we are going to eradicate sexism in the workplace it has to go beyond salary and extend to the full canon of women’s rights – reasonable expectations of dress, reasonable expectations of work-life balance for both men and women, ending the expectation that women will generally be Office Ladies with a few standout managers and directors, and reasonable working hours for everyone, so that nobody suffers when it comes time to have a family if that is what an employee is planning.

This last one is of critical importance, in my book, and honestly is closely related to why the birthrate (not to mention marriage rate) is so low. When expected working hours are ridiculous to the point of being both untenable and unhealthy, who suffers when it’s time to have a family? The woman – either in her time, sleep patterns, career progression or family life. We can’t just institute a “Mommy Track” – while not called that, such a thing does in fact exist in Taiwan already – and expect that mandating family and maternity flexibility for women will fix the problem. It will only cast women as poor investments compared to men in the eyes of companies, and will only hold women back while men, still expected to work the full load, race ahead. Instead, we need to decrease working hours for both genders and encourage more emphasis on work-life balance – regardless of whether one has children or is even married – so that having the time to date and later, if desired, integrating family life will be tenable for both genders, and ease some of the pressure that the current system unfairly unloads on women.

At the moment this discussion of work-life balance is taking place in Western countries and around the world - but it's only considered relevant to women and especially mothers. What I'd like to see is a long public dialogue about the importance, meaning and balance of work as relates to both genders. That's the point where we'll know we've eradicated much of the sexism in the workplace.

iPhone Photo Day II on Lao Ren Cha!

What I want to know is who throws a hot dog, complete with ketchup, into the toilet.

Someone put sunglasses on her dog and took him to Da'an Park.

A sculpture near the SOGO in Tianmu. For serious. What were they thinking?

What's funny about this - if I have to tell you - is that "big brother octopus" is "predicting" that it is dangerous to park or drive your car on train tracks.

I really needed an octopus to tell me that.

I love this building. I can't figure out where it is, but I can see it from the HQ of one company I teach at near Raohe Night Market - from the mountains, it seems to be north of Bade Road. Someday I'll set out on foot to try and get a better photo. From the 1950s tailfin balconies to the color scheme to the weird cement artsy touches, I just adore it. I'd want to live there if it were nearer the MRT.

I wonder what we'll see from this up-and-coming young political star, Mayor Chen! (found in a used bookstore).

Baby Panda Tumor Go!

Of Love and Mothers

I never see anyone other than young couples sitting closer than this. For Taiwan, this strikes me as quite close. I hope when I'm an obasan in my fifties and sitting under a tree with my husband, though, that we'll be even closer.

All week long I've been asking my students what they did for Mother's Day - I like to ask questions about work and weekends to force them to use the past tense consistently (as much as my job is about business training, there is also a language teaching component that I do take seriously).

I noticed a few cultural differences in the answers my students gave that seemed worth writing about.

First, the husband's mother always gets priority - this bothers me (of course) but is no surprise: the husband's family also gets priority for Chinese New Year and, I believe, Tomb Sweeping. As a wife, either you are supposed to only visit your in-laws with your husband on Mother's Day - theoretically your brothers will visit your own mother, as well as unmarried daughters. That's a bit old school but it still happens.

More commonly, you visit both families but Mom-in-law gets the day itself, whereas the wife's mother might get the weekend or day before, or be taken out to lunch while the husband's mother is taken out to dinner.

More than one student in more than one class has confirmed this and while the women, especially, don't care for it, they do agree that it is the custom. I really don't care for it - something like alternating years for priority, as Americans often do for Christmas, would be more egalitarian.

Secondly, children give mothers gifts, but husbands do not. "I bought my wife perfume last month," one said, "so it's fair!" Another: "I sometimes tell my wife I love her!"

"Did you do anything special for your wife?"

"No."
"No, why would I?"
"No - she's not my mother! She's my wife!"
"No - that's our kids' job."

In my family, and I suspect much of the US, this wouldn't fly: my dad always took the whole family out to dinner on Mother's Day (well, not really -nobody can really "treat" someone when they have a joint checking account). We all celebrated Mom. This year, she and my Dad went to some sort of flower show or nursery - she's really into gardening - and I think out to dinner.

"Why?" was the general response when I told my students this.

"Well, it's like thanking her for being the mother of your children together. It's like saying - you carried them, you pushed them out, it was really painful. It was more difficult than anything I have to do as a father. There's also the fact that mothers take more of a role in children's lives than fathers in various Asian cultures including Taiwan, which means more work for them. So a husband thanks his wife for all she's done."

"Oooooohhhhhh," they said, as though this idea had never occurred to them (it probably hadn't).

I do have to wonder if next year, a few more Taiwanese mothers get taken out to dinner by their husbands as a result...

...anyway!

Thirdly, I wanted to talk a bit about that "I sometimes tell my wife I love her" line.

I tell my husband I love him basically every day. When one of us leaves while the other is awake, we say it. When one gets home, we say it. Often before bed we say it. I wouldn't be surprised if I kept count and found that I say "I love you" or some variation to my husband on average of twice a day. This might fade with time - we've been married less than a year and together for less than five years, although we've known each other for over a dozen - although I hope it doesn't.

We're also affectionate - not overly so - not only in public but even when visiting parents or relatives or in a group with friends.

I consider this to be normal.

I'm learning, though, that in Taiwan it's not: you might act that way with someone you've just fallen in love with, but you don't see that among long-term or married couples, at least not often. I do remember wandering around Danshui and seeing a couple from behind, about 90 years old, sitting right next to each other. The husband had his arm around his wife, and she had her head on his shoulder. There was also the couple in the photo at the top, taken in a temple courtyard in Tainan (I believe it was the Temple of the Five Concubines).

Those seem to be exceptions, though - from my students, who represent a fine cross-section of professionals of all ages and positions across many industries in Taipei - I hear this:

"That screen saver on your iPod Touch with your arms around your husband? You can never find a picture like that of me and my husband."

"We live with my in-laws and we don't like to show affection around them, so now it is our habit not to show it."

"No - we rarely say 'I love you'. That's just not our way."

"I tell my kids 'I love you' every day but not my husband."

"If we go out with our friends, it's just like that - we don't hold hands or something. I would feel that is too strange."

I've also noticed that when my female friends come to a social gathering, they might bring a male guest. They act like friends but I really can't tell if they're dating: I suspect they're often in the early stages of it, but it's truly hard to tell.

And all of this, to me, is quite foreign, though not entirely surprising. I have to wonder - does the affection my husband and I show each other in public strike locals as being "too much"? Do they assume we're just dating and falling in love and not a married couple (I've encountered that before - new acquaintances who can clearly tell that we're a couple but are surprised to learn that we are married). Do our Taiwanese friends inwardly recoil when I put my hand on my husband's knee in public, or when he rubs the back of my neck? If so, are they just too polite to say anything? (I hope not - I'd rather know if I'm committing a faux pas).

Which leads me to contemplate both relationships and motherhood from my own perspective against what seems to be the norm in Taiwan - with the obvious caveat that everyone is different, everyone's mileage will vary, and we're talking in more observed trends than facts.

That's for another post, though.

"The New Land of Smiles" is not a smaller version of China!

Thanks to The View from Taiwan, I went ahead and read this article: The New Land of Smiles.

The Land of Smiles is an old nickname given to Thailand based on the friendliness of its people - and while there are plenty of cheaters and scammers in Thailand, it is true that most Thai people are uncommonly friendly and welcoming. I mean, I believe that about 90% of people are good around the world, 9% are apathetic or indifferent and 1% are bad characters, and that the reason travelers run into so many of the 1% is simply that they're in the tourist sites where that 1% target their victims - makes it seem like there are many more bad sorts out there than good, but is fundamentally skewed.

While I wouldn't go as far as Michael and say it's the worst article written about traveling in Taiwan, I will say that it has some massive fundamental flaws.

That's a right shame, considering that this is one of the few articles where the writer actually leaves Taipei (most, like this one and a piece by the New York Times, just send someone to Taipei and call that "Taiwan") and attempts to find genuinely interesting and genuinely local things to do. It's the first non-guidebook travel piece that mentions places such as the arts center in Yilan, Nanyuan and Beipu. That is a step forward.

So what's so bad about it?

"Settled by talented, creative and industrious Chinese...in 1945"

(So there was nobody else here before that, and the Chinese who came over in '45 get all the complimentary adjectives while the people who had already been living here do not?)

"If you want to see all of China but don't have the time, Taiwan is a great alternative"

(So Taiwan is just an 'alternative' to China, and has no unique culture of its own? The reason to come here is that it's 'kind of like China'? Puh-LEASE.)

"So far off the beaten track is the remote Kinmen island that most Taiwanese have never visited it."

(That makes it sound like almost no Taiwanese go to Kinmen. While I am willing to believe that a small majority have never been, he makes it sound as though 95% of Taiwanese haven't. It's really not that remote.)

"The big surprise is that this tiny island is just a half kilometre off the mainland Chinese coast, so close that the two Chinas have fought several wars over control of its strategic location. In 1959 Mao’s forces bombarded Kinmen endlessly, forcing the fearful inhabitants to dig shelters and tunnels for survival. Today, with relationships between the two Chinas improving, several kilometres of tunnels have been opened as tourist attractions."

(Did he seriously just use the offensive phrase 'the two Chinas' twice in one paragraph? Really? Could he possibly sound more condescending towards Taiwanese identity? Could he make any bigger an assumption about Taiwan's cultural history and self-identity? How about treating Taiwan as it de facto is - its own country? Even if your editor tells you that have to call it an island, not a country, at least give it the respect of treating it individually and not just a floating appendage to China).

My main beef with the article - despite its presenting Taiwan in a generally positive light that may well attract tourists to this lovely country that is not China - is of course that the writer, while he differentiates Taiwan from China in some ways (which is why Brendan was not as irritated by the piece as I was), in most others he lumps them together as two parts of a whole that may be separate for now but are otherwise the same thing. That makes me a bit sick.

I posted this on Facebook to get some reactions and got two big ones: "it's condescending - he talks about 'most people don't know' a few times, like he's superior to his audience. That's bad writing" (I agree - it's not just condescending, it's cliche) and "this is just **** journalism, but then most travel writing is" (I agree there too - I'm no journalist but I've worked as a reporter and grown up around journalism, and I could have written a better piece).

I used to think that this sort of pandering tripe - the two Chinas indeed! - was politically motivated and even a bit sinister. I pictured hand-wringing editors afraid that if they post anything to upset the Chinese government that their site will be blocked in China, or worse, angry calls from the Chinese government to press outlets abroad (it is not outside the realm of possibility). That would be downright terrifying, because it would mean that the free press of the free world is starting to accept and adhere to Chinese-style censorship out of fear. I don't want to think about the kind of world that would lead to. We need to be stamping out Chinese censorship, not abiding by it.

Anyway - I used to think that, but now I'm not so sure. Now my conclusion is more along the lines of editors who feel that the piece will only be read if it's tied to something famous - Taiwan is not "famous" (many foreigners still believe that it's an industrial wasteland, like today's Shenzhen area, where all their cheap crap gets made, and not the gorgeous country that it is which hardly has a manufacturing base anymore, and what factories it does have are churning out wafer chips, not microwaves and plastic cups). The name "China" has travel cache, a place people want to visit, whereas they don't really consider Taiwan unless someone in the know suggests it.

This is what I think is really happening: not editors who feel they have to pander to China so their site will still be available there, or who truly are politically engaged in cross-strait relations or even East Asian affairs and genuinely believe in the Chinese party line of unification (let's face it, most Westerners who haven't been here - and I'd guess that most editors of these articles have not - do not hold very strong opinions on these issues). Rather, editors who figure the name "China" will bump readership in a way that the name "Taiwan" cannot.

I say this as someone who has not studied journalism but has worked in it (I've worked as a regional correspondent reporter and my mother has been a reporter or editor for most of my life. I very occasionally help out with copyediting at the publication that employs her) - I can very easily imagine an editor doing this. Yeah, write about Taiwan - that's sufficiently offbeat and unexpected, but make sure to pair it with China, because people have heard of China and think of it as a travel destination. More people will read it if you mention China.

And that's just sad, because Taiwan is not a part of China, and it deserves the respect of being treated as its own entity, taken on its own terms, and enjoyed for what it is - a Chinese-influenced, but not "Chinese", culture and nation.

.

Mother's Day, But Where Are the Mothers?

Happy Mother's Day!

Because I always have to go against the norm of posting happy thoughts about various holidays, here's an article that appeared in today's Taipei Times:

More Mothers Unhappy Than Not

This underscores a lot of what I said in my previous post on the issue - not only women and couples feeling it's just too expensive to try and raise kids in today's Taiwan (or world, because really the USA is no better), but also that women still have to deal with sexism and discrimination against women of childbearing age in the workplace - at least if they work for a smaller or local company - and that by and large they are also still expected to take care of more affairs at home, and to top it all off, childcare while they are working is prohibitively expensive for many.

...and that a few thousand kuai isn't going to fix this problem. It's sad to think that more mothers are unhappy than not, and that a vast majority of women in Taiwan don't want to have children (and I say this as someone who doesn't want to have children, so I do understand - but I don't want children for personal reasons, not economic ones).

And the way to fix it is to:

1.) Enact programs to combat discrimination against women of childbearing age and mothers in the workplace;

2.) Provide affordable childcare options for families;

3.) Enact campaigns to raise cultural awareness in terms of encouraging more equal partnerships among mothers and fathers in childrearing (and I do believe that a more involved father who takes an equal partnership in his family life, including cutting back work hours if necessary, will lead to fewer instances of extramarital affairs in this demographic);

4.) Take steps toward encouraging fairer wages (I do feel most Taiwanese white collar workers are underpaid for the time they devote to their jobs) and more reasonable housing prices so that young families can afford to live in the space they need to raise children;

5.) Enact campaigns to limit and lower excessive working hours and a work culture that values time spent at a desk over true productivity, and companies that pile excessive workloads on their employees because they can.

You want to raise the birthrate? That is how you do it.

Not that I think the birthrate needs to be raised - if anything Taiwan needs fewer people, not more.

Saturday Night

It’s another Sunday, and I’ve been working my butt off at a local savings bank , stayed out until 2am with friends and feel like writing more fluffy musings (because that’s just about my mental capacity right now).

I’ve lived in three different countries (India, China and Taiwan) and was musing this morning while lying in bed considering whether or not to get up – as one does on Sunday mornings – on what it was like on Saturday night, that iconic bit of free time, in each country.

Bad Girls in India: 2000

I read a comment online recently directed at someone whose boyfriend was about to move to India for a year to study. “While she’s at home on Saturday morning waiting to Skype, you’ll have opportunities to go out, meet people and have beers with other expats. On Sunday morning when you’re ready to Skype, she’ll be going out back home.”

Yeah, uhh…maybe in some of the bigger cities, but that wasn’t my Saturday night experience in Madurai. Mine went something like this:

After spending the day doing some sort of student group activity, I might stop downtown at the tailor’s and then retrieve my bike parked at the post office (the closest place to downtown where I could ride without getting killed and park my bike). I’d ride home on quieter back roads – by quieter, of course, I mean there were only about a million people and forms of livestock walking down the road instead of ten million – stopping off for a Limca and waving to various locals manning their storefronts. The snack guy, the “Indian pizza” guy (it was a chapatti covered in sugary ketchup and paneer), Zum Zum Tailor and the folks who hung out outside the nearby shrine.

I’d rumble on home down a bumpy dirt path as the neighborhood kids shouted “HELLO SISTER!”, maybe swerve to avoid a goat, take my shoes off in the anteroom and head upstairs. A quick cold-water bucket shower and fresh salwar kameez later and I’d reappear downstairs to chat with Meena and Kumar, watch cartoons with Shiva when he wasn’t doing his homework and watch the cook prepare dinner.

Amma would come in, wash her hands, grab a blob of chapati dough and plop down on the floor in her sari. She never had never really gotten used to the idea of chairs. She’d insist on TV rights and Shiva would grumblingly hand her the remote. The cook would roll out a length of wax paper, right there on the floor, Amma would turn on her favorite TV show and watch while rolling out dough rounds.

Meena would begin studying with her son. "He's really dedicated to learning his multiplication tables," I noted once.
"Yes, he is going to be engineer isn't it?" Meena replied.

"Really? He's nine years old!"

"Yes. He is going to be engineer."

This wasn't the desperate push of a mother living vicariously through her son - who seemed to be genuinely good at math - she was an anesthesiologist and her husband was a zoologist. Amma's late husband was a prominent linguist. This was not a family who shied away from intellectual pursuits.

The show was a well-known Tamil drama about three “prostitutes” who live together. Of course, nothing tawdry ever goes on during the show – it’s just understood that these three single Tamil women who live together and solve crimes (???), and who are visited regularly by a gun-wielding fat man, are Ladies of the Night. My Tamil was never all that great but I got the impression that their profession was likewise never openly mentioned – you were supposed to know they were prostitutes because duh, they’re three single women over twenty living together, and one of them wears lipstick! For shame! India has a long and distinguished history of cosmetics – from kohl-lined eyes to whitening cream – but Western-style makeup such as lipstick in more traditional parts of southern India are a major taboo – only prostitutes wear it (it’s fine in cities and in northern India, brides generally wear tons of makeup, including bright lipstick).

Amma thought this show was terrible, which is of course why she watched it so religiously. “Oooh…so bad…those girls are very, very bad,” she’d mutter – in English – as she sat on the floor idly smacking a chapati. “Bad girls. So, so bad only.”

I would sit on the floor next to her, trying and failing to match her chapati-making skills, the edges of my kameez tucked primly under my knees, watching women no less prudishly dressed as I was cavorting on TV.

So bad. So very very bad, only.

Cement and Beer in China: 2002-2003

When I first moved to China, I had no friends. That tends to happen when you pick up and move to an entirely foreign country where you know exactly no-one. For the first few months my Saturday nights consisted of going to the Western-style coffee and teahouse in Zunyi, down by the bus stop and Honghuagang, and studying Chinese while people stared at me…and doing a poor job of it.

Later, Jenny arrived in China and we became fast friends. We’d occasionally have the good fortune of a visit with a coworker and mutual foreign friend, Julian. By then, I’d discovered that the hoppin’ place to go on Saturday night was down by the river – the riverbank was paved over; a long concrete esplanade replaced the natural grassy shore. Along this strip, old laobanniang would set up portable carts selling peanuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, beef jerky, various small snacks, beer and ferocious baijiu (rice wine). Jenny and I would head down there, often with Julian, and drink cheap chemical-laced Chinese beer – Moutai if we were cheap, Tsingtao if we were feeling spendy. We’d get plates of snacks and shoot the breeze, make fun of China – not in a mean way, but in a “blowing off steam, culture shock can be stressful, really we’re having a great adventure” way. OK, also sometimes in a “China sucks” way, but only after bad weeks. If it was just me and Jenny, we’d bring cards and play rummy or canasta.

During the colder months we’d stay home, crank up the totally-not-safe-probably-going-to-explode heater, buy local hawberry hooch and mix it with horrific “citrus” soda, grab a bag of beef jerky and some White Rabbit caramels and play canasta at home while watching bad Chinese TV. We’d tell stories about the adorable children we taught, and make jokes about Huang Qi, the school head’s ne’er-do-well spoiled younger brother who had horrible teeth, smoked too much and called me fat to my face, in Chinese, thinking I couldn’t understand. My Chinese wasn’t great at the time, but I could indeed understand.

On my second-to-last day in Zunyi, there was a going-away party held in my honor (awwww) on a Saturday night. Julian and Jenny came, as did Huang Min and the unwanted Huang Qi – the same one I mentioned in this post, who elevated himself in my estimation on the last day I ever saw him and probably ever will see him again – by telling his story. As much as I may dislike a person, I always want to hear their story. To shorten an already-told tale, he was studying in Beijing in June of 1989, was at Tiananmen, and saw his friend get shot in the face. This forever affected his view of the Chinese Communist Party, and I see him as a symbol – an archetype – of the average Chinese person who knows what their government is up to but lacks the ability to do anything about it.

The party was held on a Saturday night and after the obligatory banquet, at which I wore my only remaining ‘nice’ shirt, bought in Hong Kong, a group of us retreated to the riverine cement beer garden.

Another teacher, Angel, was there, as was a random Englishman that Angel literally picked up off the street (and the only other expat in town besides an antisocial Dutch woman). We all got impossibly drunk on beer so bad that the cancer we’ll all get in ten years will have been directly linked to it, Angel went off in search of whores and we found him with his pants down, face down in a gutter (The Englishman dragged him out so he wouldn’t drown in fetid water). Huang Qi told his story and started crying. I got so blotto that I started shouting dirty words in Chinese (not that uncommon on the riverside – nobody really thought anything of it). Jenny and I sat on a bench trying to recover with the Englishman – I’m not sure what happened to Julian. I left for Beijing two days later – the next day I had a hangover that shook the universe and drank six cans of coconut juice – and had my brief romance with Brendan years before we started dating seriously (let’s face it, deep down under everything else there was always a spark between us). Jenny and Graham later got married. Julian moved to Beijing, met a Sichuanese woman and married her. I wandered the globe, dated inappropriate men and then finally got my act together enough to deserve a gem like Brendan. I never did see Angel again but hopefully waking up covered in Chinese gutter sludge made him rethink his lifestyle.

I would say it was something of a life-changing Saturday night.

Taiwan: Funky Student Pubs 2006-present

Last night was a typical Saturday night for me here in Taiwan. I’ve never been much for thumping music in bars, and although I do enjoy dancing I don’t necessarily want to do it more than once every few months, if that. I can’t stand the smell of cigarette smoke that clings to every pore when I do go out to a crowded bar (yes, if you are curious, I have tried a cigarette. It was thoroughly disgusting. Brendan is more sensible – he knew they were disgusting without ever putting one in his mouth, but I’m the sort of person who has to try things, even if I know I won’t like them).

Instead, at about 7 or 8pm I am far more likely to throw on jeans and a beloved t-shirt, a pair of funky earrings and beaded sandals and head up to Gongguan or Shida. Brendan and I might hang out together- we might dissect films we both enjoyed or hated, or talk about politics or travel plans, or make observations about books we’ve read or religious tenets we do or do not agree with (we both agree: religion as a force teaching kindness and tolerance = great. Religion warped into judgmentalism = bad). We might shoot the breeze about current events or just crack jokes over beer. We might just enjoy each other’s physical presence and read or blog, knowing the other is right there, occasionally reaching over to squeeze a knee or give a smile. We’re both big readers, politically engaged enough to keep up with a few news sources each, and I’m into blogging – as you can see - so we don’t always feel the need to talk. Gongguan and Shida are lined with funky student cafes and we’ll pick one of our favorites – La Boheme, Shake House, Drop Coffee, Café Tea or Me, Zabu or Red House.

Or we’ll text a bunch of friends, see who is at loose ends and invite them out. We’ll pick one of the above places, get drinks and talk about much the same things that Brendan and I would normally talk about on our own, although generally more people = more witty banter. We’ll drink but not get drunk. We’ll enjoy good beer – you know me, I always want the best if I’m going to have anything at all – and we’ll keep great conversation going until 2am or later.

Last night was no exception. We went to Red House in Shida (紅家), a long, thin bar built into a funky old brick house of indeterminate age. We met our friends Joseph and Catherine, ordered Belgian beer and fries and kept lively conversation going until the wee hours.

I know a lot of people imagine being thirty, especially married and thirty, means quiet nights at home and settling down, generally acting older. I’d say we’re acting older in the sense of being more mature, but no less fun. I no longer get smashed on Chinese riverbanks, and a Saturday night out in Taipei is far more stimulating than a Saturday night in provincial India, although my India experience was definitely local, eye-opening and authentic. That aside, I like the people we’ve become. Educated and conversant, happy to go out and be sociable but not desperate to find a thumping bar somewhere. Comfortable in our skin, and with discriminating enough taste in beer that we’ll actually consider whether to get the Rochefort Tripel or the Kasteel Rouge rather than “Beer? What’s cheap?”

I do think Saturday night in Taipei is symbolic, in a way, of life here. Equal but different halves of a wonderful whole with my husband, older and wiser, more well-read, maybe not quite as wild as I used to be but still lively and hoping to be so for a long time to come. You’ll have to pry my Abbey Tripel out of my cold, dead hands – and if I die with a Belgian beer in hand I will consider it a good way to go!

City of Gluttons

Go read this:

Taipei is a City of Gluttony: It's a Compliment!