The House Always Wins, and the House Seems to be China

You don't even want to know what work is like right now...not in a bad way - with our Turkey trip looming I'm happy to be rakin' in the sweet blue bills - but in a "I am so tired and life is so hectic, I don't even have time to go to the bank let alone write a real blog post" way. Maybe tomorrow. I'm off at six and intend to spend the evening doing sweet nothing. At Zabu. Eating good food and drinking expensive beer. Because I've earned it.

In the meantime, here are two links worth reading through, if you missed them:

US-Taiwan binds start to fray

and in today's Taipei Times: Ma's China Gamble

Check this out

Go check out Page 190 of the Michelin Travel Guide to Taiwan - that's my photo!

I'm all excited about it because I'm very much an amateur photography enthusiast (it would be a lie to say I'm a "photographer") and this is my first published photo. It's not my first published creative work, but it's my first published work of visual art, and that's cool.

See:
Hooray!

Reason #20 to Love Taiwan

Makeup-free and in New York just before our honeymoon in September 2010

The fact that not wearing makeup is socially acceptable.

Don't get me wrong, I've always been a bit ornery about doing up my appearance to the point that it is generally expected of women (I don't mean I'm gross or unclean - I'm talking about things like hair, makeup, diet for the sake of being thin and adherence to fashion trends). It's just that in Taipei, I feel as though people simply don't notice that I'm not wearing makeup and didn't bother much with my hair...or if they do notice - maybe they do, and they're just too polite to let it show - I get a "pass" because there are plenty of women here who similarly can't be bothered.

I also should admit here that there are two semi-related reasons why I don't wear makeup often, and when I do it's because I want to: the first is purely comfort and health. Makeup, even the light-as-air mineral makeup, feels cakey after an hour or so if you have skin as oily as mine. Blotters don't help. In Taipei and DC, two cities renowned for their humidity, the effect is magnified. I can't do anything, like splash water on my face or rub my eyes, without messing up my makeup. I can't eat or drink anything without messing up lipstick and having to re-apply (even if it's the "long lasting" stuff, which totally does not work.) It just feels uncomfortable. The second is a feminist reason - nobody cares if a man has a zit showing, so why the brouhaha if I do? "Because women are judged more on their looks" is true, but not an acceptable reason. I don't feel the need to conform to a social expectation that I highlight my most feminine features - my eyes and lips - disguise imperfections that the male gender openly displays and generally make myself uncomfortable. I feel women should be treated equally to men, and this should also be true where makeup is concerned. I don't mean makeup should be banished, but rather that it should not be expected (by the way, I do know men who wear makeup and no, it doesn't bother me).

It's this idea that all women wear makeup, or that makeup is required to look professional - why only for women, then? Are our natural faces not acceptable professionally? Why? - or the feeling that because makeup is so common that not wearing it is making a statement...that bothers me back home, and I love that in Taipei it's not really an issue.

It's true that you'll see a lot of fashion-conscious primpage in Xinyi and even Ximending (and to a lesser extent in Gongguan and Shida) and plenty of girls in tight jeans, fake lashes and highlighted bangs on the MRT, but after attending GWU and living in Washington, DC, this subset of done-up women in Taipei seems like just that - a subset, not the basis for a full-on expectation.

I know a lot of people will say "but DC isn't fashionable! All those lobbyists, politicians and policy wonks are hopelessly dorky!" and that is quite true...but that wasn't my circle (I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing). Think young office drones swathed in MAC and Banana Republic - no hate on MAC, I love their stuff even if I rarely wear it - staffing the political offices as well-connected twentysomethings, working in law firms or driving out to the 'burbs to work in the high tech firms in northern Virginia - the ones who rented condos in Ballston and swarmed DC on Saturday nights. They were done up and I was...not. It wasn't the same kind of done up - no whitening cream or fake eyelashes to be found - but it was still a sparkly powdered, eyelined palace of feminine peacockery (the men all dressed the same).

Here, I hop on the bus or MRT and sure, there'll be the Super Fashion Girl with her toffee hair and stiltlike heels, but I can always spot another woman, even one my age (although I admit I'm totally an obasan-in-training) wearing comfortable flats, minimal or no makeup and neatly brushed but not overly styled hair.

So I could lay my social pass to not wear makeup at the feet of being foreign - "she's foreign, they're weird anyway so it's OK" - but I won't, because plenty of local women follow the same path.

I didn't wear makeup daily even when everyone else around me did, and I was fine with it, but I have to admit I enjoy being able to go out with a freshly scrubbed face and not be the only one.

On Beauty

The proverb comes at me from unexpected places. It’s a bit cliché, and certainly old-fashioned, to say it straight, but it worms its way out in other phrases. I might hear it straight up from older women, or referenced behind a veil of translucent compliments from younger ones. It never fails to bother me. It’s 一白遮三醜 。

Literally translated, it means “one white hides three uglies”, or “if you have white skin, it will make up for three flaws” or, more bluntly, “white is beautiful”.

I usually hear it sneaking around behind a phrase rather than being said outright:

“Your skin is so pretty! I wish I had such white skin!”

“Why did you dye your beautiful golden hair red? You shouldn’t dye hair like that!”

“Your skin is so perfect!”

“White skin and blue eyes, oh!”

“I use all sorts of things to get my skin that color, and you have it naturally. It’s not fair!”

“If I had white skin and blue eyes, I’d have such a handsome husband too.”

Occasionally, a blunt-minded obasan will say it outright – “you are pretty, because one white hides three uglies!” (Uhhhh, thanks?)

I find this amusing and perturbing, because first of all, my skin is far from perfect. At 30, I still get acne to the point where I see a dermatologist. I can’t imagine many women want that, white skin or no. I have uneven tone and get undereye circles and redness around the nose. It’s not smooth at all. I have to get threaded every few weeks thanks to my Armenian genes. My hair is not naturally gold, it’s dishwater brown. Nothing spectacular.

Me, but it's a better than average photo of me, and I'm wearing makeup. Trust me, between the craters, blackheads, oil and zits, my skin is not all that.

The "...I'd have a handsome husband too!" line really gets me. I don't even know where to begin with this - the idea that good looks are the end all and be all, or that a good man is only attracted to beauty (of course physical appearance is a factor, but I find that chemistry has a lot more to do with the type of attraction that develops into real love), or that I am somehow deserving of this good-looking husband - and he is quite good-looking, thanks - because I'm white. That's just not OK.

It also unsettles me from a perspective of race – aren’t we beyond all that? Do we still not live in a world where all complexions can be beautiful? I don’t know about the women who made the comments above, but I live in that world and intend to continue doing so. To hear on numerous occasions that my features are to be envied not for their fineness but for their whiteness echoes just a little too much of “white is right” sentiment, even though the payers of these compliments are certainly not thinking that, at least not consciously. I can’t believe that those who pay such compliments really do have some deep-seated desire to look “more white”, but it’s hard to ignore – between whitening cream at Cosmed, whitening masks hawked on TV, the increasing popularity of freckle-removing laser procedures, the predilection for carrying umbrellas outside to shield oneself from the darkening effects of the sun and Jolin’s Butterfly cover last year in which she dons a sunset red wig, blue contacts (which are not too far from my natural eye color, thank you very much), has something done to her eyes on the computer to round them out and all-around makes herself look like some freakish semblance of Asian-trying-to-be-Caucasian, it’s hard not to wonder.

An album cover featuring Jolin - rather than "beautiful", I see this as being a bit freakish. Unnatural. Who is she trying to be?

So when I find myself in this situation, shifting uncomfortably, wondering “really? Did they see my giant zit? I can’t believe my white hides that ugly!” I generally reply “Why? Your skin is beautiful too. In fact, I wish mine was clearer, and I never tan. I always turn red.”

“But who wants to tan?”
“Well…it’s not healthy, but I’d rather tan than burn.”

“Just use an umbrella outside!”
“No…no…that’s…no.”

“Why not? You’ll stay so beautiful and white!”

“I just don’t think it’s that important to be white.”

There’s rarely a good answer to this – I wonder if the awkward silence that follows is the woman who’s just ravished praise upon my skin rethinking her position, or thinking I’m crazy, or thinking I can’t possibly be right, or just uncomfortable?

Should I have just said thank you, despite my own discomfort, and been done with it?

Sometimes joking works better – “美國人覺得一黑遮三醜呵！”

(“Americans think darker skin is attractive” – or exactly translated, “Americans think one black hides three uglies”, but it doesn’t mean black in exactly that sense).

“No no no, it’s white! One white hides three uglies!”

“No, seriously, that’s not how we see it. I’m not kidding!”

“Haha, you’re so funny! But really, in Taiwan we think it’s one white.”
“I know. I wish it was different, though.”

And yes, it bothers me. I don’t want to be put on some pedestal of beauty I don’t deserve – I’m straight-up average looking and happy with that. I don’t want to be admired for being white; that really bothers me. I don’t want being white to hide the extra pounds I’d rather not be carrying around or the zits that I wish would just stop already.

I want to see whitening creams be a thing of the past, and for women to be proud of their own gorgeous color. I want things like the Butterfly cover to be chuckled at, not emulated. I want women to realize that it’s not healthy to put bleach on your skin, and to realize that round eyes and fair skin are not the end-all and be-all of beauty.

I realize that plenty of women do realize this, and yet the comments keep coming. I really wish they’d stop.

Go back to playing music, we'll run the country for you.

I have to just say: I really do not understand why, on a gut level, aboriginal groups in Taiwan continue to vote for the KMT. I mean, I get it from a historical perspective: the deep racial and cultural divide, history of mistreatment on the part of Taiwan's earlier Fujianese settlers (and later the Japanese) and and resulting mistrust runs far deeper between the Hoklo people and the aborigines than it does between those who came over in the 1940s and the political party generally identified with them (although you can't interchange the terms "KMT" and "waishengren" as so many people do.

As badly as the KMT treated aborigines (and almost everybody else, for that matter, including many who came over with them), those resentments don't seem to run nearly as deep as three hundred years of being forced off the best land in the country.

And yet, I have trouble understanding why the aborigines' preference for the KMT continues, as it's clear that the KMT has no interest in or empathy toward them and still views them through the lens of some mysterious 'other' (at best) or a cartoonish caricature (at worst).

Take this little gem, in which President Ma says that aborigines should be valued for their abilities in music and sports. My husband, possessed of a cutting wit, said of that: "Oh, like black people?"

(He was being facetious, of course, and said that with the utmost sarcasm).

It really is an offensive thing to say - just as the establishment back home does its best to negate the political power of minorities (a lot of it really sounds like "you have great music and you sure can chuck a basketball, but we know how to run the country. Let us take care of things. You can go back to you hip-hopping music now") this sounds like a blatant caricature, an admission that neither Ma nor the KMT really understand aboriginal affairs or culture, and don't really care to make an attempt to do so. It's like saying "you go back to your villages and tribes and make your music and play your sports - we'll run the country, don't worry".

And now this: KMT official suggests that aborigines should marry their own. Errr...yes, it's important to preserve cultural roots and traditions, but implying that people should only marry within their groups is not the way to do that. It's true that you can't force cultural preservation, but there are better policies with which to encourage it than implying that there should be no interracial/intercultural marriages. To quote the article:

Commenting on the issue, Sediq KMT Legislator Kung Wen-chi (孔文吉) said he was surprised anyone would still make such a suggestion, as marriage between Aborigines and non-Aborigines helped keep the different ethnicities at peace, adding that trying to stop inter-communal marriages hinted at repression, not progress. [Emphasis mine].

So...why? I can understand that many aborigines feel that the DPP or any of the other parties aren't any better and don't understand much better. I'd argue, however, that the DPP is slowly but surely trying to give up its old schtick in which it only stood for the views of the Hoklo people and attempting to be more inclusive (it's slow going, though, and many people I've talked to still feel they've not made enough of an attempt), and as such deserves more of a chance in aboriginal constituencies...

...because they certainly have not been well-served but certainly have been misunderstood by the KMT.

Willful Ignorance

Was reading this today:

US Expert Warns of Economic Trap

And my first reaction?

DUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Yes, that was my very first reaction. Imagine a curvaceous white lady with a half-eaten slice of Ginger Superman pizza in her hand at So Free leaning over a copy of the Taipei Times and shouting that, thereby startling the two high school girls sharing the rough-hewn bench with us.

But seriously.

Barry Watts, a senior fellow with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, told a US congressional commission this week: “Why use military force if economic entanglement leading to economic capture is succeeding?”

DUHHHHHHH.

Except for the Art of War reference, which was a bit precious if you ask me. Precious as in it sounds like some Hollywood crap from a Gordon Gekko meets Jackie Chan flick.

I studied this stuff in college - which makes me about as qualified as some dork who read a few books and thinks she's an expert - basically meaning that I'm no expert - and I could have told you this.

In fact, I'm fairly sure I did tell you this. Maybe not you specifically, but someone, and possibly after I'd had a glass of wine or two.

And what's sad is that it's not hard to see how true it is, so Washington and the world's seeming naivete over what's going on can't possibly be true ignorance or failure to understand, because it's really not that complicated (but then neither is the concept that deep water drilling is a bad idea and alternative energy needs more investment, but they don't seem to get that either).

It's willful ignorance. It's pretending you don't understand. It's quite possibly strategic incompetence. It's turning away because recognizing the issue means you might have to do something about it, if only for show...and the US clearly doesn't want to do that.

Which means the US clearly doesn't care that much about Taiwan, or at least not enough to stop pretending they don't know what China's up to.

And that's sad, because it basically means were ****ed.

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.