The FOB - A Timeless Classic

Just thought I'd pass this along.

Videos like this, while they could be taken one way and seen as offensive, are proof that jokes about culture that make you catch your breath are only funny and reaction-inducing if there's a grain of truth behind it (no matter how small that grain might be). I'll be honest. I know guys who have the Pop Star, and one of my friends used to have the Virgin For Life.

Of course, a video like this is only a.) acceptable and b.) funny if it's done by an actual Asian guy. Sort of like how I can call myself a Polack, but you can't. Unless you're Polish, too (I'm Polish on my dad's side and really look the part). Then you can.

Side story: when I was in high school, I had a bestest-friend-in-the-whole-wide-world (we no longer speak, long story). I was sleeping over - you know, 1950s high school girl style - and we were downstairs laughing and gossiping. Upstairs, my friend's parents were having a conversation about someone they knew. The father said "Oh he's just a crazy Polack!" and the mom said "Shh, honey, Jenna's Polish." They were so scared that they'd offended me or something - what they didn't know was that my head was buried in my pillow because I was trying not to crack up too hard and wake up the neighborhood with my laughter.


Anyway, it is funny, and I make no apologies, and to all my Taiwanese male friends, I'm sorry but it's funny. And please stop with the Pop Star haircuts. Please.

Now this, on the other hand, is actually offensive.

Different dark roast coffees named after different famous black people.

Uhhhhh, no.

Maybe it's because you're an IDIOT, Paul

Wistaria House, Taipei

A typical dark, rainy late autumn day in Taipei today, and we gathered at Wistaria House (the historic teahouse known for early pro-democracy activism and the movie Eat Drink Man Woman) to do what one really ought to do there: drink tea, shoot the breeze, and talk philosophy and politics.

The now-infamous op-ed piece published in the New York Times (for some reason) came up - I find it so abhorrent that I don't even want to link to it directly. But I will, I guess. The prevailing theory among my friends is that Paul Kane's a hack (keep in mind that many of my friends studied International Politics) and that the NYT just likes the controversy it's drumming up. I can't think of any other reason to publish such a steaming turd-pile.

Brendan's take: Paul Kane is clearly the sort of academic who can't handle complexity and discussing politics and current affairs through an appropriately in-depth understanding of the issues. He's the sort - and libertarians do this too, I might add - who reduces very difficult situations to simple models that suit his needs and disregards anything that could upset the simplicity of his ideas (and I use "simple" in the way that a 19th century governess would to describe one of her charges who was especially slow). With ideas based on models rather than reality, his understanding of the deeper issues is about as thorough as a four-year-old's understanding of the mechanics and engineering of trains, from his model train set. He can't afford to take into account things that upset the balance, like how the Taiwanese might feel about this, how it not just might, but would start a cross-strait war, and how political negotiation is rarely as straightforward as "you cancel our debt, we give you Taiwan". At least it hasn't been since Europe gave Czechoslovakia to Hitler. And gee, that sure worked out. That what a people and their government thinks is only important in relation to how much power that country has globally, so the only people whose ideas matter are the US's and China's, and everyone else is like a butterfly flapping its wings in Malaysia, which might cause a storm: something you can't and shouldn't take into account. Basically, these sorts of people - Kane, a lot of people in the State Department and on international affairs advisory committees, the stupider sort of academics, libertarians and most conservative economists - look at the world the way a sociopath would ("sociopath" being my word) - with zero empathy. They're chess pieces, big ones if they're lucky, small ones if they're not, and what matters isn't people but the game: both the political game and the economic one. There's no accounting for actual people, because it's all models...and let's be honest, models don't work.

(Some of the above, like the train set analogy, is mine).

Joseph's take: It's just plain more complex than that! Hacks like Kane treat Taiwan as a troublemaker, a thorn in the side of the USA, but it's not Taiwan that's the problem. Taiwan has issues (human trafficking is a biggie) but generally speaking is probably one of the easiest and least offensive countries to deal with in Asia, if not the world. The problem - the thorn in our side - is China acting like a spoiled little bitch (his words, not mine, but they really need to be emphasized). Taiwan is not a part of a bigger country that wants to be free, or a province looking for independence - it's a de facto independent political entity, and Taiwan is not the problem. China is, and the solution is not to just bend down and **** China's **** (redacted for the sake of my Moms), which is what this move would be. Furthermore, Taiwan really should be the US's easiest bargaining chip (we all hate referring to Taiwan as a "bargaining chip" but let's be honest - in the eyes of the US government, it is). It doesn't have to send troops. It doesn't have to impose sanctions. All it has to do to keep a little bit of strategic one-uppery on China is to throw out a few "we hope for a peaceful resolution" platitudes and sell it some arms from time to time. How is that so hard? It's a huge advantage for the US. Giving it up would be idiotic.

My take: all of the above, and the fact that Kane seems to just assume that this won't have any adverse impact - that because the feelings, thoughts and opinions of the Taiwanese don't matter, that selling Taiwan to China won't incite a cross-strait war. But it will - I know of very few Taiwanese people who want to unify with China. I know more who think it's inevitable, but almost none who actually want it. I know plenty of people who feel that keeping the status quo is the best way to go, but none who would think that way in a world in which China was not a threat: they'd vote for independence, not unification. The status quo is a necessity, not a desired state, in their minds. And for every apathetic sort, I know a few who would fight. Taiwan would almost certainly lose that war (OK, it certainly would without assistance), but not until horrific carnage was racked up. The death toll, the economic costs (especially in the tech industry, seeing as Taiwan is one of the core pillars of semiconductor technology, OEM products and more), and the political strife it would cause in East Asia is something the US can't possibly accept or justify. That alone should be enough to realize why Kane's idea goes beyond idiotic and into the "I'm just an idiot trying to stir up controversy" territory.

Plus, well, think about it: America not only can't afford to police the world for democracy, but also I'm not nearly convinced that the USA as a nation has the moral compass to be able to do so effectively. We can't go sending the military around the world to force democracy on people (as much as I am a fan of democracy). Taiwan isn't like that - it takes very little effort for a fairly big payoff. And while we can't force democracy on countries like China, we shouldn't go in the other direction and sell out functioning democracies like Taiwan to autocratic, corrupt states like China. We can't force democracy, but we shouldn't be taking actions that actively dismember it. Selling Taiwan out to China would do just that.

He says somewhere in the piece that people will think his idea is crazy and unworkable.

Well, DUH. Because it IS.

And with that, I've already wasted too much time on this worthless piece of tripe. I'm going to go find more funny pictures of AIDS brochures.

"A Workman Must First Sharpen His Tools"

From the back side of an AIDS brochure with very low production values from about five years ago.

I don't know about the other weird idioms, but the last one (The "C" Episode) is a Confucian proverb - "Before he embarks on a task, a workman must first sharpen his tools if he is to do his work well".

Good job, Executive Yuan AIDS Prevention Committee, for using a Confucian proverb in completely the wrong setting and in such a giggle-inducing way!

Enjoy!

Ninna Sun and the Strong List

Ninna Sun (Sun Xiaomin)

I’ve been thinking lately about Ninna Sun.

Ninna was one of my only two true friends in China who was not an expat. I have a tendency to befriend older women – especially in Asia - so my other friend was Zhang Fangshan, who was in her 70s, retired and was a volunteer in the Guanyin shrine at the nicest temple in town.

Ninna is about my age, but our lives and experiences couldn’t have been more different. Her father was a factory worker from Jiangsu, and her mother a Sichuanese woman who died fairly early in Ninna’s life. When the Chinese government moved many of the factories of Jiangsu to Guizhou, where they hoped they’d be less detectable by US surveillance, Mr. Sun moved with the jobs, and Ninna was born in Kaili, which boasts a large Miao ethnic minority population. As a Han Chinese, Ninna received better treatment in school and life, and managed to learn good standard Chinese unaffected by regional accents as well as become strong in English. While I was growing up in middle class rural America, she was growing up in working class rural China. She is, of course, an only child. She worked a poorly paid secretarial job at the school where I was a well-paid teacher.  While I was placated, she was fired for being “too friendly” with the foreign teachers, when her job was to be nice to us and then report back on our goings-on to the school.

I mention this – and Ninna – because she really was one of my only non-expat friends in China. I didn’t trust any of the other local workers at the school, and while plenty of other Zunyi residents invited me around, it was clearly a status symbol, a “look at this foreigner who is my friend! I am so cool that I have a foreign friend!” It was a pleasure to have the company of someone who genuinely liked me for me, and not for the status I provided when invited over for dinner.

It’s still a matter of great…what’s the word? Consternation? Sadness?...that when, after we became Friends For Real, the school asked Ninna about what I was up to in my spare time (which was nothing threatening, weird or illicit, mind you, just normal foreigner exploring China stuff). She refused to tell them, because she realized it was unfair to me to be my friend one minute, and spy on me the next.

She got fired for that.

Ninna, like most women – like most people – wanted to meet someone nice, fall in love, get married and all that fun stuff, and when I met her, she had a boyfriend. I never met him, because they broke up not long after I moved to China. He ended it because he felt Ninna was “too fat” and “not feminine enough” - she had a normal build for a Chinese girl, a facial structure and body type that would be considered classically beautiful by those standards. I think she wore what in the USA would be a size four. She was heartbroken, despite the fact that the guy was clearly a loser.

Zhang Fangshan, my friend from
Xiangshan (Fragrant Mountain) Temple

I’ve been thinking about it because recently, in my favorite advice column as well as other places, there’s been something of a related, ongoing discussion of the qualities of a good man and good mate, and what one’s dealbreakers should be. As a woman, a liberal and a feminist (WOOOOOO!) I would say that I don’t have a Long List, but I do have a Strong List. As in, I feel very strongly about everything that’s on it.

My list, in no particular order and probably with something forgotten because I’ve never actually written this out before, rather had it as a nebulous  set of ideals in my head:

-       He’s got to be kind and good

-       We have to find each other attractive and have a strong emotional connection

-       He’s got to be honest

-       He’s got to get my sense of humor and other elements of my personality (maybe not everything, but you know, enough)

-       He’s got to be a feminist, which includes pitching in with housework and no expectations of typical gender roles

-       We’ve got to have strong communication skills

-       We’ve got to love each other

-       He’s got to be intelligent and open-minded

-       No addictions, no hard drugs, no emotional or mental problems

-       He’s got to love, or at least like, travel and be OK with the sort of lifestyle I crave

-       We’ve got to be able to be ourselves around each other

-       Being religious is fine as long as he doesn’t try to convert me

-       He doesn’t have to be a high earner or provider, but NO SLACKERS

-        

I’d say I did pretty well with Brendan, who slam dunks all those criteria (sometimes there are communication gaps but we both sincerely work on bridging them and are doing a great job) plus I get some bonuses: great sense of humor and a hottie to boot, who peels chick peas when I want to make hummus and de-eyeballs squid when I want to make seafood.

All this, and I’m far from perfect.

It’s occurred to me, though, that I have this list and managed to marry someone who hits it out of the ballpark in part because, culturally, I have the luxury of having this list.

No, no, wait, hear me out.

The sexism I encountered in China was staggering. The director of the school (a woman) basically hid behind her boyfriend, who was the director in name only because “businesses need a man at the head”. This same woman, when she did the unthinkable in rural China in the ‘90s and got divorced, had to threaten to kill herself right there in court – she brought in a bottle, smashed it against the judge’s podium, put it to her wrist and said she’d kill herself immediately – in order to gain custody of her son, and in the process lost everything else. One of my coworkers was married to a local woman who married her first husband only because he said he’d kill her if she left him, and when she told her father, he said “well that means he must really love you”. Of course it was an abusive marriage, she left, and the entire town blamed her. My drunken slob of a coworker was the only man in town who’d look at her, and she couldn’t get a job.

These are anecdotes, but they describe a culture that was deeply engrained and deeply disturbing in Guizhou and, one can presume, other parts of rural China, at the turn of the millennium.

If Ninna, living in Guizhou - at least I assume she is still living in Guizhou - wanted to get married and perhaps have children, she certainly could have. She was an attractive girl with a lovely disposition and strong moral principles. She quit her next job after the language school, at a medical testing center, because to save money they weren’t actually testing patients’ blood and instead just telling everyone who had blood taken that the results were positive. For serious.

And yet, does Ninna have the luxury of my Strong List?  How much choice will she have – or has she had – in Kaili, Guizhou, China? Could she dump a boyfriend who showed a tendency to expect traditional gender roles? Could she leave a fiancé who made it clear that she was responsible for all of the housework and future child rearing, and reasonably hope to find another? Did she have the luxury of leaving a man for being a bit of a dimwit, for being a stick in the mud, for not adequately respecting her or acknowledging her equal part in their relationship? Could she simply walk away, as I did, from an otherwise great guy simply because a.) I didn’t feel a spark and b.) my traveling, expat lifestyle wouldn’t have worked out with his career as a US-based lawyer?

Maybe she could, and certainly if faced with these guys I hope she did – I use past tense because it’s been years since we’ve been in touch, and I like to think that she did meet that nice guy and get married. I hope she stayed true to herself and found a man who loved and respected her for it.

It’s an interesting question, though, because, let’s be brutally honest. Not that many women realistically have the luxury of a Strong List as we Western women and women in developed countries do (I could argue that Taiwanese women and some urban Chinese women have the luxury of such a list, whereas many rural Chinese women do not). Plenty of women face the choice of either having high expectations and demanding respect as an equal and equal help in the home…and getting married. They can’t necessarily have both.

That’s not right, but it is honest. It’s not fair, but it is true.

A favorite story of mine about the escapades of Jenna and Ninna in Zunyi: one day on the street an old vendor had a children's game where you would spin an arm on a wheel (like Wheel of Fortune) and it would land on an animal from the Chinese Zodiac. Me: "How does this work?" Ninna: "Whatever animal you get, he will make you a sugar sucker of that animal!" - so basically whatever Zodiac animal you got, he'd use hot sugarcane syrup to make you a candy pop of that animal. So we played (Ninna: "Normally they'd say I'm too old for this, but because I'm with a foreigner we can play, because they think you are strange anyway!"). I got a dragon. Ninna: "Oh, that's the luckiest one! You will be very lucky in life. You got a dragon sucker!" Then she spun the wheel. She got a rooster. "Oh, I have a cock," she said, "so he'll make me a cock sucker. It's not as good as a dragon."

Ahem.

And I sincerely hope that, as we churn slowly and painfully towards the future, that the women’s rights movement takes hold in more and more countries and more women can realistically demand respect and other good qualities in a mate and not have to sacrifice chances at partnership and marriage for lack of suitable prospects.

Of Workers

Just something I thought I'd share from this:

Bill Clinton on the Daily Show Part 1
Bill Clinton on the Daily Show Part 2
Bill Clinton on the Daily Show Part 3

A really great interview underscoring what a truly intelligent man Bill Clinton is. I didn't quite understand his charisma in the '90s when I was a teenager, but now I get it, especially now that my job is public-speaking oriented.

One thing I wanted to note, though.

At one point in the interview, Stewart says something along the lines of* "they have a factory in China with 400,000 people who work in conditions that no American should have to endure...why would we want to bring those jobs back?"

I just have to ask - in conditions that no American should have to endure?

Do you see where I'm going with this? Are we the Special People who shouldn't have to deal with that kind of work, but it's OK for everyone else to break their backs and ruin their physical and emotional health to make us plastic gewgaws?

How about in conditions that no person should have to endure - and that includes the Chinese, and the Chinese government (and every other government that has not tried or tried hard enough to put a stop to it) should be ashamed of themselves for letting it continue?

And maybe we'll just have to pay more for our gewgaws if it means some workers in China have better lives?



*I realize "he said something along the lines of" is not exactly a phrase imbued with great journalistic integrity, but I'm not a journalist. So sue me.

In Defense of Taipei

Here’s my question.

And I write this as someone one month away from leaving her old-skool back-lane neighborhood and becoming a Da’an yuppie.

What the hell is up with all these folks who live outside Taipei who somehow think that “their Taiwan” is more real, is better, is somehow qualitatively a step above Taipei? What is so bad or wrong about Taipei?

I know these folks like to think of it as an easy-peasy expat cocoon, where you never have to work to hard, study Chinese too much or get your feet wet. I know that that can be true: it’s certainly possible to set yourself up nicely in a foreigner enclave like Tianmu or even Shida/Gongguan and not have to try too hard. It’s easy to spend your weekends on Anhe Road and make only other foreign friends.

But just because one can do that doesn’t mean that one actually does. Taipei is a Taiwanese city just like any other, even if it lacks some of the, what’s the word, ineffable cultural qualities of cities elsewhere in the country. It’s only “warm and safe” for foreigners here if you seek that out. If you don’t, you can live a life that is not, to be honest, all that much different from someone living elsewhere – except the case could be made that there’s more to do, and not all of it is touristy.

Take a look at my soon-to-be-erstwhile neighborhood, Jingmei. (By the way, regarding my last post, Lao Wu’s not dead. I clearly misunderstood the old ladies, although I was certain they said ‘她過了’ so I’m not sure how). What have we got? One local coffeeshop that plays The Carpenters and serves Japanese curry. A night market. Old folks who hang out outside and gossip. A stinky tofu/thin oyster noodle vendor. A chicken coop where they’ll even kill the chicken for you. A-Xiong’s “everything” store. A few 7-11s. A Wellcome. A breakfast restaurant that turns into a betel nut stand after dark across from an 按摩店. Old ladies and Vietnamese domestic workers who collect recycling when the trash truck comes. Guys who own the breakfast/etel nut shop outside in wife beaters and 藍白拖 drinking all sorts of local liquor at all hours, who always say hello and often give me a shot of Gaoliang. My neighbors are Taiwanese – most of them prefer to speak Taiwanese or Hakka, in fact – and none of them speak English. Most are too old to have learned it in school and those who did have mostly forgotten. I have to speak Chinese and integrate into the neighborhood like everyone else. No helpful English, no special stores, no special help, no swanky cafes.

I have my old lady gang, just like any self-respecting wannabe-obasan should. I have my local friends. I have the people I see every day and greet. In Chinese, if not Taiwanese.

How is this any different from a neighborhood where I might live in, say, Yunlin or Miaoli or wherever? How is it any easier or any more foreigner-friendly?

Sure, I have more work opportunities. I couldn’t do what I do anywhere else except possibly Hsinchu: not even Kaohsiung has the demand for it. In fact I’ve been sent to Kaohsiung for seminars because there is a demand, just not enough to sustain much local English corporate training business. I can and do avail myself of public transportation: besides my own driving limitations (I really don’t drive – I mean I know how, and I have a license, but I have very little experience and I’m not that good at it), I really feel that public transit is superior to private. It’s better for the environment and it’s more social.

It saddens me that Taiwan is not investing enough in both building and encouraging the use of public transportation. This does not make a Taipei-based expat inferior: I’d argue that it makes them more environmentally attuned. Yay for MRTs, boo for gas guzzlers and polluting scooters.

Yes, I can take that MRT to swankier bars – although compared to Istanbul, Taipei’s nightlife kind of sucks – and nice cafes, and I have more choice than elsewhere on the island, but an expat based in a Kaohsiung, Taizhong or Hsinchu can go to similar foreigner-friendly places. Sure, they don’t have Carnegie’s, but I don’t go to Carnegie’s. At most of my favorite spots - including Shake House and La Boheme, my two favorites – the beer is good but English is barely spoken.

Again, how does this make my life easier, less authentic or less “really in Taiwan” than if I were to live elsewhere?

Honestly, ride a bike through the lanes, talk to the shopkeepers and old folks outside socializing (a perennial favorite of mine). Go to the 100-kuai beer and seafood joints – I was quoted regarding them in the South China Morning Post not long ago, unfortunately the article is no longer online – go to Dihua Street or just wander Wanhua, Dadaocheng or Dalongdong. Go to Bao’an Temple (my personal favorite).

How is any of that not the real Taiwan? These are the places where I tend to hang out (what can I say, I like old urban stuff), and I can guarantee that by doing so, my life is not easier, more cosseted or more cocooned than someone living outside Taipei. I am not superior (although I am more environmentally friendly with no wheels!), but I am not inferior, either, and I’m sick of hearing it. I’m sorry, but Taipei is just as good as whatever town y’all live in, and it is not necessarily any easier to live here. It’s only easier if you let it be.

Finally, most of my local friends in Taipei are not from Taipei – with a few notable exceptions (I do have one friend who waxes rhapsodic on how he and his grandmother would go for oyster omelets by 圓環 in the ‘70s). They’re from Kaohsiung County, Nantou, Miaoli…they weren’t born here, but they’d balk at the idea that – while plenty of southerners call Taipei “台北國” – it’s not just as much “Taiwan” as any other part of Taiwan.

"Why Bother?"

A quick thought on the ever-shifting poll numbers of Ma Ying-jiu and Tsai Ying-wen...

What worries me is that four-ish years ago, when Ma swept into office, it was on a wave from what I could only describe as resignation. Ennui, almost. From my perspective, I could almost palpably feel the defeat-before-we've-even-fought-the-fight from the DPP side, a sort of quiet sigh as they, in droves, decided not to vote.

I don't say the above lightly - I have a lot of local friends, most of them green, and almost none of them voted. Some never vote. Some don't care. Some care, but don't vote. Some thought "why bother traveling home on election day when we're going to lose anyway?" And lose they did, but I have to ask if it really had to be that way, or if the DPP could have at least put up a better fight if it'd had any fight in it after A-bian.

And now, I see it again. A sort of why-even-bother harrumph from the green side - the side that I always thought of as more passionate and invested in their beliefs than all those "I vote blue because my parents are blue but I don't actually care/know anything/think about politics"young Taipei urbanite kids. A sort of self-prophecy of defeat that worries me anew.

I didn't actually think that Frank Hsieh would win back in the day - the A-bian scandals (if you could call them that compared to what the KMT has done to Taiwan) were too fresh, too new, and after 8 years of DPP rule the country seemed poised to return to the blue side - as much as I didn't like it, I couldn't deny it.

I think Tsai could actually have a shot, though. If - if - she can mobilize the base, the independents, the undecideds, the light blues who don't like Ma. She could do it, even if she does lack a certain charisma or spark: Ma, honestly, lacks the same spark. I mean, seriously. No. Just...no. Put on a shirt, pasty-boy.

But despite this, I don't think she'll win, because although she could have the support, I see the same "why bother", the same "oh Ma will win it", the same lethargy and slow unraveling. I see thousands of folks who live in Taipei but are registered down south who won't bother making the trip. I see Taiwanese abroad who won't bother coming back. Why, when you are so sure your candidate is going to lose?