Not Fluent, Stop Asking

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It's been 5 1/2 years. 5 1/2 years of learning Chinese - with some extended breaks, but make no mistake, I learned on those breaks, too. I suppose you could count that tortured year in China in 2002 when I taught myself basic survival Chinese, but looking back, I have to wonder. I feel now as though I knew nothing then. At this point, especially as it's clear that I do speak Chinese, although not perfectly, I get a lot of people asking me "You must be fluent, huh. What's that like?" or "So, are you fluent?"

I never know how to answer them. Am I fluent? I personally would say "no", but I don't really know because I don't know what "fluent" means in real terms. Am I fluent in that I can go an entire day and speak/read/write/hear nothing but Chinese with no problem? Yes. Am I fluent in that I can read, I dunno, Confucius? Hell to the NO. Am I fluent in that I don't make mistakes? Of course not.

After five years of mostly self-study, should I be? I don't know. I'd certainly speak at a "higher level" if I'd continued to study hard and attend Shi-da, but I met plenty of people at Shi-da at my level or above who were too nervous or just not, ahem, "fluent" enough to get sentences out that come easily to me, so I don't know.

So, let's explore this whole "fluency" thing.

The idea that "fluency" in a foreign language isn't something that can be measured easily, nor are the metrics to determine it agreed on by any stretch has been pretty well covered online and in the many conversations serious language learners have with each other.

There are some who believe that you're only fluent if you can communicate flawlessly - think on the level of interpreters or native speakers of more than one language. There are others who feel that if you can converse and basically communicate what you need to and get by in day-to-day life vis-a-vis spoken and written communication, even if you make mistakes, then that means you're fluent. Still others have what I view as a warped idea that if you're able to read, write, analyze, do research in and know the classical background of a language, than regardless of how well your speaking of that language flows, then that means you're fluent. A teacher at Shi-da's Mandarin Training Center once told me that if you complete all five books in their series and do fairly well, then you count as "fluent".

Well, let me tell you, I'm on the last book - Book 5 (I never took the class for it, but I own it and have flipped through it and there is a lot that I already know, plus a few things I need to learn) - and I don't feel as close to this "fluency" thing as this teacher confidently asserted I should.

By the first definition, I will never be fluent in Chinese. I can study and study, but I'm never going to reach a point where I speak it, ahem, flawlessly - but then, what does "flawlessly" even mean? Some snob in Beijing might listen to a perfectly fluent native speaker of Chinese from Taipei and proclaim that her Chinese is not "flawless". I might be able someday to interpret Chinese into English, but probably never the other way around. I'll always have a "different", non-native sounding way of speaking it. 

But then, by this definition students of mine who speak far better English than I do Chinese - who have done Master's and even PhD degrees abroad - are not "fluent" because they still make mistakes. I have a friend who got an Master's in the USA and still forgets to put verbs in the past tense occasionally. I have a student - a psychiatrist - who got her PhD at Cambridge and who still makes occasional mistakes or says things in a clearly non-native way or  using awkward grammar, and who doesn't always know just the right adjective or noun for specialized words ("incomprehensible" was on her vocabulary review list recently). With the grammar mistakes she makes - never big, always at a high level, but still noticeable - many language assessment ratings wouldn't put her at an advanced level; she's currently placed in high intermediate (although I teach her as though she's advanced).

But dude, she got her PhD at Cambridge. Can you really say she's "not fluent"?

I have plenty of students who score, in terms of vocabulary range and grammar knowledge, in the mid-intermediates. I'd say it's the biggest group of learners I encounter, and that there are barriers in language learning that keep many language learners at that level. Here's the thing - they make mistakes. They use prepositions of time all wrong, and forget all sorts of tenses and other bits of speech - like conditionals and reported speech - come out a bit wonky (although generally their point is clear). But they can get by just fine. They can handle - and often have handled - life in an English speaking country just fine (although they all claim it's a struggle - well, duh. Sometimes communicating in Chinese in Taipei is a struggle for me. I don't think that ever goes away). They can converse, they can make themselves clear, they can understand spoken English face-to-face. At times it's hard for me to judge how much their understanding is based on grading of my speech, because I now grade my speech almost subconsciously. I would guess that rapid English from one native speaker to another, if it were two people conversing, would be generally understandable but more challenging, with some missed meaning in idioms and nuance. They can generally read just about anything at a higher level than I can read Chinese, but that's hardly surprising. Anyone learning Chinese as a second language feels my pain, my beautiful torment! Other than in obvious spoken mistakes - which rarely obscure meaning - the only time one might question the fluency of these students of mine is in watching television or movies or trying to discern song lyrics.

Which, you know, is just about where I'm at. There are some differences: I tend to know a lot more Chinese slang and idiomatic speech than my students know in English (although they constantly surprise me: once I was discussing "charisma" in political leaders with a student and mentioned Bill Clinton. "Even after the Republicans tried to push him out of office..." Student: "Oh, I know! Because of a blowjob!"...as I produce a fountain of spurting coffee from my nose). I can understand bits of casual conversation between native speakers more easily. I can produce Chinese without having to translate from English in my head. If someone speaks to me in Chinese, Chinese comes out of my mouth in reply without a second thought. This isn't surprising, given that I'm learning on my own in an immersion environment and pick up most of my Chinese from friends. 

They tend to know higher level / business / professional language and read far better than I can - again, not surprising as English is, I believe, easier to read than Chinese and they use their English skills for work, not socializing. It still stuns me how few of my Taiwanese friends have other foreign friends besides me - although some certainly do, and how rarely I come across a student who answers in the affirmative when I ask if they have foreign friends. Colleagues, business partners, acquaintances, yes - friends? Not really.

So, I need to work on more formal Chinese and business Chinese (and reading/writing!) and they need to work on more casual, quick, no-head-translations-please English with a wider range of vocabulary.

But, generally speaking, I can live my life in Chinese without much problem. I can call repairmen, go to B&Q, order food (even foreign food), talk about all sorts of topics from economics to geography to religion to media to history to basic office matters and more (I remain weak in sports, but even in English I don't care about sports). I haven't tried yet but I suspect I could pull off a job interview in Chinese, albeit with mistakes. I can more or less follow the news, although I know I miss a great deal of nuance and pick up a lot from the accompanying visuals. I can do an informal business presentation in Chinese (and have) and can follow other presentations. I can participate in and head a Q&A session in Chinese (and have). I can't read that well when it comes to newspapers or books but I can and do interact with friends on Facebook in Chinese - including fairly meaty posts and messages. I can type just fine but my writing is...well, I can fill out forms and write short notes and postcards by hand, but not much more. I'd feel bad about this, but I have plenty of students who routinely forget how to write even basic characters by hand. I feel ever so vanquished when one student turns to another and asks, "how do you write putao (grape) in Chinese?") THANK YOU.

I know where this places me, and my various students, on the scale of typical "levels" in any given language, but where does it put us in terms of fluency - which I have come to believe is a separate thing?

I don't know. I know that, no matter what Shi-da says, I'm not as close to my ideal of fluent as their system implies. I know that, while my students make intermediate-level mistakes, that while they may not believe it's true, I know that they can get along in an English-speaking environment. 

I personally believe that I'll feel "fluent" when I can turn on the news, move away from the TV and do something else, and still understand in a fair amount of detail what's going on without having to look at the visuals. The other day I had to get a knife refurbished as it had developed a bit of rust (and it was a very expensive knife) -  I could explain that my knife had a problem - here, take a look! - and could you please fix it, but the word "rust" eluded me. When I came to this cafe earlier, I told them that I did not want a particular seat as my backpack would  jut out into the hallway and people could trip over it. I managed to make myself clear, but fairly awkwardly and certainly with a few mistakes. When I can get through exchanges like these with total confidence - even if there are a few mistakes - I'll feel fluent. When I can look at a menu of foreign food and read off my selection perfectly - not nearly perfectly except for that one character I don't know, dammit! What IS that? Oh but they know what I mean - I'll feel fluent. When I can read a blog post clearly or get the gist of a newspaper article in greater detail (I can get the gist now, but basically detail-free), I'll feel fluent. When the number of workarounds I need to make a point clear are diminished considerably - and it becomes a tool I employ rarely rather than fairly often - I'll feel fluent.

When will that be? I don't know. I work towards it, but I do it in my own rambling way.

Do I ever aspire to speak flawlessly? No. I have no aspirations toward interpreting English into Chinese for official purposes, and I have no aspirations to academia in Chinese. Cool as it would sound - yeah, well, I'm totally a professor of Chinese, so there! - I know that's not the path for me. My relationship with the language has always been more street-level, more everyday, less academic. I *heart* academia, but as an abstract, not as a career goal. At heart I'm a traveler and a networker, an adventure-seeker and an organic learner. I am not a researcher and not someone who believes you can put the strictures on language that so many academics would like to put on it. 

 

Do I aspire to speak more comfortably? Yes. I'm not sure if, after five and a half years, I've missed some benchmark that I could have hit if I'd only studied harder, or if my organic "it happens when it happens and I am learning" approach has done me more good.

I just don't know, but it's all worth thinking about.

So if you, too, are not fluent and wish people would stop asking as though fluent were a concept whose metrics everyone agreed on or as though there was a benchmark, rather than a scale, of fluency -  don't beat yourself up. You're not alone. I'm here, too!

The Chinese Jungle

Photo from this site - please don't sue me

There have been a lot of online petitions and public outcry in the West recently over the treatment Chinese factory workers endure. Most of it, thanks to This American Life, The Daily Show and other outlets, has been directed at Apple, whose products are made in China by vendors and suppliers.

My feelings on this: I agree completely with the sentiment, but activists: UR DOIN IT RONG. Putting pressure on Apple might bring about some small improvements but really it's like threatening the Death Star but letting Palpatine and Darth Vader run amok. 

Don't get me wrong: I agree. Factory workers in China are forced to live horrific lives. Excruciatingly long work days, mind-explodingly boring jobs putting together the same small part hundreds of times a day, all day, every day, dormitories that house more to a room than a cash-strapped college dorm (and those in the same room don't even know each other), bosses who regularly treat workers badly (and have been known to treat female workers like sex objects) - it's truly disgusting. It's something nobody should accept or put up with. It's Upton Sinclair for the 21st Century, and we rich folks with iPhones - yes, I am using "rich" to mean comparatively well-off, not 1% rich - aid and abet it by buying the products and often rewarding the lower prices that inhumane labor practices allow by buying more of the products when prices are lower. I'm totally on board with that. It's a massive, evil thing. I have wanted a new smartphone since my old one was stolen, but I haven't bought one not only because I'm trying to be careful with money, but also because the thought of supporting that system sickens me. 

Of course, every time I buy something made in China or really any developing country, I'm still supporting that system - I can't deny that. 

The thing is, Apple isn't doing this. Apple is surely aware of it, and Apple turns a blind eye to it, yes, but Apple isn't doing it themselves. 

Those employees don't work for Apple - they work for Foxconn, or any of the other vendors and suppliers that Apple has approved  (although Foxconn is the biggest). Apple is not Foxconn. Foxconn is not Apple. Sure, Apple aids and abets Foxconn's treatment of workers in China, but they're not the same company. You can't say "Apple needs to change its labor practices" or "Apple's workers" - they're not Apple's workers. Foxconn needs to change its labor practices - as does pretty much every other manufacturer with plants in Dongguan, Kunshan or anywhere else in China.

It's not even that simple: Apple hires ODM and OEM firms for its various parts - often different components, from speakers to camera modules to touch screens - are made by different companies. This is true of basically every electronic product you buy - the people who actually design and produce the stuff you use aren't Toshiba, Dell, Acer, Apple etc.: they're companies you've never heard of (I'd name names but I actually teach for a lot of these companies and have signed non-disclosure agreements - to say anything that could be perceived as negative about specific ones on this blog could land me in legal trouble or see me out of a job. So I won't - because I'm totally a part of the system too). 

Even they have vendors - a lot of what Foxconn "produces" is actually designed through a complex system of vendors who design and manufacture the components, and a lot of guanxi (networking) is involved in which vendors get which contracts.

What's more, as most people who live in Taiwan know, the design and R&D in these companies tend to happen in offices in Taiwan, where the design and engineering talent seems to be concentrated. The manufacturing happens in China, often at factory sites owned by the Taiwanese companies and headed up by Taiwanese bosses. The guys who design this stuff are Taiwanese, the poor sods in the factories are Chinese, and their Taiwanese bosses often have little sympathy (side note: this is not always true. I teach at companies like these and often have students who are sent to China for long periods to deal with manufacturing issues. A lot of them are good people who agree that working conditions are abysmal and would like to do something about that. Let us not paint them all with the same brush).

So Apple - or whoever - calls up Foxconn to talk production. Foxconn assigns vendor codes to other companies who help design components (although Foxconn doesn't seem to farm out manufacturing, it  does at times farm out design). Those guys are all in Taiwan or occasionally Korea. Their lives are not as horrific as the Chinese factory workers', but they still work terribly long hours - I'd say unfairly long, for relatively little pay - often arriving between 7 and 9am and working until late at night. Sometimes they're lucky and get to go home by 7pm. Often they're in the office later, or bring work home and keep at it until midnight. These guys have sympathy for the horrific lives of the Chinese factory workers, but they're overworked themselves - what can they do? "This is just how it is" is a chorus you often hear repeated in this sad song.

This is why, while my heart is with the activists and those who speak up, deep down I just don't think it will work. Sure, you could put pressure on Apple, but the workers in question don't work for Apple. Apple can put pressure on Foxconn - threatening to change vendors, for instance - and Foxconn can decide whether or not to reform labor practices. It might have some effect, but probably not much, probably diluted, and probably short-lived.

Do you really think, though, that Terry Gou gives a damn about some American hippies whining about labor practices in Chinese factories? I assure you he does not. Terry Gou cares about money. You want to get Apple's attention and by extension Gou's? You stop buying iPhones and other Apple products. You make it clear through a strong PR campaign why it's happening. Then, and only then, might you have some impact on what Foxconn is doing. In the meantime, of course, a lot of engineers  - my students - working for ODM companies in Taiwan get laid off: a sad side effect. Most of them are just working their butts off 15 hours a day to support themselves and their families. Most of them don't want to see Chinese factory workers treated badly, either, but they want iPhones too - most have them - and they don't think there's anything they can do. Partly because "this is just the way things are" and partly because they're overworked too, and partly because their livelihoods are linked more closely to those Chinese factory workers.

And then, if labor practices do improve, prices will go up. We say that's fine, but we're not everyone - sales probably will drop and Foxconn - whom I don't teach for, by the way - will find some other way to cut costs, or secretly go back to treating workers badly and try to do so in less transparent ways, or Apple will find another vendor who does the same thing. Plenty of Chinese workers who wanted to keep their terrible jobs would lose them. A blessing in disguise for some, a ticket to poverty for others.

It gets harder. You can say "well I just won't buy Apple products" but they all do this. HTC has been in the news for overworking its employees (I have no contract with HTC, I should add). Pretty much any electronic product you could buy is produced under conditions just as bad. You can't escape it by buying a dumbphone and giving up your mobile access: those same companies produce the components that go into dumb phones, too. If you want to escape it, you can't have any product whose components were made in China. If we all do this, that means, by extension, putting many of the overworked Taiwanese engineers out of work, too. You, my activist friend, are fucking stuck.  And it blows, it really does.

So how can it change? And how do I feel, being a part of this system?

Well, it probably won't change much at the hands of angry Westerners who want Chinese factory workers to have better jobs and lives - as much as I wish that could make a difference. It's systemic, and so the entire system needs to change. Asia - especially China, but really Asia as a whole - needs to have a worker's revolution not unlike the labor reforms that America went through post-Upton Sinclair. Ideas like "free time", "worker's rights", "fair pay" and "reasonable work responsibilities and hours" need to take hold. As of now, they have not - at least not in Chinese factories.

I don't hold up much hope that such ideas will transmit from the West to factories in China directly. I can't think of two things more different than the job of the person who makes the dingbat that makes something in an iPhone run and the job of the person who owns the iPhone. I can't think of anything more different than their two cultures, lives, life experiences and biases - although their desires and goals are probably fairly similar: after all, everyone wants a good job, good pay, free time and the chance to have a happy life.

I do, however, have some hope that these ideas will start to influence the tech company offices in Taiwan. In some ways, they already have. Taiwanese office workers are well aware of concepts like overtime pay, work-life balance and flex-time. They even get guaranteed maternity leave and a few days of paternity leave (which should be more, but that's a different post) - something Americans don't always get. More and more workers want those things, and more and more hope that once the economy picks up that wages will rise to fairer levels. The ideas are slow to infiltrate, but they are here and I believe they will burrow deeper as time goes on, especially if the economy improves.

From there, you could start to influence the Taiwanese factory bosses. Terry Gou and Cher Wang - who quite literally have had employees work themselves to death, a phrase that's used as a joke in the USA but is deadly serious here - might have an employee mutiny on their hands, or have trouble recruiting good engineers. They might then decide to start treating workers better. From there it could start to seep into China, and things might get better. Maybe. 

In tandem with that, the Chinese economy needs to develop - it needs to reach a point where many of those workers who are quite literally dying of overwork and mistreatment don't need those terrible jobs. Sure, manufacturing will likely be moved again, to another Third World country with abusive labor practices and it'll all start again, but maybe we'll all be more aware by then and it won't take so long to change things.

How do I feel about this? After all, my livelihood comes from working for these companies. I haven't named many names because I teach at many of them, and not only am I legally obligated not to bring up names, but I do respect my students. They are generally good people stuck in a crappy system, just like you and me.

Well, I feel like crap, sometimes, knowing that my salary is also paid, ultimately, off the back of these workers in China. That the Taiwanese companies wouldn't be able to afford the training budgets that pay for my services if they didn't treat the workers in their factories in China like beasts of burden.

I also feel like, as much as I am able, that the only way to make peace with this is to try to be a part of the solution - because this is my job, and I like my students, and I genuinely want them to gain business skills and improve their English so that they, too, can move up to something better, and I wouldn't be any morally cleaner teaching the engineers of tomorrow at some underpaid buxiban job.

It probably doesn't have much effect, but the best I can do is to be a grain of sand. An irritating, noticeable grain of sand in everyone's underpants that agitates and calls for change. I'm not shy in saying, when asked, that I think my students work too hard, that work culture in Asia is seriously. fucked. up. and that it's even worse in China, and hey guys, you know this so keep that in mind if you're ever the boss. I try to "be the change I want to see in the world" - I have a well-paid job and make it clear that my greatest benefit is free time and the ability to structure my own life and have a great deal of freedom. Some students don't really absorb the import of this; others think "great for her but this is how things are in Asia". Some, though, look at me like a light has turned on in their heads: if she can be free and earn a good living, and if she can balance life and work and be satisfied on both fronts, why can't I?  She is not automatically more entitled to it than I am because she is foreign, or white, or a native English speaker. I could do this too, if I really wanted to. Or could I? Could I? Hmm.

If nothing else - because there is nothing else I can do - I try to be an example of how important personal time, fair pay and a good life really is, and how that is worth fighting for. It may not do much now, but the more that this idea gains exposure in Asia, the better. I'm one person, there's not much I can do, and I'm not Asian and don't want to make this all White Man's Burden-y, but it is what I can do.

                                                                                                                

Not A Girly-Girl: Being an Unfeminine Female in Taiwan

Average-looking, not slim, no makeup, not "elegant", likes to swear and drink,
has chewed betel nut, could happily be a breadwinner, talks too much and has forceful opinions.

What other gender-driven expectations can we find and destroy?     

I'm having a weird form of writer's block: I have four posts I really want to write, and I can't seem to write any of them in a clear or coherent way.

So, I'm going to tackle something else and try not to make a mess of it. I want to talk a bit about not fitting local expectations of what women should be, and how that's affected my life in Taiwan. Good news: most of what I have to say is positive!

Awhile back, I wrote a post about the pervasive, and sad,"one white hides three uglies" belief and how being, well, white changes the dynamic of what is considered beautiful. This from me, someone who admits openly to being average looking, at best (and generally OK with that). I also wrote one on being a curvy white girl in a country full of slender Taiwanese women, and how while the comments and noticeably unspoken comments are made (or not made, but known), that being a Westerner shields me somewhat from the fat-shaming pervasive in Asia.

A quick side note about fat-shaming of Western women in Asia: I still get it, but not nearly as much as women of Asian heritage - whether or not they were born in Asia - do. Fun fact: while a lot of people might say that because it's more acceptable to comment on weight in most of Asia, that the fat-shaming would mostly come from locals, I've found that it mostly comes from other expats. Sure, the occasional blabbermouth obasan will say something, but the real reviling of curvy Western women seems to come from (not surprisingly, I'm sorry to say) expat men. I avoid most of it by not hanging out with people like that. Works wonders!

Back to the main point - any woman who lives in Taiwan long enough - or not even all that long - notices that expectations and behavior norms are stricter in Taiwan than in the West. This is also true for other Asian countries, and in most cases it's stronger. It was pretty awful in China, Brendan reported rampant sexism in Korea, which is usually a good sign that there are strict gender-based expectations of demeanor and behavior, and don't even get me started on Japan. India, for all of its issues regarding women's rights, seems to be a bit more accepting of great personality and even size variance in women. But let's stick to Taiwan for now.

Part of it is an expectation of girliness, not unlike the girlie-girliness discussed in this piece on Zooey Deschanel: not so much that women are expected to love polka dots, Hello Kitty, cell phone charms and glittery things, but that it's not considered odd for grown women to do so, and it's more comment-worthy if a girl or woman doesn't go in for that stuff than if she does. Examples: an older office worker I know of  through a third-party anecdote who has a cubicle full of Hello Kitty figurines.  Others in the office did not think this was odd. At all. Someone else I know of spoke of a mutual female acquaintance, saying "she's very smart, very interesting. She doesn't like Hello Kitty or bling-bling or anything like that." I could imagine "she's not a girly-girl" being said about a woman in the West, but not a comment along the lines of "she's not interested in cartoons or glitter". Huh? Why would she be?

But that's not all of it.  Some other gendered expectations I've noticed - many of them obvious but not often meditated on:

- The whole "elegance" thing. Women in Taiwan are not necessarily expected to be girly, but if they're not girly, they should be "elegant". There's an adjective in Chinese that I feel sums it up best: 典雅 or "classically elegant"- think in terms of the classic beauties of Chinese history. My observation of what this seems to entail is what you'd more or less expect: slim, pretty face, accomplished and articulate but doesn't say much, smiles and laughs but doesn't giggle, very clean and tidy, puts up with a lot of crap and rude behavior without comment.

It seems to me that as per Taiwanese culture, a woman can be girly, or she can be elegant, but those are the only two things she can be. "Quiet" and "nerdy" are also acceptable to some degree. Anything else - loud, outgoing, funny, aggressive - gets filed under "不懂" -  quirky, strange, unfeminine, coarse, or in my case, "it's OK, she's American. They're like that." Aggressive, however, is accepted once you reach a certain age.

I do feel back home that while, yes, there is pressure on women to be feminine, whether we're talking "girly feminine" or "elegant feminine", but you don't absolutely have to be. If you are a bit hard-nosed, a total brain, aggressive, funny, coarse, a bit difficult, a bit crazy but not in a girly way, a gamer, an emo, take on "masculine" hobbies, or are just not domestic or a bit sloppy, that's OK too. Some people might judge you, but your personality won't get filed under "I don't understand that at all".

My two anecdotes: out to dinner with a group of friends, some of whom did not know each other. I tell a story about a kid I saw wearing a t-shirt that said "Certified Muff Diving" on it, and had to explain that in Chinese. A friend (Taiwanese, female) said "Oh, I like it!". Foreigners thought it was funny. Locals laughed but looked slightly embarrassed. This particular friend is super awesome and quite attractive, but not "elegant" in the expected way. She's said she doesn't quite fit into Taiwanese society. This same friend met another friend's girlfriend - whom I like quite a bit, and I admit is the epitome of 典雅 - and said "wow, she's like the girl every Taiwanese man wants to marry". I said "really? Or are you exaggerating?" "No, I don't think I am."

The other: I had a similar discussion with a student while driving back from Hsinchu. He gave a mutual acquaintance as an example of a strong woman - who happens to out-earn her husband, to boot - as an example of someone who flouts this expectation. He was right in that she doesn't fit a lot of expectations of women in Taiwan (earning more than her husband, for one) but she is nothing if not elegant, with perfect hair, stylish dress and good taste. Even the expectation flouter doesn't flout this expectation!
                 
- Women don't drink much and they certainly don't drink Kaoliang or whiskey.  They absolutely do not chew betel nut. I drink whiskey and will drink Kaoliang if offered, but generally do not seek it out. When I attended a year-end party for a student's company, people were shocked that I not only drank whiskey, but drained the glass. When I go out with friends, the only women drinking whiskey are white (usually just me, though). I've had local friends over to drink, and the women tend to stay away from the whiskey: some don't drink at all, others stick to wine. Even if I'm just having beer I often get "wow, you drink a lot!" after, you know, two beers. Some women don't drink at all, but I do believe that's more that they can't physically handle it than an attempt at being more "feminine".

As for betel nut, when I ask students who has tried it, a few men inevitably raise their hands, but not once - not even once - have I encountered a woman who has tried it (or will admit to it), although I bet I'd find a few more down south if I were asking there. I've tried it three times. Twice of my own volition, once because it was offered to me at some temple parade.

- While plenty of Taiwanese women have careers - and good ones at that - it is much less common here for women to be breadwinners, and even less common for women to be OK with being a breadwinner.


My anecdote for this one: we're at a somewhat chi-chi bar before leaving for Turkey, chatting with two local friends. My husband had just had the worst of the visa issues he encountered hit him (which is why he changed jobs) and I hadn't even heard the bad news yet. I felt these were good enough friends that he could deliver the news in front of them, and he did. At some point I blurted out "You know, if they're being such ****s, seriously, quit. Just quit. I can support us. I make enough. You'd need another job for the visa but I can handle the money end. But we can talk about that more at home" (I generally don't make it a point to talk finances in front of friends but  it was a very stressful bit of news).                     I thought nothing of this until months later when one of the two friends - the guy - mentioned me on Facebook when linking to a blog post in Chinese about marriage. Roughly, he referred to me as "my gutsy foreign friend who even said she could support her husband, I was so shocked!". Later, again: "When I heard you tell your husband that he could quit and you would earn enough money, I knew you were a person with guts."

What is interesting about this is that it clearly shocked him enough to bring it up months later - not once, but twice - in a way that showed that he was clearly bowled over. Not so much that I mentioned finances but that a wife would tell her husband "it's fine, I make enough" and be perfectly OK with being the primary, or even only, breadwinner, even for a period.

I just can't imagine any of my foreign friends registering that deep level of shock at such a concept.

- Less swearing, and not loud! I swear a lot in all languages (my current favorite is Taiwanese. So expressive). 'Nuff said. This kind of plays into the "you can be girly or you can be elegant, or you can be nerdy or you can be shy. When you hit about 45 you can be aggressive" - none of these tropes has any room in it for women who swear, talk frankly, drink whiskey or chew betel nut. As for loudness - it's OK to be talkative - "chatty" talkative is also acceptable - but "loud" (as in volume or size of reaction) is not quite so accepted.

A final anecdote: a local female friend of mine who is quite loud, both in talkativeness and volume. She's told tales of dating woes - although my assessment of some of these stories is that the guys sound like Grade A Douchebags. She's also said that most people advise her to a.) use whitening cream and b.) be quieter and "more like a woman". As in, shut yer mouth, woman! People have actually told her that the problem is that she is too talkative, too outspoken and too loud. I find that sad.

I'd add some others, like filial obeisance and being humble, but those are expected of both genders. I'd add "expected to want to have children", but then the expectation that all women should want to become mothers and something is wrong with those that don't is quite strong in the West, too, as I'm finding out. It's surprising that this expectation is still so strong in a country with such a low birthrate, but I get the feeling that a lot of people have convinced themselves that most Taiwanese women who don't have children remain childless because they haven't found a mate (there are quite a few singly thirty and fortysomethings), not because they don't actually want children.

It's worth noting yet again that it's not that these expectations don't exist in the West, it's that in my experience they're more flexible, and there's room to flout them or only follow them to a minor extent. There's more room to be yourself, even if "yourself" is not very "feminine" at all, by conventional definition. Some idiot might call you "unfeminine" or try to shame you in some other way, but he'd be the exception, not a social trend. While women in both Taiwan and the USA complain that having "unfeminine" personalities often costs them dearly in the dating world, I'd say that Taiwanese women seem to be facing a bigger challenge.

Where does this leave me - and a lot of women like me? Not just my attitude (and to some extent my looks - not slender, either dressed like a dork or in jeans, no makeup,  air-dried hair) but my entire demeanor and personality - is coarse by these standards. My personality: casual, a bit loud, likes to swear, drinks whiskey

So,  I'm a total boor, a bull in a china shop (total cliche and not quite a pun, but close). I have to admit it, sometimes, in Taiwan, I feel like a slightly oblong, porous brick among women who are more reminsicent of smooth marble sculptures. A garrulous moon rock placed next to a Lalique vase. A giant square plopped down on a page covered in sinuous waves and lissome lines. A big ol' corner sticking out to disrupt the qi in a room with otherwise excellent feng shui.

It's like this: imagine sitting on the brown line MRT, wearing a sweater and jeans, hair a bit messy, maybe a zit or two, and noticing the woman across from me: shiny black hair, eyes closed, smile just so, cute little white headphones, tidy, well-fitting jacket. Elegant in a way I am not: I could get the haircut, the jacket, the headphones, but those are not really the issue. They wouldn't change much; the difference is too fundamental. I could varnish up the outside, but my insides would ooze through the cracks. I hope you like that mental image, by the way.

And yet,  it's not bad.

I mean that. It's not bad at all. Sure I feel a bit oblong or outsize at times, but what foreigner in any country doesn't? Sure, I feel "unfeminine" in Taiwan in a way I don't back home, but that's OK - was that feeling really all that important to me anyway? Is it really so bad to just be who I am and accept that I'm "chunky sweater and jeans girl" even if I'm not wearing a chunk sweater and jeans that day? I'm used to sticking out. I don't mind sticking out. I've even learned to use it to my advantage in the classroom. Being loud and weird is a great starting point for building a kind of rapport you'd never expect.

It's surely in part - possibly mostly - because I'm a Westerner, but reaction to my personality among students and acquaintances has been generally positive.

The friend I mentioned above who was clearly quite shocked by my willingness to be the chief earner, even temporarily? His reaction was not one of disgust, puzzlement, righteousness, anger or condescension, or any of the myriad reactions one gets when discussing gender politics: it was surprise, yes, and a bit of shock, but ultimately there was admiration there, too.  People seem surprised that my drinking habits are more in line with Taiwanese men than women, or that I've tried betel nut, - seen as the ultimate in coarse behavior in Taipei, but while that might get filed under the "不懂" section of female behavior, there isn't a lot of judgment.

Obviously my friends like me for who I am so I don't need to go into what they think of me. Students, however, are under no obligation to like me, but even in the most candid feedback I don't hear words along the lines of "rude", "coarse" or "loud" (I never hear "elegant" or "lovely" either) - I hear "funny", "energetic", "so different" and "interesting". Arguably I am not "so different" in the USA, where my own special brand of weird is not that weird at all, but here it really does seem to fall outside the norm of female behavior.

I think the most candid assessment came from a student who, not surprisingly, is a psychiatrist. I mentioned that my cat is "clearly insane" and he made some joke that pets have been shown to be influenced by the personalities of their owners. Later in that class I made some weird, dramatic joke that involved a lot of hand gestures. Student: "Now I see why your cat is insane!" He didn't mean it in a bad way, though.

So really, the issue isn't other people or repercussions of not fitting into expectations of femininity in Taiwan.  The issue is internal - it's about not fitting in and being farther outside the norm of gender expectations than in my native culture, and learning to be OK with that, possibly to even embrace it. If you do that - and believe me, I'm trying to - the confidence you can project will deflect any judgments that could possibly come your way. That can be nothing but good.

I can get away with this because I'm a Westerner, I know. A lot of Taiwanese women aren't in a similar position to be able to turn their unfemininity into a strength and be admired for it rather than told to be more "ladylike". Some are lucky, some break the mold. Many more don't. Many - most even - arguably don't want to, but I feel for those who do want to but feel they can't, or that they could, but the price would be too high.

You see, another friend and I told the talkative woman mentioned above not to listen to fools who would tell her that being "quiet" and "sweet" would cure her dating woes. "Listen to us," we said. "We're loud, we're weird, we don't wear makeup. We're not super skinny and we have a lot of opinions...and both of us have boyfriends. She [me] is about to marry hers. If you try to be someone you're not, and try to be this quiet, sweet girl who isn't really you, even if you find a boyfriend that way you won't be happy, because that's not you. Be who you are and the right guy will love you for it."

"But you don't understand. Taiwanese men are just like this! You can do it but it is hard for me."
"You CAN do it, though. You CAN be who you are and expect people to like you for that."
"I can, but..."

She can, but....

And that's just about where it's at.

Super fun update!  Someone left a comment saying "maybe you could go to the gym and lose weight....Then you could get a local boyfriend and that would make life meaningful." Hee hee. I'll go ask my husband now if I can have a local boyfriend because clearly my life is not meaningful now. Honey...?

Everything's Closed, or, My Chinese New Year Staycation

You know what it's like: the weather is a dark, drizzly Taipei Gray, roads are mostly devoid of people,   accordion metal pull-down doors cover every storefront. Everything's gray, everything's quiet, and everything is closed. What do you do when you're stuck in a city that's shut down for an entire week? When much of the population takes flight and you have expect the horsemen of the Apocalypse to come riding down the empty streets?

It wasn't quite so gray on Saturday, but Dunhua South Road was still dead.

This year, for the first time, I spent the entirety of Chinese New Year vacation in Taipei. Last year we went to Kaohsiung and visited a friend, among other things. The year before that, it was attempting and failing to camp at Cingjing Farm and eventually escaping the rain in Puli. Before that had been trips abroad: Egypt and India (including the gorgeous Hampi), Indonesia, the Philippines.

Never before had I attempted a staycation - in fact, I'd never really done that in my life previously, being a bit of a wanderlust and all, but so soon after our trip to Turkey, our CELTA courses and our new apartment we couldn't justify the expense of leaving town, and we had enough to do in Taipei to keep us occupied.

I have to say that staying home for a week gave me a taste of what it might be like to be a housewife (not stay-at-home mom, since I don't want kinds - that's different) and while I fully support others' choices if that's what they want, I can now say for sure that it's not for me. It was a fun week, but I like my career.  I'm ready to be a breadwinner again.

Taipei is infamous for being the city that shuts down over Chinese New Year. Other cities celebrate briefly, with businesses closing for maybe one or two days. Taipei shuts down for days on end. Why? Because unlike most other cities (Hsinchu may be an exception), most people in Taipei aren't from there - they're from somewhere else in the country and they go home. The incentive to stay open in everyone's hometowns (which always seem to be Taichung, Miaoli or Kaohsiung - I swear Miaoli's tourism slogan could be "Miaoli: Home Of Every Taiwanese Person's 92-Year Old Hakka Grandmother") is greater, because everyone's home. In Taipei, they've all left to go home, so why stay open? A lot of business owners and employees want to go home themselves.

A lot of foreigners stay in - movies, books, TV, 7-11 food - but I find that that's not really necessary - although I didn't set foot outside between Monday evening and Wednesday afternoon. There are things to do, if you know where to look.

So, basically, this is how I spent 11 days off (you all had 9, I had 11, but that's not necessarily a good thing) in Taipei - what does one do when "everything's closed"? For more than a week?

I wish I could have posted this before Chinese New Year, but I couldn't - and didn't - but I had to live it to be able to write about it.

Here are some things to keep yourself occupied:

1.) Walk around Xinyi at night

(no photo for this one yet, sorry)

Shinkong Mitsukoshi and the 101 mall are generally open, and by the second or third day of Chinese New Year, you can bet on it all being open and there being a crowd. The length of the public walking space down Shinkong Mitsukoshi's multiple buildings is decked out with red lanterns and, especially in the evening after the sun sets, bustling with people. Come here to shop if you like, eat - everything's open, including the 101 food court, but expect crowds because this is what a lot of the locals still in town do, too -  or just walk around and take pictures. I didn't get the chance to, although I might head out and try to get a few shots in the next day or two.  There are also outdoor market stalls and public art installations and a stage where I assume there are performances.

If you're feeling like the city has completely emptied out, this is also a good place to go if you just want to be in a lively place to soak up the atmosphere.

2.) Wander Tianmu for awhile

Me, on a romantic sausage-eating excursion with Brendan at Wendel's German Bistro, Tianmu
...and, with glasses!

Things in Tianmu tend to stay open, because that's where expats tend to live, and where businesses catering to them tend to congregate - by the second day or so of the New Year (and often before that), things tend to stay open. Many restaurants that are often crowded and attract foreigners not only stay open but are easier to get into, since much of the city's population is gone. Most likely this will be posted on the websites of such establishments. One example: Wendel's German bakery and bistro. Notice on website ("We still open for Chinese New Year!") and not that hard to get a seat. Brendan and I went the other day for a nice, if expensive, meal out and had no trouble getting a table and fantastic service. I recommend the beef tartare appetizer, by the way, but ask for bread with it - spreading it pate-like on bread helps cut through the sheer...richness of the dish.

3.) All the grocery stores are open - buy ingredients and practice your cooking skills; try new recipes

I made kung pao chicken!

Wellcome is open as usual even on the main Chinese New Year day and all of the fancy groceries, such as Jason's and City Super, stay open (though on Chinese New Year's Day they may have shorter hours). The Indian import store near MRT City Hall is also open.

So, with a quiet city, generally bad weather - we got, what, two days of decent weather over this vacation? - and everything open, if you have the means, then this is absolutely the time to try your hand at recipes that intrigue you. I'm lucky in that I live walking distance from a City Super (we are practically across the street from the Far Eastern Plaza Hotel - I know, faaaancy) and I could make muhammara, babaghanoush, lamb biriyani and other treats without too much fuss (although the biriyani wasn't as good as I would have liked).

4.) Decorate! New paint job!

PURPLE AND GREEN OFFICE!!

Our painted bedroom, with cat and man

If your lease allows and you are willing to make the financial investment - ours does, as our landlady is a rockin' Buddhist nun - this is a great time to repaint your apartment - as well as to do various decorating jobs (IKEA is also still open!) and hanging shelves and pictures (Sheng Li, at Fuxing/Heping intersection, is open and sells Dr. Hook for all of your hanging needs, without needing to drill). We did this, and ended up with a gorgeous cranberry and gray bedroom with textiles framed in IKEA frames hung up with Dr. Hook and a crazy colorful purple and green office (the teal living room wall had already been done). The places where you would go to get decorating supplies and paint - Carrefour, B&Q (for paint - one in Neihu near Costco and one in Qizhang above the big Carrefour), IKEA, Ikat (some days), Hola, Sheng Li - all open.

5.) Invite friends over

Biriyani night - don't even ask what they're doing

My food-loving whiskey-drinking Taiwanese friends

Chances are you are not the only foreigner, or friend (Taiwanese or not)  who is in town for some of all of Chinese New Year. There are tons of foreigners who find the weather generally too gross to travel in Taiwan and too expensive to go abroad, and you may have Taiwanese friends who are from Taipei and itching for a chance to get away from family for a night.

With everything open and your gorgeous newly-painted apartment, what a great time to get everyone out of the house and host a dinner party - especially for those poor friends of yours who have been eating at 7-11 for days on end?

6.) Visit temples

The too-often overlooked Qingshan Temple on Guiyang Street is a favorite of mine

Longshan Temple and Xingtian Temple are popular spots for public prayer in Taipei on Chinese New Year - visiting these can get you out and among other people, which might perk up your spirits (it does for me; I'm a natural extrovert). These are great spots to visit anytime during the week, especially on New Year's Day itself, and remain crowded through the vacation period.

Alternately, you could visit Bao'an Temple or some of the lesser-known or less visited temples in Taipei, such as Qingshan or Qingshui temples. They stay open,  are crowded but not as much as the big draw temples, and for these reasons, CNY is a good time to do this kind of sightseeing.

7.) Wander around the Longshan Temple Area

People-watching...or are they watching you?

With so many people pouring into Longshan Temple to pray, the areas around it are hopping, Chinese New Year is a good time to visit Bopiliao, the Longshan Temple Underground Mall, Guiyang Street (linked above) or the street market that pops up along Guangzhou Street and seems to be open in the daytime on most days of the Chinese New Year vacation. If you're feeling isolated or lonely and don't like hoew quiet the city has gotten in your neighborhood (I live in Da'an - it was pretty bad), this is the place to go to get your mojo back.

Also, great for people-watching!

8.) Try your hand at a new hobby or get back into an old one

A necklace I made for a much-loved but rarely-worn jade pendant

My favorite DIY shop

Dihua Street shuts down to scarily quiet levels right after Chinese New Year's Eve - the crazy market selling all sorts of products and foodstuffs goes silent and most of the shops are shuttered. In the days leading up to that, though, it's all open and if you're a crafts freak like me, that's fantastic. My hobbies, besides travel, reading and blogging, are beading and drawing. I have the drawing supplies I need but in the days leading up to the vacation I paid a visit to my favorite bead shop to stock up on stuff for various specific projects I had in mind. I only got one done - I made a beaded chain (faux) for a jade pendant of mine (real). I have a few other things up my sleeve, though, that I might putter around with tonight.

You don't have to be a beader or artist - what do you like to do? Do that! It's a great time to catch up on blogging, even if you write up posts in word to be posted later. It's a fantastic time to meditate, practice yoga, go biking (bike trails are dead quiet), write or do whatever it is you like to do. It's also a decent time to take photographs of Taipei without crowds in your way.

No, really, certain photos are much easier to capture when nobody's around to walk in front of your camera or bump into you.

9.) Get your Taiwanese friends who are still in town (there are probably a few) to teach you how to play mahjong.


(no photo, but check your own Facebook feed. If you have any Taiwanese friends you'll see pictures of this)

Seriously. They're all doing it (got Taiwanese friends on Facebook? Look at their CNY photos. It's all mahjong, all the time) and some of them are probably still in Taipei. See if you can't learn how and get invited to such a party. Could be fun!

All in all, I enjoyed my week off in Taipei. I might be up for another staycation next year. One thing I can say for sure - I didn't feel bored!

Taipei Love: Guiyang Street

The weather yesterday was beautiful - one nice day out of 11 days (for me) off - so before some friends came over, we went to the Longshan Temple area to wander and take some photos on and around Guiyang Street.

Guiyang Street is one of my favorite overlooked streets in old Taipei - it's not as fancy or lengthy as Dihua Street nor as renovated and promoted as Bopiliao, but also usually not as crowded. It really only gets going once a year for 青山王's birthday festival  and otherwise a quiet, lovely place to take a quick stroll, see some old architecture, eat a few snacks, visit two historic temples and have a cup of coffee. The shophouses here aren't as "wealthy" as Dihua's, but that almost makes them more charming in their slightly decrepit way. My not-so-secret: deep down I was hoping I would have the chance to live in this area, and rent a renovated apartment in an old shophouse. That didn't happen - I ended up on the other side of the spectrum completely - but it really would be my Taipei dream come true.

Crab for sale!

First we wandered up Guangzhou Street, which is the non-touristy branch of the popular Huaxi Night Market (this part is often called Guangzhou St. Night market). At one end is Longshan Temple. Midway through you reach Huaxi Street, and if you keep going you'll hit Naruwan Indigenous People's Market and Xuehai Academy (also mentioned in the previous link). You'll also pass Mangka Gate  - worthy of a quick bite of history and also shown in a scene in the Taiwanese movie Monga. We had some food, did some people watching and walked north a bit.

I prefer the Guangzhou Street part of this market to Huaxi - the dingy, mostly-for-the-tourists sex shops (although the area does contain brothels) and mediocre food in the covered market keep me away, but Guangzhou Street is packed with good food, people to watch and interesting stuff to buy.

For Chinese New Year, the entire street was open during the day as it would be at night on other days -  rather like the area around Anping Fort outside Tainan. In fact the entire neighborhood was one big outdoor market that has been running for most of the week.

Shredded savory pancakes on Guangzhou Street

 Then, if you take Xiyuan Road north, up the left side of Longshan Temple (if coming from the MRT station), you'll pass lots of stores selling idols. Some are Buddhist, some are Dao/folk religion, some are for home shrines, other supplies are for actual temples. There's usually a bit of decent people-watching - and dog-watching - to do up this way as well.

I particularly like this one

One thing I really love about this neighborhood isn't just the old shophouses - it's the mid-century architecture of note (some of the stuff from that era is godawful - some is charming, though, and some give Taipei a special "look" that I really haven't seen in other Asian cities.

Other than living in a well-renovated shophouse, which is next to impossible (if not actually impossible) to pull off, though, living options in this colorful neighborhood tend to be run-down and cramped, and probably very much roach-infested (because the whole city is, and this area is a lot older and in many ways not well maintained). For example, I wouldn't want to live here and hang my clothes out to dry directly over a busy street, to pick up all sorts of grime and exhaust fumes:

 But then you make it up to Guiyang Street and more charming buildings come into view. I love this one and hope it can be more fully restored - the outside looks fine, but it seems to be unused, and possibly uninhabitable. I'd love to see that change - I've never seen any sign of life on the upper story, although there is some use made of the first floor.

Turn left and you reach Qingshan Temple - it is said that it was built here when settlers from Fujian carried Qingshan's idol up what is now Guiyang Street (it's that old, yo) and the idol suddenly grew heavy and immovable on that site. The carriers knew this was a sign that the Lord of Green Mountain wanted his temple placed there, so there they built it (interestingly, this story of idols becoming too heavy to move when they don't wish to be moved is not limited to China and Taiwan - Amitav Ghosh mentions similar stories in North Africa, the Middle East and India in his book, In An Antique Land, which I highly recommend).

I tell the story of Qingshan in the link to his birthday festival above.

Of course, these days kids just check their cell phones outside.

One thing I really love about this neighborhood is that it's not all shiny and perfect - that you get lovely little details such as these roof decorations on temples, right next to apartment buildings, many of which are older and downright ugly. There's a strangely pleasing contrast in that.

 Much of the ceiling work in this temple was put in without nails, by the way. Some master craftsmanship, that.

Some more photos of Qingshan Temple:

We didn't visit Qingshui Temple on this walk, because I actually sprained my ankle slightly at Qingshan, and we had to get back to Da'an to greet guests who were coming over (and who showed up five minutes early - a first for people I invite over). It's at the other end of this section of Guiyang Street and well worth a visit (photos in the link above, with some background and photos of Guiyang Street during festivals).

Guiyang Street is quite charming

Other than shophouse architecture and old temples, Guiyang Street is also home to an old incense shop, at least one Pu'er tea shop and a jade store. Many of the shops on this street are also historic, some dating back at least a century.

This is basically my dream apartment - maybe with nicer windows with wooden Chinese screens. It's hard to find something like this, though, to rent in Taipei.

Next door is a coffeeshop, kind of decrepit and ancient with an old cat (who may or may not still be alive) - tables for that shop and the street stand shown are positioned to take advantage of the pleasant street atmosphere. The coffee's dark and bitter, but the neighborhood makes up for it.

Walking back towards Longshan Temple MRT via Kangding Street, you pass a lot of this:

I feel like this is 50 years' worth of hardware, machinery and junk buildup. I have to wonder how long it would take to create something this dense and chaotic. It's almost like a modern art installation exploring neglect, hoarding, decrepitude, industrialism and chaos in the modern world.

Walking back this way you pass Bopiliao and, around New Year, a whole market full of stuff to eat and buy - something worth doing if you're in Taipei over Chinese New Year and want to get out and be around people.

Pet-Owning Redux

Who's afraid of Stupidface? Aren't you just a big genius? Yes you aaaaaarrreeee.
Who's a stupid genius? It's YOU!

Just thought I'd muse a bit on something I've noticed:

A fear of cats among many Taiwanese people - more so than I've ever noticed back home. I grew up with cats, and rarely would people decline to visit my parents' home or act nervous or afraid around my parents' cats (who almost never came out to greet strangers anyway). A few guests just didn't like cats, but that's not the same thing as being scared of them. 

So far since we'ved moved we've had three potential houseguests - all Taiwanese - who are terrified of cats. One is coming over later today and is hoping the cat stays away from her. One is going to be invited over soon (and he knows it) and "really hates cats" (his words). Yet another was invited over with her children, who I teach privately,  but her husband came instead. It might have been work or schedule related, but she's made it clear that she doesn't like any animal but is especially afraid of cats. A friend's mother also fears them - something about their big, searching eyes.

That's four people I know who not only don't like cats, but are actively afraid of them. Four people in five years, as opposed to zero people in 26 years in the USA. Of course they exist, but they're rare enough that I have never met one knowingly.

I don't really know why this is. It's just a thing I thought I'd note. Comments with explanations or ideas are welcome.

In other news, this article is worth reading* for anyone interested in animal rights, pet ownership or animal rescue. One great thing about Taiwan is that rescue groups here aren't so difficult: if you go to an event where Animals Taiwan has a booth, or visit their facility, you can adopt a rescued pet with very little fuss. I mean they still talk to you a bit to make sure you're a decent person who can provide a good home but otherwise you can bring a cat or dog home that day. It's similarly easy to adopt from veterinarian offices - my vet (near Heping/Fuxing intersection, a bit west on Heping, next to the Dante Coffee) often has rescued cats and kittens up for adoption and they're pretty easy to adopt.

I have to say, though, that my brief experience in the USA with rescue agencies mirrors this article. I was playing with adoptable cats in a PetSmart one day - I didn't have a pet at the time but was in there with a friend who had a pet - and I said that if I hadn't been planning to live abroad I would totally take one home, and that I preferred cats because  they didn't mind so much when their owners went to work and didn't need to be  taken out or walked.         

"Oh, you work full time?"
"Yes."
"Are you married?"
"No."

"Well, we don't adopt out to homes where people aren't around during the day. You can't leave a cat alone all day" (me, thinking: "you can't? Huh?") "so we only adopt to people who are home in the daytime."

"So, only unemployed people, housewives or those who work at home, huh."
"Certainly not anyone who is unemployed."
"So basically under your guidelines almost nobody should be allowed to have a cat."
"Well...but..."

I walked away. Even if I'd been seriously about to apply to adopt one of them, that was just too ridiculous for words.  We rescued 招財 - or rather my sister did - directly off the streets of Taipei and he's been a wonderful and happy kitty who doesn't seem to mind that the owners he often ignores go out during the day.

*my one issue with it is that Yoffe didn't really attempt to talk to any rescue organizations to get their perspective. I am on the side of the adopters, but the rescuers deserve a say.

"First Female President of Taiwan"

I know I should have written about this earlier but it kind of got caught in the undertow of the Chinese New Year wave:

Tsai's "First Female President of Taiwan" Theme Fails to Win Support

I could interpret this in two ways.

The pessimistic view: people care so little for women's rights in Taiwan these days that having a female president (or even strong contender) isn't something that really matters to them; they're happy with the status quo of "boring guy in a suit" (and Ma fits that  perfectly - talk about a plastic model of a boring guy in a suit) and the patriarchy as it is now; sexism is still very much alive in Taiwan (which is true, but it's still better than most Asian countries).

The optimistic view: people take it for granted in Taiwan, unlike in the US, that a woman could be president; her gender is not an issue because they'd be willing to vote for a man or a woman regardless; as such they found the theme uninteresting because, well, "duh"; in this way Taiwan is more progressive on gender issues than not only the rest of Asia but also the USA, where sexism against female political candidates runs rampant (I didn't really see that much in Taiwan).

For my own sanity I'm taking the optimistic view, but the pessimistic one warrants strong consideration.