On Family Pressure and Female Expats

Now that I'm married, there is less expectation that I'll move back to the USA, but I still get asked...a lot.

Something I have noticed after years in Taiwan -

While there are fewer women than men living abroad long-term, especially single women (by "single" I mean "unmarried/not in a very long-term marriage-like partnership"), among those I know there seems to be a trend that isn't visible among men.

That trend is the pressure of family - specifically, the pressure expat women feel (you could call it "pull" for a less negative connotation) toward their families back home, or that is put on expat women by those families. This is not a personal post - although I admit that my family is more vocal about pressuring me to move home than my in-laws are, I think that has just as much to do with family culture (mine being vocal and opinionated with a tendency to overstep a few boundaries when expressing themselves, though I love 'em anyway and I readily admit I do it too - nurture over nature methinks) as it does with me being female. This is an observation of a trend.

When talking to female expats I know, especially those who have been here for over a year, I hear similar lines again and again - "my parents are bugging me to move home as usual", or "they're supportive of my travel but they'd really prefer I live closer to home" or even "my folks sure lay on the guilt trip about me living so far away, I think they want me to come home, marry a nice local boy and live less than an hour away for the rest of my days". They get asked more when (not if) they're moving back, they get more admonitions, or hear more worrying chatter, about how "dangerous" it is to live abroad - don't even try explaining to most of these worrywarts that Taiwan is not only extremely safe, but safer than the USA and possibly/probably safer than their native country, all they envision are white slavery markets, "Not Without My Daughter", "Brokedown Palace", rapists and robbers, or at least kung-fu movie-style Triad gangsters, passport thieves, drug mules and pickpockets.

I know many will say "but this is normal, all parents worry", and they do. I am sure the parents of all those male expats worry too. The difference is that they either don't worry as much or don't express it as much. They may not worry as much (even as they think they worry plenty) because there's an implicit narrative in most cultures that grown men move away, build lives, start their own homestead, go independent, and that that may take them to faraway lands - and that's OK, because they're Grown Men and they can Handle It. Early explorers were men. Early settlers were mostly men (women did come along, at least eventually, but almost always as the relatives or spouses of male colonists and settlers). Until very recently men held the jobs, bought (or built) the homes, earned the money, built the family. It's expected in our culture to foster this independence, to expect it, and when that independence takes a Grown Man Far Away, it's...OK.

Or they may worry, but not express it - a parent or grandparent worrying over a daughter far away will get lots of cooing sympathy noises. A parent or grandparent worrying over a son far away will get some sympathy, but there's an implicit cultural expectation that they have to Let Go because their son is a Grown Man and has his own life. The worry is reflected upon and then set aside, rather than repeated to friends, other relatives or the grown son himself.

Women, on the other hand, until very recently lived at home until they married and moved away only when their husband's job required it - of course, exceptions exist, but we're talking general social trends here - and lived as a helpmeet to the person who made it all happen. There might be talk of "building a life together" but it was quite well understood who did the building and who made it pretty. While single women did move away, it was more rare, and it was generally not quite so far away. Women explorers? Ha - can you name one? (If you can, please say so in the comments, I'd love to hear it). Women colonists? Look at this roster of people on the Mayflower. There were women, but they were all companions/relatives, wives and children of men. I see plenty of men coming independently on that list, and not one woman. Women expats? There are plenty, but not as many as there are male expats (see linked article at the top). Stories of women going abroad in the age of colonialism and sea travel are rife with wives, mothers and sisters accompanying or visiting their male relatives/spouses abroad. I can only think of one - fictional - account of a woman going abroad by herself without any male companion at the outset or destination (whether or not she found one later - well, I won't spoil it). Compendia of travel writing by women, or fictional stories about women abroad without men, tend to be modern.

You may disagree, but I see this as pretty compelling evidence that women just aren't expected to go that far from home by themselves, and so their families back home are granted more leeway by society to bray for their return. There's even a saying: "a son's a son until he takes a wife, a daughter's a daughter all her life". That's about marriage, but I'd argue that it opens a window into how society expects men to flee the family nest, possibly to remote locations, and for women to stick as close to home as possible. It's not difficult to see how this would impact female expats, especially single ones.

Usually this is couched in the very real language of "we miss you", and parents of children of both genders certainly do. It's quite rare that parents come right out and say "a single woman shouldn't be so far away" or "you should be home, you should get married, that's what good young ladies do" in their entreaties, but you know what? I've heard this too. The parents in question were extremely religious living-out-West-in-pure-evangelical-Republican territory and had Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum-like views of the world, but still. It's not unheard of.

The pressure gets pretty intense, too. I have heard female expats talk about family who wants them to return to help care for ailing relatives in a way I've never heard male expats talk - although I suppose the "anecdata", such as it is, may be skewed by the fact that fewer male expats may wish to share such confidences about family. Female expats, from my observation, tend to spend more time on Skype or on the phone with family back home, and the conversations tend to be more emotional in the "we miss you!" department. My husband is an exception, he e-mails his parents more often than I do mine, but my e-mails are longer.

I can say from firsthand experience that this changes once a female expat marries. I still get asked when (not if) I'm coming home, but less often now, and with more acceptance that I may stay. Now that I'm married, the expectation seems to be that I'll "settle in", and it's more acceptable for me to do that abroad, as long as the settling happens. It gets better - but not that much better.

All of this, plus other issues (see again the link at the top) create more pressure on women to return home, and so it's no surprise that they often do, often more quickly than men. If I had not ended up in a relationship I might've returned home, too.

So what to do if you're a female expat and you're feeling pressured by family to come home?

First, validate. Their feelings are important, and they deserve acknowledgement. "I know you miss me, and I miss you too" goes a long way. They want you home because they love you - don't brush that aside.

Second, be conscious. Understand that this is going on - if you know what's happening, and if you seen the attempt at a slow attrition of your desire to live abroad by people back home, the best way to prevent guilt from getting the better of you is simply to realize it is happening, and keep your stores of inner confidence well-stocked. In fact, being conscious - seeing clearly the areas where your gender affects how society views you and what society expects of you - is the most basic and in some ways most effective weapon in any feminist's arsenal. Use it.

Third, be firm and be clear. You can prevaricate if you want - sometimes that is the better solution if a direct "no" or an answer that the person doesn't want to hear is going to cause an argument and not get the guilt-tripping to stop. That said, in most cases it's better to just get right to it, even if you feel the question is starting to push boundaries. Let the tone of your voice and the sparse words you choose close the conversation for you. A simple "No, this is where I live now" or "I have no plans to move home" or "I feel settled here" or even "This is my home now" will go a long way towards getting people off your back. Also, stay on message. You are your own one-woman PR campaign for why your life does not require the intervention or worrywart meddling of others (and I say this with love - again, they wouldn't worry if they didn't love you, unless your family is totes dysfunctional).

Fourth, don't let the exchange go on forever. As with all debates (and this is a form of debate, if the discussion goes on and on), saying more than you need to get your point across either buries the point too deep, or provides too many openings for people to jump on and discuss/argue over (whether it's a discussion or an argument depends on your family, and in some families the line isn't very clear). "Taiwan is very safe, Nana, there is very little crime compared to the USA" is a far better reply than a list of statistics on low mugging, gun violence, murder and other crime rates compared to the USA. "National Health Insurance is fantastic, Mom, don't worry" is better than "I won't get sick, jeez! First of all..." followed by a long list of reasons why it's easier to care for your health in Taiwan. It's a discussion, not a blog post.

Be honest but keep it positive. That doesn't mean feign happiness or say everything's "fine" when it's not - it means, be honest about your life, but speak about it using positive words and a tone of voice. If your tone isn't positive, and you can't think of anything upbeat or optimistic to say, maybe you should be questioning why you live where you do. That goes for anywhere, not just Taiwan or abroad. I wonder all the time why expats I hear whining about how much everything in Taiwan sucks, constantly, don't consider leaving...or just leave (it's one thing to have the occasional rant or acknowledge the occasional sucky thing - that's normal. It's another to always have something to complain about and very few good things to say).

Bring photos and think of cool stories - this won't convince the most hardcore conservative "ladies should live at home!" families, but it has really helped with my somewhat more accepting one. Create a 30, 60 or 90 (after 90 it gets boring) photo slideshow, depending on how long you've been abroad and how good a photographer you are, load it onto your device of choice, and offer to show it, with some very short comments you can make as it plays. Throw some music in there. Go for wild, wacky, won't-see-this-at-home photos. In Taiwan, think temple festivals and moutain and coastal scenery. Have a few stories on hand to tell - think them through beforehand so they actually go somewhere - about the amazing experiences you've had. And if you can't think of any? Expand your horizons, brah. Make it happen.

Find ways to keep in touch more - they may just get off your back a bit more if you take more time to stay in touch. Write a few extra letters or e-mails (Grandmas love letters, don't you ever forget it). Skype more. E-mail photos, or for the technologically challenged ("I can't open photos embedded in e-mails" "You have a Mac, just drag them to your desktop" "I don't have a desktop!" was a real conversation I had with a relative over Christmas) have them printed and mail them. Make it feel like you are closer than you are, and they may relax a bit. After all, what they really want is to see more of you.

If you can afford it, try to visit home once a year - I know some people can't, but making that annual trek home makes it feel as though maybe you just live on the opposite coast, not on another continent. A daughter in California would probably only visit her New England hometown once a year, so a daughter in Taiwan won't feel that different if that's what you do, right? I know this is not always feasible, and a post on how male expats are often more able to do things like this as they're more likely to be over here on business, not teaching kiddie English or studying (and how freakin' unfair it is) is in the offing.

Anyway, that's all I've got for ya.

Have more, better or different advice, or an experience with family pressuring you to move home? Leave it in the comments, I'd love to hear from you!

EAT

The wine-prepared crab at Jesse will change your life

I have some heavier topics to write about, but I'm just not feelin' it today. So, what I will say is that while I was away from Taiwan, I spent those weeks eating and drinking very well. Although this post isn't Taiwan related, as a foodie I feel like sharing some of the deliciousness I found abroad.

Jesse - First stop, Shanghai. Our flight was with China Eastern, which is not exactly a fantastic airline to take transpacific flights with - they don't give you individual TVs, the food is mostly OK, somewhat "eh" and a few items were downright inedible (that said, the hot bread rolls were great) and the movie selections on the overhead TVs are terrible. Otherwise it's fine, about the same as flying with any other airline. Because we had to transfer in Shanghai, we decided to plan our trip so as to spend a full day there (if you don't do this, China Eastern gives you a free hotel room, which we got on the way back. If you do, you have to book your own accommodation). I lived in China for a year but never went to Shanghai, so this was a chance to rectify that.

Taro in chive oil

We didn't eat much in the daytime, as our sightseeing made it difficult to get to restaurants during mealtime/opening hours. Our breakfast was Cafe 85, our lunch a snack at Starbucks (I don't really care for Starbucks but it was there and we needed the caffeine). For dinner, someone on Lonely Planet's erstwhile Thorn Tree helped me get reservations at Jesse, one of the best, and most famous, purveyors of Shanghainese cuisine in the city.

Braised pork

It was amazing. We tried gluten-stuffed Chinese red dates, cold salted chicken, braised pork (the fatty kind in the sweet, sticky sauce), eggplant in the same sauce, taro stewed in chive oil, cold-cooked crab (raw crab prepared ceviche-style in shaoxing wine) and the famous braised fish head in fried spring onions with cold Qingdao beer.

Delicious gluten-stuffed red dates in a flavorful glaze

Words cannot express how delicious the food was. The crab was breathtaking - the portion small and meat hard to get to (crab is like that) but the succulent meat you did get was so packed with memorable flavor, it'll make you salivate forevermore every time you think of it after you try it. In fact, I'm drooling right now. They tried to take it away as I was scraping the last of the roe and fat from the shell and my face briefly turned hideous and Gollum-like: you cannot take away MY PRECIOUS. Hiss. The braised pork (紅燒肉) had an undertow of complex flavor beneath the heavy sweet-savory flavor of the red sauce, and the meat was delectably tender. The gluten-stuffed dates were little red gems of delight. Imagine if pearls and rubies had flavors, each flavor delicious in its own way, and someone served you pearl-stuffed rubies for dinner. Like that. The taro was served in small half-rounds and was cooked to perfection: not too hard, not too sticky. It was velvety smooth in a buttery sauce redolent with chive, so rich it was like eating, well, liquefied velvet.

The codfish head in fried spring onions might be the most delicious thing in all of Shanghai

Glamour Bar - Later that evening we decided to have a drink, what with nightlife being the best part of Shanghai, despite our exhaustion and it being a Monday night. Glamour Bar is on the Bund - usually not my style, I'm not a Big Famous Nightspot In A Big Famous Place sort of gal, but rather a quiet pub, cafe or bistro with good drinks and food person - but despite its too-fancy address, it was accessible, well-known and walkable from our hotel. We only had one drink each - we were genuinely too tired for more and had already decided to take a taxi back to our hotel - but what I had was truly memorable: a cardamom mojito. Basically, a mojito with cardamom syrup. It sounds like it wouldn't work, it shouldn't work, it can't work, no way! - but it does. It was sublime. If you're ever in Shanghai I recommend stopping in just to sample that drink.

Also, for the Art Deco decor, including a huge round beveled mirror, the wine bar (which I want to check out someday), and drinks, snacks and water served in Art Deco etched glass.

The Art Deco fun of Glamour Bar

Cafe Gulluoglu New York - Gulluoglu is the famous baklava maker from the baklava and pistachio (fistik) capital of Turkey, Gaziantep. We stayed in their hotel while there and ate their divine baklava several times, and pounced on it when we saw it elsewhere in Turkey. Forget the sweet, sticky, hard-to eat stuff that just tastes of sugar. This manages to be sweet and soft but also flaky, with perfectly turned phyllo dough, pliant and flavorful pistachios (also, try the sour cherry visneli baklava, and grab a can of sour cherry juice. The stuff is addictive). I nearly wept tears of joy when we came upon Gulluoglu's Manhattan branch, not far from Rockefeller Center. We just had to go in, despite not being terrible hungry after lunch. You can get other food at Gulluoglu New York, but I recommend just filling up on baklava and getting a Turkish coffee, or two, or three.

By the way, anyone know where I can get good baklava in Taiwan? I have never been able to find it.

Veselka Bowery - (They have their own website but I can't get it to load) - this well-known Ukrainian establishment has expanded, and they now have branches beyond the original East Village location. The decor in the one on Bowery is simple and modern, with big windows and long, wooden tables. The pierogi are spectacular, with flavors you wouldn't imagine when cooking up the frozen cheese-and-potato basics in most supermarkets. Potato and cheese is there, but so is short rib and beet with goat cheese. We got a sampler, as well as some deviled eggs (two caramelized onion and bacon, two smoked salmon and caviar) and I got borscht. Another friend got potato-leek soup and truffle fries, because she clearly loves a well-done potato. This differs a bit from the menu online, but it was what was available when we were there.

I highly recommend the place - if you want something unique but don't want to go too weirdly ethnic, or have dining mates who aren't into things like tentacles, raw meat and hot sauce, but want a stellar meal, this is a great choice. Also, really nice to get good pierogies and borscht, two more hard-to-find things in Taiwan.

Nocturnem Drafthaus - Belgian beer is all over the place in Taipei, but we still enjoy drinking it and trying brands not as common or not imported to Taiwan. We found this place on New Year's Eve in Bangor and sidled up to the bar for some St. Feuillen Noel and Green Flash Double Stout  (Brendan had cider as he was driving later that evening). Always nice to find good beer places in smaller towns.

Dysart's and Governor's - I include these two because they're Maine culinary staples (we also went to Tim Horton's and got whoopie pies at a gas station, by the way). Dysart's is a truck stop outside Bangor that has turned into a popular restaurant in its own right, with preservative-free breads and desserts and the best corned beef hash, well...ever. Also, don't miss the cinnamon rolls. You can substitute them for toast with your meal, if you want to be super healthy! Governor's has solid, standard American fare - the thing that really recommends it is their desserts. They make a scrumptious graham cracker crust pie, and their mint chocolate chip pie has a similar crust...but in chocolate. Also, the gingerbread looks unforgettable.

Meskerem - (warning - the site plays music) - another thing you can't get in Taiwan is Ethiopian food. Trust me, I looked. We have a little tradition of always going to this restaurant in Adams-Morgan after our friends pick us up at the airport, which they pretty much always do, for a delicious dinner we can't get in Taipei. I recommend the kitfo, and get it super rare, even go raw, tartare-style, if you dare. The Yedoro Wat and Yebeg Alecha are also great. I liked the shurro wat (milled chick peas in berbere sauce) although our friend was less impressed. I strongly recommend getting a bottle of tej - honey wine, like mead - with your meal, and trying to sit at the more traditional low tables on the righthand side of the restaurant.

Another good place for Ethiopian is Dama on Columbia Pike, near the Sheraton. Go in the morning for Ethiopian coffee and pastry, or their range of Ethiopian breakfasts (foulle - fava beans with spices,  onion and tomato - and baguette is my favorite, and there is also a spicy egg dish that's great) - enter in the side through the market, not the main door. Don't worry if you're the only non-Ethiopians there. I often was when I lived nearby and nobody ever made me feel weird or unwelcome. In the same complex is Dama's restaurant, which consistently serves up superb Ethiopian, the best in Arlington if you ask me, and patronized by the local Ethiopian community. It's definitely not on the tourist or yuppie urbanite maps: I found this place because I lived right down the street for a few years.

Tallula - fine southern-inspired cooking with a fantastic brunch in north Arlington (Metro Clarendon) - we had brunch here with relatives. Absolutely get the biscuits and gravy with poached eggs if it's available (the gravy is maple-sweet with a spicy, meaty undertow). They also have scrapple (for real), shrimp & grits, cheesy grits and more, and that's just their brunch menu. Very kid-friendly. Excellent Bloody Marys.

Me Jana - we had dinner with friends at this Lebanese place in Arlington (you can tell our DC life was and is kind of Arlington-centered), moving away from our usual get-together at Lebanese Taverna. The food was fantastic - I can't even recommend one thing. It was all so good! We got the family-style tasting menu: kibbeh, fattoush salad, tabbouleh, falafel, sujok, grape leaves, babaghanoush, hummus, cheese rolls, fassouleh, lebneh and a pile of delicious meats (the lamb chops were especially good) with pilaf, and a great baklava for dessert. I also recommend trying one of their Lebanese wines. This place is also very convenient to the Metro, has free parking and is very accommodating of groups and children (they have a children's menu). For large groups including children it's a great choice.

Thorn Tree: In Memoriam

I know it may come off as a little melodramatic to write an obituary for an online forum - especially one that still exists - but I feel, for whatever reason, that I have to say something.

In my younger days (OK, 4-10 years ago) I spent a lot of time on Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree traveler's forum. I started an infamous thread on green anal leakage after a particularly ill-fated encounter with an oilfish - I hadn't bothered to Google "oilfish" before taking my grocery store find home, cooking it and eating it. I'd link to that thread for your viewing pleasure - it was paragraphs and paragraphs of descriptive prose and I am proud to say might be my greatest literary achievement to date or possibly ever - but I can't.

It was a freewheeling, lightly moderated (as in, they wouldn't censor your swearing but they would ban you if you were insulting others or blatantly trolling, unless the troll was funny and everyone was in on the joke) place that fit the spirit and attitude of most travelers, which is why it always seemed to attract a more interesting, talkative crowd than other places, like the fairly quiet and generally inoffensive BootsnAll or the stodgy "the shower curtain ring was broken in my room - worst hotel ever!" TripAdvisor. Some regional forums were a bit slow, others had tightly-knit communities of people who had met several times in person onboard who would dispense fantastic, dependable and current advice. The Indian Subcontinent and North-east Asia forums, in my experience, were particularly great sources of knowledge for travelers heading in those directions, other branches I didn't explore as much were equally useful. I was active in these branches, and met people, in person, from them as well as from the chattier forums.

There were quite a few chat-oriented forums - politics, women travelers (which I had started out posting in but in later years avoided because it had gone from a friendly place to a catty one), cooking, photography, biking and more, and the horrific-but-you-can't-look-away Your Choice, which was related to nothing else on the board, not even tangentially, and liked it that way.

"Were" being the correct verb tense here.

The regional branches would generally police themselves for content - regulars called out misinformation and shouted down offensive posts, and swearing was kept to a tasteful minimum (as far as any swearing can be tasteful). Your Choice was a preposterous free-for-all that was definitely, unarguably not child-friendly, nor was it usually work safe (see: Green Anal Leakage). It contained a lot of idiocy, a lot of trolling (some intentionally funny, some less so, some obnoxious, some genuinely dodgy), a lot of strong opinions and humor that would have shamed The Aristocrats. It was a place where very intelligent - well, mostly very intelligent - people went to act dumb together. Where, if the regional forum was too slow or wasn't giving you the answers you needed, you could post and get all the information you ever wanted and then some. "I'm going to be in Djibouti next week for a month - what can I do about [travel issue X, for all values of X] and where should I stay when I arrive?" might get crickets on the Africa branch, but get everything from "I had to deal with [X] when I was in Djibouti last year", "Actually my mother lives in Djibouti, you can stay with her", "Don't miss [amazing local thing you would have otherwise never heard about] in Djibouti" to "My love child is half-Djiboutian, here's what I've learned from my time there". Sure, those same people would go off-topic, would swear constantly and would make horrific jokes, but that's what traveler culture is like. The good with the bad, and the bad isn't always bad so much as not appealing to everyone. Without that, you got nothin'. Thorn Tree had it. Now...it's got nothin'.

Just before the holidays I posted a few times as I planned for our day in Shanghai, and upcoming trip to Sri Lanka. I hadn't been on much in the previous two years - life took over, and the questions on the Taiwan subforum of the North-East Asia branch all sounded the same after awhile. Sun Moon Lake, Alishan, renting a car, I have three days in Taiwan and want to visit Taroko Gorge, Tainan, Sun Moon Lake and Taipei, how can I do that, etc.. I admit that I grew tired of answering them. While posting questions about Shanghai, some friendly soul offered to help me make restaurant reservations at Jesse (wait for the upcoming post), one of the most deservedly famous local Shanghainese restaurants in the city. I got my reservation, through Thorn Tree, courtesy of someone I have never met. Before the takedown of the forum, I might have met him sometime in the future, the next time we were in the same city. After the takedown, with no off-topic posts allowed, I probably never will. So I can kiss that potential friendship goodbye.

In the interim, the whole shebang went down. I'm not clear on why - apparently someone reported some, let's say, less than ideal content...which turned out be false, but did reveal all of those off-topic posts. Apparently this "whistleblower" was actually a troll - and not one of the funny ones - intent on destroying the place. BBC, which owns Lonely Planet and therefore Thorn Tree, shut it down and has since reopened the destination forums only. Some forums, such as Your Choice, will remain permanently shut down. The forums still up are tightly moderated: no more swearing, new threads and replies must be moderated approved before they are posted, and off-topic chat is strictly forbidden.

BBC, via Huffington Post, have made this out to be a positive change, as though they cleared out a den of skeezy perverts and weirdos. But we weren't perverts and weirdos - we were just mostly travelers with potty mouths having some fun before we shared our knowledge.

I took a poke around before writing this post, trying to keep an open mind. Maybe it would still be OK. Maybe it wasn't as bad as everyone was saying.

But no...the place is neutered. Dead. It lacks the spark needed to keep a forum - a community - alive. It no longer reflects actual traveler culture. All the hardcore travelers - the ones with the dirtiest mouths and the best advice - are gone, having nowhere to post and no desire to say anything in a censored, desert-like environment. There are practically tumbleweeds blowing through the place. I tried posting a few times, just basic replies to questions about Taiwan. I was annoyed to find that it was true: each post had to be approved by a moderator before posting. This is a fine policy for a blog - I do the same to my own comments - but not to a major forum and online community. At that point it turns from moderation to censorship, and I abhor censorship. It also sucks all the vitality out of the place. Why post when I know that every word I write has to be churned through the censors before it goes up? It castrates advice-givers, makes us feel impotent. Like children. Not even rebellious teenagers - think bibs and sippy cups. It makes us not want to be there, because adults won't accept being treated like children in daycare. We're travelers - we want to hang out online in a place that mimics, in some way, traveler hangouts in real life. We want a bar with Daniel Craig downing a shot before a scorpion can sting him,  not Disneyland with its "Do Not Walk On The Grass" cordons and wholesome, boring, moderated "fun".

This is how I felt as a long-time regular coming back in to see what had happened. I imagine that a newbie just finding the place or just starting out would simply find it underwhelming. Lacking spark, lacking life, lacking community. That newbie might ask and answer a few questions, but then go on their way. There would be nothing to keep them there.

When the best people, the scions of the community, depart because the place is so dusty and boring, there's no one left to give good advice, and it's not much fun to hang out on. And everyone knows this - an online community will falter, even crumble, if people don't hang out there, so posts are replied to quickly, and questions are answered promptly. Especially when it's a travel forum and responses need to be timely.

To use some more imagery, Thorn Tree is like badly designed public space - there's nowhere to hang out, nor would you want to. It went from being a buzzing cafe to a concrete embankment - a place both useful and alive with human activity to simply a dead mass that has utility but no humanity.


Am I being melodramatic? Yes. But that forum was a sizeable part of my life for the better part of a decade. It saw me through a move to China, a move home, a terrible office job, a string of disappointing boyfriends, an emotional rough patch, a trip to Europe and then a move to Taiwan, all while being a conduit for meeting interesting people in different cities and getting the best advice, once I learned how to filter for it. And now it's dead. Some googly-eyed young twentysomething in 2013, just setting out on the road, won't have such a community to discover as I did when I was a googly-eyed twentysomething a decade before. And I, a decade wiser now, won't be around to advise her.


So...rest in peace, Thorn Tree. I'm done with ya. As both a traveler and an expat, I'm exactly the sort of person a forum like Thorn Tree would want to keep as a regular, green anal leakage not withstanding. I don't like being told to keep off the grass. I don't like being handed a sippy cup. So I won't be going back. I'll miss you, Thorn Tree. But what you are now is just horrid.

Reverse Culture Shock

I'm going to try, for the first and perhaps only time, to write a full blog post on my iPad. Lets see how it goes, and let me know if there are any egregious or hilarious autocorrect disasters in there. Also, about halfway through the whole thing clogged up and I'll have to finish on a regular computer.

Reverse culture shock is a common topic. Most people mention longer distances, different food and weather, quieter streets, less pollution, too many consumer options, tipping, high prices, eating at home more, unhealthier food and more directness as well as sarcasm as common reverse culture shock options. I've felt that too - go ahead and ask me how my digestive system is doing - but I've had some other issues too, good and bad.

Among the good (which generally needs little explanation): more variety of food, more diversity, not having to think of how to explain or ask for something in a second language, central heat, clothes that fit and don't look ridiculous on Westerners, Christmas for real, more options, road rules I understand, cooking in a good size kitchen.

But among the bad -

Saying "bless you" - People don't do this in Taiwan, and frankly, it makes sense that they don't. Despite being aware of the origin of this cultural tic, I'm not sure why Westerners still do it. I've stopped, even as I tell students it's something to remember to do when visiting the USA, and I am sure my fellow Americans think I'm quite rude for my utter silence in response to their sneezes.

Dry air, dry nose - I am used to central heat, and we've set up our lovely apartment with heaters in such a way that the effects are not so different from having central heating. What I did not expect was returning to a chronically dry nose and throat, to the point that I frequently wake up with nosebleeds.


Health care battles - My mom is sick, as regular readers know. In Taiwan she'd see her doctors, get chemo and other treatments, and not generally have to worry about how it would be paid for. In the USA, every new treatment, test or drug must be considered along with the question of whether insurance will pay, whether they are close to their annual cap and must wait critical weeks, in terms of health as well as money, for January, and how much will be paid out and when. Even with coverage, which they came close to not getting, their medical bills are in the "mortgage/med school" range, not the car payment range. And this is with "good" insurance! Which they pay for! Which they pay more than I pay for! It's ridiculous! It's inhumane! It's sickening, literally! Why do Americans put up with this bullshit? Why do they fight for their god-given right to keep such a bullshit system? Premiums that take a quarter of your pay, and you're not even guaranteed that sort of coverage, only to not even be sure that you'll be able to get a test - in time or at all - that could save your life, and the only other options if the company you are paying decides not to cover you are death or bankruptcy? Fuck this shit. I'm never coming home if this is what I'd face.

Ridiculous morning shows - The Onion's Today Now, a spoof of typically vapid morning shows, is more accurate than I remember. And yer I can't stop watching, especially when I wake early due to jet lag.

How do people, y'know, do anything? - Let's say you want to go out for a few drinks. Unless you live in a reasonably rural area, you can't go alone. Buses are rare if they exist, taxis cost a mint, and if you drink and can't drive home, and do take a taxi or get a ride, how do you get your car the next day? I don't get at all how this would work. If you go out with a significant other, only one of you can drink. That's no fun. So you go in a group or not at all? Ok, but what if you don't want to? I suppose the answer is "you don't need drinking to have fun", which I guess is true, but even a few glasses of wine at your anniversary dinner? How? Even in cities where public transit networks close early and you don't live close to nightlife hotspots and taxis are so expensive, how do people afford to go out? If your car needs work, how do you get around? How do you even get to the mechanic, or DMV, or driving school if you need your license, when none of it is accesssible by public transit? Does not compute.

Being unable to find what you want in a sea of options - Usually people complain about the opposite bit of reverse culture shock - too many options, too much stuff. But no, the other day we went to Walmart (ugggghhh) to get photos printed, and I thought it wouldn't be contributing too much to poverty-level wages and manipulating hiring hours to avoid paying benefits to buy some super balls for our cat (hard to find in Taiwan). We searched toys, party favors and pet care...no super balls in the whole football stadium of a store. Walking between sections was like going to the gym (other than the gym and Walmart, how do people get exercise when there are no sidewalks?) and there were hundreds of other kinds of balls. There was an entire aisle of party favors, and an entire shelving system of piggy banks, along with a hundred different deodorants and a thousand soaps. But NO SUPERBALLS. Again, does not compute.

People around me actually understanding what I'm saying - "maybe you shouldn't say that in public, people can in fact understand you". Oh.

People around me actually caring about my religious views - what's with the sad looks when I say that no, I did not go to church on Sunday, no I neither wish to nor know how to say grace? How about the liquor laws that allow for no alcohol to be purchased in a store on Sunday, or after midnight and before 9am? Imagine if 7-11 in Taiwan did that - what would it even accomplish? And all that because Sunday is the "day of rest", the day you go to church and pretend you're a better person than you actually are - except not all of us believe that Sunday is a holy day, or that there are any holy days at all. In Taiwan nobody cares, and what I think is irrelevant because it's not an issue. Here, my views are still arguably irrelevant as I don't live in this country (but I do vote, so there's that), but people actually care that I'm a non-believer, and an outspoken one at that.

Stewed and Cubed Improvisation

I'm going to tell a story. Bear with me if you like, it does evolve into something. It's not just a rambling narrative of the events leading up to Christmas.

Two days before Christmas, my parents held a holiday party.

We arrived almost a week before that, loud and happy - as happy as you can be when your mother is sick - hugs at the airport, promises of a renovated bathroom (no more fighting over who gets to go first!), a prediction of snow, on our way to get a real tree, with real tree smell and pine needles and everything. We'd decorate! There'd be a party on Saturday at a friend's and a party on Sunday at ours, then Christmas.

Of course several issues threatened to bring the whole thing down like a cat latched to a flimsy curtain - some health issues in the immediate family that I won't disclose in full, but I can reveal that basically, my mother will soon be back in chemotherapy, on a different drug. That brought a lot of stress and uncertainty to the holidays. And with it...medical bills.

My parents are having the downstairs bathroom re-done, to make it usable for the first time in years. The work was almost not finished in time, and while it was going on, the well pump broke. We had to have that replaced along with paying the expected renovation bills.

Then, the furnace motor went. It started making an odd sound on Friday, and by Saturday morning it was dead. We found a tech who would come fix it, but the part had to be ordered and wouldn't be in before Christmas. That meant no heat up to and on Christmas Day. Whoopty-freakin'-do. Also, waiting for the tech (who was actually great, this wasn't his fault) on Saturday meant our planned Christmas shopping trip was cancelled. No, I did not get all of my Christmas shopping done, but in the end it didn't matter. At least we have a fireplace.

So...far less money than expected, no heat, medical problems, and the party was on Sunday. I was set to help clean and to cook a few dishes on the day itself, and I'll be honest, I didn't really want to do any of it in a cold house when I was already stressed. To be more honest, I wanted to cancel it.

But Mom, the one who was so insistent we would have a good holiday, was adamant that we had to soldier on. Intractable, even. I did not share her enthusiasm and, as a further confession, did not even try to pretend to. I did, however, agree to woman up and just do what needed to be done if she was so immovable on this. I figured I'd be cleaning in my coat, scarf and gloves (I was right, except for the gloves).

My husband said "this is like one of those Lifetime holiday specials in which the family is subject to trial after trial and problem after problem until the whole house goes up in a ball of flame" (which would have been warmer, anyway, and with all the blown fuses from our many space heaters, seemed to be a distinct possibility. I say: good riddance). "...and at the end, on the eve of the holiday, the family learns the true meaning of Christmas."

Me: "Fuck the true meaning of Christmas, I want heat."
Friend: "You know, Jenna, in those specials, the cynical one always has the biggest change of heart."
Me: "BAH HUMBUG."

For the record, I want Mom to be well more than I wanted heat, but "I want heat" was a funnier thing to say, and since there is no star in this chaotic entropy-verse I can wish upon, hoping it's the eye of a nonexistent God, that will make that happen without the help of modern science (and I do pray to modern science), I may as well say what I please.

So leading up to the party I busied myself helping - I managed to get out of the house to do Mom's Christmas shopping so she could clean. Win-win. Then I came home and started making my various dishes, cold hands and all. One dish - muhammara, which I make regularly - exploded in the far too small blender (no, the tiny food processor is not big enough, and I have no idea why anyone thought we could make hummus, babaghanoush and muhammara, three blended dips, in it in an hour or so). Someone else finished it. I admit I pulled the brat card - you want muhammara at this party, well, this is a disaster, you want it, you finish it, I'm done with it.

What I did make and finish was my beer-stewed beef cubes, which can be prepared as a stew, casserole, toothpick'd appetizer or something you eat with bread or over rice. It's a stew of herbs - mostly dill, but also rosemary, garlic and thyme - beef cubes, beer, grainy spicy mustard, shallots, some butter, and some additions (I'm fond of bell pepper, mushrooms and walnuts personally). Grumble bells, grumble bells, I grumbled all the way to the stove - which had to be lit with a lighter, the pilot was acting up - and started working. I cut the melting butter with olive oil to make the whole thing a tad healthier (ho ho ho, as though that's possible), gently toasted the herbs along with salt, pepper and paprika and added shallots into the fragrant, frothy pan. and browned the beef. Some people began to arrive. My junior high school music teacher was there, some family friends, some of my sister's friends (none of my friends live in the area anymore), a girl who commented that it smelled "gross" (whatever, girl, it's delicious). I dumped in the bottle of beer and mixed the whole thing together. I left briefly to set up some Christmas music on my iPhone. I added a generous dollop of hot, grainy apple cider vinegar mustard and mixed that in. I adjusted for flavor (good ways to improve top notes in this recipe while keeping it rounded is to add orange juice, orange zest or apple cider. For bottom notes, add some toasted nuts, beef boullion, well-toasted paprika or use a darker beer.

I stewed it all together and added the vegetables in order from longest-cooking to shortest (carrots first, then bell peppers, then mushrooms, like that). Really, you can add almost any vegetable. You could throw spinach, cauliflower, squash, potatoes, whatever into there. You might even be able to get away with lentils, Brussels sprouts or zucchini. You can add any herbs as long as you've got dill. You can change the type of mustard or beer. A pilsner and a light, hot English mustard will produce a very different dish from a winter lager with a mottled dijon. You don't even need to use beef, although I hold that a red meat is best. If you make it as a stew you can add butter squash late for chunkiness, or early so they'll disintegrate into the casserole and add more base flavor. In a casserole, I slather fat, soft breadsticks with mustard and place them on top at the very end - it's done when the tops crisp - but you don't have to.

In short, you can improvise. You can do whatever you want. The end product's just got to come out alright.

Finally, I made this dish for my in-laws (fresh dill, butter squash in a casserole with breadsticks), and it was quite different from the one I made for my parents (dried dill, no butter squash, mushrooms, in a stew). In the end, it was the same dish. It was still me. Each time, I improvised. I didn't know the squash would disintegrate, but it came out OK.

I realized as I was cooking it that that's really all we do - we improvise. Mom gets cancer, and we make do. We do what we can, we research, we plan, but in the end, we kinda make it up as we go along. We fight, we make up, and we know we always love each other, even though it's too easy to revert to adolescence when at home, and yes, parents can be just as annoying to adult offspring as those same offspring were as teenagers. The furnace breaks, and we improvise. I huddle under blankets and offer to go Christmas shopping for Mom so she won't have to (NICE WARM SHOPPING MALL), and Brendan does whatever he can, including shoveling snow with a garden spade, to help ease the stress on my chaotic and stressed-out family. Grandma L. calls every day, even though it accomplished nothing other than to stoke her worries.

As an expat, I improvise. As an expat with a parent battling cancer, I improvise. I do the best I can - even when "the best I can" basically means I decide to stay in Taiwan and visit from there, because I can make more money to enable me to visit there than I could doing the same thing at home (and yes, I am experienced and certified, it's not as though I teach kiddie English for $590/hour), and do something I enjoy rather than selling my soul for an office job. I save money as well as I can, I visit in the winter even though I hate the cold, and I try to be supportive even as I'm fighting the impulse to act like a teenager, slamming doors and proclaiming that I hate everyone and nobody loves me anyway waah waah. (I didn't do that, but I kinda wanted to. I don't hate everyone, though). It's cheaper and easier to visit in January, between Christmas and Chinese New Year when work is dead, but I visit at Christmas because it's important. I don't always make these decisions in advance. I want to cancel a party, but I don't 'cause Mom wants it to happen. So I improvise and dance around my bad mood and cold fingers. I made a dish I didn't even really want to make that night, in that cold kitchen.

Life as an expat is a life of improvisation - with an unknown audience, in an unfamiliar theater. Life as an expat whose mother has cancer is a life of improvisation, cubed. You stay abroad and you stew in it - I should be home, I should be there, but I can make the money I need to be supportive here, and anyway here is where I want to live. My life is also important, but I feel selfish for even thinking it. You come home and you stew in it - everyone's emotional, everyone's stressed, you love them but you really want to slam that door. You just want people to acknowledge that it sucks that it's so cold, but instead you get "it's not that cold", "it's fine", "the fire's warm", "the fire makes it pretty OK, don't you agree?" No, you don't agree, it is that cold, can we all please just stop pretending? So you improvise, you stew in it, and you go to the mall.

I even asked if we could just go to Grandma's for the whole deal. Nope...we had to have Christmas at home. That's fine, it's what Mom wanted, but deep down, I wanted heat, and no I did not think the fireplace would be sufficient. We stayed, we improvised. We woke up on Christmas morning, achy, just wanting it to be warm for Chrissakes.

We woke up to snow - a white Christmas, indeed. We started a fire, I made a hot coffee cocktail with cream and Irish Mist and dunked Christmas cookies into it. We opened gifts and it was fun. It was that cold, but we could basically ignore it. I'd like to say I dropped my cynicism and it was all lovely and Christmas special-y, with a soft-focus and white portrait filter, but it wasn't. It was fine, but mostly, we improvised. I was happy to be there, but no, it wasn't rose-tinged and perfect.

We did what we had to do, and for as long as I live abroad and my mother has cancer, we'll continue doing what we have to do, and we won't always know what that is until it happens.

Mustard Cubed Beef

I was going to include a recipe for my beef cubes, but anything I could put on here is something you can add your own flourishes to without much problem. Even I change it up. So...here's a rough outline of the recipe, but the scant information is deliberate:

Melt some butter in a pan with olive oil, on low, add lots of dill, some rosemary and some thyme along with chopped garlic, salt, a red chili if you like, maybe some orange zest, maybe some paprika. Add chopped shallots, and then beef. Brown. Add a can of beer - dark is great, but pilsner or ale would be fine. Mix and add a few dollops of mustard. Add other vegetables - carrots, chopped bell pepper, mushroom. Add walnuts if you like, or any other vegetable that you think would work. Cook, add cornstarch to thicken if needed. Or cook as a casserole with potatoes, squash etc. with mustard-slathered sliced bread at the bottom, and mustard-slathered breadsticks on top (add breadsticks 15 mins before it's done, it's done when they crisp and brown slightly on top). If you make as a casserole, still brown the beef in the herbed butter, but use more shallots.

Strange Gods

So, as you all know, I'm an atheist. Until recently I was a hardcore "I don't know" agnostic, but certain life events have erased even that glimmer of doubt that the universe is unregulated chaos that forms areas of organization - sometimes very detailed organization - only insofar as the laws of physics encourage it. Chaos makes sense to me, because when I look at the world, I see chaos. The organization I do see is just about entirely explainable by science. I don't see the hand of a supreme being.

That said, I'm interested in investigations into the veracity of religious beliefs or paranormal activity (the same thing, as far as I'm concerned), because study of anything curious and seemingly inexplicable is, well, interesting.

That's why I was fascinated to learn that a former student and now friend of mine participated as a researcher in this study on "Chinese character induction" or "finger reading" when he was a student many years ago. (This blog post by Michael Turton, as well as this paper, are the only English-language mentions online of this study that I could find). According to him, the study was more than just writing on paper and then folding it into a small ball - they put the papers under metal sheets and blindfolded the children, and the children could still use their fingers to "read" the characters and accurately tell scientists what the characters were. And that the characters that could be most easily read were ones like "Jesus", "God", "Buddha" and "Guanyin" as well as some Indian gods, among others. "Matsu"was also fairly strong, but other minor deities or supernatural/mythical beings were either barely readable or unreadable. Common characters (like "book", "coffee", "wash" or "jacket") were not readable. The children apparently reported that they could "see" the characters with their fingers, and they'd present themselves in their minds as lights of various brightness (that's not what the paper says, however, not exactly).

This person now has his PhD and is fiercely intelligent. He's not a wacko. He said that before working on the study, he was about as much as an atheist as me, except that he didn't care enough to label himself. Now, he says, he believes that "there has to be something".

Now, as I said, I'm an atheist. I don't believe any of this. At the same time, I don't think he's lying. I think he certainly did work on that study and he probably did see something that freaked him out. That doesn't mean, necessarily, that this stuff is true, just as "there is a God because I feel God's presence" is not solid evidence that there is, in fact, a God. Not even studies showing that there is a slight uptick beyond regular probability that something will happen - like a relative getting well - if people pray for it prove this.

It's a strange middle ground to be in, when you believe your friend and know he's not crazy, but you are also dead certain that this stuff isn't "real", or even if it is, there has to be a scientific explanation that we're just nowhere near understanding yet. I absolutely do not believe there is anything that can never be explained by science: only things that science as it is now can't yet explain, as it is insufficiently advanced. If there were something in this world that could not be explained by science, why have science to begin with?

It also made me think of something else: see, I have another friend who recently became a Christian (his wife is Christian - they are both Taiwanese). While I personally would not have made that choice, I am happy for him insofar as he's made a choice that he feels is right for him and makes him happy, and that's really what's important. In that way, I fully support him.

This friend and I had had a chat many months ago in which he asked me why I go to all these temple parades and festivals in Taiwan. "Because they're COOL," I replied. "Far more interesting than religious services in the USA, and far more interesting than parades by far."

"But do you actually believe in, say, Baosheng Dadi or Matsu or any of that?"

"Honestly, no. I don't believe that Baosheng Dadi is a real immortal being or a god. He was a real person, but I don't go in for gods."

After that, I thought about it for awhile. I don't believe in God or gods, but if I had to choose between the two, I'd go with the folk gods - be they Chinese, or Hindu gods, or any polytheistic pantheon of gods with specific functions and often difficult personalities with their own desires and whims, likes and dislikes and internal disputes.

Why?

Because, while it still makes no sense that there are these immortal powerful beings who can control events in the physical world, at least one thing does make sense: how the world would be if they were the ones in control. It would more or less match up with what we have now. In Taiwan people regularly consult "fortune blocks" （校杯) - those crescent-shaped wood or red blocks that can give one of three answers - no, yes, or "laughing god" (for the final one, imagine if you said "God, will I die of cancer?" and God answered "ha ha ha!"). The answer they give correlates basically exactly to probability, because it cannot do anything else - and so, yes, the world that we have, with correlates with statistical probability, would align pretty well with those blocks, including the times that the blocks are wrong.

Taiwanese will regularly make it clear that the god they are praying to may choose to answer their prayer or heed their request...or not. It really is up to the whim of the god. If you pray they may listen, and so you've upped your chances, but then if you don't pray, it may still happen. Only Baosheng Dadi or Hua Tuo or Wenchang Dijun can really know, and it is pretty well understood and respected that they act on their own preferences or whims. To me, that also correlates pretty well with the world I see.

Gods in folk-grounded pantheons - be they Hindu, Chinese or whatever - tend to have a lot of internal disputes, weird hierarchies and difficult personalities. When you think of them more as brawling, incestuous, clique-forming and reality-show-imitating natural forces, what happens in life fits perfectly with how you envision them acting. Kids are starving in Africa because the god of food either doesn't care, or is busy doing his sister, or is pissed off, or is otherwise occupied. Not "people are starving in Africa, but hey, GOD LOVES YOU, even the starving ones, but you're still starving because...uh..."

Think about it: bad things happen to good people. All the time. Half of Africa is bad stuff happening to good people. Good things happen to bad people: just look at Wall Street. You could say that God is benevolent and kind and this horribleness is the work of terrible, evil, original sinning humans...

...or you could say that that's just how it is, life sucks then you die, or maybe it doesn't suck, or maybe like most of us it's somewhere in the middle, and it's all random because that's how it seems.

You could then decide you want a religious belief, because you want to believe there is something bigger than you, bigger than all of us. That's great - it's a natural human urge. Even I have it. You could either believe in one omniscient, omnipotent God who loves us all (or create a really angry god who then gets a personality makeover a la New Testament), and then try to twist what you see in the world to fit that belief...

...or you could take what you see in the world and empirically try to deduct what the spiritual/godly realm must be like.

Science works based on the latter principle of deductive reasoning. The former is inductive reasoning, and it's just not how we do science, generally (although it sure is mighty tempting). It makes sense to me to base a spiritual belief system on deductive, rather than inductive, thought and explanation.

So no, I'm still not into this whole spiritual thing, although I find discussing it and thinking about it to be fascinating and worthwhile, and I do respect the beliefs of others (if you wanna be Christian, that's fine by me, as long as you don't tell me what I should believe. I'll even join you at the "Jesus was a pretty awesome progressive dude with a strong moral philosophy that we can learn from even today" party. I'll bring the whiskey. I'm pretty sure that although Jesus was a wine guy, he'd probably like whiskey).

But if someone put a gun to my head and told me I had to believe something - hey, it's happened to people - I'd go with polytheistic folk beliefs. Definitely. At least those jive with what I see.

My Name Is Not "Foreign Lady"

I wrote this just to prove a point

You know how at Starbucks, if there is any sort of a wait or a few people waiting for drinks, they ask you for your name and call it out when your drink is ready? I don't know how common this is in the USA but it's standard practice in Taiwan. So you hear a lot of "陳小姐妳的咖啡好囉" ("Ms. Chen, your coffee is ready") or some such when Starbucks is busy.

Except I've noticed recently that they don't ask foreigners for their names - or at least they don't ask me. This isn't a language barrier, because I always order in Chinese and I know I'm perfectly understandable. Then, when the drink is ready, they may shout the name of the drink (OK, that's not too bad, it still means everyone but you gets personalized service but it's not actively offensive), but they're just as likely to shout "外國小姐妳的咖啡好囉" - "Hey Foreign Lady, your coffee is ready!" and on the cup you get a big F for foreigner, or a 外 (first character in the Chinese word for "foreigner", but it reads as "OTHER" or "OUTSIDER" when used on its own to identify someone).

I whined about this on Facebook, because I was feeling crabby and why not:

...and learned from the many replies that I'm not the only one this has happened to, and it's also a problem for a friend currently in Nanjing.  Everyone who noted that it was a problem is a foreigner who speaks Chinese.

So my friend wrote this on the Starbucks Facebook page.  Now, Starbucks in Taiwan is owned by Uni-President (the same people who own 7-11 and I believe Cold Stone Creamery in Taiwan), and so a more directed complaint will probably be necessary, but it's a start and someone at HQ might notice and pass it on. If you feel you've been poorly treated at Starbucks in Taiwan, go ahead and leave a comment or "like" the post.

Clearly the baristas don't think we have Chinese names, and are afraid they won't understand/be able to spell or pronounce foreign surnames (I don't blame them for this, imagine if you were not a native speaker and asked someone for their last name while trying to ring up a line of people, and the answer was "Janusciewicz"). The thing is, almost every foreigner in Taiwan who speaks Chinese does have a Chinese surname. Some don't, but  they would at least have some sort of Chinese name. Even that dorky '80s kid with the awful hair in the old Shi-Da MTC videos has one. Mine, as you can see above, is Zhang.

There is really no reason not to ask a foreigner who clearly speaks Chinese what their name is, and treat them like everybody else. For foreigners who don't, ask for a first name or call out the drink name (first name is better - and many Taiwanese people, including most urban Taiwanese, have English first names so this shouldn't be hard).

For Starbucks prices, and for a company that is both an international chain and claims to pride itself on customer service, they can and should do better. There is no excuse for calling everybody else by name, and calling me (or another foreigner), Foreign Guy or Foreign Lady. It's not meant to be pejorative, I know, but it sure comes across that way.

As my husband noted, this only seems to happen at international chains. In local shops and holes in the wall,  you are pretty much always treated like a local. They may say something like "who ordered these noodles?" "The foreign guy", but for a local they just seize on some other obvious aspect of their appearance like "the lady with glasses" or "the fat one in the gray t-shirt". This isn't some deep-rooted unchangeable cultural more, it's a bad habit and it can and should cease.

What's more, you'd think that if you were going to be treated like a Weirdo Alien From Space, that'd happen in local joints, and you'd feel more at home in major international brand shops like Starbucks. Not the case at all - in fact, quite the opposite.

It kind of reminds me of a discussion I had on a Facebook post of another friend, on whether foreigners in Taiwan are made to feel like outsiders they way they often are in Japan (and China, as per my experience). She'd said that yes, that was the case. A specific example was that people would frequently say "You do/know _______ very well...for a foreigner". As in, "You speak Chinese very well - FOR A FOREIGNER", or that she always had to break in new neighbors when she moved so they'd treat her as a local, not an outsider.

I replied that no,  that may be the case for her but it was not for me. That people might compliment my Chinese but I never get "...for a foreigner" and every time I've moved I've been treated more or less like a local from Day 1. I haven't had such problems - people are more likely to assume I'm more local than I really am (I still get culture shock occasionally after all these years), and that  I'm not treated any differently by Taiwanese friends.

This incident, however, has reminded me that no matter how long I live here, whether or not I feel like a "local" or an "outsider" is not a constant, and never will be. It's a constantly changing feeling, pushed one way or another by these sorts of incidents. Neighbor chats with me just like she would anyone else, without even questioning whether I speak Chinese? Local. Barista says "HEY FOREIGN LADY"?  Outsider. It's a thing of constant flux, and there's nothing I can do about that.