The other day a classmate on my graduate program, after asking me about Taiwan and hearing my response that the opinion of a strong majority of Taiwanese leans towards considering Taiwan already independent, or at least certainly not Chinese, referred to the idea of 'nationalism' with a strongly negative connotation. He wasn't necessarily critiquing Taiwan specifically, but rather the general idea that a group wanting to form their own nation is a concept riddled with problems.
He was surprised when I replied that Taiwanese nationalism is not ethnic nationalism, and the two can't be conflated in such a reductionist way.
I certainly understood what he meant - he even brought up the old-timey concept of 'nationalism' that arose in Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, where every 'group' or ethnicity has their own little country and therefore what it means to be a country is based primarily on ethnic ties, leaving aside of course the idea that ethnicity itself is an odd and problematic construct. Basically, that often "nationalism" is considered to be inextricably linked with ethnocentrism.
I, too, have an instinctive reaction against this worldview because this view of nation-hood (and what it means to be a nation, and who should be within the borders of one or a citizen of one) are so deeply linked to my family history. The Armenians and other non-Turks were massacred not primarily because of religion (although it played a part), but because the old construct of the Ottoman Empire as a multi-ethnic, multi-territorial "empire" was washed away by the Young Turks in favor of what was then a more "modern" view of nationhood, where one nation ought to equal one ethnicity. The Armenians were not Turks, and therefore, according to this view, they had to go.
Over a million Armenians died, and I exist as a result of this sort of ethnocentric nationalism sweeping Turkey in 1915. Although I am happy I exist - not that I would know if I didn't - I am all too aware of how far off the rails this idea can go.
China takes this a step further and promotes an unrealistic view of what it means to be 'Chinese', trying to force not just the same national identity but also the same ethnic identity on, essentially, whomever it wishes. It also tries to discredit Taiwan's case for de jure nationhood by playing to liberal perceptions of the problems of nationalism. It's no accident that they call Taiwanese nationalism 'splittism' and try to tap into the negative connotations associated with, say, voting for Brexit, ethnic regions splitting off from a larger nation and civil war. China also tries to promote the positive connotations that we associate with being stronger or 'better together' than apart. China tries to have it both ways - any desire to not be a part of China is 'splittism', and Xinjiang and Tibet are a part of China despite their people not being 'Chinese', however, Taiwan is a part of China because 'we're the same'. So people who are not Chinese are Chinese because China controls them and that's okay, but China should control Taiwan specifically because Taiwanese are, they say, Chinese and not some other kind of people.
If that's not clear or seems like it doesn't make sense, that's because it isn't and doesn't. Nothing about China's argument makes a lick of sense, in fact, but it seems to have been accepted by huge swaths of the educated world.
(Side note: although I don't generally believe in ethnic nationalism, I don't necessarily always think it's wrong for an ethnic group to want to break off a piece of territory to form its own nation, especially if mistreatment of that group is involved. Each situation is highly unique, and I can't really say one blanket solution is applicable, not being intimately familiar with the various examples of this).
So why is the lumping of Taiwanese nationalism in with the sort of nationalism popular in our grandparents' generation so inaccurate?
Simple - it's not based on ethnicity. Not really, anyway.
Some Taiwan independence activists do try to make an ethnicity-based argument for their cause, pointing, for example, to evidence that Taiwan is primarily ethnically Austronesian rather than Chinese (note: the writer of that post doesn't necessarily agree - I don't know and it doesn't matter - but the post itself is pertinent).
I think most, though, know that this is a losing proposition. Not because they're necessarily wrong about who the Taiwanese are at the DNA level, but because even if they convince the world that Taiwan is "not Chinese", they'll face the argument that ethnic nationalism has its own problems and therefore isn't necessarily something to support. It opens up a messy argument on what it means to be "ethnically Taiwanese", which opens us up to having to defend that position.
And, frankly, they know it wouldn't matter: China didn't take ethnicity into account when taking over Tibet and Xinjiang. If not the same old "we are all Chinese" blather, they'll find another argument because their goal, to them, will always justify the means by which they attain it.
It just doesn't matter much and won't work.
In any case, who are the Taiwanese? DNA testing shows a large correlation with Austronesian/SE Asian populations. But what about those who aren't - whose grandparents really did come from China and whose families haven't intermarried much with locals? Are they not Taiwanese? How about those who might have Japanese blood, or one non-Taiwanese parent? How about those who were born and raised here, whose parents aren't Taiwanese at all? If you make this argument, you leave all of them out, not to mention those of us who would like dual nationality, all to argue a point that China doesn't actually care about, and will hurt Taiwan's case to the world rather than help it, by making Taiwan independence seem like another iteration of 'ethnic nationalism'.
So if Taiwanese nationalism is not that - and I don't think it is - what is it?
You could say it's a nationalism based on Taiwan's unique history, and there is truth to that, but I don't know about you, but I'm not interested in getting into a pointless history debate with an anti-Taiwan detractor and I don't think it's a very strong argument either. Although history is on our side, who owned what in the past just isn't the way to make the case for Taiwan. It actually weakens what I think is the best argument, in fact.
Instead, Taiwanese nationalism is based on the idea that Taiwan is a nation based on two things: self-determination and shared values.
It is hard to imagine a reasonable person disagreeing with the idea that people have the right to self-determination, although we can reasonably disagree with the level at which that right manifests itself (e.g. that the citizens of a nation have that right, but that a group wishing to secede their territory from that nation may perhaps not always have it). I'd say there's a case to be made that any self-ruled territory that has an independently functioning government gains that right, and Taiwan certainly falls well within that boundary. It's even a democracy so you can't argue that a territory has been wrested away by some strongman dictator!
Therefore, as a self-governing autonomous territory that has a highly functional and democratic government, Taiwan does have the right to determine its own future. Period. This would be true even if history weren't on our side.
As for shared values, this is trickier. As much as different segments of Taiwanese society might disagree on a variety of issues, pretty much all of them except for a few ancient blowhards can agree on a few basic principles: human rights including certain freedoms, democracy and egalitarianism (okay, maybe not everyone agrees with egalitarianism in practice, but that's a global problem). However you define "shared values", though, it's clear that the values that are important in Taiwanese society are vastly different from those allowed in Chinese society. They also differ to some extent from the values even of other Asian democracies, despite greater similarities with those nations.
The good news is that this means Taiwanese nationalism doesn't suffer from having a weak or outdated argument. We're not 'splittists', 'separatists' (wanting to separate from what? When was Taiwan ever a part of the People's Republic of China that we'd be wanting to now 'split off'?) or people causing 'ethnic tensions'. Taiwan is instead a sovereign state that simply wants to access a right to globally recognized self-determination, and build their democratic nation based on shared values.
We have an optics problem, not an argument problem. There is nothing wrong with our case. I would like to think that optics problems are easier to solve.
Basically, this updated, 21st century view of nationalism - as nation-building based on shared values and the right to self-determination rather than ethnicity - is much easier for the global literati to swallow. It's an argument that humanizes Taiwan, and presents it in a modern light appropriate to its situation and values, rather than making it sound like an outdated and even dangerous throwback to the ethnocentrism and 'small European nation state' model of a few generations ago. It sounds more like something an EU supporter would say, and less like something a nutbar UKIP or Trump voter would come out with.
It's just as good news that this weakens China's "argument", such as it is. When you view Taiwanese as not ethnic nationalists, which they are indeed not in any great majority, China's case that Taiwan is a part of China because 'we are all Chinese' makes even less sense, and forces them to defend ethnic nationalism. Better yet, it forces them to defend it alongside claiming territories like Xinjiang and Tibet despite not having this connection.
It's also good news in that this view of nationalism allows - and please allow me to be selfish here - for people like me to be a part of these shared values. I can never be, and don't want to be, 'Asian' or 'Chinese' simply because I think it's weird to want to change one's race (and creepy and appropriative for a white person in any case). However, viewing Taiwan as a nation of people of shared values rather than a nation of people who were born ethnically Taiwanese with no 'outsiders' allowed makes room for people like me. Under such a model, I could be Taiwanese. Under an ethnic model, I could not.
The bad news is that many supporters of Taiwan don't seem to have made this connection. I don't mean that they don't support foreigners naturalizing (though some don't), but that they just don't think it's a big issue or something that needs to be prioritized or even necessarily changed. Some, perhaps, have not quite come to the conclusion that if Taiwan is not a country based on ethnicity but one of shared values and self-determination, that that means you kinda sorta have to let in immigrants because if you don't, you're right back at ethnic nationalism and all the problems it entails.
The other bad news is that China's been bombarding the world with a skewed perspective on what Taiwanese nationalism is, promoting whatever definition of 'nationalism' is convenient to them, and it's very hard to re-orient the perspectives of those who've bought that particular brand of snake oil.
All I can say is that we need to keep trying, and we absolutely need to stop engaging China on the points it's tempting us with, e.g. trying to argue ethnicity or history. Even if we're right - and we are - we absolutely need to not only re-shape the internal debate of Taiwanese nationalism being one of values rather than blood, which many astute friends of Taiwan are already doing, but also to point out to the international community that Taiwanese nationalism does not share the deeply problematic worldview and chauvinism of our grandparents' ethnic nationalism.
Thursday, July 6, 2017
Wednesday, July 5, 2017
Your periodic reminder that Forbes sucks just as hard as Reuters
Here I am again with yet another installment of "fuck this fucking nonsense", where I take some FUCKING NONSENSE and tell it to fuck off.
Here is today's fucking nonsense, courtesy of Forbes. For your consideration:
The title sets the scene for the whole thing, and it's a scene reminiscent of what happened that one time after I ate fish and chips two days in a row:
China intentionally pulled back on group tourism to Taiwan last year by about 18%, resulting in a squeeze for those in the tour bus and hotel industry.
Okay first of all, this is the weirdest start to an article ever, it reads like something halfway through a paragaph? Whatever, it's got far worse problems than that.
No mention at all of why China pulled back on group tourism (to try to force Taiwan to make concessions relating to its sovereignty, i.e. to force them to accept the [fucking nonsense] 1992 consensus WHICH IS NOT A REAL THING). No mention of the general reaction to this in Taiwan which was positive, not negative. No mention that tourism overall has not suffered, really, as the drop in Chinese group tours was made up for - and then some, I think? - by tourists from other countries. No mention of the fact that these Chinese tour groups are not only not that profitable for Taiwanese businesses due to the low costs insisted upon by the China-based operators, but also that most of them aren't even really Taiwanese businesses at all, as many of the facilities in Taiwan are ultimately managed by tour operators from China, not Taiwan.
What does it say as well about China's tourism strategy in Taiwan that their cuts in group tours mainly affected tour companies in China, which have links to that same government? (Please tell me I don't have to answer that question for you).
Oh yeah, and tourism isn't a very big contributor to the Taiwanese economy. The effect, insofar as there was one at all, simply wasn't that big.
Basically, this is just hoisted from a skank tank of nonsense and plopped at your feet with none of the unpacking necessary to report the story accurately. Bad journalism, in effect.
Beijing probably thought the same about its easing off permits for students to study at Taiwan’s 152 tuition-thirsty universities. The number of non-degree students dropped from 34,114 last year to 32,648 now and some reports say enrollment in degree courses is about to fall.
This is actually true as far as I'm aware, but the mention of it only glosses over - merely implies rather than explicitly reporting - that China is trying to force Taiwan to make policy in accordance with China's wishes rather than those of the people of Taiwan. Basically, to cede some amount of sovereignty, even in an abstract way.
These measures, combined with other more obvious pressure moves against Taiwan such as sending an aircraft carrier around the island, have hurt.
Who was hurt?
China has claimed Taiwan as part of its turf since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s. It insists the two sides eventually reunify.
"Reunify"? The People's Republic has never owned Taiwan. You cannot "reunify" what was never unified to begin with. You cannot even "unify" when one side is not interested in unification. You can only annex.
Use the correct word. We won't stop making fun of you until you do. It is misleading and inaccurate.
It lost momentum toward that goal in May 2016, when Tsai Ing-wen took office as Taiwan president without agreeing to Beijing’s dialogue condition that both sides belong to a single entity known as China.
It is debatable whether it had that momentum to begin with, but let's not even get into the question of whether support for Ma Ying-jiu's "economic but not political ties/no independence, no unification" was a concrete step toward what China wants, or whether it was a large group of voters being intentionally misled by Ma's campaign promises toward a goal they had never actually agreed with.
That aside, no, what momentum that may have existed was lost in March 2014 when the country woke up to what a lying sack of turds Ma Ying-jiu and his cronies were.
This has been going on a lot longer than Tsai's inauguration. There is no investigation here of the true roots of post-2014 political discourse in Taiwan, not even a one-sentence summary of why, exactly, Tsai was elected in the first place and why, exactly, she could not give in on this 1992 Consensus nonsense.
Formal talks went on hold.
IF YOU USE THE PASSIVE VOICE IT MEANS YOU ARE AVOIDING SAYING WHO PUT THE TALKS ON HOLD and maybe you think you can trick us into assuming Taiwan put them on hold, but YOU CAN'T because guess what, WE'RE NOT STUPID.
Who put the talks on hold, Ralphie? WHO?
Just say it.
For fuck's sake, say it. Say China's name. SAY IT.
And Beijing got mad.
So what?
And if it matters [it doesn't], why'd they get mad? Why can't you just say "they got mad that Taiwan, which is a fully self-ruled liberal democracy, didn't like its big fat jerk neighbor telling it what to do"? Or something more polite for your readers, whatever, but something? Why is it automatically a big problem when China "gets mad" (oooHHHHOooHHHhoohhhh) but not a problem when a democratic country's sovereignty is openly and repeatedly threatened?
Like...really?
As I've said before, China wants to be not only a global leader, but the preeminent global leader. China also doesn't care about the sovereignty of fully functioning nations, and cares little for human rights, international law, democracy or freedom of any kind.
How is this totally okay, and even something to be concerned about when they get mad, instead of being called out for what it actually is, which is fucking terrifying?
How is this okay to not even question?China’s economic sanctions have rattled tour operators to the point of street protests in September.
This happened, sure, but you are not a very good journalist, let alone much of an investigative journalist if you don't ask yourself why, exactly, they were protesting when tourism has not dropped. What other motives could there be, considering that many tour operators are China-owned rather than Taiwan-owned and that many of the China-owned operators have ties to the Chinese government, and the services provided were often negotiated at such low rates that any Taiwanese businesses involved didn't make much money?
Considering all that, why, exactly, were they protesting again?
Even if we assume the protestors were sincere (which I do not - I think the motivations are far shadier than that), at some point, certain decisions that are good for the whole are going to have some effects on tiny slivers of industry or society that some people might not be happy about. So? The tour operators had a right to protest (sincere or not, and I think I've been clear that I don't think they were), but that doesn't mean it's a problem if the government doesn't necessarily make any changes.
I hate saying that, because I hate it when my side protests and nothing changes, but realistically, it's just got to be this way, even if sometimes that affects my side badly.
Officials in Beijing probably imagine that if Taiwanese feel a pinch as China withdraws tourists, students and other elements of its $11.2 trillion economy from Taiwan’s much smaller market...
Again, the tourist withdrawal didn't actually affect the Taiwanese economy much, if at all. There were enough tourists from elsewhere to make up the shortfall. I have my theories as to why that is not generally reported. The statement, as is, is not accurate.
...the public will push Tsai to restart dialogue. Or voters will replace Tsai’s party with one that favors a stronger political relationship with China.
How can Tsai "restart dialogue" when Tsai wasn't the one who shut it down to begin with? Why not say "the public will push Tsai to give in to China's demands so that China will re-start dialogue"? That would be the accurate way of reporting this. Why be misleading when you could be accurate?
Oh, right...
Anyway.
Are you so afraid of saying "the public will push Tsai to concede to the 1992 Consensus to a degree acceptable to China, which would preclude any chance of Taiwanese de jure independence?" Because you know that's what that means.Some people are pressuring their president, and non-government surveys show an erosion of public confidence in her leadership. “If [Tsai] cannot back up her stance one step or two steps, things will get even worse,” says Liu Yih-jiun, public affairs professor at Fo Guang University in Taiwan. “I think President Tsai is in deep trouble.”
Fo Guang University? Okaaay.
Anyway, this implies that public confidence may be eroding because Tsai needs to be nicer to China. I would argue the opposite is true: that public confidence is eroding because she's not stepping up and making tough but important decisions as a leader. She comes across as wishy-washy, and that's the problem. Backing up even more (where would she back up to, even? What does this mean? Why is it taken at face value?) would make her appear even weaker. Why is Jennings reporting this douchelord's opinion as indicative of public opinion generally by putting his blather next to poll results when one is not necessarily the belief that drives the other?
And can I just say how ridiculous it is to constantly imply that Taiwan is the one that needs to cede more to China, when China is the aggressor, and Taiwan has a lot more to lose - and that no matter what Taiwan offers, China will always, always want more?
Why, again, is this not investigated, questioned, discussed, critiqued or even reported accurately?
And who, besides this, err, guy and some KMT blowhards who never really cared about Taiwan to begin with, is pressuring Tsai to be nicer to China?
Seriously - who cares what this Foguangshan guy thinks? I'm not even interested in remembering his name, that's how irrelevant his opinion is. Why include it, unless you want to inaccurately portray Taiwanese public opinion?
Still, there is some good to be found in this article, such as this paragraph which I cannot find fault with:
Still, Taiwan shows resiliency. Last year’s $528 billion GDP should grow at least 1.7% this year, the International Monetary Fund says. A rise of around 2% would be roughly consistent with growth over the past three years. The island’s all-important semiconductor industry is expected to grow 3.5% this year, the Taipei-based Marketing Intelligence & Consulting Institute forecasts, and its PC sector is expanding because of contract orders. As travelers from China hang back, arrivals from Southeast Asia, South Asia, Australia and New Zealand went up about 29% over the half year ending in March. University enrollment from around the world went up 4.6% from October through March as numbers from China tapered.
But then it's bookended with this:
Taiwan’s next telltale elections – a slew of local ones – are set for 2018. It’s hard to know now whether voters will show discontent then toward their president.
Seems okay, but you'll note that above, Jennings implied heavily that that discontent was driven by a desire for Tsai to soften on China, when that is not necessarily the case (and I'd argue the opposite could well be true: a lot of her supporters, or at least people who voted for her, are unhappy because she is not taking a stronger stand on China). Such an implication, then, is inaccurate and misleading.
I'll leave you with this:
“What seems unarguable is that blame for whatever pain people in Taiwan feel as a result of all of these roadblocks imposed by Beijing is importantly being directed toward the mainland,” says Alan Romberg, director of the East Asia program at U.S. think tank The Stimson Center.
Here is the problem. I don't know if the journalists did it to the think-tankers or the think-tankers did it to the journalists or we all got butt-reamed by pro-China views in academia and government that trickled down like slime down a neglected gutter, but senior people, respected experts, people whose opinions shape policy and, to some extent, reporting, still refer to China as "the mainland", rather than by its actual name: China.
As long as we continue to act as though China is some sort of "mainland" to Taiwan, which implicitly links the two through language choices meant to imply a connection where there isn't one, we cede ground to China.
If experts are still calling it "the mainland", we're already losing ground, and people who don't know better (like, say, the writer of this article) will get pulled under and report inaccurately. Readers will be misinformed, and China will gain another inch.
I don't really care about Alan Whoozits, director of the East Asia blah blah blah, because he doesn't appear to be very good at his job. But when we let this go unquestioned, this is what we are allowing to happen.
Here is today's fucking nonsense, courtesy of Forbes. For your consideration:
The title sets the scene for the whole thing, and it's a scene reminiscent of what happened that one time after I ate fish and chips two days in a row:
China's Efforts To Increase Pressure On Old Foe Taiwan Are Backfiring
TAIWAN IS NOT CHINA'S "OLD FOE", MORON!
The Republic of China perhaps is, but "Taiwan" is not, and although Taiwan is (unfairly) governed by the (colonialist) Republic of China, anyone with any grasp of the nuances of the political realities of the region knows that there is a clear semantic difference between what we mean when we say "Taiwan" and what we mean when we say "the ROC". The ROC is a lost regime on life support that was foisted, uninvited, on the Taiwanese people. Taiwan is an island and a point of identification in terms of politics, culture, history and land. "Taiwan" (and the Taiwanese people) would like nothing more than to co-exist peacefully with China, enjoying warm relations and the benefits thereof, have its sovereignty respected and maybe not have a few thousand missiles pointed right up its ass THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
Wanting to co-exist with your big fat jerk neighbor does not make you an "old foe". It makes them a bully and you a victim. Foes wish each other harm. Taiwan does not wish China harm (though China does wish Taiwan harm - so this whole fight is really quite one-sided, and the "foe" is not Taiwan).
And no, I don't know how to change the weird spacing on this part.
China intentionally pulled back on group tourism to Taiwan last year by about 18%, resulting in a squeeze for those in the tour bus and hotel industry.
TAIWAN IS NOT CHINA'S "OLD FOE", MORON!
The Republic of China perhaps is, but "Taiwan" is not, and although Taiwan is (unfairly) governed by the (colonialist) Republic of China, anyone with any grasp of the nuances of the political realities of the region knows that there is a clear semantic difference between what we mean when we say "Taiwan" and what we mean when we say "the ROC". The ROC is a lost regime on life support that was foisted, uninvited, on the Taiwanese people. Taiwan is an island and a point of identification in terms of politics, culture, history and land. "Taiwan" (and the Taiwanese people) would like nothing more than to co-exist peacefully with China, enjoying warm relations and the benefits thereof, have its sovereignty respected and maybe not have a few thousand missiles pointed right up its ass THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
Wanting to co-exist with your big fat jerk neighbor does not make you an "old foe". It makes them a bully and you a victim. Foes wish each other harm. Taiwan does not wish China harm (though China does wish Taiwan harm - so this whole fight is really quite one-sided, and the "foe" is not Taiwan).
And no, I don't know how to change the weird spacing on this part.
The Republic of China perhaps is, but "Taiwan" is not, and although Taiwan is (unfairly) governed by the (colonialist) Republic of China, anyone with any grasp of the nuances of the political realities of the region knows that there is a clear semantic difference between what we mean when we say "Taiwan" and what we mean when we say "the ROC". The ROC is a lost regime on life support that was foisted, uninvited, on the Taiwanese people. Taiwan is an island and a point of identification in terms of politics, culture, history and land. "Taiwan" (and the Taiwanese people) would like nothing more than to co-exist peacefully with China, enjoying warm relations and the benefits thereof, have its sovereignty respected and maybe not have a few thousand missiles pointed right up its ass THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
Wanting to co-exist with your big fat jerk neighbor does not make you an "old foe". It makes them a bully and you a victim. Foes wish each other harm. Taiwan does not wish China harm (though China does wish Taiwan harm - so this whole fight is really quite one-sided, and the "foe" is not Taiwan).
And no, I don't know how to change the weird spacing on this part.
Okay first of all, this is the weirdest start to an article ever, it reads like something halfway through a paragaph? Whatever, it's got far worse problems than that.
No mention at all of why China pulled back on group tourism (to try to force Taiwan to make concessions relating to its sovereignty, i.e. to force them to accept the [fucking nonsense] 1992 consensus WHICH IS NOT A REAL THING). No mention of the general reaction to this in Taiwan which was positive, not negative. No mention that tourism overall has not suffered, really, as the drop in Chinese group tours was made up for - and then some, I think? - by tourists from other countries. No mention of the fact that these Chinese tour groups are not only not that profitable for Taiwanese businesses due to the low costs insisted upon by the China-based operators, but also that most of them aren't even really Taiwanese businesses at all, as many of the facilities in Taiwan are ultimately managed by tour operators from China, not Taiwan.
What does it say as well about China's tourism strategy in Taiwan that their cuts in group tours mainly affected tour companies in China, which have links to that same government? (Please tell me I don't have to answer that question for you).
Oh yeah, and tourism isn't a very big contributor to the Taiwanese economy. The effect, insofar as there was one at all, simply wasn't that big.
Basically, this is just hoisted from a skank tank of nonsense and plopped at your feet with none of the unpacking necessary to report the story accurately. Bad journalism, in effect.
Beijing probably thought the same about its easing off permits for students to study at Taiwan’s 152 tuition-thirsty universities. The number of non-degree students dropped from 34,114 last year to 32,648 now and some reports say enrollment in degree courses is about to fall.
This is actually true as far as I'm aware, but the mention of it only glosses over - merely implies rather than explicitly reporting - that China is trying to force Taiwan to make policy in accordance with China's wishes rather than those of the people of Taiwan. Basically, to cede some amount of sovereignty, even in an abstract way.
These measures, combined with other more obvious pressure moves against Taiwan such as sending an aircraft carrier around the island, have hurt.
Who was hurt?
China has claimed Taiwan as part of its turf since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s. It insists the two sides eventually reunify.
"Reunify"? The People's Republic has never owned Taiwan. You cannot "reunify" what was never unified to begin with. You cannot even "unify" when one side is not interested in unification. You can only annex.
Use the correct word. We won't stop making fun of you until you do. It is misleading and inaccurate.
It lost momentum toward that goal in May 2016, when Tsai Ing-wen took office as Taiwan president without agreeing to Beijing’s dialogue condition that both sides belong to a single entity known as China.
It is debatable whether it had that momentum to begin with, but let's not even get into the question of whether support for Ma Ying-jiu's "economic but not political ties/no independence, no unification" was a concrete step toward what China wants, or whether it was a large group of voters being intentionally misled by Ma's campaign promises toward a goal they had never actually agreed with.
That aside, no, what momentum that may have existed was lost in March 2014 when the country woke up to what a lying sack of turds Ma Ying-jiu and his cronies were.
This has been going on a lot longer than Tsai's inauguration. There is no investigation here of the true roots of post-2014 political discourse in Taiwan, not even a one-sentence summary of why, exactly, Tsai was elected in the first place and why, exactly, she could not give in on this 1992 Consensus nonsense.
Formal talks went on hold.
IF YOU USE THE PASSIVE VOICE IT MEANS YOU ARE AVOIDING SAYING WHO PUT THE TALKS ON HOLD and maybe you think you can trick us into assuming Taiwan put them on hold, but YOU CAN'T because guess what, WE'RE NOT STUPID.
Who put the talks on hold, Ralphie? WHO?
Just say it.
For fuck's sake, say it. Say China's name. SAY IT.
And Beijing got mad.
So what?
And if it matters [it doesn't], why'd they get mad? Why can't you just say "they got mad that Taiwan, which is a fully self-ruled liberal democracy, didn't like its big fat jerk neighbor telling it what to do"? Or something more polite for your readers, whatever, but something? Why is it automatically a big problem when China "gets mad" (oooHHHHOooHHHhoohhhh) but not a problem when a democratic country's sovereignty is openly and repeatedly threatened?
Like...really?
As I've said before, China wants to be not only a global leader, but the preeminent global leader. China also doesn't care about the sovereignty of fully functioning nations, and cares little for human rights, international law, democracy or freedom of any kind.
How is this totally okay, and even something to be concerned about when they get mad, instead of being called out for what it actually is, which is fucking terrifying?
How is this okay to not even question?China’s economic sanctions have rattled tour operators to the point of street protests in September.
This happened, sure, but you are not a very good journalist, let alone much of an investigative journalist if you don't ask yourself why, exactly, they were protesting when tourism has not dropped. What other motives could there be, considering that many tour operators are China-owned rather than Taiwan-owned and that many of the China-owned operators have ties to the Chinese government, and the services provided were often negotiated at such low rates that any Taiwanese businesses involved didn't make much money?
Considering all that, why, exactly, were they protesting again?
Even if we assume the protestors were sincere (which I do not - I think the motivations are far shadier than that), at some point, certain decisions that are good for the whole are going to have some effects on tiny slivers of industry or society that some people might not be happy about. So? The tour operators had a right to protest (sincere or not, and I think I've been clear that I don't think they were), but that doesn't mean it's a problem if the government doesn't necessarily make any changes.
I hate saying that, because I hate it when my side protests and nothing changes, but realistically, it's just got to be this way, even if sometimes that affects my side badly.
Officials in Beijing probably imagine that if Taiwanese feel a pinch as China withdraws tourists, students and other elements of its $11.2 trillion economy from Taiwan’s much smaller market...
Again, the tourist withdrawal didn't actually affect the Taiwanese economy much, if at all. There were enough tourists from elsewhere to make up the shortfall. I have my theories as to why that is not generally reported. The statement, as is, is not accurate.
...the public will push Tsai to restart dialogue. Or voters will replace Tsai’s party with one that favors a stronger political relationship with China.
How can Tsai "restart dialogue" when Tsai wasn't the one who shut it down to begin with? Why not say "the public will push Tsai to give in to China's demands so that China will re-start dialogue"? That would be the accurate way of reporting this. Why be misleading when you could be accurate?
Oh, right...
Anyway.
Are you so afraid of saying "the public will push Tsai to concede to the 1992 Consensus to a degree acceptable to China, which would preclude any chance of Taiwanese de jure independence?" Because you know that's what that means.Some people are pressuring their president, and non-government surveys show an erosion of public confidence in her leadership. “If [Tsai] cannot back up her stance one step or two steps, things will get even worse,” says Liu Yih-jiun, public affairs professor at Fo Guang University in Taiwan. “I think President Tsai is in deep trouble.”
Fo Guang University? Okaaay.
Anyway, this implies that public confidence may be eroding because Tsai needs to be nicer to China. I would argue the opposite is true: that public confidence is eroding because she's not stepping up and making tough but important decisions as a leader. She comes across as wishy-washy, and that's the problem. Backing up even more (where would she back up to, even? What does this mean? Why is it taken at face value?) would make her appear even weaker. Why is Jennings reporting this douchelord's opinion as indicative of public opinion generally by putting his blather next to poll results when one is not necessarily the belief that drives the other?
And can I just say how ridiculous it is to constantly imply that Taiwan is the one that needs to cede more to China, when China is the aggressor, and Taiwan has a lot more to lose - and that no matter what Taiwan offers, China will always, always want more?
Why, again, is this not investigated, questioned, discussed, critiqued or even reported accurately?
And who, besides this, err, guy and some KMT blowhards who never really cared about Taiwan to begin with, is pressuring Tsai to be nicer to China?
Seriously - who cares what this Foguangshan guy thinks? I'm not even interested in remembering his name, that's how irrelevant his opinion is. Why include it, unless you want to inaccurately portray Taiwanese public opinion?
Still, there is some good to be found in this article, such as this paragraph which I cannot find fault with:
Still, Taiwan shows resiliency. Last year’s $528 billion GDP should grow at least 1.7% this year, the International Monetary Fund says. A rise of around 2% would be roughly consistent with growth over the past three years. The island’s all-important semiconductor industry is expected to grow 3.5% this year, the Taipei-based Marketing Intelligence & Consulting Institute forecasts, and its PC sector is expanding because of contract orders. As travelers from China hang back, arrivals from Southeast Asia, South Asia, Australia and New Zealand went up about 29% over the half year ending in March. University enrollment from around the world went up 4.6% from October through March as numbers from China tapered.
But then it's bookended with this:
Taiwan’s next telltale elections – a slew of local ones – are set for 2018. It’s hard to know now whether voters will show discontent then toward their president.
Seems okay, but you'll note that above, Jennings implied heavily that that discontent was driven by a desire for Tsai to soften on China, when that is not necessarily the case (and I'd argue the opposite could well be true: a lot of her supporters, or at least people who voted for her, are unhappy because she is not taking a stronger stand on China). Such an implication, then, is inaccurate and misleading.
I'll leave you with this:
“What seems unarguable is that blame for whatever pain people in Taiwan feel as a result of all of these roadblocks imposed by Beijing is importantly being directed toward the mainland,” says Alan Romberg, director of the East Asia program at U.S. think tank The Stimson Center.
Here is the problem. I don't know if the journalists did it to the think-tankers or the think-tankers did it to the journalists or we all got butt-reamed by pro-China views in academia and government that trickled down like slime down a neglected gutter, but senior people, respected experts, people whose opinions shape policy and, to some extent, reporting, still refer to China as "the mainland", rather than by its actual name: China.
As long as we continue to act as though China is some sort of "mainland" to Taiwan, which implicitly links the two through language choices meant to imply a connection where there isn't one, we cede ground to China.
If experts are still calling it "the mainland", we're already losing ground, and people who don't know better (like, say, the writer of this article) will get pulled under and report inaccurately. Readers will be misinformed, and China will gain another inch.
I don't really care about Alan Whoozits, director of the East Asia blah blah blah, because he doesn't appear to be very good at his job. But when we let this go unquestioned, this is what we are allowing to happen.
Friday, June 30, 2017
Triple Threat Female Expats
The Cool Trailing Spouse
Last week, we ended the traipsing-about part of our massive summer adventure, rolling up at our friends' flat in Greater London for five days in the city. We started in Athens at the end of May, wound our way across Armenia and Georgia wandering in ancient churches, enjoying gorgeous vistas and drinking succulent wine, looking up at the monumental stone edifices of Yerevan and hustling up and down the steep hills of Tbilisi old city under carved wooden balconies. Then we hopped a Tbilisi-London flight to start the British leg of our trip.
My friends are what you might call traditional expatriates, though they are not traditional people in any pejorative sense. They're both arty types, young fun liberals, far more similar to me than to the businessmen and trailing wives of Tienmu who send their children to international schools. Who can even consider affording international schools.
We had a lovely time with lovely people, both them and my in-laws, at times comparing aspects of the expat experience. This is a life not at all new to me and Brendan, but still two-years new to them. I remember well that even two years in, my life still had that new expat smell and it was interesting to trade proverbial notes.
I couldn't help but notice, though, that despite being more like us in personality, values, predilections and life goals, that their expat situation was far more like those of the Tienmu international school crowd than ours. They could afford a decent-size flat near a tube station, something two teachers most likely could never do, even with salaries adjusted to reflect the British economy. They could afford for one of them to be the 'trailing spouse' (and as always seems to happen, the trailing spouse was the wife). They could afford this and to raise a child (to be fair, in the UK one needn't worry so much about where to send a child to school).
We both knew the new expat smell, but their model was far more luxurious. It had upgrades.
I wouldn't say I was jealous - I chose my circumstances. I don't mean to criticize either: this is the opportunity life handed them and it was fair to take it as-is. If anything, it served as a lesson to be avoid drawing such thick lines between 'Us' and 'Them'. People in Their situation may very well be people like Us who just found themselves there.
That said, I do find distinctions that are worth a quick exploration. A lot of people assume 'expat' means excellent relocation package (something my friends got and I didn't, because I moved without a clear job offer - and even had I had one, nobody was going to pay my relocation costs let alone cover them generously). They often assume it means serviced flats, possibly domestic help including a driver, very high pay, being able to send their children to international schools and attending events, clubs and associations designed for networking with other expats (and almost never locals - though that is likely more common in Asia than, say, the UK). They often assume it means a trailing spouse, usually the wife, and nobody ever seems to question why it always seems to be the wife supporting her husband's career, or why more women don't get these sorts of offers to move abroad from generous employers.
That's all fine - other than pointing out the gender gap in who gets the plum offer and who is the trailing spouse, it's not a criticism. However, it seems to be the predominant view Westerners have of expat life, which is why articles like this fistful of garbage are spawned. The writer of that thing only has a point if the only kind of expat is the well-paid kind who has a serviced flat and a driver, and the only kind of immigrant is the poor kind. If this is true, what am I? A well-off immigrant or a poor expat? What about those of us for whom neither term fits?
It means that all of the advice you see is geared toward a demographic of foreigners abroad I've never been in. It's all coffee mornings and no 'how to make it work as an independent woman abroad'.
Mercy in a new place
It was interesting, then, to read Janice Y.K. Lee's The Expatriates while on this trip. Yes, it deals with exactly the demographic of well-paid expats and their stay-at-home spouses that I just spent two and a half paragraphs saying I wasn't in, but it was a worthwhile read (and I recommend it) for two key reasons: one of the protagonists is more like me than the well-to-do women who make up the rest of the book, who are also portrayed very sympathetically.
Mercy, a young Korean-American Columbia graduate, moved to Hong Kong on her own, without a job in hand. She more or less makes it work, until it doesn't any more. I don't have her bad luck, but the feeling of moving to a new place with a small savings account and a suitcase and making one's way without a corporate helping hand - and working a job to make it all happen - that's my expat experience. I gather that is the experience a lot of us have, but few people seem to write about it. Its depiction of the Korean community in Hong Kong further reminds one that those who live abroad cannot be packaged up into tidy communities of (white) expats and (everyone else) immigrants. And, of course, the character of Olivia serves as a reminder that even the wealthiest expat cannot compete with a successful and well-connected local.
Swashbuckling tales of adventure and derring-do of handsome men aside, the focus on expat women, not men, in The Expatriates further reminds us that lives of women abroad are often just as interesting as those of men, if not more so.
However, it was also a reminder that, as much as we ought not to create divisions between us as expats, some cannot be ignored. I may do better than a typical cram school teacher, but I'm still an English teacher and have, despite my professional status in the field, resigned myself to forever introducing my work as "an English teacher...but a real one." That, as much as I might make more money and have a better lifestyle than the sort of fresh young blood I was in 2006 - no crappy rooftop apartments for me - I will never, as a teacher, be on the same financial level as the Tianmu set. Brendan and I will always have to do things ourselves, we won't have a company connection setting anything up for us, likely ever. I'm 36 and still a liberal artsy-fartsy night owl type, more like the fresh young blood than the greying businessmen; this is not likely to change either. Every piece of advice is geared toward them; none seems aimed at me. Most of them won't stay long. Most will never learn Chinese or integrate locally. There simply are not that many overlaps in the issues we face.
And I might not be a trailing spouse like so many expat women, but the majority of long-termers I've come to know here, who were birthed into expat life as I was, are male.
My first real arrival in Taiwan took place late at night. I dropped my bags in my cruddy-but-temporary Gongguan perch, collapsed into sleep, and woke up the next day to explore the city. I had a vague offer of a teaching job, a few thousand dollars and a backpack. I navigated work, language, finances, socializing, paperwork and visas and adjustment to a new country and culture on my own. I don't think it takes away from the experiences of more well-heeled foreigners to admit that I'm proud of this. I'm proud that I did it on my own, and that I was never a trailing spouse (I am also confident enough in myself now that, if a fantastic opportunity arose for Brendan, after all these years I finally wouldn't balk at the idea of being one for a temporary period).
Like Mercy, I had no help, and like my brand-new idol and also crush, Janet Montgomery McGovern, I had financial concerns. I had to generate an income to make it all work. I was a woman doing what most people associate with young men doing. Like them both, I'm not the typical 'Go East, Young Man', well, man.
English-wallah
On our last day in Tbilisi, I turned the final page of my last book for the 'intensive travel' portion of my trip: Justine Hardy's Scoop-Wallah: Life on a Delhi Daily. Although I hadn't planned it this way, my reading tour across the Caucasus was also a reading detour from books about Taiwan or books about teaching, linguistics and education into a short list of books about women living abroad.
Hardy's story also resonated with me, not only because I used to live in India, but because she too chose to return to Asia, sought out work, found it and made things happen for herself. She, like Janet McGovern, had the sort of adventure most people associate with men. She, like both me and McGovern, had to make money to stay afloat. And she, like us, had no employer helping her. She, like us, was perhaps an expat who lived like an immigrant, or maybe an immigrant who knew she couldn't stay forever. I do wonder, however, what kind of visa she was on as it was clear that her employer wasn't helping her with it, but it is extremely hard to get a visa to work legally as a foreigner in India. You certainly aren't allowed to be offered a job in India and then transfer a tourist visa to a working one (I know, because I looked into it).
Hardy describes a hardcore hustling to make her daily bread, to make a name, to make life possible in a foreign land, that I can identify with. What I peddle is different, but we're both working the same street. She has McGovern's mettle, translated to the present day and proves yet again that the stories of women abroad are not limited to managing the help, choosing between Taipei American School and Taipei European School and going to coffee mornings. That we hustle too, that we have stories too, and we all make it work.
That Hardy might have been writing soft features, but under that she's a professional journalist who simply loves India and plies her trade well. That I may be 'teaching English', but I'm also a professional educator who is days away from starting Master's in the subject at a prestigious university.
That we don't always have help. That arguably the most interesting expat in twentieth-century Taiwan was not Indiana Jones, but his mother, and she too was an English teacher.
That even the trailing spouses, who may have never thought they'd be 'trailing'.
With that in mind, during a quiet moment on the outskirts of London, I wrote a short inscription in Scoop-Wallah and, when nobody was looking, popped it into a corner of my friends' book collection. Not the husband's, although I've known him longer and we are closer, but the wife's. He might be the expat with the cushy job, but she has a story too, and under it all we may have different situations but we're not all that different.
Last week, we ended the traipsing-about part of our massive summer adventure, rolling up at our friends' flat in Greater London for five days in the city. We started in Athens at the end of May, wound our way across Armenia and Georgia wandering in ancient churches, enjoying gorgeous vistas and drinking succulent wine, looking up at the monumental stone edifices of Yerevan and hustling up and down the steep hills of Tbilisi old city under carved wooden balconies. Then we hopped a Tbilisi-London flight to start the British leg of our trip.
My friends are what you might call traditional expatriates, though they are not traditional people in any pejorative sense. They're both arty types, young fun liberals, far more similar to me than to the businessmen and trailing wives of Tienmu who send their children to international schools. Who can even consider affording international schools.
We had a lovely time with lovely people, both them and my in-laws, at times comparing aspects of the expat experience. This is a life not at all new to me and Brendan, but still two-years new to them. I remember well that even two years in, my life still had that new expat smell and it was interesting to trade proverbial notes.
I couldn't help but notice, though, that despite being more like us in personality, values, predilections and life goals, that their expat situation was far more like those of the Tienmu international school crowd than ours. They could afford a decent-size flat near a tube station, something two teachers most likely could never do, even with salaries adjusted to reflect the British economy. They could afford for one of them to be the 'trailing spouse' (and as always seems to happen, the trailing spouse was the wife). They could afford this and to raise a child (to be fair, in the UK one needn't worry so much about where to send a child to school).
We both knew the new expat smell, but their model was far more luxurious. It had upgrades.
I wouldn't say I was jealous - I chose my circumstances. I don't mean to criticize either: this is the opportunity life handed them and it was fair to take it as-is. If anything, it served as a lesson to be avoid drawing such thick lines between 'Us' and 'Them'. People in Their situation may very well be people like Us who just found themselves there.
That said, I do find distinctions that are worth a quick exploration. A lot of people assume 'expat' means excellent relocation package (something my friends got and I didn't, because I moved without a clear job offer - and even had I had one, nobody was going to pay my relocation costs let alone cover them generously). They often assume it means serviced flats, possibly domestic help including a driver, very high pay, being able to send their children to international schools and attending events, clubs and associations designed for networking with other expats (and almost never locals - though that is likely more common in Asia than, say, the UK). They often assume it means a trailing spouse, usually the wife, and nobody ever seems to question why it always seems to be the wife supporting her husband's career, or why more women don't get these sorts of offers to move abroad from generous employers.
That's all fine - other than pointing out the gender gap in who gets the plum offer and who is the trailing spouse, it's not a criticism. However, it seems to be the predominant view Westerners have of expat life, which is why articles like this fistful of garbage are spawned. The writer of that thing only has a point if the only kind of expat is the well-paid kind who has a serviced flat and a driver, and the only kind of immigrant is the poor kind. If this is true, what am I? A well-off immigrant or a poor expat? What about those of us for whom neither term fits?
It means that all of the advice you see is geared toward a demographic of foreigners abroad I've never been in. It's all coffee mornings and no 'how to make it work as an independent woman abroad'.
Mercy in a new place
It was interesting, then, to read Janice Y.K. Lee's The Expatriates while on this trip. Yes, it deals with exactly the demographic of well-paid expats and their stay-at-home spouses that I just spent two and a half paragraphs saying I wasn't in, but it was a worthwhile read (and I recommend it) for two key reasons: one of the protagonists is more like me than the well-to-do women who make up the rest of the book, who are also portrayed very sympathetically.
Mercy, a young Korean-American Columbia graduate, moved to Hong Kong on her own, without a job in hand. She more or less makes it work, until it doesn't any more. I don't have her bad luck, but the feeling of moving to a new place with a small savings account and a suitcase and making one's way without a corporate helping hand - and working a job to make it all happen - that's my expat experience. I gather that is the experience a lot of us have, but few people seem to write about it. Its depiction of the Korean community in Hong Kong further reminds one that those who live abroad cannot be packaged up into tidy communities of (white) expats and (everyone else) immigrants. And, of course, the character of Olivia serves as a reminder that even the wealthiest expat cannot compete with a successful and well-connected local.
Swashbuckling tales of adventure and derring-do of handsome men aside, the focus on expat women, not men, in The Expatriates further reminds us that lives of women abroad are often just as interesting as those of men, if not more so.
However, it was also a reminder that, as much as we ought not to create divisions between us as expats, some cannot be ignored. I may do better than a typical cram school teacher, but I'm still an English teacher and have, despite my professional status in the field, resigned myself to forever introducing my work as "an English teacher...but a real one." That, as much as I might make more money and have a better lifestyle than the sort of fresh young blood I was in 2006 - no crappy rooftop apartments for me - I will never, as a teacher, be on the same financial level as the Tianmu set. Brendan and I will always have to do things ourselves, we won't have a company connection setting anything up for us, likely ever. I'm 36 and still a liberal artsy-fartsy night owl type, more like the fresh young blood than the greying businessmen; this is not likely to change either. Every piece of advice is geared toward them; none seems aimed at me. Most of them won't stay long. Most will never learn Chinese or integrate locally. There simply are not that many overlaps in the issues we face.
And I might not be a trailing spouse like so many expat women, but the majority of long-termers I've come to know here, who were birthed into expat life as I was, are male.
My first real arrival in Taiwan took place late at night. I dropped my bags in my cruddy-but-temporary Gongguan perch, collapsed into sleep, and woke up the next day to explore the city. I had a vague offer of a teaching job, a few thousand dollars and a backpack. I navigated work, language, finances, socializing, paperwork and visas and adjustment to a new country and culture on my own. I don't think it takes away from the experiences of more well-heeled foreigners to admit that I'm proud of this. I'm proud that I did it on my own, and that I was never a trailing spouse (I am also confident enough in myself now that, if a fantastic opportunity arose for Brendan, after all these years I finally wouldn't balk at the idea of being one for a temporary period).
Like Mercy, I had no help, and like my brand-new idol and also crush, Janet Montgomery McGovern, I had financial concerns. I had to generate an income to make it all work. I was a woman doing what most people associate with young men doing. Like them both, I'm not the typical 'Go East, Young Man', well, man.
English-wallah
On our last day in Tbilisi, I turned the final page of my last book for the 'intensive travel' portion of my trip: Justine Hardy's Scoop-Wallah: Life on a Delhi Daily. Although I hadn't planned it this way, my reading tour across the Caucasus was also a reading detour from books about Taiwan or books about teaching, linguistics and education into a short list of books about women living abroad.
Hardy's story also resonated with me, not only because I used to live in India, but because she too chose to return to Asia, sought out work, found it and made things happen for herself. She, like Janet McGovern, had the sort of adventure most people associate with men. She, like both me and McGovern, had to make money to stay afloat. And she, like us, had no employer helping her. She, like us, was perhaps an expat who lived like an immigrant, or maybe an immigrant who knew she couldn't stay forever. I do wonder, however, what kind of visa she was on as it was clear that her employer wasn't helping her with it, but it is extremely hard to get a visa to work legally as a foreigner in India. You certainly aren't allowed to be offered a job in India and then transfer a tourist visa to a working one (I know, because I looked into it).
Hardy describes a hardcore hustling to make her daily bread, to make a name, to make life possible in a foreign land, that I can identify with. What I peddle is different, but we're both working the same street. She has McGovern's mettle, translated to the present day and proves yet again that the stories of women abroad are not limited to managing the help, choosing between Taipei American School and Taipei European School and going to coffee mornings. That we hustle too, that we have stories too, and we all make it work.
That Hardy might have been writing soft features, but under that she's a professional journalist who simply loves India and plies her trade well. That I may be 'teaching English', but I'm also a professional educator who is days away from starting Master's in the subject at a prestigious university.
That we don't always have help. That arguably the most interesting expat in twentieth-century Taiwan was not Indiana Jones, but his mother, and she too was an English teacher.
That even the trailing spouses, who may have never thought they'd be 'trailing'.
With that in mind, during a quiet moment on the outskirts of London, I wrote a short inscription in Scoop-Wallah and, when nobody was looking, popped it into a corner of my friends' book collection. Not the husband's, although I've known him longer and we are closer, but the wife's. He might be the expat with the cushy job, but she has a story too, and under it all we may have different situations but we're not all that different.
Sunday, June 18, 2017
Updated post: why are there so few expat women in Asia?
With the publication of an article on Western women dating Asian men that included a large contribution from my friend Jocelyn Eikenburg came a very good point from another friend: one reason why there are fewer Western Woman-Asian man couples is that there are fewer Western women in Asia.
Why is that, I asked to no one in particular.
I returned to my original post from years ago about why there are so few expat women in Asia (I could just as easily said 'Western women' - what working-class foreign women, mostly from China and Southeast Asia, in countries like Taiwan face is an entirely different topic that I will cover once I feel qualified to do so).
I felt that the piece could use some updating, so I've updated it to add a few more thoughts and clarify or expand some of the original points.
I am not at all sure that everyone will like what I have to say, but since when has that mattered to me?
What would really improve the piece would be more firsthand experiences from a variety of women on why they chose to stay or leave - in fact, after I finish off a few other blogging projects I'm working on as well as get through the first in-person component of my Master's program, I intend to seek those voices out. For now, your comments are welcome.
The bulk of the changes - though not every change - to the original article are as follows:
I want to add a few more points here to expand this piece. I focused mainly on expats like me above: women who came here on their own as students or independently in search of work. However, there is a whole class of expat that I don't interact with much - nothing personal, we just inhabit different worlds - the corporate expat here on a fancy package. In Taiwan this means the ones who have luxury apartments rented for them, drivers and live-in help, who send their children to international schools we couldn't hope to afford. That sort of money would be nice, though I'm not sure I'd like the life very much. In any case, corporate sexism is a huge issue, and as a result most of the employees being offered these stellar packages are male. They might bring their wives, but they are the ones drawing the salaries. When women are offered something like this, they may find they're in a tiny minority and that when they arrive, the non-Western corporate world is even more hostile and sexist than what they left behind. Professional Taiwanese women have more advantages than almost all of their counterparts in the rest of Asia, but corporate sexism here is no better, and likely worse, than what you'll find in the West.
And, finally, I'm going to add something that may anger a few people, but here we go. It is my personal opinion from observation that women tend to be less tolerant of mediocrity. What I mean by that is, those of us who don't come as students or well-paid, cosseted expatriates often start out teaching English. Few of us are qualified, and we are given a title ("teacher") that we don't exactly deserve. I don't exempt myself from this: I was once this sort of so-called "teacher". Most "English teachers" in Taiwan know this (though some don't seem to have figured it out). Some, like me, decide the work is meaningful and fulfilling and eventually become professional educators. Most don't. Some leave after awhile, others decide that teaching without any real qualification is good enough and stay. Guess which group I have noticed is more likely to not be content being an unqualified "teacher"? If you guessed women, then you get where I'm going. And guess which group I've noticed is more likely to decide that what they're doing is fine?
Why is that, I asked to no one in particular.
I returned to my original post from years ago about why there are so few expat women in Asia (I could just as easily said 'Western women' - what working-class foreign women, mostly from China and Southeast Asia, in countries like Taiwan face is an entirely different topic that I will cover once I feel qualified to do so).
I felt that the piece could use some updating, so I've updated it to add a few more thoughts and clarify or expand some of the original points.
I am not at all sure that everyone will like what I have to say, but since when has that mattered to me?
What would really improve the piece would be more firsthand experiences from a variety of women on why they chose to stay or leave - in fact, after I finish off a few other blogging projects I'm working on as well as get through the first in-person component of my Master's program, I intend to seek those voices out. For now, your comments are welcome.
The bulk of the changes - though not every change - to the original article are as follows:
As for the reasons why [dating prospects aren't great for Western women in Asia], it's hard for me to say, and I'll have to stick to heterosexual couples for now. Someone more qualified than me can write about gay dating in Asia.
My college crush moved to Taiwan, we started dating, and now we're married. I don't really have firsthand experience with this issue to share. It seems to me, though, that the issue is not what most people assume: that Western women don't want to date Asian men, so they stay single. Only a small minority of Western women I've met in Asia feel that way - most are quite open to it, or have dated (or married) Asian men. However, I do think it's likely harder. The culture barrier to dating doesn't work in our favor, as Asian men are often less likely to be clear about their feelings and ask for concrete dates, or don't show interest in the ways we've come to expect. It's easier to be a very clear Western man asking a local woman out than it is for a Western woman to figure out if an Asian man likes her.
Of course, I'm the sort of woman who once asked men out. It doesn't shock me - I think more women should do it! Again, however, that's a contentious topic in the West, though I'm not sure why. In Asia it's even more rare and is more likely to put men off. Take that even further, and it means there are fewer local men who possess the feminist chops many Western women deem a dealbreaker: I wouldn't date a man who would be put off by my asking him out.
After that, the culture barrier vis-a-vis traditional families also tends not to work in Western women's favor. If you are dating the son of Asian parents, while it's not certain that they'll expect him to run his family the way they tell him to, live nearby or use your shared financial resources to support his parents, it is certainly more likely than in the West. The expectations of male and female roles in marriage are also more likely to be traditional (though, again, this is far from universal: feminist Asian men do exist. I count some among my friends). Some Western women might see this as a difficult adjustment. Others, like me, view it as a dealbreaker.
This is not meant to be a blanket statement on the state of Western woman-Asian man dating in Asia, of course. Differing stories and successful and happy couples abound. It's just an issue worth considering. However, if the obstacles to that sort of partnership are greater, fewer women are likely to meet, date, marry and set up a home with a local man. This means fewer have that particular pull to stay (though, again, there are many success stories).
And, of course, there aren't that many Western men to date and the ones that are here might - see below - be oddly hostile to Western women.
My college crush moved to Taiwan, we started dating, and now we're married. I don't really have firsthand experience with this issue to share. It seems to me, though, that the issue is not what most people assume: that Western women don't want to date Asian men, so they stay single. Only a small minority of Western women I've met in Asia feel that way - most are quite open to it, or have dated (or married) Asian men. However, I do think it's likely harder. The culture barrier to dating doesn't work in our favor, as Asian men are often less likely to be clear about their feelings and ask for concrete dates, or don't show interest in the ways we've come to expect. It's easier to be a very clear Western man asking a local woman out than it is for a Western woman to figure out if an Asian man likes her.
Of course, I'm the sort of woman who once asked men out. It doesn't shock me - I think more women should do it! Again, however, that's a contentious topic in the West, though I'm not sure why. In Asia it's even more rare and is more likely to put men off. Take that even further, and it means there are fewer local men who possess the feminist chops many Western women deem a dealbreaker: I wouldn't date a man who would be put off by my asking him out.
After that, the culture barrier vis-a-vis traditional families also tends not to work in Western women's favor. If you are dating the son of Asian parents, while it's not certain that they'll expect him to run his family the way they tell him to, live nearby or use your shared financial resources to support his parents, it is certainly more likely than in the West. The expectations of male and female roles in marriage are also more likely to be traditional (though, again, this is far from universal: feminist Asian men do exist. I count some among my friends). Some Western women might see this as a difficult adjustment. Others, like me, view it as a dealbreaker.
This is not meant to be a blanket statement on the state of Western woman-Asian man dating in Asia, of course. Differing stories and successful and happy couples abound. It's just an issue worth considering. However, if the obstacles to that sort of partnership are greater, fewer women are likely to meet, date, marry and set up a home with a local man. This means fewer have that particular pull to stay (though, again, there are many success stories).
And, of course, there aren't that many Western men to date and the ones that are here might - see below - be oddly hostile to Western women.
Does it really keep Western women away from life abroad, though, or is the correlation entirely spurious?
A little of both. For women who want to travel, the dating issue (which has no easy answer) is not likely to keep them away, though it may cause them to choose shorter-term trips: a one-year stint as a student or one year abroad teaching instead of staying long-term, for example.
* * *
It is tiring to work for a sexist boss, have to address sexist beliefs even among friends, go out and meet people only to find that you are again being judged through the lens of gender, asked yet again about marriage and family, having children, having your appearance commented on and treated as the most important part of who you are. Always wondering if you are being paid less, and if so, because you happen to have a vagina. Always wondering if you are offered the fluffier classes (e.g. "Baking in English!") and work teaching children rather than the more challenging work (e.g. "Presenting in English") because you are female. Always questioning why, exactly, most of your colleagues are male, especially if you teach corporate English, IELTS or other adult classes.
Sexism is also a problem in the West - the hate and vitriol I see from some American men is astounding - but coming up against older-school forms of it in Asia is tiring.
* * *
Sexism is also a problem in the West - the hate and vitriol I see from some American men is astounding - but coming up against older-school forms of it in Asia is tiring.
* * *
I want to add a few more points here to expand this piece. I focused mainly on expats like me above: women who came here on their own as students or independently in search of work. However, there is a whole class of expat that I don't interact with much - nothing personal, we just inhabit different worlds - the corporate expat here on a fancy package. In Taiwan this means the ones who have luxury apartments rented for them, drivers and live-in help, who send their children to international schools we couldn't hope to afford. That sort of money would be nice, though I'm not sure I'd like the life very much. In any case, corporate sexism is a huge issue, and as a result most of the employees being offered these stellar packages are male. They might bring their wives, but they are the ones drawing the salaries. When women are offered something like this, they may find they're in a tiny minority and that when they arrive, the non-Western corporate world is even more hostile and sexist than what they left behind. Professional Taiwanese women have more advantages than almost all of their counterparts in the rest of Asia, but corporate sexism here is no better, and likely worse, than what you'll find in the West.
And, finally, I'm going to add something that may anger a few people, but here we go. It is my personal opinion from observation that women tend to be less tolerant of mediocrity. What I mean by that is, those of us who don't come as students or well-paid, cosseted expatriates often start out teaching English. Few of us are qualified, and we are given a title ("teacher") that we don't exactly deserve. I don't exempt myself from this: I was once this sort of so-called "teacher". Most "English teachers" in Taiwan know this (though some don't seem to have figured it out). Some, like me, decide the work is meaningful and fulfilling and eventually become professional educators. Most don't. Some leave after awhile, others decide that teaching without any real qualification is good enough and stay. Guess which group I have noticed is more likely to not be content being an unqualified "teacher"? If you guessed women, then you get where I'm going. And guess which group I've noticed is more likely to decide that what they're doing is fine?
Neither marriage equality nor Taiwanese independence are strange or scary - stop making them seem that way for clicks
As we all know, and the reasonable among us have celebrated, marriage equality is finally set to come to Taiwan. I personally do not think any of the worst fears of retaliation by anti-equality groups will come to pass, because the ruling was clear. Inequality is unconstitutional, therefore, there must be equality. Unequal laws passed off as "marriage equality" will not suffice and it seems to me will be open to immediate challenge in court.
You wouldn't know that from reading Taiwanese English-language media though.
Have a read through these articles, or even just check their headlines:
Same-sex marriage age to be set at 18
Cabinet mulls introducing marriage age of 18 for same-sex couples
What's your first impression upon skimming the headlines? Was it that the marriage age for same-sex couples seems like it will be different (and older) than that currently set for opposite-sex ones?
Look again at the first paragraphs (or first few paragraphs) of each:
In fact, in the middle or at the bottom - not in the headline, not at the top - of both articles, it is clarified that the marriage age for heterosexual couples is proposed to change too, so that the age regulations will be the same no matter the sex(es) of the couple:
Chen said that the Cabinet would recommend that the legal age at which heterosexual couples can be engaged be changed to 17 so that the rules would be consistent.
* * *
Although Taiwan's Civil Code currently has a different minimum age requirement for men and women in heterosexual unions, the Executive Yuan's proposed legal amendment would make the minimum engagement and marriage age the same for homosexual and heterosexual unions, Cabinet secretary general Chen Mei-ling (陳美伶) said during a meeting.
I understand why Taipei Times and Focus Taiwan did this: marriage equality is a hot issue, and articles about it get clicks. Articles on changing the marriage age are less likely to be read - marriage age changes, especially fairly small ones, are just not that interesting. You can basically get what you need to know from the headline.
It's the same rationale behind why China seems to be horned into every single article (even headline) in the international media about Taiwan, even when it isn't in any way relevant. So we end up with stupid headlines like Tsai Ying-wen elected president of Taiwan, China angry or China likely to be upset about marriage equality in Taiwan? (I made those up, but they're pretty close to the truth). China gets clicks, Taiwan doesn't, so editors complicit in mutilating Taiwan's story in the international press shove China in there like an unlubed butt plug.
And I know this is why they do it because more than one journalist friend has told me so. They *shrug* and say "it's better that the article be published at all than it be spiked because nobody's going to read about just Taiwan." Quite literally if you want to be in the news at all you have to bend over and take it.
So it is with marriage equality, except it doesn't even come with the excuse of "if you want this news out there at all you have to accept the butt plug" that the China-shoving does. It's just put in there to be sensationalistic and get clicks over what is a relatively minor news item, which deserves to be published but maybe wasn't going to get all that many clicks anyhow...and that's okay for something that, again, is just not that interesting. It's not serving any greater purpose.
It's just as damaging domestically, however, as the China butt-plugging is internationally, if it's also happening in the Chinese-language media (it probably is, but I'm traveling right now and don't have the time to properly check. Some back-up on this would be greatly appreciated).
What articles like these do is make marriage equality seem riskier, stranger, scarier, more sensational and more 'exotic' than it really is by highlighting what the rules are likely to be for same-sex unions while downplaying that the proposals would make these rules the same for opposite-sex couples. It damages the idea of marriage equality as a step forward in human rights, in a greater application of equality for all, and, frankly, as something normal, even mundane - which it more or less has become in much of the developed world. The ruling was a big deal. Marriage equality coming to Taiwan is a big deal. Setting the marriage age and proposing to change the heterosexual marriage age to be consistent is not. Continuing to treat marriage between people of the same sex as somehow different from marriage between people of the opposite sex encourages readers to think that way, and confirms the biases of those who already do. It's not neutral and it's barely accurate.
It's not that much different from the international (and sometimes domestic) press playing up every single tremor of disapproval from China, presenting their statements without context, making everything seem more terrifying or unprecedented than it really is, instead of accurately reporting the truth on the ground, which is rather mundane: Taiwan is independent, China doesn't like that, but China can fuck right off and so far not much has really changed. It is not neutral, barely accurate (or not accurate at all), creates sensationalism and otherness where none need exist, encourages a certain thought process, and plays to biases for those who already have them. It hurts Taiwan in the same way that writing about marriage equality this way is detrimental to a broader acceptance of equality.
Going back to marriage equality, what's worse is that there does seem to be at least one problematic proposal on the table that, from the reporting, would seem to affect opposite-sex couples but not same-sex ones. From the Taipei Times article:
Same-sex couples younger than 20 who want to get married must obtain the approval of their legal guardians, or the marriage could be voided should their legal representatives file an objection, she [Chen Mei-ling] said.
This is buried about halfway down one article and not mentioned in another, and yet to me it appears to be the real news item here - unless this proposal would cover all couples equally, it is a sign that the Executive Yuan is mulling a rule that would create unequal marriage laws, which, as I've said several times, will be open to all sorts of challenges as the ruling is unambiguous in calling for equality.
But neither Focus Taiwan nor Taipei Times can seem to get their heads out of 'what'll get the most clicks' land and report actual news.
You wouldn't know that from reading Taiwanese English-language media though.
Have a read through these articles, or even just check their headlines:
Same-sex marriage age to be set at 18
Cabinet mulls introducing marriage age of 18 for same-sex couples
What's your first impression upon skimming the headlines? Was it that the marriage age for same-sex couples seems like it will be different (and older) than that currently set for opposite-sex ones?
Look again at the first paragraphs (or first few paragraphs) of each:
The Executive Yuan yesterday said that its proposal to legalize same-sex marriage would set the legal age for such unions at 18 and engagement at 17, while prohibiting those within the sixth degree of consanguinity from getting married.
The Cabinet held a second ad hoc meeting to establish the goals that it is to work toward in the legislative process to legalize same-sex unions.
After reviewing the chapter in the Civil Code governing marriage, the Executive Yuan said that homosexual couples would have to be at least 18 to get married and at least 17 to become engaged, Executive Yuan Secretary-General Chen Mei-ling (陳美伶) told a news conference in Taipei.
The Civil Code stipulates that heterosexual couples must be at least 18 to be legally united and at least 16 to be engaged.
* * *
Taipei, June 14 (CNA) The Executive Yuan is considering making the minimum age at which same-sex couples can get engaged and marry 17 and 18 respectively, irrespective of gender, a Cabinet official said on Wednesday.
In fact, in the middle or at the bottom - not in the headline, not at the top - of both articles, it is clarified that the marriage age for heterosexual couples is proposed to change too, so that the age regulations will be the same no matter the sex(es) of the couple:
Chen said that the Cabinet would recommend that the legal age at which heterosexual couples can be engaged be changed to 17 so that the rules would be consistent.
* * *
Although Taiwan's Civil Code currently has a different minimum age requirement for men and women in heterosexual unions, the Executive Yuan's proposed legal amendment would make the minimum engagement and marriage age the same for homosexual and heterosexual unions, Cabinet secretary general Chen Mei-ling (陳美伶) said during a meeting.
I understand why Taipei Times and Focus Taiwan did this: marriage equality is a hot issue, and articles about it get clicks. Articles on changing the marriage age are less likely to be read - marriage age changes, especially fairly small ones, are just not that interesting. You can basically get what you need to know from the headline.
It's the same rationale behind why China seems to be horned into every single article (even headline) in the international media about Taiwan, even when it isn't in any way relevant. So we end up with stupid headlines like Tsai Ying-wen elected president of Taiwan, China angry or China likely to be upset about marriage equality in Taiwan? (I made those up, but they're pretty close to the truth). China gets clicks, Taiwan doesn't, so editors complicit in mutilating Taiwan's story in the international press shove China in there like an unlubed butt plug.
And I know this is why they do it because more than one journalist friend has told me so. They *shrug* and say "it's better that the article be published at all than it be spiked because nobody's going to read about just Taiwan." Quite literally if you want to be in the news at all you have to bend over and take it.
So it is with marriage equality, except it doesn't even come with the excuse of "if you want this news out there at all you have to accept the butt plug" that the China-shoving does. It's just put in there to be sensationalistic and get clicks over what is a relatively minor news item, which deserves to be published but maybe wasn't going to get all that many clicks anyhow...and that's okay for something that, again, is just not that interesting. It's not serving any greater purpose.
It's just as damaging domestically, however, as the China butt-plugging is internationally, if it's also happening in the Chinese-language media (it probably is, but I'm traveling right now and don't have the time to properly check. Some back-up on this would be greatly appreciated).
What articles like these do is make marriage equality seem riskier, stranger, scarier, more sensational and more 'exotic' than it really is by highlighting what the rules are likely to be for same-sex unions while downplaying that the proposals would make these rules the same for opposite-sex couples. It damages the idea of marriage equality as a step forward in human rights, in a greater application of equality for all, and, frankly, as something normal, even mundane - which it more or less has become in much of the developed world. The ruling was a big deal. Marriage equality coming to Taiwan is a big deal. Setting the marriage age and proposing to change the heterosexual marriage age to be consistent is not. Continuing to treat marriage between people of the same sex as somehow different from marriage between people of the opposite sex encourages readers to think that way, and confirms the biases of those who already do. It's not neutral and it's barely accurate.
It's not that much different from the international (and sometimes domestic) press playing up every single tremor of disapproval from China, presenting their statements without context, making everything seem more terrifying or unprecedented than it really is, instead of accurately reporting the truth on the ground, which is rather mundane: Taiwan is independent, China doesn't like that, but China can fuck right off and so far not much has really changed. It is not neutral, barely accurate (or not accurate at all), creates sensationalism and otherness where none need exist, encourages a certain thought process, and plays to biases for those who already have them. It hurts Taiwan in the same way that writing about marriage equality this way is detrimental to a broader acceptance of equality.
Going back to marriage equality, what's worse is that there does seem to be at least one problematic proposal on the table that, from the reporting, would seem to affect opposite-sex couples but not same-sex ones. From the Taipei Times article:
Same-sex couples younger than 20 who want to get married must obtain the approval of their legal guardians, or the marriage could be voided should their legal representatives file an objection, she [Chen Mei-ling] said.
This is buried about halfway down one article and not mentioned in another, and yet to me it appears to be the real news item here - unless this proposal would cover all couples equally, it is a sign that the Executive Yuan is mulling a rule that would create unequal marriage laws, which, as I've said several times, will be open to all sorts of challenges as the ruling is unambiguous in calling for equality.
But neither Focus Taiwan nor Taipei Times can seem to get their heads out of 'what'll get the most clicks' land and report actual news.
Sunday, June 11, 2017
I should not even have to say that Singapore is not more liberal than Taiwan
 |
| Just one example of the things you can say in Taiwan because this country recognizes basic human rights |
I'm hoping to keep this short because I've had a lot of wine (well hello Georgia, how are you? Like wine, do ya? I like wine too!) and really, this should be obvious.
That said, please enjoy my half-addled rant after more than a few rants, I mean, wines.
But I've heard this sentiment expressed twice in my trip so far, once in Athens as we were waiting to board the flight to Yerevan, and once over dinner outside the small town of Alaverdi in northern Armenia, the day before we crossed the border to Georgia.
Both times, otherwise intelligent and worldly people put forward a belief system in which human rights are 'Western', rather than global. That's not what I'm going to address today, though I will if it ever becomes necessary. It seems is sufficiently clear that human rights are global, hence the word 'human'. I'm not that much of an absolutist (nor am I a total relativist), but I do believe that, absent the existence of any god(s), civilization benefits from greater equality - a classically liberal view. As such, fundamental human rights are based on the freedoms necessary to realize that equality to the greatest extent possible. And as such, they are global. Exhibit B: plenty of non-Western countries respect, or try to respect, these basic human rights. Therefore they are clearly not simply "Western". Taiwan is one such country. This doesn't mean I think Westerners are so much more clever than everyone else for having come up with what we refer to when we talk about basic human rights - one good idea does not make a certain model of society 'better', and in any case, they are obviously adaptable to other cultures (Exhibit C is also Taiwan) and therefore not intrinsic to Western culture. Every culture that has adopted them has benefited (Exhibit D - you guessed it - Taiwan). Similar cultures (Exhibit E: China) that have not done so have avoided such a framework to their detriment.
Why do I say all this, when it's not my main point?
Because the opposite belief - that human rights are a Western construct - it underpins what I really want to go after: the idea that Singapore is somehow a model for modern Asia, that it is the system to look up to when we consider a progressive Asian country. That when we consider the best of Asia, that Singapore is at or near the top, along with Hong Kong, and possibly Japan and South Korea. Singapore seems to get the most mentions because unlike Hong Kong, it is independent. Unlike Japan, it is more open to foreign investment, business and residency. Unlike South Korea it hasn't been mired in a series of political scandals and economically seems to many to be the most successful of the old Asian Tigers. (I'm not sure how true that final point is, but a lot of people sure seem to think so).
I've mentioned twice on this trip that if you want a model for progressivism and liberalism in Asia, you must look at Taiwan. Not only that, but Taiwan is the best possible model.
Both times, the rejoinder has been "But - Singapore!"
Both times, I suspect the person talking was thinking about economics, as though promoting free markets and a global economic outlook were the same as promoting classical social liberalism. For some they do go hand-in-hand, but one is not a substitute for the other. It's easy to look at shiny-skyscraper Singapore, with its streets you (mostly) could eat off of, with its (mostly) glossy, Western sheen, and think "a model for liberal, modern Asia!" It sure looks nice, and yes, I've been there. I like Singapore quite a bit for a visit, in fact, and spend a lot of my time slurping sambar with masala dosa in Little India.
Let me be clear: Singapore is not free. Singapore (more or less) has free markets, but it is not free. It was the poster child for the stale and risible "Asian style democracy?!?!?" debate of the turn of the millenium. It was, perhaps, a model for Asia when developing East Asia was considered key and the idea that some cultures do well with less freedom (that is, less access to human rights) still had currency. The idea took as a given that the people in East Asian societies not only wanted but would choose less freedom and fewer human rights because, I dunno, "their culture" or something. As though human rights are not adaptable to any culture. As though Western societies, once lacking rights for non-white or non-male people, did not evolve to include them while maintaining their culture. As though human rights and a greater sense of collectivism were mutually exclusive (SPOILER: they are not).
I won't get too far into how Taiwan's economy is also fairly open - the reasons why it is stagnating are not related to a lack of free markets. Some of the issues are domestic: corruption, brain drain, poor allocation of resources, slow reactions to problems, ineffective ideas, a focus on cutting labor costs and manufacturing when those are two areas where Taiwan will never be - and should never be - competitive again. Some of it is China being a giant flaming asshole.
My point is, if you want to look for a model for Asia in terms of classical liberalism and modernity, look to Taiwan. Taiwan is not perfect, but it is, more or less, free.
In Singapore, making a few YouTube videos criticizing the government merits enough punishment that the kid who did it was granted asylum in the US (the US apparently has kept him detained, but that's another story). Singapore does not have freedom of expression. In Taiwan, marching down the street with a banner that says "Fuck The President" (something I actually saw once) is a protected right (of course, if you say that about a private citizen, you could be sued for 'defamation' and you might well lose - Taiwan's not perfect). There are more erudite ways to make one's case, but freedom of expression doesn't only cover nuanced arguments. Though imperfect, Taiwan is a model for freedom of expression in Asia.
In Singapore, sexual acts between men are still illegal, and marriage equality is not even on the government's radar as a possibility. The annual pro-equality Pink Dot in Singapore is allowed despite not having government support, but international participation is not. Singapore, then, does not have equal rights. In Taiwan we will - we must, as per the Ministry of Justice - have marriage equality soon, and its Pride parade is the biggest in Asia. Taiwan is a model for equal rights in Asia.
Singapore is not a democracy - at least not in the thick sense of the word, which I believe to be the real sense of the word. Taiwan is. Singapore is not a model for modern democracy. Taiwan, warts and all, is. This infographic gives it a lower democracy ranking than Japan or South Korea, but I feel, with more time and less wine (or perhaps more wine), that could be refuted well - for example, Taiwan is consistently ranked as having a freer press, has shaken off the party that used to dominate politics whereas Japan has not, has not had a major presidential scandal on par with South Korea's, and while all three countries enjoy freedom of assembly, Taiwan's actually seems to result in a reasonable amount of change. These, to me, are all important aspects of a full, thick democracy, and in most cases, Taiwan wins. Singapore, of course, doesn't come close.
Singapore does not have a free press. Taiwan has a crappy press that publishes nonsense 'news' while ignoring or mutilating real stories, but it is free. The freest in Asia. Facts can be found, and are hard to suppress, in Taiwan. In Singapore the government acts as though it has the right to withhold the truth from its citizens and use the main newspaper in the country (the Straits Times) as a pro-government mouthpiece.
One area where both countries falter is women's equality. Both have equal rights enshrined in law, but neither has done a great job of turning that into real equality in daily life. In both countries despite equal rights, pay gaps persist, families prefer sons and women are expected to prioritize caregiving more than men (and more than their careers).
In short, although Taiwan's economy needs a jump start, if you are looking for a country that serves as a model for the rest of Asia in terms of how human rights and freedoms can be adapted to suit a non-Western culture, look no further than Taiwan. Taiwan remains a more collectivist culture than any Western culture I know. That cliched old "mix of traditional and modern" stereotype, a favored flourish to many writings on Taiwan by people who don't know the country very well, has some truth to it. And yet, because human rights needn't be a Western construct, Taiwan has managed to adopt them. You may be surprised to learn that their culture has not imploded as a result, just as giving women the right to vote didn't cause Western countries to sink into apocalyptic hellscapes. It's doing just fine. The culture adapted and evolved, as culture does.
OK that was pretty long, and now I need more wine.
Sunday, June 4, 2017
An untitled mess
Editor's note:
Although I'm on vacation, for some reason this seems to be the week for long, difficult reads on Lao Ren Cha. This isn't as long as my last post, but it was far harder to write and will probably be far more difficult to read. I don't even have a title for it.
Although I'm on vacation, for some reason this seems to be the week for long, difficult reads on Lao Ren Cha. This isn't as long as my last post, but it was far harder to write and will probably be far more difficult to read. I don't even have a title for it.
One week before Brendan and I left for a trip that would have me out of Taiwan for over two months, a friend and I sat in the basement-level clinic of the psychiatric ward of National Taiwan University Hospital. Yvonne (not her real name) had been struggling with mental health issues for years, but they had recently gotten worse: she'd been in and out of the ward as a resident several times over the past six months. She hadn't shown up for a planned coffee date, canceled on a small group dinner, was calling or chatting online with a small group of friends, including me but failing consistently to show up in person. I wasn't angry, I was worried about her.
Yvonne was a good friend - health issues aside, she was intelligent (she completed her undergraduate degree at prestigious American liberal arts college and gone on to do a Master’s in Linguistics in Taiwan), loyal and caring. I considered her a good friend - I listened to her, and she to me. When she had an English teaching job and struggled with classroom management, I sat down and gave her a crash course in it, with the idea that as she picked up the basics, more would follow. She pushed me to look seriously into doing a Master’s degree, pointing out that I was full of excuses when the only things really holding me back were nervousness (I'm terrified of people I respect thinking I'm stupid) and money. She was right. We’d met as coworkers at an absolutely horrid “management consulting” company, and spent many an hour excising our bad memories together, stopping when we felt it was starting to get unhealthy. We supported each other and had fun together.
When a mutual friend tipped me off that she had also been skipping her doctor's appointments, I was worried. I feared she'd also been skipping her medication because it interfered with drinking, and I knew she wasn't getting the support she needed. What was scarier was that I wasn't sure what kind of support could reach her.
She was happy to accept my offer to accompany her to her next appointment, which was on a rainy Tuesday morning. I got there first, shook out my umbrella and waited in the old NTU hospital building, the beautiful Japanese-era one. I'd taught a few seminars here once. I'd figured she was less likely to skip an appointment if she knew I'd be there too, and the first step towards some sort of normal that could hold was ensuring she was in regular contact with professionals and taking her medication.
The psychiatry department at NTU is labyrinthine, as are many departments in many hospitals across Taiwan. You go to one window and register, take your registration to the doctor, take something from the doctor's assistant back upstairs, get a number and then wait. There are more papers, trips up-and-down, numbers and queues for payment and medication. I'm not sure how a very ill person - mentally or physically - would be able to manage it alone: most would have to have family, friends or a domestic worker/health aide accompany them. The system is simply not built well for people who are on their own.
I recalled the time when my mother, after having seemingly recovered from the cancer in her lungs, found out that it had spread to her lymphatic system and now she had "months". I was gutted, made plans to return to the US, and thought it would be smart to talk to a grief counselor, or any counselor. I couldn't go to the Community Services Center in Tianmu, because they're only open during weekday business hours and I am simply not able to go to Tianmu during those hours on a regular basis. I found another center closer to home that offered services in English, but they wouldn't let me make an appointment until I chose someone from the list of counselors on their website. Even that was too much of a hurdle, I wasn't in a good state to attempt it. I read through the biographies several times, but kept getting flustered, tired and more depressed. I never called back, and worked through the grief on my own.
If that small stone in the tracks could derail my search for fairly-straightforward counseling when I wasn't even battling a mental illness, just deep grief, imagine the sort of obstacle the back-and-forth of visiting a doctor in a psychiatry ward at a hospital could present to someone in a much more unstable condition.
Yvonne was a good friend - health issues aside, she was intelligent (she completed her undergraduate degree at prestigious American liberal arts college and gone on to do a Master’s in Linguistics in Taiwan), loyal and caring. I considered her a good friend - I listened to her, and she to me. When she had an English teaching job and struggled with classroom management, I sat down and gave her a crash course in it, with the idea that as she picked up the basics, more would follow. She pushed me to look seriously into doing a Master’s degree, pointing out that I was full of excuses when the only things really holding me back were nervousness (I'm terrified of people I respect thinking I'm stupid) and money. She was right. We’d met as coworkers at an absolutely horrid “management consulting” company, and spent many an hour excising our bad memories together, stopping when we felt it was starting to get unhealthy. We supported each other and had fun together.
When a mutual friend tipped me off that she had also been skipping her doctor's appointments, I was worried. I feared she'd also been skipping her medication because it interfered with drinking, and I knew she wasn't getting the support she needed. What was scarier was that I wasn't sure what kind of support could reach her.
She was happy to accept my offer to accompany her to her next appointment, which was on a rainy Tuesday morning. I got there first, shook out my umbrella and waited in the old NTU hospital building, the beautiful Japanese-era one. I'd taught a few seminars here once. I'd figured she was less likely to skip an appointment if she knew I'd be there too, and the first step towards some sort of normal that could hold was ensuring she was in regular contact with professionals and taking her medication.
The psychiatry department at NTU is labyrinthine, as are many departments in many hospitals across Taiwan. You go to one window and register, take your registration to the doctor, take something from the doctor's assistant back upstairs, get a number and then wait. There are more papers, trips up-and-down, numbers and queues for payment and medication. I'm not sure how a very ill person - mentally or physically - would be able to manage it alone: most would have to have family, friends or a domestic worker/health aide accompany them. The system is simply not built well for people who are on their own.
I recalled the time when my mother, after having seemingly recovered from the cancer in her lungs, found out that it had spread to her lymphatic system and now she had "months". I was gutted, made plans to return to the US, and thought it would be smart to talk to a grief counselor, or any counselor. I couldn't go to the Community Services Center in Tianmu, because they're only open during weekday business hours and I am simply not able to go to Tianmu during those hours on a regular basis. I found another center closer to home that offered services in English, but they wouldn't let me make an appointment until I chose someone from the list of counselors on their website. Even that was too much of a hurdle, I wasn't in a good state to attempt it. I read through the biographies several times, but kept getting flustered, tired and more depressed. I never called back, and worked through the grief on my own.
If that small stone in the tracks could derail my search for fairly-straightforward counseling when I wasn't even battling a mental illness, just deep grief, imagine the sort of obstacle the back-and-forth of visiting a doctor in a psychiatry ward at a hospital could present to someone in a much more unstable condition.
While we got this upstairs-downstairs workout, we chatted. Yvonne mentioned that she was only able to see a doctor perhaps once a month or for prescription refills, and that today was actually her physician's day to meet new patients. He'd agreed to see her because she'd skipped her last appointment and didn't seem well. She mentioned that she'd tried therapy, but it didn't seem to be yielding fast enough results, and she couldn't afford to keep it up: it's several thousand NT dollars per session, and she was unable to work.
She agreed when I asked her if I could write about her situation, without using her real name, in a post about why mental health services in Taiwan are so deeply lacking. Something needed to be said, but I didn't want to write it while excising the story that caused me to see the problem, and I didn't want to include the story without her consent.
Due to the events that have transpired since then, there is so much more to say.
On one of our trips back down the stairs, I mentioned that her doctor seemed to be a good professional to have in her corner, as he'd agreed to see her on a day when he did not normally see existing patients. She agreed, but pointed out that during one of her stays in the ward, they'd assigned her a junior doctor who only wanted to talk about her alcoholism. She'd requested a change and the ward had refused - so she drank detergent.
I gasped.
"Well I wanted to make a point. Anyway, I knew it wouldn't kill me," she replied.
A bell should have gone off in my mind then, but didn't. I gathered my composure enough to point out gently that, in fact, drinking detergent could well kill a person.
Back downstairs, waiting for her number to be called, we talked again about therapy. It seemed to be simple common sense that regular contact with professionals - both doctors and counselors, at more frequent intervals than hospital visits could provide - would be a good idea. I didn't have the professional credentials to support Yvonne in the way she needed it, but I hoped I could be supportive in getting her in regular contact with people who did.
She revealed that her boyfriend, who chiefly supported them, was on a leave of absence from work and had his own issues. Although she could not work and was legally classified as 'disabled' and as a result received a small monthly sum from the government, this was just about enough to cover the cost of food and doctor's visits under National Health Insurance. It would not cover therapy, nor a place for her to live when things were not going well with her boyfriend, with whom she'd broken up and gotten back together with several times.
In short, more regular contact with professionals was not something she could afford. National Health Insurance didn't cover it and she had no other means to pay for it. That she desperately needed it - that it might have saved her life - didn't change the cold hard reality of her empty wallet.
The next day, I would speak with a friend who is a psychiatrist, but in an entirely different sub-specialty. She pointed out that, in fact, National Health Insurance does cover therapy in cases like Yvonne's, but the government rate paid to therapists who accept the insurance is something like NT500/hour. This for a professional with graduate-level training. So, clearly, few if any therapists wanted to go through the insurance system. Offering private, non-insured care only, they could charge exponentially more. Unfortunately, this sort of rationalization means that important mental health support is only available to those with means.
As a result, people who need help but can’t afford it like Yvonne have no access. In that way, it’s not that different from the USA, where people do die from lack of access to health care. Praise for Taiwan’s healthcare system is common, especially when compared to the near-total lack of a consistent system in the US, but in this particular way, Taiwan has failed. Family and friends can, in most cases, help someone connect to the right professionals, but consistent access to those professionals is key. If it is not affordable, it is not accessible.
My friend went on to say that, as a result, a lot of psychiatrists whose job would ordinarily be to see a patient in order to determine what sort of medication to prescribe and nothing more - certainly they weren’t paid for more - kept tabs on their patients the way Yvonne’s doctor seemed to be keeping tabs on her. That’s noble, and is one bright light in an otherwise dark landscape, but it really shouldn’t have to come down to that. The care Yvonne and those like her needed shouldn’t have been sparingly provided, at the discretion of a doctor who decides whether or not they’re willing to devote the extra time. That Yvonne had a doctor who did step up is an individual compliment but not praise of Taiwanese healthcare: it speaks to a breakdown of the system that he felt he had to do so in the absence of any other option.
I considered what sort of financial outlay would have been required to band together as friends and just pay for it, but it quickly became clear that it would be too much to ask of mutual friends, with costs approaching what many of them pay for rent each month, for something Yvonne wasn’t very motivated to do. I could give her money (I don’t loan money to friends: I give it, and if I get it back that’s fine. If not, that’s fine too) but not enough to supplant a needed income.
I gasped.
"Well I wanted to make a point. Anyway, I knew it wouldn't kill me," she replied.
A bell should have gone off in my mind then, but didn't. I gathered my composure enough to point out gently that, in fact, drinking detergent could well kill a person.
Back downstairs, waiting for her number to be called, we talked again about therapy. It seemed to be simple common sense that regular contact with professionals - both doctors and counselors, at more frequent intervals than hospital visits could provide - would be a good idea. I didn't have the professional credentials to support Yvonne in the way she needed it, but I hoped I could be supportive in getting her in regular contact with people who did.
She revealed that her boyfriend, who chiefly supported them, was on a leave of absence from work and had his own issues. Although she could not work and was legally classified as 'disabled' and as a result received a small monthly sum from the government, this was just about enough to cover the cost of food and doctor's visits under National Health Insurance. It would not cover therapy, nor a place for her to live when things were not going well with her boyfriend, with whom she'd broken up and gotten back together with several times.
In short, more regular contact with professionals was not something she could afford. National Health Insurance didn't cover it and she had no other means to pay for it. That she desperately needed it - that it might have saved her life - didn't change the cold hard reality of her empty wallet.
The next day, I would speak with a friend who is a psychiatrist, but in an entirely different sub-specialty. She pointed out that, in fact, National Health Insurance does cover therapy in cases like Yvonne's, but the government rate paid to therapists who accept the insurance is something like NT500/hour. This for a professional with graduate-level training. So, clearly, few if any therapists wanted to go through the insurance system. Offering private, non-insured care only, they could charge exponentially more. Unfortunately, this sort of rationalization means that important mental health support is only available to those with means.
As a result, people who need help but can’t afford it like Yvonne have no access. In that way, it’s not that different from the USA, where people do die from lack of access to health care. Praise for Taiwan’s healthcare system is common, especially when compared to the near-total lack of a consistent system in the US, but in this particular way, Taiwan has failed. Family and friends can, in most cases, help someone connect to the right professionals, but consistent access to those professionals is key. If it is not affordable, it is not accessible.
My friend went on to say that, as a result, a lot of psychiatrists whose job would ordinarily be to see a patient in order to determine what sort of medication to prescribe and nothing more - certainly they weren’t paid for more - kept tabs on their patients the way Yvonne’s doctor seemed to be keeping tabs on her. That’s noble, and is one bright light in an otherwise dark landscape, but it really shouldn’t have to come down to that. The care Yvonne and those like her needed shouldn’t have been sparingly provided, at the discretion of a doctor who decides whether or not they’re willing to devote the extra time. That Yvonne had a doctor who did step up is an individual compliment but not praise of Taiwanese healthcare: it speaks to a breakdown of the system that he felt he had to do so in the absence of any other option.
I considered what sort of financial outlay would have been required to band together as friends and just pay for it, but it quickly became clear that it would be too much to ask of mutual friends, with costs approaching what many of them pay for rent each month, for something Yvonne wasn’t very motivated to do. I could give her money (I don’t loan money to friends: I give it, and if I get it back that’s fine. If not, that’s fine too) but not enough to supplant a needed income.
While waiting for Yvonne’s appointment, I tried to say as gently as I could that the junior doctor who’d wanted to talk about her alcoholism seemed to certainly have had a bad ‘bedside manner’, and I could understand that anyone would be put off by that and by the idea of stopping drinking, but he wasn’t wrong. She did struggle with alcoholism, and it was affecting her medication. Without the medication, however, her mental health would not improve.
Although I’m not a doctor, it did seem clear that, while figuring out her relationship, living and financial situation were important, none of it would hold if she didn’t consistently manage her health.
Although I’m not a doctor, it did seem clear that, while figuring out her relationship, living and financial situation were important, none of it would hold if she didn’t consistently manage her health.
Yvonne took this well, to my relief. I wondered why the doctor who brought up the subject with her to begin with could not have also broached the topic in a way that she’d have been more likely to be receptive to.
This is not unique to Taiwan: around the world you will find doctors who are empathetic, caring and understanding and can reach patients, and those who don’t make those connections as easily. In Taiwan, that means for every doctor like the one who’d agreed to see Yvonne on an atypical day, and who took care to keep tabs on her situation knowing she had no other professional support, there is likely one whose manner does not meet a patients’ needs.
Yvonne was living with her boyfriend, but it was clear from the instability of that relationship that she would at least need an alternative open to her if it ever did end. Again, Taiwan failed her. She could have stayed with me - and I offered, with Brendan’s support, and gave her a key that she could use anytime - but we both knew it wouldn’t be a good idea to make that permanent. Her disability payments were not enough to cover housing, and her family, who lived in central Taiwan, had long since rejected her (I will not go into their relationship here - I had Yvonne’s consent to write about her situation, but I never asked if I could include her family history, so I won’t).
The disability payments seem designed for people who cannot work but have a place to stay - generally, it is assumed, with family. Although homeless shelters exist, and there are welfare organizations such as Harmony Home for people with specific illnesses (in Harmony Home’s case, HIV/AIDS), a long-term sponsored or subsidized living option does not appear to be available (or widely available - while options may exist, even after several searches I was unable to locate any) to people in Yvonne’s situation. A mutual friend and I discussed whether group living options were available, perhaps with flexible work opportunities for those who might not be able to be reliable as traditional employees, but neither of us could find such a place.
In short, when you have no family to take you in, but no ability to earn enough income to live on your own, there are few if any options available to you in Taiwan. It almost feels as though the healthcare system is designed with the assumption that everyone has family to support them, or with the unconscious belief that if your family has disowned or rejected you, it must somehow be your fault. From simply finding the right care to navigating the hospital system to living day-to-day to paying for services that NHI doesn’t cover, it is assumed you have a support network.
If you don’t…
This is not unique to Taiwan: around the world you will find doctors who are empathetic, caring and understanding and can reach patients, and those who don’t make those connections as easily. In Taiwan, that means for every doctor like the one who’d agreed to see Yvonne on an atypical day, and who took care to keep tabs on her situation knowing she had no other professional support, there is likely one whose manner does not meet a patients’ needs.
Yvonne was living with her boyfriend, but it was clear from the instability of that relationship that she would at least need an alternative open to her if it ever did end. Again, Taiwan failed her. She could have stayed with me - and I offered, with Brendan’s support, and gave her a key that she could use anytime - but we both knew it wouldn’t be a good idea to make that permanent. Her disability payments were not enough to cover housing, and her family, who lived in central Taiwan, had long since rejected her (I will not go into their relationship here - I had Yvonne’s consent to write about her situation, but I never asked if I could include her family history, so I won’t).
The disability payments seem designed for people who cannot work but have a place to stay - generally, it is assumed, with family. Although homeless shelters exist, and there are welfare organizations such as Harmony Home for people with specific illnesses (in Harmony Home’s case, HIV/AIDS), a long-term sponsored or subsidized living option does not appear to be available (or widely available - while options may exist, even after several searches I was unable to locate any) to people in Yvonne’s situation. A mutual friend and I discussed whether group living options were available, perhaps with flexible work opportunities for those who might not be able to be reliable as traditional employees, but neither of us could find such a place.
In short, when you have no family to take you in, but no ability to earn enough income to live on your own, there are few if any options available to you in Taiwan. It almost feels as though the healthcare system is designed with the assumption that everyone has family to support them, or with the unconscious belief that if your family has disowned or rejected you, it must somehow be your fault. From simply finding the right care to navigating the hospital system to living day-to-day to paying for services that NHI doesn’t cover, it is assumed you have a support network.
If you don’t…
Yvonne seemed to be in a good mood, or at least a clear mood. We talked about things other than her illness: her cats, her boyfriend, her family, our mutual former employer and how awful they were (they were a part of the reason she was in such a bad financial situation). Music she liked. When we’d meet next, perhaps for dinner or coffee. I pointed out that I was leaving in a week, and it’s likely we wouldn’t be able to meet before then, but if she really needed someone she could always come over, or if she couldn’t manage that, I’d send a taxi to pick her up.
She repeated that she agreed with me that she was going to have to stop drinking and start taking her medication. I knew it wouldn’t be as cut-and-dried as that - wrangling alcoholism and medication rarely are - but as we started to say goodbye, I hoped that at least it was a path she was ready to start down.
She repeated that she agreed with me that she was going to have to stop drinking and start taking her medication. I knew it wouldn’t be as cut-and-dried as that - wrangling alcoholism and medication rarely are - but as we started to say goodbye, I hoped that at least it was a path she was ready to start down.
“I really think I’ll be OK, y’know,” she said jus before we parted ways. “Maybe I don’t even need therapy. It’s not like I have suicidal ideation or anything like that.”
At the time I’d been happy to hear a clear indication that she was not considering taking her life. Of course, looking back, that statement was the reddest of flags.
We chatted online a few more times before I left, mostly about nothing terribly important. She said she was feeling up, and other friends agreed she seemed to be doing a bit better. I didn’t reply immediately to her chatty messages, but I did reply. She asked if she was bothering me with ‘chatter’. I said no, I was just working is all, but I’d always respond when I was free. It was true.
At the time I’d been happy to hear a clear indication that she was not considering taking her life. Of course, looking back, that statement was the reddest of flags.
We chatted online a few more times before I left, mostly about nothing terribly important. She said she was feeling up, and other friends agreed she seemed to be doing a bit better. I didn’t reply immediately to her chatty messages, but I did reply. She asked if she was bothering me with ‘chatter’. I said no, I was just working is all, but I’d always respond when I was free. It was true.
Mutual friends talked about how to support her while I was away, and we thought it’d be okay, at least for the summer. The system was failing her, her family was failing her, her relationship was rocky, but she had us and while we couldn’t replace the full support system she needed, we could do our best to create a basic safety net.
The next week, Brendan and I left for the airport early in the morning. It was May 24th - I would not be back in Taiwan until August 9th. We flew first to Greece, where we enjoyed ourselves as well as seeking out an important piece of my family history.
On our second day there, we were sitting in the cafe near our Airbnb drinking Greek coffee and reading. I was working out how we were going to get to the Athens suburbs the next day. We’d gone to the Acropolis that morning and were sunburned, got lost trying to find a post office, and were planning to go to the Acropolis museum that evening.
Then, I got a message from one of those mutual friends - Yvonne had committed suicide on either May 22nd or 23rd. It would later be determined that she’d taken a number of pills with alcohol.
I sat there, shocked, not knowing how to even begin to process it. For those of you who know me on Facebook, if I sounded unemotional or as though I were unaffected in my upbeat travel posts, it was because my brain went into overtime compartmentalizing, unsure of how to react let alone handle what had happened.
The next week, Brendan and I left for the airport early in the morning. It was May 24th - I would not be back in Taiwan until August 9th. We flew first to Greece, where we enjoyed ourselves as well as seeking out an important piece of my family history.
On our second day there, we were sitting in the cafe near our Airbnb drinking Greek coffee and reading. I was working out how we were going to get to the Athens suburbs the next day. We’d gone to the Acropolis that morning and were sunburned, got lost trying to find a post office, and were planning to go to the Acropolis museum that evening.
Then, I got a message from one of those mutual friends - Yvonne had committed suicide on either May 22nd or 23rd. It would later be determined that she’d taken a number of pills with alcohol.
I sat there, shocked, not knowing how to even begin to process it. For those of you who know me on Facebook, if I sounded unemotional or as though I were unaffected in my upbeat travel posts, it was because my brain went into overtime compartmentalizing, unsure of how to react let alone handle what had happened.
I’m still not sure how to process it. It feels unreal, as though it didn’t really happen. As I’m not in Taiwan right now, it feels as though I’ll return in August and Yvonne will still be around. I suspect when I return is when the real processing will begin.
I’ve been circling this for a week, unsure of how to write about it, although I knew I wanted to, and know Yvonne had wanted me to write about the system that had so profoundly failed her. I’ve probably painted myself to be an angel in this story, but honestly, I don’t feel I was. I’m neither looking for, nor do I want, sympathy for the pain of losing a friend nor the guilt of feeling like I could have done more. It’s just the truth and ought to be said. I had laid down a boundary that I did not want phone calls after midnight or before 8am (Yvonne had a habit of calling at odd hours and talking for a very long time) - would things have been different if I’d just taken those calls? Or if I’d responded to those final messages more promptly? If I’d searched just a little bit harder for affordable therapy, group living options or anything else that could have helped Yvonne? If I’d been more insistent that I wanted her to stay with us? If I’d given her a bit more money so her financial situation didn’t seem so hopeless? (I’d given her some, not more than I could afford to lose).
Intellectually I know none of these things would have changed much - she needed more help than a few chat messages could have provided - but emotions are slow to follow what the intellect knows.
I’ve been circling this for a week, unsure of how to write about it, although I knew I wanted to, and know Yvonne had wanted me to write about the system that had so profoundly failed her. I’ve probably painted myself to be an angel in this story, but honestly, I don’t feel I was. I’m neither looking for, nor do I want, sympathy for the pain of losing a friend nor the guilt of feeling like I could have done more. It’s just the truth and ought to be said. I had laid down a boundary that I did not want phone calls after midnight or before 8am (Yvonne had a habit of calling at odd hours and talking for a very long time) - would things have been different if I’d just taken those calls? Or if I’d responded to those final messages more promptly? If I’d searched just a little bit harder for affordable therapy, group living options or anything else that could have helped Yvonne? If I’d been more insistent that I wanted her to stay with us? If I’d given her a bit more money so her financial situation didn’t seem so hopeless? (I’d given her some, not more than I could afford to lose).
Intellectually I know none of these things would have changed much - she needed more help than a few chat messages could have provided - but emotions are slow to follow what the intellect knows.
Or - and this is the key - would it have changed anything if I’d not been so blind to the obvious red flags? Someone seeming like they’re doing a bit better is not a sign that they’re not about to take their life. In fact, it could be a sign that they are. Mentioning twice, unbidden, in one conversation that one is not contemplating suicide is also a clear sign something is wrong. If I’d stopped for half a second to think about it I might have seen that for what it was.
The painful fact remains, however, that the health care system we praise so much - praise which is often, but not always, deserved - failed Yvonne, and it cost her her life. In Taiwan if you don’t have the means to pay for needed treatment that NHI either doesn’t cover or doesn’t cover adequately, and don’t have family to support you, it is a difficult road indeed getting the level of care you need. This is true in terms of physical illnesses - in Taiwan, the hospital staff doesn’t care for you the way they would in other countries (of course, in the US you might not be able to afford a hospital bill). What do you do if you’re in the hospital and have nobody to take care of you, but can’t pay a nurse to care for you either?
It is also true, if not doubly true, for mental illnesses. What do you do if you are so physically or mentally ill that you cannot navigate the maze of windows, queues and numbers at the hospital and have nobody to go with you? What do you do if you need consistent psychological or psychiatric support but cannot afford specific therapies that might be beneficial? What do you do if you can’t work, but have no family to live with? To some extent, these are questions one might face in other countries, especially the USA. The difference is that, unlike the US, Taiwan has a healthcare system that is consistently praised and looked at as a source of national pride.
Looking back, I can see how hopeless Yvonne must have felt. No family, nowhere to live permanently, no way to make money, no way to be independent, insufficient help from the system. Friends who tried to do their best but were ultimately not able to make up for these gaps in the social fabric.
The base assumption really does seem to be that either you are financially independent and can afford what you need on your own, or (more likely) you have family who can do it for you. At the very least, it seems to be assumed that you can live with relatives.
This is not the basis for a modern healthcare system or social welfare system. I’ll always remember Yvonne, but I can’t help but think the system couldn’t have cared less about her. As a result, Taiwan lost one of its smartest, kindest, most loyal citizens, and I lost a good friend.
The painful fact remains, however, that the health care system we praise so much - praise which is often, but not always, deserved - failed Yvonne, and it cost her her life. In Taiwan if you don’t have the means to pay for needed treatment that NHI either doesn’t cover or doesn’t cover adequately, and don’t have family to support you, it is a difficult road indeed getting the level of care you need. This is true in terms of physical illnesses - in Taiwan, the hospital staff doesn’t care for you the way they would in other countries (of course, in the US you might not be able to afford a hospital bill). What do you do if you’re in the hospital and have nobody to take care of you, but can’t pay a nurse to care for you either?
It is also true, if not doubly true, for mental illnesses. What do you do if you are so physically or mentally ill that you cannot navigate the maze of windows, queues and numbers at the hospital and have nobody to go with you? What do you do if you need consistent psychological or psychiatric support but cannot afford specific therapies that might be beneficial? What do you do if you can’t work, but have no family to live with? To some extent, these are questions one might face in other countries, especially the USA. The difference is that, unlike the US, Taiwan has a healthcare system that is consistently praised and looked at as a source of national pride.
Looking back, I can see how hopeless Yvonne must have felt. No family, nowhere to live permanently, no way to make money, no way to be independent, insufficient help from the system. Friends who tried to do their best but were ultimately not able to make up for these gaps in the social fabric.
The base assumption really does seem to be that either you are financially independent and can afford what you need on your own, or (more likely) you have family who can do it for you. At the very least, it seems to be assumed that you can live with relatives.
This is not the basis for a modern healthcare system or social welfare system. I’ll always remember Yvonne, but I can’t help but think the system couldn’t have cared less about her. As a result, Taiwan lost one of its smartest, kindest, most loyal citizens, and I lost a good friend.
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