Whose land is this? A drive through Tainan County

On the outskirts of Jingliao (菁寮) near the Chiayi border

This post has been a long time coming - I took this trip in the early summer of 2017, the last of several successive visits to Tainan between March 2016 and April 2017.

In fact I remember exactly which day we left, because it was the day that the Sunflowers put on trial were acquitted, a happy outcome that I learned about on the HSR south.

Why Tainan? Well, I just happen to really like the place. If they had better public transport - and I had a good job offer - I'd live there. Some of these trips - I think I went four times in total - were for fun. Twice, I got sent there for work for two completely unrelated reasons (my love of Tainan is so well-known that even my various employers are aware of it, so I have something like first dibs on any work in that city). Once, I took my visiting cousin down so he could see more of the country.

This time, a friend of ours had wanted to explore not Tainan City but Tainan County (which is now like greater Tainan City, they've incorporated the whole thing, but that's stupid and I still differentiate). Unfortunately, the lack of good public transport means if you want to do that, you pretty much have to drive. Other options if driving is not possible include hiring taxis to get you from one town to the other - possible if you pre-arrange it - or doing day trips from Tainan City. Neither of these are as fun as driving yourself.

I know what you're thinking - if there's one thing we know about Jenna, it's that she hates driving and is quite happy to tell you so, repeatedly! And you're kind of right. I do hate driving...in cities. In the open country it can actually be quite nice. I actually do have a license and international driver's permit, because once I'm out of the city I'm not at all opposed to renting a car.

That said, although this trip was meant to be just about Tainan's rural stretches, I can never resist a day in the city - I managed to convince our friend to leave a day early and just chill downtown because who doesn't love that?

We ate a hell of a lot of food, including braised meat rice (picture below), eel noodles, milkfish congee with fried pastry stick, glutinous meat balls with wasabi, 碗粿 (a glutinous bowl of tasty stuff topped with gravy and egg - I'll find the address later but it's super famous), my favorite melon with ice cream, and beef soup (there are many good places to have this - try this one).




Otherwise, we just chilled in the city - lots of temples, cafes, atmospheric streets and old buildings to hang out in. What else does one do in Tainan with a free day?

And you know what else I love about Tainan City - other than everything except the crap public transport? That you are definitely in a city, but it's hard to tell sometimes with all the atmospheric backstreets.

So, before we hit the road, enjoy some pictures:

The Five Concubines Temple - with feminine offerings for the five hanged ladies

At Narrow Door Cafe (窄門咖啡)

it's the Jesus-mobile!

This says "the KMT needs to change...we need you to join and give us power!" (or something like that).
Ha. I mean that the KMT campaigns in Tainan at all is a joke, but...

The next day, we headed back to the HSR to pick up a rental car. We weren't quite done with Tainan City yet, though - I'd wanted to go to the National Museum of Taiwan History for some time. It's near Tainan City, but not that easy to get to by public transit, so we decided to pick up the car first and drive.

Just outside is a huge map of Taiwan, in a satellite style, but imagined as it would have looked in prehistoric times (this has a filter on it which is why it looks odd):

I noted with mixed emotion the very first placard you see when you walk in:

Would someone please send a copy of this to the government? 

...because this is a lovely sentiment, but so far removed from the reality of Taiwan's immigration laws that it makes me want to cry.

I mean, I would love to declare with a loud voice that "I am a Taiwanese", but that's so far from being mainstream accepted - and let's face it, I do come from a wildly different cultural background on the other side of the world, living in a country that has only recently started to consider its own diverse history. Taiwan is not a monoculture, but not everyone's figured that out yet. A friend once pointed out that if we feel that those who came from China in the 1940s would be well-advised to consider themselves "Taiwanese" rather than telling the Taiwanese that they are Chinese (which the Taiwanese are, for the record, not particularly interested in hearing), then we can't ourselves turn around and say that we as permanent residents of Taiwan are "not" Taiwanese.

And yet, I don't know whose land this is, but it doesn't really feel like mine yet. Not because I don't want it to, but because others don't necessarily want it to, or haven't even realized that it's a possibility yet.

The museum itself is great - it's structured more along the lines of learning about history through imagery than showing actual artifacts - all, or almost all, of the artifacts on display are high-quality reproductions. But, for that it was still interesting.

We stayed until the museum closed, and then drove to Xinhua, not far from Tainan City, arriving just before dark.

We stayed at 老街168民宿 - a hotel just across the street from the park at the end of the old street (you'll know it because it's the one with the Japanese-era martial arts hall to one side). There's not much to do in Xinhua after dark, but we entertained ourselves - Xinhua is famous for its goat meat, so we went to a restaurant recommended by our hotel. There are a few such restaurants near the Zhongxing Rd. and Fuxing Rd. intersection not far away (I can't remember which one we ate at exactly).

Then we wandered a bit, not finding a night market or anything like that but coming across a fairly normal old temple, that is, except for these terrifying decorations:




If you take the old street (Heping Street) to Zhongzheng Road and turn left, you'll pass it eventually.

Xinhua has a very pretty old street that is - as yet - undeveloped. Other than a single coffee shop, there isn't much to do other than look at the lovely Japanese-era buildings, although some of the lanes are very atmospheric.

There's also an old-school market:





Some pretty Xinhua old street houses (filtered because the flat white sky wasn't very appealing):








Lanes and backstreets - worth walking down: 




I'm telling you that market was great - meat + underpants!

We wandered until we got bored, drank some coffee then walked a little bit more in town, finding this abandoned house: 



You can just about peek in the window: 



We're not Synapticism, so we didn't break in, but it was pretty cool.

That seemed to exhaust what Xinhua had to offer, so we hopped in the car and took off for Moon World.
 


It sounds like a terrible theme park, but it's not - it's a large area of badlands on the Tainan/Kaohsiung border - eroded mudstone that looks like a lunar landscape. 





There is still some plant life, and a few people do live around here. The smoke you see in the photo above, though, is from some sort of draft pulling dust off of "Little Jade Mountain". And just in case you didn't believe me, see, here's proof. I can and do drive.

Just not in cities.

The roads around here are actually quite lovely to drive in, and I'm pretty good at hills and mountains - the best of the three of us, frankly. I don't mind this kind of jaunt in a car at all. The weather was so nice we kept the windows down and let the warm breeze flow in. No AC for us!







Since I was the driver, not the navigator, I don't actually remember the route we took but I believe we drove the南168 to the 南171, eventually turning off down a series of country roads - anything to avoid the highway, besides the scenery is better - to finally hit the 20. We stopped at some lovely lookouts - more than one, in fact:






And otherwise took to the backcountry, the types of places that make you want to sing 黃昏故鄉 at the top of your lungs, if you speak Taiwanese, which I don't.

But I won't lie, I saw this landscape in the late afternoon and keyed it up - different arrangement though - on the driving playlist. Twice. Hey, don't judge. It's not my hometown, but I can still find it beautiful in the yellowing light. It's not my land, but I love it anyway.

We slowed down to enjoy the scenery with this playing and some local dude peeked in the car, saw three whiteys and got the shock of his life, and that was just great.





From there it was a gentle twilight drive over the Tainan-Kaohsiung border to our accommodation for the night in Jiaxian (甲仙), just across the way in Kaohsiung.

Jiaxian isn't anything special, but we had a good dinner (I can't find the restaurant on Google Maps) with preserved tofu fried chicken with sour plums (豆腐乳酸梅炸雞) and some other dishes, and as the area is famous for taro, some taro balls for dessert. Then some taro ice cream. The bridge into town is painted the color of taro, as well.

We stayed at Gooddays near the bridge - yes, they have a Jiaxian store - and I picked up a few gifts in their gift shop downstairs.

But there's not a lot else to do in Jiaxian, so this is the only photo I took worth sharing:

taro + cat

The next day after breakfast we hit the road again, this time back across the bridge and up into the hills past Nanhua Reservoir. We took the 南179 with gorgeous views across, noting how low the water seemed at the time (that was in early April - I sure hope things have gotten better. I'm going to assume they have as the only time of year when our destination on the far side is accessible is right when we went).




Our goal was Dadigu (大地谷), a small gorge on the far side, where the resevoir narrows considerably. What you do is this: there's a small parking lot about 500 meters up from the trail down to the reservoir, which is dry enough only at that time of year - I guess March/April but check ahead - to cross on foot. Then you can either head down from the parking lot or walk down the 500 meters or so to the main trailhead, which seemed easier. The parking lot is small and it fills up - be warned. We had to wedge ourselves in near the entrance and it was a bit precarious.

When you hit the bottom of the trail, what you see is this:




A dry reservoir bed, where hikers have already put wooden planks over muddy rivulets so you can get across to the gorge. Just follow the people - there are always people going there, the place is thoroughly discovered.

On the other side after an easy, flat but sun-baked hike (only go on dry days - trust me) you reach a small cave-like opening in the hill on the other side. Climb over the rocks and enter and what you get to is this:

Joseph matches the rocks

This place is so discovered, we weren't even the only foreigners there.

There's a ledge you can climb up to, and a watering hole at the far end with a small waterfall that is safe for a dip, but not deep enough to swim in. I love a good dip in the water, and we'd just trudged across a baking reservoir bed in the heat, sun and dust, so I took off my hiking boots and walked right in, happy I was wearing my quick dry hiking slacks. The guys did not join me.

We then hiked back up to the car and hit the road, reaching the plains in time for a (late) lunch.

If there are two things I love, they are mangoes and Taiwanese political history. So, it's no surprise that I asked to include a stop in Yujing - an otherwise unremarkable little town on the Tainan plains - on our itinerary. It seemed like a good place to go for lunch. We had a thoroughly unremarkable lunch in the sleepy town at midday - it wasn't bad...it was just...fine. I guess. In fact, it was so "um, fine" that it led us to create a little jingle: Everybody loves food that's fine! 

I then remembered that there was no reason at all to stop for mangoes as they weren't in season. Whatever, my plan was perfect, y'all are just haters. I bought some dried mangoes elsewhere. They were good, I'll have you know.

A political cartoon in the Tapani Incident Memorial

We then headed to the Tapani Incident Memorial (噍吧哖事件紀念園區), which is on the outskirts of Yujing town. I had estimated that it wouldn't take us long and I was right: it's a small area, and all of the exhibits are exclusively in Chinese (when that happens I don't try to read everything, I just skim whatever looks interesting). I can't blame them - I would not expect too many foreigners to drop by. But I'm a nerd so we did.

I won't bother to tell the story of the (failed) Tapani Incident here - there's a tiny little summary on Wikipedia, and it's memorialized in the Kou Chou Ching song Civil Revolt Part 2 - well, if you speak Taiwanese or Chinese that is. The song starts with the Taiwanese lyric "這是誰的土地" (Whose land is this?)

And, you know what? It's not mine, not really. But I love it anyway.

Anyway, I don't have a folksy attachment to this particular historical incident or anything, I just thought it would be interesting to swing by. The temple across the street, which played some role in the incident, is also quite atmospheric.










I love a good temple, and this was a very good one.

Anyway, we also found a gelato shop - not so different from something you might find in a smart shopping area downtown in any of Taiwan's larger cities - selling all manner of gelato, many of them based on quintessentially Taiwanese flavors. Along with mango, chocolate, lemon, rose and other flavors, options included milk candy (the Taiwanese kind), milk tea and Pipa Gao cough syrup (no, I am not making that up):




And you know what? It was really good gelato. Perfect for a sunny tropical day.

We also found some creepy abandoned children's rides and a few cats:






...and that was that for Yujing.

We took the 3 out of town, headed for Guanziling (關子嶺), with plans to stop at the Chiang Family Compound (鹿陶洋江家聚落 - a little family village for the Chiang family, full of historic old-style houses). Although the sun was exactly wrong for taking good photos, here are a few:










This was our last stop on the plains for the day. We then hit the mountains, stopping along the way for coffee and a nice view as the sun went down:





We hit Guanziling after dark. The town is famous for three things: muddy hot springs, chicken you tear apart with your hands, and the "fire on water" (a combination of flammable gas and hot spring mineral water which pours out of the hillside, so it looks like the fire is emanating from the water).

I took a muddy hot spring bath at our hotel, which I don't have a picture of. The chicken was good:



...though that is a horrible picture of me.

And we did stop by the fire-on-water thing, and found it thoroughly unremarkable. A total tourist trap.

Drank a lot of beer though.

The next morning we packed up the car for the final time, stopped for coffee with another lovely view:




And then stopped at a temple in the hills (火山碧雲寺) before hitting the plains again. The temple is worth it for the views alone, but also has some nice stuff inside:








We drove down to one of those "flower streets" - this one outside the town of Baihe (白河) that are so famous in Tainan, which was supposed to be at the end of its blooming season but still covered with flowers, and we were sorely disappointed:



The only way to make the picture even a little interesting is to filter it to hell and back. Meh. I like it when the photos are good without having to do that.

We then headed to the tiny town of Jingliao (菁寮), and I'm not telling you how we got there because I honestly have no idea. We took a lot of weird back roads, which were great for scenery but not exactly great for remembering how exactly we criss-crossed the county.

You see weird things on weird back roads. 

Jingliao is well-known for having some of the best-preserved historic architecture in Taiwan, and yet although it's meant to be something of a tourist draw, there was hardly anyone there. That's fine by me. Though it did make it hard to find a decent lunch - I think we just ate some completely flavorless steamed buns (Everybody loves food that's fine!) and walked around. It is a truly pretty little town.

But, pretty as it is, there's not a lot to do. So, we found the cow we'd parked near (not joking), navigated back to the car and headed for our final stop of the trip: Yanshui.

Yanshui is famous for holding the Beehive Fireworks Festival every year, which I took my cousin to in 2016. It was fun, but once is enough. We also arrived after dark that time, and didn't get to walk around what was a really cool little town, worth visiting when they aren't shooting firecrackers at people.

Unsatisfied with our hilariously sad Jingliao "lunch", our first stop was a Vietnamese restaurant that happened to be open all afternoon (a lot of restaurants close and we were trying to avoid a convenience store meal). It was quite good, in fact. Then, we wandered in the backstreets a bit, passing some lovely Japanese-era architecture. The most famous historic site in town is an old wooden tower - which I didn't see and learned nothing about, because it was closed for renovation at the time. Oh well. I'll blog it if we ever return.

But we did visit the Holy Trinity Catholic Church, which is famous for its murals depicting Biblical figures as Chinese deities, and then walked down Qiaonan Old Street (橋南老街), which was lovely and had almost no people, though we did find a cafe to take a rest in. Yanshui isn't that small, and doesn't have public transit, but it was just urban enough that none of us wanted to drive, so we walked. And walked. And walked. A place to sit for a bit was a welcome respite.

Yes, this is the Last Supper except everyone is Chinese. 

Chinese Jesus, Mary and Joseph

At that point, the sun was setting again and it was time to head back to Taipei. From Yanshui, one is actually much closer to Chiayi HSR Station than Tainan. Sick of driving, I handed the keys to Brendan and we headed north. We'd crossed all of Tainan County, from Kaohsiung in the south to Chiayi in the north, and still not felt in four days like we'd done everything there is to do there. I'll certainly be back - after all, I always return to Tainan. I do imagine I will live there someday.

From modern cafes to old temples and traditional food in downtown Tainan to a war memorial for an incident that took place under Japanese rule in 1915 - and then high-end gelato - in Yujing, to old Chinese-style farmhouses in Jingliao and Japanese colonial architecture in Yanshui, I started to think it was silly to ask "who's land is this?" - it's very obviously the land of the people who live here.

I live here too, and while I won't yet be so arrogant as to claim it's also my land, I do love it nonetheless.

Islands in the Stream: on a lack of mentoring in ELT in Taiwan

Just recently, an opportunity more or less fell in my lap.

Well, I say that as though it appeared out of nowhere with no work on my part, but that's not entirely true. As a result of completing a Cambridge Delta, I made useful connections in the professional teaching world in Taiwan: a network I wouldn't have been able to build if I hadn't put in that work and, I suppose, stood out while doing it. One of those people helped ensure we had access to the reading and sources we needed and has been a supportive person in the field since. He hasn't been the only supportive person, but he's certainly been the most supportive one. Hence, a chance to level up. Climb one ring higher on the professional ladder.

In other ways, I've had peers, trainers and other TEFL professionals - yes, it is a profession if you do it properly - who have been helpful or supportive. What I've learned on all of these qualification and degree courses, including in my current MEd program, have been useful and interesting and have helped me develop as a teacher, but arguably the biggest benefit has been connecting to this international network of professional teachers more as I progress professionally. This is true in any field - TEFL is no less different once you get out of the "fancy daycare" sewer end.

I have tried to pass that on as much as I am able, referring people I felt were talented, doing classroom observations and giving feedback, being a part of a group that meets to discuss TEFL-related issues and loaning out books from my now-considerable professional library. I hope to do more of it in the future.

But, I've been lucky. I was in a position where I was able to do the Delta and move on to the MEd (again, with support not just professionally but financially), and having the foothold to even do that can be an obstacle for many in Taiwan. Even so, despite my good luck, local support is minimal: a handful of dedicated people at best.

Yes, there are associations - well, there's one - and very few of the long-term professionals I know attend their events. I've been given several reasons for this which I won't repeat here.

In any case, associations aren't really the answer - what the TEFL world in Taiwan seems to lack is mentoring. 

Some could benefit from group or individual support when studying for Delta, as it can seem like an impossible feat. Some need the security of knowing there are people who can be their Delta tutors - but in Taiwan, the pool of qualified people is tiny, and most don't have the time (myself included - I'm not there yet but I will be soon, and I can only hope that at that point, I will have the time).

Some have trouble even accessing the readings they need for Delta and Master's programs - someone in Taiwan likely has the books they need, but it's hard to know who.

Some quite rightly want to find work that will help sponsor them for professional development, which is not impossible but certainly rare.

Some burn out as university teachers in an academic setting with little support, because the language department is so poorly run - low pay, purposeless meetings, large class sizes, with no incentive to publish nor many opportunities to collaborate with others on development, research or publication. There don't seem to be too many mentors there, either, nor much advice they can offer for dealing with such poor working conditions.

Some are talented but can't get their foot in the door at institutions that would value them because of bad timing and a lack of opportunities to demonstrate that talent.

The support I'm talking about doesn't have to be very high-level: it needn't be advanced degree holders working together or reaching out to bring others up. It could be peer-to-peer, with teachers working together within schools - yes, even buxibans - and finding, creating or referring opportunities to receive or provide training, observe each other for learning/feedback, design or improve a curriculum or syllabus or research or write. Yet not even that is always readily available. Not even the "fancy daycares" need to be the "sewer end" of the industry, and arguably would be far more pleasant places to work if there were more incentives to work together. It doesn't have to be as horrible as it is, and it should be easier to climb out and do better than $600/hour in an insecure job where educating the learners is not the chief priority.

All in all, people just don't seem to talk. The official learning and classwork inherent in professional development is important, but so is talking, and it's not happening. I know quite a few professionals in the field, and none so far has described to me a real mentoring experience they've had in Taiwan. Having that former Delta tutor who has passed opportunities my way - essentially a form of the mentorship I'm talking about - feels like a stroke of luck few others get in Taiwan.

I'm describing what I see in the foreign teaching community here, but I'm not sure it's much better in local circles. Certainly, local and foreign teaching circles don't overlap much, which is another problem. They can and should. Why they don't is beyond me, although I can't help but think we are actively disincentivized from creating such an environment.

Across the sea, I see a friend teaching at a university in Japan who goes to conferences across the country, has a strong professional network, is able to publish and attend conferences abroad, and is not only able to climb the ladder, but there is a ladder to climb. She has people to talk shop with, people to meet, avenues of collaboration.

I want that for Taiwan. While I know that anything that happens here will necessarily be smaller-scale, it's sad that it doesn't seem to exist much at all.

One problem is the difficulty in accessing the professional development training where one builds such networks. While arguably fair for a fresh college graduate to be earning NT$600 a month - this works out to about US$20/hour in a country that's cheaper to live in - it's not enough to save to go abroad to do training. There is little professional development available in Taiwan itself (yet).

Another is that the vast majority of English teachers in Taiwan are unqualified. A strong professional support network of mentors and mentees requires a mix of leaders and learners, and there are so few leaders in education in Taiwan. I can name maybe 20 whom I know personally in the foreign community outside of the international schools, and I'd imagine some out there whom I don't know - but the number is likely quite small. Many schools have teacher trainers, most of whom were given the job because they've been teaching a few years longer, nothing more. While there is value in this, teaching for a longer period of time doesn't necessarily make one a better teacher (though it helps) or necessarily qualified to train. Many of the truly qualified ones I know in Taiwan are either too busy to take on that kind of role, and some have either left or are planning to leave. Of those, I've heard more than one story of someone who doesn't want to leave, but feels pushed out by how education works in Taiwan.

Of those who stay, as far as I know not one of them stays because they think the situation here is great. They stay, as I do, because they want to be here. It actively costs them career-wise, as it will probably cost me.

It doesn't help, either, that most institutions are run by businesspeople with no background in education. Although the atmosphere is collegial at my various workplaces now, I've seen plenty where building professional relationships for development purposes wasn't even considered, because it didn't occur to the businessperson at the top that teachers were professionals who could benefit from it. Other times, it's simply not encouraged, or seen as an active threat (in one memorable case I think they worried about us organizing, and organized labor is more difficult to exploit). Certainly as all such work is currently unpaid at most institutions, leading to a further lack of incentives.

I'm not sure what to do about all this except to do my best to be a mentor myself to the extent that I am able. When I reached out my arms, a few people pulled me up; I want to do the same for others. But if we create a stronger professional support network in Taiwan, it will make professional development easier and more accessible. We might not have a ladder in terms of training programs (yet) but we really ought to have one in terms of networking and support.

My latest for Ketagalan Media: we need to raise awareness about immigration reform

I know I've beaten this topic to death, but I don't feel bad about that - as my latest piece for Ketagalan Media makes clear, a huge part of the problem is either a lack of awareness about or a misunderstanding of immigration laws in Taiwan. It's a common misconception that Taiwanese don't support dual nationality. Some don't, but generally speaking the issue is that they're not aware it's not already possible.

If there is one thing I want to drive home, it's this: my beef is with the double standard surrounding immigration laws.

When it comes to dual nationality alone, some countries allow it, and many don't. The key here is that those who do allow it for all, and those who don't allow it for none. Take China and Japan, for example. Those countries don't allow dual nationality either - few in Asia do. However, the same rule applies to those born as citizens of those countries just as it applies to those wishing to naturalize.

Some countries, such as Austria, only allow dual nationality under special circumstances. However, the law still applies to both born and naturalized citizens equally. Although it is unlikely that a naturalized Austrian may be granted leave to retain his or her original nationality, it is still theoretically possible, just as it is for a born Austrian.

The only other exception I can find is South Korea, and as I don't live there and the laws changed recently, rendering a lot of the information online outdated, I'm not even fully clear on that.

While I would not support Taiwan abolishing dual nationality for everyone, if they did so, at least I'd have no basis to complain about a double standard. The law would stink, but it would at least apply fairly to all people.

That, right there, is the crux of the problem, and that is what so few people understand.

Let's talk about sex education in Taiwan

It's a popular expat pastime to point out ways that Taiwan is different from one's home country - you know, the typical "back home we have churches but here we have temples" type of narrative. I do it myself sometimes. There's nothing wrong with that type of story - vive la difference and all - but it's interesting sometimes to look at ways in which countries on two different ends of the world are more alike than they are different - for better or worse. And sometimes both.

This is one of those "both" times - an interesting article appeared on NPR pointing out Taiwan's forward thinking sex education curriculum (although implementation is far from perfect, as teachers incorporate it into other subjects as they see fit) as well as opposition to it. Both good (the modern, pragmatic curriculum content) and bad (anti-gay groups saying the same-sex relationship education is 'improper') are quite similar to the debate over this issue that goes on in my own country.

I've long been critical of sex education in the USA - as the article points out, what is taught (if anything) is state rather than federally mandated, so American children in different states might graduate with wildly different knowledge about sex and reproduction. More age-appropriate knowledge is always better in this regard (with "age appropriate" meaning "a strong knowledge base before a young person becomes sexually active, and whatever knowledge they are curious about regardless of age"), so it is never a good thing for a student in one state to have less knowledge than a student in another. When sex ed is taught, as it was in my school, I wonder about the content. I learned about sexually transmitted diseases and reproduction, but did not learn much about female anatomy - I had to inquire on my own to learn that one can pee with a tampon in, for example, and that's just unfortunate as it should have been taught - and nothing at all about physically and emotionally healthy sexual relationships (with the emotional part especially ignored). I learned that from a combination of talking with my mother, reading a book she'd given me, and honestly, learning on my own.

Imagine if I hadn't had a good upbringing or open-minded mother. Imagine what I might not have known about healthy sexuality simply because I was born into a more conservative family or state. Imagine how much of a problem that might have been for me as an adult - even with a pretty good education in these matters from home, I still made (relatively minor) mistakes. What sorts of bigger mistakes might I have made without this healthy upbringing?

And, frankly, I think it's just stupid to pretend sex - and how to enjoy it in a healthy way - is somehow a shameful topic that we must avoid talking about to children or even in (some) polite company. Everyone is either doin' it, will do it, or wants to do it. It makes about as much sense to pretend it doesn't exist as not building public bathrooms (we all excrete, too) or not eating in public or even talking about eating or admitting we eat. I also think it's stupid to consider basic health education, including how to have healthy relationships in general, as inappropriate for children. If you're old enough to notice that you have sex organs, you are old enough to know what they're for. If you're old enough to know how and why you poop, you are old enough to know how babies are made. If you're old enough to know that your parents (hopefully) have sex, you're old enough to know the good things and dangers of doing it yourself.

And if you're old enough to ask, you're old enough to deserve an answer.

So, yeah, not too happy with my own country on this front. If we could stop being so terrified of a basic (and fun!) biological function, maybe we could have a happier and healthier population as a whole. If we could do that, maybe we could understand this biology in a more evidence-based way, which would lead to less misogyny and gender discrimination and less homophobia and anti-gay fearmongering.

As for Taiwan, frankly, I'm not sure what to make of sex ed here. I know a curriculum exists, and I have seen with my own eyes attempts at public service campaigns on the topic: I once had a culture shock moment in the MRT as I watched a safe sex commercial play on the televisions that announce the time of the next train. And yet, I'm  surprised by how often I come across straight-up head-scratcher beliefs. For example:

- That you cannot or should not use a tampon if you are a virgin
- That if you merely sleep in the same bed as a person of the opposite sex, you might get pregnant
- That if you drink cold drinks on your period, the menstrual lining will "harden" and stop flowing out (I know this one comes from older Chinese beliefs, but to me, hearing it is akin to hearing a Westerner talk about the healing properties of leeches)
- That homosexuality leads to AIDS epidemics
- That the percentage of LGBT people would decrease if we'd only raise children a certain way
- That it is "not normal" to be gay (often backed up with painfully flawed historical or demographic arguments)
- That criminalizing sex work will stop it
- That teaching abstinence or withholding education will stop young people from having sex
- That men "always" want to have sex but women "usually don't"
- That sex is a female "duty" to her husband


...so, basically, aside from the whole no-cold-drinks-on-yer-period thing it's more or less just like the US. As I don't think the US's sex education programs are particularly praiseworthy, I also have to wonder if Taiwan's national program is effective as so many of the same myths and misconceptions persist. It's even the same people - those anti-gay, usually religious types who are a few conspiracy theories shy of thinking the Earth is flat, who want to impose their ridiculous and frankly made-up morality on the rest of us - causing trouble and spreading lies.

A little slice of America in the Far East. In the worst possible way.

It's a shame, because unlike the US where a Puritanical past coupled with (pun intended) waves of immigrants who, while they bring diversity to the US, might not exactly bring a cutting-edge understanding of sexuality, this never had to be the outcome in Taiwan. Taiwanese culture is often dismissed as "conservative" and "repressed" by foreigners who don't know better, but the reality is a lot more complicated than that, and is not necessarily always conservative by Western standards. There is room in Taiwanese culture to be open about these things.


And then there's hilarity like this:





This brochure is outdated now, but I still think it proves a point. I had originally thought of it as a good thing: an attempt to educate, albeit a flawed one. Now, I'm not so sure. Why is it in English? I don't remember seeing a similar on in Chinese (although one might exist). Do they think foreigners need to be educated to avoid "seductions in cities"? Are we seen as the problem? That's a problem in itself, but the childish presentation and straight-up hilarious English - why on Earth did they think that "工欲善其事，必先利其器" was a good idiom to use? This alone renders it useless and ineffective for even this misguided goal.

What's more, instead of all the useful information they could have put on the back, they chose "avoid seductions", "flowers with dazzling beauty can take your life" and...sharpening tools?

Despite all that talk of a progressive national sex education curriculum, is this really what it boils down to?

I don't know, as I don't work in a public school, I don't research this issue and although I've had friends tell me they had very little or no sex education in school, they are all old enough that their observations would not necessarily reflect today's reality.

So I'm not sure what to think, but I do know that Taiwan can, and should, improve in this area. It is entirely in keeping with local culture that it do so.

Half the world is flat: Western liberals and conceptions of Asia

Caffeine Cafe in Dilijan, Armenia

We hadn't had a lot to say over breakfast to the Danish couple sharing our homestay - I am notoriously antisocial in the mornings - but the golden evenings of the Armenian summer gave way to local wine, local vodka, homecooked food and talk of global affairs.

We had come up to Debed Canyon, our last stop in Armenia before heading across the Georgian border less than an hour to the north, from Yerevan via Dilijan, where we had spent a glorious few days doing very little except reading books on a wide wooden balcony overlooking a verdant hillscape. Caffeine Cafe was near our hotel in Dilijan and provided for all of our cafe needs. I remember thinking as we hung out there, The Black Keys on the sound system and single-origin coffee in the pot, young hipsters on their laptops with hair that screamed "Yes, I drink that single origin", that as much as world travelers like to think they're going to places where everything is different, and even the people think differently, in fact Caffeine was a place that would have been just as at home in Brooklyn...or Tainan. And I bet if I'd had a political conversation with any of these young Armenians, we would have agreed on quite a bit.

In contrast, Debed was taxing physically and bracing mentally. During the day we hiked from a monastery perched on one end of the canyon all the way down to the river at the base, crossed it and crawled up the vertiginous wall on the other, over a meadow and to its sister monastery on the opposite side.

Afterwards, stuffed with home-cooked Armenian food chased with entirely too much alcohol, we climbed vertiginous walls of conversation with the Danes. 

"But these ideas - human rights, democratic government - they were all created by Western cultures, and they serve Western cultures," he said. "They work there, because Westerners are individualists. But to insist that these ideas must be applied globally, that's cultural imperialism!"

I liked him. He was eloquent. He was also wrong.

Debed Canyon: Vertiginous walls

"The whole point is that they're not Western rights, they're human rights. They are meant to apply to all humans. Perhaps the idea of spelling out these particular rights came from the West, but there's a reason why the United Nations - not the United Western Nations, but the United Nations - has a human rights commission. And the whole idea of the right of self-determination - a democracy, I suppose - is that everyone has it. Otherwise, you are essentially saying Westerners deserve rights that others don't."

"It's Westerners who conceived of these rights, so yes, they apply to Westerners. It's Westerners who conceived of democracy, so we can assume it works best there. Asia is more collectivist, those cultures are not individualist the way we are. So these ideas just don't work the same way in those cultures, if they work at all. We can't impose our idea of how people should live on the rest of the world!"

"Well, I can agree that telling other people how to live is generally a bad idea," I replied, "but how can you say that we created human rights for us, and other people don't need the right to express their opinion, or to not be arrested or tortured without cause, or not be enslaved, or choose what kind of government they want. Maybe that government wouldn't be what we want, but there is no good argument for not caring if they get to choose at all. And I'm not saying we should go into any given country and just tell them they're going to reform into democracies at gunpoint. We tried that, and look what happened. But that doesn't mean we should just abandon people who want something better."

He had lived in Asia for years, in Indonesia. He'd spent quite a bit of time in Southeast Asia, been around the continent, certainly visited China. I asked; he had not been to Taiwan. 

"We're not abandoning them, we're leaving them alone. They are able to come up with a system of government and way of doing things that suits them, and it's not for us to say."

"I certainly agree that people should come up with their own systems of government without being told by an outside force what to believe, but what you are essentially saying is that some cultures would be okay with arrest and torture without cause, enslavement, or being jailed or even killed simply for speaking one's mind. In a lot of countries that is the reality, but I have a hard time believing, having been to those countries, that most people prefer it that way."

"No, what I'm saying is, by insisting that everyone adopt the same norms we have, we are forcing something from individualist cultures onto collectivist ones, and it's just not going to work the way we'd hoped. In any case, given Western global hegemony and the history we have of colonization and destruction of other cultures, it's also imperialistic. It's forcing our values on the rest of the world. There is no such thing as universal values."

"So...slavery is sometimes okay?"

"What you conceive of as slavery might be considered differently in another culture, and not seen as slavery at all."

"I highly doubt that. It's a basic concept. I live in one of these 'other cultures' you speak of. They fucking know what slavery is, and their idea of it is not that different from mine, or yours. They're Asian, not stupid. They're not Exotic Orientals from the Mystical East who think up is down and circles are triangles. They're people. Normal people with a normal conception of things like slavery. You lived in one of these cultures too. Don't tell me Indonesians have a 'different conceptualization' of slavery because they come from a 'collectivist' culture. Nobody, regardless of where they come from, wants to be a slave...unless they're into that in, like, a sex way."

"Uh..."

(Hey, I actually said that. I'm just being honest. I've cleaned up the conversation in other ways, but that last bit is absolutely real.)

"But," he said, recovering, "look at what happens in non-Western countries that adopt Western models."

"Well, let me give you a positive example. I live in Taiwan. One of those 'collectivist' cultures you like to talk about. You know what Taiwanese think are very important? Human rights and democracy. This is a country that is actively resisting being annexed by a dictatorship, because they want to keep their democracy. Their human rights record isn't perfect but it's a damn sight better than China's. This is a country where people care so much about their democracy that they take to the streets because they want marriage equality and the government is being too slow about making it happen, where 200,000 people march downtown because a young man doing his military service died from overly harsh punishment. 200,000! This is a country where students occupied the legislature for nearly a month because they didn't like the way a trade bill was being forced through undemocratically, and 400,000 or so people showed up to support them. In a country of 23 million! That's more than one in every sixty people! They absolutely want these things, and while they come from a different culture, they're just people who want human rights. There's nothing wrong or culturally imperialist about that.

Many if not most of them think of free nations - including Western ones - as natural allies, not enemies. They want our support. Perhaps their culture is more 'collectivist', although that seems like a very broad term and we'd have to break down what you mean by it. And yet they have a thriving, successful democracy, welcome Western allies, want more American support than they are getting, and this in no way interferes with their culture. Japan and Korea are democracies too, and they work. Hong Kong wants democracy. When they didn't get full rights, they voted in a bunch of pro-democracy legislators.

In fact, you say we're 'leaving them be', but what you're really suggesting we do to Taiwan by saying China's actions are not our business because it's 'a different culture' is abandoning an ally who wants our support.

So when you say these ideas are Western - maybe they came from the West, but in my life I meet Asians every day who believe in these things just like I do. Nobody forced it on them. America didn't come in and say 'you have to be a democracy now!' The people of Taiwan fought for it and won it themselves. So how can you say these ideas only work in the West or are inherently and inseparably Western or 'individualist' when I live my life in a non-Western, 'collectivist' culture that shares such values and they work?

In fact, if you tried to tell the average Taiwanese person that democracy and human rights are inherently Western ideas brought to them via cultural imperialism, in effect that by believing in them they are tools of Western neocolonialism, I suspect they'd be pretty offended that you think they don't deserve these values or rights that they want and hold dear, or these things are somehow not for them. As though you get to decide which values are appropriate for them - which is just another form of imperialism. Or, they'd just laugh at you."

* * *

Hiking between monasteries in Debed Canyon

This is what it's like to argue with me. Vertiginous walls of response. At least, this is how I remember the conversation - there's always a chance that, recalled from deep memory, my mind has created a narrative in which I look way smarter and more 'victorious' than I actually was. I'm actually kind of a dope, to be honest, so take all of this with a healthy suspension of disbelief.

In any case, I've thought a lot about this conversation in the intervening months, and always circle back to two main problems with this very typical Western liberal narrative on Asia.

First is the notion that all of Asia can be lumped together in this idea of 'collectivist' culture, and that because of this (and a few other cliches, such as 'Confucianism' and 'face'), they are so different from us that there is no set of universal, fundamental values that apply to all of us. Therefore, according to this line of thinking, we can't say anything or even be upset when Asian countries turn authoritarian: it's "their culture" after all, and our concepts of "human rights" and "democracy", being inherently Western, can't be applied.

Of course, this assumes that Asia is a continent of flat, continent-wide, immutable values that are diametrically opposed to our own. It distills every difference and uniqueness across cultures, regions and even people down to "well they're Asian", which is just another form of the old reactionary rhetoric on Asia where everyone is a stingy liar in a conical hat. It's just cloaked in a thin film of being 'woke' by using words like 'collectivist' instead of, I dunno, 'sideways vagina'. If 'they're Asian', they can't be like us, and so all of those great things we want like rights and freedom clearly don't apply to them.

Take this further, and one can even justify China's expansionist rhetoric: "well, we wouldn't stand for that in the West but they're Asian and you know, they have a different concept of what it means to be Chinese, so it's not for us to say." Little or no thought given to the idea that China's annexation-happy dictatorship is just espousing yet another form of the old-timey ethnic nationalism that we already know doesn't work, and which is already in the process of being actively rejected by Taiwan in favor of civic nationalism and Taiwanese identity. Same bullshit, different continent. It's not special just because this time it's happening in Asia.

When you get to the end of that rabbit hole, what you end up doing is arguing for China's authoritarian rule and threatening rhetoric on Taiwan, or at best being a useful idiot for CCP propaganda. You end up arguing in favor of an expansionist threat taking over a friendly democracy, simply because you've applied a surface-level knowledge of the cultures of Asia to your understanding of a specific political situation. You've effectively argued that freedom, self-determination and human rights are non-negotiables for you, but not for other human beings.

Three days of reading books in Dilijan

I understand the impulse to come at it from this direction: a lot of these ideas did originate in the West, so applying them globally feels like yet another iteration of forcing Western culture on non-Western contexts. It feels wrong to argue that something from your culture is inherently superior to the way things are done in other cultures, and there is a fear among many Western liberals of criticizing other cultures in any way - doing so might be construed as racism, as though the person arguing this has a problem with an entire culture or group of people rather than with a specific idea. It's just easier to be a relativist. But, I'd argue, it's also somewhat cowardly to not stand up for what's right, or even the concept that some values are universal, out of fear of looking like yet another whitey criticizing the way "foreigners" do things.

This sometimes morphs into an even stronger argument: that Western values simply don't belong in Asia, and any instance of them being espoused there must be the result of Western meddling because they don't suit a "collectivist" context. I don't even know where to begin refuting this - it's that nonsensical. It's about as nuts as thinking that slavery is not a fundamental concept that all people understand because of "different cultures".

However, this stems from a misconception that we are irreconcilably different from them. That our half of the world is round and varied - it has ethical topography - but theirs is flat: "Well...but...collectivism. Confucius! Face! That's all there is! It explains everything!" It was a part of what fueled the entire discredited 90s debate about "Asian-style democracy" - an invention of authoritarian governments (often ones in Asia) to justify remaining in power, not a legitimate interpretation of values. It also stems from a weird holdover of ethnic nationalism in the West: it's not so bad if China annexes Taiwan because after all they are all Chinese, aren't they? 

We wouldn't make that argument about our own countries, so how can we make it with a straight face about countries in Asia? By deciding what values are and are not appropriate in Asian contexts, are we not just performing yet another form of cultural imperialism, big brothering and white man's burden? Who are we to decide what people can and cannot think in Asia?

What's more, if someone argues that we cannot criticize what certain groups and governments do because we're Western and they're Asian, how is it that they can then talk about what the Taiwanese should and should not accept vis-a-vis China, or which values - "Western" or "Eastern" - they should espouse?

Asia is not flat: it is varied and complex. Within Taiwan, there are yet more layers of complexity. Between groups and people, yet more. Many more than you would think not only buy into these "Western" values, but came to believe in them of their own accord. It was not forced on them by us (if anything, we are to blame for supporting the dictatorship that the Taiwanese people overthrew).

Taiwan's destiny ought not to be determined by biology, but by what the Taiwanese want, no different from anyone in the West who strives for a representative government and basic human rights. They don't deserve these things any less than we do simply because we've decided to view "Asian" cultures in the same flat, monochromatic way.

Not only can we criticize authoritarianism in Asia without being racist or culturally imperialist, but I would argue that we must, based on certain universal values that can work just as well in Asia as they do in the West, because people there are no less deserving. It's the only way to firmly support a friend an ally like Taiwan. We don't need to go in and force people to change - that's ridiculous - but we do need to stand up for what is right.

Yes, there is a sense of "collectivism" in Asia that sets cultures there somewhat apart from our own, and yes, Confucianism has had an influence on cultures here. But you know what other things have had an influence? Daoism (or as I call it, the "yo guys just chill and be yo'selves" philosophy), political activism, political intellectualism, international travel, protests, education in both the Asian and Western traditions, occupations, marches, coffeeshop culture (which lends itself well to political discourse) and progressivism. Don't shunt those to the side in order to make Asia seem flatter and more 'exotic' than it really is. Don't turn it into one of those Star Trek or Star Wars planets where the entire planet is just one way - the Volcano Planet, the Desert Planet, the Planet of Half-Black-Half-White-People, whatever - with no variation. Engage with it as it is, and see exactly how many people have come to embrace the universal values of freedom, self-determination and human rights - on this "far away" continent. Support them.

I thought about all of this and more as we ate our last, quiet breakfast in Armenia before taking off in a shared car across the Georgian border. I am Armenian by heritage, and there are many in Armenia who, despite wanting Armenia to be considered a Western nation, hold "Old World" views. There are many other young Armenians who want something more modern and progressive and, to my mind, better. Taiwan is no different - despite being a non-Western country, there are values they hold that can be considered not only Western, but universal. It's time Western liberal embraced that, rather than pushing it away in favor of a "Confucian" othering and flattening of Asia.