I'll Actually Be Home For Christmas

Stockings hanging on the fireplace at my parents' house

Several years on, a follow-up to an older post of mine about not feeling the holiday spirit in Taipei.

Out of habit, I refer to the USA as "home" and Taiwan as...well, as the place I live, I guess. But I've realized recently that referring to these two places in such ways is disingenuous. I used to think that 'being home for Christmas' meant being in the USA, and staying in Taiwan meant 'not going home for Christmas'.

But as much as there are forces keeping me from fully embracing this country as "home", namely because this country in many ways doesn't necessarily want me to call it home, I've realized that too is incorrect.

This Christmas I'll be in our apartment, with my husband and my sister, opening gifts under our tree, and unstuffing my stocking. These things are mine. Brendan is my primary family. I don't live in a house in upstate New York, or even an apartment in Washington DC or anywhere else: I live in an apartment in Taipei, and we are a little family of two with a sibling close by and two cats.

How is that not 'home'? And therefore, how can I say I won't be going 'home for Christmas'? I already am home.

Granted, Taipei isn't the most Christmassy of cities, though I do feel there has been a bit more decoration and music (most of it bad, to be honest - "Joy to the World" was never meant to be a polka) than in previous years, and the cold snap means it really does feel something like winter. It is hard to get into the Christmas spirit still because despite all of those trappings, locals don't celebrate it and everyone else will be going to work as usual on the 25th (although I am not religious, I insist on keeping one little island of Western culture firmly set in the stream of my life - I do not work on Christmas), but regardless, I am spending Christmas at home.

It may not be my home forever - in fact it likely won't be for reasons I've posted about before. But it's my home now. I'm not traveling for Christmas, but I will be home.

Out of Range

This week seems to be my week for reacting to the ideas of others...I don't do it particularly often so I don't feel bad about doing it twice in a row.

In this case it's a Taiwanese woman who moved to Europe and writes about feeling stifled in Taiwan and not wanting to return (a country that, despite my rant a few days ago, I do call home and have found to be a good place to live, though we'll see how long that remains true).

And here's the song that underscored this post.

I was locked into being my mother's daughter
I was just eating bread and water
Thinking 'nothing ever changes'
and I was shocked
To see how the mistakes of each generation
Will just fade like a radio station
You just gotta drive out of range.

My thoughts on this, already written up on the Facebook thread where I found the article (and edited a bit for clarity on a blog format with no context):

I do think she's over-romanticizing life in the West (I have spent very little time in Europe but everything she says could have been said about the USA, if someone were over-romanticizing life there), but I get her point. She is likely shielded from the worst of Western culture, which shares a lot of the same problems stemming from over-conservatism as Taiwanese culture, simply because she is not a part of that culture. Just as I find life in Taiwan somewhat freeing, exactly because I am not Taiwanese, so I'm not beholden to their cultural expectations of people, or women specifically. 

I agree with her that expectations placed on 'your place' in society, with so much emphasis on your background, and expectations specifically placed on women, are stricter and more difficult to navigate in Taiwan if you don't fit the mold. Certainly I've felt the 'man must approach the woman, who is preferred to be 溫柔, and must be the breadwinner while the woman looks good and bears children' is a thing here.

But I'm not sure she's right that the West is soooo different. 

It's true people tend to care a bit less what you do or who your family is, and it's true that they are less likely - though not entirely unlikely - to openly judge women's looks or men's earning power (or differentiate the two expectations by gender), honestly, Western men DO judge women, sometimes openly! And there IS a big expectation to conform to 'pretty girl culture' - I felt it in college too and as an eternal 'not so pretty girl', I can absolutely tell you it affects your social life. Perhaps in Taiwan the guy makes a comment about your weight. NOT COOL, whether or not you are actually fat, but in the USA the guy doesn't make any comment at all...he just doesn't call you if you don't fit a culturally-expected mold of 'pretty and slim'. Even if he would have otherwise been eager to continue going out with you if you were just that much more attractive. Is that really much better? 

In Taiwan your mother criticizes your looks - in the USA your mother thinks you're beautiful but if you want to go out to a bar or club with your friends and aren't pretty, the guy at the door finds any excuse not to let you in.

In Taiwan perhaps your friends comment on your skin, hair etc. but in the US if you have both a vagina and an openly expressed opinion, you are fairly likely to be the subject of online harassment and trolling, or, not quite as threatening but also annoying, having men comment, in a seemingly 'well-intentioned' way, 'helpfully' explaining basic concepts to you that you have already referenced and clearly understand (yes, we call this 'mansplaining', and yes, it has happened to me. I just don't publish those comments). Or - and this has also happened to me - having guys try to tell you what you should write about, as though they have some sort of say in what you choose to publish online.

And we DO have social expectations - I felt some members of my family didn't treat me like an adult until I married - it showed in little things like being included in Christmas cards to my parents even though I was in my late 20s and lived on another continent, which abruptly stopped being a problem after my wedding. So far people have been basically OK about our decision not to have kids (though I do occasionally hear a stray judgmental comment about people like us), but I can't even express the social pressure I feel in the US because I'm openly atheist. It's like I murdered everyone's children, just because my (lack of) religious beliefs differ! The snarky comments from family etc...they wouldn't make such comments about being from a single-parent family but they absolutely will if they don't like your belief system. 

It's true that US few will comment on a man's earning power (some will - I just don't talk to those people), but there is this weird expectation that you just always have money, and if you don't, it's somehow your fault...even when it's completely not your fault. You may meet a few retrograde thinkers who expect the man to be the breadwinner, but more often than not it's a simple blanket judgment that if you're scraping by, it can't possibly be the fault of a problematic system that now elevates the wealthy while pushing down the middle class and poor by denying them key opportunities. It's because something is somehow wrong with you. And if the profession you love pays well that's fine, but if it doesn't, that is also somehow your fault and you're a failure no matter how good you are at it, just because you don't earn enough money. And gods help you if you are in a job people are expected to do cheaply or for free because they 'love' it (like, oh, teaching, where "teachers aren't in it for the money" is a ridiculous excuse to not pay teachers enough money).

And it's true that while gender discrimination in the workplace is as illegal in Taiwan as it is in the US, it's much more common in Taiwan (at least that's what Taiwanese women tell me, and I believe them), even as women have made greater inroads here in industries such as finance than they have in the USA. I also seem to be on a roll this week in talking about my former employer, but I have to say sexism was something of a problem there, too, with inappropriate comments about personal relationships and teacher-student interaction made more than once by the owner to various coworkers of mine.

But...that doesn't mean there is no gender discrimination in the US. Although I know this was not intentionally orchestrated (yes, I do know, as well as anyone can), I couldn't help but notice at my employer in the US from 2004-2006, that all of the back-office 'support', secretarial and administrative work was done by women.

So, yeah, I absolutely get her point. And it does bother me that even the really good, nice, educated local guys I know in Taiwan occasionally come out with a sexist humdinger (but then in the USA that happens too). It does bother me that more than one of the more progressive guys I know in Taiwan say it would actually bother them if their wives earned more than they did. It bothers me that one declined to support his wife in her argument with his mother over the 'cry it out' vs. 'hold and nurture' styles of caring for babies, because "it's not my business, that's between them and for the women to figure out."

And yet...you also meet seemingly 'nice' guys with these views in the USA. I have real-world experience with loving, progressively-minded married men with children who, despite supporting equality, still let their wives do most of the housework (and not because the wives 'want to', though they'll claim that's the case). 

Considering all that, I'm not sure the author would feel that much different if she were actually from a Western country. The idea that people who move abroad and like it don't like it because the culture suits them better, but because their 'outsider'-ness allows them an element of freedom that being a part of neither culture would.

Ready, Set, Go

Edited to add: I forgot to include a link to the song that underscored this post. Here you go.

They keep us at sea level so I'm stayin' on my A-game
They're local like the C when I'm express like the A Train.

I had wanted to get back into blogging smoothly, with a few softball posts about traveling in Kinmen and the East Rift Valley before yet another family emergency (this one turned out OK though) sent me back to the US for a good portion of the summer and Delta Module 2 began.

But this article in the Straits Times caught my eye - I do think it's worth a quick reaction post with some thoughts on racism and the ghettoization of foreigners in Taiwan.

I don't feel, up to now, that I have been limited in my career by living in Taiwan - if anything Taiwan helped me launch my career. But, I say that as a career English teacher: of course it would be easier for me than for a foreigner in literally any other field. With the exception of a few really bad years toward the end of my time at my former employer, after they treated my husband like dirt but I stuck around just to get an APRC (and had to pretend just to get through each day that I didn't think what they did was so heinous - when it was heinous, and unforgivable), I've generally had positive working experiences. I have been able to move on to freelance with two very good schools that, while they may technically be buxibans, are places that actually prioritize education and look after their people. I've been able to get a Delta - at least I am basically sure I passed and will have that baby in my hands soon. English teachers can do that. Nobody else, save perhaps an editor or journalist, can.

However, I have to basically agree with this:

The challenges that Caucasians face are more in the form of being "ghettoised", said Mr Michael Turton, 52, an American who has lived in Taiwan for two decades.

"Everyone is very polite to us, but try finding a permanent position in a university or business in one's own skill," said Mr Turton, who teaches English at a local university and said he knows of only two Caucasian deans among Taiwan's numerous universities. "Tension is ameliorated because everyone knows foreigners have no power."

One reason is, unlike Singapore or Hong Kong, Taiwan is not a regional financial hub that would have as many job opportunities.

Language is another barrier.

That said, Taiwanese women do tend to find Caucasians to be desirable matches, said Mr Turton, who is married to a Taiwanese woman. They have two children.

"How many local girls want to marry foreigners? Lots. That is because foreigners are an escape fantasy," Mr Turton said, referring to familial obligations women married to local men have to fulfil, and a perception of a better life in a Western country.

First of all, I feel that Taiwan has been a really great place to live this past decade. Up through getting my Delta it's also a nearly ideal place to work. While salaries are stagnant, generally speaking the pay is better than in much of the rest of the world and the lifestyle makes up for the fact that we really all should be earning more. Locals included. Flexible work allowed me to get that Delta while doing three modular courses. Taiwan is relatively well-connected to the outside world so I was able to access books I needed for my coursework. I've been able to travel a lot because of affordable airfares to the rest of Asia.

However, I have to say I've started noticing cracks in the facade of our great lifestyle here.

First, I know someday I will get a Master's - the issue is paying for it, not the actual work. I was born in a country where higher education is prohibitively expensive, I can't just say "Imma go to grad school!" the way Canadians, Australians and Europeans (and many Taiwanese) do. Once I do, I have to admit that I see the end of the line. At that point will I really want to be working in private language schools, as good as my two current employers are? Probably not, to be honest. But what else can I do? International schools aren't ideal (plus I'd also have to get a teaching license most likely) as I don't particularly want to teach teenagers full-time. Universities simply don't pay well enough (salaries are in the range of NT$60,000/month I've been told, and frankly, that's not enough even with paid vacation). But we foreigners really are limited in terms of moving up if we actually want to teach. There are a handful of schools that hire foreigners as academic managers or teacher trainers, and those positions don't always pay particularly well either (plus your job is often to be the 'bearer of bad news' between the teaching staff and Taiwanese upper management if it's a locally-owned school, which sounds like my idea of hell). The schools I work for don't do this, but a LOT of schools see foreigners as foreign monkeys to put in classrooms to get students in, and just take for granted that they should never be anything more. So, when that time comes and I'm ready to move up in my career...where exactly is there in Taiwan for me to go, when the only 'better' jobs are not actually better?

In short, Taiwan has been great for my career up to now, but I can see clearly down the road where it won't be forever. Someday that's a problem I'm going to have to grapple with, and it would be a lie to say it's not causing me stress now.

Secondly, I (well, we, but this is me writing) feel absolutely ready, once I rescue my finances from the clusterfuck that was late 2014-2015, to do adult things like, oh, actually own the place where we live so we can modify it to our liking. Have a credit rating in the country where I actually live! Have a job with benefits! Good luck doing any of those things - getting a credit card without a big fight, getting a mortgage (if you're not married to a local, forget it), finding that higher-level job without running into a pervasive feeling that foreigners shouldn't be considered for such positions (again I'd like to point out that neither of my current schools have that attitude, but they are the exceptions, not the rule).

Speaking of marriage, Michael makes a good point that a lot of foreigners here do marry locals, but I didn't - and in fact that's a bit of a male-centric phenomenon. Some foreign women do marry Taiwanese men but the balance is squarely in favor of foreign men and Taiwanese women (marriage equality is not yet law here but one can hope it will be soon as most Taiwanese support the idea). Nothing wrong with that generally (though that does mean there is a problem in the expat community with the slimier kind of fetishizers, but that's for a post I don't think I'll ever write). There seems to be this blanket assumption - and I'm not saying Michael is guilty of it, just that it exists - that 'expat' means 'straight male expat', like Plato's ideal form of Expat definitely has a penis and definitely wants to put it in a vagina. What that ends up meaning is that male expats, if they marry locals, are more likely to stay because they get the local benefits of that union. They get the mortgages and credit cards because their wives can co-sign. They get the guanxi. They get the sense of permanence. Other than the few foreign women married to Taiwanese men, female expats are just that much more marginalized. And yes, that is a problem. I happened to marry a white guy, and as a result, we can't get a freakin' mortgage in the country where we live. That's not OK.

Which brings me to my next point - yes, I do feel increasingly ghettoized as a result of all of this. As a professional English teacher - yeah shut up I have a Delta now :) - I feel stereotyped with all of the Johnny McBackpackers who just got off the plane and think that teaching (good teaching that is) is an easy and fun way to make a few extra bucks and requires no special skills. I feel marginalized because I can't even consider becoming a homeowner in the country where I live. I feel limited because after I get a Master's there won't be many growth opportunities career-wise, and it will become increasingly hard to push my salary up (as it is for everyone: see stagnation, wage). It does create the feeling that 'you're a foreigner, we allowed you to do a lot, but this is all you are allowed to do. Know your place." 

This is not an attitude I can point to in anyone in particular, but a general sense I get. It's compounded by the fact that it is commonly believed that foreigners - at least English teachers, obviously this is not true for largely Southeast Asian laborers - are treated better than Taiwanese. And in many cases we are - pay for teachers who don't know TBL from TPRS, or scaffolding from subordination, and teach weird things like "I'm well" rather than "I'm good" because they don't know what a copula is let alone how it works - is higher than actual qualified teachers who happen to have Taiwanese passports (which brings in the other discussion of how good teacher training is in Taiwan - not something I want to get into here). We get away with not following work culture expectations because it's not our culture. We get to take longer vacations, generally speaking, as long as our employers aren't too terrible. We generally get a lot of leeway.

But I can't say wholeheartedly that we actually are treated better. We don't get annual bonuses, which most Taiwanese expect as a matter of course. We don't get paid vacation generally (although this is partly why we can take longer vacations so there is a trade-off). We can't get a pension even if we pay into the system. We don't get paid Chinese New Year, although technically by law we ought to. We have trouble asserting our basic rights - non-discrimination, labor insurance, even a contract not full of outrageous illegal clauses including very illegal fines for "quitting" even with proper notice (again I'm lucky in that regard but a lot of people aren't). We can't become citizens unless we give up our original citizenship - a rule not imposed on Taiwanese who get citizenship in other countries. My husband got screwed by our former employer because they had entirely too much control over his visa, for someone who had been here for nearly five years. They should have never been allowed to do that to him, and yet they were. And again, we are limited in the jobs we can take because a lot of locals don't consider foreigners as serious candidates for real, skilled, high-level work. We'll always be outsiders.

A final thing that bothers me is how many Taiwanese - rather like Americans in this way - deny that there is any racism at all in their country. Here is a near exact excerpt from a conversation I had with a neighbor (translated into English):

"Well, there's racism everywhere, so of course there's racism in Taiwan."
"No there isn't! We treat you well."
"Sure, you treat ME well, but that itself is a form of racism - in some ways you treat white people better than locals. But really the problem is that you don't treat EVERY foreigner well. Only the Westerners, and often only the white ones."
"No, I don't treat others badly."
"You personally don't, but do you think Southeast Asians in this country are discriminated against?"
"Well, yes, there's some racism there. But it's for a reason. They come from poor countries with a lot of crime, so we have to be careful!"

UUUUUUGGGGHHHHHHHHH HULK ANGRY HULK SMASH is all I have to say to that.


So, while I personally have never experienced the sort of racist rant that Christopher Hall did, and likely never will, I definitely feel it in big ways and small, and I have to say it's become more noticeable in the past few years, especially as someone not married to a local. I don't know what the end result will be, but I can't deny it's an issue. 

I'll be back in November

Just wanted to pop in and let whatever readers are left know that I'm still alive and haven't given up blogging! In fact I have lots to write - trips to Jinmen and Taimali, a decent hike from the fields of Yangmingshan to Jinshan, tons of opinions (these can be summed up with "the KMT is bad"). Some thoughts on English teaching as this is now my actual profession and not just something I do so I can live abroad.

But I'm in the middle of Delta Module 2 and whereas in the other modules, I found time to pop in now and again, this one is killing me. The workload is so horrendous. I haven't had a day off since early September, though I sometimes take the evening off on weekends. I just don't have time to blog, or clean, or do things a normal human needs to do for a normal life. I had to get a new phone recently - my old one just died - and I was mostly pissed that getting it took a few hours away from working Delta Module 2 (long story why it was a few hours!). I eat, sleep, bathe and poop Delta, and teach at the same time.

We - my husband is doing it too - are so stressed that on an impulse we bought tickets to Indonesia over Chinese New Year, because I need a vision of a thatch-roof room on a white sand beach with a little balcony where I can read for pleasure and occasionally dip in the ocean and snorkel or swim to get me through this. Good thing Chinese New Year is 9 days long this year so we can somewhat justify a trip we hadn't planned!

I finish on November 24.

So...see you in November!

Blue Screen

Before I get started with this post: I'm in the US again, this time for my dad. In the months since I spent the winter and part of the spring in my hometown following the passing of my mother, my dad was found to have several blockages around his heart and recently underwent a quintuple (yes, you read that right - quintuple) bypass. So, I'm here taking care of him for some time. I might blog more as I won't be inundated with work, or I might blog less if he needs more intensive care. I also lost my grandmother last month, but knowing I'd have to come back for this surgery, was not able to return.

So...life's not great. 2015 is shaping up to be one of those "it'll be over soon" years.

Anyway. So that's what's up with me. Moving on...

With the many news stories circulating noting that Taiwan is set to elect its first female president, seeing as one of the things I try to cover with this blog is women's issues in Taiwan, I keep thinking that I should write something about it. It's a pretty big deal, right?

But I keep avoiding it. Not wanting to. I didn't know why, but after thinking about it, now I think I do.

Taiwan is set to elect its first female president, but that's because Tsai Ying-wen will probably win and she is female. Not because the two presidential candidates are female and one of them will win...

...because, to me, just listening to opponent Hung Hsiu-chu's ideas and speeches, while I suppose she is a biologically female human, I really just see her as a poorly programmed malfunctioning China-Bot. I don't take her seriously as a woman because I don't take her seriously as a human.

I know that sounds terrible and I shouldn't characterize political figures I disagree with so cruelly, I feel like she kind of deserves it. This isn't mild "well I disagree with her position but respect her as a policymaker / diplomat / leader". This is like George W. Bush level disgust (I also consider Bush to be more of a simplistic child's toy with buggy parts than an actual human male). Maybe worse, because at least Hung is intelligent enough to realize how off-kilter she sounds.

So...just as in 2000 the US didn't nominate two men but rather one man and one Cabbage Patch doll (or perhaps weird animal-brained humanoid on par with Bebop or Rocksteady from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), can I say that "Taiwan has nominated two female candidates"? No...Taiwan has nominated one female candidate and one outdated, blue-screening computer full of Chinese malware. Ask Hung questions of any great length or detail and she would quite possibly fail the Turing test.

I guess I should be happy that prominent women in politics are coming in more flavors now in Taiwan - it's not just the DPP woman against the Establishment KMT Man as usual - but I like my bad guys to be intelligent enough to be worth counterpointing or disagreeing with, and I have a hard time disagreeing intelligently with the mechanical product of Chinese hackers.

The WSJ's Taiwan Coverage Is Bad And They Should Feel Bad

I could be writing about lots of things - I never blogged our trip to Taidong and the East Rift Valley, nor have I updated my Indian food post with reviews of Khana Khazana and Sagar Indian. I could be adding Fuzhou Hill to "day hikes in Taipei when you woke up late". But oooooohhhh NOOOOO. We can't have that when there is shitty journalism to tear apart.

Instead, Josh Chin and his fucking terrible WSJ article/blog post have got me so riled up that I have to rant about that instead. So thanks, Josh, for ruining my flow. For interrupting my qi or whatever. For writing a steaming piece of crap.

Granted, the subheading is not bad: China is in denial about its alienation of Taiwan and needs to rethink its approach to the island, the top official in charge of managing Taipei’s relationship with Beijing said on Friday.

So far so good. But then:

The comments from Mr. Hsia, delivered in a conversation with The Wall Street Journal in New York, show how mainland China’s declining image in Taiwan has complicated relations ahead of the island’s presidential elections, whose outcome could frustrate Beijing’s desire for closer ties.

No, Beijing does not just want "closer ties". Beijing wants to TAKE OVER Taiwan. True, but misleading as it doesn't mention China's end goal, which is of the utmost importance.


Relations between Taiwan and China have long been fraught; the two sides split in 1949 following a civil war.

NO THEY DID NOT JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. The KMT and the Communists split in 1949, that happened in China (and the war started before that anyhow so it's a weird definition of "split"). If you were to write that the ROC, which currently occupies/governs (depending on how you want to look at it) and the PRC split, sure. But "Taiwan" and "China" did not split in 1949 as Taiwan was not a part of China at that time - it was a territory of Japan. It was distinctly not Chinese to begin with at that time, so how could it have possibly "split"?

Student protesters opposed to a trade pact with Beijing took over Taiwan’s main legislative chamber last year.

The protesters were not "opposed to the trade pact", they were opposed to the purposely "black box" back-room dealings that brought it about. They weren't fans of the pact for sure, but how could anyone be opposed to it or not, in full, as nobody was allowed to actually know what was in it? And they weren't all students.

A poll conducted by National Chengchi University shortly after the elections showed 23% of Taiwanese people supported independence for the island, the highest level since polling began in 1992. The number of people identifying themselves solely as Taiwanese, as opposed to Chinese, also set at new high at 60.6%.

That only counts people who call for independence immediately. If you count people who feel the status quo should lead to independence that number jumps considerably. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that number, the one that is a more accurate gauge of Taiwan's current political climate, somewhere above 50%? To quote the lower number but not the higher is almost purposely obfuscatory. Or maybe it's actually obfuscatory.

And 60.6%? True, but citing only that fact and not the one that shows that something like 90+% of Taiwanese view themselves primarily as Taiwanese, again paints an inaccurate picture. To the point of it being "truthy" rather than true. 

Despite that, Mr. Hsia said, Beijing has continued to act in ways that irritate people and officials in Taiwan.

"Despite" what? That implies the numbers above are favorable to China, and they are not.

The KMT is expected on Sunday to confirm Hung Hsiu-chu, an outspoken former teacher, as its candidate to take on Tsai Ying-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party in presidential elections next fall. Ms. Tsai, who is widely favored to win in polls, has said she favors maintaining the “status quo” with China. It’s a position shared by most Taiwanese, according to government polls.

Tsai Ying-wen and the majority of Taiwanese do favor maintaining the status quo, but this is another bit of truthiness, as both Tsai and a majority of Taiwanese want that status quo to eventually evolve into independence. Leaving that part out leaves out an important part of the equation and shows the majority viewpoint in Taiwan in an inaccurate light.

“If you truly wanted to win the hearts and minds of the Taiwanese people, make a good example in Hong Kong. Obviously it’s not helping,” he said.

This implies that it is possible to "win the hearts and minds of the Taiwanese people" to the point that they would actually allow you to take over their country.

And that is not going to happen. I'm not sure it's possible. Why imply that the impossible can be accomplished?

Oh...and don't read the comments.

So, thanks Mr. Chin for writing a "status quo let's not anger China" pile of dung. You probably thought you were being provocative of China by writing this. But, as usual, your rag got the situation in Taiwan all wrong. Again.

Updated: Indian food in Taipei

My long post on Indian food in Taipei, written with care and reflection to my time studying abroad in India and visiting several times since, has been updated!

Now with links and reviews for Balle Balle, Fusion Asia and Tibet Kitchen (which offers Indian food). Coming soon: Khana Khazanaa!

The rankings are still roughly the same: Mayur is the best, Balle Balle is also excellent with more of a Punjabi focus, Ali Baba and Aaleja are about the same, Kunming is still excellent (the coconut chicken and Burmese tea leaf salad - YUM), and Out of India would be pretty good if not for that damn fake garlic-butter spread on their naan, which has caused me to forever boycott the place.