Aphrodite Europe Flea Market

Aphrodite Antiques and Europe Flea Market
Monday-Sunday 11am-9pm
#16-1-3 Section 6 Minquan East Road, Neihu Dist.
Taipei 114 Taiwan
台北市內湖區民權東路6段16－1－3號

(02)2791-5008
Directions: Take a bus heading over Minquan Bridge (民權大橋) and get off at the first stop in Neihu (the stop is called "Minquan Bridge", in Chinese "Minquan Da Qiao").  You'll see Aphrodite on the right as you come off the bridge. After alighting, walk back to the bridge entrance and Aphrodite is on the left after the store selling chi-chi glass decorations and the expensive Chinese furniture store. 

Side note, across the street from that bus stop is Miro Furniture - expensive, but great if you want good-quality wooden furniture with a sort of Indian, Middle Eastern, Silk Road flair.

I teach once a week in this part of Neihu, between Minquan Bridge and the Costco and giant RT Mart. It's fantastic, because although the area has very little - I couldn't even find a pharmacy once when I had a headache, and it was impossible to find food anywhere other than the Barista Coffee when the 7-11 was under renovation - it's perfect if I need to stop at B&Q or RT Mart after class.

That's how I found Aphrodite. I'd passed it on the bus hundreds of times, and seen the sign for the "Europe Flea Market" [sic], and the interesting, thrift-store style stuff outside. One day, looking for apartment decoration, I decided to pop in after class. I've also explored the other furniture stores in the area - there's some good stuff for those who don't mind looking for hours on end and who have budgets that can stretch beyond IKEA.

This place is a secondhand store in the truest sense of the word: only the brightly colored crystal drink and wine glasses appeared to be "new", everything else is genuinely aged or used, some of it genuine antique or vintage, some of it thrift-store-tacular. It's not as cheap as an American Goodwill, but not as expensive as the Treasure Hunt Flea Market near MRT Guting, from where we also obtained some of the items decorating our home.

The main difference is that Aphrodite really does mostly import its treasures from abroad, mostly Europe. At Treasure Hunt, you'll find old Taiwanese and Chinese antiques and vintage items, including old boxes, baskets, wood carvings, teacups, sake sets and more "Asian" stuff. At Aphrodite, you'll find European glassware (much of it the kind of thing you'd find on Great Aunt Crappadocia's credenza, which you used to think was lame but now think is totally cool and retro), espresso sets, vases, copper and brass items, plateware and other random  stuff that comes more from the West than the East. This isn't the place to go if you want to make your apartment look like the Formosa Vintage Museum Cafe (which, come on, I not-so-secretly do want to do) - it's the place to go for the kind of cool secondhand stuff you'd decorate with back home.

The part of the store near the main entrance sells mostly small items at prices under NT$1000 - this is where I picked up my blue glass vase, liqueur glasses and wooden coasters, above. The vase was NT95, the glasses NT60 each and the coasters, genuinely antique and worth "something", were NT195 each.

There are copper vases and pots that run a few thousand kuai, furniture that is really expensive, and tons of funky, retro European inexpensive ceramicware that looks like the stuff at your grandma's place, which she got from her mother who was an immigrant from Germany. There are some true finds - old copper pitchers, real crystal - and lots of cheaper, funky stuff if you just want to pick up something fun.

Prices are a bit unpredictable - a seemingly modest little copper creamer pot can be several hundred kuai, whereas those adorable liqueur glasses I scored were really dirt cheap. You just never know.

When I first popped in to Aphrodite, it was nearly empty, and again the time after that. I thought I'd found a truly undiscovered gem. The past few times I've been here, however, there have been many more people - almost all of them locals (not expats). The best stuff is selling more quickly - I'd actually wanted far more ornate wooden coasters but by the time I returned, they were gone. On the "SOLD" shelf was an impossibly beautiful copper watering pitcher with a brass lion's head and decorated with red, blue and aqua-green stones or resin dots (I couldn't tell which from a distance). I would give my left nut for that pitcher, but it's gone. I'm in love with the colorful crystal chunky French wine glasses (I would get a set in hot pink, bright tangerine and lime) but can't justify spending NT$485 each on them when I already have plenty of wine glasses.

So get yourself over there, and if you see something you like, buy, don't dally.

Divorce and Family Dynamics in Taiwanese News

This has nothing to do with the post. I just like the photo.

I know this China-style forced-eviction-and-demolition in Shilin is the big news across Taiwan, or at least Taipei, this weekend (for the record, I'm all in favor of kicking out Hau Lung-bin, just as much because he's an idiot generally as because of this), but another article caught my eye.

This one on a woman in Banqiao whose request for a divorce on the grounds that her mother-in-law egregiously violated her privacy was denied is the one that I've been mulling over.

This is a perfect example of why no-fault divorce should be legal everywhere in the world. I'm not entirely familiar with Taiwan's divorce laws. I know they used to be ridiculously sexist (a man could leave his wife if she refused to move with him for his work, but a wife couldn't leave her husband over his refusal to move for her work, the idea being that a wife should move for her husband's career but not the other way around) and have since been somewhat reformed, but I'm not sure to what extent. Clearly no-fault divorce with only one spouse consenting to divorce is not permissible, or else this woman would have gotten one.

What bothers me is that the court didn't think that the mother-in-law unlocking the couple's bedroom door at all hours of the night to "check on them" was sufficiently emotionally distressing or a violation of privacy. That says a lot about the power of mothers-in-law (especially the husband's mother) in Taiwan, and yes, while a case could be made that a court might have said the same to a man whose wife's mother was doing the same thing, it's hard not to see this ruling as a sexist one. It makes it quite clear that in the court's eyes, a wife needs to just deal with nosy mothers-in-law, and not listening to objections and having a spouse who does nothing to stop his own mother is not enough reason to terminate a marriage.   

I feel that, well, how could any court possibly be the final decision maker regarding what is and is not intolerable stress or privacy violation? What court has the right to tell you that you must or must not stick it out in a bad marriage based on your circumstances? No court - that's a very personal decision and I don't believe it's something a third party can rule on.   

That said, the wife sort of made her own bed: her husband did offer to send his mother back down south to live, and the wife apparently refused, thinking that others would judge her poorly.

I just wonder why they didn't change the bedroom door lock and not give the mother-in-law a key. I also wonder what the mother-in-law hoped to accomplish. If it was the propagation of grandchildren, barging in on them at random times was obviously not the way to go about it!

It's surprisingly common not just for couples to live with one set of parents (usually the husband's) or near them, or to feel pressured into visiting them every single weekend, or to even give in to in-law pressure to procreate - which, from a cultural standpoint, horrifies me, but it's not my culture. Plenty of Taiwanese people I know seem horrified that my sister lives in Taiwan, I have a spare room, and yet she does not live with me and my husband. Of course, to us, it's perfectly natural that a 25-year-old single woman living abroad with her own set of friends and her own life would want the independence of her own place or roommates her age - to them, it's how can you make your sister live alone like that, all by herself like she's in prison, and paying so much for rent?! Ha. Haha. Well.         

It's also fairly common for the in-laws to have a set of keys to your apartment and to visit unannounced whenever they please, and objecting is not allowed or socially condoned. I love my parents and in-laws, but no. Just no.

And all this ruling says is that:

 a.) A woman's unhappiness in her marriage is not her own decision. She can basically be told that her feelings are "wrong". (A man could be told this too, but somehow I suspect that a lack of initiated-by-one-spouse no-fault divorce means the law is in favor of men, and that husbands would be more likely to be granted the divorce;

b.) A woman has no right to the final decision of what is unbearable in a marriage if it can't be proven to be abuse, adultery or something else that could instigate divorce with fault;

c.) Mothers-in-law have the right to make their childrens' spouses miserable (especially wives);

d.) Taiwanese society doesn't seem to expect the husband to stand up against his mother for his wife.

All of these point to a sore spot of continued sexism in Taiwan that could be easily fixed with single-spouse initiated no-fault divorce. No need to prove anything, no need to obtain consent, if you want out, you can get out. I would trust those who exercise that option to do it wisely and with much forethought and attempted reconciliation, but in the end I'd respect their decision based on their experience in that marriage. I don't feel anyone has the right to rule on that for them. Male or female, but women are especially hurt by a lack of such a divorce provision.

But, ah, the power of mothers-in-law...

I'm reminded of an incident a few weeks ago when we were running to catch a train to Ruifang to take my in-laws to Jiufen - the next train wasn't for another hour and, due to an issue with my EasyCard, we were about to miss this one. It was far down on the track from where we entered - local trains don't take up the entire platform - and my mother-in-law couldn't possibly have run that far that quickly due to health issues. I went flying up the platform to the attendant, who tried to usher me on-board, and with fake tears in my eyes (I'm a very good actress, apparently) I bawled that we needed to be on this train because I was taking care of my mother-in-law who was visiting Taiwan, oh please sir, would you please help me make sure we get on this train?! *sniff*.

And you know what? He held the train. He kept it on the platform for at least 1-2 minutes longer than it should have been just so we could all make it onboard and not have to wait for the next one. 

I highly doubt he would have done that for two young people (although two whippersnappers such as Brendan and myself could have just made it at a sprint). But for a (foreign) mother-in-law, hold that train!!

Similarly, while they were here our water heater crapped out. I called a plumber on Saturday morning. He said he'd be there "in an hour or so".
"Oh no, but my mother-in-law is here!"
"Oh. In that case, I'll come immediately!"

Updated Post: The Best Coffee in Taipei

I've updated my post on the best coffee in Taipei to include a better review of Rufous (get their espresso or cold brew coffee, not the siphon brew) and include Cafe Booday and a gem of a find in the middle of Nowhere Street, Random Part of Zhonghe called Gold Diamond which has surprisingly good stuff.

Enjoy!

Of Facebook, Loneliness and Suicide

Still contemplating a blogging break, but this is news I feel I should link to:

31-year old Taiwanese woman kills herself while chatting on Facebook

This is really just awful. The whole thing: the suicide, the "friends" who didn't call the police, the fact that they might not have even been good enough friends to know her phone number or where she lived, the fact that the catalyst seemed to be an inattentive boyfriend on her birthday, the fact that the problems she must have had surely went far beyond not only one bad episode with the boyfriend, or even one bad relationship. The fact that she got no help for whatever personal demons led her to do this. 

It highlights a lot of issues that deserve thought and discussion: how Facebook can be isolating, the nature of friendship in Taiwan, a lack of awareness about depression or other similar issues that could lead to suicide*, questions about the suicide rate among women in Taiwan (I know that in China it's higher for women than men, which is the opposite of the rest of the world - I don't know about Taiwan). There's also the nature of relationships in Taiwan and how living with parents before marriage, working late and a culture that discourages men from expressing themselves and seems to drive a wedge rather than build a bridge between men and women, families who don't know what's going on with each other, despite much touted "closer family ties" in Taiwan.

I hear that last one a lot: "family is so much more important in Asia". Yes, but I get the distinct impression that for all the family obligations, the length of time adult children often live at home, the more frequent family socializing and everyone-up-in-yo'-business family culture, relatives aren't generally close. Siblings and cousins in the same generation might be, but children - especially adult children - don't seem to be as close to their parents as I am to my parents or Brendan is to his. I feel that for all the time they spend together, they actually communicate less.

As for the boyfriend - I am reminded of that old "不要走！不要走！殺很大！" computer game commercial. I have to wonder how common that sort of "silently ignoring each other but not breaking up" thing happens among Taiwanese couples. In the end, though, to go so far as to kill herself, I would say that one can't blame the boyfriend: she clearly had problems of her own well beyond his inattentiveness. Blame a lack of adequate awareness, intervention at warning signs when someone is troubled to the point of suicidal, though. That's a huge problem.

*I'm only conjecturing here, but it seems fair to speculate that she was suffering from some issues deserving of mental health treatment

Can't even think of a title, something about women or something

Here's where I honestly say that I'm thinking of taking a blogging break of a few weeks - not sure if I'll do it yet, we'll see. I've been working so hard that I got sick, even though the hours I work are still far less insane than - well, than most Taiwanese with office jobs. Blogging has fallen by the wayside, which you might have noticed as I've been opening almost every post with "sorry" or "need to blog more often" or "so much to say, no time" or "I'm really tired / have a headache".

And then this comes along, including an editorial here and some stats here in the China Post which I normally never read (can't stand the thing), complete with comments on "leftover women" and the resulting hate from both sides, and I know I should be blogging on it, but all I can summon over the whole thing is a resounding "WTF". And while occasionally "WTF" makes a perfectly acceptable blog post, I would normally want to do more with this story than leave it there.

That's when I realize I'm dropping a ball that, maybe, I have no business for the time being of carrying. I've got, to put it in the filthiest terms possible, enough balls it seems.

So, we'll see. I may or may not blog again for the rest of this week and next and see how I feel, and if I need more time off.

For what it's worth, I'll do my halfhearted best here.

As for the person who originally made the "leftover women" comments, Zhang Xiaofeng (張曉風, or Chang Show-foong or however you want to spell it) - she just makes me sad. We hear enough of this bullshit from men - it's really not OK for a woman to be attacking other women in this way. I'm used to hearing sexist crap from guys. I mean, I'm from the USA after all, and while we may seem to lead the world in progressivism, the vicious bile spewed by so many American men - hate speech really - and the recent contraception debate have really put that into question. It's sad when an American woman, who ostensibly comes from one of the most egalitarian countries on Earth, feels that she hears more of this crap from her own country than from less progressive and egalitarian places.

But when a woman makes comments that make it clear that being married is the only measure of value for adult women...that's just insane. Aren't we supposed to be in this together? Married or not? Rich or poor? Whatever our race or background? Can't we women all just please get together and agree that being married is not only not the sole measure of value of a woman, but not any measure of value whatsoever? Please, can all of womankind - and preferably all of humankind - please agree on this one simple thing, that it's OK to be female and not to marry?

What's sad in Taiwan is that I hear the opposite - that a woman's only worth is as a wife and mother - from women more than I do from men (although I am sure plenty of men secretly believe it). I hear it from this idiot Chang lady, from grandmas obasans and moms and aunties and frenemies. I don't hear it from men, although maybe they're just quiet around me. Back home, I hear it from men (and I tune them out as best I can).

As for the rest of it, I generally agree with the editorial linked above. First, she's just wrong about "leftover women" - the stats prove it. Second, the writer is absolutely right: even if some of the Taiwanese men who've married foreign women (and by "foreign" I mean "Chinese, Southeast Asian", not "white" - that still seems to be not very common) hadn't done so, that doesn't mean Taiwanese women would choose to marry them.

Of course, my problem is not with interracial marriage. I have no issue with that, and obviously this is regardless of where the two people come from. I am sure plenty of Taiwanese guy/SE Asian woman matches are actually marriages based on love and partnership.

I *do* have an issue with mail-order marriage: the problem isn't marrying foreigners per se. It's more the idea of picking a woman out of a catalogue and having her shipped over. It's sad to say that these marriages are almost always Taiwanese man/SE Asian or Chinese woman, but there you have it.

Since I, at a glance, can't necessarily tell the two apart, I generally try to give people the benefit of the doubt. I have my views, but in the end someone else's marriage is not my business.

And with those men - the ones who think "a wife is a cleaner and bed-warmer that I can pay to have sent here" - yeah, no, who would want to marry someone like that? The problem isn't foreigners, interracial marriage or whatever: it's sexism. It's the mail order bride industry, but more than that, it's the attitudes of the men who obtain such wives that make the mail-order bride industry viable. "I need a wife so I'm going to pay an agent to ship a woman over from Vietnam" is very, very different from "I love and want to marry this person who happens to be a foreigner". It is sexism, and it is an attitude problem, and I daresay it's with the men.

"Leftover women" remarks aside, Taiwan is still a place where, if you can avoid the occasional barb, you can choose not to marry (in that regard, it's not all that different from the USA) without too much of a problem. My impression, gained from observations from friends and students, is that Taiwanese women who don't marry either:

a.) Have actively chosen not to, because they prefer being single; or
b.) Would like to marry, but really do want to meet someone they can love and be a partner with and haven't met that person yet.
c.) Would like to marry, but, something like (b), have been disappointed time and time again by what prospective marriage partners would expect out of a marriage (doing the bulk of the housework if not all of it, kowtowing to mom-in-law, doing most if not all of the child-rearing) and have decided that being single is better than that.

Because as much as I like to say that Taiwan is pretty good in terms of women's status when compared to the rest of Asia, it's still got some serious problems.

I have never met a woman in Taiwan who is old enough to marry but is single because:

c.) The good, available guys don't want her; or
d.) Her standards are impossibly high, including demands on income and home ownership

...of course, women who do have these issues or standards aren't likely to admit to them, or even necessarily be conscious of them. I am sure there are women out there who feel this way, and I've just done a good job of avoiding them.

I know my friends pretty well, though, and they're super cool people (not the type to have insane standards and insist on diamonds or owning a nice apartment before marriage) and lovely ladies, and my students seem similarly down-to-earth. I think if (c) or (d) were issues, I'd be able to intuit that.

And yet, so many people seem to point to those reasons, and blame the women, for not marrying. Not long ago I was at a gathering of expats where the general consensus was that Taiwanese women were impossible, clingy and materialistic. I had to ask myself - do they actually know any Taiwanese women that they didn't pick up in a bar or in English class? Because that certainly doesn't describe my female friends.

I've even heard them blamed for men marrying foreign brides ("if you weren't so opinionated and didn't  overachieve so much, you'd get a man but instead they're marrying Chinese girls because the Chinese girl will let him be the head of the household! Shame on you!") - to which I'd say, if the prize is a guy who'd marry a woman he barely knows because he wants a warm body that happens to include a vagina, then that's not a competition worth entering (sort of like when a Western guy says "well if Western women want to compete with Asian women, they'd better..." - compete? For what prize again? No thanks). (Just making clear again that my issue isn't with marrying foreigners: it's with the mail-order bride industry).

I've heard them blamed for insisting on men who earn as much as or more than they do (which I admit is a problematic social belief, and I have met women who have admitted to this) or otherwise being their professional and social equals. Other than the whole income thing - because money shouldn't really matter that much when it comes to love - I don't see why wanting to marry someone who is on roughly equal footing with you in those areas is deserving of such scorn.

I also don't think it's really all that true: my observation has been that many Taiwanese women are holding out for an egalitarian partnership, not a relationship with a guy who always feels he has to be "in charge". They're holding out for love, for a guy who isn't as likely to cheat or see cheating as his birthright, for a guy who won't try to order them around and who will do his share at home and not always prioritize work. I think that's a good thing, and honestly, if there were a dearth of men who fit that description, even if the country was full of single men, I'd stay single too. Better single than hitched to someone I don't respect, love or trust or who tries to exert control based on sexist values.

But then I've covered all this before. More than once. 

I'm not going to cover the Westerner angle too much - it's been done, and anyway, as a foreign woman married to another foreign guy, I have very little to say on the subject. The best I can come up with are that plenty of Taiwanese woman/foreign guy couples are legit: they genuinely like each other, they're a good match, and it's not skeezy or weird.

Then there are also plenty that, well, do carry a whiff of "undesireable white guy picking up anything Asian in a skirt at a bar that'll have him" ickiness. Since I don't hang around the latter, all I'll say on that is that a.) if you get to know a person or a couple, you can usually tell which it is and b.) even if you can tell which it is, it's generally speaking not your business who a person chooses to couple up with and why, so does it really matter if it's a bit creepy? I mean, it's not like you'd want that guy (I know I wouldn't), and the girl must know what she's getting into - her choice, after all - so whatever.

And I have to admit, I find guys anywhere who'll hook up with any ol' warm body - including a Taiwanese (or Western) man marrying one that's just arrived from Southeast Asia whom he barely knows - to be icky. They're free to do what they like, but that's not who I want to spend my time with.

Phew.

So, how was that for halfhearted?

Now I'm going to go curl up somewhere.

463 People Like This

Look at this picture of a flower I took! Like like like like like like like like

I don't have time for a full-on post tonight, even though I have more to say on the last post's defense of Taiwanese men.

So, a quick observation.

I have quite a few Taiwanese friends on Facebook, as can be expected after five years, and I've noticed that as Facebook has gotten less popular with my friends back home, it's gotten far more popular in Taiwan. Most, but not all, of my friends in the US have Facebook profiles, but not that many actually use it. Of all of my Washington, DC friends, maybe three use it regularly: two if you don't count the friend who always "Likes" the status updates of people, groups and pages she's subscribed to but never comments on what her friends say or posts her own updates. Other American friends use it more, but I've noticed a gaping chasm between how much content they generate vs. my Taiwanese friends.

I mean, if I post a picture of a pretty flower, even a picture that isn't as good as this one ("here is a pedestrian, plain photo of a very common flower!") or a picture of something extremely common, like a Taiwanese onion pancake or an update like "I'm at Eslite!", my Taiwanese friends will like it and my American friends will ignore it. Posts I make in Chinese, in both languages or in "accessible" English always, regardless of how interesting even I think they are, will always get more action than posts in more complex English, and most (but not all) of it comes from my Taiwanese friends.

If my Taiwanese friends, with their 90-99% Taiwanese networks, post a picture of a boring flower, an onion pancake or say "I'm at Eslite!!", I swear within a half hour "28 people like this" and "18 comments" will already be up.  I think some of them have friends who like just about everything (and all of my friends who like basically everything I post are Taiwanese, although not all do this).

I guess I just feel that overall they're much more active - I'd probably have to post "hey, I just got a raise" or "I just got published" to get that many "Likes". It feels like how Facebook must have felt five years ago in the USA*, when people were more gung-ho and not as "over it". I wouldn't say the USA is totally over Facebook, just that we use it in more moderation, which is probably saner. I think the "I'm sitting in a chair!" "87 people like this" phenomenon will also die down in Taiwan as people start treating it more as a normal, more passive part of life rather than something one does to be 'cool'. Of course, since I believe about  80% of all Facebook updates in Taiwan are made during work hours, quite possibly as a form of rebellion-by-dawdling against the insane hours people are asked to work** in this country, it may not die down quite as much.

Being in the middle is interesting - I post a lot less than many of my Taiwanese friends, but a lot more than most of my American friends, who probably think I'm crazy, like I've got Facebook microchips in my blood or something. I don't - I'm just posting at a rate more in line with my local friends - in fact, even less than that. My Taiwanese friends are generally not that young (32-45 or so), so I can't say it's youth, either.

*I wasn't on Facebook quite 5 years ago, although I'm nearing that anniversary

**Seriously, my Taiwanese coworker said that she's "on call 24/7", seriously, they can call her anytime, and she HAS to pick up or give a good reason why she didn't do so. She'll get flak for not calling back quickly (no allowances for being, say, in the shower or at the gym or uncomfortable on the toilet). I told her, "OK, what I'd do, honestly, is tell them the truth regarding why I didn't pick up. 'Why didn't you answer that call? You didn't call back for a half hour!' 'Yeah, sorry, I was having sex.' or 'I was taking a dump and it took awhile, sorry.' They will NEVER ask you again."

In Defense of Taiwanese Men, Part I: or, Did I Really Move to Taiwan to Escape Sexism?

Tonight a perfect storm of headache and a long seminar for a third straight week (at least this one doesn't carry over to Saturday) has made it hard to make good on my promise to myself to blog at least three times this week. My job is not quite the work-and-stress factory that most jobs in Taiwan are - you might think I'm killing myself, but actually I only taught for 2 hours on Tuesday and 3.5 on Wednesday: I was just still recovering from all the seminars so I didn't do much (and on Wednesday I got locked out of my apartment for a few hours).

Anyway, personal asides aside, here is where I humbly present the first part of my defense of Taiwanese men (more to follow), along with another observation on why living in Taiwan is probably the best a woman could hope for in Asia.

Unless you, to quote the great Ani DiFranco, have "put a bucket over [your] head, and a marshmallow in each ear", you've been following (or heard about and blocked out by sticking your ears in your fingers and going 'LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOOOOO!!!!!') the "contraception debate" (as though there's anything to debate) and resulting slut shaming by not only undifferentiated meat sacks* who were, for some reason, given their own radio show but also, scarily, by a lot of people who, despite the generally negative reaction of much of the nation, actually agreed with him. You've heard the slightly less inflammatory but still sexist rhetoric ("those weren't the words I would have used", birth control is "not OK", and a lovely quote about how hogs have to carry stillborn fetuses to term so why not women) from other public figures. You've heard about how birth control somehow doesn't count, in people's minds, as a facet of health care important to women (regardless of their sex lives: I'm not going to hide behind the "it's also used for other therapeutic purposes, too!" argument because I do not believe that sex, premarital or just for fun, not for makin' babies, is bad or wrong and won't kowtow to anyone else's morality) and therefore doesn't deserve the same coverage as other medications that are to some degree elective*.

And you've known, deep in your heart of hearts, that this isn't some big scary new thing that's happened. You've known that this sick virus has lived in America's almost-but-not-quite mainstream culture for, well, for as long as we've had true women's rights, and even before that.

It manifests itself in its most virulent form on the Internet: I can't even scroll the comment sections in The Washington Post or Slate, both of which I read near daily, on any article having to do with women without coming across comments that range from "thar be a whiff of sexism" to "seriously? The Washington Post allows this sort of hate speech?". I hear denigrations of curvy or fat women, I hear denigrations of average-looking women, average-intelligence women, unattractive women, as well as slender, pretty women who, because they aren't interested in whatever guy is posting his bilious tripe, are, well, b-bombs, or some equivalent. I hear ridiculous defenses of why it's OK for men not to help with housework, why whatever thing is bothering women or plaguing women's rights progress is either a figment of our imaginations, the result of our constant whining or not being attractive or trying hard enough to get a man (or liking the men who post this crap), denigrations of jobs mostly held by women (teachers, nurses, secretaries), and hilarious caterwauling that we "won the fight for equal rights!" - which, of course, we haven't. Not while accessible and affordable contraception and abortion are still being discussed, not while the vast majority of our political representation is male, not while a female presidential candidate is subject to the insults that Hillary and Sarah Palin endured (to be clear: I can't stand Sarah Palin, but I will admit she was on the receiving end of a lot of sexism, too), not while we don't earn equal pay for equal work (and no, it's not because we generally work jobs that offer lower salaries, and even if it were, how is it fair that typically female industries offer such low salaries in the first place?).  

And not while our society is still one that allows, even condones, such hate speech directed at women. To be clear, I'm not saying we should restrict freedom of speech, more that I'd like for the US to be a society that condemns the attitudes and hate spewed out against women - and others, but my focus here is women - to such a degree that it's just not thought of, let alone said. I'd like us to be a society that better educates people in a way that discourages such thinking.

You could say "yes, but most of that stuff is being said on the Internet, and there are CRAZIES on the Internet." Yes, yes there are. But those crazies aren't bots, and they aren't aliens, and only a few are trolls. Many of these posters are real live humans, humans that other people presumably interact with, and actually believe this crap. And they're people who exist, in your country, probably around you. You almost certainly personally know one or two of these crazies. You might not know it, though, because generally speaking it only comes out online, in some degree of anonymity. Plus, you know what? I do see it subtly and not so subtly acted upon in every day life: from politicians who think we're livestock to some douchebags sitting around making "fat jokes" in a bar to quietly being treated as though you're invisible if you don't meet some unspoken criteria of female attractiveness (and I'm not talking about  being invisible romantically, I mean literally, people don't look at you, smile at you or extend courtesies to you that you've seen them extend to attractive women).

Of course there are good guys out there - it's not all a wasteland of these jokers - I'm just pointing to one particularly vicious undercurrent that I see in American society.

And to all of that I'd say, well, I haven't seen it in Taiwan. Maybe it's because I don't read enough blogs or comment on enough forums, or haven't seen enough examples - but for now, my impression of how Taiwanese men view women is that, however imperfect, at least they're not so hateful. They're not full of vicious remarks and spitting out of sexist, unfounded "facts". They're just not so goddamned mean. As far as I can tell, they don't sit around on online forums saying the terrible things I see on American forums. They don't sit around with their buddies and denigrate women for sport. They don't subtly or openly act out their prejudices. I don't see the open ogling of attractive women and the complete ignoring - including basic courtesy - of average or unattractive women. I don't hear the crass jokes. I don't hear the "friend zone" comments. I've never come across the Taiwanese version of the "ladder theory", because, honestly, I doubt it exists. I don't hear the backlash, the "quit yer whinin', you won the fight for equality!" or "you have nobody to blame but yourselves, you dumb cows", or the other comments from men that certainly stem from a lifetime of pretty girls not liking them.

I just. don't. hear. it.

And then I venture into online American life - because that's the only way I really participate in it beyond yearly visits home - and I'm saddened and more deeply affected, because I don't have to live with it every day. Imperfect as gender relations are in Taiwan - and trust me, they are imperfect - I have never felt as disrespected as a woman in Taiwan than I did in the USA.

I have to conclude that, while there's a lot of progress that needs to be made in terms of women's rights and equality acceptance in Taiwan, that Taiwanese men just don't have the anger, the bile, the vitriol, lurking in them, just waiting to hurl it at the women who so threaten them.

In that way, the American boors (not all men, to be sure) could really learn from Taiwanese men.

So, when I hear some doofus online going on about how America's such a great place for women, and we should feel lucky that we're in America with our equal rights and the respect we get, these days, I can't help but laugh. Because we don't really get respect at all.

Not to say that Taiwan is some women's equality utopia: it's not. It's just that in this one area, I have to say that it's the American men who come up short.




*totally stole this from someone's comment on Jezebel

*to which I'd say, if we're not arguing about allergy pills, Viagra or Imigran: all important medicines that are the result of the modern health care we'd like to enjoy, but JUST contraception, then it clearly is about controlling women's bodies, as much as people would like to pretend it isn't.