The Dating Debacle

Some interesting thoughts on Bamboo Butterfly on Dating in Taiwan (Part I and Part II).

I wrote a piece on dating advice in Taiwan awhile back (edited not long ago), but of course, my thoughts in that area are to be taken with a grain of salt, seeing as I've never actually dated a Taiwanese guy. I was in a relationship with the man who is now my husband within months of first moving here.

I don't entirely agree with Bamboo Butterfly, but it's interesting and true enough that it is definitely worth a read.

Basically, my findings are this:

It's true that your average Taiwanese guy is generally more likely to prefer what you'd say is generally an average Taiwanese girl (note the very heavy use of "generally" and "average" here - I don't wish to stereotype): quieter than your average foreign woman (although not nearly always: I know plenty of very outgoing Taiwanese women and just as many very quiet American women), slender...I'd say "more modest" and "not as showy" but really, c'mon, with all the fake eyelashes and butt-shorts I see in this country I don't really buy that old cliche. It's true that your average Taiwanese guy is probably going to be just as judgmental about qualities he doesn't like in women in both personality and physical characteristics than your average American guy or wherever-guy.

But...you know what? I'm, err, curvy. And by curvy I mean overweight. I'm flamboyant. I'm loud. I have bright red highlights and my favorite color is eye-assaulting aqua or cobalt. I'm talkative. I'm aggressive. I'm tall - taller than many, but not nearly all, guys here. I am everything a "typical" Taiwanese guy is supposed to not like. And yet, I've had plenty of interest shown in me - I've been chatted up (in a totally not creepy way) on the MRT, had students who clearly had crushes on me, was once told it was too bad I had a boyfriend and had compliments on my looks (which aren't much of anything, really) and had guys who initially seemed interested later on show an interest in friendship (which I tend to brush off, it's a bit weird when you're married), indicating that it wasn't just an interest in a fling.

Bonus! Here's me looking like a drowned rat in Fugly Pants and hair plastered to my head while river tracing in Yilan.
So, as you see, I am not slender, I am not girly, and I am not afraid to wear Fugly Pants.
If Taiwanese guys could like me, they can like you. Your pants are probably not as fugly anyway.

All this just proves that for all those guys who like what you'd expect, there are so many who like something else. I do think a lot of Taiwanese guys who like a foreign woman (or foreign women generally) are the ones who don't want what they see as "normal" in Taiwanese women (I have no doubt that plenty of these guys will go on to meet awesome, cool, outgoing, flamboyant Taiwanese women, in addition to foreign women, though). They're the ones who don't mind a little curviness, who don't want the quiet, sweet, highly manicured "presence" that Taiwanese women are encouraged to cultivate - please note, I don't think all Taiwanese women actually are those things, just that the culture here encourages them to be that way more than, say, American culture encourages women to do so. Who think a little bit of loud&crazy is not only fun, not only acceptable, but desireable. If those guys didn't exist, I wouldn't have any Taiwanese male friends, but I do.

I don't agree that men in Taiwan generally aren't into foreign women the way that women in Taiwan are into foreign guys: I've had more than one guy tell me that they'd actually love a foreign girlfriend, but don't know how to go about making it happen, or are too shy and know it. I think this perception that Taiwanese men don't like foreign women is a false assumption based on the fact that they don't show it as much when they do like someone, and they often won't show it at all when they like someone they know they can't have (or are too shy to go after). Not always - I had one student who had a pretty obvious crush on me and, while he said absolutely nothing inappropriate, it was just really obvious. You know what I mean - a lifetime of being outgoing but really a big dork at heart means I'm not the best at figuring these things out and even I could tell. He probably could have hidden it better - so no cultural observation is universally true.

I do think a lot of foreign women don't realize it when a Taiwanese guy does like them, because it is true (and I completely agree with Bamboo Butterfly on this) that he's not likely to be as forthcoming, not as likely to act on it, and not as likely to make the first move, or any move. It's been pretty well documented by my local social network here that what we see as "friendly" stuff that a guy friend might do with a girl-bro is seen as what we'd call "casual dating" in the West. By the time a local girl and guy go out on an actual date in Taiwan, they're far more "official" than we'd consider ourselves to be in Western culture. A few of my foreign female friends have noted this: dating just happens differently, and a Taiwanese guy could be thinking he is making a move by going out for coffee, hiking or whatever one-on-one where a Western girl might think he's just being friendly. He might not be aware that his intentions are not nearly as clear as they would be with a Taiwanese girl, and she may not be aware at all that he likes her.

I've seen it happen more than once! This is an extreme example, but it happened to a friend of mine who went hiking, jogging etc. with a local guy several times and thought of him as a friend. Then one day he started talking about how they'd have to compromise their cultural differences as a couple and she was all "wait, WHAT!?" Not the norm, I think, but it makes a point.

Final thoughts: laydeez, look for the cool, quirky Taiwanese guy who wants what you have to offer. Don't get discouraged thinking that they as a whole are not interested. Chances are, they are. Don't think you have to morph into some stereotype of a quiet sweetling (which doesn't even hold much water in Taiwan: it's a cliche for a reason) - there's probably a guy in Taiwan who likes you for who you are now. Be more alert: what you might think of as basic friend stuff might be, to that guy, more. So don't write him off because he isn't approaching the whole thing the way a Western guy might. Be on the lookout for cultural differences and attitudes: you don't want to end up with a guy who seemed great while you were dating but then ended up having some pretty sexist ideas about what sort of girlfriend (or wife) you should be. Guys who are happy to buck those notions do exist - find one of them instead.

And don't lose hope. There's probably a Taiwanese guy out there with a crush on you right now - you just don't know it because he's not showing it in the way you'd expect.

Aluba Revisited

I just learned about "aluba"...which...well, apparently it seems among schoolboys that shoving your buddy junk first into a tree, pole or windowsill is a sign of friendship, and I am really not sure what to say about it other than "that sounds like fraternity hazing for teenagers". I was reminded of things I heard about in college: guys called up at 3am and told to prepare 1000 jell-o shots in an hour if they wanted into the frat, or to streak across campus successfully (without getting arrested). Girls stuck in the Circle of Fat (sorority sisters sit around a pledge and use Sharpies to draw circles around areas that "need improvement"), among other things.

But oddly, despite the obvious "ball-busting" aspect of aluba, it seemed oddly less cruel, less objectively mean, than any of the above Greek rush horrors.

After doing a bit of asking around, I learned that almost every Taiwanese guy I know has had it done or know someone who has, and it is considered a true rite of friendship (apparently they don't whack your crotch against the tree that hard. Or something. You gotta trust your bros. Or something).

Here's some interesting reading on the topic:  All about aluba in the Taipei Times

Isla Formosa's blog post on it from the naughts

I got interested in it because of something I saw at an annual party earlier this year:

You can't see it, but just beyond that larger fellow exiting stage right is a pole, and they were clearly trying to do this to their coworker, despite none of them being school-age.

Their buddy escaped:

I didn't know what to make of this until someone mentioned "aluba" and described it to me.

And then it all made sense.

So, uh, wow. My asking around, like the writers of the content in the above links, didn't turn up much on the way of its origins - just that it's a thing. And, from the amount of guys who have admitted it's happened to them (most notably with a fire extinguisher, which was then used on the hopeless aluba'd guy), it's still very much in practice.

What else can I say?

Thoughts on Temples

It's no secret that I'm a big fan of temples, temple festivals and temple history in Taiwan, even if I don't believe in the gods themselves. I've heard more than one person - local and foreigner alike - say things along the lines of "yes, they're cool, but they all look the same: if you've seen one you've seen them all". Kinda like a typical strip of chain stores in a commercial area. You know, the one that has a Yoshinoya, an eyeglasses shop, a Starbucks, a Family Mart, a women's clothing boutique, a Body Shop, a Cafe 85 and a Come Buy all in a row.

Except, like that "typical strip of chain stores", they're not all the same. Sure, many of them seem indistinguishable at first, but like that strip of chain stores - which might include such gems as a pharmacy with a talking bird, a wine bar, Big Fat Chen's Fried Chicken, an Everything Store that sells just the dingbat or widget you need, or an independent cafe that has excellent siphon coffee, or an old guy selling carved things or a stamp-maker with a huge signboard with examples of all the stamps he can make for you...you never know when you'll come across a surprise or a bit of interesting architecture.

Some of these are famous: Xingtian Temple's austere architecture, Bao'an's UNESCO-protected heritage status, Tainan's Confucius Temple. Others are not so well-known:

At the (Buddhist) Yuantong Temple in the hills of Zhonghe

The turn-of-the-century baroque architecture of the Japanese colonial period gave rise to this temple on Lion's Head Mountain. Lion's Head also has a temple on the Miaoli side that, while more traditional in its architecture, is worth seeing.

The well-known Zhinan Temple on Maokong - not a great photo but the beauty here really is in the view rather than the temple itself

The well-known temple on the Miaoli side of Lion's Head Mountain

The Shell Temple outside Sanzhi on the northeast coast

Zhaoming lover's temple up by Wellington Heights between Shipai and Beitou

Xingtian Temple - known (aesthetically at least) for being far less ornate than most

Tainan's Dizang Wang temple has murals of the tortures of hell

Tainan's City God Temple is actually not that "special" when it comes to architecture, but it is very old and I just love this photo

Donggang's Donglong Temple is not as well-known as I feel it should be, for this gate alone

Caotun's temple...that looks like a medicine gourd with a hat. I only know one other person who's been there (another blogger)

Keelung's Fairy Cave temple

And so many more - from the "special because it has cats" temple in Houtong (which I haven't been to yet) to the Southeast Asian-style shrines that you occasionally find (I plan to photograph one in Zhonghe this weekend) to the shophouse temple on Chongqing South Road (I still haven't gotten a good photograph of that one), there are a lot of reasons not to write off the temples of Taiwan as "seen one, seen 'em all".

Because you haven't.

The Sun Is In the Sky, Oh Why Oh Why...

...would I wanna be anywhere else?


In the absence of the mental energy needed to do a real blog post, here are a few of my recent photos.

All of these photos except for three were taken in Taipei. You get an A+ if you can pinpoint which three. A++ if you can tell me where in Taiwan those three were taken.

On Break: Sturm und Drang and Joy It Up

You may have noticed that I haven't blogged all week.

I've decided to take a blogging break for a bit - a few weeks maybe - to figure some stuff out. Don't worry, nothing to get worried over, just that between work, my insomnia, dealing with feelings related to this family illness thing, more work, permanent residency paperwork etc. I just need a break.                               

I may pop back in during this time to do some easy blogging - reviews, quick notes on interesting links to articles, photos, nothing that requires any thought beyond "the nachos were tasty". 

In my daily life I don't actually feel so stormcloudy, negative or emotional, I feel basically OK, but clearly I've got to sort some things out. I especially want to spend less time blogging (and a few other things) and spend more time taking care of my insomnia problem, my feelings about this family illness, and definitely more time with good people who raise my spirits (as an extrovert I do find that that really helps). All of this means less time in front of a computer. I want to take care of the sturm und drang while I can still manage it.

One other thing that really lifts my spirits is happy people finding love. One friend of mine, someone who was really there for me when I needed someone to talk to the most, who has struggled with finding contentment, has found love (or rather, it seems he's recognized the love he's had all along) and will get married in the near future, and I am really happy for him and excited for them. 

So, I made them this card.  It gave me joy to make it, and will - I assume anyway - give them joy to receive it (with a fat red envelope inside, ha ha) - and I hope it gives you all joy to see it.

So, joy it up:

And another card, made for friends who have already gotten married:

And, uh, what? I'll catch you on the flip side? See you on the other side? Dunno. I'll be back, and I'll be (basically) fine. As fine as I can be.

                                                                                        

Here are some hot guys for you

I figure since we're back on Computer Xiaojies (or "booth babes"), that if we can't have a fair world in which women
never fear the fine line of admiration vs. objectification, then I'll give a little somethin' to the other team. I'd prefer that we objectify nobody, but as long as the playing field is not fair, I don't see why I would need to play fair.

My friend Steven and I are fighting over bottom row, second guy from the right. I guess it depends on which side of the Strait he's on.

Har har. See what I did there?

From here - no, I don't subscribe. Blame Steven.

In the spirit of my continued interest (and hopefully yours) on the topic of women in tech, here are two more things worth reading:

Klaus on "Booth Babes" (thanks for the quote shout-out, Klaus - glad someone cares about this issue and is approaching it honestly without calling women who are concerned about it bitter harridans or whatever)

And Slate talking to Genevieve Bell on women in tech.

Success and Having Children in Taiwan

Go read this now.

Why Women Still Can't Have It All

This is really a USA-based article, but still worth a read, very thorough and very articulate. A lot of it holds for Taiwan, too, but then I also think a lot of women in Taiwan choosing not to have children are doing so not for work related reasons (most jobs, let's face it, are not really worth the sacrifice, and those include a lot of low-to-mid-level Office Lady positions - although I fully recognize that a job that may not be "worth it" to me might well be very much worth it to another woman, so take my words with a Himalayan salt lamp-sized grain of salt).

I touched on this a bit the last time I wrote about the low birth rate in Taiwan - on how the main reasons are a feeling that they can't afford to have children, that they want to enjoy now-possible freedoms and comforts their parents didn't have, and gender-based expectations of who is going to take on more work raising kids is still a huge issue. It's huge in the USA, too, but, err, huger here. If that's a word. I also mentioned that the working world, if you work for a larger or international company, is actually friendlier to women, with guaranteed maternity leave and a culture where grandparents are more likely to provide free childcare (the same does not hold for smaller companies, where women are routinely kept back because of a fear they'll have kids and stop being useful to the company).

I didn't touch on what this article covers - women at the absolute top and their decisions on choosing to have kids...or not to.

In the course of my daily work I'm exposed to a lot of women at the top of their careers. CFOs, heads of departments, Taiwan CEOs, legal counsel, physicians and researchers, general managers. While I'd say it's 50-50 regarding whether those women have children, it's also far more likely that you'll find unmarried women and married women without children in those positions.

I'd say that of these - speaking only from my experience - about half don't have children, and of those about a quarter are unmarried. The unmarried women at the top that I know of seem to have no desire to tie the knot (good for them - marriage is not the be-all and end-all of a woman's life or the most important of her accomplishments): I can't come up with any examples of very successful Taiwanese women who are unmarried but have a desire to be. Far more common is marrying and not having children. One woman, who was at the top but has recently resigned from a very high-level job in finance (it even made the United Daily News), is unmarried with a child. Not notable in and of itself, but worth noting in a reflection on high-ranking women in Taiwan and the family decisions they make, especially as her departure was big enough to be reported on (I've met her - she is a very decisive woman).

The striking thing is that you'd expect, if you were so minded, to hear these women say "I would have liked to have had children, but I put my career first", or "I had always intended to have children, but then when I was finally ready it was too late" (something you do hear in the USA - at least in online comments: women who had always thought they'd have kids and then woke up one day and realized they'd never actually done so and it was either too late or almost to that point).

But they don't - most of them will very matter-of-factly tell you, if they are so inclined to tell you anything, that they had never really wanted children, or had decided early on not to have them.

I can't speak for the husbands of these high-powered women I know who do have children; I don't know them. I've been told that they're not that different from the sort of (stereo)typical "allows gendered expectations of child-rearing to continue" man you'd expect, but I don't have that on first-hand knowledge.

That's something - and seems to me to be a strong difference in attitude. A lot less ambivalence, and a lot more decisiveness. I guess if you live in a society where it's more expected that you'll have children (and a son at that! Gah!), you are more likely to be more decisive if you decide not to have them. This may have influenced a decisiveness in my own tone regarding not having children - had I stayed in the USA I might have continued to be a bit more ambivalent, because I would have had the social room to do so.

This leads me to believe that women in Taiwan who reach the top of their fields who don't have children are choosing not to not because being at the top of your field requires so much sacrifice that they forgo this kind of family life, but because they're the sorts of women who wouldn't have wanted children regardless. It's just who they are. I can relate to that - I don't want children, but it's not because of my career. I could realistically have both. It's just who I am (I might write more about that in a future post, or not).

In that way, they may be more like Peggy on Mad Men (bear with me - I've barely seen the show - please do correct me if I'm wrong and Peggy's wanted children all along) than the all-too-common-on-Internet-comment-threads American women who wanted children but wanted a career more, or who had intended to had children but ran out of time while chasing a career. My experience has shown that Taiwanese office culture is not nearly as much like America in the '60s (ie, Mad Men) as a lot of people assume it is, but still, this says something. It says something about the pressures and expectations women face in Taiwan and, as a result, who gets to the top and who doesn't.

In the end, this is true for women in Taiwan, the USA and elsewhere:

We currently live in a world where men make more money for equal work. This means that it's all too common that the parent who stays home or takes a hit to their career is the wife - because, hey, you've gotta earn a good wage for the family.

We also live in a world where, in order to get to the top (at least in the corporate world), you have to basically sacrifice yourself to your company. This is true everywhere. In Taiwan, I feel that many people have to do that anyway, even if they don't get to the top - in the USA you have more of a choice to work reasonable hours (but if you want to be "successful" in the typically expected sense, you'd better make the sacrifice). This means that the parent or parents who take that path will be giving up something - you can't have a real commitment to family and work those hours.

The difference? Women might be more likely to cut back as a result. It's not true that the working men of yore could have a career and a family - he could, but unless he was truly 9-to-5, he probably didn't get to spend as much time with that family as he would have liked. They couldn't have it then, and they certainly can't have it now, with working hours what they are.

So "making it" in the traditional sense, where you have to give up time with your family, isn't going to work if we want a truly equal world.

And we can't change things until we admit that and create a working culture where you can succeed and still have enough control over your schedule to spend real time with your family, and get rid of gender-based expectations of who will do the brunt of the child-rearing and who will take the hit to their career to make that happen.

Then, we need to create a world where a woman who wants children can discuss how it will work with her husband without the lingering expectation that she'll make the sacrifices. She'll be able to enter that discussion knowing that they'll work something out together and he's just as likely to take the hit as she is, and that the hit, importantly, won't be that bad, or that career-damaging.

Then, and only then, will we have equality, or something like it.