Betelnut Equation

Stupid Foreigner: Hate yourself too much to enjoy your luck

2011-10-26T09:42:00.001+08:00

The two guys in question were called David and Swen – although we guessed there were plenty like them.

David and Swen were friends of John’s who he always met in the bar at around at 11:00. He would ideally like to go with us but we, like most foreigners, sat around in someone’s apartment drinking beer until one in the morning to save money. John worked 50 hours a week or more and, in his own words, didn’t want to sit around waiting for his evening to happen. It was arguable if he even needed to meet them as, as soon as the bar got crowded they would fan out, only passing another twenty minutes of conversation together all night. David to one side of the bar and Sven to the other, while John wandered around introducing himself to anyone who would talk to him. When pushed on the subject, he admitted that it wouldn’t make much difference to go alone, but it was that initial thirty minutes or so of knocking back Tequila, he didn’t want to do by himself. None of us liked Sven and David, but John explained they were disgusting Neanderthals and after working hard all week, behaving like a decent human being, it was good to talk to someone without a good bone in their bodies.

Sven and David were in the bar to pick up girls three nights a week; rain or shine, sick or healthy, on their own or with friends, they had to be there to stop there lives falling apart. They had not evolved – This was Taipei, everyone had a girl so you could talk to your friends for most of the time in the bar; there wasn’t such a hurry. Not them, they were to be found heads above the crowd, staring hungrily, agitated, consumed, like the desperate guys in the over-25 Nightclub back home, who hadn’t met a girl for months, and were beginning to question whether they ever would do again. They were so focused a 100 people could walk by and spit in their glass and they would never know, yet they picked up the night before, 3 days ago, 5 times this month and countless this year. Surely they must have proved to themselves that they were men by now…it seemed not.

“What’s up mate?” asked John suddenly finding himself next to Sven.

“It is a bit slow tonight.” And with the sheer horror of not picking up that night dawning on him, Sven set off back into the crowd, efforts redoubled.

Then John saw David. “How is it going?” asked John.

David and Sven were not assholes because they liked to pick up girls; they were assholes because of the manner in which they did it.

David replied, “I can’t find a decent girl, man - these Chinese girls are all sluts. I am going to have to leave soon…to somewhere with decent girls. I expected to be married by this age, but not here!”

That was the problem: David was absolutely sincere in his disillusionment and disappointment, and because of it, destined to lead an unhappy life: arriving a nerdy virgin with an ultra conservative upbringing, meant he had to fuck as many girls as possible to try and prove his worth as a man; then recoil in disgust because the girl was prepared to sleep with him. Drawing large maps of his hypocrisy, with bright colors and 3-D shapes specially designed for kids, didn’t help.

“Look at that slag. I fucked her last week and now she is with another guy,” he continued.

“It is okay, I don’t think you were planning to marry her,” replied John.

“I decide when things are over.” David’s ego had also got out of hand - he had got the idea that getting girls had something to do with his looks and personality.

“Hey, that guy is ugly. You are ugly. This is Taiwan.” retorted John.

Sven returned, “I got to go someone else. I don’t care if it takes all night.”

“Just get yourself a whore. Save your energy,” replied John.

“I’m not going to pay for it.” Sven would never see her again; she could be anyone and he didn’t care if she liked him or not. However, it was different from prostitute for reasons only known to him.

John was glad to see middle-class liberal contradictions weren’t dead.

Sven wasn’t finished. “Man, I just don’t get these 3-hour Take-a-Break hotels,” he said. “I mean, my girlfriend is at work so I go to one with this thing I picked up and the woman behind the desk is looking at me like I am some sort of smuck. She doesn’t know it ain’t my girlfriend.”

“There you go - Shows why we all hate lawyers,” said John.

Eric and over compensation

2011-10-05T10:38:00.001+08:00

Despite years of evidence to the contrary Eric still found it impossible not to overcompensate for Taiwanese women’s poor status in their society – It is not that Taiwanese women didn’t have lesser status, they did; it was rather the situation was more complicated than that: a lesser status didn’t mean you didn’t have an opinion or pride or desire to have your own way.

Still, no woman with him would be allowed to make a decision just to make her man happy. On this occasion, Eric was trying to arrange a vacation to south east Asia with his new girlfriend Christina. Christina understood that she could speak out with a foreigner – that was why she was with one after all; however, over the vacation she just had no idea.

“Where would you like to go? Thailand or Philippines” said Eric.

“Why not California or New York?” replied Christine.

“We have discussed this,” replied Eric. Christine wasn’t sure what they had discussed – apparently some nonsense about getting to explore her part of the world when she had no interest.

“Then i am fine with anywhere,” replied Christine.

Eric stared at her for a short while. “Come on, you can tell me. It is okay, I am a foreigner. Would you like to go to Koh Samui?”

“Yes, anywhere you want,” she replied as she had no idea where it was.

“No, come on, I want you to say where you want to go. This is a joint effort you know.”

“I just know nothing about these places. You decide.” Eric was sure she was just being nice, respectful.

“We could also go to Koh Samui in Thailand, or maybe the Philippines or Bali. What do you think?”

“Okay, what is the difference?” replied Christine reluctantly. I now have to decide my execution method, she thought

“Boracay has the best beaches but is the least developed; Koh Samui has better beaches, Bali better hotels.”

“Okay, then take me to Bali. I decide,” said Christine thinking it was quicker this way.

“Okay, so you prefer Bali and I prefer Koh Samui. I thought we were going to go cheap, and therefore it is better to go to Boracay and get a beach hut.”

“Okay…wherever you say…Boracay then!” She had lost him a long time ago and was getting annoyed they were still having the conversation.

“Wait a moment, we are discussing this together. Boracay is hard to get to and a little bit undeveloped. Koh Samui is a good compromise of the two!” Eric was talking to Christine and himself at the same time.

“Why you bother to ask me when we are back to the original? You want me to make decisions and then you change. Don’t ask me again!”

“No, I wanted to discuss with you. That is the important thing.” Eric was sure he knew best where to go, he just wasn’t sure where that was. Like those bosses who call meetings to make it appear it was someone else’s decision he needed to discuss it with Christine.

“You are now grateful for my input yes! Remind me: what was my input?” barked Christine.

They moved on to timing. “So when can you go?”

“Just give me a month and I can book it. What is a good time for you?” said Christine.

“Me the same! So give me a date.” He was not going to fall for that trick? He was sure if he gave her a date, she would agree with it just to follow him.

“Okay! July. First week,” she replied.

Next Eric opened the website hotels.com. “Ok, where to stay?”

Christine. “I decided the place, you decide the hotel.”

“You didn’t decide the place. We did together I was happy with your choice so help me choose a hotel,” said Eric. This was what he had suspected. He needed to get her more used to taking part in the decision making. He knew because he daily monitored his own actions for signs of male chauvinism, and was getting increasingly worried because he didn’t seem to be able to spot any acts of caveman like behavior. To train her, he knew he had to spoil her now, let her get used to making more decision making and then he could start to bring things back to a more equal balance later.

“Okay, this looks like a better hotel,” she replied wearily.

“Are you sure? You are not saying this because you think I want to stay there are you.” He was sure she had been trying to read his face. Actually, she was just confused.

“No, that hotel is the hotel I want to stay at,” she replied. Even though she didn’t care, after the destination discussion she was going to make a stand on this one, she wasn’t going to be messed around again.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay at this one.” Desire to let her have her own way was now causing decision grid-lock.

“If I can’t stay at this one, I’m not going.” For an instant he thought she was serious –which she was – but then concluded that these Taiwanese girls really were experts at hiding what they truly thought.

“Ok. Great. Then it is all decided,” said Eric. He gave a nod to himself that he had managed to negotiate the tricky problem of drawing out of her what she thought. Now, he just needed to get together the money for his half about a month earlier than he initially planned. Maybe, the hotel was a little out of his price range – but he would think of a way out of it.

“You know anyone who can get us a cheap flight?” asked Eric.

“A travel agent is a friend of mine and she will give me a good price.”

“What do you mean she is your friend? She actually gives you a special discount and you occasionally go out socially?”

“My family has bought a lot of tickets from her in the past.” It was the same old story – couching a business relationship in personal terms; the belief that cheaper tickets would come because she was a friend.

“So she is just someone in an agency who you have bought a lot of tickets from - like the other 4 million in Taipei. This woman has a lot of friends, I’m sure.”

“You get the fucking tickets! You ask me if I had a friend to get us a cheaper ticket, yes or no? I don’t want to help anymore.”

“I meant an…” He wanted to say ‘actual friend’, but realized it was much quicker just to apologize - “I’m sorry.”

Flooding the toilet and germ obsession

2011-08-30T14:08:00.001+08:00

I waited for the door of the bathroom. I had heard the guy splashing and sloshing around from the other side of the door, now my fears were realized as i spotted the wet floor, walls and water dripping from the mirror over the bathroom.

Jesus, can’t i even come to Starbucks and not need my wellies, i thought. It is well decorated. The assistants keep it clean. You are not at home.

The obsession with germs and cooling oneself down meant almost every bathroom you went to in Taiwan was soaking wet. You kind of expected it and were not bothered at some tourist attraction where the toilets were pretty basic, but not in this spanking new clean bathroom. Obviously, the guy has done what he always did. Pulled out a 100 tissues or so to place on the toilet seat, so many that it must have felt like a sofa. Then he had opened the tap with his fingernails and, once his hands were washed spent 10 minutes throwing water over the tap to make sure when he turned it off he wouldn’t pick up any germs. But he hadn’t finished yet. It was summer so he had to throw water on his face for another 10 minutes, and, as Taiwanese never have carpet on their floors in the bathroom, he threw enough water to thin out the paint on the back wall.

Oh well, nothing to do. I had to turn up my jeans and wade in.

Taiwan Culture: Smuggling into Taiwan II

2011-08-04T13:37:00.001+08:00

A long time after the gigolo work Pierre started his import/export business – see, smuggling expensive bags into Taiwan http://betelnut-equation.blogspot.com/2009/04/smuggling-into-taiwan-i.html.

It wasn’t exactly ever going to IPO but at least it keep him in enough cash for a 4 or 5 month stay in Taiwan. However, like all nice little numbers it was destined to come to an end.

He was back in Paris for another bag run. At the start Pierre had showed some commonsense: he went shopping for the bags when he arrived for good reasons – He didn’t spend all the money he had been given and if an item was out of stock he had a chance to get it another day. This time he had reverted to type. The money his buyer in Taiwan had given him was mostly gone – she gave him about half the money – and he had just one day left to get all his bags and scarves.

Still, armed with his father’s credit card, he was sure he could do it all in time.

First stop was a scarf and bag he needed in Hermes. On the way he checked out the pictures he had in his pocket of the items he needed before entering the shop. He didn’t have much time so he just shouted to the shop assistant to get him the items, but this was France not Taiwan so the assistant ignored him, before pointing curtly to a table in the corner.

Pierre sighed, somebody was already looking at the bag and he had a tight schedule. He hovered around not trying to look too interested or pushy waiting desperately for him to put it down. He breathed a sigh of relief as the guy moved over to the scarves and he went to pick it up.

“Hey, what are you doing?” said the guy.

“I am taking the bag,” said Pierre. “You put it down.”

“I put it down because i have decided it is the bag i want and now i am looking at the scarves.”

Pierre wasn’t sure about etiquette here. He had never had to fight to make a purchase. He looked at the sales assistant who just shrugged his shoulders. Pierre snarled and put it down again.

Pierre to shop assistant, “Ok. I want that bag, please.”

Assistant: “Is there anymore on the table?”

“No,” said Pierre. There was a long silence punctuated with: “So can you get me more from stock?”

Assistant: “Is there anymore on the table?”

Pierre turned to the guy with the bag and tried to be charming. “Look, it is my girlfriend’s birthday tomorrow…”

But it was pointless. “Same here,” he replied. “And, no. She didn’t give me a long list of choices.”

Pierre turned back to the assistant. “Ok, can you order me one from another shop?”

“Sure,” said the assistant. “It will take two days to arrive.”

“Never mind,” said Pierre. “He bought the scarf he had to and headed out the door to the taxi.

An hour and a half later after wasting plenty of Euros in taxi he had his bag and he was in Gucci to get a couple of wallets.

There were lots of people there already but he knew the layout of this shop and headed straight to that section. As he approached the glass counter the same guy was approaching from a different angle. Pierre accelerated and grabbed 3 or 4 wallets.

“Don’t know which one i want yet but i am booking them all.”

The guy stared at him but knew he was beaten this time. He headed off to pay for the sunglasses he had picked up, while Pierre stood a couple of customers behind him in the queue. As they waited Pierre began to put two and two together. The guy had sunglasses he had just bought, he was dressed overly smart for someone who clearly wasn’t going to work that day, and now he was double-checking a piece of paper to make sure it was the right item. He guessed they had the same mission.

Once outside he chased and caught up to the guy.

“Ok,” said Pierre. “Who are you getting the bags for?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” the guy replied.

“Stop,” said Pierre. “We are both French. What difference does it make?”

The guy explained. He had met a Hong Kong girl in a bar. She had told him a hard luck story of how the racist shop assistants in Louis Vuitton wouldn’t sell her a bag so he had gone and bought it for her. It became a habit and he knew she didn’t have that much money. After giving her the bag and getting the money he followed her a while and saw her meeting another guy. Initially he had been interested in her, so he approached angrily only to see her collecting another bag and handing over cash. He demanded to know the truth and from then on it became a job.

Pierre knew it was a smart move and a step up in operations. Usually the Taiwanese and Hong Kong relied on students from their respective countries and air stewardesses, but that was limited: they could only buy one at a time and not so regularly because they didn’t want to get blacklisted by the shops. This way, with a local buying, the bags could be passed on and the hostesses could bring in two or three per trip nicely tucked away in their luggage. It was a necessary move now with the demand for these kind of bags in Shanghai etc.

Can’t anything stay low key, thought Pierre.

“Anyway, do you have to do this today?” asked Pierre.

“Sorry, man. I have a mortgage to pay. Besides the girl said tomorrow lots of items had to go.”

That will be my flight, thought Pierre.

Pierre continued: “So what now?” said Pierre.

“I don’t know, man,” replied the other guy. “I guess you do yours, and i do mine. And let the best man win.”

With that they both ran in opposite directions.

…

Five hours later the shops were shutting and Pierre was assessing his shopping list. He was down about half the items. During the afternoon he had only seen his competitor about a couple of times, but he had felt his presence as stock was gone before he got there. But it wasn’t just competing with the other French guy it seemed because the shops with packed with Mainland Chinese guys in bad jackets trying to buy luxury and getting rejected. The Mainland buyers were a hard bunch to pick because the super rich from China also often dressed extremely badly. Picking a westerner faking rich was about looking for a cheap pair of shoes combined with the nice suit; for the Mainlanders spotting someone who was genuinely rich was about finding one extraordinarily expensive item – usually watch – amongst a bunch of bad ones.

On this occasion he knew he would only make enough for a month or so. He also knew that he wouldn’t be bothering to fly back in such a short time. He would have to find something else to do.

He went around the corner to a bar and sat down for a drink. Across the room was an Asian girl sitting across from a French guy. Not extraordinary but for the fact that there were a bunch of name brand bags on the floor between them – and obviously, they couldn’t afford the contents for themselves. The couple got up and left after exchanging bags and the guy gave him a wink as if to say “you too”. Pierre ignored him based on professional pride: he was the original.

Sorry for not posting for a while…But it doesn’t really matter that much for new arrivals and i explain below…

2011-07-07T15:51:00.001+08:00

Firstly, for any of my followers, sorry for not posting for a while, work has been super busy and i will get back to it soon.

Why it doesn’t matter that much for others

A while ago a friend told me i had perhaps made a mistake by doing this as a blog rather than a website. Being a bit slow he had to explain his point.

Blogs – Apparently blogs are the regularly updated expressions of their writers. The emphasis being on current information.

Websites – They have content which, to a much greater degree, is timeless; there to educate and inform.

Based on this i had to unfortunately admit i should have done a website -- My objective was always insights, reflections, and stories about the foreigner in Taiwan that would inform, entertain and hopefully be an invaluable source of learning about the culture and mistakes to avoid. There are more than 200 posts here, all of which are as valuable as another regardless of when they are written.

Eric and his underground occupation VI

2011-04-07T14:11:00.001+08:00

About a week after he went into hospital, we all went to visit. As we got close to the door of his room a certain woman came out and suddenly we felt the need to sprint in, hearting racing.

“What the fuck was she doing here?” We shouted in unison. “You didn’t eat anything from her did you…? She didn’t get near your drip?”

“Relax, guys,” said Pierre.

Eric lost his temper. “What do you mean? RELAX. It was her you dumb fucking idiot! She hired the hoods!”

We hoped the pain shooting through his body would generate some humility, but unfortunately not. “I think I know her,” he replied. “I was always too careful. She is not smart enough to have worked it out.”

We all thought about punching him or grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and banging his head against the wall.

Pierre broke the silence. “Besides - You boys don’t want to lend me the money to pay for my hospital bill?”

We didn’t of course, because lending no doubt meant giving.

Pierre continued. “How do you think i got moved into this private room?”

In fact a week ago, for a few moments, we had delayed his entry into intensive care wrangling over identity papers and costs:

In the end Eric solved it. “I use my registration card and John handles the costs. You’ll be able to get the money out of him; he is afraid of you.” Eric had suggested and so it was settled: one of them had the cash, and the other, an identity card.

“You sure no syringes went near your drip?” I asked.

“No. Now have some fruit. It is one of those Japanese apple/pear combinations. Very good and very expensive,” said Pierre.

It did look great but still we declined.

In spite of his convictions that it wasn’t her, the next day he checked himself out of the hospital, arranged to see her to tell her he was going back to France, and went to collect his stuff.

He then chose to interpret her not standing in his way, and the envelope with four thousand US dollars, as a sign she felt sorry for him - rather than that she felt extremely guilty.

No doubt she did actually only want him scared and a little roughed up. Things had conspired against Pierre: he was drunk, spoke excellent Chinese, and had already gone into Mickey Rourke mode. They were professionals, but it didn’t mean they couldn’t be provoked into making it personal.

* * *

Another week later. We had gone to meet him in a pub. He had already arrived. Probably been there all day.

We sat opposite him watching in awe while, with his arm in a sling, he ‘chain’ ate and drank: a pint, a large submarine sandwich and his evening dose of pills with just the one working hand.

“Not easy to keep the salad in the sandwich with one hand,” said Pierre implying that he could, and he was coping much better than most who, just two weeks ago, had all the nerves in their hand severed. When they set up the ‘Machete Victim Olympics’ he would be the new Carl Lewis.

He continued. “It must have been my ex-boss. I don’t fucking forget this sort of thing. There are some horrible kind of guys in that industry, I can handle them but, you know, I ain’t that sort of man. Don’t want that for my life.”

We still felt too much admiration and pity for him to tell him what an asshole he was. Josh, Eric and myself knew that if we temporarily lost feeling in a little toe, we would have been on the first plane home to utilize the hospitals of our respective Western countries, and promise our parents to never leave again. It was irrational of course: Taiwan has a first world healthcare system and similar could have just as easily have happened back home, but times like this demanded panic, familiarity and a ‘bogey man’ to blame.

“If I owe you money, get it now, while I have it,” said Pierre getting a huge envelope of cash out of his jacket pocket. “ Thank you all. In fact, take some money for drinks tonight. Only, I excuse myself from going to get the rounds.”

We had visions of him going backwards and forwards bringing one beer at a time and started to smile. We could tell that there was a slight lack of energy in his tone - Maybe the unsinkable ego had it bows breached after all.

Pierre then declared he was off to Thailand for a few months because he needed to lie low and have a think about what to do.

Thailand wasn’t exactly the place where you go if you want to stay out of trouble.

As expected he was back in under a month. All his money spent, but at least not lacking functionality in any more limbs.

Pierre and his underground occupation V

2011-03-07T11:52:00.002+08:00

After the BBQ on the roof, drunkenness and just down right stupidity meant we agreed to go to Pierre’s gilded cage for a party.
At the time we actually thought we were being clever because Pierre went ahead by half an hour or so – just to check the coast was clear. Who knows what would have happened if we had arrived at the same time? I suppose it doesn’t matter.
John took Eric on his scooter and I took Martina, Pierre’s date. Worried about being caught for drink driving i took things slowly arriving about 20 minutes after the other two. It proved to be one of the best decisions in my life as i guess it saved me the kind of stress that turns you gray. Afterwards, John decided to drive slow as well.
Anyway, this is how they recounted the story of the first 20 minutes.
“Get the fuck off the back,” shouted John to Eric. They recognized the shirt, they were outside his apartment, and had to extremely reluctantly face the fact that the limp body being dumped in the boot of the car was Pierre’s. (John had seen this once before, when he was walking pass a dark alley, the guys flashed a concerned look at him, to which in reply he pointed two fingers at his eyes, shook his head and walked on).
Unfortunately, now he knew the person concerned and had to do something. Driving off would be the best option, and he thought for a second whether Pierre was a friend worth putting his life on the line for…Probably, not, but he couldn’t risk regretting it the next day.
John left Eric depressed and shaking and sped round to the front of the car, dropping his motorbike to prevent them driving off.
“Just do nothing but translate, word for fucking word, no ideas, no personal input. If they come for us run screaming like a bastard! Got it!” Eric didn’t know whether he was more scared of John or of the guys who had just bundled Pierre in the back of a car and were now coming to the front of the car to confront him and John. For once, he appeared to get the idea that it was best not to threaten to sue.
Eric was actually caught in two minds about the presence of John: if the situation was going to be got out of, he was the man, but if John hadn’t been there, Eric could have pretended he didn’t see, then later justified it on the basis of there was no point in two people getting killed. On his own he knew he would be crap, non-existent; he was not going to much use now - just hoping to pull off being John’s Chinese speaking hand puppet, and he may even fuck that up. He had always thought he was far too logical to get into a fight – he never fought, he wasn’t big; common sense taught him he was going to lose. After all, you don’t expect to go out and beat Federer at tennis when you have only played a handful of times in your backyard. He often got angry, and felt like punching people, but then logic would take over and he would walk away. Now he was just overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness. And, he didn’t know how he had time to think of this because he was frozen and numb with fear; but it seemed his poor attention-span applied to feeling shit scared as well: his mind wandered off until it couldn’t ignore the shaking anymore, then went back to being blind panic.
“Right. In you’re best non-arrogant, condescending, listen to me I went to Harvard tone tell them we just want them to leave the guy. We didn’t see anything…But…We ain’t going without him.” For once in his life Eric was sure he could do non-combative, modest, and un-argumentative.
He did as John said but it didn’t seem to be effective: the guys still went to the trunk, pushed Pierre’s body about a bit – they heard a bump and a groan – and started coming towards them with a machete and a baseball bat (Stun and slash seemed to be their operation) clearly intent on taking the two of them with their friend.
“Hmm, it doesn’t seem this is going to be so easy after all,” said John. “Right. You know what you are supposed to do after you start running?”
Eric thought that was straight forward enough – pump air into his lungs through his nose until they burst while approaching looking back as if he were Hades leading his dead wife through the underworld back to life. “Get around the corner and call the police, then start ringing every fuckin’ buzzer on this street. Use that big mouth of yours for something good for once. I won’t be able to last out too long.”
Eric thought for a moment. “Shouldn’t I…” he said. He knew Pierre got himself into the situation, but John hadn’t and was going to get himself killed and he decided a man can’t be a weasily-coward all his life.
“No!” said John. “Is it going to help the situation if you hang around?”
Things changed again. John and Eric had already backed down the street thirty yards so the guys had turned back and were picking up the bike. John knew he was going to have to provoke them, he looked around for some weapons…Bloody typical, he thought, in this city there is always a skip by the roadside, building sites and scaffolding with materials that would make Mr.T orgasm, now…
“Gan ne ma (Fuck your mother).” He shouted as loud as he could and produced a middle finger. An East/West combo insult couldn’t fail. As expected the guys dropped the scooter, and started to move in his direction. No amount of profession pride could suppress a Taiwanese gangster’s anger at being told to go and fuck his mother. John was starting to feel a little sorry for himself, that life was shit no matter where he lived, and he was going to go out for someone else’s sins.
At this point Martina and I arrived.
I didn’t initially see Pierre, and i had never been in this situation before. All i saw was the two guys with the weapons, but it is funny how fast your worst fears allow you to clue in.
“Where is Pierre?” I shouted to Martina.
Martina quickly found Pierre and went running in the direction of the guys with the weapons. I followed until i realized she wasn’t going to stop running and i was getting in swinging distance. John changed from backing up to running in their direction to help her out.
Martina stood in front of them. “Na ma, le hai,” she said, and then kept repeating it while dipping her head and being reverential. It seemed completely weird to compliment the guys but i didn’t have any better ideas.
“You the winner. You beat him,” she said. “Please. Let him go. He stupid foreigner. He is very scared now. You teach him. Please let him go.”
It was then a weird couple of minutes as Martina continued sucking up to them and we all stood in our various positions. Two minutes ago my hands had been outstretched trying to grab her and pull her back. John had been sprinting with a motorcycle helmet in his hand. And Eric was running away. Now, my hands had relaxed at my side, John was in half hulk mode, and Eric was slowly edging his way back towards us. Stress levels were dissipating.
Suddenly, the tension then ratcheted up again as the two guys walked back to the boot of the car. They then rather un-lovingly positioned Pierre on the boot entrance lip and ceremoniously tipped his balance so he fell to the ground, spinning and bouncing off the bumper below. While John moved his scooter the window screen was lit by a broad arrogant, menacing smile; as they drove off they shouted ‘bye bye’, in that patronizing way that says you boys are losers.
Pierre was unconscious and and some pools of blood were getting bigger on the floor. I immediately went for the smaller pool whose source was his forehead. I took off my outer t-shirt and held it on his head.
The biggest pool was coming from under his left arm.
“Hold the cut together, man. Apply pressure to stop the bleeding,” said Eric to John.
“I know. I was in the army knob head. Why me?” questioned John understandably.
“One of us has to call an ambulance. How is your Chinese?” replied Eric.
John grunted and quickly put one hand on either side of the wound and pushed it together.
About 30 seconds passed and Eric was still standing there.
“Why the fuck aren’t you calling?” I shouted.
Eric hesitated again before blurting out. “You know me. My pre-pay card is out and I didn’t have enough money…”
“You twat, earn some fuckin’ money,” shouted John. “Anyway, use my phone.”
There was another moments hesitation before Eric worked out it was best for John not to let go - John was holding together Pierre’s left forearm which had been sliced to the bone. And, it wouldn’t just be the effect on Pierre’s blood volume if he took his hands off, but John knew a game of now you see it, now you don’t with the white bone below was likely to cause him to throw up.
Eric reached into John’s pocket, took his phone and started dialing.
“What a fucking dick, eh!” said John.
“Shut up – maybe, he can hear,” I said. John thought this was bullshit, but given the gravity of the situation decided not to take a chance. He had visited casualty plenty of times on the early hours of a Sunday morning for his own, or friends’ broken noses, cracked ribs or concussion, but they had always managed to wake up from the boots in the head; this he knew was a level above.
“Martina, that was amazing,” i said. “That took balls.”
“I am from the Ukraine,” she replied.
“But i mean the whole reverse psychology shit to calm them down. In a movie but…” I said.
“Of course,” said John. “We had courses in that in the army. Hostage situation. Talking someone down and all that stuff. It works. Very useful.”
“So,” I said. “You were standing with a motorcycle helmet.”
“There you go asshole,” he replied. “If i could do that crap i might have made it to the special forces.”
He continued. “Besides, do you think they would have allowed me within 2 yards of them?”
For the next 15 minutes, we kneeled and sat on our asses on the road silently, hands occupied holding wounds together – Me on his head, John on the left arm, Martina on the right arm, and Eric on his ribs. Selfish motives for his survival went through our heads along with the noble: neither of us had had anyone die on them before and we had no interest in wrestling with the question, ‘Did we do enough?’
Fifteen minutes later, the ambulance arrived. Unfortunately, the officer thought he could speak English.
“Uh, what…Uh…matter?” he said.
“Ta di shou be bei kan le. Ta liou hen dwo xie,” (His arms are cut. He has lost a lot of blood.) Eric informed the medical officer from the ambulance.
“You say…um...arm. cut…yes…Where?” he replied taking an age to finish his sentence.
Eric repeated it and started to explain about the head and ribs as well.
“Stop. Uh. Slowly,” said the guy. “So…Uh…Head? Rib? Did i say it right?”
For once we were all in agreement with Eric and weren’t prepared to be polite.
“Stop practicing your fucking English,” we shouted.
Offended, he walked off leaving his colleague, who didn’t mind speaking Chinese with a foreigner, to take over.
At the hospital.
“What happened to him?” asked the receptionist in the hospital.
“He was beaten up; hit by a meat cleaver,” replied Eric.
“Hmm, that is nothing. See that man crying there, his daughter jumped from the roof - Se diao le (dead).”
“What did the old bird say?” asked John.
Eric stood pondering the unbelievable level of insensitivity. Almost admiring it. Normally he would have already taken the bait but tonight he was spent. “You don’t want to know,” he replied.
Pierre was taken into emergency and we had no choice but to hang around at the reception desk, accompanying each other for finger biting and cigarette breaks, before checking with the insensitive receptionist if their was any news from the emergency room. She had more important things to talk about.
“Your friend is American,” she asked.
“French,” answered Eric, but her attention had been taken : “Look at that !” she shouted. A suited businessman was being wheeled into emergency on a bed wearing an oxygen mask. “He tried to commit suicide, but failed! Mei you yong (No use). That man’s daughter succeeded…3^rd attempt though, I had seen her before today.”
“Maybe, this guy will be back soon. Have you seen him before?”
“No!”
“Next time is number 2. That is quicker than her.” I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation.
“That is right.” She turned in the businessman’s direction, “Die next time and you won’t be such a failure.”
Then flitting back to me: “You are American?”
“No,” I replied. “But he is.” I pointed to Eric so she turned her attention to him.
“I have been to America. Denver! My friend lives there, opened a Chinese restaurant,” she said.
“Never been,” replied Eric. “Denver is a nasty place. I am from New York which means i find you culturally easier to understand. What is happening with my friend? Uh, i mean the person we brought in.”
Receptionist: “Worry is a waste of time! If they can save him they will. Just wait and see.”
Eric was traumatized, and having seen enough blood for one evening he sat down instead of thrusting the pen, he still had in his hand from filling out the forms, in her eye. The world seemed a cruel place.
Half an hour later, and her shift had finished: “Tell your friend to be more careful - if he survives…”
The lady who replaced her was compassionate, sensitive and understanding!
About two hours later, he woke from his coma, and we were able to go home to sleep. He had twenty stitches in his head; several of his ribs were cracked, his face was a swollen mess, and the most permanent damage was to his left arm. The nerves had been severed meaning it could take months or years or never to recover full feelings.
We went home assuming it was the end of the story. Still it had one more episode…

Pierre and his underground occupation IV

2011-01-31T13:45:00.002+08:00

A little while later and Pierre had taken things with Ms. Hu further.
It was the mid-September Full Moon Festival meaning, among other things, everybody was supposed to have a barbeque in the evening.
The struggling artists, prompted by Eric, had agreed to arrange one and John, Pierre and Josh and myself had reluctantly agreed to go because it sounded like they had an ideal place: a top-floor flat meaning quick access to the refrigerator from the roof; the roof had not been built on; and, the best thing of all nobody had covered it with corrugated iron so you could see the stars.
Firstly, who were the struggling artists? The struggling artists were a group of Eric's friends who shared similar interests: they organized drum festivals in parks, they went to the beach and played their guitars, they studied ancient Chinese, and they desperately claimed to only be doing work they wanted to do rather than teaching. But that is where the similarity ended because, whereas Eric was committed and fierce in learning to do the things he wanted, they were not: Eric struggled; they struggled to get out of bed. And it was something about Taiwan that allowed you to do so. It was easy to get your 40,000 NT a month for doing very little and with that you had a scooter so negligible transport costs; food was cheap and you could always find a girlfriend better looking than you ever had back home - Either impressionable young girls who wanted to speak better English or older women who thought you were going to treat them better than a local guy. Their relationships lasted about a year or so, until the girl went off to study in Canada or the older woman worked out they weren't going to turn their lives around and get a good job.
Although this was a national holiday, requiring the purchase of lots of fresh meat a foreigner could still confidently walk into the supermarket at four o’clock and expect to get what he wanted - The Taiwanese had emptied the shelves of the chicken wings, squid, little boney fish with the eggs still inside, clams, shrimps and intestines, leaving all the nice pieces of steak, chicken breast, pork and sausages for those barbarian foreigners with no taste.
John and myself had been waiting on the road outside their apartment for Eric for half an hour and when he arrived we remembered another reason why we didn't like to attend the struggling artists bbq.
“Sorry I am late man! I had to go to several supermarkets,” said Eric. He had balked at the price of the steak and so spent an hour driving around town until he found the only reduced price chicken wings left.
“More Taiwan style, eh,” he said. We went upstairs and laid out next to the bbq were a lot of chicken wings all supplied by the hosts. They arranged this, but clearly didn’t seem to suffer from the Taiwanese desire to impress their guests with their generosity.
It wasn't a surprise. The first time we had eagerly turned up at their bbq with steak and lamb bought from Costco and wine. Feeling embarrassed we had put it down next to the chicken wings and proceeded not to get any all night. Tonight would be different. Our stuff wouldn't come out of the bag till they were all too high to notice.
Suddenly Pierre arrived with Martina, a Ukrainian girl who was in Taiwan as a model. Pierre pulled me over to one side. “Look at this. Don’t tell Martina where I got it.” Pierre had not managed to get any food, but had bought an extremely expense bottle of XO Brandy. I had no idea where he had got it so I, of course, couldn't tell Martina.
Eric had missed his chance for a bottle of brandy yesterday. As a way of saying she didn't want to study anymore, Eric's student had tried to give him a bottle of brandy with her excuse that she was busy. As a form of petty revenge he had said, No, and walked away shaking his head cursing the Taiwanese for not being straight. Telling himself back home they would have come out and told him, they wouldn’t have wasted his time like this. John assessed the situation correctly. “So it would have been much better if she told you you were crap? Back home they would never have given you the bottle... And, anyway, she didn't waste your time because you have been in Taiwan for a while and you know not to hang around waiting for students to call.”
Oh, for the marvels of alienation.
John had no such problems exploiting his status. His date for the evening was Lucy, another of his eager beaver, dying to speak good English young girlfriends who would be gone in six months to the States.
John walked off to hide his meat and we stood awkwardly with Lucy. It was awkward because we knew she would be determined to speak English and us Chinese, and we had to stop ourselves being rude. We decided to indulge her – It was funny how that always happened in Taiwan.
“Do you want a kebab?” I said.
“Sorry, what did you say?” she replied keenly.
“Kebab!” I picked it up to show her, “What about a beer? Taiwan beer is a nice beer you know!”
“No, thank you!” She was a little impatient: these weren’t useful words to learn. She decided to go on the offensive and ask a question. “What do you do in Taiwan?”
“I am studying Chinese” replied Josh knowing this was the quickest way to lose her. She moved to Eric: “And you?”
“I am a student of Daoism… dao jiao.” She stood awkwardly for a moment after realizing she wasn’t going to have a conversation useful to her progress in the English language and walked off.
“Where is Lucy?” asked John now he was back.
“Finding a victim,” said Josh. “Why do you bring these stupid, boring young girls?”
“Because I can, I suppose.”
Eric continued: “Don’t you just hate that when they try and show off their English?”
“Okay with me,” replied John. “We both get the benefit of a body part above the neck.”
At this point Martina wandered off. Pierre’s declaration he could get girls from anywhere in the world, that he didn’t need Taiwanese girls - and was thus better than the rest of us - hadn’t been an idle one. Two months previously his girlfriend from France had arrived on a year long deafening trumpet fanfare: they knew everything about her, but especially that she had large breasts – cue, Taiwanese girls don’t. He walked around for two weeks showing her off, totally unaware that we just didn’t care. Otherwise, over the last few years he has had a succession of eastern European models. Martina, like most of them came for two months, working packed schedules for the smaller, local clothing companies, who needed a white face to show their clothes were imported from Italy or France, but didn’t want to pay too much.
Up until now we had remained indifferent to his superiority, but the dynamic was getting annoying so we had a plan to stop it – We were always with Taiwanese girls, who, of course, didn’t believe in the superiority of men, but understood to play that game. You could be rude and sexist and they smiled; you could criticize western women, which they did all the time, and of course the Taiwanese girls smiled.
We decided Eric had to execute the plan because they were the least friendly to each other.
Eric spoke: “Pierre, man, where do you find all these hot white women? Look at us, we have to make do with the local girls.”
And with that Martina was his last western girlfriend.
Josh changed a topic.
“Hey, Pierre, how was the visa run?” he asked. Pierre looked like the game had been given away, and made a point of pulling me and Josh over to the side, making something that wasn’t clandestine extremely so.
“Best not to ask me about this in front of Martina.”
“She is not here,” I pointed out.
“Why?” asked Josh because he knew if he asked Pierre wouldn't tell. “It is complicated. Just don’t mention it to Martina.”
Eric walked back over so Pierre had to involve him. “American. Did you hear what we were talking about? Same goes to you don’t mention it to Martina.”
“That will be easy,” he replied. “I never speak to any white women. And, just so that I don’t, dude, just blurt it out, what am I suppressing?”
Pierre was feeling friendly towards Eric, now that he had shown the integrity to admit the truth about the women, so he decided to tell him: “I went to Thailand with Miss Hu. She is paying me to live with her now.”
Pierre pulled his now that is big shit, isn’t it face, and on this occasion we had to agree it was warranted. That was the thing about Pierre you couldn’t permanently dismiss him as an arrogant buffon because there were some things he did exceptionally well - He spoke perfect Chinese and English – when many of the other French guys had rather strong accents; he could charm a crowd with his Chinese singing; and he got women to pay for him, which has just about every guy’s fantasy. Pierre then went on to tell his story…He didn’t want to live with her, but he had had enough of the KTV and he wanted to make a clean break. He had to do it - You see, he needed someone to buy him out of the KTV, otherwise he would get his legs broken by the bosses. Pierre had told us about being sucked into an underground world where he constantly had to stay alert, but this was nonsense. He wasn’t a mainland Chinese girl smuggled into Taiwan to whore until her debt was paid. He was working at the higher end of the scale; yes, they might have called him a few times, but basically he could have left anytime he wanted to.
“I had to tell Martina I was sorting out some business,” he said.
“Didn’t you have to go to get a new visa, anyway?” I asked.
“Yes”
“So no need to say anything other than that.”
Pierre had got tired of the club only working two times a week. He refused to meet Miss Hu on his days off, no matter how many times she asked. This forced her to come to the club on the nights he worked and pay them to take him out. He knew he could be getting that money, but, short-term at least, he liked to think about how much money it was costing her, and this way, he didn’t have to work either. Then, after realizing he didn’t have enough money for a visa run to Thailand he had decided to invite her:
“Pierre I am a traditional woman, well-respected in the business community,” she replied. “I can’t just go to Thailand with a young foreign guy.” She had reacted exactly as expected.
Two days later she called for his full name for the tickets - Of course, he had to go to the airport and check in separately.
“I am a good woman. I know you need somewhere nice to live, and I want to give you a chance to relax, not worry about money and find something you really want to do,” she had said. And with that she had managed to make the hiring of his services for 50,000NT a month sound like a humanitarian gesture the Almighty couldn’t match.
John wandered back to our group and we inched towards the bbq.
“You know Pierre is living with the old bitch?” I said to John.
“Of course! Anyway, come here.” Even though the hosts hadn’t felt embarrassed about not providing any food for their guests, John felt so about not sharing his food. Now they had gone downstairs for a spliff, and the hundreds milling about were all people he didn’t know and didn’t need to give a fuck about, he had started to pile large pieces of steak on the barbeque and give everyone dirty looks.
“If anyone comes near let me know,” said John. “Anyway, he told me last week, because I am prepared to carry the cyanide pill.”
Pierre wanted some steak and was back again.
“So what is it like?” I asked Pierre. “By the sounds of it must be a month or so.”
“Two months,” he replied. “And a nightmare.”
This is how he described a typical evening.
‘Oh, yes! Sorry, I am too presumptuous,’ he said. Miss Hu would flash him a stern look to leave her room. Despite the fact that he had slept with her countless times, stupid games still had to be played – On this occasion, they had just got back from a restaurant, and he knew she would want sex – that was what she was paying for after all – so he had followed her into her room thus causing the look. He went to his room, turned on the TV, and waited for twenty minutes.
“Miss Hu are you okay? Do you want anything?” he said. He knocked, then opened the door and went in. First time, he had just knocked - he didn’t want to burst into the shy ladies bedroom - and she didn’t tell him to come in, so he left again for another hour. Second time, he knocked and because he was getting impatient he just went in and this was acceptable behavior; she wouldn’t invite him in so she had to give him someway to get to her, otherwise he might be still knocking at regular intervals for eternity.
Why the fuck do I have to initiate sex, when I am the whore? He thought. I have slept with a few female whores and they do nothing, but play with their toes, waiting for the time to be up.
‘I am sorry about earlier. I just wanted to make love to you immediately,’ said Pierre who understood ham and cheese, as he had delivered more than an EU food mountain of it in his time.
The flattery was very simple to give. It wasn’t a matter of believing – for her, someone so obsessed with getting respect; tired and paranoid about not doing so, she was not interested in anyone’s sincerity, just that it came.
She only stayed three nights a week (that was the agreement) – the others she spent in her home with her son. She always arrived with bags of shopping and then spent two hours cooking, and washing up, presumably to try and create the image in her mind that they were a proper couple. Once a week, usually while she was cooking and he was hanging around trying to look helpful, she went on a tirade about how she didn’t get enough respect, and how he thought he could just come in a her house and do anything he wanted. How she was not a soft touch, or interested in using her money to buy people. And how she should be thankful that she was sponsoring him to help him get himself set up in Taiwan.
Sex was unusual. Pierre called it taking turns to masturbate. She was a stressed businesswoman who always needed to take control, get want she wanted, and sex was no different. She took control, maneuvered herself into position (it was an exact science for her), and five minutes later she was orgasming. Once was enough for her, and she then asked what position for Pierre was opportune for maximum efficiency and she assumed it. There was no chance of them cumming together, or even fumbling at doing so, or playing the game of pretending to try and do so that most couples do. And, no need to apologize for coming just before she did thus spoiling it for her. There was order: her first and him second, and nothing in between. Pierre had thought many times about heading to the bathroom first to get himself on the verge so he could beat her to punch, but in the end he thought better of it – No doubt she wouldn’t politely lie down, but demand instant rehardification. It was the nearest a heterosexual man could get to shagging another man.
For twenty minutes or so she would then tenderly kiss and cuddle him, but her expression did say, wasn’t that nice making love? but rather look at what we managed to do for each other. Today, we both managed to come within twenty minutes, our efficiency is getting better and better. Then it would be, “See, I am not so hard to handle. You can do it.”
Back to the moment.
“Hold on now,” said John. “I am going to ask you a serious question. It should be bleeding fucking obvious the answer but I have to ask it anyway because I know what a dumb wit you are. You are not taking Martina back to that apartment are you?
….You fucking are, aren’t you? Jesus, you are stupid.”
Pierre burst into indignant. “John, you know I can handle these situations. She will never work it out.”
Pierre then stared at us and us at him projecting the belief we thought our opposite number was as dumb as fuck. Clearly, all the dumb vibes had had an effect because later that evening we all headed back to Pierre's gilded cage.
To put it mildly the evening didn't end well.

Pierre and his underground occupation III

2011-01-18T14:34:00.002+08:00

After his one stab at paid sex, Pierre had sworn himself off preferring to just drink with the women. Six months later Pierre had found his feet and in doing so rediscovered his sense of the melodramatic, and that melodrama expressed itself in clients with overlapping schedules. He was sure that if a client saw him with another it would be disastrous. His colleagues told him that it is generally not a problem, but he replied with: “Yeah, right, what I am going to say to her, ‘Sorry, I was fleetingly making someone else’s life less lonely. Now it your turn.” Still, his colleagues knew there was no need for embarrassment, but were not interested in arguing (Taiwanese are very good at that) and decided it was best to just play along.
That evening:
He made an excuse to a Miss Chen to approach the bar and talk to his colleagues.
“Has Miss Hu arrived?” asked Pierre.
“No,” said his colleague.
Pierre did his phew, the world isn’t going to end face and waited for someone to be interested.
Nobody was.
Pierre continued: “I don’t know what time Miss Chen is leaving.”
“Should be no problem,” said his colleague again. But nothing was ever ‘no problem’ in the Pierre universe. He started to pull his this is deadly serious, man face, but got no joy. He then pulled it harder and harder until all the energy in his entire body was helping to radiate seriousness; but, all he got was a polite smile (Taiwanese were also very good at polite smiles).
Besides, they had seen and heard it all before: at the start he had just talked about the possibility that he would get a clash of clients, then he invented them and had everyone running around pretending he wasn’t there, or in the bathroom, or covering for him at a table so that he could sneak out the emergency exit. Now, he was throwing out names that made no sense to them for authenticity.
“Is Miss Chen a regular,” asked a different colleague.
Pierre raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.
“Well…is she?” asked the colleague again.
“She might be,” replied Pierre.
Now his colleague was raising his eyebrows because he didn’t understand. He thought about getting to the bottom of the situation, but decided to walk off instead.
Suddenly Miss Hu arrived and it was a perfect chance to invent a problem.
“Miss Chen, excuse me, I have a problem...I am really very sorry,” he said.
“No need to be so polite,” she replied. And she actually meant it because she didn’t much like foreigners, and was waiting for someone else.
Pierre went out the emergency exit, clambered over the empty beer crates, slipping on a fire extinguisher buried underneath; down one flight to the office below, then took the lift back up.
He straightened his tie as he approached Miss Hu. “Sorry, I have got here. I was late tonight,” he said. Miss Hu looked baffled why he would lie - She knew he was already there with another client, and if he wasn’t popular, she wouldn’t be interested. Anyway, he had told her to be there at 10:00…Insisted in fact.
A little white lie. It wasn’t entirely accurate to say that he had decided never again to take payment for sex. He had decided never to take payment from a nice woman. A few weeks ago Miss Hu had taken a shine to him, and, at the moment, she was certainly fulfilling the above criteria.
Typical Miss Huisms:
“You know, even though I have a lot of money, I like to have normal friends. I don’t show off my money -I have 3 houses, one in the California, but I don’t it doesn’t make me arrogant.”
“I am really nice to my friends. I always forgive people when they are mean to me. But one time, I don’t like to use my power, a friend of mine doubled crossed and one phone call and they had their business closed.”
“My friend are only secretaries, but I don’t tell them that they should do better with their lives.”
“I pay for everything, and I never ask for anything, but I know they don’t respect me.”
And it went on and on…he was sure he was going to go mad. The first time he entertained her was the first time rage had been so intense he could have killed someone. Everyone, from time to time, was stuck talking to someone they didn’t like, and watched their clock desperately hoping the next sentence would be the last and you could get away. That first time, he had watched her lips and wondered how such beautiful, thick things could allow such obnoxious, arrogant drivel past. Didn’t they have a sense they were being showed up? It quickly became clear there would be no respite, so he concentrated his attention on those lips, convincing himself that when they stopped, she would stop. Unfortunately, they’re momentary stops were only pauses while she gathered together another snippet of self-absorbed reflection. Still it helped to see them unmoved for just a second, it was a moment’s relief before the torturer put the electric tongs back on his balls. Each sentence hammered into his head on the same spot. And it was so much worse because he was not just required to appear to listen to someone else but to actually listen and respond - She continually asked him what he thought and pulled him up if he wasn’t listening, but she wasn’t looking for a discussion, merely an acknowledgment of her plight: your empathy showed that you had digested what she was saying.
While he tried to keep his attention focused his teeth clasped tight, and his eyes stared forward, then he was hit by the sensation the parts of his face had got so close together they could feel the presence of the others and were about to engage each other in conversation. When she went he just stumbled around dazed, shell-shocked. He was afraid to go to sleep – Initially surprised he had not gone mad, he then decided the experience would be like when you play on an injury and get used to it, but the next day, you have done so much damage you are out for the season. He expected to wake up dribbling and babbling; or somewhere in a small African country, having undergone plastic surgery, carrying a new identity, with no knowledge of the past twenty-five years, only of unspeakable past trauma. He tried to run and hide second time she came, but she sought out the manager, who asked him to do a favor, and therefore he had no choice. It got better from then in - You will get used to hell. He knew what she was going to say, developing the ability to wake back up just when she was finishing a sentence. She was so obsessed with face that he could wrap her around his little finger: Keep telling her what a nice person she was; misunderstood, down to earth, sincere, and she would keep coming back. And, he wanted a woman who he could rip off, but had been restricted by conscience, so a candidate like this, that he disliked so intensely, wasn’t going to appear too often. He knew he shouldn’t miss hopping on the broom stick.
The next evening we were all out together.
“Have you sorted anything out yet - what you want to do?” I asked.
The fact that it had been eight months now since Pierre entered the club, wasn’t lost on his friends either. He was still talking about how: he was going to change the world, do something different, not rely on his status as a foreigner to earn money, and now the period in which we were too impressed to say anything was over.
“I have been working 4 nights a week. It was not as easy as I expected you know,” he replied.
His expression was humble, introspective, and everyone wanted to feel sorry for him, but nobody could really take it seriously: you don’t believe the gambler who says he has quit, you don’t believe Pierre will start approaching life by realistically assessing his strengths and weaknesses.
Sometime during his upbringing his parents stopped trying to tether his self-belief to reality - Presumably, as he is still alive today, it was sometime after teaching him to cross the road, but the indications suggest not long.
He continued: “Having to drink so much everyday and deal with the people, I don’t think you boys could handle it.”
Ah, back to normal, we thought.
“What about that cash? You must have a stack saved up.”
“I have some, but meeting business contacts is not cheap here. You have to keep up appearances.”
We didn’t believe the excuse. We also disputed he was working at the club four nights a week --The regularity with which we saw him meant there would have to eight or nine days in a week.
Anyway, we knew he was spending the money. You can pretend this is independent cinema and invent the killer who likes to prune roses or work with disabled children when he is not lopping and dismembering, but in the real world, most of these guys follow the stereotype. Pierre and his colleagues spent fortunes on clothes, cars, drinking, and cards in illegal gambling houses. It was stuff right out of the movies for Pierre – dumping one or two thousand US dollars on a bet and losing it all. At times, we wanted to feel sorry for the naïve boy who we were sure was going to regret it bitterly later, but there was no need to feel sorry for him: Pierre only remembered the experience.
Still, even the most optimistic guy can have a few regrets. The Miss Hu situation would come to be one.

Pierre and this underground occupation II

2010-12-22T10:46:00.001+08:00

For a long time he had contented himself with drinking with the younger girls, then teasing from his colleagues made him have to take things to the next level. Finally, a couple of months after going to work in the club, he sold himself for the first time.

We heard the story in one sitting of two parts. The first his manful boasts then the real story of how he felt. As suspected he wasn’t as big an asshole as he tried to be.

We pick up the story at the love hotel with Mrs. Jiang, a woman fifteen years his senior and married to some rich guy who spent all his time in China.

This Love Hotel was an up-market one recently opened by a Japanese Love Hotel Chain, leaders in this market. It was themed Africa Nights: mud hut texture wallpaper, African masks, shields and spears, and fake antelope and elephant heads adorning the walls; the bed had a leopard skin bed spread; the toilet was in the shape of a hippo's mouth; and the center piece of it all, a giant massage chair in the shape of a spider which shook, vibrated and closed its legs to give you a tickle when you sat on it.

“What are you laughing at?” she asked. “You don't like here?”

“It is great,” he answered, then slipping into French so she didn't understand. “It is just what I need to take my mind off things.”

He stood staring at her for a minute. It wasn't her forty years that were putting him off. She had smooth white skin, the result of years of expensive European cosmetics, wearing factor 50 suntan cream, and carrying a parasol (older Taiwanese do their best to keep their skin as white as possible to show they don’t have an outdoor job; they are not low class). She is decked from head to toe in designer clothes, and carrying a Louis Vuitton bag. She is well-manicured and made-up with her hair dyed a taint of dark brown instead of her natural black. In fact, she wouldn't look out of place pulling up in a Land Rover to pick her son up from any of the best public schools across England.

She was only five-foot high, petite, slim, not more than fifty kilos; she is ethnically Chinese and therefore exotic. But all of that misses the point completely: she is attractive; he wouldn't choose her as a girlfriend but he wouldn't say no to sleeping with her based on looks. And, most importantly, he wanted to sleep with her because he have seen her prim-and-proper lady-like exterior, and was aware of the ironic contrast.

They had taken up positions on opposite sides of the leopard skin bed spread. She was sat down on a bamboo chair in front of a huge mirror; back straight, knees, elbows and wrists together checking her mobile for messages. A lady to the last.

He was loitering; leaving himself open to being asked if he was staying or not.

She looked up from her phone.

“Are you ok?” she asked.

She had gone quiet once they got in the taxi, but now she was looking at him with a motherly concern. Suddenly, she had the upper hand.

“No problem,” he had to answer. “You want a drink?”

He had already entertained for an hour before Mrs. Jiang came to the club, but the whiskey wore off easily these days.

She said no, headed to the shower, and he got a little bottle from the mini bar - and lied on the bed to ponder his doubts.

Mrs. Jiang had been coming to see him at the club for about a month now – paid for his company at least eight times before he had agreed to be taken out.

What did he know of her? - Very little. She had two children. And, her husband lived in China with his air hockey table factories and several mistresses. No doubt she was lonely, but there were lots of lonely women who didn't employ the services of a gigolo. He told himself he didn't know the whole story and it wasn't his job to do so. She had decided to come to the club.

But he felt sorry for her. He used to feel sorry for female prostitutes. Now he felt sorry for being one. A contradiction if it wasn't for the lowest common denominator: a liberal middle-class white male upbringing, that always seemed to find another way to bite back.

And that was another thing: he was getting those pangs of guilt you do when you cross a moral boundary. It made no sense as he was hardly robbing a bank or selling drugs - but then again, after living here for more than a year, he had forgotten how Christianity, unlike the local one, does equate purchased lovemaking with murder and mayhem. He wasn’t religious or anymore moral than the next twenty-five year old; it was surprising those values are still lurking in the subconscious, raising objections when he least expected.

He started playing with the electronic panel next to the bed to pass the time. He hit the button below the Chinese characters for Office, and the sound system kicked in blasting the noise of a busy meeting. He had heard of this - It was designed for when you get a call from your loved one. Next to it was the characters for restaurant and motorway. Presumably, if you are in the room for a long time…

He started to roll around the floor after hitting the last button: Atmosphere - Suddenly 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' was shaking the room, and the elephant trunk was swinging from side to side. He turned it off, figuring he would need it later.

Five minutes later she emerged from the bathroom; tiptoeing, hip wiggling and holding her towel at the chest to protect her dignity. Her exposed slim white shoulders, ankles and calves were getting him excited. It occurred to him he could presumably do this for free, and then he wouldn't need to feel guilty.

“Why don’t you take off your jacket?” she said now back in the wicker chair.

“Sorry,” he said jumping up off the bed. “I hate it too when the whores play all coy and waste my money.”

He took off the suit – black Emporio Armani – that he had been wearing almost constantly for the last three months, and jogged across the room to the wardrobe. The wardrobe door was in the shape of a huge African shield with crisscrossing spears, split vertically down the center into two doors. He grabbed the hair on the imitation shrunken head door handle, and hung up his suit, then his shirt. For a moment he knew what a girl felt like when she displayed herself for cash, and he thought about shouting 'so here are the goods, love.'

He guessed a little bit more subtly was in order.

“Lay on the bed - I'll give you a massage,” he said.

For the next five minutes, he worked his hands over her body, still stung by that feeling he wasn't doing a good job.

Soon his hardening dick woke him to decision-making time. He knew he wasn't going to give it out for free - if he did, he would have to pay the club's cut out of his own pocket. Her husband would be paying for this not her, so he wasn't making her destitute. Which left the question of exploiting her loneliness? He knew the guys in the club would just say he was providing a service; temporary relief from loneliness and it sounded right, even if it didn't feel that way.

He looked at her face, eyes closed, relaxed with just a faint sadness bubbling around the surface. I would only make her feel worse if I walked away now, he thought.

“Turn over,” he said, and then undid the towel from the front.

Her breasts were in fact a wonderful pert c-cup that sat up nicely on her chest. Fakes he guessed.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“About what?” he replied.

“My breasts - can you tell they are fake?”

“Really? I didn't notice.” he replied.

“Yes - I went to the best plastic surgeon in Taipei. I even swapped the nipples - After you give birth, they are very dark.”

He perched himself up on his elbows, above her chest and turned up the brightness of the lamp to check.

“Look,” she said now animated grabbing her right breast and pushing it towards his face. “The nipples are very pink again. This technique was pioneered by a Japanese surgeon - Only one place in Taipei knows how to do it.”

“Those are truly the nipples of a fifteen-year old.” Then speaking a bit faster. “If I hadn't seen your face first, I would now be running for the door.”

“What?”

“They look fantastic. I am honored to get my grubby hands on them.”

“You really think so? Wow. You know - you are the first person to see them.”

“As I say - honored love. Now let's not waste them talking.”

He smiled to myself, figuring he wouldn't need to listen to Tight Fit anymore.

Still he had had many questions - Was she just going to lie there? Was she going to do anything for him? Then he remembered she didn’t have to: this was a service. In that case, was he expected to warm up with a lot of foreplay? If, so? How much? He had a large ego, but for once he was not sure if he wanted to do his best. If she didn’t cum was he obliged to go again? Female prostitutes have it easy, the extent of their service was clearly defined: get the jizz out; payment was always per hour or ejaculation, but here a satisfactory conclusion of service was unclear. He was supposed to stay with her for the evening, but otherwise…?

He started to head downstairs.

“Take it slowly,” she said.

“Hmm, trying to get your money's worth then…What ever that may be.”

Anyway, he headed back up to her neck and then jerked his head back as she tried to kiss him - You are not supposed to let a client kiss you. At least that is what happened in the movies.

“What is the matter?” she asked.

He thought for a moment: “Nothing…I presume you want me to just pretend this is a romantic encounter. Save your face. I can do that. I have been here a while.”

“Ting bu dong (I don't understand),” she said.

“Nothing,” he repeated and started to kiss her.

A little while later, he went for the condoms in his trouser pocket and took one out.

“What are you doing?” she said.

He wanted to scream: I am a whore. Are you mad? But it wasn't entirely unexpected. He threw it away.

It was time to penetrate, and now the adrenalin was rushing, almost like it was his first time. Once he did this he was officially a whore. He concentrated hard on what was important in life: experience, risk-taking, enjoyment and pride; something to tell the grandson.

Once inside, he had the feeling you do when you have got anyway with something naughty; he held things in press up position enjoying the moment.

“Just a minute,” she said.

She then twisted her body round and started to look at the control panel next to the bed, while he twisted his torso trying to stay inside. Soon it too resembled a game of Twister and he gave up.

“Ok,” she said, and 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' started blasting out. “This is romantic. Don't you think?”

“Totally - Sade and Barry White will be relegated to student all-you-can-drink night from now on.”

Twenty minutes later, the alcohol meant things were taking a long time, which was kind of good and bad: good because she was getting her money's worth, and bad because he was flagging. He wanted to tell her to get on top so he could take a breather, but he reminded himself that this was what she was paying for and kept chugging away….

He noticed he wasn’t really making any noise, and he wondered if he should. Ordinarily - Yes - noise showed you were turned on, gave her an indication of your progress, but now he was providing a service. Too much noise might appear like you were in it for yourself; too little would make her embarrassed. Men like girls to make a noise because it signifies that we are giving them pleasure, but is the reverse true?

Another ten minutes and it was all over. He lay on his back. As post-coital adrenalin dissipated, and the cold light of day crept back in, he began to ponder his actions.

“You don’t like?” she asked.

He thought it a strange question, irrelevant in fact, still: “Of course,” he replied.

“I am not so bad, no?”

“You are very sexy?” He replied because it was the truth. If she just got a plane to the West she would be the one getting paid.

She put her arm across his chest and tried to engage him in eye contact. He suddenly got a sickening feeling and tried to change the subject.

“How is Michael (her son)?” he asked because I knew he had been in trouble at school (Only 99% on his tests apparently).

“I know, you don't love me,” she said rubbing his chest with a tragic look. “I just want a man to make love to me, sometimes that's all. Is that so bad?”

He said nothing because he was an immature twenty-five year old who didn't deal well with reality. Yes, he was admittedly an attention seeking, manipulative, arrogant asshole, who liked the idea of being a gangster, but his was the romantic world of crime, where there are no innocent victims. He had wanted his first one to be a bitch so he wouldn’t have to care. Now, he could see his mother’s sad told-you-so face, like that time when he hadn't listened, let the dog run in the road, and it was hit by a car.

“You will find someone,” was all he could muster, and he turned over and pretended to sleep.

Two hours later - six a.m. - he stopped pretending to sleep and sat up. The rhythmic, peaceful chants of Daoist music and a drum beat were coming from outside, reminding him of where he was. He pressed the button for Tight Fit, lit a cigarette, and focused on the swaying rhino head.

The sun was beginning to come through the curtains, it was going to be a beautiful, hot sunny day again. It was a pity he would be getting up at three in the afternoon as usual. Simpler pursuits like teaching English and studying Chinese suddenly seemed attractive again. He couldn't remember why he had given them up.

He really had learnt his lesson this time, he was sure: he was going to lead a normal life.

Suddenly, he was horny again - and she looked fantastic with the light on her shoulders. Presumably, it was a simple matter of waking her up, but he didn’t know what to do - If he made love to her again was it part of the original price or a separate item? If she had paid for just the once, he felt obliged to negotiate a new contract, and he was too embarrassed and lazy to do so. Anyway, she might not want to pay for a second time. He decided to give it away, but then the words of the guys from the club started ringing in his ears, and he felt Scrooge-like towards the thrusting of his thighs: if she did want it she would be getting something for nothing.

He decided to head to the bathroom to resolve the problem

…Nah, he wasn’t like the other guys he would give it for free…

Taiwan Blog Awards 2010

2010-12-01T11:36:00.000+08:00

Hi all,

If anyone has enjoyed the blog this year please go to below and vote for me. If no time don't worry.

If you liked somebody else you can also vote for them here.

Voting has now started in the 2010 Taiwan blog awards. Full details are available at http://www.taiwanderful.net/blog/voting-2010-taiwan-best-blog-awards.

Anyone can vote using the Digg style voting mechanism and there is no need to register to vote. There is a limit of one vote for each blog from any IP per 24 hours.

Cheers,

Dan

Pierre and his underground occupation I

2010-11-26T16:46:00.002+08:00

A long time ago i started to tell the tale of Pierre’s most off the rail moment (http://betelnut-equation.blogspot.com/2009/07/temptation-of-being-treated-v.html), but i stopped because my blog wasn’t just about sex in Taiwan and i didn’t want to give the wrong impression. Hopefully, now i have built myself a little credit and it is ok to finish the tale.
If not, never mind, because it is a damn funny story and the deuce bigalow comments can come later.
As i have mentioned before Pierre was determined to prove he wasn’t just a language teacher like everyone else, still: laziness, refusing to take the gift horse of teaching work, the effects of watching too many gangster movies, and a chance encounter combined to make him very broke and willing to try anything, ie. a Friday club.
BTW - This is all a while ago now so i have no idea if these places still exist – Back then we didn’t all have beer bellies.
We take up the story a few months after he started work. Below is what he told us it was like.
The guys sat at one end of the nightclub behind a glass screen, up straight on their chairs waiting to be picked. When the women came they could select a guy or behave embarrassed, sit in one of the high-back sofa booths that surrounded the dance floor and wait to see who was sent. The first night he had at once been repulsed and excited by what he was going to do - And scared; scared mainly because he had a bad temper and he knew that if he met someone rude he was likely to be fired first night for retaliation. He knew the substance of the job was to entertain and charm, and of course he could do that. He had charmed girls, friends and family before to get his own way, but he could walk off or shout if they were rude, now he was very aware that he was supposed to smile and blame himself. If they didn’t want him to sit at the table he couldn't say, ‘Fuck you then bitch.’
He said he had got all competitive about being chosen at first, until he realized he was the only foreigner at the club and therefore only really competing with himself – Taiwanese generally have an opinion on race so they were not considering whether they wanted the tall, fair-skinned, blonde guy on the left or the yellow-skinned dark-haired guy on the right.
He had also had to make many adjustments to his style.
As a man he had spent his whole life trying to get his grubby hands on women - theirs on him - and then drag them back to his cave at the earliest opportunity - Words spoken in lead up to sex were inversely proportion to excitement of the event as far as he was concerned.
“You will come to my house tonight?” asked a client.
“Of course!” he answered the first time he was asked, only for his colleague to pull him over.
Colleague: “Pierre come here. How many times have you seen her?”
“Once.”
“That is not the way it is done,” he replied, explaining that you were supposed to say no to keep them coming back, spending money in the place, and the more you said , no, the more presents and money you would get.
“But she wants it,” replied Pierre. “What about feeling her up? She just asked me to touch her boob?”
“Any promises of a watch?” said his colleague.
“No,” said Pierre. “I mean. I will enjoy...Really. I am happy to do for free – Ok. I understand…Jesus, this is no fun.”
“You are not here for fun,” said the colleague.
“I seem to be learning that,” replied Pierre.
On the first evening he had rushed back home to change his boxers because he expected to be taking his clothes off in the club. His image of these kind of bars had been set by his one visit to the male equivalent - Girls came in g-strings and bras, which they removed extremely quickly on pain of being thrown out of the room, while the guys helped themselves to a grope of any body part they wanted. He had been looked forward to that, later disappointed to find out he was not going to have a bunch of women groping him up and down and ripping off his shirt. His new suit had stayed firmly on.
Two main motivations brought women to the club: loneliness and desire to be given respect. It could be just one of these emotions; usually was both, and each woman had their own unique ratio. About half the women who came to the club were young hostesses, who after a week of waiting on men, now wanted to get a little attention themselves. Pierre hadn't got the hang of demanding watches yet or the fact that this was supposed to be a job, so he preferred to spend his time with these hostesses, because he didn’t feel have to feel sorry for them. They destroyed the myth that all women in this profession were victims: If they had been born boys they would now be gangsters, and there would be no debate about them being bad people. They were rude, crude, hard but fun; they were not here to complain and moan about their unhappy lives for two hours, like the older ones, and having spent the week aware of its financial value, they were not interested in sex. They were interested in drinking a lot of whiskey though and he was paid commission on how much alcohol he got them to buy. And the only way you got them to buy more alcohol was to keep toasting them, and downing drinks yourself. The blinder drunk you were by the end of the evening, the more you had earned. Good for Pierre but really bad for us, as it meant we had to put up with himre at his obnoxiously worst, staggering and tottering around the disco at five or six in the morning.
“You can’t stand up you twat! Go home,” yelled John over the music. “You are going to fuck up your suit and then I’ll have to lend you more money.”
Pierre's capacity for the melodramatic was 24/7. He never went off air, took a break for adverts, or went on strike for better pay. And, he could bring attention to himself in a fifty-thousand strong stampeding crowd.
“Do you think people guess what I am up to? Pretty fucking obvious I suppose,” said Pierre. It was not obvious, at all. Yes, he was in a disco that was ninety-nine percent populated by people in jeans and t-shirts, but this was Taiwan and so nobody cared too much what you were wearing. If they did notice, they assumed you were just one of those businessmen who occasionally turned up, sweating in the corner looking bewildered.
“If you say so,” I said trying to limit the conversation. Before I had said no and he had gone on for hours talking about how other people weren't as naieve as me.
Unfortunately, it wasn't the end. “Fuck. Really,” he replied. “I heard some guys were thrown out for doing similar. I guess they are not as smart as me about it, but still you have to be careful. If anyone asks you, you deny it don't you?”
Of course I couldn't bring myself to answer. To lower myself.
“Dan,” he said. “You are a friend. I trust you. I know you are a nice guy and I know you like your stories but this is serious stuff...”
I started to fume. “Look behind you,” I said. “There is an older woman waving at you.”
He looked. I disappeared to the other side of the disco. Fortunately, our paths didn't cross again that evening.
Apparently, he made Eric spend half an hour searching the disco looking for the older Taiwan lady.

Mothers, old people and their scooters

2010-11-01T10:21:00.001+08:00

Taiwanese mothers and scooters

“I saw the kid go into the air and hit the car window,” said the wife after finishing throwing up. We had just witnessed a motorcycle accident in which a father was missing a daughter and a wife.

The woman in question had of course not been looking when she came out of the lane at speed assuming there would be no traffic on the 10-lane road. It wasn't the first time. Mothers on scooters are one of the most tragic thing you will ever see - Sat bolt upright, one or two children riding pillion, they never look anywhere but straight ahead, ignoring completely the inconvenient presence of other traffic on the road. Perversely the more children they have on the scooter the more dangerously they drive: usually one or two; three means they are unlikely to get through that day. Under constant time pressure - after finishing work, they rush desperately to get their kids to evening class – hence two kids, means two schools and more danger – then get home in time to cook the parents-in-laws' dinner, while deep down the stress is stirring feelings of unfairness: if my husband can’t afford to get me a car, then he is not working hard enough; if his children die on the road, it is his fault and with that she declares defeat in the daily battle to manage everything. She decides the consequences for her of not getting the mother-in-laws dinner are more painful than not looking at the other traffic on the road and she ploughs on ahead.

School gates are the worse place in the world to be stuck around school finishing time as thousands of like-minded mothers: dragged kids onto scooters, let them down again when they realized they were not theirs, picked them up again after they fell off the back, and then picked everyone up when the scooter in front of them, that appeared not to be in the way was. All this, like baby turtles rushing to the sea, just to get into the traffic and be the first statistic of the day.

“Hao dao mei. (So unlucky),” sighed the wife. As usual luck dealt someone a cruel blow, forcing them to plow across the road blind past a parked van.

Old people

Old people are really different when they are driving: they actually do look first, but still pull out - which kind of makes you begrudgingly respect their absolute selfishness and lack of respect for anyone else on the road. Case in point (almost everyday). An old man was coming down the wrong side of the road slowly in my direction so I applied my horn in a manner that would get me the 10 years for disturbing the peace in the west. The old man looks up reluctantly because he knows he is driving down the wrong side of the road in my direction, and is selfish not stupid; he stares blankly, sees he is not going to be hurt just inconvenience me and the whole road. He then slows down even more and eases himself across my path into the parking space that he was going to park in whether the rest of the world existed or not. I duly applied my brakes hard and hoped the car behind didn't run over me.

Eric and the eight-year old intellectuals

2010-10-14T11:51:00.001+08:00

As I say Eric had had a reaction from hell to the idea that all westerners can think independently and the locals can't. On one occasion he had been substituting for me at my school.

“Hey, Dan, what is up with the boss at your school?” said Eric while we were having lunch.

I didn't need to ask him what exactly the problem is. “Yes, Eric, I need to talk to you about that...”

Apparently he had been teaching them the sentence: 'What do you like? - I like music.' And it had turned into: 'Do you like....?” And when the kids answered, 'No, I don't', he had asked, 'Why?' And of course they didn't know why...and it was pointless and stupid and not part of the repetition exercise, but he had stood there for 10 minutes repeatedly asking why until all the energy from the room had dissipated away and the kids started climbing on the chairs. Unfortunately, this had happened more than once.

It was necessary of course because their education system was based on rote learning and memorization, and they needed his help to teach opinion forming and the ability to think abstractly.

“Eric,” I said. “They are eight years old. No education system in the world believes eight year-olds can debate politics. And frankly it is not an admirable skill as most politicians are full of shit.”

Still, I knew it was pointless - he was sure that when he was 11, in between reading comics, playing on his skateboard and sniggering over a pack of cards of naked women he kept in his underwear; cards that he coveted, took out and pawed over and examined so often if he could use them in Vegas he would be a billionaire, he could debate with lawyers and politicians. So what if the entire education establishment – western and eastern - believed kids of that age needed discipline, repetition and order, he knew better.

Man, I am doing you a service here. Get them thinking when they are young,” he replied.

“Well, you will have to do a service at another school if you continue as my boss doesn't want you back,” I replied. “Again, if you want to eat sometimes you have to keep your mouth shut.”

“Man, this culture,” said Eric, pulling this big offended face because: why were these people again stifling his creativity.

We paused for a moment both taking a breather from our frustrations at each other.

John was the next to speak. “Look at that guy in the suit,” he said. “More specifically the ass pant of his trousers. Now that is a cultural difference.”

“What are you talking about? I asked.

“He has been in that toilet for twenty minutes and it is a squat toilet – I know because I was there earlier; in and out in less than a minute, precariously trying to support myself over the bowl by putting my hand on the back wall – still it killed my thighs in seconds and at the end I had to check the back of my trousers hoping for no accidents. That guy went in there in his best suit, read a newspaper, did his business and hasn't even broken a sweat. Man, these people can squat.”

“It is beautiful when they are on top,” mused Pierre.

“Ahem.”

The friend who never learns Chinese

2010-09-30T10:15:00.001+08:00

We all have a friend who still can't speak much Chinese after 10 years in Taiwan, that was John. At once best able to deal with the Taiwanese but not able to say more than 20 words of their language. Because of it you would get stupid phone calls like the one below.

I was in an important meeting:

“Dan I am getting a hair cut, and these girls don’t seem to understand what am saying,” said John agitated.

“I am kind of in a meeting, John,” I said. “Don't you have a girlfriend for the week or something who can deal with this?”

I said this because taking you to the hairdresser was one of the P.A roles a Taiwanese girl performs for her new boyfriend. Among the hundreds of little tasks we passed onto our girlfriends this was actually one of the most necessary - Applying for a phone number could be done ourselves because their would be someone in the office wanting to practice their English, and even if you insisted on speaking English when ordering your pizza their would be a student who could sort it out, but hairdressers were populated by girls who left school at sixteen and were not so fantastic in their own language, let alone English.

In fact, most of the younger girls loved taking you to the hairdresser and it was great to see the competition that would play out between stylist and girlfriend:

Stylist would be just giving girl in question a knowing dirty look about her being a stupid whoring western lover.

Girlfriend: ‘Have you ever cut western hair before…isn’t it so soft…please shave his neck; you know he has too much hair, it like that all over his chest.’

The stylists would be polite, complimenting the girl on her English.

Girlfriend: 'Have you ever had a foreign boyfriend before?”

Stylist: 'No, my English is so poor.” Trying to be polite.

Girlfriend: 'Many foreigners these days can speak Chinese.'

Stylist: 'Really?' While thinking: 'Who cares? I am not a stuck up fucking whore…Anyway, you know he is going to dump you soon and return to his country.’

Back to the conversation with John:

“I was walking past this place and it said haircuts for 200,” he said. I wondered why he insisted on trying to get a cheap haircut when he earned a lot of money.

“You read Chinese?” I replied.

“Yeah. My Chinese isn’t that bad, you bastard.” Then why are you calling me, I thought.

“Look, mate. Can you help? They have me sat in the chair here with the apron on for a while now and I am feeling like a right tool.”

It seems girls didn’t know what to do with him and so came back and forth every 5 minutes or so to check if he had learned to speak Chinese.

“She is back again, how to say, ‘just a little off the sides’?”

“Pang bien, duan e dien dien,” I said.

“Pang bieng, dan e dien dieng,” repeated John. All the tones wrong and some of the actual sounds.

“She’s not responding,” he said.

I excused myself from the meeting and went outside the door.

“Give the phone to her,” I said.

I then took the assistant step-by-step through how to cut his hair. It was a weird feeling, describing how to cut another man’s hair; like buying shirts for a guy and telling the assistant: “Well, he has a large muscular chest…” A little too intimate, and I wanted to go home for a shower.

I then went back into the meeting ready to apologize profusely for answering my phone. It didn't matter as they had all taken their chance with the foreigner gone to start dialing away.

Twenty minutes later and my phone was ringing again.

“Hey, Dan,” said John.

“What?”

“She says it isn't 200.”

Can’t blame culture all the time

2010-08-19T10:49:00.001+08:00

I don't know if anybody else has gone through this stage - For a long while I buried language issues as the cause of most arguments in my marriage, in favor of cultural: after all, how could a missed past tense compare to the overbearing presence of mother-in-law. However, it slowly dawned on me that our problems were not so intractable. This wasn't the first time:

The wife was upset about work again – complaining about her boss.

“She shout at me,” she said.

“I'm sorry. Anyway, but she shouldn’t shout at you,” I replied.

“She shout me,” she said again.

I had no idea why she had just repeated the last sentence back to me again instead of engaging my point. However, I tried to keep my temper and repeated myself again.

“I know, but she shouldn’t shout at you - It is not professional.”

“No, she shout me. If she want.” She was herself angry at this point because she was sure she was addressing my point.

I lost my temper: “Are you listening? Why don’t you answer the point being put to you? - It is wrong to always shout at people.”

Now she exploded: “Why you don’t keep your temper? I think she can shout me - She is the boss.”

I was about to launch a tirade when I realized she had finally answered the question. I didn't agree that it was ok for bosses to shout, but at least she had answered the question. It was another 20 minutes spoilt because she had not added the word ‘can’ to the sentence. I wanted to shout at her again for getting the grammar wrong and wasting our time, but I decided to think about it first. Who’s fault was it that we had a language misunderstanding? I could speak Chinese better than her English but we had agreed to speak English at home to give her a chance to practice. As this was her request I kind of thought right was on my side. Still there was no point in saying anything.

What to do? Was I expected to second guess everything I heard? Was she expected to pay better attention to what she said? Ultimately, it was both our faults for assuming the worse of the other and digging in. Misunderstanding happened to people of the same culture but when you have a different language, it just added another dimension.

Unfortunately, another horrible truth occurred to me – Remember when we first arrive and are tripped up by the smallest grammar and accent issues from the Taiwanese speaking English, then as time passes we get used to it. You know we tell ourselves proudly that we got over communication problems because we had worked out what the Taiwanese wanted to say...Hmm, half the truth – We also got used to not communicating, to walking away when we were not 100% clear, and to arrogantly assuming we understood.

Oh, well. What to do? I took a good look at her. I resolved to pay better attention in future.

More Stupid Foreigners

2010-07-19T10:36:00.001+08:00

“Man, I was fucked over by a company. They offered me a job and then when I went to start there was no job, no apology, just silence,” said x-foreigner. “These Chinese are dishonest in the way they do business. It wouldn’t happen like that back home. Never again, I am going to teach English in future.”

It was another night in the bar and another self-confessed intelligent, internationally-minded foreigner who didn’t draw stereotypes was giving his theory on the Taiwan race based on one encounter. Over the years it had actually happened to me once: i was offered a job and then silence, but generally speaking the companies i have worked for have been above board, clear and paid me on time.

Most of the time i wasn’t interested in indulging the conversation, but something inspired me that night. “Some are.” I replied. “But there are a number of issues at play here. Size of company…Cultural differences….”

“Nah,” he interrupted me. “They are all up to it.” This foreigner guy knew because he had also been in the internet forums of the ‘Life in Taiwan’ websites. Some of these were informative but then someone would start one a topic like: ‘Hey man, I was fired from a job, what is up with these Chinese?’ and suddenly there would be pages and pages of comments from self-confessed objective-minded Taiwan old-hands who seemed to spend unhealthily long periods on these sites, telling you the Taiwanese were inherently dishonest - but still never leaving.

“It happens to all of us. It is more fluid, personality driven, so there are more ups and downs,” I continued.

“Sorry, I don’t want to offend you man, but smell the coffee - it is an honesty thing. If you were back home, they would give you an employment letter and then it would be official. You could sue. We have learnt the value of honesty in our business relations.”

“Like the investment banks that deliberately talk up stocks, the whole present world economic crisis - and the millions of other companies who announce to their employees there will not be any job cuts one week and then fire 10,000 the next.”

I was getting tired now so decided to pose the killer question: “Did you lie on your resume?”

“What has that got to do with anything?” he said.

“Did you lie?”

“Yes, man,” he replied. “But, they don’t know. They couldn’t have found out.”

John then spoke. “I don’t think that is the point, dick. You lied to get the job; they lie about whether you have one. Who is more dishonest?

“Anyway, I think you have bored us long enough. Time to go.”

John was in a bad mood because he had already had a dose of stupid foreigner earlier:

He had bumped into an old colleague. John had asked him how things were going because he had spent a lot of time teaching him how to teach – and still apparently he got fired.

“Yeah. I am doing okay now, no thanks to anyone here – yourself not included. These schools are bullshit… I mean the management is crap…they should offer training. You know what I mean, man, they say they want people with work experience, everyone knows that is just a bullshit game, so you lie, your crap, maybe they fire you, maybe they don’t if they are really too crap to work out how crap you are. You know…if they had any sense, they would cut the experience bull, and spend a little time training. No foresight! No professionalism!”

John replied, “But then that is the catch 22 – No professional school in their right mind would employ a moron like you.”

The definition of family-orientated

2010-07-01T14:35:00.001+08:00

The definition of family is an interesting cultural difference. Taiwan officially has the lowest birthrate per capita in the world, and the most number of single women in their thirties – not sure if that is the exact definition but it something related to basically people not getting married. And, of course, it has a divorce rate similar to the west. Not really signs of a family orientated culture but, as any foreigner knows, we have heard a million times how they think they are a traditional family based culture.

Stop me, and don't take it too seriously if it doesn't represent your opinions, but one of the reasons we like the place and especially the women, is the idea that they are more traditional – Despite protestations of coolness and indifference, in the end we are all like the idea that our wives are not going to leave us easily and are going to create a great family atmosphere, just like those movies tell us is possible. We throw ourselves into life here and then when it turns out not to be exactly the case we start to get frustrated. But, it is our fault, because we didn't get their definition of traditional – or we didn't listen.

This, roughly and with some flexibility was my idea of a traditional family.

Have a lot of children – At least two and probably three.
Wife – And this may be controversial for some, probably take at least five years out of work when the children are young. This again, very flexible as she could work part-time. I am really just hoping for her not to pop them out and then back to a 60 hour week a month later.
Spend lots of time together as a family including going places at the weekends etc.
Make work compromises that put family first.

Then there is the reality of Taiwan. It is not just the things listed above, but also the fact that:

Taiwan has one of the highest rates of abortion in the world, and while, some of it is desperate young people, an awful lot is middle-class people who simply would rather have a new car than another child. Test it at work. For us PC liberal wimps who get suckered into the poor Asian thing, you should get to the bottom of when X-colleague tells you they had to have an abortion. They usually say something about Taiwan being expensive, and it is so hard to bring up a child, and they say it in this way that really makes you believe it was the only possible choice. You feel bad and then twenty minutes later, they get out their new HD video camera and ask you if you want to go to a really expensive seafood restaurant later.
Children Quantity - You usually have to fight your wife up to two children, and unless you are a millionaire forget the third.
Work – In general they are planning to have a cesarean so that they work up to the last day before the birth, and then they have already found mother-in-law/babysitter and don't plan to turn their computers off because they expect to be back in front of it very soon. We are all aware of the phenomenon of grandparents looking after children during the week.
Quality time – Have you ever had this when you go to look at new apartment complexes? The sales assistant will see you are a foreigner, and immediately say: 'I'll take you to have a look at the children's play area. I know you foreigners are into that kind of thing.”
Again quality time – Have a couple of friends who experienced this and I have known countless Taiwanese who just do it naturally. They were with a girl long term and had decided to go back to their country. In order to make things smooth they got married. Once they got married the girl would start to back track on going with them citing she wouldn't be able to get a very good job. And, perhaps, they could live apart for a couple of years and see how it worked out. Understandably, their response was: I didn't marry you to live apart. If you can't make compromises why did you want to get married?

By the way, for any readers who think I am being cynical or a moaning foreigner. I am going to stand by this one. Taiwanese children's charities regularly publish surveys with a clear message: Taiwan children are unhappy. Reason: don't see enough of their parents.

So that comes back to the definition of family. Over the years Taiwanese insist they are traditional, you argue with them, you forget about it, you fall into a status quo of thinking you are hearing bullshit but can't be bothered to do anything about it. The argument raises its head every so often and the last time it did I had my epiphany.

Some how or another I had got onto the subject with a male colleague. He said, of course, the Taiwanese were family orientated and I posed him a few questions: Why don't you want kids then? Why do you farm them out before you even know what they look like? Why don't you spend time to play with them?

He answered: “Yes, I know that it your foreigner idea of family. So it is cultural thing. What we are talking about is taking care of our parents. We look after them.”

And that was it. He further went on to explain that that was the crux, the core, the crucial element; with the amount of cash you can stump up to look after them as the key. In his case, he explained that he was pretty good at sales and therefore had always been able to earn good cash, whereas his brother was hard working but not so clever. In order to fulfill his part of the bargain, he gave his brother his house on the strict understanding that the brother would be there at dinner, sit through crap soaps, and attend family gathering, something he had no interest in doing. Additionally, his brother would make an effort to have a son, while he preferred to stay single and shag around. His parents had no problem because he was doing his number one duty: making sure they could afford expensive aircon bills.

So there was my answer: you could stay single, have green hair, gay, lesbian, work in another country, never see your parents, as long as you stumped up the cash.

Important conclusion – It served me right for being an arrogant twat; getting stressed because their behavior didn't suit my definition of traditional family. Nobody is right or wrong. Just make sure you understand before you commit.

Taiwan Culture: TV and what sells

2010-06-09T17:42:00.002+08:00

Society gave TV producers the sex industry, gangsters and superstition and they have been running and milking better than - the producers of a hit American soap, the Now That’s What I Call Music Album producers and CNN with a war on their hands – ever since. One of my favorite programs before was a current affairs one that ran for about five years covering the same subject every week – prostitution. I watched it in awe at their ability to find a new angle on the subject.
Summer had just arrived and this week's creative angle was the phenomenon of students prostituting themselves during their summer vacation – As opposed to students who did so during the weekends or evenings (last week’s show) or students who went to all girls' schools (two weeks ago) or air hostesses or ex-air hostesses, and so on and so on.
It seems this was justified: the ones doing so during the summer were not the same girls taking advantage of the chance to work full-time instead of part, but a wholly unique subset of the female teenage student crowd with their own unique compelling, and sociologically important reasons for doing what they were doing, and the public had a right to understand.
As it was students and summer there was only really one place to go – Hsimenting. Taipei has a number of different centers catering to different age and income groups: Chonghsaio East Road was more for your twenty-something working woman; HsinYi area for the ABC crowd; and, Hsimenting, was the most popular area for the high school crowd in Taipei. Recently revamped and closed off to cars, it was a mixture of: high street brands and small designer shops specializing in Japanese young girlie fashion; cinemas, record shops, teahouses, noodle stalls and restaurants; walk down the back alleys and kids were getting tattoos outside on the street; in the main square top Taiwan singers could be found promoting their latest album; music blared from speakers in restaurants, shops and from street stalls competing for public attention; kids practiced hip-hop dance moves, while school uniformed kids wandered around trying to avoid going home to do their homework.
Not only is it the trendiest place for teenagers in Taipei, it is also home to the largest concentration of sixty-plus old men, you could find anywhere in the world outside of a Florida Mall. Of particular curiosity was the McDonalds at the entrance to the labyrinth of streets that made up Hsimenting: old men who you expected to be sat perched over a rice bowl were instead sat picking at their fries and big Mac, taking up its every plastic seat. They were here for the students, not just to look but hopefully to find one who was looking to earn a little extra cash. If they couldn’t get a seat in the McDonalds, they fanned out to the benches outside, always alone, they sat motionless all day, like a reptile; knowing at their ages, with what they had planned, they needed to conserve their energy. Perhaps for weeks...
Back to the show and our first deep insight into the motivations of the teenage mind.
“My mother is at home at the weekends and evening so I only have freedom during the holidays,” replied the girl being interviewed on condition of anonymity. Condition of anonymity on this show was anything but: there was always a mosaic on the face of the person concerned, but then they would be being interviewed wearing their distinctive favorite, striped dress, usually in their living room with their school photos on display behind. For good measure the cameraman would slip revealing the person’s face at least once.
The reporter moved onto the interesting bit. “You think you could show us? For the camera?”
No entrapment issues here, and, of course, because only seeing is believing, they were off to Hsimenting.
They found an unfortunate old man who was going to be the star of the show and she hovered around the garbage bin next to his bench.
He was quick to react for his age. “Mei mei (little sister), would you like to drink tea with me?” he asked. Of course, while he spoke, like a crocodile, he still didn’t move a muscle, trying to control the excitement that would dissipate those energy reserves. It wasn’t code - Teahouses were brothels when he was young.
“What do you want to do?” she asked, a natural at her new role.
“Chat and tea,” he replied.
“How much you give me? I want 1,000,” she said.
“No, we just chat and drink tea. Just let me touch a little. We are friends. Yes, mei mei!”
“I want 1,000 for an hour,” she insisted.
“Mei mei, don’t talk so direct. We discuss on the way, just fun, okay?”
The reporter followed the old man and the student to a hotel. “Why this hotel?” asked the reporter.
“They have a special deal for student. Also they will give you business. Call you up if they have clients,” replied the girl. “But you have to show them your student card first. Proof.”
The program then cut to another girl.
To this day I still wonder if the girl and the old man completed the deal...

Been in Taiwan too long: Believe anything if it suits

2010-06-09T10:40:00.001+08:00

For us guys this is a real tale-tale sign. The first time i heard it i cringed at its absurdity, but now it only registered mildly on my ‘ridiculous things I have heard’ scale. In fact, I actually looked forward to hearing it, knowing it was bullshit, but everybody loves a compliment.

The wife: “I beg you, beg you, don’t stop…You are so strong. You know how to fuck me.”

Two minutes later….

Taiwan History: SARs

2010-05-24T10:46:00.001+08:00

The arrival of SARS:

This is a bit of history. I can't remember though whether SARs was 2003 or 2004.

SARs was a weird thing as it came, paralyzed Asia and then disappeared never to be seen again. It is natural to compare it to swine flu, but for those of us who were here then know, it was much, much worse: SARs caused panic, economic slowdown, and a real change in behavior for a few months. For example, even the foreigners were wearing face masks.

April 22^nd - Taiwan is habitually unlucky – if there is a disease out there or a freak weather system we get it; but, for once, the country had been holding it breath watching the crisis in China, Singapore and Hong Kong, hoping it would stay unaffected. No such luck. There is a collective national sigh as the horror that Taiwan had been free of for the last two to three months finally stuck, president receives a call to say that SARS cases are suspected in Hoping Hospital.

April 24^th Hoping hospital is closed down and quarantined off with staff and patients all inside. It is suspected by some the administrator of the hospital was covering up cases which led to the infection of his staff.

A human tragedy and the cries of help of your fellow citizens proves not to be a time for China to show a compassionate helping hand, but score more political points and squeeze the Taiwanese people. The WHO has to scale down the number of officials it wants to send to Taiwan for fear China will object. Meanwhile, the government insists the WHO did not need Beijing's approval to visit Taipei, while China said last week it had given the health body permission to visit Taiwan. According to sources China tried hard to get a clause inserted in the WHO response mandate making it essential to get the approval of the national governments before the WHO could despatch health officials to a country. Presumably, there only aim was to prevent Taiwan getting any help and holding it to ransom.

After a couple of weeks of staying in we plucked up the courage to meet for dinner.

“So, have the bars been busy?” I asked Pierre. Needless to say Pierre knew he wasn’t going to get it, so had still been going at as usual.

“Deserted,” he replied. “That is Taiwan – Ok to bang complete stranger without a condom, but SARS, now that is dangerous shit.”

While we were talking Eric was covering his mouth with his hand.

“What are you doing?” asked John.

“Sorry,” replied Eric realizing it was a little too much.

I understood his paranoia. When I sat down I had taken off my mask – it was difficult to eat otherwise – but immediately started to feel insecure, sense the germs rushing into my mouth, up my nose, and burrowing into the porous regions of my eye sockets.

Everyone now had to wear a mask on the underground and in public places. Along with getting temperature checks every time we went into buildings.

“I feel like Hannibal Lecter in this bloody thing!” snarled John.

“Funny! I feel like a doctor,” said Eric. “You?”

“A 19^th century highway robber,” said Pierre.

“Me? Just a little bit of a dick,” I replied.

“There you go,” said John. “A psychiatrist would love us.”

“I feel sorry for this guy,” said John. “I mean this is a good falafel and this guy is going to go out of business.”

SARS meant empty restaurants. As I drove into town, I looked in the windows of restaurants and it was a sad story of just a couple of people in each, who, like us, couldn’t stand staying at home any longer. It was hard to relax as we were acutely aware at every second of the movement of our hands vis-a-vis their proximity to alien surfaces. They had been wiped down – we witnessed it – but now our hands had brushed these surfaces, and who could be sure the waitress did a good job with her disinfectant? And anyway, we had been to the bathroom since the dousing meaning it was likely some person or persons, had wandered over to our table for very good reasons and rubbed their probable SARS infected hands over the table…then again perhaps we were being paranoid.

“I am out of here soon,” said John rubbing his hands again with gel. We were surprised the big tough guy, was worried about this - His wife was heavily pregnant but ensconced in Taitung on a mountain where there had been no recorded cases and he, personally, was least likely to have a problem: he was super fit and super fit people didn't die of this respiratory disease. It was his fear of dying in Taiwan getting the better of him again. He had watched the people quarantined off in the hospital with their relatives outside crying for them and got in a panic. He was right, it was a horrible way to go: from the moment you found your 38 degree temperature they were going to isolate you and you were going to die alone in a bed, your family and friends unable to do anything but write ‘I love you’ on a piece of paper and hold it up at the window.

Eric was technically a trainee doctor of Chinese medicine and still going to the clinic everyday. That evening he started to think about whether he was obliged or not. Convention has it that the medical profession, being one of the emergency services, was a potentially dangerous job. True. But he wasn't sure he had signed some sort of unwritten contract with society to ‘risk his own life’ as well as save others.

He decided to call his sister because her husband was a doctor. Still she was not very sympathetic.

“Of course, I am worried, but you are not the only doctor in the family. I have to worry about Simon, whether my kid’s father will be home everyday. There is a responsibility,” she said.

Eric put down the phone in reluctant agreement, but then he remembered Simon was a plastic surgeon and the only way he was going to die in the line of duty was to slip on a bag of fat he had just lip suctioned and stick the scalpel in his throat. The more he thought about it, the more it occurred that none of the plastic surgeons, heart surgeons and gaenocologists, he knew ever put themselves anywhere near contagious sick people. They bathed in the glory of association with the fire and police departments, drawing 10 times the pay and none of the risk.

May 18^th - Record jump of 34 reported SARS cases.

End of May - Suddenly every thing is under control and people are slowly beginning to fill the streets again. But China is not finished - Despite Taiwan having no new SARS cases for the requisite time laid out in WHO rules, it can't get itself off the list of SARs countries. It is rumored because China has asked the World Health Organization (WHO) to ignore requests from Taiwan to be removed from the list until China is taken off the list.

All seems a distant memory now….

Stupid Foreigner: It is different for the Vietnamese brides

2010-05-13T09:52:00.002+08:00

Eric got better over the years. A combination of us and his wife shouting at him the moment he started talking about racism. But is wasn’t just that: I think he slowly did realize he was happy and it was different, but it had its benefits.
This was one of his last stupidities – at least that we all new about….
During the early 2000’s the south-east Asian bride phenomenon had accelerated to epic proportions – To the point where 1-in-10 of marriages were to a foreigner and 1-in-8 children born were mixed race. In response, Taipei city government among others had established a support center to help them integrate into society, and was now offering free Chinese classes.
Eric, pissed at having to pay, was trying to make a point. “Why can’t I sign up? I am a foreign spouse?” he said to the woman in the center.
“I don’t think this is for you! It is for new brides. New in Taiwan,” she replied.
“Lady, this is sexist! I met my wife in the States and I just arrived last week. What is the difference?” he replied.
Helping foreign spouses - and he knew it before he went - meant foreign women married to Taiwanese men. Most foreign guys came because they were interested in Taiwan, they met their wives here after first having time to get used to things, but a minority did come here after meeting their wives back in America or Europe, and for those people, as Eric rightly pointed out there was no difference. Still, the staff behind the desk didn’t know what to say, how to explain the difference because it it obvious: You are a western man. Your wife belongs to you. She married you so that she could have a western lifestyle. You speak English and your wife and relatives want to practice theirs. You will eventually leave. We don’t make you follow our customs…Besides, and most importantly, we are not doing this because we want to make Taipei an international city, but because there are so many Vietnamese and Indonesian brides now we have to. Sorry, there are not many of you! You just ain’t a priority!
The same is said for our (western man/Taiwanese woman) children – the authorities regard them as western because we are, and why waste time and resources on them, when obviously they are going to go back to England to go to school. They want to send their children there after all.
All the woman could say was: “Sorry, I understand you, but nothing I can do.”
Eric hadn’t given up: “My wife is a journalist, you know! I will be back later so you can explain on camera.” That evening his wife tried to persuade some newspapers to take the story; they got her point – eventually! - but didn’t really think the subject newsworthy. Calling their bluff proved sufficient, as the next day the manager of the place offered him a chance to study - he went for two weeks, just to prove his point. He was happy with himself; we weren’t happy with him at all.
John: “God, you are anal! We hardly have the learning curve of some poor girl from Vietnam who marries an alcoholic, socially mal-adjusted gas bottle delivery man twice her age, then has to go and live in his crap little apartment in the countryside with his mother and father, learn overnight how to cook his favorite bamboo soup and clean the beetle nut stains from his wardrobe of white vests, while, his relatives treat her like a slave and shout at her in an alien language.”
“It is not the point, it is the principle.” But Eric no longer felt good about his victory against the system.
“It is exactly the point!” we all said.

Taiwan Culture: Mummy is No.1

2010-04-28T09:41:00.001+08:00

You know Taiwanese will do anything their parents say, and you get a little used to it over time. Still, the depth sometimes manages to surprise.

I was watching the news with the wife. I was picking up bits of one of the stories. It was Chinese New Year and so a woman, who had been thrown out of the family home by her mother-in-law, had invited the media to go along with her and bang on the door of her husband's family's home, hopefully to get herself and son let back in. Unfortunately, even Taiwan's persistent media couldn't get her access.

“The kid had a sign around his neck: ‘Ba Ba Huei Jia (Father I’m Coming Home)’ – but still the mother-in-law wouldn’t let her in the house. She has nowhere to stay,” I said to the wife. “I don’t get it - where is the father? In China...army, jail, or something?”

“Watching TV,” replied the wife. “His mother won’t let him recognize his son...So unfortunate.”

For the rest of the day I could be seen shaking my head sporadically bursting out with - ‘And how does the father accept this?’

Taiwan Culture: The moral code and what trumps all else

2010-04-07T11:12:00.001+08:00

Just last week we were watching some DVD, New York, I love you, I think it was called. A collection of short stories glorifying that city, as if it hasn't already been glorified enough. My wife was excited because Maggie Q was in it, but sure enough, as it got to the end of her scene, things went to stereotype and it was revealed she was employed in the oldest profession in the world. I had been over this subject a few times before, but as the movie was boring, I started it again.

“Hey, doesn't it bother you all Asian birds are portrayed as hookers in the west?” I asked.

“She is American, isn't she?” said the wife preferring to watch the movie.

“Sure,” I replied. “But if you weren't looking at the Asian half why did you get excited when she came on the screen – point her out.”

“She is beautiful,” she replied.

“I think you are avoiding the question. Aren't you bothered?”

“I am living in Taiwan,” she answered. “Besides a lot of us are hookers. Or KTV girls etc. It is a culture thing.”

I was taken way back. How could she say that? When I had first arrived and seen all the KTVs I had also tried to find an answer to what appeared in front of me. After a while, I just concluded that I was being an obnoxious foreigner and the propensity for Asians to sell sex was an illusion created by bigotry.

“You can't say that,” I replied. “You are saying Asians are dirty little – that gets me more excited admittedly – immoral hussies.”

She looked at me angrily. “It is not a moral thing, it is religious.”

“Religious or cultural?”

“Both,” she replied.

“Please explain,” I asked as it seemed she was going to leave me in limbo. I paused the DVD.

“Well, you know, I was a Christian when I was young...Oh, it is so different. They are always telling us what is moral and right and wrong and what we shouldn't do. It is so troublesome.”

“So, you are saying, your parents didn't teach you moral values etc? All the crap on the TV shows when I first arrived. Dads still care about the virginity of their daughters. I have first hand evidence I am not going into now...”

“Of course, stupid,” she replied. “You are missing the point. Do you remember why I gave up being a Christian.”

“Maybe, but enlighten me again.”

“When my grandfather died they said at the church I couldn't worship him...”

She paused wrongly assessing I had put two and two together. “Go on...”

“You really are stupid,” she continued. “Of course we have morals, but the highest moral is parents. If you are doing something for your parents that cancels out all the negatives below. What will your sister do if your mother needs the money for a life-saving operation?”

“Nothing. We have the national health service.”

“You know what I mean. Will she go to the KTV and earn the money?”

“You have met my sister and so the national health service waiting list is quicker than her earning potential...But I get your point – No she wouldn't. And nobody would expect her to.”

“See. In Asia we would all go to the KTV and get respect because we earned the money to save our mother's life.”

“So, you are saying all of the girls in the KTV are doing it to earn money for mother's operation. That is a lot of operations. And you all have national health insurance too.”

“Well, you know, if you can also manage to buy a Hermes bag, you deserve it. Hermes bags are very nice.”

“I know. You have told me many times -”

“Yes, and I am still waiting.”

I sat back and thought about it. “Anyway. Wow. Interesting. I'll have to get more stupid, slow romantic movies in future.” Then I suddenly got a bad feeling. “Didn't your grandmother die of cancer? Has your mother had a check-up recently?”

She looked at me and smiled. “I don't know, but I will do my duty when the time comes.”

“Lets just hope we have another ten years. Time for you to get too old.”

“I see. You say I will look unattractive in ten years. I can't earn any money?”

“Not at all. Just you will have a couple of nieces coming to an age where they can pick up the baton.”

“Yes. Even our daughter -”

“Ok. You win. End of subject...”

I spent the next few days sending my resume out to companies in England and making arrangements for the move.

Communication Taiwan Style: I just don’t know what to do

2010-03-29T15:57:00.001+08:00

I was walking down the street with a guy called Chris Maynard. He hadn’t been in Taiwan very long and so was surprised by the behavior that followed.

A young, pretty girl carrying flyers had waved us down seemingly intent on giving us her sales pitch. It was broad daylight and she had plenty of time to decide whether she could handle the situation before she flagged, but now she was flapping more than a chicken grabbed by its legs as the chopper glinted in its eyes.

“Um….er…restaurant…you go…ne huei jiang jong wen ma? (Can you speak Chinese)” she said.

I decided to help her out: “Huei! Ne zai mai she ma (What are you selling?)”

She continued in English, “This. You know…cheaper in restaurant…my English very poor.”

It was a promotion voucher.

I continued in Chinese: “Na yi ge tsan ting? (Which restaurant?) Pien yi duo shao chien (How much cheaper?)”

She was intent in continuing with her strategy, whatever that was. “Behind…Different jia chien (price)…100, 200.” Knowing the conversation wasn’t going to end in communication, I took her promotion voucher, thanked her and walked off.

Chris then spoke: “That was brilliant – her English was a pile of shite, you spoke to her Chinese, but she continued in English.”

“Welcome to Taiwan!” I replied. “Its a great country, but sometimes the people…”

Expat Culture in Taiwan: Pierre and the restaurant II

2010-03-18T10:00:00.001+08:00

As I said before Pierre opened his restaurant without any contract. About five months later, his colleagues asked him not to come into work for a few days because there were some issues with the police, and a foreigner working with a permit.

Two days after that he couldn’t get either of his partners on the phone so Pierre headed back to the restaurant; walked in, and, as custom, took a beer from the refrigerator. He saw someone else working behind the bar.

The waitress looked at him like she missed him and had not expected to see him again.“Pierre you want to eat here?”

“I am here!” But his riposte was kind of flat, because he was arrogant but not slow.

The new guy from behind the bar came over and introduced himself. “You must be Pierre! Wow, I am honored to meet you!”

“Where is Ah-Huei?” said Pierre.

“You arrange meet him here for dinner?” said the new guy.

“I don’t fucking need to arrange to meet anyone for dinner in my restaurant,” said Pierre. “Sorry, what is your name? You see, I usually do the hiring.”

One look at their expressions said it all to Pierre – well, actually, to people who didn’t know Taiwanese, one look at their expressions would indicate mild embarrassment of the sort associated with remembering your flies were undone...before anyone had seen. But Pierre knew the greater the embarrassment the deeper they shut down and the blank expressions on their faces now meant that the worse had happened.

As the reality hit he struggled for a moment against inevitably, trying to think of something he could do, then just sunk deep into allowing his dreams to disappear. He had a strange sense of relief – He realized the thing that had kept him awake, on edge for months, was just this. When the restaurant venture had started he had buried this fear because he had nothing to lose at that moment, but as things came together and success was had, the pound became deafening.

A few quick more questions and it was the horrible reality: This guy was the new manager…They thought he had gone back to France…that his partners had bought him out.

“I want to get out of here,” he said not liking to be a guest in his own home. He knew there was no way he was going to find them. Even if he did, what could he do? But stand and shout a little, and get further humiliated. The beating at the hands of the gangsters had made a lasting impression. He wanted to smash the place up, but he knew they might come for him. He headed for the door, then turned, dashed behind the counter and emptied the till. There had to be some act of defiance...and, fortunately, they hadn’t changed his bad habit of leaving large amounts in the till, yet. The oven was too big, so he picked up the espresso maker he had imported from France, kicked open the door, and walked out with a few tears.

He was surprisingly calm in the event of a real crisis, saving his energy for the little ones he invented on a daily basis.

That evening sat in the bar.

“I’ll get those mothers. Nobody cheats me like that.” He still felt the need to perform in front of us.

“So, much cash did you get?”asked John.

“I haven’t counted yet.” Pierre starts pulling money from trouser and coat pockets, and dumping it on the table, next to the espresso maker. He had gone straight from his restaurant to the bar. He had not been feeling particularly optimistic about the cash - Usually one gets a feel for the amount of money and excitedly tries to make predictions on the total, here from first note to the next all he could think was “Oh, there is another, that is it no doubt it.”

“Man, you got 50,000NT. A could survive on that for two months!” called out Eric excitedly, genuinely impressed.

“He had a restaurant pulling in a million a month, dick,” I said.

“Dude, I’m sorry, but you set up an extremely successful business model. You can be proud of yourself, look forward with confidence,” said Josh. Josh wanted to add you just have to go the legal route next time, but he knew it was wasting his time; Pierre would say that it wasn’t necessary. Josh knew many Taiwanese also liked to do it this way; they invested informally on just a handshake because they couldn’t afford or didn’t want to pay for a business license, and they also got cheated, stolen from and ripped off on a daily basis. But it wasn’t the Taiwanese way of doing business, but the bad way of doing business. He had seen it many times: western guys come here and left their commonsense at the airport. They take some guy out to KTV twice a week for a couple of months, spending a fortune on him, not discussing business, because they believe they have to respect ‘Chinese business’ culture; he studied it on his MBA course. At the end when he doesn’t sign the contract, he blames culture and moves on to the next one to make the same mistake. It wasn’t culture, that guy was taking the piss because you let him, and commonsense should tell you that. Very good western businessmen become idiots over night trying to follow the local culture. Yes, you have to take him to the KTV, but if he ain’t coming into the office next time, you know to cut him loose.

“You never told us who your investors were,” said Eric.

“Does it matter?” answered Pierre, the importance of not admitting it was a couple of his old colleagues from the KTV more important than ever.

Expat Culture: John’s break from reality II

2010-03-10T10:49:00.002+08:00

John continued to date the KTV girl, Hsiao Lo, for eight or nine months. They became kind of behind boyfriend and girlfriend in a strange way. It wasn't exactly love, but more circumstance – John taught English fifty hours a week so, if a girl phoned him up and made herself available, he wouldn't say no. And as you know from before she wasn't exactly a shrinking violet.

It turned out she was a lot of things – and one evening it all came crashing down. I wasn't there but I believe his account of events 100 percent.

“Pierre can you come over to my flat, I need your Chinese skills,” said John who still hadn’t progressed pass the food, destination, and counting sections of the book.

About a half an hour later Pierre arrived at his apartment.

“Nice place,” said Pierre.

‘Yeah, there is a nice, big clean empty roof with plants - got my sun beds up there already.’

‘Of course, you do.’

‘Well it might not be mine for much longer - I ‘ad a call from me landlady. It was a difficult conversation, but I wrote it down the thing he kept repeating: ‘Fang zu hi mei shou dao…4 uer.’ John had written down something that resembled ‘not received the rent for 4 months’ and so Pierre called the landlady back to confirm that was the case.

“English, I don’t understand, how did she not receive your rent?”
“She – Hsiao Lo - pays it. The landlady wanted me to go to the bank and transfer it, so I let her do it for me.’

‘Where is she now?’

“I don’t fucking know…Look she gave me the transmission receipts.’

Pierre took a look at the slips from the bank. They were filled in and then stamped but with a toy stamp. ‘Your girlfriend has been a naughty girl.’

“Don't look at me like I am a dumb foreigner,” said John.

“How should I look at you then?” replied Pierre.

John, like so many people who couldn’t speak much Chinese, had girlfriends, friends or colleagues handling their meetings with landlords, reading contracts for them, querying gas bills and arranging cable, among other things. He had relied on other people, and up to now they had all been scrupulously honest. He began to castigate himself for going soft; then, he made another of his solid promises to himself to learn good Chinese.
They then went to a fried dumpling place around the corner for dinner. John really wanted something western at a time like this, but he was feeling poor and Pierre was poor, so it had to be Chinese food.

“I am an idiot, aren't I?” said John. “What to do?”

“Of course, but you are not the only one. I don’t think you will see her again…Just repair the damage. Does she have your keys?”

“No.”

“Just in case you have to change the lock.”

“So what to do,” John repeated, bristling at the prospect of having to pay the five months rent again, preparing to move his expensive stuff out, just in case of bailiffs.

“I apologised for you, and explained you are also the victim here, and maybe, we can take a little time to see if we can find her. She agreed. I’ll call in a few days. We’ll see.”

John couldn’t comfort himself by thinking it was in the ‘lap of the Gods so don’t worry,' as Pierre’s expression implied.

After dinner, Pierre went home and John walked back to his apartment feeling sorry for himself, resolving to go to her place of work later.

Suddenly he felt one punch slam into the back of his head and another in his left side, knocking him forward; from the angles, he knew there were at least two guys. He knew what to do in these situations: get some space and time to clear his head, let the adrenalin take over. Fortunately, for him today, and especially today, the adrenalin was quick coming – While he was walking home he hadn’t been thinking happy thoughts about doves, flowers and nursery rhymes. Two more blows in the same places, but he was already covering the back of his head so he had time to do something now. The blow to the head came from the man on his left, so he spun around to his left – It was basic, up against two guys you always had to try and get to the left of the one on the left or the right of the one of the right, staying in the middle was fatal – and managed to get off a right to the chin of this guy, knocking him down, but it wasn’t full power, and he knew he would be up again soon. He wanting to finish the guy off, but he knew he had to take on the 2^nd. He tried kicks but they were blocked easily, he wasn’t going to get through from there. He went for the rugby tackle to use his size, which was a gamble – He could only get in one or two punches before the other guy got up and then he would be vulnerable. From the ground the guy was moving a lot and getting in some punches to his head from the floor, but he knew he had broken some ribs with his knee on landing. The other guy was now up, but more cautious, kicking low and punching, waiting for his friend to get up. All John could do throw himself in furiously, he would take some punches but hopefully, if he could get hold of him, and do some damage. The guy was backing off, obviously smart enough to realize he wasn’t going to win a wrestling match, but then he tried to turn and tripped, and John dived on him smashing his head against the pavement and punching him. He knew he wasn’t going to be getting up for a while now and it had become one-on-one. He had a second to think and noticed a 3^rd guy standing about ten yards away. Just standing. He was trying to finish off the 2^nd , but he had to careful, keep one eye on the other. As he pounded punches into the 2^nd guy, he started to wonder where the baseball bats were.

“Stop. Don't move,” shouted the third guy and for a brief moment John thought he had won, they were leaving and he was going to call them a bunch of dickless piss weak mother fuckers, then start chasing them to find out what this was all about. He started towards the third guy, before rearing back suddenly when he noticed the reason why they didn’t need baseball bats: the guy’s arm was now outstretched, and a gun was rapidly becoming a bigger and bigger part of his field of vision. The gun was now pressing on his cheekbone and he had been punched several times there in the last five minutes and now with the adrenalin almost gone, he could feel the pain; and the gun, in turn, pressing on his injured face was giving him a visceral reminder of damage it could cause.

“Hsaio Lo. Where?” If it was possible to take a massive sigh of relief with a gun in your face, then John did. His worse fear was that it was someone out for revenge: one of the taxi drivers he had punched; some ex-girlfriend; or a connected foreigner he had offended when he was drunk. Now, if he could manage to communicate the truth, he knew he had a chance of getting out of this. But that was the problem, gangsters weren’t known for getting high results on their TOEFL exams. Again he would have given anything to have now studied more Chinese, selfishly wishing Pierre had come with him back to the apartment. As soon as Pierre recovered consciousness, he could put the point across well. His heart was racing from the fight and now the rush of absolute fear. He was not a stranger to guns after his spell in the army, but he had never had a loaded one near his face with intent before. He started to think about what a good life he had here, and how happy he was to have become a respected member of society. He promised himself if he got out of this alive, he would embrace his new civilized middle-class life and never complain again.

Still getting out alive wasn't a certainty. Never in his life before did he have to choose his words so well. “I don’t know,” was the truth. He thought about using it, but it could be construed as trying to cover for her.

“She cheat me.” Was the best he could do. He was a master of body language now after all the years in the kindergarten and communicating with people on the street, but lifting his hands up now, to make even the Buddhist goodwill two-handed sign wouldn’t be wise. He was naked without his hands; he knew he was fucked.

“I kill you, ” said the guy. The guy gave a firing gun demonstration with his other hand.

John didn’t need the demonstration. Maybe, he was being nice so there was no misunderstanding but there was really no need. “Where she?” the guy repeated.

“She cheat me. Please, my Chinese no good. I will call my friend, okay,” John said in his worst Chinese. Perhaps it was the look of sheer hopeless frustration, defeated resignation on John’s face; perhaps, they assumed nobody would be stupid enough to cover for her; perhaps by his Chinese pronunciation they decided he wasn’t smart enough to be in on this; perhaps, they had been paid to extract the information at all costs and were planning to torture him later. Anyway, the guy with the gun took a couple of paces back and ordered: ‘Call. Call. Quick.’

For the next ten minutes John stood evaluating making a dash for it; if he could get past the other guys, and far enough out of range.

After speaking to the landlady and Pierre they decided he was telling the truth; the two others took a few pot shots to even the score, John’s came very close to not suppressing a ‘you fucking cunts’, and then dragged himself home.

It seemed Hsiao Lo had been sleeping with a brother of one of the partners in the KTV, and then stolen money and jewelery from him. These guys were sent because she told some of the other girls she had to look after her western boyfriend and had borrowed money to do it.

John took off his soiled underwear and headed for the shower with a bottle of whiskey. Half a bottle later, and he was able to step over the side of the bath without needing his hands to steady himself. He had taken a beating like this before, and he knew it would only get worse tomorrow, but for the moment the shock of the gun was a form of morphine.

He lied on his bed trying to work things out. He thought about why they decided not just to talk to him first – Then he remembered going to pick her up and smiling smugly at the doorman, and how that could be interpreted…

He thought about if the landlady hadn’t called that night - He didn’t love her or even particularly care for Hsaio Lo, but maybe he would have tried to be a hero if he thought she was the victim in all this (He had watched too many movies after all.) There was a bright side: maybe, he was not destined to die a horrible death in a foreign land as the dreams predicted. But mostly, he lied on the bed shouting, ‘cunts’ to his right and then ‘fucking bitch’ to his left as each of their faces popped into his head.
That night he spent the evening arguing with the people in the British Trade office to take his body back to England.

A few days later we all met up for a drink.

‘Man, I’m sorry. Where are you going to stay?’ sympathized Josh.

‘It is a Taiwanese landlords,” interrupted Eric. “Just get your stuff out and leave the place. The contracts not in your name so just get out and cut your losses on the deposit - Man, you’ll pay the money and they will kick you out anyway for bad karma and keep the deposit. My first instinct was that it was a set up from the landlady.”

“I am staying there,” said John.

Eric hadn't finished. “Jesus, you paid her the five months rent again. I would have said, sue me, bitch…You know the legal system here is fucked.”

“Actually, American. As usual you are totally wrong,” said Pierre. Pierre had spoken with the landlady and explained the situation. She had actually already decided it was her fault for not asking for the money earlier; she came to the apartment and there was an hour or so of profuse apologies for putting her in this situation; some pleading to pay some of the money and telling her what a good woman she was. The result: he had a new contract freeing him from paying anything.

Still Eric was sure she was the exceptional to the rule - “You better be careful. These contracts are worthless.”

“So why do you think he didn’t shoot you?” said Josh.

“You’d prefer it that way, eh? Never ‘ad a friend who’d been shot before, no doubt,” said John. “One of the experiences of life.”
He continued, “Anyway, they didn’t want to from the start. Just his piss weak couple of limp dick fags couldn’t handle me so he had to pull it out. They attacked me from behind and I still managed to sort them out.”

We noticed John’s back straighten and the proud glint in his eye, and we recoiled knowing the memory he was getting to take from this was the positive one of his performance, not the nightmare of having a gun in his face.

John continued, “Still, I ain’t off the perverbial hook yet because these guys may still decide that I am with the bitch.”

Again that had crossed our minds and we were all thinking, if it had happened to me I would have been on the first plane out. Don’t you get it. Gun. Die!

John later revealed he had stayed because he wasn’t a coward, and would never forgive himself if he did…But just in case, he had still gone to see his student Michael’s father because he “knew a man, who knew a man who was a triad (his younger brother)” and negotiations were started on his behalf.

And just in case, the ‘just in case’ failed he had a baseball bat under his bed, and a large wrench and some pepper spray in his Kindergarten satchel. “My bag weighs a fuckin’ ton now,” he said.

“Well, you know,” said Josh. “You got involved with a KTV girl. It was likely to happen.”

“Shut up,” replied John. “It had nothing to do with the KTV. For every crazy in the KTV there are twenty honest ones. Look at your Maggie – She was a rich middle-class bitch and you are still trotting out your typical liberal shit. In the end, I was a twat because she was a nutcase, and I ignored the signs. But, as I said before - It is very easy to ignore your commonsense when you don't have the cold reality of your own society staring suspiciously at you on a daily basis.”

“Come on, man,” said Eric. “We, as westerners, are taught to be independent and make our own decisions rationally.”

“Shut up,” we all said.

Taiwan jokes: What is a subway….

2010-02-23T10:44:00.001+08:00

This little language miscommunication happened the first time my parents came to Taipei. My wife had never met my parents before - she had never met any white people over fifty before - and, having been brought up to respect her parents-in-law she had been shaking like a leaf before they arrived. Still she managed to put their culture shock first and spent the time trying to make conversation, point out things that might be familiar to my parents. My wife speaks good English but my parents have a strong local accent that most Americans would have trouble following let alone Taiwanese – They think ‘when the cows come home’ is everyday English.

We were in a taxi leaving the restaurant. At this juncture the wife had decided my parents might want to know they could have a sandwich tomorrow.

“There is a Subway,” she said pointing out the window of the taxi.

“Really,” replied my mother. We had speed past too quick for her to see exactly what a subway in Taiwan looked like. Why a road underpass was sufficient news to be pointed out, but she was determined to bond with her daughter-in-law, no matter what. “Back in England we don’t use them. They are a bit dangerous,” she replied.

“The subway?”

“Yeah, some people were attacked in them so they closed them down…Terrible!”

“Wow, nothing like that happens in Taiwan.”

“Well they are quite old… And dark at night,” continued the mother.

Ordinarily I only scanned my mother’s conversation for certain key words like ‘heart attack’ preceded by ‘I am having’, otherwise I just answered ‘yes’ or ‘hmm’ and carried on thinking about whatever I was thinking about or talking to my father. Knowing my home town it was plausible that someone was attacked in a sandwich shop; however, at ‘dark at night’, I understood. I didn’t dare stop them though.

“They don’t have the light?” continued the wife.

“Well it is under the street so the lights are never strong enough.”

“Our subways are not all underground. Most are on the street.”

“That is interesting. In England, our country, they are all underground. How else do you get across the road?”

“We just cross anywhere in Taiwan. Nobody worries…Hmm, maybe, we drive our car there.. Or the motorcycle.” The wife had from the start looked like she was being led down through a maze of underground slippery caves, now they had added a blindfold and forced her to wear high heels.

“Oh, that is different. How do you drive in a subway?”

“Not really inside, but close to the entrance.”

Silence fell as the two women, as accomplished as they were at making conversation, needed a few seconds to retrace a thread or two.

“What are you laughing for?” asked the wife because i was now rolling about in the front seat of the taxi.

“I don’t know either. You two are fantastic.”

“We don’t care do we. We were happy talking.” interrupted his mother.

The wife nodded her head and smiled wholeheartedly, because she had been brought up to respect parents, not run screaming like she wanted to do now. “That’s right mum!”

I sat back and smiled contentedly - Women could sometimes be worth all the trouble.

Taiwan lifestyle: We are not so weird anymore

2010-02-10T10:01:00.000+08:00

The theme of how times have changed has many different angles. One of the them is how life here has become a quite a bit less 'them' and 'us' – For any new arrival who is suffering from being called foreigner every five minutes that is hard to belief but believe me it has got better. Or worse, depending on your standpoint – Again believe me there are lots of people who revel in their status as 'white monkey' and have moved further and further south as the locals stopped staring at them. But that is a different story...

Lets put things in perspective - In the old days we like to say 5% of girls really wanted a foreigner, 20% would think about it, and the rest just weren't interested. Now, we kind of think it is still 5% for the really want category, while the middle, who would think about it, has risen to maybe 60 or 70 and the not interested now a mere 20 or so.

It was Saturday afternoon and I was sat on ChongHsiao with Eric, Pierre and John, having a beer, and looking at the street life.

Suddenly a white dude comes along with a girl and we started to stare for no other reason than we have been in Taiwan too long. He was displaying various signs of the opposite: he was trying to impress the hot girly he was with by actually putting on an ironed shirt and a comb through his hair when it was a hot sweaty afternoon; he was politely saying hello to every foreigner he met on the street, and doing so in that way you could tell it was planned; he was still displaying space parameter manners: giving way to Chinese people on the pavement, and apologizing for bumping into them - As if it mattered, as if he expected them to do the same back. And, most importantly, he was reacting to stares as if he viewed himself as something more than a goldfish in a bowl.

"You know his girlfriend?” I said to everyone.

“No!”

“No, nor do I. The guy has only been here for 6 months and I never seen his girlfriend before,” said Pierre.

The implication and inside joke from us was thus: in the old days, new arrivals picked from a small pool of foreigner groupie girls so you always knew everyone’s girlfriend. It was only after a few years that you were able to break out of this and slowly get into the rest of society.

You dated the same girls out of necessity - Girls before either wanted a foreigner devil or didn’t. It was a big deal for them because their parents surely didn't approve. You went to bars to get girls, but there weren't may bars. Not many Chinese went to the bars, especially girls, because they were dens of sin. In the old days the number one place was 45. There were other bars but they were filled with Taiwanese drinking tea or playing Kerr Plunk or the game where you pull the bricks out – Bars had to provide these games because Taiwanese didn't know what to do in a bar. Going to a bar for them was like going to Paris, something you had to try and get a photo.

Also, and importantly, of course you didn't speak Chinese when you arrived, and nobody wanted to speak to you in Chinese because you were here for a purpose – especially the girls, if you were going to get ostracized by your family the least that you could do was learn English. Now with Chinese all the rage in the West guys are arriving with a passing ability in the language and speaking reasonably well in a short time. And, while most foreigners are still English teachers there is a vague segment of other opportunities – You could get a job in a computer company doing marketing with access to the average office girls. In short, there was no need to date your ex-room mate's girlfriend anymore when he left.

“Times are changing,” I said. “We are not so weird as we used to be.”

“No, fucking way, man,” said Eric. “How many times have you been called a foreigner today? Stared at? Talked about to your face?”

“Just the once or twice,” I replied. “But I suppose I did get up at 1 pm.”

“Shut up, American,” said Pierre. “Don't start.”

“But he does have a point,” said John. “It is pretty fucking far from the day when I am not viewed by my stereotypes. Where people start to look at me first rather than my big hooter...Thank goodness, I must add. I am going to have to move down south then.”

“So if it isn't any form of enlightenment, why?”I said.

“It is the divorced granny effect,” said Eric.

For once Eric had a reasonable point: when we arrived divorce was a taboo subject, nobody admitted to living with anyone, women had hymen replacement operations, and when you went to the beach girls wore a dress. They were still up to naughty stuff but, like in all crumbling dictatorships, it was all being done behind closed. Now was a different story: we had Next magazine and Apple, celebrities got divorced just to get a spot on a talk show, TV shows every night competed to dance as close to the censors as possible with bikini fashion shows, everyone lived together, and the prized possession was a girl who hadn't had an abortion (Along with last weeks statistic about having the lowest birthrate in the world, Taiwan also has one of the highest rates of abortion). It was not that they had particularly bothered to address the subject of breaking down foreign stereotypes, simply there own society going to pieces had narrowed the gap. We were still weird foreigners but not a social stigma anymore.

“I prefer the old days,” said John. “I could go to the bar and guarantee the girls all spoke English. Now I keep going up to girls and they ask me if I speak Chinese. I go on dates and the girls want to eat in Chinese restaurants...Are not impressed with my lectures about how cool England is.”

“Yeah,” said Pierre. “I could go to Eslite and I was the only one. Girls were impressed I could speak great Chinese. Now, I have to move quickly.”

(Eslite was a huge 24 hour bookshop that Pierre thought of as his favorite pickup joint. He had decided that if girls were wandering around alone on a Friday or Saturday night or Sunday afternoon then they didn’t have a boyfriend, and desperately wanted one.)

“What are you thinking about Dan?” said John.

“I am thinking about all those girls who did such a sterling service for the foreign community. I hope they have husbands now.”

“Amen,” he replied.

Taiwan Expat Culture: John’s Break from Reality I

2010-01-21T13:27:00.001+08:00

I have already touched on the theme of how we lose touch with reality when we are here. All pretty obvious as we do the same in our own country when we go to university and we should know better.

Anyway, one of the ways we do so is in blatant character misjudgment. Gangsters behaving like stereotypes of gangsters in Asian films don't seem that scary. Similarly, psychos, train-wrecks, spoilt bitches and bastards, selfish controlling freaks – and, I guess, on the positive side, just plain old nice people, are redefined under the pressure of alienation. Your instinct probably told you to run a mile or marry them at the first opportunity, but in the interests of cultural understanding you decided to over analyze, rationalize the irrational and put yourself in a world of hurt.

As I have mentioned before John was trying his best to lead a quiet respectable life after a hell-raising past. He had done so successfully for several years. On this occasion he had decided to treat himself. I guess he regrets it, but I doubt it.

He had introduced us to his new girlfriend, Hsiao Lo, with a smug look on his face. She had sat down at the table and for the last two hours ran the show: made us buy jugs of beer and drink out of half pint glasses, filled our glasses with beer as soon as they were empty, made us cheers and down in one; made us play drinking games which we lost apart from Pierre who from his previous career had plenty of experience. It wasn't just her ability to drink or her looks that had us guessing pretty early on what her job was: the slight heavy makeup to cover a lack of sleep, the Louis Vitton bags and the Prada this and that; the two mobiles that kept ringing and the receptionist way she answered them as if she was in an office not answering her personal phone. For me it wasn't any of those things that had bothered me most, it was the way she had reacted when Pierre started beating her at paper, scissors, stone. The tension had got unbearable and you could tell inside her there was a volcano trying to erupt.

At this point she went off for a particularly long call.

“Where did you meet her?” I asked. “Doesn't seem the type who's off to do an MBA next year.”

“Usual place,” he replied. “Yeah, it has been an odd few weeks – I am missing the usual teashops and conversation about how university in the west is going to free her trapped independent spirit.”

“I think her spirit needs a bit of traditional Chinese crushing,” said Pierre whose hands were still stinging from the slapping and pulling.

“And she has never set foot in the west,” answered John. “So, so much for that bullshit argument.”

Eric broke out of his drunken haze as his favorite topic reared itself. “Obviously, she is an exception, but in the general case the education system in the west produces people who are more -”

“Shut up,” we all shouted.

“Anyway, Rosbif, I know you are not stupid. You know what she does for a living...”

At this point she arrived back and we all sheepishly pretended not to be talking about her.

“Of course, what do you do me dear?” said John.

“Oh, I work in a KTV. Don’t tell anyone,” she said with a conspiratorial nudge and wink. Even though we had guessed so it still an effect to have it confirmed. This was the first time Eric, Josh and I had met a girl who worked in a KTV; mystery surrounded it, like with soldiers, executioners, gangsters, thieves and prostitutes it was one of those professions for which we, middle-class boys, were eternally curious how they dealt with the responsibilities of their trade - They had to cry themselves to slept every night or be secret alcoholics.

“Don’t worry it is a high-class one. I only talk to customers,” she continued.

We believed her and knew the only downside was having to drink with lots of guys she didn’t know, but still we were dubious.

“So how long have you done this?” asked Josh.

“Three years. I started during university, and sort of couldn’t stop because of the money. I lived out of home for many years, kept bad company, I drink and I smoke, but I am not a bad girl,” she said without pausing for confirmation. Like everyone we are drawn to the excitement of the illegal and so we listened intently for signs to convince ourselves it was possible to do this and still be a happy, normal person. It was the good gangster with the heart of gold, who goes out and kills during the day but looks after his family, that the movies tended to enforce - I’m not all bad therefore I am not bad.

“I have to go,” she said and then filled our glasses again. “Everyone down in one.”

She obviously hadn't forgotten losing the games with Pierre and was preparing to make a point. She got a fresh bottle of Heineken and put a straw in it. “Look. How can you guys possibly lose?”

As we chugged our beer we guessed we were in for a surprise so we kept one eye on her. Before we had got half way she had sucked the bottle empty and placed it on the table triumphantly. A bottle of fizzy Heineken through a straw in a couple of seconds. It remains one of the most amazing feats of drinking I have ever seen.

A few minutes later she had gone and we were sat questioning our manhood.

John was the first to speak. “Boys don’t listen to that about her not being a bad girl, of course she is, but let the tart say what she wants.”

Eric, never one to let his engrained PC sensibilities give him the open mind they were supposed to, was the first to speak. “Maybe she doesn't get her clothes off, but she works in a KTV. It is illegal, man. It is going to be trouble.”

“John replied, “Yes, she is trouble but that isn't entirely to do with her KTV work. I mean maybe it is illegal...I am not sure actually, but that doesn't make it bad? She ain't a gangster. She doesn't steal things. She works for her money and is paid. It is just a frowned upon profession.”

Josh interrupted, “I agree, dude. But working in such a transaction based environment it is bound to have an effect. She sees herself as a price for guys.”

“What do you think Pierre?” asked John. “As you know first hand.”

“Of course you middle class liberals...Uh, what is the term? - Oh, yes, bleeding-heart are wrong again. Most of the girls love money, but are proud they are earning it. Most still want love and a boyfriend and do the opposite and actually pay for the boyfriend. They get money off some rich guy to support the guy they like...And, as John has cheap ass loser English teacher with no prospects stamped on his forehead, I doubt she fancied she had found the needle in the haystack – the one white guy with some cash in Taipei. Am I right?”

“Uh, half I guess. I haven't had to up my spending. In fact, she has paid for most things.”

“Ok,” I asked. “So why is she trouble?”

“Isn't it fucking obvious?” said John. “You saw her when she started losing the drinking game. In the three weeks I have known her she has jumped off the back of my motorbike twice because she didn't like something I said – on a busy street. She - like tonight - drinks on her night off – which obviously makes her a borderline alcoholic. She earns about five times what I do, but she has spent it all by mid-month. Her brother is in jail. She is late for work every day when she starts at 9pm. She is compulsive, addictive, psycho who would be rejected by Jerry Springer for being too hard to handle. I ought to run a mile but as you bleeding hearters would say she should be given a chance – I might just be misinterpreting the situation because of my cultural ignorance...”

He of course said the last part with a nod and a wink and we sat thinking how to get our own back.

He continued, “This you will like if you want me to be truthful – I have spent years driving past betel nut stands and looking longingly at the girls entering the KTVs. Last week, I dropped her off at work and the pseudo gangster guys at the door in their black suits give me that look and I give them a smug one back and a mental middle finger. I have been dying to do that for years.”

“Wonderful,” said Pierre. “I am glad the age of the neanderthal is not dead.”

“Hey, don't knock it – Remember why your left hand doesn't function too well? You didn't mind the help of the neanderthal then.”

At the time we dropped the subject because John seemed to know what he was doing. However, it soon occurred to me that awareness you are having a break from reality is just that wrapped up in another form.

Still, he was better equipped to handle it than most of us. I suppose in the end he did handle it better we would have....

Taiwan Culture Shock: As long as you been introduced…

2010-01-12T14:34:00.002+08:00

This little story actually covers a couple of things.

Firstly, you know everything is ok in Taiwan if you have been introduced – Remember when you first started teaching and it was hard, then one family would like you and they would introduce you to all their relatives. You were still crap but it didn’t matter anymore because you had been introduced. Or, families will leave their kids with a serial killer as long as he is a family friend…

Secondly, is the title thing. Everyone is a ‘lao shih’ or ‘Ge ge’ or ‘step-mother’ or ‘professor’ or ‘Mr. Manager’. And as long as you have the title you are fit to carry out the job qualified or not.

Anyway, John told me an interesting story based on the above. He was sat at home with his wife, Hsu-Chi, getting drunk. She had finished a bottle or so of wine quickly and he could tell was building for a confession of sorts.

“Can I reveal a secret? - What my fantasy is?” she said.

“Of course,” he replied.

“Really. You won’t be upset?” She continued.

She looked nervous; really nervous, hesitant like she was going to be a marriage shaking confession. This in turn started to worry him because, after all the stories of the French boys and their tag team action, he guessed she was going to ask for Pierre to make a visit.

“Please,” he replied bracing himself.

“I want a three-some - another woman.”

He breathed a sigh of relief.

“If that is what you want, then, of course, no problem,” he replied trying to sound ambivalent. “But you have to be sure. My marriage is the most important thing to me, and I don’t want you going weird on me because you’ve seen my dick in another bird.”

The truth was he was genuinely ambivalent because he was scared – He had been faithful to his wife for the three years they had been together, which he likened to the pain a recovering alcoholic must go through. And, like a recovering alcoholic it was best not to touch one more drop ever for fear of falling off the wagon permanently.

“No problem,” she said. “I have already thought about it. You know me, I never regret anything.”

That was true so he allowed himself to get excited. He knew it was going to happen then. “So you want to hire a prozzy? Or, i’ll call up Pierre. He usually has something appropriate for all occasions.”

“What?” she shouted. “Hooker? You think i am a dirty girl.”

“Uh –"

“No! No!” she said. “Besides, I don’t want to do it with someone I don’t know. That will feel strange. No feeling!”

“I kind of thought that was the idea,” he replied. “Anonymous. Discreet. No emotional ties. Unless of course you are thinking of moving her in and making it a permanent arrangement.”

“Stupid. Never. That is what my father do to my mother. If you do that i cut off your –.”

“Ok…Ok. Just so we can move on. It is going to be once. It is going to happen in an innocent, healthy and mutually uplifting way. Hello Kitty would be proud of you.

“So how is it going to happen?”

“I have invited Chloe for dinner tomorrow night. She is a naughty one. We get her drunk…Uh, she likes you don’t worry. She won’t mind.”

“Wonderful. Perfect. Done like this, i think we could make a show to rival Little House on the Praire.”

“What little house?” she said. “When i am talking you should listen and take me seriously. What is wrong with my fantasy? You don’t want to do it?”

“Uh? Forget the house…Yes, i am stupid, sorry…It is a wonderful fantasy…Finally, if you don’t do it now i am going to hire the prozzy – Two in fact. Are we finished?”

“Sure,” she replied. “What do you want me to wear?” She got up and went to the bedroom.

“Preferably nothing…Yes, I know what you mean…I will be there in 10 minutes so prepare some choices.”

“Ok. Great,” she replied.

One painfully long day later. A lot of alcohol had been drunk and everything was going to plan, but for one little sticking point.

“Lao Gong (husband),” said Hsu Chi’s friend Chloe as rubbed the top of John’s left thigh looking up at him. “You remember what I am called? I am wife number two.”

Hsu chi was rubbing the top of the left leg, winking at him, urging him to give an answer. “Husband, you know she is wife number two. You know what to call her,” she said starting to get a little impatient.

He knew he was slowing things up. He knew he should say it but it when things got seriously it was hard to stop being a westerner: personal terms and labels meant something.

“Er po! (Wife number two),” he finally shouted. At that point, as he disappeared into the mouth of wife two, the sense of it all, why she had been calling herself this for so long, became clear. What is in a name? – Brazen harlot who fucks her friend’s husband? Nah, wife number two is a much better title to have on the name card. No need for guilt now she was merely performing her certain matrimonial duties.

Religion: Best way to remove the devil

2010-01-08T10:41:00.001+08:00

I was down south once at some relative of the wife.

It was the usual situation: a living room full of Taiwanese shouting at each other to get out of the way of the truck that was about to hit them. I was doing by best to zone out and avoid eye contact with any of the women who were vigilantly poised ready to offer me guava or water melon seeds at the slightest veneer of an opportunity.

I hadn’t initially noticed a guy come in in a loud flowery shirt, but now he was drawing my attention because he was waving incense sticks and reciting incantations over the remarkably calm head of the wife’s brother’s six-year old boy.

“What is this guy up to?” I asked.

“He have a ghost.”

“He has been possessed? How do you know?” I replied.

“Lately, he is very naughty. Long story,” she said.

“Nice,” I replied. “I wish I had been young in Taiwan - My father often thought I had the devil in me and it could be removed by more earth-like measures.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Taiwan Culture Shock: Best to blame the wall after all

2009-12-29T10:32:00.001+08:00

Taiwanese and westerners differing ideas of family inevitability are the source of endless debate. On this occasion i was watching Shine with the wife.

You remember Shine? The story of the brilliant Australian pianist who has a nervous breakdown, seemingly caused by his overbearing father who pushed him too hard.

We were at the crucial part of the movie where he sees his father again after many years and everyone hopes he won’t be bullied again.

“Why do you always blame your parents for everything?” said the wife.

“Not everything,” I replied. “But the old guy is a bastard. Even now he is not sorry and trying to tell him he is an idiot and needs his father.”

She didn’t seem convinced and so i took the bait.

“I guess we face reality and admit our parents aren’t gods.””

She shrugged. “He just wants the best for his son.”

If the truth be told i had foreseen this topic arising and a possible argument; picked the DVD up, put it down, but wasn’t able to leave it alone.

“I know compared to the average Taiwanese parent he is a hippy who doesn’t care if his children weave baskets while smoking pot for all eternity.”

I could see her getting into explode mode so i changed tact. “Anyway, when you are facing ten years for drug smuggling, and banging your head against a wall with self-loathing at your own stupidity, you need someone to blame for your actions, to make yourself feel better,” I replied.

“We take responsibility ourselves,” she replied smugly. “You westerners should try and learn that is only your fault in the end. No excuses.”

“No you don’t,” I said. “You blame luck or the moon. And you still do the murder or robbery. Just deny why.”

“You talk too much,” she said. “My sister is naughty and i am not. Both have the same parent.”

She had a point.

“I don’t know,” I replied trying to be sociological. “Perhaps we believe that by identifying the root of the problem, and facing it we can get closure and hopefully improve, be happier as a person. Improve our society.”

“Does it work?” she asked.

“Of course not. I would say almost never. We firmly identity our parents as the problem. Wallow in self-pity. Restrict ourselves. Talk about it all the time. Make it the center of our lives, but still die alone and bitter having been unable to do anything about it….In that case, you are right – We might as well blame the wall or the 3rd letter of our names.”

Seems I won something in the Taiwan blog awards

2009-12-28T22:42:00.001+08:00

I just found out that i was joint winner in the general category of the Taiwan blog awards (peer-judged):http://www.taiwanderful.net/blog/2009-taiwan-best-blog-awards-final-results

So to the judges who voted for me a very big thanks.

In particular Fili: http://www.filination.com/blog/2009/12/26/top-bloggers-2009-best-taiwan-blogs/

Taiwan Culture Shock: The definition of dangerous

2009-12-23T11:28:00.001+08:00

The people who have kids will understand this one better.

I have an ongoing dispute with the mother-in-law about the definition of dangerous.

Her take appears to be straightforward: the bodies of young children have an inability to regulate temperature, but are resistant to drinking bleach.

When she is in my house, or looking after the children, she runs two paces behind them continually ready to take the place of their natural temperature gauge. In the summer, she is blasting aircon at them and nagging me every two minutes to take them back from the park because it is too hot. In the winter she has them wearing enough clothes for the arctic. The autumn and spring are the worse times of the year because the weather is changeable and the disputes increase. You arrange to meet the wife and mother-in-law in the park and, when you get there, of course, to combat the mild breeze they are wearing 3 layers of clothing.

“They are too hot,” you say.

“He is right,” would say the mother-in-law. “The sun is strong. Let’s go back to the apartment and turn on the aircon.”

“No. There is nothing wrong with the sun. Take off a couple of layers of clothing.”

I will of course then try and remove two layers and i will get terrible stares from the wife and mother-in-law.

“They will get a cold,” they say in unison.

I will insist, and the battle will then really begin as the mother-in-law follows them continually with that 2nd layer, taking every time the sun pops behind a cloud or the breeze vaguely picks up, to try and force a jumper over their heads.

I indulge this battle of wills for a while, but inevitably give up and go back to the apartment.

Once there, it starts again as she blasts on the aircon and adds layers and i turn off the aircon and remove.

“Wife. Take off the sweater. Feel his forehead.”

“It is cold.”

“So turn off the aircon.”

“Then it is too hot.”

And so on, and so on…

Meanwhile, during all of this it will be:

“Wife. Please ask your mother not to leave huge meat cleaver on the edge of the worktop. Better still, when she walks away to take a phone call, shut the damn kitchen door because she is actually cooking something on the stove.”

The wife will actually look at me, shocked that i could actually think her mother was careless.

So there it is: it seems children are impervious to meat cleavers, household cleaners left hanging around, and hitting windscreens because no seat belt, but if they are not wearing two jumpers they will collapse in an instant.

Religion in Taiwan: Exhuming your long dead grandfather

2009-12-11T09:37:00.004+08:00

When we first arrive it is really hard to believe how a nation of technology lovers and capitalists are also so religious.

Well, not so much religious as superstitious. In the west we are brought up to believe in one God, and all religious practicies and ceremonies deemed to ward off evil spirits, bring good luck etc. are firmly relegated to shows about the Middle Ages and how stupid we were back then.

Not so in Taiwan. Here they cling onto beliefs that the druids would have found illogical -Businesses routinely consult fortune tellers to ask which country they should go to a trade show in. Paper BMWs are burnt for those in the after life to drive. And so, and so on...

After the initial period of shock wears off you get used to it, and find your own way to deal. My way was usually to switch off and ignore.

On this occasion the future wife was back after spending a couple of days down south with the relatives. As we hadn't seen each other for a few days we were naturally on the bed and she was playing with my nether regions.

"So what happened?" I asked.

I did vaguely remember her saying something about the family felt they had had bad luck and a fortune teller had told they needed to dig up the body of their grandfather. I of course had switched off.

"Oh, it was not good," she said in her usual understated way.

"Ok, explain again please," I said. "Why did you go?"

She explained. The family had been having bad luck for a few years and someone from the local temple had told them it was because the grandfather had not been looked after well in the after life. It was simple: they had to exhume his body, scrape whatever flesh was still on his bones off, wash the bones, perform some prayers, burn some paper money, and stick him back down under again. Then they would all win the national lottery for the next month.

"Hmm, seeing the body of your grandfather. Dead five years, couldn't have been easy," I said.

"Uh, that was ok," she replied. "The ceremony went wrong."

"Ok. Why?"

Apparently, the people they had hired to do the scraping, didn’t turn up so they all mucked in – and he was still quite fleshy considering the amount of time he had been dead.

"And you helped?....Of course, you did. Stupid of me to ask. You are a good daughter after all."

I suddenly became aware of where her hands were and what they were doing. "I guess you have washed your hands?" I asked.

"Of course," she replied. "What is the problem?"

"Nothing, just i have never had hands that recently touched dead flesh on my body."

"How do you know?"

"True. I am not the best judge of character under the influence of alcohol."

"Stupid," she replied. "So you want me to stop?"

I thought for a moment. "No. No. Definitely not. My warped side has already kicked in. This should be a pull to remember for all time."

Non-PC: Angelina Jolie

2009-12-03T09:56:00.002+08:00

One of the wonderful things about Taiwanese women is they just don't understand that a woman can't be beautiful, sexy and intelligent at the same time.

I have heard it is getting better in the west (don't quote me, though), but my generation women were conditioned never to mention looks - looks were the enemy in the fight to get equality. With other women they did sit around discussing what a particular model looked like, but they would never do so with their boyfriend because of the fear that he would immediately devalue them. Of course, as a guy, it went without saying you couldn't say anything.

It came as a surprise therefore when you first got to Taiwan and your girlfriend would sit with a copy of cosmopolitan picking apart the bodies of the models.

"Her nose is a little flat," she would say.

"What," I would reply, because my natural sense of self-preservation told me this was a trick.

"Look. Her nipples are so dark. In Taiwan we like pink ones."

"Really?" I said. "So why is that?" Trying to change the subject.

"Makes you look younger," she replied. "In Taiwan they go dark after you have a child. You know you can get them replaced. It is popular in Japan."

"Which one do you like?" she asked.

"Pink of course," I replied. "Like yours."

"Oh. You lie. You know mine are not so pink. My mother always complain me that her daughter is too rough. That i suit - "

"The foreigner," I said.

"Yes. That i suit the foreigner."

"But they are not so dark..."

We then had about a half an hour conversation about the shade of her nipples and what shade I preferred. During the conversation i contradicted myself a million times, but it didn't matter. It was something that i quickly learnt with Taiwanese girls: they weren't trying to get to the bottom of what you thought, on a mission to find the truth, rather just get a compliment. As long as you started each contradiction with a compliment they were never going to pull you up on it; dump you because they had discovered the truth.

The world was tough. Most people were full of bullshit. Just make sure you cover the cracks, seemed to be the motto.

Anyway, after the years of middle class brainwashing, I think i never really got used to this non-pc behavior. This was my favorite from the wife a few years later:

We were watching The Bone Collector on DVD. In the movie Angeline Jolie plays a uniformed police officer.

I don’t know why she did this movie. It is not really her,” said the wife, referring to the fact that the only flesh on display was above the neck.

“Well perhaps she actually wants to be respected for her acting?” I actually felt rather strange explaining this to a woman. “She can’t get her tits out in every movie.”

“Why not," she said. "She has a great body. You know that is what we expect. It is her."

“I feel your pain," I said. "I will complain to the DVD shop tomorrow...Do you have a trade descriptions act in Taiwan?”

Stereotypes: It is so nice even a foreigner would live there

2009-11-26T09:07:00.004+08:00

Years ago when i was looking to buy an apartment, i would go with the wife to visit all these slightly out of town new complexes.

The moment they saw me it was: "Ok, I take you to see the swimming pool and the gym. I know that you foreigners care most about your leisure activity."

I would reply: "I would also like to know that the building isn't going to fall down and i have a shower, but you are right - Take me the jacuzzi. It is all that matters."

My wife tells me there is now an advertisement for an apartment building that takes these very ideas as its theme. The building is in Hong Shu Lin near Danshuei and, as it has a seaview, they built it with particularly big balconies.

Apparently, they have a big, fat foreign dude walking around saying things like:

"Wow, this wouldn't look out of place in America."

"Yes, even my family from back home would live here."

Expat Culture in Taiwan: White women and the smile dance

2009-11-24T11:39:00.001+08:00

After many years in Taiwan you began to observe your fellow westerner in the way of the Discovery Channel.

On this occasion, it was a slow night in Carnegies and I had started to look around to see if their was anything sociologically interesting.

It was actually a slow night for me because the bar had an usually high percentage of young westerners, in particular women – at least thirty of them. I guessed there were that many in Taiwan but it was rare to see so many in the same place – unless of course you went to the Wednesday night free-pizza-if-you-buy-two-beers offers.

Anyway, they were dancing in their little groups, taking up a lot of space, and being especially gregarious, the kind you need to be when are trying hard to reinforce your stereotype of being more outgoing than the locals.

I I felt uncomfortable as I wasn't drunk enough to ignore their breast beating. I also wasn't sure what they had to be so proud about.

It was my theory that the rave scene took off so well because it gave white people like myself an excuse to dance badly – up until then letting go involved learning to dance well with complicated moves tasking rhythm and coordination, and we were crap, leaving the dance floor in embarrassment anytime a black person moved near us. Techno changed all that – pop an E, put a big broad smile on your face, and ‘get on your toes’ (the dancing equivalent of throwing a tennis ball against the wall) and you had emancipated your trapped and stuffy soul. Now, rave was dying out, hip-hop was back in favor, and fortunately, sexy and graceful movement once again was taking over the dance floors...At least it should have been but it seems rave culture had left an indelible mark on white English people’s dancing, especially women. Instead of watching MTV and learning some fancy moves, they did the smile dance – all over the dance floor were mid-twenties to thirty year old women smiling the big full beam E smile to every kind of music that came on and doing literally nothing else. It seemed we had a whole generation of women who believed smiling was dancing' and a full beamer could win you international dancing competitions and a scholarship to the Fame Academy.

Just then a group of about five or six of these drunken western women started to climb up onto the bar and inserted themselves among the Taiwanese girls already dancing to compete for attention. They were larger than the locals and buoyed up with alcohol and the knowledge they also were better smilers, were slowly taking over the bar. Admittedly, there was some minimal movement of hips and lifting of arms, but not enough for the attention seeking position they had taken up on the bar, because this position was reserved for people for wanted to show their dancing skills, not their smiling skills. Now the wonderful gyrating of the locals had been replaced by whooping, arm waving and a thousand different facial expressions used to tell everyone I am having a great time.

It got me thinking about the definition of outgoing and our own western smug self-congratulation that we were more outgoing than the locals. A brief and crude application of the have-smile, are-free rule would suggest that we westerners were looser than trousers with a fifty inch waist – and the locals were a race of lard asses. However, a brief look down below the chin at the locals, and you saw moves that clearly demonstrated they had been applying their famous ability to learn to MTV’s black dance music section and were getting 99% on their tests.

But it wasn't just here. Taiwanese loved to let loose – Just go to a KTV with them, or let a bunch of locals take you drinking. Taiwanese were definitely outgoing as they could also be arrogant, mean, confident, self-absorbed and all the other emotions, so the question was why did we think we were so much more outgoing? Well, I proffer it comes back to the smile thing: we had been trained to wear our particular emotion of the moment right there for everyone to see; they were still a little bit more strategic in letting you know what was going on inside. Still, don't for a moment believe there is not a lot going on inside.

You do for that first year.

You learn the hard way.

Cute Language Uses: An unfortunate use of 'a' instead of 'the'

2009-11-11T09:36:00.002+08:00

In the old days, when there were only a few places we foreigners went, apart from the girls who wanted to date foreigners, you would get a fair few gay men come to the bar. It wasn't that they were particularly looking to pick us up, it was more a case of them feeling free to be themselves in this bar - Remember, there are no homophobes in the west; it is just one big love-in.

But that wasn't the end of the story, as unlike straight Taiwanese men, they would feel the need to meet us foreigners and talk to us all night - We share an identity as social outcasts I suppose.

They were also very clever as they would befriend the girls in the bar - The girls in the bar liked to come with their gay friends because they could also be themselves: the traitorous, dirty slapper, free spirit that society said they were for liking foreigners. In fact, if you wanted to know the availability of a girl and the likelihood she might want to be with a foreigner just ask her how many gay friends she had. Similarly, if you see a girl wandering around the bar with a couple of gay guys target her: she is planning to do something her regular friends view as the activity of westerners; something that only other social outcasts would understand. What is she planning to do? Get drunk and have a one night stand.

On this occasion i saw a girl who i had liked for a while. She wasn't with her female friends, rather an effeminate looking guy who was a little well-dressed and i guessed my luck was in.

I walked over.

"Hi," i said looking at her making my interest clear.

"Her English...Uh, not so good," he said. "I help you."

My heart sank a little as it was a noisy bar, and unfortunately his English was also not so good, either. What to do? I had to give it a go.

"Hi, I am Dan," I said. "What is her...Uh, I mean your...Both of you - what are your names?"

"Her is Little Mei. Me, I am Patrick," he said. "So where are you from?"

"England," I reply.

"Wow, I studied there for six months."

"Really," I asked. "Where?"

"Uh, London. How you say - I study a Queen's English."

I couldn't resist. "And you did a fantastic job."

"What?" he replied. "Thank you."

I thought about leaving it at that, but i guessed i should grasp this chance to get in his good books. Like with all things in Taiwan if you are recommended by the friend, they will cut off their hands for you.

"Sorry, anyway you don't want to say that. It is a grammar mistake that may result in misunderstanding...Especially for you."

"Why?"

"Queen also means gay."

"But i am gay," he replied. "What is wrong with that?"

"Nothing, but it is an often patronizing word for gay. Means - "

"What?" he said.

I was starting to sweat. I had started this explanation and feared i had no way to finish it.

"Again. Doesn't matter. Nothing, but would you go up to someone at a party and say i am studying a gay English?"

"I would love to meet the gay English," he replied.

"I am sure you would, but it is not my point....A not the...It just the fact - Forget it. Do you like to get your grammar wrong?"

"Uh, no," he replied.

"Ok, then just remember it is the not a....There is only one Queen," I said.

"England have two Queens," he replied. "She is Elizabeth II."

Great. In a country in which most people believed England was an American state, now i had an expert on English history.

"Yes, but when we talk about the Queen's English we are referring to this specific Queen's English and not the first."

The moment i finished speaking I knew the sentence was too difficult.

"You mean the first Queen didn't speak English?" he asked.

"Yes, she did," i replied. "But she has been dead for 500 years so it is clear we are talking about this Queen's English. You understand?"

I was lost at this point because it seemed he might have a point and I couldn't explain grammar.

"Anyway, just remember to use the. I am just trying to save you from being the butt...On the wrong end...The victim of a joke."

He whispered something in Little Mei's ear and they walked off.

I resolved never to help anyone again with the difference between a and the.

Expat Culture in Taiwan: Pierre and the restaurant I

2009-11-04T16:02:00.001+08:00

Pierre did actually open his French restaurant; lower priced French food aimed at the TGI market had always been a good idea, the only thing we had been worried about was whether he would pull it off.

He did. It was a big pity.

It was already three months since the restaurant opened and we had eaten there five or six times a month. If you wanted to meet Pierre he insisted it had to be in the restaurant. We ate for free in exchange for having to say how much we liked the food every two minutes, tell him what a good job he had done, and agree that they were lucky that he had reserved a table for us. There was a game: although he had invited us, he would look surprised, then stressed because ‘he had promised the table to someone else’, make us stand for twenty seconds, and then he would miraculously find us a table. While he sat he would stand at the bar surveying the scene with an extremely serious look on his face, and, every time he caught one of our eyes he would shake his head, and then seek recognition for the fact that it was all just too fucking busy and, yeah, it was lucky he was there. Finally, he would come to the table every twenty minutes and apologize profusely for the fact that he was unable to sit down for long. He didn’t say why, just pulled his take a fucking look around you face.

“I am thinking about expanding soon,” he said. “I am starting to look for other sites…four within the year. I think that is possible.”

It was fortunate he only ever had five minutes at a time because his tales of success had made him insufferable. First night he had spent 10,000 NT on flowers as was the tradition for a newly opened business, his partners had got an appropriate date and lucky gold characters from a fortune teller, and then he had made the unprecedented step of hiring a queue of people to stand outside – Taiwanese have a magnetic attraction to queues – and business had boomed since, even making his name in the local papers.

“What about your partners?” I asked. “What do they think?”

“They follow everything I want to do. They know who has made them successful,” Pierre replied.

“Have you got a contract sorted out yet? Man, you know these people fuck each other over all the time,” asked Eric, probably right on this one, but not through any balanced judgment of his own.

“Ours is a verbal one. You know contracts are no use in this country,” he replied.

“Well, yes and no, man,” pushed Josh not learning from the mistakes he made with his girlfriends about trying to help.

The truth was illegal work and non-contract work was still extremely common – When you arrive and teach you probably have one legal contract job but then all your privates, advertising work, translation, and other small bits of this and that are all cash in hand. But that is only half the story as it is not a story of marginalized foreigners having no choice. In fact, the locals were as equally guilty of not getting contracts: almost all small businesses didn’t give contracts to employees and few had contracts within partners. It was horrifying and mind-boggling to hear the stories because almost everyone had one of how they invested 10,000 US dollars in a business and the partner ran off. It was a kind of tax in itself: the at least once in your life, rip-off tax.

The common misconception is the idea that, for the older generation they were brought up in an era when it really was the case that the contract was no use. This is not entirely the truth as there has always been a legal system in place for these kind of small cases, especially the last twenty years or so, and while it may not be perfect it is not much worse than most countries – Bear in mind that getting your money back is a long and usually difficult process anywhere in the world, yet we all insist on contracts.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers for why they did it, but here are a few factors.

It can be pretty feudal at times - Things are usually simple and what makes the Taiwanese so friendly and nice also proves to be their downfall in business. Talk to them and they always refer to their business partner as their friend, insisting on muddying clear business relationships with personal connections. Go for an interview at a small company and their No.1 priority is to try and work out if you are a nice person or not, whether you will fuck them over in future. (Tip for getting a job: They want the guy who appears stable, not the hot shot). It is a disease for them: they will have a dispute with a business partner and it is all the more hard to separate because they intertwined their families, but a nasty bust-up will happen. They will talk about keeping the next relationship strictly business, then you will see them, and they will introduce their next business partner. For example: “Uh, this is Mr. Chang…He is a really good man…You know his great grandfather used to live in the village next to my mother’s aunt. He has two sons and a daughter, I have already fixed up his second son with Little Mei…You know, my sister’s daughter. You know both his sons went to such-and-such University they are very smart. Mr. Chang is a Pig (Chinese zodiac animals) and that really fits into my animal. Mr. Chiang lost a lot of money in China and he talks about how lucky he is to meet us. He now calls me step-mother. I went to see a fortune teller and he says that October is a good time for us to launch the business…”

I would go and bang my head against the wall very hard.

The economic miracle effect – For those just arriving in Taiwan this is hard to understand as Taiwan has changed dramatically in the last fifteen years. When I first arrived the country had just had twenty years of 8% economic growth and there was an incredible optimism. They would tell you how they had lost a fortune and made it back several times and such was life. It was clear: as long as you could get hold of a pile of money to invest and networked an opportunity would arise. If said opportunity wasn’t offering you a contract then you thought about it for a while and invested anyway, because only a fool would miss this opportunity. After all you had met his family and he seemed a good guy.

Chao and confusion doesn’t equal clarity – While ego, self-interest and damn right dishonesty did play a part in the disappearance of your funds, the answer often wasn’t so intentionally evil. Take two or three or four people who don’t know much about business, invest their savings together, don’t sign a contract, and are too polite to hammer out key issues of who handles finances, division of labor, responsibilities and company direction, appealing each time to their friendship or skirting issues. The result isn’t organization. And then when you are about to lose your house you grab what is left first and run for the door.

What about for the young people? Well, just because you know what your parents did wrong, it doesn’t mean you can stop yourself repeating their mistakes. If you are thirty or more you grew up with these tales of how all you had to do was work hard, take a risk, and the money would come in. How your father was introduced to this guy who was had been looking to meet a good man. How they both liked Johnny Walker whiskey and they shared the same radical in the third character of their name. And they made a fortune together. There might be contradictory evidence in front of you as your father was now driving a taxi and you were paying the mortgage and the costs of his fancy imported American anti-depressants. Circumstances hadn’t quite gone your way because you graduated from university but then, just as daddy was going to help you pay for that degree in America he lost everything. Now you are just an ordinary college graduate without that all-important foreign degree to break into the international companies and the really big leagues. You still know your father is talking nonsense but to admit that to yourself is not being a good son - besides, delusion rescued you from the knowledge that all your money for the next twenty years would be going on paying your father’s mortgage. Roll the dice. Give it a go.

So what has this got to do with Pierre? Well, like any system in the world there was a positive angle to their particular way of doing things. In this case, it involved lots of: back-slapping and arms around shoulders, deals in late night drinking dens, talk of how you were going to beat the system, large piles of cash changing hands, hand shakes and talk of trust and friendship; it was romantic, it was very gangster film, and it didn’t involve spreadsheets. In the old days the atmosphere was infectious and we were affected to some lesser degree. Pierre loved this idea, but he was also broke and lazy, meaning he had no choice but to go out on a limb.

Back to the conversation:

“You ain’t going to be able to kick the fucker’s asses,” said John. “It is their country so when push comes to shove they always have more gangsters than you.

“You have naked photos of their wives? Anything similar?” John liked to tell us a story about the security camera video of him with the manager of the Kindergarten in the playpen one evening. That was his bargaining chip if he had any problems. We assumed he was lying about their being a video, but he had told his manager the story, the event happened, and there was no way she was going to question the security guard. This, of course, is the other way you make sure you get your money and have no problems.

“But you don’t know how to handle the Taiwanese like I do. Make them your friend and it is okay. Besides, they need me they wouldn’t be so stupid as to squeeze me out,” said Pierre bullishly before downing half his bottle of beer and pulling far too many facial expressions.

We sat saying nothing before its was Josh’s turn to air his neuroses.

“Pierre, isn’t that your ex behind the counter? You gave her a job…And she isn’t…giving you problems?” he asked.

“Of course,” replied Pierre. “Why should she?”

“They are not all crazed stalkers,” said John. “You were unlucky, get over it.

“Besides, there is always usually a way out. This week I had to let one go so I started speaking Chinese to her – Wo. Yao. Xue. Jong. Wen. She stopped answering my calls.”

“But that was a little –,” said Josh.

“Sneaky. Yes. But think about it – If she was so sincere she would surely have been happy to speak to me in Chinese.”

“Hmm,” said Josh.

“Hmm, what?” said John. “You want to tell us what a pathetic bleeding heart liberal you are.”

Half an hour later we were in the taxi into the center. Josh was sat in the front seat repeating to himself: ‘they broke up and are now friends.’

I was struck by the image of Pierre seeing us to the taxi and looking a bit like a mother when her children leave.

“He is fucked,” said John.

“Nah, we don’t know that,” I replied.

“Have to find somewhere else for dinner on a Saturday,” we both sighed.

Taiwan lifestyle: YoYo TV and how to love Taiwan

2009-11-03T09:44:00.001+08:00

If you are feeling in a bad mood about Taiwan, there is no sure way to cheer yourself up.

Last night when i got home my daughter was watching YoYo TV, and it occurred to me that you can only have overwhelming love and respect for a country that employs a bunch of super cute twenty year old girls as children's TV presenters; then gives them names like 'peach big sister' and 'strawberry big sister', dresses them up as cartoon characters or nurses or Japanese anime characters always with a very short pom-pom style skirt and obligatory boots or long socks, and then makes them dance in unison while pulling V-signs across their faces and wiggling their fingers with wrists attached to their waists.

I am still not sure who the program is for...

Taiwan Expat Culture: Western women and the unspoken discussion

2009-10-30T10:29:00.001+08:00

Western women made up a tiny percentage of the western population here for one good reason: the men dated Taiwanese girls almost exclusively, and you had to get used to be celibate. Most stuck it out a year or so before the desire to get looked at on the street and some self-respect took over.

When you were talking therefore to a western girl the subject was best left untouched – like with Taiwanese guys – for obvious reasons: if they were nice you were rubbing it in, if they were suffering from sour grapes an argument would ensue.

This wasn’t Thailand where we were buying the girls, so in most situations western girls liked to console themselves with the idea that Taiwanese women were a walk over. This was also far from the truth but, still, the subject was best left alone.

On this occasion a drunk Australian girl decided to give the subject an airing while we were at a BBQ. This was a long time ago when Pierre was still trying to prove he was different from everyone else. He dated lots of Taiwanese girls but every time there was a party he would bring a western date just to prove he could, and tell us we were sad bastards. It was a little awkward because most of us had actually forgotten how to speak to them and so would spend our time trying to get away and speak to someone else.

The BBQ was on a rooftop and an hour or two into it we were already drunk, when Pierre promptly brought her over again, and promptly left.

“So, Danielle, I hear you are leaving Taiwan soon?” I said trying to make small talk.

“Yeah, I have had enough. It is horrible here,” she replied.

“I know what you mean,” said Eric. “The racism can get you down.”

“Well, it is a different culture,” replied Josh. “It is not for everyone.”

“No, it is not that,” she replied. “You guys…With the young girls…And you are fat…It is disgusting.”

“I think you have the wrong country,” I said. “Yes, we play a couple of leagues above our status, but this ain’t Thailand. Most guys are with a girl just a couple of years difference who is probably their teaching assistant.”

“So why you think you can have a girl a couple of leagues above you? Is that right?”

Josh interrupted, “It is just a supply and demand issue. Don’t take it too seriously.”

“What is this supply and demand?” she said. “That is a pathetic excuse to cover your arrogance. Supply and demand means you can take and steal what you want? Is that moral?”

Josh continued, "As long as you don't lie to the girl and cheat her the rest is ok."

"No, it is disgusting."

John finally lost his patience. “Look, love. If you were shipwrecked on a desert island populated by Brad Pitts and Tom Cruises you would have laid your beach towel and not got off your back since. It is not moral or immoral, just the way of the world….Take for example this evening - because Pierre is an arrogant so-and-so you are going to get laid. You take the breaks as they come..."

Work in Taiwan: Last days at MTI and thoughts on Taiwanese companies

2009-10-26T15:03:00.001+08:00

My last department meeting at MTI went as expected.

Vivian, my new colleague responsible for market intelligence and research management was giving her proposal on setting up a database - She had found she didn’t have any budget to do research and that nobody had any interest in seeing it, so she had to think of something productive to do until she quit.

Ordinarily, she should just be using the database done by the last person and the person before…and so on...But she couldn’t because, as with all the others, the database had been lost.

She suggested we spend a few thousand dollars on some database software and Mickey wasn’t so happy.

“The license fee is very expense. What value is this?” queried Mickey.

“You will have a database of competitors, products, country profiles, consumer behaviour and market trend information for you engineers to make better marketing decisions,” she replied.

Mickey didn’t get the joke.

“We don’t really worry about what our competitors are doing – we just concentrate on being No.1,” continued Mickey. “If you can do it with Excel then go ahead. I don’t want to stop your creativeness, but make sure...”

Mickey then talked for half an hour about how about organization, but never organize anything. Talked about getting his staff to take responsibility, but never allowed anyone to make a decision. Asked his staff to be bold and give their ideas, but immediately knocked the idea down as stupid.

Last thoughts on time at MTI:

I was highly critical of Mickey, but not the VP or Chairman. These guys were tough, hardworking and prepared to make decisions.

It was interesting because every western business journalist had written off Taiwanese companies as destined to fail once they started competing with multinationals. It was always for these two reasons: they couldn’t brand and they were badly organized.

The first showed how much culture blinded us. Westerners were obsessed with branding, holding it as a sign of failure that you don’t have a brand.

If I had a pound for every time some foreigner I met in the bar complained that the end of the billion dollar Taiwanese company he worked for was imminent because they didn’t have a brand...And he had told them so...Anyway, it was clearly not the case because a simple fact remained: 80% of the world’s computer hardware was made by companies in Taiwan, that grew every year. These companies had made simple decisions that they didn’t brand very well so they would concentrate on research and development, design and manufacturing. We looked down on them because supposedly western companies outsource what they don’t want to do to them; they on the other hand look at it in the opposite way: they outsource their sales and marketing to the western companies.

It reminded me of my time at school, where we laughed at the Greek guys who worked in their father’s restaurants and hotels in the evening because it wasn’t glamorous, ignoring the fact that they drove to school in BMWs whereas we stood on bus stops in the cold. They understood life is about earning a living. Maybe, we have forgotten that in favor of life is about seeing our name in lights.

The business journalists would try to be balanced: recognize what the Taiwan companies did well, and speak of great lengths about how the Taiwanese companies had successfully built themselves up from nothing in a short time, but then let their brand bias show. Inevitably ending with a warning: ‘When the company reaches the stage where is has to brand...” What stage is that? Why is it inevitable?

The second point about organization inevitably led back to the old one about Taiwanese not being able to think for themselves. It was a classic surface observation from people who hadn’t spent long in Asia. Taiwanese existed in a very hierarchical structure meaning they choose when to express their opinion and when not – Just look at the way they talk to the guy they know is below them in the structure...Just look at the average boss...He is filled with opinions and attitude. The most telling example is that Taiwan has one of the highest percentage of small business ownership in the world. Why? Nobody likes to listen to the boss.

Even if you accept that there is some weight to the above argument, the system is far from doomed. The Taiwanese spent vast fortunes on foreign education - also backed up by statistics showing it to be one of the highest percentages in the world.

When I left MTI my department was filled with fifteen guys and girls who had MBAs from America. They could punch their weight in any company in the world – and most actually had previously. As long as they didn’t allow themselves to become corrupted or to forget, when these foreign born and educated MBA holding, mid-thirties Taiwanese - now languishing in the middle and lower management layers, frustrated by the upper layer of engineers with old-style management attitudes - eventually take over in the next 10 years Taiwanese companies will become extremely strong. And, anyway, anything they lacked they would make up with hard work. It was frightening stuff: they worked 15 hour days, they didn’t take holidays, and everything was put second place to work.

Would i recommend working for one? Hmm...

Work in Taiwan: Boss is a Christian so we are all Christians

2009-10-23T09:56:00.001+08:00

While I worked at MTI (see all the entries entitled, ‘My next computer company job and really learning the ropes’) the boss was a Christian and, in a country of 20 million Daoists, that made us all Christians. They actually had a church on the 2^nd floor of the building and at Christmas made us all go down and sing hymns and get preached to by the vicar. On this occasion they really excelled themselves. When you included the Filipinos working in the factory we were now at several thousand, so we had all gathered at a football stadium in Taipei County for the Weiya (annual company dinner). Firstly, the Filipino dude who won last year’s singing competition got up and duly won again. Next the bosses all got up and congratulated everyone for the company’s success promising that next year the focus would be good healthy, pretty impossible when everyone was on 80 hour weeks. Then the nightmare started with the hired band – they were beaming born again Christians who gave us a half an hour set of cheerful uplifting songs, with accompanying ‘charity record’ video on the big screen above, you know the one that has people overcoming adversity and reaching out to others. They had apparently been a famous band before, but after losing popularity they found religion, and decided to carry on performing to help spread the word. No matter where you were in the world these bands were the same: matching clothes, overly slick hair, and awkward but enthusiastic dance moves. They also had to sing at least one song in English – Christianity came from the West and you had to show you really understood it.

I wasn’t happy as it was also cold and I was starving. “Come half way round the world….To a Daoist country and I have to put up with Christian bullshit and a I’ve found God, look at my contented with life smiley Christian group for half an hour,” I said to Bryant. “Doesn’t this bother you? – This is not a Christian country.”

Bryant just shrugged his shoulders. I looked around the room. The atmosphere during all of this wasn’t of 1000 people stewing with the injustice of having religion forced upon them; airing their grievances to the person next to them, but of blank expressions, saying, I know this is bullshit, but nothing I can do, so why worry.

It then got even worse as the old western woman from the English teaching channel got up on the stage. She had come to convert the Taiwanese to Christianity forty years ago and, I guess as that got difficult, started working for the English teaching channel. She was often on TV talking at length about how Taiwan was her great calling in life. I never understood this about Christians: Why you needed to convert the locals and teach them English to help them…Of course the answer was civilizing them - no doubt they have to be stopped from teaching them to use knives and forks and cooking burgers and fries.

I hated her because she was a missionary. I hated her more because she was there spoiling my status as the only white person among 1000. And I hated her most because I guessed she was going to ‘ham’ things up, play up some ethnic stereotypes of the dumb foreigner in Taiwan who was only good for teaching English. I was right: “Hi, everyone! I know you all have excellent English so I hope you don’t mind I use it now...” It was ridiculous because I knew she spoke perfect Chinese. She then added a ‘xiere, xiere’ at the end, as if to say look, I am trying to learn Chinese, but I am not really very good. She was Bob’s Hope and Monkhouse rolled into one.

She talked for about 10 minutes about how God had played a part in making the company grow, and the virtues of hard work etc. Then to finish she got out her prop that she had used for forty years to get those natives interested, her saxophone, and played a few bars…Pointless to the extreme.

I had no idea why she had come because anyone of the bosses or the usual vicar could have said her part. I don’t know why it was better in English.

It was also kind of ironic because she had come to civilize the natives, but now she existed to be rolled out by Taiwanese technology billionaires who misguidedly felt they needed someone with white skin to give them a touch of class. It was clear who was the civilized one now.

Finally, we had to endure the vicar blessing us again – and saying prayers before we could eat.

On a final note it wasn’t a waste of time for Bryant as he won a million NT in the raffle – a million was only 3^rd prize.

This would be my last year – I had just got five months bonus and I would be handing in my resignation very soon.

Expat Culture in Taiwan: Breaking yellow fever IV

2009-10-20T09:28:00.001+08:00

The American girl, Denise, who John had taken for dinner had called him back after two weeks saying she had had time to think and she wanted to give things a go - The fundamental clash of ideologies they had over favorite colour could be resolved by agreeing to disagree.

That evening he was meeting her for dinner.

“Sorry, I am late!” he said.

“I have been waiting for 10 minutes,” she replied.

“Yeah, sorry,” he repeated.

“What does that tell you about what you think about me? How do you think I feel?” she hadn’t finished.

“Sorry! The traffic was bad. I’ll buy dinner.”

“You think you can buy me with dinner to make up? That is not the kind of relationship I am looking for.”

“Not my point. I was trying to make up.”

“Anyhow, we always split the check, that way we won’t complicate the relationship.”

“Your right!” He gave her a wink and a grin.

John had expected the sudden verbalization of feelings that a Taiwanese girl would have denied and then slowly made you apologize for by silent treatment. He was actually looking forward to that but Denise had too many feelings. Denise watched too much Sex and the City psycho-babble and now she needed to know how she felt about everything; to be in-touch with herself, aware of her feelings. Denise was also unquestionably smart, ambitious and quick to learn, meaning she had succeeded in this area beyond her wildest expectations, her understanding of her feelings taking on a momentum of their own. John admitted it was important to deal with one’s emotions, however, she appeared to look for emotions to deal with and be affected by; little things she could ignore, that wouldn’t scar her in future - events do have a pecking order of impact and the death of a relative did warrant downing tools and thinking again, but not every ‘fuck off’ or ambiguous response. There are always going to be trials and tribulations on a journey and if you stop to analyze how you feel about them all, you will never achieve anything; and then that lack of success proves to be a scar in itself. Sometimes you had to just give yourself a slap around the face and get on with it.

A few weeks later, after having to analyze the implications of his every move in terms of his ability to socialize with the opposite sex, he had had enough.

“You wouldn’t believe it,” said John. “Break up with the girl and the bitch gives me a head trip that your Maggie would have thought too much.

“Just goes to show for all the theorizing and cultural fuckin’ analysis it is the basic emotions that come to the fore when the economics of want kick-in - She was desperate, gonna miss her shag, and no amount of feminist teaching was gonna keep her mouth shut…Moaned about Taiwanese girls all the time, too!”

Expat Culture in Taiwan: To buy or not to buy...

2009-10-16T10:51:00.001+08:00

One of the things you suffer from in those early years when you haven’t decided if you are going home or not, is ‘to buy or not to buy’ syndrome.

At the start, when you first arrive, it is easy: you rent yourself a small room, you buy the minimal furniture and lifestyle accessories to fry yourself an egg and wash yourself and all is ok. After all, you will be leaving in a year and then you will buy that really nice armchair you want and a fancy set of cupboards. Then you hit your 2^nd year extension and it starts to get painful, for a number of reasons:

1) You are already feeling bad because you have his funny feeling in the pit of your stomach that tells you there wasn’t any sense to your extension, and you are setting yourself up for the long haul in Taiwan. Still you are not able to deal with that at the time so it just leaves you feeling a little insecure.

2) You have probably extended because you like Taiwan, or your job, or a girlfriend, and you have begun the slippery slide into settling down, becoming domesticated.

3) You have already started driving around the city with your girlfriend having conversations about: ‘yeah, if I was going to stay in Taipei long-term, I would live here…’

What happens then it that you do what you have been resisting for years, you allow the girlfriend to take you to Ikea and other furniture shops and home comfort purchase crisis sets in.

What is purchase crisis? It is the period between when you don’t make any home comfort purchases and when you give up and accept you are staying in Taiwan. This is a painful time, because you start to buy home comforts and you are torn because you are in Taiwan to save money and frankly you know this is a total waste.

You start small by just buying a few wine glasses justifying it by saying: ‘so what if I can’t take them home, they are only cheap.’ But shopping is an addictive thing so on the way to the wine glasses you see the tables, chairs, and sofas, and it burns you inside. You arrive at the checkout with a lamp, and some prints in your trolley, and it is hurting because you know it is a complete waste of money, but you keep repeating to yourself: ‘It is not really very expensive. I might be able to sell it one day.’ Once purchased and at home it feels good, but also unsatisfied because you didn’t really want these items, you wanted the sofa and table.

One year later your apartment is filled with lots of small items, half of which you don’t really want. In particular, the prints that you knew were naff when you bought them, and too many rugs, drapes and all those disposable plant type things like Ikea sells to give you instant style to your room. You bought them not because you were lazy but because, by being fast food furniture and not requiring effort or love to install, they allowed you not to feel guilty about putting down roots. Still it dawns on you that all that crap you don’t want actually costs more than the sofa you did, and you are still sitting on that old sofa that someone gave you; that you hate.

Why didn’t you buy the sofa? Obviously, it can’t be packed into your suitcase, it is a large one-off purchase, and it, most importantly, signifies putting down roots --When you buy a sofa you always talk about it lasting you several years.

At this point you get even more depressed by your rootless existence, and double up your efforts to decide if you are going to stay in Taiwan or leave. In order to give yourself time to decide you resolve not to buy any more home comforts, but throw your money into buying DVDs because they can be taken with you.

About six months later you buy that sofa and get married…

Expat Culture in Taiwan: John and breaking yellow fever III

2009-10-13T09:42:00.001+08:00

It had been a couple of weeks since we had helped John with his planning for his first western date.

“So, what happened?” asked Eric for us all.

“You boys hit it on the button. Got up in the morning to a report card - I am a kind caring, lovable man - I don’t know why girls say this shit because we men don’t care, either way…Anyway, I am passing with flying colors until she said there was something not quite right about our chemistry and we were better off being friends. First time I got 99% on a test and failed. I suggested that with perception so sharp, she was better off working for a MI5 recruitment and we went are separate ways. Chinese girls are a lot easier to please…Sorry, that is bullshit…I mean at the interview stage - good job, not bad looking, made me laugh, pleasant conversation, doesn’t seem to murdered anyone on the way, and they are happy.

“Think I’ll wait to I get back to England. Let gut wrenching physical desperation be my motivator!”

Expat Culture in Taiwan: John and breaking yellow fever II

2009-10-02T12:21:00.001+08:00

John decided there was only was only one thing for it. He invited the American girl from his school for dinner and was going on his first date with a white girl in 4 years.

“So why do you want to date foreign girls, again? Isn’t it like choosing the old mini when there is a Porshe on display,” asked Eric even though he only dated Taiwanese girls who acted, looked and talked like western girls.

“You look nervous, man?” I said.

“Yeah, I had been wondering what that feeling was,” said John. “For the first time in many years I am actually worried about whether I will be interesting or not…Can’t use my status as a foreigner to get by. Okay, fire away with the fuckups I could make now...”

Me: “Don’t ask her where she learnt her English…or praise it….I guess is pretty basic.”

Josh: “Don’t give her a lecture about how England is better than America.”

Pierre: “Don’t ask her if she wants to watch a video - or use any other false pretence to get her back to yours. Ask directly.”

Me: “No need to talk slowly or dumb down what you say.”

Eric: “Expect her to understand your wisecracks, but not necessarily laugh; as opposed to laugh, but….”

Pierre: “Oh - When asking her to come back to your place, actually wait for an answer and listen to her when she analyses the consequences, lays out ground rules and expectations. Just getting the check and starting to leave won’t save her face.”

“What are use supposed to do – When she gives me these ground rules?” asked a worried John.

Pierre: “Nothing! It is a good sign, she is just venting, before the eventual capitulation.”

Eric: “No need to ask her if she has studied abroad? If not, when is she planning to go?”

Josh: “Positive - she will pay half the bill.”

Pierre: “No, negative. When I go on a date they pay all the bill.”

Me: “That is because you pretend you have no money.”

Eric: “He doesn’t pretend. He has no money.”

Josh: “No need to ask her why she likes foreigners…No brainer, I suppose.”

Me: “If you get her back to yours, no need to show her photos of your family - She also has ugly white family, and doesn’t care.”

Pierre: “If she seems coy or says no in the bedroom, she means it.”

Me: “Ask about previous relationships, she will want to talk about them, and you are expected to listen and be concerned.”

Pierre: “Yep, important one - you are going to get all her baggage spilled out.”

Me: “Expect her to say things like: ‘I don’t know if I am ready for a relationship yet...or…Let’s take things slowly - I’ve just managed to get comfortable with my self again, and I don’t know if I can make room for someone else.’”

John: “As opposed to pretending everything is ok, then finding yourself having to remove all sharp instruments from your apartment.”

Eric: “Yeah, expect to say something about yourself, beyond name, age and occupation, if you want her to trust you -- You know with Taiwanese girls all you have to do is say you know their mother and they will get in the car.”

Josh: “Expect her to question your status as the superior sex, and, dare I say it react if she hears something she doesn’t like.”

Eric: “Taiwanese girls do that.”

Me: “The Taiwanese you date do, yes.”

Pierre: “Expect her to talk about what type of person she thinks you are. Maybe pick you apart a little.”

John: “As opposed to heap praise on you, then slowly reel you in and crush you quietly over time.”

Me: “Expect her to demand things sexually.”

John: “Hmm, that is a toughie - I haven’t been down on a bird for years.”

“Chinese girls expect you to go down on them too,” echoed Eric and Josh.

“No, they don’t. It is because you spend all day asking if she wants it, telling her it is what a liberated woman wants, and you are a foreigner so there is no need to be embarrassed to ask…In the end she just says yes to shut you up.”

“Maybe,” said Eric. “How do you know that?”

Me: “Expect her to look for an imperceptible, insignificant difference that allows her to say you are not suited and walk away. As opposed to pretending to herself she is easily pleased and then sitting around looking miserable until you dump her.”

John: “Good point.”

Josh: “Taiwanese girls aren’t like that man!”

John: “We’ll talk to you later Josh.”

Pierre: “Finally, expect her to get up in the morning and either regret that you went too far or tell you she just wants to be friends. Basically, deny she has any feeling for you, say it was just a one night stand. To, regardless of her true feelings, be totally noncommittal…Show she is as hard as any guy.”

John: “Fuck, how I am supposed to remember all that. Just makes me more nervous.”

“Don’t worry, this is a worse case scenario analysis,” suggested Pierre. “Think of it as similar to dating an ABC girl. You must have been out with a few.”

“No,” replied John. “You Dan? Eric?”

We both replied, ‘No.’

ABC girls knew we weren’t super-cool, why bother to play on a level-field.

“Anyway, guys,” said John. “I let you know how I get on tomorrow.”

Expat Culture in Taiwan: John and breaking yellow fever I

2009-10-02T11:28:00.001+08:00

As I have said before John was always going to leave. He had arranged to do some six months later, and was now obsessively worrying he had permanent yellow fever. Like the rest of us, of course, he had only dated Taiwanese girls, but he had assumed that was a matter of convenience and environment that would rub off as soon as he left. Last time, he went back it was as he suspected and he adapted back again, it was about environment.

However, lately he felt his disinterest in white women wasn’t because of this, or because he was a lazy, creature of habit, but genuine sexual disinterest. An American girl in his school had shown an interest and he had walked away. Now he feared it was the permanent kind that would slow him down; leaving him hanging around fish ‘n chip shops and language schools when he got home.

He decided the women situation had to be resolved by a trick used in the Army: response/reaction drills - do something repetitive for long enough and it becomes instinctive. They used it in the Army to teach them to fire a gun under pressure. Now other gun in hand he opened Page3.com online.

‘Right. Has to be white English birds otherwise I am buggared my training before I start,’ he thought. ‘Okay, perfect for the task - Ruth, Nikkala, Zoe and Anna - good looking, big tits and sexy – me old self would be gagging for a bit of that….’

Five minutes later.

‘Shit, I am a hopeless - I have already gone back to the slideshow for Leilani Dowding. She is only half Asian but half is better than nothing.’

He then tried FHM, Maxim, and even Cosmopolitan. ‘Shit, so many girls - Even supermodels, but I only perk up when I spot something Asian. This girl is as white as a sheet from Hull but her surname is Lee and that is enough to get me all turned on…Here I am again stuck on the page for Myleene Klass…And in this one Rachel Stevens - I read somewhere she is a quarter Chinese and now I am obsessed.

‘Oh, well, I am going to be eating a lot of fish and chips.’

Expat Culture in Taiwan: Missing home and the perils of the Internet

2009-10-02T10:55:00.001+08:00

No matter how many years you stay you will think of home. The feeling sub-dues as home becomes a more surreal place. You probably don’t actually want to go home, but still the mind will play tricks when times are bad. If you are feeling nostalgic, don’t get on the Internet just before bed. If you do the following might happen…

‘What a #@* waste of time,’ I thought, looking out the window at the morning sunlight starting to come through the curtains.

I had decided to give myself one little fix of home by typing the name of the local newspaper from my hometown into Google. I had seen the names of a few guys I played football with, and now six hours later I was still sitting there, blurry eyed.

‘Let me see, what pointless information have I learnt…,” I said to myself. ‘Weston football club has a hen night tomorrow…Courtesy of Somerset Tourist Board, Somerset is famous for cider, creams teas and there are caves in Wookey Hole – all that I of course fuckin’ know, and have known since I was five…Weston-Super-Mare has two piers and, after half an hour staring at the webcam picture located on the Old Pier it has only changed once…I know the list of shops in the Sovereign Center and the fact that Jerry and the Pacemakers are playing at Weston Playhouse Theatre even though I hate them. Hmm…did I purchase two tickets for my parents? - Have to phone visa later to check.

‘Right got a miserable day of work ahead and I don’t want to be late - Wow, Hobb’s Boat near fuckin’ Lympsham has a website…Stop! Turn off the computer you dopey pillock!’

Taiwan Culture Shock: Are they lying or too polite?

2009-10-01T11:59:00.001+08:00

The age old debate about whether the Taiwanese are lying or too polite is always an interesting one. Usually people will quote the experience of the expat businessman who, every time he asks his staff if they can finish on time reply, ‘of course’ and don’t do so. He thinks they are full of shit, but the truth is they were just being Taiwanese: in Taiwan the boss rewards you for trying to get it done, not for being realistic about whether you could get it done. This is a simplistic generalization as in many instances the Taiwanese are capable of being direct; however, you have to gauge the circumstances – were they talking to you as a peer or underlying? In general, when the pressure hits and you are talking to them as their boss, they will revert to Taiwan style: say yes to everything you ask, sit in the office until six in the morning, but not get it done.

But this is not the most interesting aspect of the polite versus lying debate. A few months ago I heard one from a friend that was a really good example:

Chris (friend), “Hey, man. I will never get these Taiwanese. This guy says he will get me a work visa through his company and it never happens. I have lived here so many years….It is a dishonesty. They think it ok to lie.”

Me: “So, were you paying this guy? Why was he doing this for you?”

Chris: “You know I am working with Michael…He is Michael’s friend. Supposed to do it as a favor.”

Me: “Ok, so he obviously isn’t that close a friend to Michael. You are not offering him anything.”

Chris: “So why didn’t he just tell me direct? He is a coward.”

Me: “No. He is Taiwanese. It is up to you to use your commonsense.”

Chris: “It wouldn’t happen like this back home.”

Me: “No, it wouldn’t. Because you wouldn’t bother to ask complete strangers to do you a favor.”

And this I venture in my humble opinion spells out the crucial, fundamental cultural difference: The Taiwanese will always say yes and you have to work out if what you have asked them is actually realistic.

It can be broken down further:

a) When the Taiwanese agree to do something it doesn’t mean any obligation on their part to tell you if what they promised is realistic. Through painful experience I have a million examples. It is the way they view doing a favor. For example, you ask someone if they can help you change some money at the bank because you can’t speak good Chinese. They agree and you tell them the appointment is at 2pm. They arrive at 3pm and you go on a rant about waiting for an hour, and why didn’t they call and if you couldn’t make it just say. They get really offended because they agree to do you a favor and in their opinion did their best to do it for you; to them, you asked them to help, you were originally at zero. The fact that they turned up at all means you should be grateful. It happened a few weeks ago when we were going to a bar. A girl we met outside said she was a member and she could get us in for cheaper, wait here and she would be back with her friends. We asked her if she would be back soon because it was only saving us 100NT and we would rather pay. ‘Of course,’ she said. She came back about half an hour later just as we were about to give up and go in. And, again, of course, she had no concept of the fact that we would have rather paid than wait. She had offered to do us a favor.

b) The Taiwanese actually do it to each other in exactly the same way. Countless times the wife at work might mention her birthday in passing and it will develop like this. Colleagues have to show excitement and push her to do a party, because they have to show their passion. She is not particularly interested, but has to show her passion back as they push harder. A party is arranged and we sit in KTV at 9.30 on her birthday and none of them turn up or even phone to make an excuse. If you asked them why not, they would simply reply, “You mentioned your party so it was the right thing to make you feel good about it. Get you excited…” This actually leads nicely into the next point, because the only people who turn up at the KTV are the real friends. Again, please don’t guess I am suggesting there is deliberate nastiness going on here, most of the time there isn’t. It is just the unfortunate results of herd mentality and a culture that emphasizes being polite.

c) Please use your commonsense. I once invited a Canadian guy to my wedding party who was more a friend of a friend; I knew him but didn’t really make the effort to call that often. He replied: “Thanks, man. I don’t know what I am up to on Sunday. If I can get up I might swing by.” At the time I was shocked by his directness, but after a while I kind of realized it was appropriate. I was simply trying to invite him to make up the numbers and we weren’t close. He was just reflecting that in his answer. Being English I wouldn’t have been able to be that direct, I would have had to try to think of an excuse, while secretly thinking ‘why the fuck is this guy inviting me to his wedding?’ Now a Taiwanese would have stood there for twenty minutes telling you how much he appreciated the invitation, and where was it, and how excited he was, but then just not bothered to turn up. In the end, the result is the same: nobody goes to the wedding because it wasn’t appropriate to invite them in the first place. What is my point? When some Taiwanese offers to do something for you, or you ask them to help you get you a visa when you are offering nothing in return, think about why the hell they should do this for you.

d) And it is not easy to do the above because the Taiwanese are actually really generous and friendly. When you arrive in the first few months you are overwhelmed by the offers of help and free gifts and lunches. Taiwanese invite to their house for dinner, they almost always pick up the check when you go for dinner for the first time, they drive you around, and they give bottles of whiskey that are hanging about in their house. Don’t get cynical they do these things because they like to be kind to guests and especially to foreigners. They are social people and are therefore also having a great time. There is no ulterior motive. So from this it is very easy to let your commonsense go out the window and start asking for things that are really beyond the pale. You wouldn’t ask someone you hardly knew in your own country: I have overstayed my visa could you go to the police station with me and act as my guarantor? I am looking to get out of teaching could you ask around in your company and try and get me a job? You wouldn’t ask these questions because you would be rightly told to fuck off. In Taiwan you wouldn’t be told to fuck off, they would be polite, but then just not do it.

What is the moral of the story? Think about the situation not the words you just heard.

Expat Culture in Taiwan: Canadian English Teachers Show II

2009-09-30T13:16:00.001+08:00

On this particular episode of the Canadian English teachers show one of the ‘stars’ is talking about how he plans to get out of teaching and set up a business. He has some outlandish idea of something he thinks is lacking from the market – and buoyed up by his superiority complex, too many years without being challenged by his peers, he is determined to get an investor for his idea.

It is hard to not go through this stage - Remember the locals think we foreigners are all creative and so we begin to believe in our stereotype. You forget that an idea is worth shit without a plan to make it work, but, depending on how deeply you have fallen, it takes a while to remember.
Next the star of the show was on the phone to one of his student’s fathers pitching him his business idea; he didn’t have a business plan, a power point, or an intention to invest any money himself, just a reasonably well thought through idea about something that might work.

He then announces to the camera that he is pretty psyched because the father has invited him to lunch on Sunday to discuss things - Also secretly happy because he avoided having to take the guy to an expensive dinner to talk about the idea.

“What an asshole,” shouted Josh. “He makes me ashamed to be a Canadian.”

“What’s up?” said Pierre. “Seems like a good way.”

“Are you going to tell him, man? He listens to you,” said Josh to John.

John spoke: “Pierre you know I don’t like to call you a daft cunt, but…”

We all knew instinctively that you have to invite the other person if you want to be taken seriously. Don’t beg. Go with an agenda. If, after twenty minutes, you are talking about the differences between France and Taiwan and where to go on vacation in France, get up and walk out. We had all been through that stupidity when we started teaching: we didn’t know what we were doing so we talked to students for hours hoping they would sign up. This was no different: in business, if all you have is an idea, and not the belief to make it work, then you spend a lot of time clutching at straws.

Pierre still hadn’t given up. “Guys, you have been here a few years but you still don’t understand the Taiwanese. It is good for him to go to his house. Do you know why? Because he will be more relaxed, he will play with his kids and show him he can trust him, he can’t say ‘no’ to him in front of his wife, kids and probably his grandmother. He will lose face…I would do it that way.”

Twenty minutes later and the show was playing out a rather awkward scene at the house. Unfortunately, the guy’s plan of inviting our Canadian star back saying ‘No’ in front of his family, hopefully so he wouldn’t get too angry was backfiring.

“The lying bastard…wasting my time,” says our Canadian star giving his opinion to the camera.

Then it was the narrator’s turn to say about the perils of trying to set up a business in Taiwan. Pity he didn’t say about the real perils: letting your commonsense go out the window when your ego is massaged by well meaning foreigners.

Sorry for not posting this week

2009-09-18T08:43:00.002+08:00

Sorry to any regular readers but i am super busy this week and next. I will get back to posting the week after.

For any new readers please enjoy the hundreds of posts already up. As this blog gives insights in living in Taiwan there is plenty of valuable stories and knowledge to get you ahead in Taiwan.

Been in Taiwan too long: More

2009-09-07T10:05:00.002+08:00

On the way out to a restaurant, Pierre was riding his scooter on the pavement and beeping his horn at women and children to get out the way.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“It is the way it is done!”

I had been influenced by the culture a lot: I went through reds lights, tried to look for somewhere to put my feet up whenever I sat down, keep my coat on in doors, didn’t pick my feet up when I walked and stood on the straps on the back of my scandals; I had given up looking where I was going when I walked, thought the best part of the meat was next to the bone, didn’t make eye contact when people were talking to me, and wandered off when they were midway through a sentence without asking to be excused. However, I still hadn’t managed to get my head around the idea it was okay to push pedestrians to move out the way on the pavement.

Expat Culture in Taiwan: The Canadian English teachers show

2009-09-07T09:52:00.001+08:00

There was a popular Canadian TV show called ‘English Teachers in Taiwan’. It was an awful show trying to make drama out of a pretty undramatic situation: in Taiwan you are treated like Gods, there is plenty of work, and the major cause of you messing up is usually yourself. Still, as the human being has a tendency to like to blame others it was easy to make up stories. In one or two episodes the camera followed our intrepid teachers as they tried to get an apartment, and the following huge drama unfolded.

Said English teachers find an apartment they like, but there are other people who want the apartment so the landlord asks them to put down a deposit on the deposit as a show of commitment. They have one week to get the rest of the deposit together or they will lose the ‘commitment payment’. Over the next week they all sit around squabbling and bickering about who is to blame for the fact that none of them has the rest of the money, while the narrator paints a picture of peril in the dodgy renting industry in Taiwan. The narrator tries to make it seem that they are somehow victims in this process, which is nonsense: they shouldn’t have given over the money if they didn’t know where the rest was coming from. They were stupid.

In the end, after the deadline passes and they don’t have the money, the narrator tells us about the terrible lesson the poor English teachers have learnt – only for the landlord to reduce the deposit and let them pay it off slowly. She was kind and generous.

As I say in Taiwan you are usually your own biggest enemy…

Been in Taiwan too long: Older western people

2009-09-04T09:57:00.001+08:00

Most foreigners in Taiwan were male and young. It was very rare to see an older western person.

I was walking down the street with Josh one day when a mid-fifties white woman walked by.

"Stop staring," i said.

“Wow, you didn’t find that a little freaky?” said Josh.

“No,” I said lying.

“I mean that was a middle aged white woman in the flesh, I haven’t seen one of those for...Jesus...A couple of years. I mean old white people are rare here, but old white women…I found myself fascinated by her white wrinkly skin, staring at her like she was the exotic one.”

“You’re a funny one!” I said, But I got the point – we had all been here too long.

Expat culture in Taiwan: Paranoid forum rambling

2009-09-04T09:35:00.001+08:00

There were numerous forums set up to help people in Taiwan. These sites, set up by people who generously gave up their time to contribute back; were unfortunately, hijacked by moaning stupid foreigners.

A quick look through showed page after page filled with comments about how there was actually no need to follow this tradition. That it could be done another way because it was in Hong Kong.

Ironically, it was always the same monikers in these forums and not so close inspection would reveal their rants the previous week about how they hated Hong Kong because it was an uncultured hellish modernity.

It proved to them that the Taiwanese didn’t care as much their about fellow man and the environment as we did back home, that it told us something was inherently bad about the Taiwanese character, and if only they let foreigners run the government…but they don’t because they are racists…and that was another story…And don’t get them started on that because they didn’t want to waste anymore time on the subject after having to give their advice on it yesterday in the discussion thread entitled, ‘What is your favourite Taiwanese food?’

Eric was strange – he was either giving you detailed information on the history of Taiwan that suggested he would be the first to the battlefield or complaining about the place. He liked to trawl these forums for support for his ideas.

“I am not the only one who is prepared to say some things are wrong here. Look!” said Eric.

Eric had printed out one of forums about burning paper money and how it is bad for the environment, like he had found the smoking gun.

Eric continued, “It is so clear man, back home we wouldn’t allow some tradition to go on if it wrecked the environment.”

“What about Christmas dumb ass. We chop down enough trees to crowd a couple of small minorities and a bunch of endangered species out of their share of the oxygen supply; then we string lights everywhere burning electricity and causing safety hazards…” said Pierre.

“The wrapping paper as well…trees and incineration,” said John.

“Yes. American, looks like you fucked up again!” For the 14,314 time he promised not to open his big mouth. He was serious this time.

We wondered how it was both possible to be so interested in, love and know so much about a country; and complain about it all the time. But that was the answer – He felt done enough to be accepted as a Taiwanese and he couldn’t accept they wouldn’t call him thus.

Taipei famous places: Shih-Da University

2009-09-02T09:47:00.002+08:00

Shih-Da University was of course famous for being one of Taiwan's best and also, if you wanted to study Chinese, somewhere you might end up going.

As the years went on the sports track became more famous for us than the university itself. In Taiwan all public university tracks were completely free to use by everyone in the evening so if you needed a jog just head down there.

The sports field was an amazing slice of Taiwanese life and attitudes to sport:

1) Old people briskly walking bare feet while continually stretching and shaking out limbs and pulling their grandchildren behind.

2) Young couples on a date in their Sunday Best clothes having a romantic walk.

3) Young women in fresh new tracksuits on their first jog because they went over 50Kg, who never came back because starving themselves was so much easier

4) And members of the Shih Da University sports club who never actually did anything but stretch and contemplate, trying to remember the exact moves they had studied the day before.

Otherwise, on the center and outer areas of the track young and old competed for space to dance.

Every 10 meters there was a different group of teenage girls and boys with their portable CD players, rigorously drilling their hip-hop and R’n’B moves so that might have a career which didn’t require any scholarly skills. The old people, who pioneered taking up public space in parks, were practicing dancing or Tai chi, and no doubt regretting going on those marches for democracy – All that sacrifice just to watch their grandchildren shaking their thighs to hip-hop.

The old people weren't going to easily lose their dominance of the great outdoors sports hall - Every night a group of about a 100 or so swayed their hips to Oh What an Atmosphere by Russ Abbott and Ache Breakie Heart among others; gently pushing back the young people to the outer corners of the field.

But I am not poking fun – it was an amazing atmosphere, made possible because all the parks and sport’s grounds weren’t the preserve of drug dealers after dark, and Taiwanese ability to relax and do their thing, fifty in a telephone box – because the more of them there were the more outgoing and confident they became.

Expat Culture in Taiwan: The embarrassment of seeing other foreigners on TV

2009-08-31T10:13:00.002+08:00

As I say Taiwan wasn’t a multi-racial society – at least not one that included westerners. When a white face popped up on the TV you paid attention.

On this occasion we were at John’s place having a few beers when a couple of large people suddenly arrived on a variety show.

“Jesus, we are strange,” said Josh suddenly feeling awkward, embarrassed at the sight of these white people on a local TV show.

He knew he shouldn’t care, but he had a good job in a Taiwanese company so he found himself watching them to make sure they didn’t enforce too many stereotypes, that they had enough wisdom to show they understood the country they were in, and could fit in. Yes, he also knew he shouldn’t be thinking like this, because he was a minority and minorities should be respected for what they are, encouraged to show their diversity. In the west this PC approach was the prevailing philosophy of the educated of his generation – but in Taiwan it was different: his attitude now was the product of being an immigrant pioneer, and the ambassadorial responsibilities it carried. It was no wonder so many like Eric, brought up in the era of empowered ethnic minorities got so frustrated.

“Yeah, now I know how those in the black community felt, watching a couple of their own on Opportunity Knocks when I was a lad.” said John.

“I knew at the time! I felt with them,” replied Eric who was self-conscious for others as well as himself.

Pierre sat silently. He was actually thinking about the subject; he was thinking he didn’t like being a member of a minority group because it gave you certain obligations, it was much better to be an individual in the majority half because you could fuck up, behave like a dick, and everyone just blamed you and your character, they didn’t try and wrongly blame everyone in your group.

Expat Culture in Taiwan: Anti-mainstream with a budweiser

2009-08-26T15:43:00.000+08:00

"Man, that is an expat bar. I ain't one of those guys who needs my hand held while i am here."

This is something you will hear often from the just-left-college-want-to-sound-anti-mainstream expat types. Just like back home where these people won't be seen dead in a swanky busy night club because they don't follow the crowd, in Taiwan they won't be seen in expat bars or doing expat things.

But have you noticed back home there is nothing more different about their motives than those of the 'plebs' they are criticising: go to one of their watering holes and behind the black clothes, covered flesh, and unrythmic dancing, you will see them getting pissed out of their brains and trying to pick up the girl next to them.

While they are abroad it is no different: they don't speak Chinese, want to drink American beer and are there to pick up girls - but if you are going to appeal to their particular sensibilities and get them into your bar, you have to create that suspension of mainstream that they need.

One particular bar in Taiwan had managed this to perfection. Firstly, they hid their Western food at the back of the menu behind the Chinese, making sure you could applaud yourself loud and hard that you had managed to find the picture of the sandwich amongst all those Chinese characters. Second, was the minimalist, student bar design. Third was the curt, unpolished staff who didn’t appear interested in you being a foreigner and always answered your requests with a one word grunt instead of a sentence of good English. Fourth, was the scarce use of English on the walls. And finally there was the boss: long dank hair, permanently miserable and unfriendly, he solidified his and the bar’s image with the notice he had over the DJ booth: ‘DJ’s Music Choices Are Final, Don’t Trouble Him.'

With it the illusion he didn’t set up to that the bar to baby sit foreigners was complete, leaving them to drink their bottles of Budweiser, talk about the game, and patronise some young enthusiastic girls who came to practice their English.

Taiwan women: Definitions of a victim

2009-08-24T09:21:00.004+08:00

Living in a society where they are treated as the lesser sex, Taiwanese women have some wonderful ways of defining themselves as the victim.

The wife came back from KTV at 4.30 in the morning drunk and determined not to wake me up. “I was out with Helen tonight. She told me something, but you mustn’t tell anyone,” she said.

“Go on!” I was impatient because this ‘I have to be sure you won’t tell before I tell you’ stage was so pointless: If I said, ‘I am going to get on the phone to Helen and tell her everything the moment you have finished’ she would wait five minutes and blurt it out anyway.

“She fucked her friend’s husband. She tells me everything you know.”

“She is a naughty girl, eh.”

“No, don’t say that - She is our friend.”

“I know. However, she is the secret girlfriend of a guy who has been engaged for three years and now -”

“That guy wanted it you know. What could she do?”

“Now you put it like that I see the logic – Just a moment. Now I am awake pass me the phone. I need to call Helen to get round here and fuck me. She is a nice girl and I want so she couldn’t possibly say no. In fact she is bringing herself closer to heaven with her generous act.”

I paused for a moment. “So you would do that?”

“Of course not! Hey, by the way, she loves that guy. You know it is not easy for Taiwanese girls.”

Yes, indeed, it wasn’t easily for some Taiwanese girls. Still two wrongs don’t make a right.

“Maybe,” I replied. “But you do have one thing going for you - the ability to absolve yourself of all responsibility so easily.”

Expat Culture in Taiwan: Definition of Independence

2009-08-20T14:40:00.001+08:00

The Taiwanese are not independent is a recurring expat discussion in Taiwan - along with, and because of it, the frustration why we are not catapulted to instant success.

It comes from their family relationships. You will here a 40-year old man say he has to ask his parents if he can go on holiday and you will explode at his immaturity.

Over the years you will then witness the contradictions to this: Same 40-year old man will mortgage his home, teach himself English, set up a business from scratch, gamble everything and succeed. Inspite of this you will still insist he is not independent and you will get even more frustrated because you haven't made your fortune.

Before the argument below I also suffered from my ingrained definition of independence...Until that is i had my eyes opened...

One afternoon, a couple of months after being in Taipei, I was sat in the hostel with Mike, a Canadian, Chris, an Australian, and John, an Englishman (who would later become a good friend). I didn't know much about these guys other than that John was supposedly ex-army and in Taiwan to try and stay out of trouble.

"Listen to that John,” said Mike pointing at his girlfriend next to him. “Christine wanted to go and study in Canada last year. She had saved her money. Arranged her course, and her father said no. She is twenty-five. You tell her in the West we are more independent. We would do it anyway. You know, I have told her if she wants to survive in the modern world she has to make up her own mind - be independent.”

“Hmm,” said John turning to Christine. "How do you put up with listening to this daily crap about your country? I doubt his dick is really that big."

John could say these kind of things because he was six-two, about fifteen stone - and basically looked you straight in the eye making it clear he would do more than just blow hot air.

“What, man?” asked Chris then turning to his girlfriend Roxy. “They lack independence these people - they are afraid to make decisions. You tell him Roxy.”

Roxy had a wry, earnest smile. She had had this conversation before; she knew what the foreigners liked to hear. “You know my brother lives in the house with my parents. He have the girlfriend before that he really love. Hmm, they together six years, but my parents say no, don’t let them marry.”

Chris was now pumped up.“What sort of fucking limp-dick doesn’t stand up to his parents, and marry the girl he loves?”

"Why didn't he marry her?" asked John.

Roxy answered,“You know that is a funny story. My father tell my brother, he have the good friend who is looking for the husband for his daughter. If my brother marry her, he can the high position in that company. Company is part of the Yuan He group. It is a very good opportunity .”

“Obviously a limp-dick who is selfish and cold-hearted, not lacking independence,” replied John.

“Nonsense mate," said Chris before turning to Roxy and suddenly changing the subject. "Hey, did you phone the police station about my visa? I only have a couple of days left and I have to leave?"

"There you go," said John. "You fucking moaners - Your girlfriends double as personal secretaries: ordering pizza, making calls, solving your visa or money transfer problems, writing Chinese on little pieces of paper, advising on schools to work at and places to go. When they are not available you sit around like a couple of spare tools...Not true, you always sit around like a couple of spare tools. You are more dependent on their girlfriends to function in Taiwan than an unborn baby is to its umbilical cord. Now who lacks independence, pricks?!”

Chris and Mike looked at each other scoffing at the ridiculously of what they had just heard.

Chris replied, “How can you compare the two? I ask my girly to order a pizza and that makes me as bad as the person who lives at home until they are thirty?”

“Yes, moaner. The definition of independence isn’t the ability to tell your parents and authority to fuck off.”

It was a revelation and the answer. People are complicated and capable of all sorts of weird and wonderful things. The 40-year old Taiwanese guy who set up his business from nothing will, if his mother requests, run down the high street wearing a pink frock, high heels and wig, screaming i love hairy bottoms. Get used to it. It is a different culture. Things are done differently here.

Years later John defined his ability not to fall for most of the stereotypical misjudgements as thus: "I am not a poncey college boy that covers my lack of social confidence by rejecting family, relationships and all things emotional. I didn't sit and watch 'Neighbours' every lunch time just to laugh in a condescending way."

Western Stereotypes: Foreigners are all dirty horn dogs II

2009-08-17T09:39:00.001+08:00

Foreigners had a bad reputation as dirty horn dogs.

As i say not all girls were of the subtle variety. This one i had gone to pick up in the disco, and she had said: "Hey, you are just trying to fuck the Taiwan girl." To which i had replied nervously, "No, no, i am looking for a girlfriend." To which she had replied, "Pity because i just want to get fucked."

I figured no strings sex for a while was great so i continued to see her. However, she had taken her stereotype of foreigners a little too far:

One afternoon, i emerged from the shower to hear her talking sweetly to someone on the phone.

I didn't think too much of it - and just started making a little conversation. "So…" I started to say.

“Sssh, just a moment,”said Jenny while covering the receiver.

I decided there had to be mitigating circumstances so he let her finish her call.

"I am going to see another guy later. We are finished, yes?”

No, I hadn’t jumped to an unfair conclusion.

“S’pose I shouldn’t really object. I don’t intend to make you me bride, after all," I replied. "You have an open attitude there for a good little Taiwanese girl.”

“You know," she said, "I used to be such a good girl, traditional Taiwanese girl, then it all went wrong when I applied to university. I wanted to go to Tai Da, the best in Taiwan, everyone thought I would get there, and I only got into Jeng Zhi, the 3rd best in the country. I was so unhappy …you know I was a Christian, but God couldn’t be good…so I just decided then to sleep with as many men as I could. I went to all the foreigner bars because I know you foreigners don’t care - Chinese guys they are too troublesome, they don’t like it when you have several boyfriends. You know, I only started going to the bar three months ago and I have slept with twenty foreign guys already.”

I laughed at the stereotyping:Westerners were supposed to be dirty horn dogs in a state of constant divorce and orgy, whereas Taiwanese viewed themselves as traditional.

Maybe, there was alot of truth in the stereotype, but this was a little bit further than I was prepared to go to live up to my stereotype.

"You have much to be proud of then young lady. Anyway, best you are on your way if you have another appointment.

One thing i was curious about before she left: "Hey, why did you ask me to shoosh, you obviously don't care if i hear?"

"You misunderstand," she replied. "He is from Nigeria so i can't understand his accent so well."

When she left i took the condom from the bin and filled it with water just to reassure myself it didn't have any leaks.

Work in Taiwan: Beyond teaching I

2009-08-17T09:19:00.003+08:00

After going through the usual stages: teaching... then studying chinese... then thinking i had made all this effort to study i should try and get a job where i had to speak it - I started to apply for jobs other than teaching.

Interviews for teaching English were artificial worlds in which every compensation was given for the fact that you didn’t speak Chinese and knew nothing about the culture. Generally, speaking they were done by some fluent English speaking aggressive Taiwanese girl who had a hundred westerners through her school every day – Or some old Taiwanese woman who didn’t speak five words of English and smiled at you for 10 minutes before phoning her one friend who spoke some English to ask her if she would offer you the job. Going for an interview at a Taiwanese company where i was applying for a job with everyone else, I guessed would be different.

Today was my first interview and I was nervous. The position was quality inspector - I would have to drive around the country visiting factories, giving their products a quality stamp of approval so they could get their letter of credit.

The next afternoon I was on the way to the interview in Taipei County, trying not to stare at the semi-naked betel nut girls while swerving for about the tenth time to avoid another scooter going down the wrong side of the road in my direction.

I was driving to an industrial park in Wugu, a suburb west of Taipei. Everyone thought the traffic was bad in Taipei city, until they crossed any of the bridges which connected the city to the county. Once over the bridge everybody immediately took off their helmets because the police in the county didn’t enforce that law. The removal of helmets was a huge irony, because you needed that helmet more than ever this side of the bridge, but Taiwanese were risk takers, and didn’t believe that the government should be telling them what to do.

The eight lane wide roads, the minimum number necessary to keep traffic flowing at all through Taipei city, suddenly became two or four wide in the county. In the event of even slower moving traffic, it seemed there was only one thing to do – drive more aggressively. In the city the eight lanes meant the sun was still able to get past the buildings to the street, here the street was plunged in permanent shadow. Finally, the local government made it worse by seemingly using only discretionary flashing lights – On the one lane intersections in Taipei they used traffic lights that permanently flashed suggesting slow-down; in the county these lights were everywhere.

Fine, if there was less fucking traffic, I thought, but there wasn’t, so all you could do was to pull out hitting your horn as loud as you could and hope for the best.

I had wanted to get off after the first junction, and take a taxi.

“Jesus Christ, I am still alive…And surprised,” I shouted as I arrived at the company, and another ‘Killer Truck’ shot by missing me by inches. They were caused ‘Killer Trucks’ for obvious reasons: used to carry heavy building materials up and down the country their amphetamine-fuelled drivers were the major cause of death on the road. In one infamous case, the driver is reported to have reversed back over a pregnant woman to kill her because the funeral costs would be less than the hospital bills.

I parked up my motorbike and tried to knock the exhaust fume pollution from my shirt, but only managed to smudge it across the white front. Now I knew why the Taiwanese wore a jacket no matter the weather.

“Manager Liao, we have a foreigner here for the interview,” spoke the receptionist into the phone.

This job was for foreigners only, I thought, so presumably, today, there was a need to go beyond my alien status to describe me, perhaps as - ‘Foreigner Two O’clock.’

I settled down in the reception area with my glass of warm water, and smiled at everyone as they passed by pointing at me and whispering behind their hands.

It was a new building - I qualified myself because they had a different idea of measuring building age in Taiwan: built ten years ago was old, new meant last year. This one was especially new: It still smelt of fresh paint, and untreated asbestos; plastic cut from the end of wire cables still lay on the floor next to sockets; the walls were still perfectly white.

Half an hour later I was led to an empty office to meet my interviewer.

“Sorry, I am very busy,” she said because she was late.

“No problem, I know you work very hard. I can tell.” She took her head a little to feign the compliment, but I knew it had been appreciated. I had learnt quickly how to make a Taiwanese person feel good about her or himself.

She dipped her head a little and handed me her card with two hands. “I am Emily Liao.”

“So you are the personnel manager, nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too,” she replied nervously, and we shook hands like it was a naughty, empowering experience.

After the hand shake she returned her hands to a folded position in front of her waist, kept smiling, and clearly was getting stuck on how to move onto the serious part. "So you have any questions for me?" I asked.

They were nice people, I thought, but sometimes a little too polite; standing on ceremony seemed an essential skill to learn.

“You are from England?” she asked, now firmly sitting back straight on her chair, hands in her lap.

“Bath. Have you been?”

“Hmm…not England. I studied in Manchester for two years.”

“Great…Wow,”I said. I had been to Manchester many times but I wasn’t going to ask her what school she went to, I didn’t want this part of the interview to go on too long.

There was a long silence in which I kept the upbeat smile, waiting for her to move on, but it didn’t happen. “I bet you had a great time?” I felt forced to ask.

“Hmm… yes.” There was another long silence. She felt guilty about spending my interview talking about her experiences in England, so she waited for me to ask another question. She later told me I was unusual - All the other guys she had interviewed that week wouldn’t shut up about their homelands, and the difference between Taiwan and abroad. She didn't want to offer them the position but they were fun to talk to.

"So how long you been in Taiwan?” She gave up and got on with the interview.

“Two years.” It was a lie but there were good reasons for it.

“So your Chinese is very good?” she asked me speaking Chinese.

“Na li, na li (Oh, not so good).” It was hard trying to control the desire to shout my achievements loudly, but this was Taiwan - You were supposed to get your brilliance across through a smokescreen of humbleness.

“You like Taiwan?” she asked back speaking English.

It had gone as expected: Taiwanese always ask if you spoke Chinese and when you replied, yes, they continued to speak to you in English. It was sufficient to say you had studied for a long time and they took you at your word. I had only studied for six months, not long enough. It would be a challenge if I got the job.

“Do I like Taiwan?” I repeated back to her getting stressed at the way the interview was going.

Have we started the interview yet? Can I get on with detailing how I have motivated teams…Got diverse and opposing personalities to work together…improved performance across a company. I was getting worried I wouldn’t have a chance to prove myself; that she didn’t like me, but was embarrassed to say so.

“Taiwan is an exciting place. Fantastic business opportunities,” I said.

“Don’t worry. You can say if you don’t like it. Taiwan is too busy; too competitive. We work all the time, because afraid the boss."

She continued,“So why did you come to Taiwan?”

Now, I really wanted to ask if they had started the interview yet.

“I spent two years working as a buyer in the clothing industry back in England so I think it would be easy to make the transition to quality control,” I replied determined to conduct the interview myself. “Under my watch costs were negotiated down thirty percent, return rates were lowered, and we secured deals with premier high street brands…Of course, I got a lot of support, and now I feel I could have done much better. I still have lots to learn.”

“I know,” she replied. “I read your resume. You are extremely well-qualified.”

I wouldn’t trust anything I wrote there. You are duty bound to try and catch me out. Jesus, I wasted my time last night memorizing it.

“I am an independent guy who is prepared to make decisions.”

I know you think that is a good thing, she thought. Pity the boss won’t let you.

“I have always been an organized person, and a good communicator, but I have enhanced those skills through my work experience.”

Hmm, refer to the thing about the boss. Anyway, you don’t have to keep talking about these things. Don’t we all have them? You managed to get the qualifications and work experience, so of course you have those things. How else did you survive there? You learnt that is the important thing.

“You come for the work experience?” she now asked suspiciously, and he kind of felt this was the make or break question; the test of my integrity and initiative.

“My girlfriend is Taiwanese and she wants to live here. After a year of dating back in England she gave me a choice, and now I like the place.” It had taken a while to think of this excuse – Taiwanese bosses were very aware that their companies did not have very good reputations and paid low wages, so they were pleasantly surprised and suspicious that you would want to work for them. The truth - I have fucked around for the last few years so now I need some work experience. Or, I am a loser who can’t get a job in my own country – was best avoided; similarly, when you had a resume packed with the sort of experience mine was, you had to make them feel comfortable you would stay.

“Really. No wonder your Chinese is so good. You didn’t say you have the Taiwan girlfriend.”

“Yeah, sorry, about that. I just got wrapped up detailing my credentials for this position.”

“So, you speak Chinese at home or English?”

“Both. Mostly Chinese now as I am supposed to be trying to get a job here.”

“Wow. So you two are very happy?”

“That’s right.”

“As I was saying when I entered that company in England, I instituted a checklist system to standardize purchasing. Something I am sure you know about in this job.” I naturally assumed in a quality control position that this there would be a series of standardized checklists to follow.

“Yes, you are very good. I know. Hmm...So you say, your weaknesses are you like to work all the time? That is right?”

“Yeah, people keep criticizing me for having no interests, no social life. Work, work, work,” I replied. I wrote that I was football team captain on my first resume, and kept drawing attention to it during the interview. I didn’t get the job, so I asked the personnel woman, and apparently, they liked me, but thought I was a bit lazy wasting my time playing sports during university instead of studying.

“Hmm, I think you suit the Taiwan.”

She could speak almost perfect English, but still added unnecessary ‘the(s)’.

“Yeah, many people keep telling me that.”

She checked her watch. “Ah, nice to meet you. I must go…Please wait a moment,” she said, then paused to congratulate herself.

It seemed an appropriate use of politeness was viewed as ninety percent of the job in Taiwan. I taught business English, and my students spent half the time asking me if their email was polite enough:

Client: Did you get the file?
My student: Dear Michael,
How are you? Thank you kindly for your email yesterday.
Please be informed I got the file.
If you have any other queries please do not hesitate to contact me. Have a good weekend. Yours sincerely and best regards…

I had sent several emails back and forth with this woman, and she was no different:

Thank you kindly for your email, and the submission of your resume. It was wonderful to speak to you yesterday by phone…Kind regards…
Thank you for your email of yesterday requesting confirm of the time of your interview. Please be informed your interview time is….
I was extremely happy to receive your email request you can change the time of your interview…Thanks and best regards…
It is a pleasure to enclose a small map of how to get to our company…Kind regards again…Have a good day.

“Nice to meet you too,”I said half-heartedly as she left the room. I was disappointed I had wasted all of last night inventing those examples of showing initiative and overcoming obstacles. I sat wondering what had gone wrong. Why didn’t she like me? Perhaps she knew my resume was fake and was just too polite to say. Taiwanese like to avoid confrontation so she must have just gone through the interview, and now she would send someone to politely get me out of the building.

“Hi, nice to meet you,” said a different woman as she strode into the room, disturbing me from my analysis. She had an impeccable American accent, power-suit, and purposeful walk which said she was the boss, not the lackey sent to throw me out.

Ten seconds later. “Sit down,” she said because I was standing smiling like the personnel manager just had.

“Sorry.” Jesus, I thought, this dithering is catching.

“My name is Mary Chu, I am the Greater China Regional Manager. Emily says you are the best candidate so far, by a long way. She won’t disturb me unless she thinks you are good.”

“Thanks,”I replied wondering where she got that insight from. “As you can see I have a history of success in business. I am pro-active, not afraid to take decisions or risks kind of guy.”

I could tell from her manner she had spent most of her time in America and I could dispense with the well if you think so, but I really am too humble to say manner.

“I just have a couple of questions. So you think you can handle Chinese people? You know we have the face problem, and you are younger than many of the bosses. They won’t like to take orders from someone younger than them.”

“Yes, I have always been a diplomat. Anyway, Taiwanese are smart people, reasonable, open-minded and more modern than you think.”

She gave me a look that said you are either a really good bullshitter or naïve as hell. Either way, I would be perfect.

“You know, the reason we like to employ foreigners is because they are more honest,” she revealed. “Customers here like to give the red envelopes. You know bribes.”

“Well, you can rely on me,” I replied with all the sincerity I could muster, smirking to myself at the stereotyping.

I was called a foreigner and stereotyped every minute of everyday, and if I was pushed to use a negative term, I would also define this as racism - I had been through the politically-correct English education system, schooled in the premise that all reference to the nationality of an ethnic minority was racism. You couldn’t take one look at the oriental guy and put him in the top math class. Why? - Even though it was essentially a positive move, it was stereotyping.
However, unlike many, I was making the highly controversial decision that racism wasn’t such an endemic and integral part of a Confucian culture that one had to withdraw into their shells and not engage the people. I was making the outrageous conclusion, that perhaps an element of what was going on was ignorance, and perhaps, with a little patience stereotypes could be smashed. I wasn’t afraid to be an ambassador for my culture.

I was also going to take advantage of the positive stereotypes when they came. Presumably, no black guy ever says, “how do you know my dick is big, you racist” to the hot girl who wants to sleep with me.

In this case, one good thing that Hollywood had done for Westerners was permeate the myth that business in the West was honest, that we had integrity, we soul searched and made the right decisions.

They had obviously not heard of Nick Leeson, I thought.

Likewise, I would worry about the negatives later - And if there was a glass ceiling I couldn’t rise above, at some time in the future, then I would leave, but for the moment the ceiling was way above my head.

Still I knew some guys who took it personally, refusing positive and negative alike; who would take pleasure in citing to her all the examples of corporate corruption in America. I knew they had a point, that perhaps they were taking the moral high ground because it was racism, but then I also remembered why I need this job. I was here to make up for the three or four years I had spent hanging around doing nothing since graduation. There were very good reasons to smile at the stereotypes and think about the work experience I wanted.

Soon I was wandering out of the building in shock, wondering how Emily knew i was the best candidate. I sat on my motorbike outside the office, thinking it was best to resolve this before I had to concentrate on the traffic.

Why didn’t she care about my people skills? Getting a degree or succeeding in anything wasn’t about just the accomplishment; it was about the manner, efficiency with which it is achieved. It made no sense.

I kind of promised to come back next Monday with my passport so they could process my work permit. It made sense to take the job – the company was actually an international one (albeit a foreign subsidiary) and the position was quality assurance of Taiwanese manufacturers. It was a good, solid job.

Another one of those ‘killer’ trucks went by spraying me with exhaust fumes, and I got my jacket out of the inside of my motorbike, and put it on back-to-front.

As I left I drove past ‘Future Ever Last Transistors’ again and sighed - Coming to this industrial park hadn’t been good for me because I had spent the afternoon driving past similarly awkward named companies, all the time practicing that sales pitch about bringing value to their international operations, helping them attract new customers.

That marketing company would be great fun… interesting…a wonderful challenge, I thought.

Taipei famous spots: The combat zone and old Asia

2009-08-10T10:41:00.002+08:00

For one of John's last nights in Taipei - he left often and came back - we went to the combat zone.

The combat zone was an old strip of bars left over from when the American servicemen were stationed in Taipei.

As non-expat young guys we never went there, but it was interesting to see how stereotypes of Asia were alive and well.

We rarely went there because it was an odd place that reminded you of Thailand or the Philippines with its neon lights and bars with names like Malibu or California Dreaming, and girls in the entrance shouting at you to come in. You simply didn’t see this anywhere else in Taipei - of course there were hundreds of Adult KTVs and whorehouses, but the sell was always soft, passive in fact, hidden behind a door.

We went in the first place, The Bull and Parrot, and soon got a reminder of the most important reason why we didn’t go there normally: paying for sex or company was totally unnecessary in Taipei.

We ordered drinks and very soon four not so young or good-looking girls came and sat next to us. They themselves obviously didn't get out of this area very often because they should have guessed from our age and dress we weren't going to be forthcoming with the cash. They made basic conversation about where we were from, and we answered in Chinese that we were students, but it still didn't shake them off.

"You want to buy us a house drink?" asked my one.

I shouldn't have asked because I knew it would just encourage her, but i was curious: "How much?" I asked.

"400NT," she replied and I choked a little on my Taiwan beer.

"That is ok," I replied. "Just here to have a few drinks with my friends."

She continued. "I would like to talk to you," she said pushing herself up close.

"No, thanks," I replied but i was beginning to lose my patience and get stressed. "Why don't you get me a drink for the pleasure of talking to me?"

We moved to the place next door and on entering told the barmaid not to send any girls if she wanted us to stay and drink beer.

We sat down next to a group of guys from Silicon Valley who were in town for the technology show. They all had a girl next to them and kept asking us if we wanted one. We told them it was not necessary to pay for female company in Taiwan, and they just laughed incredulously.

All around the bar European or American businessmen were paying ridiculous amounts of money for the chat of some very average looking girl; and they were doing it because they believed it was necessary. It was Asia after all, and, especially if they had spent a lot of time in China and Thailand, they had picked up the impression that all girls in bars were whores and any that didn't require payment were sat at home knitting or reading Buddhist scripture. They had no idea there was a westernised middle class who were out in bars having fun.

We left after a few hours and offered to take them with us to the other bars, but they knew better - or were scared either way...

Taiwan teaching stories: Swimming in English

2009-08-10T09:38:00.001+08:00

This was another Lily story – the one who had me teach the dying woman. This time she had me teach swimming in English.

Lilly was always late so you either: sat waiting uncomfortably outside her office smiling at your prospective student, or, stood around on the street somewhere, time already past appointment, waiting for her to take you to a student another half-an-hour away. On this occasion it was the latter.

“It is a swimming pool,” I said as we pulled up. “So the kid’s mother works here?”

“Yes,” she replied.

Lilly paid the entry fee and a young mother came to greet us with her eight-year old son.

I love this country, I thought to myself: kid can’t even be assed to change out of his swimming trunks.

“So what size for shorts?” asked Lilly. “Try on a hat.”

“Why?” I asked.

“You can teach swimming, yes?” But her tone said he didn’t care either way. “His mother say, he want learn to swim, but doesn’t like study English. This way if he wants to swim, he must - ”
“What is his level of English?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I think he knows a little.”

Yes, it seemed it had only occurred to me that urgent, life-or-death instructions should be shouted using a language he understood.

“You don’t disappoint,” I told Lilly.

The kid started tugging my arm, smiling and expectant. It was a super hot day and the water looked really inviting. I was actually I good swimmer so I figured I could at least make sure he didn’t drown. I went to get changed and put on a swimming cap. This was an odd cultural point: in Taiwan it was okay, perhaps mandatory, to spit and empty the contents of your nose in the water at the end of every length, width or dive, but letting your recently shampooed hair loose was a public health crime

One hour later and the boy was still alive and I had actually enjoyed myself.

The English aspect was problematic: if the kid ever found himself hanging round swimming pools in an English speaking country, then the phrases: ‘kick your legs’, ‘breath’ and ‘move your arms’ from today’s lesson would be invaluable.

I was actually looking forward to the next lesson but it was not to be: the mother wanted her son to learn to swim with American English.

Taiwan culture: Smuggling into Taiwan I

2009-08-03T10:27:00.001+08:00

The stereotype of Taiwan is knock offs being smuggled into the west, but little known there is also a huge trade in luxury goods being smuggled the other way.

I found out when Pierre arrived back in Taipei - two weeks previously he had headed back to France bragging of yet another deal, this time a big import/export deal. It was so big apparently he had invested all his money and it necessitated the need to stay on my couch...again…Well, that is what Pierre said, and I didn’t listen anymore...

Now, he was back and, besides the two suitcases, he had three huge sport’s bags.

I helped him lug the bags up the four floors to my apartment, got a blast of aircon, and started to think about what was wrong.

“Must have paid a fortune in excess for all this shit?”I said then thought about it, and knew instinctively that he didn’t pay an extra cent. He had found a young Taiwanese girl in Charles de Gaulle and persuaded her to say his carry-on luggage was hers. When the air stewardess tried to stop him carrying so many bags onto the plane, he winked and said “I am bringing it for the lady. We French are gentlemen.”

Pierre opened the suitcases: “Shoes, blouses, skirts, and t-shirts. Never been shopping for women before. Now I am an expert. I cleaned out every small size in Paris.”

“This is your fuckin’ business. What happened to a container ship and customs?” We had thought that he was going to negotiate with wholesalers, and arrange shipment for his friend’s shop, not bring the stuff himself.

“This way works out cheaper. Don’t worry, everybody does it,” he replied. The cost of clothing from European brands was a minimum of twenty percent higher in Taiwan, and could be anything up to hundred percent, meaning things could be bought retail in France, and still sold at a healthy profit back here undercutting the official store who paid for the license. His friend, like many others, had a small boutique shop and made a good living based on getting on a plane to Europe 3 or 4 times a year.

There was one more suitcase on the floor. “You still got the bloody cover on this suitcase,” I said before starting to rip it off. As i did Pierre erupted in panic, diving across the suitcase to protect it like it was his own child getting beaten. “That is not mine. It costs two thousand US."

It seemed one of the most lucrative items was bags from the top designers: Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Chanel etc. The trade in these bags bought in Europe and then smuggled to Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan was now so large that the shops in Paris refused to sell to Asian customers unless they proved themselves to be genuinely wealthy. Pierre, being French, had no problem. He had handed over most of the bags to a contact a couple of streets down the road from the shop. The contact would then distribute them among air hostesses who could bring them into Asia easily.

This one suitcase was for one of his French students.

Pierre got out a pile of money and it appeared he had made enough to keep himself afloat for four or five months - although with Pierre you kind of guessed there was a catch somewhere.

'Let's go and get pissed,' he said.

I thought i would enjoy while the money lasted.

Taiwan culture: It is where you make love that counts!

2009-08-03T09:42:00.003+08:00

I know the "Only in X country’ is overworked crap in 99% of cases, but this story, where you make love, along with betel nut girls, had to be a genuine only in Taiwan.

It was Valentine’s day and a lonely girl had called me up to see what I was doing. I had no particular plan so an hour later we were in her car waiting in a queue of cars to get into a spanking new Love Hotel.

I suggested we could go back to mine, or maybe an older Love Hotel, where we could get in immediately, but apparently that wouldn’t be much fun: this place was a newly opened upmarket Love Hotel with special spider shape chairs in each room with straps, and she was paying so I had no choice. I liked the idea, but i didn’t like the idea of waiting in the car for another hour just to get in - It was a hot day and she was wearing a mini-skirt and vest and I was turned on now; call me old-fashioned but it was the prospect of getting her naked that was getting me excited, not the chance to go to the ‘In’ Love Hotel of the moment. But then again, I wasn’t Taiwanese!

"Shit," I said, before shrinking down in my chair. Outside a reporter was wandering about with a microphone and camera crew to cover this important breaking story.

Taiwan culture: A wolf in little red riding hoods clothing

2009-08-03T06:54:00.002+08:00

Doesn’t drink, smoke, has to home by six p.m, but doesn’t mind a three-some with you and your mates in the afternoon.

In Taiwan you can meet a lot of wolf in little red riding hood clothing type girls, who, if you judge them by usual standards of social norms you will be writing them off as virgins, religious cult members or nuns.

It can take alot of getting used to when you first arrive.

The girl behind the counter in Subway who made my sandwich was smiling as she collected my tray so I decided to test the water.

“Hello, what is your name?” I asked.

“Me? Oh, I am Jenny. Hmm…What is your name?”

As she replied, her back had straightened, and she had blurted out her answer, nervously, positively, like this was an exam.

“No, need to stand to attention,”I said. “Only Joking, I am Dan. Nice to meet you."

“Nice to meet you too… Oh…” I extended my hand to shake, and worked out a full meaty shake was not the done thing: we kind of touched thumbs on flat fingers and moved robotically, nervously up and down a few times.

“Hmm, where are you from?” she asked.

“England - So let’s cut to the chase,” I said because I was being driven wild by her innocent freshness as she continued to dip her head every few seconds, smile and cross her hands in front of her stomach. It was a weird feelings of corrupting innocence, something I had never had in England; presumably only pedophiles talk to girls of an age range that are still innocent. It was unusual to meet post-puberty girls who had such a fresh, positive attitude to life. The innocence was giving me goose pimples…It was also making me feel ashamed. “Would you like to go out for a drink some time?”

“You mean the bar?”

“Of course.”

“I am sorry. I don’t like the bar. Smoky. My father say I can't drink the alcohol.”

“Hmm, sorry, then I think I best be on my way.”I am replied hurrying for the door red-faced looking around to see if anyone was coming after me to beat me up for talking to the virgin.

A few weeks later i went back to this Subway.

“Why don’t you want to go out with me?” said the girl.

“You said you didn’t like bars?” I replied.

“Yes,” she said, and after about ten minutes it kind of dawned on me I should keep an open mind.

“Okay, what about tonight?” I asked.

“I am not allowed out in the evening,” she replied.

I stared at her as if to ask if she was trying to wind me up and things went silent for a minute.

“I finish in half an hour. You want to wait for me?” she asked.

“And, what are we going to do? Go shopping for pencil cases?”

“Hmm...Have some tea,” she replied.

I was now absolutely sure I was being wound up, and only a plonker would still be around in 20 minutes.

...I was watching her drink, leaning over her glass of cold green tea, elbows on lap, her hands nailed at the wrists while holding her straw with her two index fingers. I talked; she occasionally prised one hand from the side of her glass to cover her mouth while she laughed, before reattaching to clap or fiddle with her straw. Occasionally, she sat up, but mostly she stayed chin to the glass looking up at me sheepishly. I thought I saw signs, but then I also knew she didn’t drink, had to be home by six o’clock, and read cartoons. She also looked young of course – they all did – and that didn’t help, but the problem was more mental: I didn’t want to be anyone’s first love. I met girls in bars in Taiwan because I had been told the ones outside were traditional. A shotgun wedding was something I could do without. But it wasn’t just that: there was no atmosphere, no dirty talk; this was chatting up without the ‘up’, physical attraction without either force. Sex wasn't polite. I knew she was twenty-three, because I had made an excuse to see her I.D. card - but I still couldn’t help thinking I was going to wake up on the paedophile wing of a local jail smoking my own dick.

“Can I go, now?”I asked after about an hour exhausted by the debate going on in my head and starting to go dizzy from twisting my neck to look out the window every two seconds for those relatives.

“Hmm, okay,” she replied.

“What are you doing?” I asked as she had followed me a few paces behind and was now getting on the back of my scooter.

“You said ‘lets go.’”

“Look love, I don’t want to sit in the park and hold hands.” She slapped me on the shoulder and said, “Tao yen, tao yen, you foreigners are so direct.”

Tao yen meant hate – but not in a literal sense, more a oh don’t be stupid. A must word you will definitely learn if you ever date a Taiwanese girl.

“Hmm, let’s go to MTV,” she continued.

I had heard of MTV. MTV’s were like KTVs, huge building filled with hundreds of individual rooms with a TV and a sofa in each for you to relax and watch a film that was out on video. They were of course used by young people who couldn’t afford a hotel room. As I was living in the hostel with no privacy I was looking forward to the opportunity to be in a room with a comfortable sofa, and a chance to relax and watch a film.

We got out at the seventh floor, and searched among the racks of films. I let Hello Kitty choose, and so she picked ‘Pretty Woman’ and we headed into a room led by an assistant.

“Hmm, still a little sticky,” I joked to myself, but still relaxed myself down onto the huge leather sofa that went from one side of the room to the other. It was a long way down because the sofa was minus the legs; more like a sofa bed on the floor.

Two minutes later the assistant who brought us to the room was back with a glass of cold milk tea and a glass of lemon tea, and then we were alone, sat next to each other.

“Not seen the film before?” I asked her.

“Hmm, I see it many times,” she replied, looking at me sideways sucking on her glass of lemon tea. “…You want me to give you the blow job?”

“What do you think?” I replied.

“You don’t like me?”

“Please…Sorry….Yeah, I would love you to give me the blowjob…Come here.”

For the rest of the month we met regularly at the MTV or a Love Hotel until, one day, she asked me if it was possible to bring this another guy she had met for some tag team action, or one of my friends if I so wished.

It was then I had to admit those reservations, prejudices of behavior were wrong: not drinking, smoking, and wearing Hello Kitty didn’t have to equate with being an unhappy innocent being taken advantage of in the big bad world. She was repressed, boring – but absolutely not innocent.

But, anyway, I preferred the pickup with some physical interaction, so I decided to stay in the bar.

Taiwan culture: Shouldn't need to be said...

2009-07-30T09:28:00.004+08:00

Many things in our relationship with our family shouldn't need to be said. Taiwanese it seemed didn't have the same rules.

A friend was discussing with his twenty-eight year old girlfriend about life as a child. He said his parents would give him a hard smack if he was too naughty. He then asked her to the effect of what about you, would your parents hit you?

"Sure," she replied.

"It is really bad," he replied. "I would never hit my children."

Immediately she started to get stressed. The foreigner had kind of indirectly criticised her parents and that was unacceptable - She was Taiwanese and she didn't blame her parents for everything. She tried to put a positive spin on things, defend her parents. "Not anymore," she replied. "They don't hit me anymore."

Expat Culture in Taiwan: How to be authentic

2009-07-27T09:11:00.001+08:00

Most foreigners weren't in Taipei working for big banks in expat jobs, they had gone to Taiwan to: find themselves, or have a year or so out of the rat race - or pursue interests; in other words they were suffering from very high levels of needing to be authentic to themselves.

And, if you wanted to be authentic to yourself you had to get out of teaching whether you liked it or not: teaching was our immigrant job and 99% of people were English teachers.

We shouldn't be complaining too much: Chinese immigrants died building railways in the States, Filipinas have to clean floors and our old people; in the history of immigrant jobs English teacher has to about the cushiest number ever - but then again we weren't poor people trying to pay for a starving family but self-important, young middle-class westerners with degrees.

Unfortunately, because 99% of work for foreigners was teaching or editing the English language it was difficult to be authentic to yourself. Inevitably like the waitress in LA who was an actress, years later you would be telling people about your plan to get out of teaching.

The number one way to be authentic to yourself was to open a bar or restaurant. We foreigners went to all the western restaurants opened by the local Taiwanese and complained and criticised about something that wasn’t perfect – but wasn’t actually bad – they could, of course, do better. The number of foreigners who could open a better bar, restaurant or night club than the locals, stood as a higher percentage than the number of English men after eight pints who could do a better job than the England football manager.

Opening a restaurant wasn’t quite as cool as bar, but it was pretty much the next best thing you could do considering the independent, be your own boss lifestyle consciousness that dominated here. Opening a restaurant didn’t seem to hold the stereotypical position that opening a Chinese or Indian restaurant did for immigrants in England: the market was still new, and not so many foreigners had done it because we were outsiders, needing to get Taiwanese business partners and negotiate our way around government legislation and licenses; it involved a lot of hard work and risk.

The position of number one stereotype was given to opening a language school; everyone sniggered at these people – while they themselves were inevitably teaching English but telling themselves they were looking for something else. For example, after five years in Taipei when John had opened a school making lots of money, people would still ask him when he was going to start doing something he wanted. He would occasionally explode: "What the f...? I am not some stupid middle-class boy who criticizes the Taiwanese for having face problems all day but then has bigger ones of his own. Don't you understand the basics of life? - The pride of earning a wage to pay for a family and a nice sofa. To not being a loser having to drink beer from the 7/11 every night?"

John's comment had some truth. Inevitably if you wanted to show you weren't a real teacher you had to do several things that resulted in you not saving or having a lot of money:

1) Don't work too many hours a week.
2) Don't get promoted and actually improve as a teacher.
3) Don't stay at the same school for too long.
4) Have long breaks away in Thailand or somewhere that show how free spirited you are.
5) Don't get a work permit but fly to Hong Kong every two months to get a tourist visa and work illegally.
6) Spend lots of money on Chinese classes.
7) Apply, pay the fees, but never finish an online qualification from a university back home.
8) Sign up at a kung fu school and become quite good.
9) Try your hand at journalism and editing work which was still being employed for your English but paid extremely poorly compared to teaching.
10) Turn down all those opportunities to invest in or open a language school.
11) Tell yourself you want to keep your options open; you might be leaving soon, while secretly knowing you will never leave.

Of all the foreigners in our little group Pierre suffered worst from this.

Taiwan characters: Pierre and the immigration business I

2009-07-24T14:39:00.002+08:00

Pierre's next attempt at not being pigeon-holed as a teacher was an immigration business. And, like all his other attempts it hadn't fallen very far from the teaching tree.

“I ‘ave set up an immigration agency to advise on emigrating to or studying in France,” announced Pierre.

“What the fuck do you know about emigrating to France?” said John. Since he saved Pierre's life he felt the right to point out the obvious at every turn.

Josh still hadn't learnt to stop considering Pierre's plans. “Not a bad idea, man, but I think this is already a competitive market with sophisticated structures in place. You need to generate a lot of contacts in France. Meet some lawyers there. It is going to take a while and a lot of money to establish a credible brand name...But an interesting challenge, I think.”

‘Anyway!’ said Pierre dismissing Josh's help with an expression that said why do you have to couch business in such bullshit ways when it was simple. “I have already figured it all out. I already have a friend of mine going to all the other agencies, pretending to be interested in immigrating. Once I know the procedures and costs I under cut them. I cannot afford advertising, but I have my contacts at the French school and I will keep it small. Let the word of mouth of what I am doing spread. You know I don’t mind talking to people…You know what the real fuckin’ clincher is: I am really sending them to England, but going via France because it is easier to get in.”

“Sounds a bit like a foreigner job to me,” spat out John. After teacher it was a few small steps to agency for sending students to your country, and then helping Taiwanese emigrate. You weren’t even stretching the sides of the cultural straight jacket.

“Not at all," said Pierre. "Most companies in this industry are Taiwanese and I am not telling people I can do this, or you should work with because I am a foreigner. I go to them and say, “me being a foreigner offers you nothing, but I am offering you a better deal as a person. It is better for you to work with me.”

We all felt very sick for 10 minutes or so.

Taiwan history: Do we belong to China?

2009-07-24T14:16:00.002+08:00

Eric in his defense made attempts to know more about the history and culture of Taiwan than the locals. Hence his anger when they treated him like a dumb foreigner.

He was a big independence supporter and he spent all his time trying to convince us of the logic of Taiwan not belonging to China. Even when you were just relaxing in the bar.

“Man, I bought this book last week," said Eric and we all groaned knowing what was coming.

"You know it is bullshit that Taiwan has always been a part of China."

"You have told us that before," I said.

"I know," he replied. "But i didn't have the historical evidence to back me up before. Listen please."

"Do we have a choice?"

"Not really, man. Hey, you know, up until the 1600’s the island was populated by people of Malay and Polynesian descent, the aboriginals, then the Dutch took the island briefly, but were driven out by a small Ming dynasty army, which had fled the mainland because the Ming had been defeated by the Ching – much like Chiang Kai-Shek and the commies. The Ching came then to defeat the Ming, but did not occupy or annex Taiwan, because they were not really interested in the island, just getting rid of the remnants of the Ming. Over the next 200 years, Chinese from Fukkien province emigrated to Taiwan because of starvation. They weren’t sent by the Chinese government but had come seeking opportunities much like the Europeans going to the new world. And they inter-bred with the aboriginals.

In 1887 the China government formally declared Taiwan part of its territory for no other reason than they expected Japan to annex it, and they wanted to stop Japanese expansion. Eight years later they lost the Sino-Japanese war and signed Taiwan over to the Japanese forever. Up until then the Taiwanese had been living in a state of de-facto independence for 200 hundred years and, when they knew they were going to be given to the Japanese, they declared the Republic of Taiwan; so, for a long time they have had a sense of national identity.”

Josh: “And where did you get this information from? I don’t think from KMT or Chinese Communist Party sources.”

“Of course! You have to search hard for the suppressed truth,” said Eric.

“But they were whipped by the Japanese? – When they tried to declare independence,” said John.

“Brutally and swiftly! Yes, of course, but that is not the point. Taiwan was only ever a part of China for 8 years is the point. Josh, you are an immigrant, too. Your ancestors moved to a new land to give themselves a chance.”

“Didn’t the Taiwanese butcher the native population? I have no sympathy until they redress this injustice,” said Josh.

“Native populations get wiped out. Look at our own countries. Anyway, the government is trying to do something.”

“And I don’t live in Canada in protest. Next time tell us about what the government is doing for the aboriginals then we might listen to your claims of Taiwanese moral superiority,” continued Josh.

John and Pierre were realists but they nodded anyway because they knew it made Eric angry!

Expat Culture in Taiwan: Even the dogs are smarter

2009-07-24T13:51:00.002+08:00

Taiwanese don't drive well. It has got better over the years, but they are still guilty of not stopping at crossing etc. But that is just the way it is, put up with it or leave. Like all things in life weigh up the pros and cons and make a positive decision. Most westerners did but there were a thing people who just procrastinated in negativity. Eric was one. Even the dogs were smarter than Eric.

“Look, man even the friggin’ dogs have got more sense than you!” I shouted at Eric, as we crossed the road. On our inside for its own protection was one of thousands of stray dogs that wandered the city. It was a strange thing to get used to seeing, like some sort of super breed of street smart dog, these dogs had learned to use the pedestrian crossing and wait at the lights. In this case, the dog had spotted the car turning right selfishly and illegally cutting across the green man, and had stopped to let it go. Eric of course did not – one arm up, palm out, the other pointing to the green man, Moses-like – and also requiring divine intervention to succeed - he strode against the cars pouring across the crossing. The more mannered or aware would stop at his out stretched hand, but the rest would slam on their brakes and angrily spin the wheel of their car and attack another point in the crowd of pedestrians crossing the street. Anywhere else was fine because almost all the Taiwanese stopped and gave way to the cars. They knew how dangerous, reckless and selfish their fellow man was behind the wheel and they were not interested in arguing. Eric, armed only with his sense of right and wrong, felt that he was scoring little victories, but it was only a matter of time he stopped a group of young guys and then a hospital trip would be necessary.

I pulled him back determined it wasn't going to be when i was there.

Taiwan lifestyle: Going to the Filipino disco to get an Indonesian

2009-07-17T14:29:00.003+08:00

Sundays in Taiwan were usually a haze of hung over self-reflection and rest, starting at two or three in the afternoon – The disco in Taipei ended at eight in the morning meaning you were either there until the end desperately trying to pick up or you had done…Either way, you were getting up late – but this week was different. John had stayed in on the saturday night desperately trying to arrange a romantic date to offset the unnecessary loneliness from knowing he had been in Taiwan three years.

The date had back fired and now he was insisting we had to go with him to the Filipino disco on the Sunday afternoon.

“Come on, we are taking you to the Filipino disco to get an Indonesian,” said John.

If you hadn’t been successful on the Friday or Saturday, then there was still a chance on a Sunday. John had first discovered the Sunday afternoon Filipino disco concept by accident in Hong Kong a few years ago - After going to Neptunes in Wanchai at the normal time and taking a girl to a hotel, he had been racked by guilt and agreed to her request to meet her back at the same disco at three p.m. the following afternoon. The request to meet her inside bothered him, but he dismissed it as assuming she meant outside - both were unfamiliar to Hong Kong and language was a problem so why not choose a place they knew, he rationalized. It took a while to convince himself, but after standing outside for 20 minutes he accepted that the place was open, perhaps as a restaurant during the day – and besides it was hot on the street and he was getting a lot of strange stares so he decided to go down for ten minutes…It was not pleasant inside.

The Chinese girls like us in Taiwan, so he hadn't thought about whether the equivalent existed here. Then about a couple of months ago Matt (the whore accountant) had knocked on his door to inform him he had found a ‘great disco’ and ‘would he like to see what he had met there?’ “Amy, turn around once, please. Man, it like being with a whore again,” had said a proud Matt, a tear in his eye.

The disco was in the old part of town near the combat zone. We checked nobody we knew was around and then bolted down the stairs, before finding a table.

“It is a little lowlife,” said Eric for all of us. Our sensibilities were being assaulted by the sight of so many dark-skinned middle-aged women happily dancing away to Filipino techno music; women who you only normally saw in the street or in the park pushing 90 year-old pyjama-wearing Taiwanese people with drips and oxygen masks around in wheel chairs; worried faces for very good reason that their charge might croak at any minute and they would be blamed.

Just to clarify, said Eric. “On our part, that is! We are the lowlife.”

John spoke, “Boys, this is easy compared to Hong Kong. First time I went down those stairs out of the light and saw a packed disco of big fat old lairily grinning white foreigners in rugby shirts, dancing badly with the girls who were still there from the night before because they hadn’t scored yet, I had to summon all my reserves of scuzziness to hang around. Here there are not many foreigners - besides Matt of course. Give yourself a couple of minutes to get over the acute embarrassment and self-loathing at your own sadness and you should be able to get yourself something good.”

“Why is it the Filipino disco? Surely it should be the Indonesian disco,” asked Eric, hoping he could get a serious discussion topic going, and thus ignore where he was.

“Filipinos are the pioneers of the Sunday afternoon disco…” John started to explain.

His point was two-fold: all maids used to Filipino before, and, Filipinos are the blacks of Asia known for their laid back, outgoing nature and love of music and dance (a brief look at the traditional culture of surrounding countries and it is easy to see why) Because of this Filipinos have cornered the ‘Live Band’ market – in Shanghai, Hong Kong, all over Japan and in Taiwan pubs proudly display signs for ‘Filipino Live Band’, because it will bring in the punters like a picture of a blonde white guy outside your English school. Now, popular culture means everyone can sing and dance and the majority of maids are Indonesian because they are supposed to be more conservative, but “…still any shifting of the feet on the Lord’s day of rest in Asia will be affectionately referred to by its flipper heritage. Now, go and get something.”

Matt had just arrived with exactly what you would expect him to on his arm. “I have been with her for a while now. I like her,” mused Matt. That could have been the end, a sufficient reason for his going out with her, but once what he had considered what he had said his expression changed to I’m sorry, that is not a very good explanation and he felt compelled to continue, “She is low maintenance – only has Sunday off – she’ll clean my apartment and bring me food. If I come here with her, she’ll only want one drink…Oh, and I have to buy her a phone card once every two weeks. That is acceptable for a girlfriend I think?” He was genuinely concerned to get confirmation on the last part.

“So I am bored, give me today’s history lesson. I can see you have something to say, and I doubt it is a good joke you heard,” said John to Eric. He wasn’t going to go to the dance floor, because he knew we would disappear home at the first chance of seeing him not looking or busy. Eric always tried desperately to educate us all about Taiwan’s history.

“Man, I bought this book last week…You know it is bullshit that Taiwan has always been a part of China. A brief history goes like this. Up until the 1600’s the island was populated by people of Malay and Polynesian descent, the aboriginals, then the Dutch took the island briefly, but were driven out by a small Ming dynasty army, which had fled the mainland because the Ming had been defeated by the Ching – much like Chiang Kai-Shek and the commies. The Ching came then to defeat the Ming, but did not occupy or annex Taiwan, because they were not really interested in the island, just getting rid of the remnants of the Ming. Over the next 200 years, Chinese from Fukkien province emigrated to Taiwan because of starvation. They weren’t sent by the Chinese government but had come seeking opportunities much like the Europeans going to the new world. And they inter bred with the aboriginals.

Josh: “And where did you get this information from? I don’t think from KMT or Chinese Communist Party sources.”

“Of course! You have to search hard for the suppressed truth.” Perversely, Eric’s support for Taiwanese independence was as strong as his hatred of people who like to practice their English.

“But they were whipped by the Japanese? – When they tried to declare independence.” John only liked to deal in hard cynical facts.

“Brutally and swiftly! Yes, of course, but that is not the point, anyway…Taiwan was only ever a part of China for 8 years is the point. Josh, you are an immigrant, too. Your ancestors moved to a new land to give themselves a chance.”

“Didn’t the Taiwanese butcher the native population? I have no sympathy until they redress this injustice,” said Josh.

“Native populations get wiped out. Look at our own countries. Anyway, the government is trying to do something.”

“And I don’t live in Canada in protest. Next time tell us about what the government is doing for the aboriginals then we might listen to your claims of Taiwanese moral superiority.” John and Pierre were realists but they nodded anyway because they knew it made Eric angry!

I was feeling uneasy for another reason. There had been a sizeable earthquake a few week ago and the paranoia hadn't settled down yet. “I feel uncomfortable here – if the big one comes my soul ain’t gonna rest easy knowing my crushed body was dragged from the rubble of the Sunday Afternoon Flipper Disco,” I sighed. "I mean, presumably, getting dragged broken and bleeding from the night-time disco next to a girl in a mini wouldn't be fantastic, but at least i would be going out next to something young and hot. This...Hmm...Ah...This is just a little above being found in the ruins of a whorehouse.

“I ‘ave set up an immigration agency to advise on emigrating to, or studying in France. I know it will succeed! As a side business!” announced Pierre, with another business idea and not wanting to be left out.

“What the fuck do you know about emigrating to France?” John pointing out the obvious.

“Not a bad idea, man, but I think this is already a competitive market with sophisticated structures in place. You need to generate a lot of contacts in France. Meet some lawyers there. It is going to take a while and a lot of money to establish a credible brand name, but an interesting challenge.” John and Eric frowned having no idea why Josh bothered to consider Pierre's ideas.

‘Anyway!’ dismissed Pierre his expression asking John and Eric why Josh had to couch business in such bullshit ways when it was simple. “I have already figured it all out. I already have a friend of mine going to all the other agencies, pretending to be interested in immigrating. Once I know the procedures and costs I under cut them. I cannot afford advertising, but I have my contacts at the French school and I will keep it small. Let the word of mouth of what I am doing spread. You know I don’t mind talking to people…You know what the real fuckin’ clincher is – I am really sending them to England, but going via France because it is easier to get in.” Of course, nobody else had actually thought of this.

“Sounds a bit like a foreigner job to me,” spat out John who was in a bad mood. "After teacher it is a few small steps to agency for sending students to your country, and then helping Taiwanese emigrate. You aren't even stretching the sides of the cultural straight jacket."

“Not at all. Most companies in this industry are Taiwanese and I am not telling people I can do this, or you should work with because I am a foreigner. I go to them and say, “me being a foreigner offers you nothing, but I am offering you a better deal as a person. It is better for you to work with me.” Nauseated we all turned around to try and take our attention off, what Pierre said.

“You want to sit here?” said the pretty Filipino at the next table to John. There were still a few left in the Filipino disco.

“You are not with those guys?” he asked because they were large Africans.

“No, they are bastards. I hate Indians and Africans, coming here trying to pick us up. What do they think they are?" she said. "Hey. It is unusual to see white guys here. I bet you have a Taiwan girlfriend, don’t you? Why you like the Taiwan girl?”

Coming here hadn’t worked out how she had expected – her cousin had got married to an Australian she met in Hong Kong and she had expected something similar; she had been told Chinese girls didn’t like white men, but this was Taipei not Hong Kong. Everyday she did a shit, menial job for Taiwanese and then at the weekend, she had her 2^nd class status shoved in her face again, having to spend it getting hit on by huge Africans in white suits and sneakers who could dance or middle-aged married Indian businessmen who couldn’t. And, the worse of it all was she was a passionate colorful Filipino, so how could the westerners prefer dull Chinese girls?

"Don't worry, we invented most of the world's sports but we are crap at them now," said John.

"What?" she replied. Then going back to her original subject. “I always want to go Hong Kong.”

“There at least you could have been taken the piss out of and used by guys worth being exploited by eh?”

“What?”

“Nothing…Anyway, would you like to go to a hotel?”

Taiwan dating: Top 10 list of things to say and do to charm a Taiwanese girl

2009-07-17T13:37:00.002+08:00

John’s list of Top Ten Ways to be Romantic, Charm the Pants off a Taiwanese Girl and Get Her in the Mood:

1. Get here to take you to where she lived when she was young.

2. Get her to show you all her old schools.

3. Tell her repeatedly you bet she is a good daughter/friend/mother.

4. Ask to see any awards she received as a student.

5. Tell her you are sure she works extremely hard in school/for her company.

6. Ask her to show you where her company is.

7. Tell her she will make it to America to study one day – and she will thrive there.

8. Ask to see pictures of her family. When she says she isn’t carrying any, insist she brings some next time.

9. Show her pictures of yours, especially anything of child age that will get her broody.

10. Take them for coffee or to a bookshop, even better coffee in a bookshop.

Finally with her swooning and dreamy from having her Taiwanese buttons pressed, he would say: “You know you don’t really behave like a Taiwanese person” and she would get excited and ask “Why not?” and he would reply, “The things you like to do, I suppose. An attitude. You are more open and unpredictable. I don’t know.”

“John knew it was different, but he was used to it now. He didn’t mind being the teacher; it was kind of old-fashioned and sweet, igniting those me man, you woman instincts which were not exactly buried very deep anyway. And, most importantly, it kept his alcohol consumption down.

He stopped his scooter by the side of the road to pick up Phoebe. "So what would you like to do?"

"Hmm, no plan."

"Ok. Maybe, you can show me where you lived when you were young?"

Really...But it is in Taipei County. Quite far,” answered Phoebe.

"I am fine," said John.

She put on the helmet and got on the back of his scooter. “Maybe, we can also pass by my old elementary school. It is on the way.”

“I would love to. Let’s get going, it should be a long day…”

Work in Taiwan: My next computer job and really learning the ropes XII

2009-07-17T09:52:00.002+08:00

As the computer company got bigger ‘Town Hall’ meeting became more and more regular – A town hall meeting was basically a company meeting designed for the VP to go on and on. Today we were at the 4-hour point.

This one had been called for a specific reason related to us: marketing. The product marketing department had been expanded up to nearly twenty people, given the power to suggest product specifications and design - and there was dissent in the normally sleepy ranks of engineers.

We were getting attacked from all sides.

“How do we know what you propose is right?” Demanded Michael Su, head of Power. “You have a crystal ball?”

It is called market research, I thought.

“Yes. Why you ask us to implement these features? But you don’t even understand how to do it yourself!” Came another dissenting voice.

“Mickey, please go and answer,” said the VP William.

As it was the VP speaking Mickey had to go the front, but for a strange half minute or so, he had refused to get off his chair to defend his department.

Mickey spoke: “Um, well, you know…we have our methods of doing things, we don’t just decide on anything…Ah, I know you all have your area of expertise, and…Er, we do too, really…I’m sure.”

The above was delivered with all the conviction of the character in those soppy nonsensical movies who gets up to defend the company line, but then has the usual triumph of conscience – and confesses he has lied or been cynical, but not anymore.

No doubt he wanted to say: ‘I am sorry. I have tried to do marketing, I lied to myself and to you all that there was some purpose to it all, but not anymore. I am an engineer, proud to be one, and I hope you will forgive me.’ (Cue lots of guys in thick glasses self-consciously hugging each other then going off to get drunk, while swapping stories about reducing transistor size and power consumption on a circuit board).

Unfortunately, this wasn’t Hollywood and he wasn’t overflowing with a sense of being honest to himself. He sat down with nothing more to add.

Me and the colleagues were livid - “You fucking dumb ass sons of bitches - Do I question your professional expertise?” - was the minimum riposte required, not the bleat delivered.

“Okay everyone, calm down a little,” said the VP. He was enjoying being a referee – or perhaps his throat was hurting - “I know you are all not used to having product marketing interfering, but I want them to take control of new product planning. This is Taiwan, and I know almost no companies do this, but if we want to become a world leader then we have to do it this way…I know I always decided these things before, but we have a large product range now so I can’t do everything. They will report directly to me so I want you to give them a chance.”

“Was that an endorsement?” asked Bryant to me.

“I am not sure!” I replied.

Taiwanese and speaking English VI

2009-07-14T10:15:00.001+08:00

The street was filled with Taiwanese doing market research surveys, but they never wanted our foreign opinion...Until once, it seemed outside of Blockbusters my opinion mattered.

It was a painful experience as I spoke Chinese to the girls and they answered me in English. Then when she couldn't speak English she pushed the survey paper in my face, only to realize that i couldn't read that either, even though i protested to her that i probably could.

Finally, twenty minutes later, we finished the survey.

“How long have you been here?” said one of them.

“Five years!”

"Why do you stay so long?" they asked.

"I love Taiwan. I will live here forever."

“Why did you learn Chinese?”

“A misunderstanding! - I was under the impression we were in a Chinese speaking country.”

They all laughed heartily.

It was a great country, but...

Taiwan characters: Eric and studying Chinese X

2009-07-14T10:01:00.002+08:00

Eric's next move to improve his Chinese was to go to work in a Chinese medicine clinic.

There are really two main aspects to Chinese medicine: acupuncture and herbs. The area of herbs is much easier to understand because it is simply medicine. Before the invention of modern medicine doctors would prescribe medicines in the form of herbs. David Janner found a cure for small pox from mould. Everyone knows various cures have been found from plants and animals from the natural environment. Not to labor on about a stereotype but the Chinese civilization is the longest continuing civilization on the earth with a written language surviving for several thousand years, giving plenty of time for experimentation to take place, and therefore, a likely greater range of cures and treatments were likely to have been found.

At the start of 19^th century, western medicine diverged and great advancements were made through the understanding of the human body. Obsessively breaking it down, dissecting it, understanding how it worked and then believing you could give medicine or operate to repair certain parts, it largely dismissed the influence of the brain on the body because it didn’t understand it. Anything was dismissed as witchcraft that suggested the mind could affect the body. They could prove and show biological happenings and became set in their ways.

However, fairly recently, the fields of osteopathy, neurology, and psychiatry have emerged and western medicine has started working hard to tie them together, and is proving Chinese things that worked before to be right.

Chinese, from the start, believed strongly in a holistic approach – body and mind working together –and this was reflected in their methods:

Acupuncture argues the body has 12 meridians – lines around your body that are connected to the vital organs - and that acupuncturing on a certain one will do things that facilitate the repair of the body. The question is how will sticking a needle in my arm help to repair my liver etc? Well, it is very clear that the body does repair itself – when you get punched in the face, or kicked in the head your body detects it and, depending on how hard you were hit, begins to heal itself. Acupuncture is simply a way of facilitating the repair of the body by sending signals to the brain which release the appropriate hormone. In some cases this is simply speeding the process of release; in others unlocking things that wouldn’t get unlocked. Western doctors experiment with placebos and have shown that people who believe they are getting pills, actually repair their body faster. Sport we know releases hormones that make us feel better. As does massage. As do we aspect stress influences our health. In fact, are countless examples, in western culture of how manipulating the body can increase our well-being, acupuncture simply takes it many stages further. The second question is how to know which line affects which organ? Again the lines of meridian were found by exhaustive trial-and-error experimentation. Nobody has cut the body up and taken a picture of them, therefore, should we believe this. If one looks at heart attack – heart attacks send pain down the left side of the body; and thousands of years ago the Chinese decided that the heart meridian was on that side of the body and you would acupuncture on that arm to help with heart disease. Western neurologists have since shown that pain from the left arm and heart is felt at the same point in your brain, suggesting connection between the two.

Eric loved life at the moment. It was more than six months since he had wholeheartedly embraced John’s comments and found that a lot of the people were prepared to speak Chinese to him, and he had surrounded himself with them. In the mornings he did translation at home for the temple, and in the afternoon he worked at the clinic. He had his perfect job. He still wasn’t paid very much but that didn’t matter – he didn’t need a lot of money.

He was on the way to work near Tai-da, Taiwan’s best university.

“Excuse me,” said a girl with the clipboard.

He passed these girls with clipboards doing market research surveys every day. They ignored him. He had even offered his services countless times, but the racists didn’t want to know what he thought of their products. Not the girl in question directly, corrected Eric, but the market research firms and anyone involved in the conspiracy not to include Taiwan minority opinions.

Eric looked around to check nobody had seen him. “You want me?” said Eric. “Wow, I am actually late for work but this opportunity might not ever come along again.”

“So what car are you driving at the moment?” she asked as the first question.

“Oh, Toyota Corolla,” replied Eric laughing to himself because he didn’t have a car.

I am a foreigner here, most of us don’t have any money, he thought. He wanted to tell her that he had to have a resident permit to legally own a car, but he couldn’t because he was studying illegally in a clinic…because the racist government wouldn’t let anybody apart from Taiwanese practice in Taiwan.

“Sorry,” said Eric.

“Which of these have you considered buying…?”

Eric continued with the survey, but he was getting nervous as a small crowd had started to gather. He started to sweat.

“She ask you like the Germany or Japan car,” said one of the girls who had stopped looking desperately for a chance to practice her English.

“I know,” said Eric. “I didn’t answer because I was thinking about it not because I didn’t understand.”

He started to sweat now, because he knew that girl was going to intervene in English whenever she saw the slightest slither of opportunity. He hadn’t studied all the vocabulary for cars and that would give her an opportunity to translate, and then the crowd would all start speaking to him in English, and it would degenerate into one of those situations where he looked like the dumb foreigner who couldn’t cope in the society.

And it was all not true because I can read and write Chinese, and I work in a clinic, and as a translator, he wanted to shout.

He took a deep breath.

“You speak very good Chinese,” said a woman who just then arrived and was trying to be friendly.

“Thanks,” replied Eric not sure whether to be grateful or not.

“How long have you been here?”

“Five years!”

“Why did you learn Chinese?”

“A misunderstanding! - I was under the impression we were in a Chinese speaking country.”

They all laughed heartily.

I wasn’t fucking making a joke. I was being sarcastic.

“So why you come to Taiwan?”

“Study Chinese.”

Laughs all round.

“So what do you do?”

“I am a doctor of Chinese medicine.”

“Really?” said the one who wanted to practice her English.

“Yes,” said Eric. “What is your point?”

“Chinese character is very hard.” Eric looked around the circle of women thinking some of them were innocent. He didn’t want to give a bad impression of himself, but that girl needed to be told. He had taken a journey over the previous three years in Taiwan. He had shouted at people and missed his target several times. He had believed they were all out to exploit him. Now, going to the clinic everyday, and seeing the contrasts he was sure he didn’t have to keep his mouth shut. This girl was just being obnoxious. She wasn’t adding anything to the conversation by speaking English.

“I figured if Chinese people could learn them then so could I.”

“Even many Chinese people don’t understand?” she said.

“From my impression in these last three years there are many basic things that are capable to be picked up while a person is still in diapers that Chinese don’t understand. In particular you haven’t learnt some basics of human polite behavior…Oh, and am I used to it here? If you mean will I ever get used to idiots like you asking me the same questions everyday then – no.

“Right, I have to get a taxi. Come to the car with me and tell the driver where I want to go.”

Eric flagged down a taxi and jumped in the front.

“You can speak Chinese?” said the driver.

“Yes,” said Eric happily. “So where are you from in Taiwan?”

Eric told the guy he was American….He liked steak, and the family car was a Buick…He talked about how much money he earned…He was truthful that he found it hard adjusting to Taiwan, and that he had fucked up many times…He said he liked to go to the bar and pick up girls…And he agreed all the girls in the bar were whores - As were all white women…He understood that there was a big cultural difference so it was understandable he didn’t want his daughter to marry a foreigner…He had come to Taiwan to make money and to fuck Taiwanese girls…He agreed with every stereotype of foreigners. Why? - The guy was working-class.

He felt good. From now on the English-practisers were going to get told.