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wood
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 202
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 Posted: Sat Jul 31, 2004 10:13 am Post subject: |
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| Well, we both actually mean white foreigners, since dark-skinned foreigners don't fall under this rubric. |
Yep. That's what they mean when they say 'waiguoren' here, isn't it?
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| I don't know if foreigners are treated well here. Certainly, there is a widespread superficial deference to foreigners, and lots of guys get action here who would never get it in the States. |
Yep.
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| The bushiban system is kind of an exception to Taiwan in many ways, a little floating reality where foreigners are desired, where businesses are generally fronted, if not run by, females, and where English is spoken by all. It resembles Taiwan the way Friends resembles a real-life apartment of six marginally employed basket cases. Hence what goes on in Bushibans doesn't really reflect Taiwan until something goes wrong. So in that way, you're right. There is a group of foreigners who are relatively well treated (Chinese teacher pay is moving up, though. Some of my students make $500 an hour teaching English, close to native speaker pay). |
You're probably right about that. I've been living in the bushiban world, exclusively.
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| On the other hand, just wait until you work for a place that isn't part of this floating reality, like one of those universities where the foreigners all get canned because they are more popular than the local teachers. Or consider that we have to have medical exams every year to get the work permit, but our Taiwanese colleagues do not. Two years ago another department's chair and a teacher tried to get me to change a student's grade. They had taught her and could have changed their own grades for her, but then the black mark would have been on their record. So I was picked because I was the foreigner....There's lots of stuff like that going on. But then, we slime out of lots of committee work because we can't write Chinese. Perhaps it all comes out in the wash. |
You are clearly living in a different world from the one most of us bushiban teachers live in. Getting a medical exam is just a small hassle and I would even appreciate it if they actually examined us. They usually just get us through as quickly as possible and can't possibly say anything more substantial than whether we're breathing or not.
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| <shrug> My own experience is that a lot of people who think they are getting treated well are actually getting screwed, and aren't aware of it. All you can do is wait, until the scales fall from their eyes based on some experience they had. |
That may be true. However, there are a lot of people who are getting screwed who should probably be getting screwed a lot worse. There are people who bitch about trivial matters without considering how good they actually have it.
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| How is that different from when locals refer to us as 'nimen waiguoren'? |
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| There's no racist intent in that. I don't divide the world into two groups of "foreigners in Taiwan" and everyone else, unlike the Chinese, who maintain a strong Insider/Outsider dichotomy. |
MTurton[/quote]
I agree. To them, it seems perfectly natural to group people together. And I doubt most of them would be offended if you grouped them together unless they were particular about Taiwanese and Chinese usage in reference to them. |
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MTurton
Joined: 10 Mar 2004
Posts: 107
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| Posted: Sat Jul 31, 2004 1:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Getting a medical exam is just a small hassle and I would even appreciate it if they actually examined us. They usually just get us through as quickly as possible and can't possibly say anything more substantial than whether we're breathing or not. |
The issue isn't the level of hassle, but the existence of such a regulation at all for university degree holders from advanced countries. Taiwan is obviously unconcerned about disease, for Taiwanese who return from a sojourn in the States are not tested...so what's the reason?
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| That may be true. However, there are a lot of people who are getting screwed who should probably be getting screwed a lot worse. |
LOL. That's a very good point.
Vorkosigan |
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gregmgnz
Joined: 03 Jul 2004
Posts: 6
Location: new zealand
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| Posted: Sun Aug 01, 2004 12:19 am Post subject: racism? |
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Theirs a certain amount of cenophobia in every country...why worry about it, it's not likely that what you do or say will change the status quo!
Focus on the more positive aspects of hte culture otherwise youll just stress yourself out for no point! |
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wood
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 202
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| Posted: Sun Aug 01, 2004 5:55 am Post subject: Re: racism? |
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| gregmgnz wrote: |
Focus on the more positive aspects of hte culture otherwise youll just stress yourself out for no point! |
Good advice. |
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Rice Paddy Daddy
Joined: 11 Jul 2004
Posts: 425
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Sun Aug 01, 2004 12:37 pm Post subject: |
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| I don't divide the world into two groups of "foreigners in Taiwan" and everyone else, unlike the Chinese, who maintain a strong Insider/Outsider dichotomy. |
The Japanese and Koreans also divide the world into 'Us' and 'them' with
"Gaijin" and "Waygook."
I agree with many of Turton's comments.
In my view, this region of the world is extrememly xenophobic and ethnocentric and, as has been mentioned above, many of these societies seem quite open about it. |
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wood
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 202
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| Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2004 10:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Rice Paddy Daddy wrote: |
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| I don't divide the world into two groups of "foreigners in Taiwan" and everyone else, unlike the Chinese, who maintain a strong Insider/Outsider dichotomy. |
The Japanese and Koreans also divide the world into 'Us' and 'them' with
"Gaijin" and "Waygook."
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Unfortunately, there are many parts of the USA that do exactly the same thing. |
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Xenophobe
Joined: 11 Nov 2003
Posts: 163
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| Posted: Wed Aug 04, 2004 3:07 pm Post subject: Racism with Chinese characteristics |
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Racism and discrimination exists within every human heart, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. My family and I had some experience with it for the five years we lived in Kaohsiung. At worst it was more of an attitude that you aren't Chinese, how unfortunate for you. Really, more paternalistic than anything. We also observed and experienced it first hand in northern Canada where some of the local natives  , adults and children both, felt that they could make up for the abuses suffered by their previous generations by attacking the few non native children living within their community. |
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blackguy-n-Asia
Joined: 21 Apr 2004
Posts: 201
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| Posted: Fri Aug 06, 2004 5:31 pm Post subject: |
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Xenophobe- I can sympathize.
..but I believe the Taiwanese in particular to be very racist in terms of white/asian/black people. I've experienced alot of racism from the taiwanese community in particular in Canada (as opposed to other asian peoples). They don't seem to think its a bad thing to look down on 'bad blood' whereas the blond hair peoples they would kiss their arses just because they have blonde hair and lighter skin.
Is this racist? Yep. |
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Rice Paddy Daddy
Joined: 11 Jul 2004
Posts: 425
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Sat Aug 07, 2004 5:18 am Post subject: |
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Thailand
Japan
- exactly the same towards 'dark' skin. |
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ContemporaryDog
Joined: 21 May 2003
Posts: 1477
Location: Wuhan, China
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| Posted: Sat Aug 07, 2004 4:43 pm Post subject: |
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The Chinese may well be more racist in some ways, but you don't often hear of any waigorens getting beaten up for their views, do you?
if they want to superficially 'look down' on us waigos, so what?
Mrs Dog's parents weren't happy when they first found out about us, but they've got used to it.
South Asians in the UK are far, far more racist when it comes ot mixed race relationships, at least when it comes to their daughters, especially the Muslim Pakistanis and that's in the UK.
Let's face it, the Chinese make thes ecomments, but when did you last hear of a white guy and his chinese girlfriend having to elope because her family were threatening them with death?
The Chinese love Eurasians, they hire them for their adverts and use them as models. The 'racism' thing is superficial, really. |
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Xenophobe
Joined: 11 Nov 2003
Posts: 163
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| Posted: Sat Aug 07, 2004 6:36 pm Post subject: Pigmentation |
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| This Chinese obsession the shade of one's skin also extends to themselves. Quite frequently, I heard one Taiwanese refer to another as "Blackie" (no it was not always an Aboriginal or Hakaa) due to a difference in pigmentation. One of my students, a young girl, said that she drank lots of milk so that her skin would be white and then looked across at her classmate and best friend and said "you must drink lots of chocolate milk." The number of ads that are on Taiwanese radio and TV pushing SK2 products was unbelievable as well. As far as I was concerned it didn't give people a fair complexion, but a three days in the grave whiteness that Dracula himself would have been proud of. |
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blackguy-n-Asia
Joined: 21 Apr 2004
Posts: 201
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| Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2004 6:17 pm Post subject: |
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| I wonder what will happen in China at the Olympics......all of this nonsense about skin color and the treatment of minorities will come out. Will it make them look like Nazi Germany, 1936? |
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Aristotle
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Posts: 1388
Location: Taiwan
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| Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2004 4:51 am Post subject: |
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The issue isn't the level of hassle, but the existence of such a regulation at all for university degree holders from advanced countries. Taiwan is obviously unconcerned about disease, for Taiwanese who return from a sojourn in the States are not tested...so what's the reason?
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The reason is that hospitals make a very large profit from doing these test. These mandatory health test are not covered by NHIC so the income is off the books and the cost for the hospitals is subsidized by the government. The hospitals still charge nearly twice the price it cost locals to get the same test without insurance coverage.
Welcome to Taiwan,
A. |
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Rice Paddy Daddy
Joined: 11 Jul 2004
Posts: 425
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2004 7:51 am Post subject: |
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I've taught in other Asian countries and have never had to do a medical test for my work permits.
Taiwan is the only one I know of that requires it. |
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markholmes
Joined: 21 Jun 2004
Posts: 661
Location: Wengehua
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| Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2004 12:18 am Post subject: |
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| The issue isn't the level of hassle, but the existence of such a regulation at all for university degree holders from advanced countries. Taiwan is obviously unconcerned about disease, for Taiwanese who return from a sojourn in the States are not tested...so what's the reason? |
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I've taught in other Asian countries and have never had to do a medical test for my work permits.
Taiwan is the only one I know of that requires it. |
Its not unusual for an alien of a country to need a medical in order to qualify for a work permit. I'm English and applied for immigration to Canada whilst living in Taiwan. I needed to take a medical and to provide police reports from every country I have lived in (four at that time). My wife, being a Canadian returning home after 12 years didn't need any of this. Is this racist or just procedure?
Chinese and many Asians like white skin in a similar way to the way we like to bronze ourselves on the beach. We don't want to be black, just a colour that is perceived as being healthy. Chinese don't want to look as though they've been slaving away in a paddy field all day.
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| "you must drink lots of chocolate milk." |
A child of a friend once described another kid as being chocolate coloured. His mother was mortified. I thought it was a reasonable description, certainly closer than black (there are no truly black people in the world and there aren't any pure white people either). The child used the vocabulary that he had to describe what he saw.
AKATDN only posts here because he likes to wind people up. |
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