Job Discussion Forums

[har34476]

Hello there, everybody. First let me say thank you for all of those out there who keep writing posts...they've been extremely helpful to me. However, there are a few questions to which I haven't found answers. The questions are down below, but I need to tell a little history first. Sorry to make this post a bit long.

I spent 9 months total in mainland China. About 4 of these were in a small town (500,000 people, small for China) called Jinzhou, which had a very low number of foreigners. Another 2 months were spent in the more progressive city of Dalian, and the last 3 travelling throughout China. In all but the areas where foreigners were quite common (eg an almost daily sight, like in Beijing/Shanghai and touristy areas on Kunming, etc.), I was treated quite rudely by about 15% of the men, every single day. The women, in general, were generally pretty nice, and some were extremely helpful, as were a few of the men. But those rude men, the 15%, would do things such as staring at me for 5 minutes straight, even after I looked up and stared back at them, giving an exasperated look that said clearly that I didn't like being stared at. Even when I was looking STRAIGHT at them, they would often recruit others to stare at me, sometimes physically turning the heads of their wives/girlfriends to look at me after the girls refused to stare.

Other times, there would be packs of bored men who would follow me around as I was walking around, so they could mock me and laugh at my Chinese. Despite hearing me speak Chinese, they would talk about me in Chinese like I wasn't there. Any time I stopped to buy things on the streets these guys would be there.

These guys were also the ones who hopped the que, even if I was the ONLY person in line, and sometimes even where there were other lines with NOBODY in them. It was as if they did it specifically to be rude to the foreigner.

And, worst of all, there was "hello!". Every other country, it's generally a friendly word, but in China it was used to mock and insult. It was almost always yelled at me after the yeller was behind me (so that I couldn't see him), or from the windows of cars zipping by, or from across the street, or from packs of young guys. A lot of times, it was done to amuse friends or girlfriends, or to see if they could get the foreigner to react. Every single time I went out into public, this was yelled at me. On the streets, in restaurants, in the grocery store. EVERY SINGLE TIME. And it was rarely, rarely friendly.

Basically, it was as if I did not exist as a person. I was treated as a zoo animal that didn't have any feelings.

Now, there were nice people in China, really nice people. The thing is, these rude guys were more than enough to make me want to get out of China. I don't mean to write this just to complain about China, but I wrote it so that I could ask:

Would I get treated the same way in Taiwan? I know the answer is probably different for Taipei and for the smaller towns. If people are staring at you, that can be tolerated, but when you look up at them, do they stop staring? Do they scream things at you on the street? Do they seem to purposely choose you to be rude to? Are the people one of the worst things about the country?

One more thing too: I am a short guy, about 5 foot 6 inches (167 cm), and about 150 pounds (68 kilos), and I often went out alone. I noticed some of the rude stuff, especially the "hello"'s went way down in number when I was with others. Is Taiwan the same?

To those who respond, thank you very very much. I really, really appreciate it.

Nick

[markholmes]

[crespo]

This reply is a bit brief..sorry, but i'm in a rush. I think that these problems still exist in Taiwan. I lived in TAiwan for over a year and have been travelling around China now for about 4 months. In Taiwan, you are still treated like some animal in a zoo. It's really annoying, but I don't think they're doing it to be offensive, they're genuinely curious. You can expect a lot of fly-by 'hellos' too. There seems to be a lot of malice coming from young school boys directed at foreigners (especially boys)...I've asked a lot of people and surprisingly a lot of the answers seemed to do with girls...ie. they thought that westerners were "stealing" "their" girls.
I'm somewhat curious as to what will happen when i go back to TAiwan now as my Chinese has improved a great deal here in China. Back in Taiwan, many people would not take your Chinese seriously I found (but perhaps that was because my chinese was at a low level).

Usually, if you stare back at the starer, they will stop...though i've found this to be true in China as well. perhaps you've just had a bit of bad luck. In general, the people are friendly but do be prepared for a lot of giggling and, unfortunately, continued staring.

[sbettinson]

China and Taiwan are not the only places in the world where you can expect to attract attention as a foreigner. I spent 5 years in Africa and over that period, depending on where you were you would attract a lot of attention because you look different.

What you have to remember is that a lot of Western civilisations are multicultural and with the exception of the odd case of racial discrimination we are used to seeing people who are from a variety of backgrounds.

When it comes down to reacting to the attention you receive as a foreigner it comes down to your personality and how you feel at that moment in time that the attention is being give. From my own experience I quite like the attention most of the time but sometimes I feel like sticking the old middle finger up at them. Just humour them and get on with what you are doing. Most of them only know 1 or 2 words in English and they just want to use the chance to practice. If you are feeling cruel you could always laugh at their English (not recommended though!)

Last year I was in Beijing just after the SARS crisis so there were not many foregners kicking about so I received quite a lot of attention. I'm 6ft, have blue eyes and lightish coloured hair so to them I was either a monkey or some sort of Hollywood star to take photos of. The thing that annoyed me most about my time there was those individuals who talk to you wanting to practice their English and then try and get you to go to an art display and buy an overpriced Chinese scroll. I'm all for helping people with their language skills but it doesn't mean it has to cost me money!

Taiwan has similarities to China but in Taipei you can pretty much go about your day and nobody will bother you. I live in Taichung and get stared at quite a bit but if you just let them get on with their staring and maybe give an occasional smile and hello you might just help to change the perspective of some of the local people towards foreigners and ease the pressure on future foreigners.

Shaun

[Xenophobe]

This small town mentality exists everywhere you go. You'll find people like that in Canada, the US as well as China and India. The vast majority of people are nice and at worst see you as a curiosity. Stares and names can't hurt you, just ignore them.

[Taylor]

Good points, Shaun and Xenophobe!

My wife is from Taiwan. We took a trip to the midwest in July 2004. My favorite place was Abe Lincoln's hometown of Springfield, Illinois. It seemed to represent true Americana!!!

However, that is the ONE place where we felt like my wife received some strange looks because of her Asian appearance.

From how you described the "packs of bored men" following you in China....I can assure you that this won't happen in everyday life in Taiwan! I would consider the people to be one of the BEST things about Taiwan--at least in Kaohsiung city.

By the way, I am 5'7" so that helps me remain unnoticed. If you are about my height, it is interesting that you (feel like) you stand out so much.

Take care!

Taylor

[Aristotle]

[clark.w.griswald]

A resounding 'No'.

The Chinese in Taiwan are overall more educated in regards to such things, and foreigners are no longer a novelty here in Taiwan. In some of the more remote areas, you may get some second looks, but you won't have any of the staring that is so prevalent on the mainland.

I live in Taipei and I recall when I first arrived back in 1995 how few foreigners there were here. I lived in Tienmu (the area with the highest concentration of foreigners on the island at that time), and I could still travel all the way from there to the train station without seeing another foreigner. Now you can't walk a block in Taipei without seeing at least one or two fellow foreigners. Taipei is more like Hong Kong than that mainland in this regard. Country areas of Taiwan less so, but still not even as bad as Shanghai where the locals don't tend to look anymore, but the migrant workers will stare.

I recall when I was first here how on more than one occasion a taxi driver would see another foreigner on the street and would want to stop as he assumed that the two of us must be friends. I can only imagine what things were like before I arrived.

There is more acceptance and almost an expectation that foreigners will speak Chinese nowadays. I recall that only a few years ago many shop clerks would just stare at you in stunned silence, too afraid to speak in either Chinese or English as they were afraid that you would then answer and they wouldn't understand. When they could manage a word, they would often attempt to speak English even if the foreigner could speak Chinese. Nowadays I find that they treat us just like any other customer and speak freely in Chinese - which is good if you are able to speak Chinese, but could be a bit of a problem if you can't.

No matter which way you look at it, Taiwan and China are very different in this regard. If you don't like China for the reasons that you have outlined, then you are likely to find that Taiwan is a haven.

[har34476]

Thanks to everybody who responded, especially to those who gave their opinions on how I would be treated in Taiwan.

For those who only gave me advice on how to deal with the stares, etc., well, that wasn't what I was looking for, but I guess I appreciate the attempt to help anyway.

I guess I should explain that I have lived in 3 countries and travelled through 6 more. Of all of these, China was far and away, without a doubt, unarguably, definativly the rudest. It wasn't just staring out of curiosity (which I can understand and live with), it was staring to mock me--and then recruiting others to stare at and mock me as well, while totally aware that I knew what they were doing. It wasn't friendly hello's--it was specifically an attempt to antagonize, specifically because I was not Chinese. It wasn't just a curious onlooker--it was a pack of onlookers who would follow me specifically to mock me. And it was these things every day, day in and day out. EVERY day.

Yes, there will be rude people everywhere in the world, and I can deal with these people. But the proportion of rude people to polite people, and just how rude those rude people are-- that is far different from country to country. And in that, China went far, far, far beyond the "small town mentality that exists everywhere you go." If you haven't lived and worked there, or even if you just travelled through the tourist areas there, it might be hard to understand the scope of it, and it might be easy to see me as being anal or intolerant. But, trust me, it was horrible.

And the point of my writing all that about China in the first place was so that I could ask if Taiwan was just as bad, or a place that was a little more tolerant and a little less ignorant. I can deal with some jerks, and I know they exist everywhere, including my home country. But my questions were about exactly how bad the jerks were in Taiwan. So, again, thank you to all of you for answering those questions. There's nowhere else I could get that info.

And if anyone else has an opinion about the good/bad things of the Taiwanese folks, please write it in! I hope this post didn't come off as being sharp.

Nick

[markholmes]

[har34476]

Mark, your analogy hits it right on the nose. In China, I was looked at simply as a chimpanzee in the zoo (as a matter of fact, I went to the zoo once in China, and I was more of an attraction than the animals, but that is neither here nor there.) In a nutshell, and like you agreed on before, many foreigners in China are treated as animals that do not have feelings, as something not equal to a person. Whether you want to call that mocking or something else...well, I guess what matters is that I don't want to be treated like an animal again. I could not bear returning to somewhere like that.

Which is why I am just grateful that the folks in Taiwan are not like that. I know some will be rude, of course, but there are rude people at home too. As long as it is not on a scale near that of China's, I will be happy. So your input helps me to breathe a bit easier about my plans to go to Taiwan. Thanks again!

Nick