Job Discussion Forums

StayingPower · Joined: 18 Aug 2006 Posts: 252

Does anyone here feel like they're losing their ideals? Or am I the only one? These ideals may be values, standards, your character, health and fitness, or whatever you used to believe in and stand for.

I feel mine melding into a sort of mass-mindedness mentality. Aestheticsm, or the admiration of beauty, seems to be going by the wayside. I feel like a pig wallowing in the mire. Mud and rain surround me, I sleep in my clothes to escape the cold, and feel housedust clinging to my very clothes. So much for cleanliness next to. . .

What's worse, however, is my character. The other week a black man came to interview for the same job position I was offered. I vacillated about taking the position until he had his chance. The school didn't hire him. They hired me a week later, he and I both having the same credentials and of course, English speaking ability.

If I were back home, I wouldn't have taken the position. I would've even have reported them. But this isn't all.

I feel the ideals I clung to, like individual effort and self-achievement, and the ability to be someone, ie., namely yourself, going by the wayside. Neither can I find it as natural to stand up for right and wrong, like yours, and others', rights. Your character is constantly called into play at the job place, honesty and being honest are lacking, and a sort of web of deception seems to creep in in all avenues of life here.

I think deception, and living amidst deception, could be the culprit. Without trust people usually lose a sense of value and well-being. Morals and character become effete, your character confused, and your sense of self-identity, just like that black man. You haven't any individual worth, or the ability to stand up for your ideals.

MomCat · Joined: 02 Dec 2004 Posts: 297

Nope, not a problem. All my standards, values, morals are still with me. I have, on the other hand, gained a greater understanding of other cultures (the ones I've lived in), and a tremendous amount of knowledge about Asia in general.

BTW, I have a "black" friend who has been in Taiwan for 16 years and, I assure you, he has lost none of his self-identity.

Also, I have a HEATER in my apartment and stay warm and toasty all winter long. My cats even have their own heating pad. There is surely no reason to be cold.

I hope you find your moral compass. There are services here that might help you get through this time: www.community.com.tw

Cat

Ki · Joined: 23 Jul 2004 Posts: 475

Wow. And you haven't even begun to talk about the dating scene here. It sounds like a depressing winter you're having. Your character will be fine enough. Don't worry that you were hired for your job simply because you are white. That is how the whole industry thrives here. I've lost similar jobs to Canadians with a thick French accent because I don't have that North American passport.

Taylor · Joined: 24 Oct 2003 Posts: 384 Location: Texas/Taiwan

Funny thing.... My dad missed out on promotions (during the 1970's) within the police department of a major US city because he was too white!!! Incredible world isn't it?

Taylor

StayingPower · Joined: 18 Aug 2006 Posts: 252

This was really all just food for thought, maybe self-introspection etc. It's easy to see things in a simplistic sense here if you have a religious inkling for Christian values, which I do.

As for keeping warm, buying a heater, not losing your values, gaining knowledge of other cultures, etc., do you not feel that you had to sacrifice some of your values in order to say, pay for that electric bill(surely your co-workers won't pay it,) squeeze in to a one room apt (unless you want to warm six bedrooms and three floors, like I do;) suffer from possible dry throat and lack of humidity, thereby sleeping like you're in an attic; and forget that, learning another culture can be done just as well via discovery channel instead of the fast-play motion of a scooter in a tin-canned-alley-cluttered city with deep caves of shining, serendipitous street shrines illuminating your eyes to bow to and know deeper?

Is there something more universally cultural? Are there universals? Can we say there are absolutes? Do I have to learn others' values in order to know these?

But this is religion. How does this break down to you and me? Why am I afraid of losing my values?

Who's not found it in the culture here to lie and deceive? Who's not had to lie to a parent at some schools here in order to boost enrollment? Who's not had to work illegally? Who hasn't had to shaft the other foreigner who'd been disliked by the school, probably because he or she wasn't bringing in any revenue?

How about getting paid 60,000 without paying taxes because you knew the employer'd only reported you earning under 30,000? What about the fact that in all walks of life here it's considered a sort of status symbol to see how much you can deceive the government? Should I go back and study Confucianism and Buddhism again to know that family comes first, that karma and darhma have any bearing on the cultural norms here, thereby leaving out social norms that make for a learned, and enlightened, society?

Sure, I want to learn more. Tell me a book. Or is there none? Surely you learn as you go here, and the little you do depends on whether or not you accept, or reject, the values you find more erroneous, like finding a puppy strangling to death and tied to a tree, yet knowing that if you let it go and save it it'll only make things worse for both it and yourself? So what decision would you make if you were back home?

I saved it, and my sense of animal rights that I'd learned are of human concern, to some. Or should I've accepted this cultural norm, one that's now under fire with a law soon to be enacted called 'Animal Anti-cruelty?' Would I then really have learned what this culture is all about?

As for "the black man losing his identity," I meant, 'he never had one in the first place.' But I'm glad one's been here for 16 years. Then this has nothing to do with my whiteness of 1 1/2 years of just meeting one.

773 · Joined: 29 May 2005 Posts: 213

S.Power, yes, Taiwan can affect some of us in the way you describe. I was one of them too.

I always saw the place as a good cultural learning opportunity, but the more I learned the more I began to distrust and become aware of just how horrible some humans can be.

The worship of money and the view of lying as normal really ate away at me after living amongst the Taiwanese for so many years. Taiwan became like a cancer in my mind and it was slowly eroding away at my happiness. When I finally opened my eyes to that, I made the instant decision to make preparations to leave. I gave my boss my notice the next day and my husband and I started making plans to move on. It was the best thing we ever did, and I felt like I became myself again right after leaving.

I would suggest to you to plan on getting out and to stop prolonging unhappiness that can most likely be cured by simply leaving. Get out of your comfort zone there and move on! There is so much more out there. Cool

Taylor · Joined: 24 Oct 2003 Posts: 384 Location: Texas/Taiwan

But you gotta admit that leaving Taiwan with 10,000 USD that you've wired back to your home bank account could have its benefits.....

Taylor

773 · Joined: 29 May 2005 Posts: 213

jotham · Joined: 05 Jul 2007 Posts: 77

I came to Taiwan full of trust and naive concerning legal issues. Year by year, I had to smarten up, solidify my stand on principles, and acquaint myself with the importance for doing so. When you follow the crowd down the wrong road, it may seem temporarily convenient and unobtrusive to most people, on the surface � but when you take a stand for right, it'll increase your maturity and character and advance your ideals in the long term; you just have to wait it out. One who takes the right road is more powerful and influential than the hundreds taking the wrong road. Take a stand and influence your environment. Taiwan needs such influence, I know.

MomCat · Joined: 02 Dec 2004 Posts: 297

pest2 · Joined: 28 Oct 2006 Posts: 170

Staying power is right about having to adjust your value-based actions. Maybe your values can remain somehow intact within your structure of moral reasoning, but sometimes you have to force your actions to contradict those values just to survive.

The lying is a good example.. I know one teacher here who had a student who told him he was a great teacher and doing everything right. That same student turned around the next day and told the school the teacher was bad... If you simply assume people in Taiwan (and Korea and China, too; the shame culture makes it so) are usually telling the truth, you are setting yourself up for trouble.

It's better to play their game. If, for example, your school were to lie to you repeatedly about various things and at the same time ask you to kindly give notice 2 weeks before you quit so they can find a replacement for you, wouldnt it be 1) much better for you to not tell them at all and run immediately after you got paid that month for you since you can't trust them to pay you or not cancel your ARC and 2) justice in the sense of retribution since they have already treated you that way?

Another example: I know a teacher here in Hsinchu whose hot water heater broke in his apartment. He had to take cold showers. He asked the landlord to fix it. The landlord said, "Oh, in Taiwan, we dont take hot showers". The teacher was shocked at this... We suggested he first try going to the landlord's house to take a shower until the landlord fixed the heater and then, failing that, start breaking stuff in the apartment in excess of what he paid for the deposit (the TV, washer, etc etc one by one, then calling landlord to say, "for some reason, the TV broke, sorry") and then finding a new place... Of course, he said, "no, that's wrong, I won't to those things".. but you're in Asia, better re-adjust your actions to comply with their ways.

Personally, I DO believe there is like one morally right way to be, one maxim to live by, one categorical imperative to study... we are just individual people living in a dog-eat-dog place like Asia. If you attempt to take the moral high road, you will simply find yourself headed back to your own country soon. You can either take the moral high road and then fast road back to your own country, or play by their rules... Or you can wait about 100 years for their societies to depart from the cultural stone ages and catch up closer to the world ideal...

jotham · Joined: 05 Jul 2007 Posts: 77

Miyazaki · Joined: 12 Jul 2005 Posts: 635 Location: My Father's Yacht

Ki · Joined: 23 Jul 2004 Posts: 475

I feel quite normal now dealing with Taiwanese managers and girls who only play games. But perhaps the three most morally corrupt people I have known in Taiwan were all American men (black, white and hispanic). At least two of them were like that before they got here though.

BJ · Joined: 03 Dec 2003 Posts: 173

Nods Ki, a lot of the dregs I have met here were westerners, but then again a lot of the people I talk to or places I go are mainly western.
All in all people are the same country to country, some good some not so, some down right bad.
Morals are the same some people are moral others not, moral norms do differ culture to culture, what is normal and corrcet in one country may not be in another.
As me Pa used to say to me, "there's nowt stranger than folk"