Taiwanese/American cultural differences

My recent post have been kind of negative, but rest assured, dear reader, I still like Taiwan.  It’s just that I’m still in the “negotiation” phase of culture shock, which means a lot of the stuff I got a kick out of initially seems normal (beautiful plants, low priced lots of things) and a lot of other stuff I thought I understood about the world is kicked upside down, which is irritating.

With this great adventure (as people I know who are not me and are not here like to think of it), comes 98% normal, everyday, going-to-work/the store/to sleep-ocity.  I’m too poor to jet off to the Philippines or Thailand (or Hualien, for that matter).  So life is normal, but with more beautiful plants and much nicer weather (it’s January and 78 degrees out).

So now with the long “why I’m so bitchy” preamble out of the way, here are some cultural differences that will rub Americans and possibly other western expats the wrong way.

1. Gossip.  Gossip is universal, so what makes Taiwanese gossip somehow worse?  They don’t bother to pretend they aren’t gossiping about you, which is awkward.  We’ve all been grist for the gossip mill, but where I come from, people know not to just blurt out that your misdeeds or secrets are the most fascinating thing about you.  I’ve faked surprise over news I already knew many times in order to give my friends and acquaintances the impression of privacy.

A couple of weeks ago, I ran into a man I met once before, and one of the first things he mentioned was hearing that I left my job and was being kicked out of my apartment in ignominy (ignominy because I took the high road and did not trash my land lady or tell everyone her studio is haunted, something I was severely tempted to do) in front of his wife and daughter, who I had just met a few seconds ago.  That is uncomfortable!  In my forthcoming book (not really) “How to Deal with Americans in the Workplace”, one of the cardinal rules is to never ever let an American know that he or she is being talked about.  We hate that. Fortunately, I had my Berkeley shirt on, so I could do a counter move of evoking my superior education and that the job I left my old job for is teaching college, so if I had face (not sure whiteys have face here), I would have saved some of it.

2. The Taiwanese Yes.  This isn’t unique to Taiwan by any means, but is common throughout east Asia.  The East Asian version of “Inshallah” but even more confusing; the Taiwanese yes means “I don’t want to hurt your feelings and lose face by appearing uncooperative, so I’m going to say yes, when I have no intention of following through and can and will change my mind if and when I choose.”  We all say yes when we mean no, or at least I assume we do, but you don’t consider how culturally conditioned the circumstances of this practice actually are until dealing with a surprise yes-no on an issue where you considered clarity important.  In the States, this is limited largely to vague future social plans or other low stakes ventures.

3. Personal responsibility for mistakes.  Thus far, none of the Taiwanese people I’ve met in positions of authority have admitted to an error.  In the U.S. it’s part of professional culture to own mistakes, especially small, understandable ones with an “I’m sorry, won’t happen again.”  Pointing out another’s error here (I’m guessing) causes him (in my case it’s men) to lose face.  In the States, you gain face from taking responsibility for your errors.  To do so implies you are aware of what went wrong and have the power to prevent it in the future.  Here, that just isn’t the attitude.

After a series of inquiries into who let me walk into class with half of my students gone on a field trip with no forewarning, the misdeed was traced straight to the director of academics.  When I asked my co-teacher to ask him to make sure we know about major schedule changes, his response instead of “Sure, no problem” was “It doesn’t happen very often.”  To American ears, that is the wrong answer.  I really want to explain to these men how immature it makes them seem to us.  Denying wrong-doing is teenager territory.

4. Comments about appearance/age.  This one can be very nice, but even in its nicest manifestations, it feels weird.  I am told that I am beautiful by Taiwanese women and children, which is very nice.  I’ve got the Snow White coloring they like and my white (not Caucasian, super pale Caucasian) skin is considered attractive.  But after a while, it’s weird to have people comment on your looks.  I’ve had a friend of mine who is big get asked insensitive questions about how much she eats, etc.  Not cool (and debatably cool in Taiwanese culture, we have reason to believe the perps knew they were being rude). Now being told that one is beautiful by strangers doesn’t sound like a legit woe, but it does go hand in hand with comments about how long in the tooth I am.  35 and single?  “That is a bummer”, announced most of the Taiwanese ladies in their 50s or older I’ve met.  I don’t consider my age a big problem, although my sentiments on being single have been explored in other posts.

5. Money questions.  The last one for this entry– people will ask you how much you make, how much you pay in rent, how much you paid for that.  It is jarring.  And it’s not in the “I hate to be rude, but do you mean telling me what you rent is?” way we cringe around the subject just in case we’re trying to get an idea of how much to budget for whatever item you have that we might want to purchase.  You don’t get the sense that people are asking because they want to know what salary to ask for at their next job or how much a place in that neighborhood goes.  It’s just idle curiosity.

My admittedly brief training in anthropology leads me to believe all of these practices evolved for good reasons.  The practices that seem weirdest in the world have reasonable rationales when explained by my ethnography books in college.  As I spend time here, I will learn what function these practices hold.

crying-white-lady.jpg

Leaving Beigang and quitting a job in a Taiwanese public school

I found a job teaching college and so I will be leaving my teaching job in Beigang/Shuilin and moving to the big city.  I will follow up with a best of Beigang post just so that the handful of people who make it there know where to eat/get their hair washed/find a dance studio.  Basically, I’ll give you the info I wish I had when I got there.

Beigang was nice, but it was difficult living there as a single expat.  There just aren’t many other expats or that much to do.  I also got kicked out of my place.  Here’s what I think happened.

I was supposed to teach ballet classes in exchange for rent, but there was confusion from the start.  I’m a belly dancer, not a ballet dancer; a critical difference.  I did bail on my end of the bargain, and was refused my offers to pay rent.  I did hold up my end in terms of tutoring my land lady’s kids, but she wasn’t that interested in that part.

What really sucks about the above is that finding an apartment in Beigang is this side of impossible.  One pretty gnarly place was trotted out, and that was my only choice.  Thankfully the job in Taichung, where apartments are more plentiful, popped up.  And the apartment I found here is nicer than any I’ve seen in Beigang.

My apartment is cool

Here are two cultural differences that were highlighted in my varied exoduses.

Firstly, the Taiwanese yes. “Yes, you can move in.  Yes, it’s ok that you aren’t a ballerina.  Oh wait, I wasn’t allowed to rent you the space and I thought you were only staying a month.  You have to move out.”  This was the dialogue about my apartment.  I’m still perplexed about who was lying, but someone was in order to save face.  The man who found me the apartment either forgot to tell my then future land lady that I was planning to stay for more than a month (I had 8 months left on my contract) or that I was a teacher at his wife’s school (implying a stay of longer than a month), or my former land lady really did rent me a space she had no authority to rent, which is weird.  I’ll say this; someone was very careless/thoughtless because as previously mentioned, finding apartments in Yunlin county take connections.  I worried that I had offended or been somehow wanting as a tenant.

I heard through the gossip mill (which is prevalent in rural anywhere) that the land lady was pissed about the ballet classes.  Well, I tried to make amends, so life goes on.

My leaving the school was another cultural difference.  To quit, you need to give 30 days.  That’s just a heads up to the five of you reading this.  Your boss has to “let” you quit, which is jarring to an American. My bosses and recruiter (Teach Taiwan) initially told me they could have me deported (they can’t).  Slowly we moved from “We can have you deported” to “We’ll let you go after 3 weeks and you get your full pay, but you won’t get your termination documentation for two weeks, so your new job won’t be able to pay you on time.”  I considered that to be as good as could be expected.

So now to new adventures in Taichung.

HSBC in Chiayi– it no longer exists.

I have a plan to figure out how to send money home for free (it currently costs $12 and is kind of a hassle).  Again, this is a Yunlin County problem, my fellow Weigouren in Tapei, Hsinchu, Taichung, and Kaohsiung (possibly Tainan, don’t feel like looking it up) who have access to all modern conveniences are probably mystified that this is a problem.

I have been told that HSBC has an English website and that you can move money from linked accounts for free or a nominal fee.  So I used my banking hours to go and set up an account at the Chiayi branch.

The Chiayi branch no longer exists.  They have not updated the website, but I have verified this with my eyes and feet.  So I will have to try again next month at one of the Taichung branches.  Once I have done that, I will fill you in on how it went.

These shoes I got at the night market for 200 NT are not standing in front of Chiayi HSBC.

Ugly Americans

This post is actually in defense of us.  Many many Taiwanese people are kind, friendly, and welcoming.  There are those who resent expat teachers.  I have my own experience, and I have seen sentiments posted on other blogs.  The people who I would like to see this probably never will, but I feel like putting it out there anyway.

I work for a public elementary school, and there are lots of little marks of disrespect and distrust from our employers.  It’s subtle, but real.  We are denied use of facilities (not for private Weigouren-only orgies, but for teaching our Taiwanese students).  We are almost always in the dark about schedule changes until the last minute.  I am personally given very little support for classroom management issues.

When we try to get a situation fixed (like getting more than one usable printer/computer combo in an office designed to support 20 teachers) we get no results, yet are later told in a meeting that we need to communicate our needs.  There are a lot of disheartening and discouraging cultural misunderstandings.  Here in Yunlin County, the onus is more or less entirely on us to bridge the cultural gap.  To some extent that’s fair, we’re guests in someone else’s home.

But the guest in someone else’s home analogy only goes so far, because we are not just lounging around being entertained; we work.  We pay taxes.  We spend money locally.  I was looking at some comments on a post about a Canadian who got busted for dealing pot.  The westerners who commented had a less serious attitude about the infraction– the man wasn’t Pablo Escobar.  One of the Asian posters in particular went on a rant about dirty, scumbag westerners cashing in on Taiwan merely for doing something they could easily do– speak their native language.

Well, there is that.  Models get paid for being really beautiful; they had the good luck of having hit the genetic lottery.  We get paid for having hit the born-in-an-Anglophone-country lottery.  They also get paid for not eating and standing in freezing weather wearing bathing suits.  We get paid in part for leaving everyone we know and giving up the comforts of home.  In both examples, one could say “well if you don’t like it, no one forced you, don’t do it.”  Well, sure, but like models, we’re supplying a service that someone wants to pay for, and if people didn’t pay other people to teach English in Taiwan, there wouldn’t be enough people willing to do it.  The “if you don’t like it, no one forced you to do it” argument can be applied to every person ever in the history of mankind who had any complaint about his or her job ever.

Additionally, we do actually work.  It’s not like we just show up and shoot the breeze with our students.  Is finding lots of songs about the days of the week the world’s most difficult or taxing problem to solve?  No.  Do I have to do whether I feel like it or not?  Yes.  Would I do it for free?  No.  So it’s work.  I also had to earn at least one college degree to get this job, and in point of fact, have two and many years’ teaching experience.  So no, I’m not here draining Taiwan of its resources doing work that a Taiwanese person could do just as well.  I have never met a Taiwanese person who can speak English better than me, and I’d bet the ranch that they are rare on the ground if they do exist, assuming they would want to teach ESL to children.

Now I’m not going to lie, we do have it easier than our Taiwanese counterparts in a lot of ways.  Most of us don’t really speak Mandarin well or at all, and living in Yunlin County, very few people speak English, so it’s harder to drag us into weird work place politics and it’s harder to use the subtle shaming and hinting that is used a social discipline when everyone is from the same culture.  I think we make more, but we also aren’t on track for a pension, so I’m not sure how the finances fall out.

Here’s where our Taiwanese counterparts (especially in rural places like Yunlin County) have a distinct advantage– they know how to get shit done. This goes beyond just knowing the language.  I was talking to one of my Taiwanese co-teachers, who is very sophisticated and earned her master’s degree at a UK university, and asking her where I could find someone to move all the boxes out of my kitchen (my land lady never got around to clearing them out).  She thought for a minute and said “I don’t know, I guess I’d just ask my friends for help.”  I have some friends.  I have three friends.  They aren’t going to help me move boxes.  I wanted to find a paint store in Beigang.  There’s no Yelp; most businesses aren’t online.  To get anything, you have to find someone in the know and hope that they are willing to fill you in.  Do they withhold information to be evil?  No, they just forget to find out; it’s not their problem, so it easily slips their mind.  We all understand that, but if you’re the person in need, it gets frustrating.  The language barrier issue doesn’t even kick in until several steps into the problem solving process.

Westerners in my demographic are not used to relying on networks of friends and family past a certain age, and even if we were, how long does it take to generate those?  I belong to the nomadic middle class, where we move for the job and have to start from scratch in a new place periodically.  Obviously I’m not alone, because America is quite well set-up to cater to our needs.  Rural Taiwan (and probably rural many places) is simply not oriented the same way.  I’m not really attacking my Taiwanese acquaintances for being unhelpful; they have their own lives to run.  But in a place like Yunlin, where very few people spend any amount of time overseas, virtually no one recognizes how problematic and stressful that is for us.

So if there were one thing I would want my bosses and coworkers to really understand, it’s what it’s like to be stymied for weeks over the problem of how to get a bunch of boxes out of your kitchen, or how to figure out how to get a flat pack futon up three flights of stairs.  I’ve been asking around for a general handy man for three weeks now and I’m no closer to finding one than when I started.  Unlike Midwestern America, there aren’t Taiwanese teens around looking for pocket money doing odd jobs.  I will continue to work on this problem, and so far, the times when I have solved a problem it has been through word of mouth and asking around.  If you are shy or have a hang-up about asking for help (that would be me), you will have some moments of discomfort here.  That’s why so many expats cluster around cities; they form networks of their own, which are useful for day-to-day living.

With-the-Wind-Ear guarding Beigang

Matsu’s Guardian Demons in Beigang

Thousand-mile Eye and With-the-Wind-Ear are the demon sidekicks of sea goddess Matsu, who has many adherents in Taiwan. Apparently the both fell in love with her, and she told them that she would marry which ever one defeated her in battle. She prevailed over both of them, and the three became friends. These two guard the bridge in Beigang and light up at night. Chaotian Temple in Beigang is one of the oldest Matsu Temples in Taiwan.

Giving quizzes, assigning presentations, and the chill-out bottle

I’m new to ESL primary school teaching, so I have insights or “ahah!” moments that might seem super obvious.  I’m going to share them anyway in case they help someone.

My job is to specialize in spoken English.  I’m the one with the lovely, near-standard newsreader American accent (hint of Chicago in there, not super noticeable).  Because thinking is difficult, I took this super literally and until recently did virtually no writing in class.

But that has changed; firstly because I personally cannot remember a damned thing in language acquisition unless I can see the word written down and spelled.  I’m a visual learner and a student of Chinese, which is my 3rd foreign language.  I can repeat a sound in the moment and be told what it is, but I won’t remember it until I write it a few times.  I personally use self-created flashcards, which I’m starting to do with my students.

Quizzes– I gave my first diagnostic quiz this week and boy, was it informative.  It would seem that I have about 4 kids in a given class who know the answers, and the rest kind of mumble vocalese along with, giving the impression of knowing.  I decided to teach the names of the days of the week to my 3rd and 4th graders.  I asked my co-teacher if she thought the 6th and 5th graders would know them; she was confident they would.  Not so– 4 kids out of 11 knew them.  You wouldn’t be able to tell from listening to the class, but you can totally tell who knows what when you read the words you want to find out the kids know in Chinese and see if they can write down the English.  Quizzes are great because they aren’t for a grade, but they’re a much more precise way of discovering who knows what and what needs to be reviewed.

Assigning oral presentations (duh) is an idea that came to me in a fit of petty vengefulness.  I have a few particularly arrogant 6th grade classes, which blows my mind, because these kids are like 4′ 8″ tall and I’m pretty sure I could kick their asses literally and figuratively in any number of pursuits.  But abusing one’s students is frowned on both in the U.S. and Taiwan (fair enough).  So I had the very mature mental narrative of “You get up day after day and talk to a room full of bored kids and see how you like it.” and it hit me that I can force them to do exactly that.  My theory is that by putting them under pressure to speak passable English in front of  their peers, they’ll gain some empathy and humility.  I may even develop simple lesson assignments so they can take turns teaching each other.  Reports to follow.

My last teacherly discovery this week is the chill-out bottle.  It a mixture of clear glue, water and glitter poured into a clear plastic bottle with the lid glued on tight; It’s supposed to be like a snow globe that takes 5 minutes to clear.  Allegedly, it works well with ADD and ADHD kids as a way for them to focus on something and return to class with a clean slate.   I have a few of those, so I may be making some this weekend.

Again, I will follow up with a report on how these techniques have worked as I implement them.  So far, formative vocab quizzes are a big success.

* Update 3 months later: I didn’t do the chill out bottle, so I still have loads of glitter and glue (maybe I’ll make them for my place).  I did make chill out trays:

Cushion, tray, crayons– isolate the unruly and pacify them with coloring.

One of my classrooms

This is what one of my classrooms looks like. I want to include everyday pictures to give those interested a look at normal life teaching in Taiwan.

Adventures in Taiwanese Psychiatry

I’ve had issues with depression since I was a small child.  The first clear memory I have that was undubitably depression was when I was 7.  I can remember suffering a lot of anxiety from at least the age of 8 onward.  This is very much a chemical thing, although situation does impact its severity.  But there is no time when my life is so good that I won’t have issues with one of these.  I take a cocktail of medications that do a really decent job at treating these problems (therapy and studying Buddhism have helped too, but that’s not what this post is about).  I take lexapro or celexa as the main medication.  The great add-on is a neurontin/vistaril cocktail that seem to work in symbiosis to both calm me down and mildly elevate my mood.  These two are great because they mean I don’t really need benzos (xanax, klonapin, etc.) very often.

I brought a hefty supply of my meds from the U.S., but it’s been ten weeks now and I’m running out.  So I made my first trip to the psychiatrist in Taiwan.  Here is what happened.

Floor 4, the floor of death, is missing at the hospital.

I went Chiayi Christian Hospital in Chiayi (they have a really handy on-line appointment system, which is not uncommon and is something I’d love to see more of in the U.S.).  The hospital is big and beautiful and every bit up to the standard of any American facility I’ve seen.  They have socialized health care in Taiwan, so the trip to the psychiatrist and a week’s worth of xanax and ambien cost about $12 U.S.  Nobody really spoke English except the doctor, but everyone was super helpful and nice in helping me find my way and get checked in.  I was able to go in the evening, so I didn’t have to take time off of work to go.  That was great.

Here’s where things go less well.  I brought my bottles with me to show the doctor what I had been prescribed in the U.S.  But the hospital didn’t have Celexa/Lexapro, Gabapentin (Neurontin), or Vistaril.  These drugs do exist and are available in Taiwan– I looked them up online and found the names they’re sold under here and the names of the companies that produce them.  But for some reason, the hospital just didn’t have them.  I could not get them.  I have to go to a different hospital next week and try to get my meds there.

In the States, your doctor writes you a prescription and you go to any pharmacy and they either have it in stock or can order it except under unusual circumstances like a drug shortage.  But I deduce that this is not the case in Taiwan.  Even more frustrating, the very nice doctor couldn’t tell me which hospitals have which drugs.  She knew Chang Gung Hospital in Puzi has the Celexa/Lexapro, but the other two are still a mystery.  So I have to just visit all the area hospitals until I find places that have the ones I need?  This is a monster hassle because I don’t have a car or a scooter, and not all of the hospitals have evening hours.

Additionally, I only got a week’s worth of xanax and ambien, and I am going to need to get a month’s supply or just plan on going to the hospital every week.  The closest hospital only has afternoon hours 4 days a week, and taking an afternoon off a week is not a feasible option.

As it stands, I have an appointment with another psychiatrist in a week, so I’ll take another shot at getting my medical needs met.  I will continue posting about this, since depression/anxiety are common mood disorders, and psychiatry is not as prominent here in Taiwan as it is in the U.S.