one doesn;t have to live in taiwan long as a foriegner to know that there are a LOT of worthless foriegners here, as well as really great people from all countries. weeding out the chaf from the wheat is pretty much the same as it would be anywhere else: trial and error.
but taiwan has a couple of other factors working against you.
first of all, this country rewards the first kind- the assholes. foriegners who tow the line of these bushibans that just want to make money off these children are looked at as gold. those who will rat out other foriegners are even more valuable. i knew one guy who was a TERRIBLE teacher who hit on female students in the most errie of ways, but was kept on because he reported on other foriegners.
teachers who also cannot speak any chinese at all and don't CARE SHIT about taiwan culture are routinely paid MORE than those who make the effort.
also TV rewards stupid foriegners.the more stupid the better. "insult my race? fine. just let me get on TV and be stupid because in my own country i'm nothing and could never get that opportunity."
pubs even reward stupid foriegners. the worse your chinese, the better your chances of getting laid. it's a fact.
and where do these spine-less foriegners congregate? usually forumosa.com or some other taiwan sympathizer site.
yes i said it. those sites do everything they can to build up taiwan as a paradise and crack down on any dissent or truth telling about how taiwan really is.
try it and see. it's a clique. and those in the IN GROUP don't even have to obey rules like sending THREATENING LETTERS! that was done to me more than ONCE. no punishment to these people.
that's the other factor you have to watch out for: there are relatively FEW foriegners here in the english teacher crowd- most foriegners are in fact technical workers. but that small crowd has a number of people who will do ANYTHING to hold on to their little island paradise.
watch yourself.
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All the teachers I know who can pull in >1000 an hour from college exam focused buxibans or one-on-one tutoring (and I know several) are all well qualified, fluent in Mandarin & Taiwan's culture and to top it off, not assholes.
ReplyDeleteFurther, even in the regular buxibans I've taught at before, quality instruction and dependability are the most highly valued traits by parents and owners alike. Sometimes unreasonable expectations like always appearing for free at various open hoses were thrown into the "valued' category.
Re: "Taiwan as a paradise" vs "the truth" -- remember that Taiwan actually IS a paradise to some people, whether it's for the food, the relatively good pay for very short work hours, or the extensive night life and affordable cost of living. This is not a matter of trying to hide the truth.
I'm not sure if your problem is more with Taiwan itself or with just finding a way to be a happy person.
i believe i already covered the fact that there are wonderful foriegners in the first sentences of my article.
ReplyDeletethe purpose of this article is to call attention to the spineless ones, somethign forumosa.com doesn't want.
ReplyDeleteand if taiwan is a paradise to you, i feel sorry for you in your former life back in the US, england, wherever.
ReplyDeleteyes taiwan is a great place, but not paradise.
What exactly do you mean by "reporting on other foreigners"? You don't make that clear in your post. Your post about Tai Ke (your latest) and Taoism is brilliant. But this one about "spineless foreigners" is too vague and, really, too gentle. Who GAFF about the sucky foreigners here? I'm a foreigner here, but I mostly keep to myself, because most of the foreigners I run into in Miaoli or Hsinchu (not all of them, but a great deal of the foreigners) spend all of their social time complaining to other foreigners about how bad Taiwan is. That's lame.
ReplyDeleteYou need to take a bigger jab, or several jabs at the whole spectrum of dweebs!
thanks for giving me more license to "jab"^^.
ReplyDeletebasically, there are a LOT of foriegners who will do NOTHING at all about the defamation we recieve DAILY on taiwan TV. the term high nose and lao wai are NOT compliments, nearly the equivalent of " slant eyes" and "chink" respectively.
but there are foriegners who think tis crap is ok. one should know that the TV/government complex is doing things the easy way: building nationalism thru hate/ feelings of superiority.
this has to stop!
ill guarantee you if i made an article with derogatory racist words like are used on taiwan TV every day, i would be in SERIOUS trouble.
foriegners in taiwan! grow a pair. stand up for your rights.
let me post a sub article to this to be more specific.
One thing I would disagree with...I think a foreigner who can speak at least conversational Chinese has a far better chance of finding a woman at *wherever*. All my friends who speak Chinese get WAY more action than the ones who don't. But maybe that's just a Kaohsiung thing? Although one in particular regularly goes to Taipei to get 'action'. Rarely does he pick up a woman who speaks English. (his Chinese is near native)
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