There is an article on the Taiwanese web that has been
making quite a ripple on Chinese social media. To date the article has been
shared over 220 000 times on Facebook; mainly amongst Chinese speakers. You can read the article in both Chinese and English here. It’s a long and convoluted
article – but read it until you want to punch the screen and you’ll have
probably gotten the gist of the content.
For those of you not up for the essay, here is an exert:
“I find TW women to be utterly selfish, insecure, and
self centered. As I have seen with many couples and unfortunate friends, when
they age it's even more nonstop bitching and moaning. The focus just becomes on
more money, more eating, more competition to show off to family and friends.
You can forget about an exciting sex life. Lately I look at them with a mild
disgust, despite some of their physical beauty.”
Let’s get the obvious out of the way first; this article is
disgusting and its writer is a sexist and a bigot. As a British guy who has
lived in Taiwan and Mainland China for a large portion of my adult life, I feel
like I have to apologise on behalf of all the foreigners in Asia with half a
brain cell. Let’s just thank God this is a blog and not an article with merit.
Furthermore, this piece demonstrates a colonial attitude
towards non-western cultures that should have been left behind in the ages of
world wars and empires. Taiwan is an economic and cultural hub of East Asia,
which politically and socially stands tall in a region of high-performing
nations. But according to this American-born Chinese (ABC) writer, that doesn’t
matter because the women are shallow.
Sadly, these are sweeping statements and blinkered views
that I have come across all too often among western expats. One’s invitation to
enter a country in order to teach, study or work does not include a licence to
become the nation’s critique.
In the west we are encouraged to
believe that the way we do things: culturally, socially and politically, are
all superior to the methods implemented in other parts of the world. We are taught little of
the histories and cultures of other parts of the world, and maybe this
reinforces this blinkered view. If you pass through the UK’s education system
you’d almost be forgiven for thinking that the only culturally significant
points of world history were the Romans, Queen Victoria’s reign and the two
World Wars.
This may explain this Western
arrogance towards the rest of the world but by no means excuses it.
An Asian visiting the USA may also
find some pretty atrocious social phenomena. A country in the midst of an
obesity epidemic with no social healthcare and a political system paralyzed
through extreme ideology.
Perhaps I am reading too much into
our ABC friend’s blog, as he focuses almost exclusively on relationships and
expectations of love in Taiwanese culture, calling them shallow, self centred and materialistic. But statistics would argue that
Taiwan is a better place to be in love than the US. Although divorce rates are
rising, they currently stand at around 25% in Taiwan. This is one of the highest rates
in Asia (second only to South Korea) but still pales in comparison to the
astonishingly high proportion of divorce rates in the USA and the EU, 53% and
44% respectively.
Perhaps people in glass houses
shouldn’t throw stones.
I would also suggest that one's
experiences abroad are only as positive as the people your surround yourself
with. I was lucky enough to be studying in Taiwan as part of a postgraduate
course with local students as my peers. The women I had the privilege of
knowing were intelligent, considerate and interesting individuals, albeit a
little obsessed with Hello Kitty.
If you hang out in the places where
bitches and douchebags go, then you are only going to come across bitches and
douchebags. If this is his only experience of Taiwanese women, then it suggests
to me that he hasn’t bothered to look very far. Get out of Luxy and Babe 18 [the
two major clubs in the centre of Taipei] and broaden your horizons, my blogger
friend. It sounds like you’re a long way from being an authority on how
Taiwanese women should be conducting themselves.
