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I believe that the bullied Taiwanese WHers are the absolute minorities, while most of the SE Asian workers are mistreated here. It's so pathetic and sad.
Btw I don't think Southern Europe is below EU average, that'd be Eastern Europe, which makes up a large chunk of EU. Italy or Spain seem more or less on the level of EU average, I suppose.
It's similar to Singapore. A lot of Filipino and Indonesian maids are kind of exploited.
Taiwan is definitely cleaner and more developed overall, though parts of China are actually more advanced than taiwan. China is just so big and many parts are still dirt poor. What I don't like is the Chinese selfish attitude that exists in both taiwan and China.
At least I don't think eating dogs is allowed in taiwan. The taiwanese I know tend to be very kind to animals, which I really appreciate. The Chinese are not nearly as evolved in that respect and they are extremely cruel to animals.
It is dangerous to compare Taiwan with "China", as China is massive, and regional difference in terms of infrastructure and income can be gigantic. Shanghai alone has the same population of the entire Taiwan, so it is almost meaningless to say Taiwan is more XXX than China - which part of China?
If one really visits Shanghai he will probably find it more advanced in most aspects than Taiwan/Taipei - wealthier, more vibrant and sophisticated. I even find Toronto/Los Angeles to be quite shabby in comparison. High speed trains take you to Beijing in 4.5 hours, which is 1300km away, and 12 subway lines are new, clean and highly efficient. The nearby Yangtze river delta region is similar (150 million people), although less advanced.
However, if you explore inland China, to the north or west, it is a different world, maybe 30 years behind.
Despite the bad rep, the Chinese seldom really eat dog meat (not there is anything wrong with it). Most probably consumed it for less than 3 times in their life. But I agree the Chinese are not the most loving people toward animals in general, and I have read many sad stories on that.
Many people in mainland China want to hire Filipino maids too, but it is very difficult for them to get a work visa. Their salary has to be several times more than Chinese workers to get a visa. China has so many poor people and it does not make sense to import a lot of maids anyway.
I don't really think so, either the employers in China speak English or the Filipino speak Chinese to make it workable. The Filipinos prefer to work in a more western, liberal and high income economy actually, with Catholic churches they can goto on a Sunday or have gathering in parks with no complains from the locals.
Southern Europe's lifestyle and work enviroment is too relaxing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bettafish
Many people in mainland China want to hire Filipino maids too, but it is very difficult for them to get a work visa. Their salary has to be several times more than Chinese workers to get a visa. China has so many poor people and it does not make sense to import a lot of maids anyway.
Last edited by Oldhag1; 05-28-2015 at 08:39 AM..
Reason: Edited quote
Ah, memories! I lived in Taiwan for a couple of years, back in 1980-82. China was a very under developed place you could purchase a special visa and get in via Hong Kong, and someone would follow you around most of the time. Amazing how things have changed.
I occasionally fantasize about spending some more time in Taiwan or mainland China, more complicated now that I have a family, but there's no better experience for a child than to go to a school in a foreign country like that. But, it doesn't seem like it's ever going to happen at this rate; too much inertia I suppose
I always encourage young people to go spend time in east Asia, a serious chunk of time like a semester or a year or more. The people are so amazing, hard working and with a deep culture, and it's a dynamic and booming place. Learn the language if you go; it's worth it. Even if you aren't fluent, people will love you for trying. There's a famous Youtube video of Mark Zuckerberg at a Chinese university recently, speaking in Mandarin. His tones weren't great, but his wife is Chinese and he could speak pretty well, and everyone cheered as soon as he began.
I suppose if I were going to China for the first time, I'd go to the mainland and not Taiwan (except to visit). Taiwan is more Western-oriented and used to be very pro-American. Jimmy Carter took care of the pro-American, sadly, and when I got there people were still furious over how he cut them off and changed to recognizing the PRC--literally in the middle of the night. Sure, it had to happen eventually but it didn't have to be so rude and unprofessional. But, they were still pretty friendly. I remember getting pretty filling meals for about 25 cents to a dollar. You could easily live on $50 a month, which you could make teaching English 2-3 times a week. I suppose it's 10x that today.
All in all--Taiwan is still Chinese so if you wish to have a deep Chinese cultural experience, it's fine for that and also has lots of Western style comforts. In some ways, Taiwan is more Chinese than China -- Buddhist and Taoist temples and shrines to folk deities all over the place, and many young people I met were really into Zen (Chan) Buddhism so it seems unlikely that religion really has died. Martial arts were also big, as well as traditional Chinese arts like painting and calligraphy.
I should also point out--the National Palace Museum is north of Taipei and has many artistic treasures brought over in the 1940s after the civil war. Much of it might have been destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, had it remained in China. So that's a great reason to go to Taiwan and be prepared to spend more than one day at the museum -- it's big!
Ah, plum wine and--my favorite--lychee wine, something I've been unable to find here in the U.S. since coming home.
If you do go to Taiwan, eat some chou dofu (smelly tofu) for me!
Taiwan has developed rapidly since the KMT takeover (although the Japanese did develop a lot of infrastructure) and is now a very modern, developed country with among the highest quality of life in Asia. There are many advantages to living and teaching in China, but I suppose some might say it's not the 'real' China. I prefer to think of it as it's own thing, not just Chinese culture, but the sometimes ignored native aboriginal culture which goes back thousands of years. Although sort of touristy and theme-parkish, the aboriginal cultural park/village at Sun Moon Lake, Hualien, Taroko and Wulai near Taipei are great places to learn about it.
I highly recommend the Palace Museum as a must-see for any visitor to Taipei. The collection is incredible, and it certainly is fortunate they were able to take all the treasures before they were destroyed. The jade bok choy is a highlight lol.
Taiwan is pretty western oriented, it was influenced a lot by the US after the War like Korea and Japan, and they seem pretty pro-American.
Stinky tofu, lol, smells like sewerage and tastes even worse. But I guess you can't say you've really had Taiwanese cuisine until you've had it! That's the rotten smell you'll smell throughout cities in Taiwan.
Taiwan has developed rapidly since the KMT takeover (although the Japanese did develop a lot of infrastructure) and is now a very modern, developed country with among the highest quality of life in Asia. There are many advantages to living and teaching in China, but I suppose some might say it's not the 'real' China. I prefer to think of it as it's own thing, not just Chinese culture, but the sometimes ignored native aboriginal culture which goes back thousands of years. Although sort of touristy and theme-parkish, the aboriginal cultural park/village at Sun Moon Lake, Hualien, Taroko and Wulai near Taipei are great places to learn about it.
I highly recommend the Palace Museum as a must-see for any visitor to Taipei. The collection is incredible, and it certainly is fortunate they were able to take all the treasures before they were destroyed. The jade bok choy is a highlight lol.
Taiwan is pretty western oriented, it was influenced a lot by the US after the War like Korea and Japan, and they seem pretty pro-American.
Stinky tofu, lol, smells like sewerage and tastes even worse. But I guess you can't say you've really had Taiwanese cuisine until you've had it! That's the rotten smell you'll smell throughout cities in Taiwan.
Taiwan has four major population groups:
- the aborigines (yuanzhumin) who came originally from the Malay archipelago and are linguistically and culturally related to other Malay peoples (Malaysians, Filipinos, Indonesians). They are 2% of the population
- the Hakka (kejia) descended from an itinerant ethnic group from mainland China. They speak a Hakka dialect of Taiwanese (which is a dialect of Chinese) and comprise about 15-20% of the population of Taiwan.
- the mainlanders (waishengren), about 10% of the population; they speak Mandarin Chinese and came from China during and after the civil war of the 1940s. They dominated the politics and military of Taiwan for 40 years, until the Taiwanese Chinese gradually became more affluent. When free elections were finally allowed, the mainlanders lost their grip on the political power though some of them are still in high positions in the military.
- the Taiwanese Chinese (benshengren), about 80% of the population. Most young people today speak Mandarin, just as in mainland China, and most older people (when I was there) spoke only Taiwanese dialect (a relative of Fujian dialect). This group is largely descended from farmer-settlers who migrated across the strait from Fujian Province about 350 years ago and in a couple of later waves of migration. When I was there in the early 1980s, some older Taiwanese people would try to speak to me in Japanese -- which was the foreign language they had learned in school in the 1930s.
I suppose you might add the Westerners and other foreigners, probably a few hundred thousand. When I was there, a Westerner was still a bit of a novelty item outside of Taipei, and I would get plenty of stares and comments in Taiwanese or Mandarin, which they assumed I could not understand. I tell you, it makes you paranoid after about six months of this.
As a white male who had lived a comfortable, cushy suburban lifestyle for 21 years, it was a bit of a shock to suddenly be this minority. And the comments weren't always friendly, either; you had to develop a thick skin. My black friends had it even worse, of course; for all of us, the only solution was to smile constantly and say "Ni hao!" to people, who would usually remember their manners instantly and smile back.
In my humble opinion, smelly tofu only smells bad; it tastes great, especially with appropriately hot chili pepper sauce!
There was one other odious substance that I remember from the fruit juice stands: some kind of weird fruit that tastes like ear wax. I forget what it's called.
I agree that Taiwan is oriented toward the West, much as Japan was after the 1940s. However, they retained a fierce loyalty to the old Chinese culture which they feared was being erased on the mainland. Especially during the Great Cultural Revolution, they saw themselves as the guardians of Chinese classical culture that had to be preserved during these turbulent times.
Thus, today, you can go to Taiwan and see beautiful old Buddhist temples that still have monks living there practicing the old Chan Buddhism, and Buddhist and Taoist practices and beliefs are still rather widespread (although, when I was there, Western scholars kept assuring me it was "dying out") whereas in China you have these touristy restored places that are carefully watched to ensure they don't challenge the authorities. China has a storied and rather bloody history of cult movements arising to threaten central authority, e.g. the Taiping Rebellion of the 19th Century, and they are still apprehensive of this tendency today. Thus, the brutal crackdown 20 years ago on the Falun Gong group, a martial art/qigong society that had grown to an estimated 70 million members and was flexing its political muscles.
It is dangerous to compare Taiwan with "China", as China is massive, and regional difference in terms of infrastructure and income can be gigantic. Shanghai alone has the same population of the entire Taiwan, so it is almost meaningless to say Taiwan is more XXX than China - which part of China?
If one really visits Shanghai he will probably find it more advanced in most aspects than Taiwan/Taipei - wealthier, more vibrant and sophisticated. I even find Toronto/Los Angeles to be quite shabby in comparison. High speed trains take you to Beijing in 4.5 hours, which is 1300km away, and 12 subway lines are new, clean and highly efficient. The nearby Yangtze river delta region is similar (150 million people), although less advanced.
However, if you explore inland China, to the north or west, it is a different world, maybe 30 years behind.
Despite the bad rep, the Chinese seldom really eat dog meat (not there is anything wrong with it). Most probably consumed it for less than 3 times in their life. But I agree the Chinese are not the most loving people toward animals in general, and I have read many sad stories on that.
That's the thing, though. You have to take Taiwan as a whole, and China as a whole. Most Taiwanese live a sort of first world lifestyle, while only the richest 20% of Chinese do.
That's the thing, though. You have to take Taiwan as a whole, and China as a whole. Most Taiwanese live a sort of first world lifestyle, while only the richest 20% of Chinese do.
true, but you are downplaying the vast regional difference in China, which is much greater than Taiwan. You can say "an average Taiwanese lifestyle", however an average Chinese lifestyle simply doesn't exist. Taking the mathematical average in GDP per capita or income is almost meaningless for a country like China, because the standard deviation would be immense.
10% of China is the entire population of Japan, 20% is almost as populous as the United States.
Taiwaners are very friendly to Western foreigners, but...
Ni Hao, I'm German and lived in Taipei/Taiwan from 2005 to 2012 with a technology mgmt job. Had some teacher friends (US, CND) and married a Taiwan girl. In China I mostly know Beijing and Shanghai.
As a western foreigner we have privileges and life is Taiwan is
More affordable then developed China
Healthier than in industrial China on water and air
Much friendlier than China
Free
Beautiuful except old residential housing
Taiwan companies are with a few exceptions (Giant, Asus...) Cost leaders not innovation leaders and this results in undistributed wealth, and low salaries. Taiwan companies moved manufacturing to China which Korean companies couldn't do, so they "became" innovative. This resulted in a total surpassing of Taiwan by Korea.
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Taiwaners are very friendly to Western foreigners, but...
