Participants: Maggie, Teresa, Fanny, Mary, Angela
If you were the president or the leader of Taiwan or the world or any territory or the universe or a solar system, or whatever, what do you think would be the most important things to take care of, and how would you do it? So: that’s a broad question, and it should engender some interesting answers, which I think in the form of an outline and some illuminating detail, might be a useful format.
Anyone? Anyone? … Bueller?
If I were a president in Taiwan, there are two things I would like to do first. The first one would be to establish public transport system around the whole Taiwan landscape. Because this policy can cause two helpful effects for Taiwan. The first one is to reduce the oil use, and the second one can develop the rural, the economy and rise the living standard of the small town in rural area. And my second policy is to improve our education. Focusing most on law and money education, among other things, to teach our children respecting themselves and others. I think education is the cornerstone of a country. That’s my policy if I were a president of Taiwan.
So how’s my—
Yeah, if you want , you can critique—
You say, you emphasize on education—
Yeah,
--especially on law?
Yes, in particular and respect children respect themselves a lot. In my opinion, most criminals in our society is because people don’t respect themselves and others. Don’t respect the value of their life.
Myself, I think that school is not going to do this as well as at home, but you have to start somewhere.
Fanny, why do you say law? Why law?
Because I think in Taiwan, Taiwan people seldom obey the law. And that cause a lot of criminals and problems. In addition, most people almost in the bottom of the society, they have no knowledge of law.
Of their rights, maybe?
Yes, and so they don’t know how to protect themselves. For instance when they have no idea in this case, they should or can do something to protect themselves. But rich people have money to hire lawyers, or people with higher levels of education have knowledge of laws, they often know how to protect themselves.
So you mean if you were president, then how would you do of the people, they obey the people—
How you would make people follow the laws?
You say, they don’t follow the law, so if you were president, what would you do to make this kind of people follow the law?
Massive adult education classes? Culture Class for all! About rights and responsibilities? Free? Compulsory? But you’d have to teach the teachers first.
Put heavy punishments.
Don’t we already have that?
No?
The death penalty? That’s not heavy? The problem is, it’s tricky—like you said, people don’t know their rights? Then what do the punishments mean?
Okay, right, so we have to educate people first, the reason why they should obey the rule. Then the third step, if people don’t follow the rules, they will be punished very heavily. Then people will know they should comply.
Okay, so are there any more questions for candidate Fanny?
Just one more question. —
Hee! You sound like a reporter!
—Why do you say ‘law and money’?
Because in recent years, there are so many issues related to complex financial products, and many people, they borrow much more than they have earned, eventually ending up in bankruptcy, and also cause a lot of social problems. They have no choice but ending their lives, their children have no money to finish their education. I think it’s a big problem.
Okay, so are their any more questions for candidate Fanny?
You know I’m very nervous, it’s like I’m a real candidate.
You would be good president!
Does someone else want to be the candidate now? It’s a little bit boring, just one candidate?
We can’t have an election with just one!
Yeah, Taiwan need more candidates.
Okay, if I was the president of Taiwan, I think I have similar. Like economic issues, that people can find a way to earn money for them. Like, or they can find, they can have some organization help them to develop their, like, ability to support themselves, even though they are adult, and that would be a good thing to do.
So job training? Or more than that?
Actually help them to find what they are really good at. Education too. Not just focus on certain areas, but what they are interested in and can make money from. Give them more channel about things they can do, without worrying about ‘now’, not having a financial problem or something
So if you were president you would build a channel for everyone in Taiwan to do whatever they want to do, and without worrying financial problems.
Hopefully!
So, how would you do?
I don’t know.
Well speculate, throw out some ideas, you’re not really a candidate here.
Okay, how about internet. Lots of people don't know how to use the internet. So free lesson, or free education for something, the gvt covers classes they need. But I don’t know where the money comes from!
Well, the Republicans in the US don’t seem to worry much about that either, so I don’t see why that’s a problem.
I just have one suggestion, you can establish a platform, a sharing platform, where people who want to learn certain skills can swap their own skills to others.
That is brilliant!
For instance, I’m good at analysis, you’re good at cooking, we can swap in the platform without paying fees. Because if you provide a totally free channel, that would increase the, that would need more tax, and tax coming from people, and that would be a big burden of the whole country.
But it’s better than paying for weapons?
Okay, are there any other questions for Candidate Mary?
How about a third candidate, Teresa?
I think the most important would be to let my people to have a healthy life, and health and happiness and safety life. Then how do I help them to get to the end? My action, my purpose, the first is, I will invite the other countries, the other foreigner private company to come to Taiwan to invest in Taiwan. The invested item is no, no…
No limit?
No…every industry is okay, if they want to invest in Taiwan. If they want to invest, then they will hire our people. When they hire the Taiwanese, then we can get more salary. If the people get more salary, then they can have a good life than before. Then the gvt has the…can get some tax. So the circle is the …the first things will let our people have a good life.
And the second action is, I will reduce the foreign labor come to Taiwan.
Restrict.
Yes, restrict the foreign laborers, like the southeastern countries, like the Philippine, Myanmar, Vietnam, Indonesia. These kind of countries people, they come to Taiwan to work. I know their salary is cheaper than our people, but they will rob our people ‘s job. I know why the company, they like to hire the foreign laborers. But if we can restrict the foreign laborers, then maybe our peoples can get more job than before. This is if I were a president, these are the first two actions I would take. I wish I were the president right now. But it’s difficult, especially restrict the foreign laborers.
But how about security? You mentioned you want to develop a healthy and happy and …
Safety…yes…security? I’m not sure.
What do you mean by security? You mean int’l security or do you mean reduce the crime rates?
Um, maybe when I invited the private company to invest to Taiwan, maybe there has some security problem. But I think I can control it, because what’s kind of industry come to Taiwan, we can evaluate it before, so if it is a good industry for Taiwan, then I will let them come to here. If it is violate the environment, or pollute our air or water, then I will not let them come to Taiwan to invest, even it can give my people has a good life and get more job. But it will hurt people’s life, so I think the gvt will not let it come. For the security, as you just said, I think after the gvt gets the tax, then we have enough money to hire people to come to be a policeman or they would like to be army, to protect our society. So, and the other action is, security, we need to teach our people, just like you say, give them more education, but I know right now, most Taiwanese people, we have a good level of education. But why some people, they violate the law, because our, we can’t enforce the law. If we can do it like Singapore, I think most of the people, they will follow the law. They will not disobey it. I saw some of Taiwanese people, they go to America. They follow the traffic rule. They know how to drive. Even though no person cross the street, they follow the traffic rule. But in Taiwan they cross the street where they like. But compared to Taiwan and America, they have different rules to follow. Because the American criminal system quickly to punish the people. But in Taiwan, sometimes we didn’t do it.
But America also has more than 1 percent of their population in jail, too, so I’m not certain that’s the best solution.
I think I prefer the Singapore system. Because I think Taiwan’s law is not very strict, so I think maybe we could create more hard and more heavy law to apply.
You know, everyone in Taiwan talks about it, but they don’t really want it. Would you personally want to live in Singapore?
No, it’s too heavy.
See? You don’t want it!
Yeah, but it’s effective!
But it’s important to take the law to important things. Even they see someone violating the law, someone in Taiwan will not say anything about it.
But that’s what’s nice about Taiwan, it’s live and let live, it’s what’s makes here such a nice place to live. Nobody interferes with what you want to do. Let me give you an example. I don’t know if I read this story on the internet, or if someone told me, but this is the story. A guy moved to Singapore, and got an apartment. He put plants on the walkway outside his front door, as you do, and put dishes under each plant to catch the water so that it wouldn’t run all over the place when he watered them, as you do, right? Okay, so a few days later, he gets a knock on the door. It’s a policeman, who told him its illegal in Singapore to put dishes under your plants, or to have any standing water, because it potentially breeds mosquitos. So he got a notice from the police, or maybe even a fine, I don’t remember. The notice or the fine is not really the point. The guy was really pissed off, and why? He was pissed off because he was like, his apartment was on like the 5th or 6th floor. The police wouldn’t have known about his plants without one of the neighbors telling him about it. He was pissed, because he was like, “Why didn’t my neighbors just come to me directly, or put a polite note on my door to let me know the situation? Why did they instead call the police? That’s so unfriendly!” What he felt betrayed about, I think, is that ‘authority’ was brought in to deal with a situation that just needed a little communication. It was like killing a mosquito with a brick, so to speak. It was un-neighborly and unfriendly, and left him angry with all the people who lived near him. That’s not the way to build community, but it is the way you build ruthless dictatorship—break people into vertical relationships with authority, instead of the horizontal relationships of community.
So there’s a lot that’s nice about Taiwan. I’m not saying that it’s always good, but everything good comes with some bad things, and some bad things come with good. But you have to be careful not to lose the important things. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater!
Angela, what would you do?
Well, I totally support the Vonnegut platform, and I would incorporate a lot of the fanny platform and some of the Mary. I really love the idea of educating everybody at once, including all the adults, into understanding, thinking about and applying their rights and responsibilities as citizens. I don’t support the Singapore platform at all, I’m sorry.
Taipei Discussion Transcript: Culture of the Market, part II
Participants: Lynn Maggie Mary Fanny Willie Angela
See: The Culture of the Market
So, this question is true for me.
What do you mean?
Yes, the culture of the market does break our relationships.
You have to say why.
Because the market promotes competition to everyone’s life. The market, you know there’s good parts, and bad parts, lots of positive and negative parts. It’s made people think about, I have to do this to be superior. To be equipped to something or whatever.
What do you mean?
Having something or wearing something, makes you superior or inferior, although they are just defined by others, by society actually, which is not naturally right or wrong. I mean, just, there a lot of stuff which doesn’t naturally belong to the right side or wrong side, just people gave them the definition. I think basically what people are fighting about is imaginary. That’s a kind or world or position which human create. Which doesn’t mean much if you look at it from different perspective.
I also think the culture of the market broke our relationship with one another. In this culture, money and time is the king. So people don’t want to waste too much time on maintain relationship. And culture of the market, people judge the value of things, or other people not by their contributions to the society, but by the price, or the price of those things and people. So I think this kind of culture have harm our relationship between others.
I agree with them.
Why?
That people are quite busy, so it’s hard for them to maintain relationship with others. And also, um, like, I think, this is one of the reason that broken our relationship with one another, but another reason is that people have a different idea about making friend with others, so they expect different kind of friendship. Like, if like, they got their stuff to do, and they don’t have time to hang out with you, and then you expect if they—maybe it’s different definition of relationship.
Like, or maybe for some people they think relationship is about spending time with them, or just satisfy their needs. But for some people, relationship is to understand the other people or something, they make friends not for satisfy their needs, they make friends in different ways, have different interactions.
What do you mean by—?
It depends on your values. Other people think if you have good interactions, you are good friends.
So there’s a difference between these two category ways? I mean, to satisfy a friends need and—?
I think maybe because the different expectations, so it also decide the relationship is successful or not.
For instance, Maggie want me to stay with her when she is down, but I think our friendship just on the basis of talking and—
Conversation?
—yes, and then she cannot find satisfaction with me, so it’s easy to broken between Maggie and me, something like that?
Yeah.
I also think that the culture of the market breaks our relationships. When we just care about money, and fortune, our relationship is so weak, and useless. I think it’s the truth, so thank you! Next!
I think the culture of the market really broken our relationship with one another. Actually, if you study marketing, you will find, in their theory, when they want to run a new product, they will segmentation.
What does that mean?
They will split the market in different groups, and they will set different prices for different groups. So once you do marketing and promotion, they will set top, middle and lower level, if you are not on the same level, people will think, you’re not our group. So it’s marketing, but it will influence people’s behavior and relationship. Also I think nowadays people are always in a rush, we don’t really have time to establish long-term relationships. So the relationship with one another has become very weak. So if we are influenced by the culture of the market, the linkage with each other will become weaker and weaker, so it really is bad for us.
Um, I think maybe I am the one who behave like the way Lynn mentioned. Because I often segment my friends into different kind of category.
Mm, me too.
Because we only have 24 hours, and I have to use my time more efficient. So I will divide my friends in to what kind of group. So this kind of group we can interaction, and we can take care of each other, and I will spend more time to maintain our relationship, and friends in big groups, we have the same kind of background, and we can share some kind of information about work, and investment, and other kind of friends we can go to movies, and go shopping together, but it’s hard for this kind of friends to share something deep. So this kind of friends I don’t spend that much to maintain our relationship. And the most distant group, is the people on the msn, you just use them for the purpose of jobs, or something to helping you earn more money, or to gain better opportunity of your future. And I think, that might be a kind of cultural market, or capitalism.
But sometimes I wonder, when you segment your friends, how would you really know he or she is only in category abc? If you ever try to understand the people, just wondering?
Like we make marketing, I will categorize them by their backgrounds and the reason we make friends. Then by the time I know them better I will change their groups.
You know, when I lived in New York, it was just like that. Everyone did it, and everyone knew everyone else was doing it. You have your dancing friends, your going out for a beer friends, the people you’d go to, to get some culture, like they knew the good art show, some who you’d invite to dinner parties. Sometimes you could tell when you’d just been upgraded or downgraded, or shifted categories. But you also had your ‘real friends’, the ones that were like your family, and they were like a rock solid category, the one that never really shifted.
So friendship is just like the stock?
You know, but when you’re using people for a category, then you’re not having real friends.
But you know, in those books, they say you should build up your contacts, sometimes, I think, that’s so bullshit, because they’re no way going to be your real friends. And so already, this is not human beings should be.
But I do this just want to save my time. When I was a student in college, this is a true story, I quarreled with my roommate, because we made a date to go to movies after an exam, but that day, one of my very best friends, also Maggie know her, have some problem with her family. She went cry very heavily. So I just cancel the date with my roommate suddenly. My roommate was very angry, and didn’t understand why I cancel the date just for the other friends. But for me, I set my priority that my best friend has a higher priority than my roommate.
That’s something like colleagues, you know what your colleagues and classmates can do, so its—
It’s more like a work relationship.
So basically, like those business friends, they’re all work relationship, not actually the relationship between friends Also, I do think that people who actually can give you a big hand, when you are in trouble in business and work, is those one who know you naturally, who you became friends with naturally, probably you know each other when you are in college, or in different companies, and you saw he or she is an excellent guy, and you know each other well, and know what he or she can do. Those kind of business relationship, is not the exchange of phone number, or you two have eaten together, it’s more like those who you really know, and those who can really help you. I don’t want to say that’s useless, but basically, some people just misunderstand the meaning of business friend. They think they know lots of people, but basically, it’s when you’re in trouble, no one will help you because they don’t know you very well.
But some friends, we maybe have lunch or dinner together, or maybe once every three months, or once every half year. And they are my former colleague, but I don’t think they are just my business friends. Because when I feel confused, or meet some big problem in the job now, they always give me some good suggestions. But why I divide them into a group may help me in the future, because I think, they cannot, like friends like Maggie, when I feel sad or want to cry, I can call them out and complain with them, but this kinds of friends, we also have relationship. But I weight them differerently. But actually there are also some kind of people are business friends. For instance, one of my friends, she worked in a brokerage, and because she was a broker, she had so many telephone friends, they always share information about the market on the phone. She thought at that time they could become friends, but after she quit that job, they are say bye-bye.
I don’t know, but I don’t see what’s wrong with that, because, well, I don’t know, we all grew up in capitalism, so it’s hard to see, but is that wrong, what do you think?
I think it’s still marketing think. You categorize your friends into different purpose or ways. I don’t know, I still think it’s influenced by marketing.
I think you’re right.
I cannot tell clearly, but we’re influence by marketing. Maybe you think the business relationship is not the real friend. But in the marketing, you can find lots of books that you have to establish your relationship for future fortune. So it becomes like when you make a friend, you automatically categorize people. But if this way of thinking wasn’t invented, people wouldn’t categorize others like that. For me, certainly, we will have different kinds of friends, or relationship with each other, but I don’t want that when you meet somebody for the first time, you think, this guy: useless, that guy: can be a good friend because they can help me. I don’t like this kind of judgment. Because if you never ever know this person, who knows, one day, he might help you a lot.
Yeah, I’m learning recently that maybe everyone has interesting stories and experiences. Because I know that people look at me, and the clothes I’m wearing that day, and the neighborhood I’m in, and they make guesses about me, but the can’t possibly have the whole story, because I’ve got so many facets. So, suddenly my consciousness has gotten wider, and—yeah, this should have occurred to me sooner, probably—but I’ve realized that the judgements I make about other people, well, they have the same problems. My girlfriend doesn’t seem to have this problem, she treat everyone around her as perfectly real. But she also doesn’t know how to network, and in a certain way, she can’t get things done she needs to, sometimes. You know, because information and opportunities, the good ones, come from knowing people, that’s still true. So, you know, I’m still not sure how to approach this whole thing.
For me, I have to make friends slowly, once I know people more, I might but them in a category.
But sometimes when you met somebody, just should be a friend, somebody, maybe you met him or her in a place or you maybe just sit down together and have a drink, and you talk, and then you found you can talk a lot of things with this person. Then you just want o know him or her more, and then you make friends with this person. I think, and sometimes, this kind of friends maybe know me better than some friends I met at school.
Yeah, I got your point, it’s kind of, you know sparkly. When you meet the right people, talk at the right time, interesting topic, you might have a spark.
Like my roommates in graduate school. She came from Kaohsiung, and I grew up in Taipei. We speak good Taiwanese and English, and can’t speak Chinese so well. We have different kind of characters, but we can talk things that maybe I can’t discuss with my best friends before. And she went back to Kaohsiung and work, and we seldom msn, and contact with email, but when we met in Taipei, we always can keep talking, and never want to say goodbye.
Yeah.
Yeah, so these kind of friends, I want to maintain this relationship forever. It’s a kind of spiritual friendship.
I have a friend like that in New York.
And she never know my life in Taipei, and I never know hers in Kaohsiung, and I don’t know her boyfriends family, but we can just keep talking, and interact.
So, like, how do we make non-marketing relationships?
—?
—?
—?
Like, Lynn said, we use marketing and categorize people, how do we not do that?
Stick with the people you meet in kindergarten.
No, just like your family, that’s too limiting…..
But it’s just like, sometimes you have to make a choice, you have to categorize your friends, or whatever.
I don’t understand.
Is it from education, or from personality, that’s human nature to do?
Well I really think it’s like what Lynn said.
But it’s human nature, or our education, or our personality, or how we make choices?
Oh, I’m beginning to see what you’re saying.
I think the circumstance where you stay..
But I realize I behave this way when I was in college. One of my friends was so sad, because I put her in ‘b’ group, so she was so sad. But one day she told me like she began to behave this way. So maybe a part of personality, but the culture of the market celebrates the space of the broken relationship.
What do you mean she behave, like what? Like divide friends into different kind of group, and you maybe do this thing with this kind of friend, and spend more time with this kind of fired, and spend less time with this kind of friend?
But, like what when someone is really great to dance with , but really shit to talk with over tea. They’re not that much fun.
Like when I want to go to a music concert, I will invite Maggie or something, but for something else—.
I think its really hard to find non-marketing relationship.
Well, maybe one example of a non-marketing relationship, a friend of mine, whenever she needs help, people just step in all over the place to help her. And the reason is, she’s always offering her help to people. She sees that someone might need a hand and she steps in with whatever she can do. She just does it because she can, because she feels rich, and feels she has the time. But it’s really no-strings attached, she doesn’t expect anything back from you. But if she needs help, the people she’s helped just jump in and offer it, because they want to give something back. It’s like a gifting economy, instead of a marketing economy.
See: The Culture of the Market
So, this question is true for me.
What do you mean?
Yes, the culture of the market does break our relationships.
You have to say why.
Because the market promotes competition to everyone’s life. The market, you know there’s good parts, and bad parts, lots of positive and negative parts. It’s made people think about, I have to do this to be superior. To be equipped to something or whatever.
What do you mean?
Having something or wearing something, makes you superior or inferior, although they are just defined by others, by society actually, which is not naturally right or wrong. I mean, just, there a lot of stuff which doesn’t naturally belong to the right side or wrong side, just people gave them the definition. I think basically what people are fighting about is imaginary. That’s a kind or world or position which human create. Which doesn’t mean much if you look at it from different perspective.
I also think the culture of the market broke our relationship with one another. In this culture, money and time is the king. So people don’t want to waste too much time on maintain relationship. And culture of the market, people judge the value of things, or other people not by their contributions to the society, but by the price, or the price of those things and people. So I think this kind of culture have harm our relationship between others.
I agree with them.
Why?
That people are quite busy, so it’s hard for them to maintain relationship with others. And also, um, like, I think, this is one of the reason that broken our relationship with one another, but another reason is that people have a different idea about making friend with others, so they expect different kind of friendship. Like, if like, they got their stuff to do, and they don’t have time to hang out with you, and then you expect if they—maybe it’s different definition of relationship.
Like, or maybe for some people they think relationship is about spending time with them, or just satisfy their needs. But for some people, relationship is to understand the other people or something, they make friends not for satisfy their needs, they make friends in different ways, have different interactions.
What do you mean by—?
It depends on your values. Other people think if you have good interactions, you are good friends.
So there’s a difference between these two category ways? I mean, to satisfy a friends need and—?
I think maybe because the different expectations, so it also decide the relationship is successful or not.
For instance, Maggie want me to stay with her when she is down, but I think our friendship just on the basis of talking and—
Conversation?
—yes, and then she cannot find satisfaction with me, so it’s easy to broken between Maggie and me, something like that?
Yeah.
I also think that the culture of the market breaks our relationships. When we just care about money, and fortune, our relationship is so weak, and useless. I think it’s the truth, so thank you! Next!
I think the culture of the market really broken our relationship with one another. Actually, if you study marketing, you will find, in their theory, when they want to run a new product, they will segmentation.
What does that mean?
They will split the market in different groups, and they will set different prices for different groups. So once you do marketing and promotion, they will set top, middle and lower level, if you are not on the same level, people will think, you’re not our group. So it’s marketing, but it will influence people’s behavior and relationship. Also I think nowadays people are always in a rush, we don’t really have time to establish long-term relationships. So the relationship with one another has become very weak. So if we are influenced by the culture of the market, the linkage with each other will become weaker and weaker, so it really is bad for us.
Um, I think maybe I am the one who behave like the way Lynn mentioned. Because I often segment my friends into different kind of category.
Mm, me too.
Because we only have 24 hours, and I have to use my time more efficient. So I will divide my friends in to what kind of group. So this kind of group we can interaction, and we can take care of each other, and I will spend more time to maintain our relationship, and friends in big groups, we have the same kind of background, and we can share some kind of information about work, and investment, and other kind of friends we can go to movies, and go shopping together, but it’s hard for this kind of friends to share something deep. So this kind of friends I don’t spend that much to maintain our relationship. And the most distant group, is the people on the msn, you just use them for the purpose of jobs, or something to helping you earn more money, or to gain better opportunity of your future. And I think, that might be a kind of cultural market, or capitalism.
But sometimes I wonder, when you segment your friends, how would you really know he or she is only in category abc? If you ever try to understand the people, just wondering?
Like we make marketing, I will categorize them by their backgrounds and the reason we make friends. Then by the time I know them better I will change their groups.
You know, when I lived in New York, it was just like that. Everyone did it, and everyone knew everyone else was doing it. You have your dancing friends, your going out for a beer friends, the people you’d go to, to get some culture, like they knew the good art show, some who you’d invite to dinner parties. Sometimes you could tell when you’d just been upgraded or downgraded, or shifted categories. But you also had your ‘real friends’, the ones that were like your family, and they were like a rock solid category, the one that never really shifted.
So friendship is just like the stock?
You know, but when you’re using people for a category, then you’re not having real friends.
But you know, in those books, they say you should build up your contacts, sometimes, I think, that’s so bullshit, because they’re no way going to be your real friends. And so already, this is not human beings should be.
But I do this just want to save my time. When I was a student in college, this is a true story, I quarreled with my roommate, because we made a date to go to movies after an exam, but that day, one of my very best friends, also Maggie know her, have some problem with her family. She went cry very heavily. So I just cancel the date with my roommate suddenly. My roommate was very angry, and didn’t understand why I cancel the date just for the other friends. But for me, I set my priority that my best friend has a higher priority than my roommate.
That’s something like colleagues, you know what your colleagues and classmates can do, so its—
It’s more like a work relationship.
So basically, like those business friends, they’re all work relationship, not actually the relationship between friends Also, I do think that people who actually can give you a big hand, when you are in trouble in business and work, is those one who know you naturally, who you became friends with naturally, probably you know each other when you are in college, or in different companies, and you saw he or she is an excellent guy, and you know each other well, and know what he or she can do. Those kind of business relationship, is not the exchange of phone number, or you two have eaten together, it’s more like those who you really know, and those who can really help you. I don’t want to say that’s useless, but basically, some people just misunderstand the meaning of business friend. They think they know lots of people, but basically, it’s when you’re in trouble, no one will help you because they don’t know you very well.
But some friends, we maybe have lunch or dinner together, or maybe once every three months, or once every half year. And they are my former colleague, but I don’t think they are just my business friends. Because when I feel confused, or meet some big problem in the job now, they always give me some good suggestions. But why I divide them into a group may help me in the future, because I think, they cannot, like friends like Maggie, when I feel sad or want to cry, I can call them out and complain with them, but this kinds of friends, we also have relationship. But I weight them differerently. But actually there are also some kind of people are business friends. For instance, one of my friends, she worked in a brokerage, and because she was a broker, she had so many telephone friends, they always share information about the market on the phone. She thought at that time they could become friends, but after she quit that job, they are say bye-bye.
I don’t know, but I don’t see what’s wrong with that, because, well, I don’t know, we all grew up in capitalism, so it’s hard to see, but is that wrong, what do you think?
I think it’s still marketing think. You categorize your friends into different purpose or ways. I don’t know, I still think it’s influenced by marketing.
I think you’re right.
I cannot tell clearly, but we’re influence by marketing. Maybe you think the business relationship is not the real friend. But in the marketing, you can find lots of books that you have to establish your relationship for future fortune. So it becomes like when you make a friend, you automatically categorize people. But if this way of thinking wasn’t invented, people wouldn’t categorize others like that. For me, certainly, we will have different kinds of friends, or relationship with each other, but I don’t want that when you meet somebody for the first time, you think, this guy: useless, that guy: can be a good friend because they can help me. I don’t like this kind of judgment. Because if you never ever know this person, who knows, one day, he might help you a lot.
Yeah, I’m learning recently that maybe everyone has interesting stories and experiences. Because I know that people look at me, and the clothes I’m wearing that day, and the neighborhood I’m in, and they make guesses about me, but the can’t possibly have the whole story, because I’ve got so many facets. So, suddenly my consciousness has gotten wider, and—yeah, this should have occurred to me sooner, probably—but I’ve realized that the judgements I make about other people, well, they have the same problems. My girlfriend doesn’t seem to have this problem, she treat everyone around her as perfectly real. But she also doesn’t know how to network, and in a certain way, she can’t get things done she needs to, sometimes. You know, because information and opportunities, the good ones, come from knowing people, that’s still true. So, you know, I’m still not sure how to approach this whole thing.
For me, I have to make friends slowly, once I know people more, I might but them in a category.
But sometimes when you met somebody, just should be a friend, somebody, maybe you met him or her in a place or you maybe just sit down together and have a drink, and you talk, and then you found you can talk a lot of things with this person. Then you just want o know him or her more, and then you make friends with this person. I think, and sometimes, this kind of friends maybe know me better than some friends I met at school.
Yeah, I got your point, it’s kind of, you know sparkly. When you meet the right people, talk at the right time, interesting topic, you might have a spark.
Like my roommates in graduate school. She came from Kaohsiung, and I grew up in Taipei. We speak good Taiwanese and English, and can’t speak Chinese so well. We have different kind of characters, but we can talk things that maybe I can’t discuss with my best friends before. And she went back to Kaohsiung and work, and we seldom msn, and contact with email, but when we met in Taipei, we always can keep talking, and never want to say goodbye.
Yeah.
Yeah, so these kind of friends, I want to maintain this relationship forever. It’s a kind of spiritual friendship.
I have a friend like that in New York.
And she never know my life in Taipei, and I never know hers in Kaohsiung, and I don’t know her boyfriends family, but we can just keep talking, and interact.
So, like, how do we make non-marketing relationships?
—?
—?
—?
Like, Lynn said, we use marketing and categorize people, how do we not do that?
Stick with the people you meet in kindergarten.
No, just like your family, that’s too limiting…..
But it’s just like, sometimes you have to make a choice, you have to categorize your friends, or whatever.
I don’t understand.
Is it from education, or from personality, that’s human nature to do?
Well I really think it’s like what Lynn said.
But it’s human nature, or our education, or our personality, or how we make choices?
Oh, I’m beginning to see what you’re saying.
I think the circumstance where you stay..
But I realize I behave this way when I was in college. One of my friends was so sad, because I put her in ‘b’ group, so she was so sad. But one day she told me like she began to behave this way. So maybe a part of personality, but the culture of the market celebrates the space of the broken relationship.
What do you mean she behave, like what? Like divide friends into different kind of group, and you maybe do this thing with this kind of friend, and spend more time with this kind of fired, and spend less time with this kind of friend?
But, like what when someone is really great to dance with , but really shit to talk with over tea. They’re not that much fun.
Like when I want to go to a music concert, I will invite Maggie or something, but for something else—.
I think its really hard to find non-marketing relationship.
Well, maybe one example of a non-marketing relationship, a friend of mine, whenever she needs help, people just step in all over the place to help her. And the reason is, she’s always offering her help to people. She sees that someone might need a hand and she steps in with whatever she can do. She just does it because she can, because she feels rich, and feels she has the time. But it’s really no-strings attached, she doesn’t expect anything back from you. But if she needs help, the people she’s helped just jump in and offer it, because they want to give something back. It’s like a gifting economy, instead of a marketing economy.
Taipei Discussion Transcript: Knowing What's Nice
Participants Discussion Transcript: Mary, Fanny, Riley, Flora, Angela
I read a book and it helped me think about these questions very practically, its about a guy who only wants to work four hours a week. And he has very vivid description about our sense of security about work, but he thinks this is ridiculous. He says you work 56 hours a week to get promoted to work more hours a week. And the other ridiculous example about your career dreams is, you expect to go travel and do every thing you want to do after retirement. And now you waste a lot of time with colleagues. Actually you don’t do much, you just forward some email, and chat on unimportant topics with your colleagues, and so this is what makes your life meaningful. So he tried to do what he want, so he went to travel in Europe, and right away, in the next month. And it evokes a thought for me, we put what dreams you have, what you want, at some untouchable point, but we see the path we took the work we do right now as a cost to exchange for future happiness. But in fact it’s untouchable to us.
It’s really easy to talk about to appreciate what we are right now, but we are unconscious of that most of the time. It’s easy to say we’re satisfied. But take me as an example, we’re unconscious of real happiness, and we dare not do what makes us really happy at that moment. It’s like a circle, keep planning, keep planning, but actually you wasting time, enforce the plan is not really the right direction.
Like maybe we’re just always planning for the future.
But maybe the plan is wrong, we just enjoy the planning. For the sense of security. So you follow the conventional steps, and it’s questionable you could achieve your happiness by this kinds of way. So about this question, I’m thinking right now, I’m thinking there’s no answer actually. We keep pursuing the answer what makes us happy, but I don’t think there’s an answer.
But you don’t think there’s a difference between desire and expectation?
Mmm.
I just found it’s easier for most people to say they are unhappy, but it’s harder for people to say they are happy. Because most people do not know exactly what they really want, and who they really are, so they don’t know whether they are, if they are really happy or not. They just know, I’m not happy now. But they have no idea what will make them happy.
So do you think there’s a difference between desire and expectation?
I just think expectation is what others or myself want to achieve, and desire is I just want to get, I want to do, I just want to achieve, regardless of what others think. Like, I expect myself to be a professional person, but maybe that’s because I hope others see me like this.
So it’s more a social thing.
Maybe.
As her definition expectation is interpreted more socially, and—
And desire is more—personal.
You know, I had this conversation with a 1-1 student of mine. He’s pretty rich, and he said that he was so grateful that he was well off. He’s like, when he desires something, no matter what, he can just get it. He said, if he didn’t have money, his desires would turn into expectation, which is really like a state of loss. He’s like, if I want a Rolex Oyster automatically winding watch or whatever, if the desire enters his head, he can just act on it, and there’s joy in that. To fulfill your desire—that’s joy. If he didn’t have the money, he’d maybe have to save for it, then that desire would become the expectation of fulfillment at some point in the future, and then, basically, it would be all about NOT having the watch, and not fulfilling his desire, and so the joy would be lost. He would be in a state of loss.
So it’s because of this conversation, because of what he said, that I proposed this question for discussion today. I never though about this before, and I thought it would be interesting to see what y’all said. So what you just said about the planning, I think this is related somehow to what my student was saying, but I don’t see it yet.
Okay, so the watch, somehow in the process, not having the watch is a kind of energy, for keeping your life going, but when you get the watch, you lose the energy, you don’t have anything to push you to go further.
Wow, that goes with the planning then.
That’s why people plan and don’t get, because they’re afraid of what happens when they get.
So they start up another plan so they—
So it’s like, what’s the destination of your whole plan?
Like recently, we had some promotion, and lots of personnel events, some people were promoted, and some people failed in the competition. Some people, when they’re manager, they expect to be vice president, and so on. Their whole life. If you’re their president, you’ll have struggled for 15 or 20 years. Most people, if you take this company life for example, all the life is just planning for this stage. But what’s the meaning, the eternal meaning for you? You spent 2 years promoted to president, but what’s the value of that?
But from my point of view, planning from every stage of life, not totally a bad thing. It’s not a bad source of energy. What matters is the contents you plan for. For example, you can plan for a travel, for next year, and so you start to save money, and serve on the internet to get information, and then when you achieve the goal, you can start to plan for another plan, like maybe publish a book for the trip, something like, I mean the, I think planning is a kind of process to help us to find the meaning of our life. When we start to plan something, we start to think about our goal, our desires, and our expectation, whatever, and then to organize the every resources we can get. I think, planning also can be a good thing, but—
So it’s a big difference for that, because you said planning for travel or whatever is sort of a personal affair, but when planning put in the context of social, society, somehow you cannot plan by yourself. You need to plan under the instructions of the society, most of the people regard, they have consensus on the principle, and the range is restricted, so it’s not your plan, so it’s decided by society. And then your, I think somehow your autonomy will be dismissed in this planning. If you just plan for travel, for dinner, sure, it’s quite free, you can achieve your desire, your innovation. But in society, even I obey my motivation, I cannot… I saw one of my colleague, she was promoted very fast, she became a senior manager at a very early age. From a social point of view, her planning very successful. But she live single, because she doesn’t have time to date, she has to spend the working hour. And she doesn’t have hobby, because she doesn’t have time for some entertainment. She sacrificed this for her position. She doesn’t get any, she didn’t attend her desire for some basic happiness for her life.
But she made her own decision. For when she decide to contribute her whole time to achieve her goal, I think she, I propose that she thought very clear, and she should take responsibility of her life. So if she choose by herself—
But seriously how much is it really her choice? Think about it, a man in her position wouldn’t have had to give up being married. I doubt she didn’t get married because she didn’t have time to date. I bet she didn’t because she knew she didn’t have time to take on the responsibilities of the expectations placed on women in a marriage, knew that she couldn’t do that and also further her career. You know, mostly for men, when they get married, it frees them up to concentrate on their career, because they don’t have to take care of cleaning laundry etc, because why? Because the woman is doing it. Women, including working women, are expected to do a disproportionate amount of home work. Besides the social pressure to have a baby for a family, all of that. It’s not the same as a man being married.
Maybe there are some results, unexpected, after her choice. Maybe she tried to assume, she thinks, okay, when I’m a manager, I’ll have more time money and power to fulfill her personal life. But when she gets to that position, the things don’t match her imagination. She could not expect, it’s like a game, when you go to certain situation, she cannot predict what the situation will be.
[slight pause]
So Riley, you’ve been really quiet.
I am on the same page with them, so—
In that case, if you were the woman she mentioned, what would you choose?
Um, if I’m rich, then I would go for my basic, what I really want, which is not work, in that woman’s situation. But if I’m not rich, then I would pursue my career, because you need to have enough money to maintain your present life. After that, you can start to do whatever you want. So if you want to do something, you really have to focus on work, which is making money, what I’m doing now.
Well for me, I made a vow in 2001 to only do work that also spiritually satisfies me. I’m not saying it’s got to be 100% or nothing, it’s just that the job has to allow me to grow personally, on some level, not just feed me. It’s got to support me and at least somewhat feed my soul. Of course I currently have the privilege of having a decent range of choice of jobs, but so, what I’m saying is, to the extent that I have a choice, I’m definitely going to choose something that lets me grow, not just take whatever makes me the most money quickest.
Flora just said that in the reality, maybe your friend cannot expect or control the feedback from society to her choice. I just want think maybe, that’s the major reason why we feel unhappy. Because after we make decision, the feedback of the situation not fit our expectation or desire, so then we feel unhappy.
Huh, you might have solved something for me. A friend of mine just bounces from job to job, is always changing jobs. Even when he’s negotiated himself into a good position, three months later he’ll say to his girlfriend, “Hey, there’s this job available in Hong Kong.” And it makes her want to scream, because she’s already moved around for him, and sacrificed a fairly well paying job so he could be in Taipei. So we were discussing this, but couldn’t come to any conclusion. But now that you said that, I realized: He doesn’t know how to develop where he’s at. He thinks you have to walk into a perfect situation, and when it isn’t, he just wants to give up on it. Whereas other people like look at where they are and try to develop the situation they’re in, and try to improve where they are currently, to make it what they want it to be.
And you know, the other, the case I mentioned, the colleague, right now she’s a senior manager. She sacrificed opportunity to organize a family, when but she want to get a better promotion, she was blocked by her sacrifice. She didn’t have a family. They don’t think a person, because it’s a bureaucracy, they think a person with a family is more stable. So for instance, if she gets angry, they think, “See?” And she lacks contacts, because people think about what kinds of contacts you have through your family. But if you’re a single person, you don’t have these family contacts. Like, if your father in law is in a certain business, or your husband is a diplomat. So it’s the rule of social games, but it’s hard to realize the rules unless you encounter that.
But I think it’s just an excuse to just not promote your colleague.
Yes, I think so too.
Because there’s another case, there’s a woman, she had a family, but she was not promoted because she had family. I think that’s the sex discrimination. Our gvt, the whole society, just don’t want to promote women, so they will find excuse as possible as they can to choose a man. I think so.
I think of another example, because previous, President Ma want to pick some ministers—the combination of ministers in his cabinet, he need to announce he is fair about gender, so he have to collect enough female ministers, no matter if they are capable or not. On that point, that list is really surprising.
Hey, about them ‘being capable or not’, it’s hard to get experience if you aren’t given the opportunity, don’t you think?
Hey, what about Tsai Ingwen? She’s single, right? And she was being considered to be the chairman of the DPP, and some bigwig in the party was like, a single woman is inappropriate? My girlfriend was so pissed off about that. She was finally still appointed, right?
Yes, and that guy was forced to apologise to her.
Aw, yeah!
Yes, first of all because women’s groups protested about that. Second, her father is pretty powerful. But Lu Shioulien, [the previous Vice President of Taiwan] she didn’t get that kind of apology.
But she doesn’t have a powerful relative.
Yeah, but so she’s even more amazing, because she managed to be the Vice President of the country. And she’s not married, either right? She still could be so powerful, have the kind of backing to be the second-most powerful position in the gvt.
I read a book and it helped me think about these questions very practically, its about a guy who only wants to work four hours a week. And he has very vivid description about our sense of security about work, but he thinks this is ridiculous. He says you work 56 hours a week to get promoted to work more hours a week. And the other ridiculous example about your career dreams is, you expect to go travel and do every thing you want to do after retirement. And now you waste a lot of time with colleagues. Actually you don’t do much, you just forward some email, and chat on unimportant topics with your colleagues, and so this is what makes your life meaningful. So he tried to do what he want, so he went to travel in Europe, and right away, in the next month. And it evokes a thought for me, we put what dreams you have, what you want, at some untouchable point, but we see the path we took the work we do right now as a cost to exchange for future happiness. But in fact it’s untouchable to us.
It’s really easy to talk about to appreciate what we are right now, but we are unconscious of that most of the time. It’s easy to say we’re satisfied. But take me as an example, we’re unconscious of real happiness, and we dare not do what makes us really happy at that moment. It’s like a circle, keep planning, keep planning, but actually you wasting time, enforce the plan is not really the right direction.
Like maybe we’re just always planning for the future.
But maybe the plan is wrong, we just enjoy the planning. For the sense of security. So you follow the conventional steps, and it’s questionable you could achieve your happiness by this kinds of way. So about this question, I’m thinking right now, I’m thinking there’s no answer actually. We keep pursuing the answer what makes us happy, but I don’t think there’s an answer.
But you don’t think there’s a difference between desire and expectation?
Mmm.
I just found it’s easier for most people to say they are unhappy, but it’s harder for people to say they are happy. Because most people do not know exactly what they really want, and who they really are, so they don’t know whether they are, if they are really happy or not. They just know, I’m not happy now. But they have no idea what will make them happy.
So do you think there’s a difference between desire and expectation?
I just think expectation is what others or myself want to achieve, and desire is I just want to get, I want to do, I just want to achieve, regardless of what others think. Like, I expect myself to be a professional person, but maybe that’s because I hope others see me like this.
So it’s more a social thing.
Maybe.
As her definition expectation is interpreted more socially, and—
And desire is more—personal.
You know, I had this conversation with a 1-1 student of mine. He’s pretty rich, and he said that he was so grateful that he was well off. He’s like, when he desires something, no matter what, he can just get it. He said, if he didn’t have money, his desires would turn into expectation, which is really like a state of loss. He’s like, if I want a Rolex Oyster automatically winding watch or whatever, if the desire enters his head, he can just act on it, and there’s joy in that. To fulfill your desire—that’s joy. If he didn’t have the money, he’d maybe have to save for it, then that desire would become the expectation of fulfillment at some point in the future, and then, basically, it would be all about NOT having the watch, and not fulfilling his desire, and so the joy would be lost. He would be in a state of loss.
So it’s because of this conversation, because of what he said, that I proposed this question for discussion today. I never though about this before, and I thought it would be interesting to see what y’all said. So what you just said about the planning, I think this is related somehow to what my student was saying, but I don’t see it yet.
Okay, so the watch, somehow in the process, not having the watch is a kind of energy, for keeping your life going, but when you get the watch, you lose the energy, you don’t have anything to push you to go further.
Wow, that goes with the planning then.
That’s why people plan and don’t get, because they’re afraid of what happens when they get.
So they start up another plan so they—
So it’s like, what’s the destination of your whole plan?
Like recently, we had some promotion, and lots of personnel events, some people were promoted, and some people failed in the competition. Some people, when they’re manager, they expect to be vice president, and so on. Their whole life. If you’re their president, you’ll have struggled for 15 or 20 years. Most people, if you take this company life for example, all the life is just planning for this stage. But what’s the meaning, the eternal meaning for you? You spent 2 years promoted to president, but what’s the value of that?
But from my point of view, planning from every stage of life, not totally a bad thing. It’s not a bad source of energy. What matters is the contents you plan for. For example, you can plan for a travel, for next year, and so you start to save money, and serve on the internet to get information, and then when you achieve the goal, you can start to plan for another plan, like maybe publish a book for the trip, something like, I mean the, I think planning is a kind of process to help us to find the meaning of our life. When we start to plan something, we start to think about our goal, our desires, and our expectation, whatever, and then to organize the every resources we can get. I think, planning also can be a good thing, but—
So it’s a big difference for that, because you said planning for travel or whatever is sort of a personal affair, but when planning put in the context of social, society, somehow you cannot plan by yourself. You need to plan under the instructions of the society, most of the people regard, they have consensus on the principle, and the range is restricted, so it’s not your plan, so it’s decided by society. And then your, I think somehow your autonomy will be dismissed in this planning. If you just plan for travel, for dinner, sure, it’s quite free, you can achieve your desire, your innovation. But in society, even I obey my motivation, I cannot… I saw one of my colleague, she was promoted very fast, she became a senior manager at a very early age. From a social point of view, her planning very successful. But she live single, because she doesn’t have time to date, she has to spend the working hour. And she doesn’t have hobby, because she doesn’t have time for some entertainment. She sacrificed this for her position. She doesn’t get any, she didn’t attend her desire for some basic happiness for her life.
But she made her own decision. For when she decide to contribute her whole time to achieve her goal, I think she, I propose that she thought very clear, and she should take responsibility of her life. So if she choose by herself—
But seriously how much is it really her choice? Think about it, a man in her position wouldn’t have had to give up being married. I doubt she didn’t get married because she didn’t have time to date. I bet she didn’t because she knew she didn’t have time to take on the responsibilities of the expectations placed on women in a marriage, knew that she couldn’t do that and also further her career. You know, mostly for men, when they get married, it frees them up to concentrate on their career, because they don’t have to take care of cleaning laundry etc, because why? Because the woman is doing it. Women, including working women, are expected to do a disproportionate amount of home work. Besides the social pressure to have a baby for a family, all of that. It’s not the same as a man being married.
Maybe there are some results, unexpected, after her choice. Maybe she tried to assume, she thinks, okay, when I’m a manager, I’ll have more time money and power to fulfill her personal life. But when she gets to that position, the things don’t match her imagination. She could not expect, it’s like a game, when you go to certain situation, she cannot predict what the situation will be.
[slight pause]
So Riley, you’ve been really quiet.
I am on the same page with them, so—
In that case, if you were the woman she mentioned, what would you choose?
Um, if I’m rich, then I would go for my basic, what I really want, which is not work, in that woman’s situation. But if I’m not rich, then I would pursue my career, because you need to have enough money to maintain your present life. After that, you can start to do whatever you want. So if you want to do something, you really have to focus on work, which is making money, what I’m doing now.
Well for me, I made a vow in 2001 to only do work that also spiritually satisfies me. I’m not saying it’s got to be 100% or nothing, it’s just that the job has to allow me to grow personally, on some level, not just feed me. It’s got to support me and at least somewhat feed my soul. Of course I currently have the privilege of having a decent range of choice of jobs, but so, what I’m saying is, to the extent that I have a choice, I’m definitely going to choose something that lets me grow, not just take whatever makes me the most money quickest.
Flora just said that in the reality, maybe your friend cannot expect or control the feedback from society to her choice. I just want think maybe, that’s the major reason why we feel unhappy. Because after we make decision, the feedback of the situation not fit our expectation or desire, so then we feel unhappy.
Huh, you might have solved something for me. A friend of mine just bounces from job to job, is always changing jobs. Even when he’s negotiated himself into a good position, three months later he’ll say to his girlfriend, “Hey, there’s this job available in Hong Kong.” And it makes her want to scream, because she’s already moved around for him, and sacrificed a fairly well paying job so he could be in Taipei. So we were discussing this, but couldn’t come to any conclusion. But now that you said that, I realized: He doesn’t know how to develop where he’s at. He thinks you have to walk into a perfect situation, and when it isn’t, he just wants to give up on it. Whereas other people like look at where they are and try to develop the situation they’re in, and try to improve where they are currently, to make it what they want it to be.
And you know, the other, the case I mentioned, the colleague, right now she’s a senior manager. She sacrificed opportunity to organize a family, when but she want to get a better promotion, she was blocked by her sacrifice. She didn’t have a family. They don’t think a person, because it’s a bureaucracy, they think a person with a family is more stable. So for instance, if she gets angry, they think, “See?” And she lacks contacts, because people think about what kinds of contacts you have through your family. But if you’re a single person, you don’t have these family contacts. Like, if your father in law is in a certain business, or your husband is a diplomat. So it’s the rule of social games, but it’s hard to realize the rules unless you encounter that.
But I think it’s just an excuse to just not promote your colleague.
Yes, I think so too.
Because there’s another case, there’s a woman, she had a family, but she was not promoted because she had family. I think that’s the sex discrimination. Our gvt, the whole society, just don’t want to promote women, so they will find excuse as possible as they can to choose a man. I think so.
I think of another example, because previous, President Ma want to pick some ministers—the combination of ministers in his cabinet, he need to announce he is fair about gender, so he have to collect enough female ministers, no matter if they are capable or not. On that point, that list is really surprising.
Hey, about them ‘being capable or not’, it’s hard to get experience if you aren’t given the opportunity, don’t you think?
Hey, what about Tsai Ingwen? She’s single, right? And she was being considered to be the chairman of the DPP, and some bigwig in the party was like, a single woman is inappropriate? My girlfriend was so pissed off about that. She was finally still appointed, right?
Yes, and that guy was forced to apologise to her.
Aw, yeah!
Yes, first of all because women’s groups protested about that. Second, her father is pretty powerful. But Lu Shioulien, [the previous Vice President of Taiwan] she didn’t get that kind of apology.
But she doesn’t have a powerful relative.
Yeah, but so she’s even more amazing, because she managed to be the Vice President of the country. And she’s not married, either right? She still could be so powerful, have the kind of backing to be the second-most powerful position in the gvt.
Taipei Discussion Transcript: Grandmothers
Participants: Mary, Maggie, Willie, Fanny, Angela
So it’s really common for Taiwan?
Yes.
You mentioned grandfathers in Taiwan really like getting involved in raising children.
Yes, because they’re retired, and watching TV is boring, and they want to get involved.
I think that’s amazing, that’s not something you think of.
Okay, shall we start?
Yes.
I’m team b, because I think that old people they have their, like, life experience about different things, and they know better than young people, and because they are grandmothers, and they love their grandkids, and so they want to take care of them. Maybe not just grandmom, just someone they are close to, and they will play that kind of role to them.
I also choose team b, because I think grandma play an important role of child-raising and they also contribute to the housework, and share the burden from mothers in each family. So I choose team b. Oh, they also have a lot experience in life.
Well, I’m not pretty sure if my grandmother have a lot of experiences in life, but grandmothers are the best of taking care of children, basically, the most important reason, basically, it’s kind of that they’ve learned a lot from raising our mother or father. I don’t know why, probably because those grandmothers, when mothers turn to grandmothers, they have lots of chances to exchange experiences with other mothers and grandmothers, makes them more knowledgeable, so this makes them better. Children brought up by grandmothers are ‘white and fat’. Like they say.
I agree with the article, that they have better survival.
Basically I think grandmothers know lots of details that mothers don’t know. And the mothers learn this 30 years later, for their grandkids.
So are you team b or team e?
I’m team b. I think the important part is not teaching children things. Usually that is affected by their traditional values, not pretty sure, it’s not all positive from the educational side, but they’re simply the best for taking care, on the survival side, to promote the probability of survival.
I’m also team b. And they all…the answer of team b, is just like you, because the grandmother has lots of information and knowledge about life and survival, and so, I think team b. Thank you! Thank you!
So we’re all team B. What do we talk about
Maybe I can provide an example with my grandma and me. Most grandmother only focus on raising their grandchildren, but I learned a lot of discipline from my daily life with my grandma. She asked me to make my bed when I get up, and also asked me to clean the table when I finished eating. So I learned a lot. What she taught me had a great influence on my personality.
Your mother didn’t make you do that?
My mother only focus on my homework, and how I behave in school.
Education!
Yeah yeah yeah, but not about…
…daily life!
Yeah. And also I like my grandma, because she help me a lot in some kind of home work, like sewing clothes or dolls, like that.
My grandma always gave us ice cream, cookies and soda, all at the same time. We could have as much as we wanted. That was so not what we were allowed at home! It’s how I learned that ice cream and cookies are good, and soda and ice cream is good, and cookies and soda are good, but all three together will make you sick.
But you know, I could have learned that as an adult, too, because if I wanted now to eat all three at the same time, I still could.
Isn’t it great to be an adult?
But I like being a child better. I’m under their protection, and I don’t have to earn money.
But I like being an adult, so I can spend money on whatever I want, because I earned it myself.
So it’s the opposite. Sometimes I think, yeah, I’m an adult, and I can buy whatever I want, so it’s a…
Tradeoff.
Yes!
A little I want to grow up, and I don’t want to grow up.
That’s because you’re still in school and people still can tell you what to do or not.
I think you’re right. I’m so used obeying criteria, so I’m a little afraid of making my own decisions.
Yeah, you know when I got my first job, I just thought, oh my god, I’m free now. I make my own money, I pay my own way, I’m free!
Is that because you didn’t live with your parents? Because I have my own job…
Yes. Moving out is a wonderful thing.
Exactly. My dad is always complaining that I’m watching TV. I thought about getting a TV for my room, but there’s no cable line. Ugh! You need cable!
I think that you can watch cable TV on the internet right now. The resolution is a little bad though.
Yes, but if your ADSL speed is too slow, though…
I think the point is that if there’s a lot more people watching with you, it’s faster.
Faster? Why?
Because they’re sharing the bandwidth.
So you do that a lot?
I watch live sports events. But actually I don’t watch a lot of TV lately.
Good!
I think I’m just tired of watching TV.
Well, the internet is a worse timewaster. In TV, you have to wait for your program to come on, but…
But going back, I think that for parents, they always think you’re their kids, even if you’re 40.
It’s so true.
Is it true that in the US, 18 year olds hate to be told to be careful?
Not just 18 year olds—anybody. Even a six year old hates that.
You know, when a mom says that, it’s a little like, they don’t trust me. Just like once I wanted to invest in stock market, but my mother turned to very angry, and she just said, I have invest for you, so why do want to invest by yourself?
Well, that’s different from my mom, that my mom push me to invest. I think the main reason is that she doesn’t trust my dad.
(Everyone laughs)
She doesn’t trust your dad what?
Well, he reads a lot of Warren Buffet stuff, but he’s terrible! When I started understanding what he was doing, I was like, what are you doing wasting your time reading those books?
So your dad invests?
Well, my mom is busier than my dad, so my dad helps her with the family finances, but he’s terrible.
So your mom encourage you to do it?
Yeah, because she thought I would be more reasonable. But I still think that, when we grow older, parents just look like distractions. Just like you say, when you grow older you want to fly high and do bigger things, and your parents become kind of a distraction. Or even kind of a big stone stop you. I just hope if I become a parent some day, I won’t control them too much. Because I think that when people protect their kids too much, it makes them mediocre. Usually I told my mom, that you guys were great parents and good educators before we were 15, but not anymore, because if my brother and I take your suggestions now, we won’t be able to completely show our talents. So I think kids should leave their family earlier, before 25. If you leave too late, after 30, it’s no good. That’s why I said that from the educational side, grandmothers, it’s good for the kids, they don’t know much about the world, and they have to learn discipline and stuff. But when you grow older, just like it said, it’s modern society, they’re not equipped with the knowledge or tools which is for this century. If you can learn all their tools, which they could use to survive in the 70s, or 80s, that’s a different story.
But sometimes, grandmothers might know how children might behave in certain cases. For example, one of my neighbors, she is a grandmother, she recently complained how her son educate her grandson. Because her son likes to ride motorcycle very fast. And will bring his grandson with.
Oh, dangerous!
So one day, she found her grandson ride his bike very fast, and jump down and said, “I win”. But she’s so opposed in the first place.
So probably she can buy him a helmet.
Who?
The kid.
But both think she or her son should teach her grandson you shouldn’t ride so fast, even she put on the helmet.
But my point is, the kid could ride fast, but it depends on the occasion. Just that it’s not appropriate for him to ride fast on the road or sidewalk, but if there are specific roads for bicycles, it’s okay.
If he’s careful of the other people ion the road.
My advice is, send him to motor GP, and he will know how dangerous.
What’s motor GP?
It’s like formula 500 for motorcycles, so he can see how dangerous it is.
But her son is only 4 or 5 years old.
I really think it’s just location dependent. I think you can’t really tell him you should not ride it fast on the sidewalk or road. But if there are other places, like motor gp, then he can.
Getting back to our discussion, I think that there’s something interesting, that a mother’s mother…
Yeah yeah yeah, that was an interesting point.
The mother’s mother was better at helping the kids survive.
Why not the father's mother?
Well, it’s in the article.
Why?
Well, I’m not pretty sure, because the coincidence was that I’m raised by my maternal grandmother, I didn’t know my paternal grandmother.
Is that true for anyone else?
Well, my mother’s mother died pretty early, so I have no memories of her.
But it sounds like your father’s mother took really good care of you.
Yes, I respect her, and I want to be like her. Because she travel almost the whole Taiwan. And when she lived with us, she can take care of her self, wash her clothes, etc, and she never intervene the affairs between the family
Oh, smart of her!
Yes.
I’m also raised by father’s mother. The paternal grandmother. The reason that my paternal grandmother raise me is my maternal grandmother think I am too annoying for my second uncle. Because he is studying, and I’m crying, because I’m a baby. And my maternal grandmother think I’m too annoying, so she told my mother to send me to my grandmother. And from I am a one-years baby, my grandmother raise me till I am 12.
How far away did she live from your family?
My paternal grandmother live in Chaiyi, and my maternal grandmother live in Kaoshiung.
Where did your family live?
Taipei! So I am running around between three cities. But for a child, I think it’s fun.
Probably because you were loved in all three places.
But when I grew up, I think my maternal grandmother’s treat me nice, better than when I was a baby.
Are you the oldest child?
Did she raise anybody after you?
Yes, my sister is raised by her. Because she said my mother want to send my sister to my paternal grandmother, but she said she had no energy to raise the second child, so my maternal grandmother have to raise my sister.
So is there a great difference between you and your sister?
No, we have almost the same character.
And the same behavior? And values?
Behavior, yes, values, not exactly the same, but similar. The thinking mode of my sister and I is very similar, even the voice. We have similar character. It’s very interesting, because she lived in Kaohsiung, I lived in Chaiyi, but we’re so similar. I don’t know how to describe, when we grow up, we found we have similar voice, similar character and value.
And what about your grandmothers?
I think I’m closer to my paternal grandmom, because she stayed with us when I was little, I don’t know how long, but she had three sons, so she would take turns, so when she came to stay with us, I was six or seven years old, she would buy things I like, and a lot of food, when we went to traditional market, especially. And watching TV together, she would like look at me while I was watching.
So she really loved you.
Well, she didn’t have too much to do at that time.
How about your maternal grandma?
I don’t have that much experience that we are close together, maybe because we didn’t live together. But I think my auntie’s more like my mom, because I was raised by her, because my mom was busy at the time. That’s why I think your grandma doesn’t have to be your real grandma. Because when she cared for me, her kids were already like 20 something.
My father always complained my grandfather, because my grandfather always treat me nice. I think Taiwanese grandfather always get involved with their grandson.
But you’re a granddaughter.
Well, yes.
My paternal grandfather died 20 years before I was born. But my maternal grandfather liked me a lot more than my brother, because my performance in school was great. My brother’s smarter than me, actually, but he doesn’t care about schoolwork, so he doesn’t perform as well. He’s not a traditional kid, he doesn’t obey the rules, so my grandfather doesn’t like him as much as me. So I was really sad when he passed away, I think it was my 18 years old. My mom told me I was like the representative, because there are four grandchildren of him, my brother, my two cousins, and I, and my mom said that my grandfather loves me the most, because of that. But I think the best memory of him, was that he was the guard of a textile company in Tainan, and I live with them at that time, and one day, you know what the guards do, they have to go to every checkpoint, to record that they checked it, and I got to go with him. I was five years old, so I just went with him. When the mission ended, we went to his like, employees restaurant to have an ice-cream. And I remember that. And I got a cold the next day. Getting a cold is kind of serious stuff when I was small, and I remember my grandmother yelling at my grandfather about that, but it was a fun memory. I think the point is that I’m not very familiar with my father. I’m familiar with my mother, and my grandparents. My father worked in Taipei, and we lived together in Tainan. So I think the point is I would do my best to get to know my son, because if you don’t play or work with them when they are small, they will know you are their father, but they won’t know you. I lived with my grandparents, but I didn’t learn Taiwanese.
That’s really interesting, and you were in Tainan, of all places?
And my mother spoke Taiwanese with them. So I think the funny part is, I can understand what they’re saying, but I can’t speak.
So you speak Chinese to your grandparents, and they speak Taiwanese to you.
Yes, because their Chinese skills are limited, and my Taiwanese is limited. But we could understand. Also, when they speak to me in Taiwanese, they don’t require a response from me.
My paternal grandfather and mother learned Chinese so hard, so they can speak Chinese with their grandchildren, so all of us don’t speak Taiwanese.
But I think learning the mother tongue helps you to understand the culture. So even though I can’t speak it too well, I try to expose myself to it, and ask what words mean, and why they speak like that.
I always laugh at my sister’s Taiwanese.
So they didn’t speak Taiwanese with her in Kaoshiung?
I speak Taiwanese better than my classmates!
I grew up in three places, so my Taiwanese is merged! But my Taiwanese is similar to Beigang, because that’s where my grandparents are from. So I have a Beigang accent. But I have several words I use in kaoshiung accent.
So it’s really common for Taiwan?
Yes.
You mentioned grandfathers in Taiwan really like getting involved in raising children.
Yes, because they’re retired, and watching TV is boring, and they want to get involved.
I think that’s amazing, that’s not something you think of.
Okay, shall we start?
Yes.
I’m team b, because I think that old people they have their, like, life experience about different things, and they know better than young people, and because they are grandmothers, and they love their grandkids, and so they want to take care of them. Maybe not just grandmom, just someone they are close to, and they will play that kind of role to them.
I also choose team b, because I think grandma play an important role of child-raising and they also contribute to the housework, and share the burden from mothers in each family. So I choose team b. Oh, they also have a lot experience in life.
Well, I’m not pretty sure if my grandmother have a lot of experiences in life, but grandmothers are the best of taking care of children, basically, the most important reason, basically, it’s kind of that they’ve learned a lot from raising our mother or father. I don’t know why, probably because those grandmothers, when mothers turn to grandmothers, they have lots of chances to exchange experiences with other mothers and grandmothers, makes them more knowledgeable, so this makes them better. Children brought up by grandmothers are ‘white and fat’. Like they say.
I agree with the article, that they have better survival.
Basically I think grandmothers know lots of details that mothers don’t know. And the mothers learn this 30 years later, for their grandkids.
So are you team b or team e?
I’m team b. I think the important part is not teaching children things. Usually that is affected by their traditional values, not pretty sure, it’s not all positive from the educational side, but they’re simply the best for taking care, on the survival side, to promote the probability of survival.
I’m also team b. And they all…the answer of team b, is just like you, because the grandmother has lots of information and knowledge about life and survival, and so, I think team b. Thank you! Thank you!
So we’re all team B. What do we talk about
Maybe I can provide an example with my grandma and me. Most grandmother only focus on raising their grandchildren, but I learned a lot of discipline from my daily life with my grandma. She asked me to make my bed when I get up, and also asked me to clean the table when I finished eating. So I learned a lot. What she taught me had a great influence on my personality.
Your mother didn’t make you do that?
My mother only focus on my homework, and how I behave in school.
Education!
Yeah yeah yeah, but not about…
…daily life!
Yeah. And also I like my grandma, because she help me a lot in some kind of home work, like sewing clothes or dolls, like that.
My grandma always gave us ice cream, cookies and soda, all at the same time. We could have as much as we wanted. That was so not what we were allowed at home! It’s how I learned that ice cream and cookies are good, and soda and ice cream is good, and cookies and soda are good, but all three together will make you sick.
But you know, I could have learned that as an adult, too, because if I wanted now to eat all three at the same time, I still could.
Isn’t it great to be an adult?
But I like being a child better. I’m under their protection, and I don’t have to earn money.
But I like being an adult, so I can spend money on whatever I want, because I earned it myself.
So it’s the opposite. Sometimes I think, yeah, I’m an adult, and I can buy whatever I want, so it’s a…
Tradeoff.
Yes!
A little I want to grow up, and I don’t want to grow up.
That’s because you’re still in school and people still can tell you what to do or not.
I think you’re right. I’m so used obeying criteria, so I’m a little afraid of making my own decisions.
Yeah, you know when I got my first job, I just thought, oh my god, I’m free now. I make my own money, I pay my own way, I’m free!
Is that because you didn’t live with your parents? Because I have my own job…
Yes. Moving out is a wonderful thing.
Exactly. My dad is always complaining that I’m watching TV. I thought about getting a TV for my room, but there’s no cable line. Ugh! You need cable!
I think that you can watch cable TV on the internet right now. The resolution is a little bad though.
Yes, but if your ADSL speed is too slow, though…
I think the point is that if there’s a lot more people watching with you, it’s faster.
Faster? Why?
Because they’re sharing the bandwidth.
So you do that a lot?
I watch live sports events. But actually I don’t watch a lot of TV lately.
Good!
I think I’m just tired of watching TV.
Well, the internet is a worse timewaster. In TV, you have to wait for your program to come on, but…
But going back, I think that for parents, they always think you’re their kids, even if you’re 40.
It’s so true.
Is it true that in the US, 18 year olds hate to be told to be careful?
Not just 18 year olds—anybody. Even a six year old hates that.
You know, when a mom says that, it’s a little like, they don’t trust me. Just like once I wanted to invest in stock market, but my mother turned to very angry, and she just said, I have invest for you, so why do want to invest by yourself?
Well, that’s different from my mom, that my mom push me to invest. I think the main reason is that she doesn’t trust my dad.
(Everyone laughs)
She doesn’t trust your dad what?
Well, he reads a lot of Warren Buffet stuff, but he’s terrible! When I started understanding what he was doing, I was like, what are you doing wasting your time reading those books?
So your dad invests?
Well, my mom is busier than my dad, so my dad helps her with the family finances, but he’s terrible.
So your mom encourage you to do it?
Yeah, because she thought I would be more reasonable. But I still think that, when we grow older, parents just look like distractions. Just like you say, when you grow older you want to fly high and do bigger things, and your parents become kind of a distraction. Or even kind of a big stone stop you. I just hope if I become a parent some day, I won’t control them too much. Because I think that when people protect their kids too much, it makes them mediocre. Usually I told my mom, that you guys were great parents and good educators before we were 15, but not anymore, because if my brother and I take your suggestions now, we won’t be able to completely show our talents. So I think kids should leave their family earlier, before 25. If you leave too late, after 30, it’s no good. That’s why I said that from the educational side, grandmothers, it’s good for the kids, they don’t know much about the world, and they have to learn discipline and stuff. But when you grow older, just like it said, it’s modern society, they’re not equipped with the knowledge or tools which is for this century. If you can learn all their tools, which they could use to survive in the 70s, or 80s, that’s a different story.
But sometimes, grandmothers might know how children might behave in certain cases. For example, one of my neighbors, she is a grandmother, she recently complained how her son educate her grandson. Because her son likes to ride motorcycle very fast. And will bring his grandson with.
Oh, dangerous!
So one day, she found her grandson ride his bike very fast, and jump down and said, “I win”. But she’s so opposed in the first place.
So probably she can buy him a helmet.
Who?
The kid.
But both think she or her son should teach her grandson you shouldn’t ride so fast, even she put on the helmet.
But my point is, the kid could ride fast, but it depends on the occasion. Just that it’s not appropriate for him to ride fast on the road or sidewalk, but if there are specific roads for bicycles, it’s okay.
If he’s careful of the other people ion the road.
My advice is, send him to motor GP, and he will know how dangerous.
What’s motor GP?
It’s like formula 500 for motorcycles, so he can see how dangerous it is.
But her son is only 4 or 5 years old.
I really think it’s just location dependent. I think you can’t really tell him you should not ride it fast on the sidewalk or road. But if there are other places, like motor gp, then he can.
Getting back to our discussion, I think that there’s something interesting, that a mother’s mother…
Yeah yeah yeah, that was an interesting point.
The mother’s mother was better at helping the kids survive.
Why not the father's mother?
Well, it’s in the article.
Why?
Well, I’m not pretty sure, because the coincidence was that I’m raised by my maternal grandmother, I didn’t know my paternal grandmother.
Is that true for anyone else?
Well, my mother’s mother died pretty early, so I have no memories of her.
But it sounds like your father’s mother took really good care of you.
Yes, I respect her, and I want to be like her. Because she travel almost the whole Taiwan. And when she lived with us, she can take care of her self, wash her clothes, etc, and she never intervene the affairs between the family
Oh, smart of her!
Yes.
I’m also raised by father’s mother. The paternal grandmother. The reason that my paternal grandmother raise me is my maternal grandmother think I am too annoying for my second uncle. Because he is studying, and I’m crying, because I’m a baby. And my maternal grandmother think I’m too annoying, so she told my mother to send me to my grandmother. And from I am a one-years baby, my grandmother raise me till I am 12.
How far away did she live from your family?
My paternal grandmother live in Chaiyi, and my maternal grandmother live in Kaoshiung.
Where did your family live?
Taipei! So I am running around between three cities. But for a child, I think it’s fun.
Probably because you were loved in all three places.
But when I grew up, I think my maternal grandmother’s treat me nice, better than when I was a baby.
Are you the oldest child?
Did she raise anybody after you?
Yes, my sister is raised by her. Because she said my mother want to send my sister to my paternal grandmother, but she said she had no energy to raise the second child, so my maternal grandmother have to raise my sister.
So is there a great difference between you and your sister?
No, we have almost the same character.
And the same behavior? And values?
Behavior, yes, values, not exactly the same, but similar. The thinking mode of my sister and I is very similar, even the voice. We have similar character. It’s very interesting, because she lived in Kaohsiung, I lived in Chaiyi, but we’re so similar. I don’t know how to describe, when we grow up, we found we have similar voice, similar character and value.
And what about your grandmothers?
I think I’m closer to my paternal grandmom, because she stayed with us when I was little, I don’t know how long, but she had three sons, so she would take turns, so when she came to stay with us, I was six or seven years old, she would buy things I like, and a lot of food, when we went to traditional market, especially. And watching TV together, she would like look at me while I was watching.
So she really loved you.
Well, she didn’t have too much to do at that time.
How about your maternal grandma?
I don’t have that much experience that we are close together, maybe because we didn’t live together. But I think my auntie’s more like my mom, because I was raised by her, because my mom was busy at the time. That’s why I think your grandma doesn’t have to be your real grandma. Because when she cared for me, her kids were already like 20 something.
My father always complained my grandfather, because my grandfather always treat me nice. I think Taiwanese grandfather always get involved with their grandson.
But you’re a granddaughter.
Well, yes.
My paternal grandfather died 20 years before I was born. But my maternal grandfather liked me a lot more than my brother, because my performance in school was great. My brother’s smarter than me, actually, but he doesn’t care about schoolwork, so he doesn’t perform as well. He’s not a traditional kid, he doesn’t obey the rules, so my grandfather doesn’t like him as much as me. So I was really sad when he passed away, I think it was my 18 years old. My mom told me I was like the representative, because there are four grandchildren of him, my brother, my two cousins, and I, and my mom said that my grandfather loves me the most, because of that. But I think the best memory of him, was that he was the guard of a textile company in Tainan, and I live with them at that time, and one day, you know what the guards do, they have to go to every checkpoint, to record that they checked it, and I got to go with him. I was five years old, so I just went with him. When the mission ended, we went to his like, employees restaurant to have an ice-cream. And I remember that. And I got a cold the next day. Getting a cold is kind of serious stuff when I was small, and I remember my grandmother yelling at my grandfather about that, but it was a fun memory. I think the point is that I’m not very familiar with my father. I’m familiar with my mother, and my grandparents. My father worked in Taipei, and we lived together in Tainan. So I think the point is I would do my best to get to know my son, because if you don’t play or work with them when they are small, they will know you are their father, but they won’t know you. I lived with my grandparents, but I didn’t learn Taiwanese.
That’s really interesting, and you were in Tainan, of all places?
And my mother spoke Taiwanese with them. So I think the funny part is, I can understand what they’re saying, but I can’t speak.
So you speak Chinese to your grandparents, and they speak Taiwanese to you.
Yes, because their Chinese skills are limited, and my Taiwanese is limited. But we could understand. Also, when they speak to me in Taiwanese, they don’t require a response from me.
My paternal grandfather and mother learned Chinese so hard, so they can speak Chinese with their grandchildren, so all of us don’t speak Taiwanese.
But I think learning the mother tongue helps you to understand the culture. So even though I can’t speak it too well, I try to expose myself to it, and ask what words mean, and why they speak like that.
I always laugh at my sister’s Taiwanese.
So they didn’t speak Taiwanese with her in Kaoshiung?
I speak Taiwanese better than my classmates!
I grew up in three places, so my Taiwanese is merged! But my Taiwanese is similar to Beigang, because that’s where my grandparents are from. So I have a Beigang accent. But I have several words I use in kaoshiung accent.
Taipei Discussion Transcript: Farming
Participants: Maggie, Fanny, Mary, Angela
I can’t choose a team, because I don’t really understand this question, really. It's hard to understand, ‘transferring wealth’.
Yeah, this time, it’s really an undigested question. I’ve been sitting on this article for weeks, because it’s all so new to me too, and finally, I finally figured out what I wanted to ask about it, but I couldn’t figure out what really kinds of positions you could take on it, so I though, I would just sort of prevail on you guys to work this idea through with me. I thought maybe we could think this through together.
Yeah, cuz there’s a lot of different questions that could be asked about this article, there’s a lot of material here.
Exactly.
I was thinking of the story of stuff, when I wrote example b. You know, the cost of the 5 dollar radio in no way reflects the whole production arc, from oil shipped to refinery shipped to plastics factory shipped to assembly factory shipped to warehouse shipped to store, and sold for only 5 dollars? How is that possible?
Coke for instance, it’s sugar water and flavoring, and the container, or packaging, is I think, just 3NT dollars, but it cost me 20NT.
That’s not the point I’m making. The whole process of making the can…. I know repetitive units make the money, but how could that can only cost 3NT?
But I think the profit on coca cola is 50% of the can, though.
But I think because nowadays, we produce those products by machines, and so-called automaticalized systems, so we can produce so large and amount of products, that in theory could reduce the cost. So maybe that’s why we can pay only a little money to buy those products. But for nowadays, oil and so many raw materials, their price go up, that makes, because in past time we can use low-labor from Vietnam or south Asia, and use low cost of raw material from south Africa or east Europe. But nowadays, oil prices, commodity prices…
What are commodities?
Oils, ores, or coal, is the definition we use at my job.
Okay.
So the commodities from those countries is more expensive, because transportation cost higher than before.
See, I wish I had a better grasp of economics, I can feel that it’s right, arghh, so I’m no better than Stephen Colbert’s ‘gut’. The Story of Stuff woman showed it but didn’t prove it.
Yeah, but it’s hard to get the exact numbers. But I do wonder how we can pay 10NT dollars for watermelon
Only 10?
Or whatever, we pay so little for watermelon, or other foods in Taiwan, but I can’t prove my thinking. I just feel …
I think it’s the balance between supply and demand.
Yeah, but that’s not the true cost of it, it’s just what you can get for it.
It’s like, how can I sit in this air-conditioned room and make so much more money than the Indonesian guy over there building buildings? He’s working much harder than me, but it’s what the market will bear. But how is my mental labor so much more expensive than his physical labor?
Yeah, that’s the market for you. We think the free market will set realistic value. In theory, something costs 100NT dollars, if you sell it to me, and I don’t want to buy it, so you slash it to 80 dollars, but you still don’t want it, then it goes to 50, so then you finally buy it. That’s the equivalent of the price. That’s how the market works. That’s how some guy like singer or artist, those guy in movies in movies or TV shows earn so much.
Actually they’re paying those guys for their availability. They’re paying for the year before and the year after the movie, so that you’re available to do their movie.
Only for movies?
I’m not sure. Another example is a painter. The actual cost of canvas and paints is negligible. But the reason they can charge so much is all the time and money they spent training, practicing, developing their skill and their talent, their unusual ideas, there’s a lot goes into a painting. This is true for musicians, too. You’re not just buying the object, you’re buying a kind of value, and you’re retroactively supporting all the work they put into getting to the point where they could paint that painting.
So when we pay for the cd, we’re paying not just for the materials, we’re paying for the talent,
For the machines…
For them taking the risk to do the music in the first place!
Exactly.
Question 8 to ten, it’s really a group of questions, and I wonder, what is really the answer of these question, because I think, these are really good questions, I want to know why?
Why did the Ancient Greek civilization die out in the 2nd or 3rd century?
Well, because of roman?
No, because they’re before the first century.
We need Lynn!
Yes, Lynn, where is you?!?
But I know the reason why roman empire came to an end. Because they were too big,
Just because the separation?
Yeah, the separation. And they failed to handle the different culture. Yeah. Do you remember?
Yeah, but the western roman empire, the east?
West!
Maybe, but…
It might also have been a food problem. The guy who wrote the book we sampled, in another part of the book he argues that the food quality of the Romans declined as they expanded and population expanded, and the fields were used for too long, so since the quality of food went down, the quality of intelligence also went down among the population.
So should we learn how to grow the vegetable or rice?
But the more important is to learn how to maintain the fertility. Sure, we have to learn how to grow vegetables or rice, but if the land dies…
In thirteenth century Europe, they separate their land to three part, and this year, the grow the two part of the land, and the third part
They let it lie fallow.
Yes, exactly.
Yes, that’s a Saxon practice. Before the Saxons became the Anglo Saxons in England, when they were still only in Germany, that was their habit.
So, does it possible to use this kind of system nowadays?
No, we use the chemical substance to increase the fertility.
Yeah, but it’s like drinking coffee. Does coffee actually give you energy? No, it just releases the energy from the body that’s already there. It’ doesn’t increase anything
I think, because we want to keep the price in certain range, so it’s hard to use the fallow policy.
Yes, right.
How does that affect it, can you explain?
Because if you use fallow policy…
The whole land of the farm, can produce, say for example, 1000 pounds rice, but if you use fallow policy, then you use only 2/3 of it, 60 or 70 percent, then it’s only 600 or 700.
But what if, as you use up the fertility of the land, then…fallow looks like a pretty good idea, stable 700, instead of decreasing yields
Yes, but how do you use this to talk the farmer, and say ‘oh, you can save the fertility of the land’
Well, you can tell them they can save the money from the fertilizer.
Population = nutrition = more people, so… we cant afford more population. So on one hand, do we really want to increase the land’s fertility? On the other hand, you can’t go around killing people off because they’re inconvenient, so what do you do?
Well, so the gods do it for us, that’s why there have been so many terrible typhoon and earthquake in recent years. I think that’s the penalty.
Well, global warming, if the scenarios are true, lots of people might die, but that’s us wiping ourselves out, right?
I read in the Chinese newspaper today that a guy is setting up solar systems and encourage us to use less oil energy. When I read this I was so happy to see someone has the same ideas about our future. But we need someone in gvt can, I just think maybe we can, is it possible to contact this guy, and discuss with him or her?
Sure, do you know his name?
No, because they will not show the real name.
Why not?
I have no idea, but maybe we can call the newspaper, to ask them the real name, who wrote this essay.
You can leave your information and ask them to give it to him to have him call.
Okay, so let’s maybe look at example a.
But, what is transferring wealth, actually?
See this is what I could barely get a toehold on, this is what I wanted to talk with you about, he gave this example, of farmers in England in the 1940s, their land didn’t produce quality enough feed for their cattle so they imported ‘oil cakes’ from somewhere in the 3rd world, and so the nutrition of the soil of wherever they got the cakes from was transferred to feed English cows, so the nutritional ‘wealth’ was transferred. Money was transferred back, of course, but the real wealth, the unreplaceable nutrition, was transferred away permanently.
Just like, now due to globalization, we absorb resources from developing countries, and the sell back products to them to earn money, and I think this is another kind of transferring wealth.
And in paragraph nine, he’s saying those European people took in resources from America and Asia and New Zealand and Australia, that made them so there was still so many resources to use, and then they over used the resources and overproduce, like the society nowadays.
Well, that’s not like that was then and this is now, this is still happening.
Right, if we only used local resources to produce, then when we aware the shortage of resource, then we will reduce the production, however, if we can import resources from other countries, then we will keep producing, and then on and on.
But also, the market end of things, Americans have too much stuff, now, they’ve no place to put it, and now they don’t have any money anymore. My friend Johnny was saying that if we didn’t have India and China as new markets, capitalism would have died by now, it needs new people to buy things. Capitalism is fucked, basically, you know what I mean? It’s a really off balance system.
Who create capitalism, anyways?
Who knows, I think we’re all sucked into being a part of the system.
Okay, but let’s look at example a. If I’ve thrown away all my resources, is it okay that I pay to get someone else’s? Is that ethical?
Its evil.
Why do you think it’s evil?
I don’t know, it just wrong.
What do you think, Miss Mary?
I just don’t know the answer.
Yeah.
Do you think it’s evil?
Well, I was trained by capitalism, and trained by economic courses, so I just think, if I have money, why can’t I use it? The teacher always teach us that’s the right way, if somebody grow rice, and somebody build house, and somebody sew clothes, and you just pay money for that. So I never think it might be evil to behave in like this way. But, …
I think capitalism is convenient for most of people, but it’s still evil.
But you like, it, right? That’s what you’re conflicted about, because you like buying things.
Well, yeah.
See, the question I’ve had for a long time, is buying and trading things capitalism? Is capitalism like trading things ‘on steroids’?
What I mean is, for instance, Nantou is really good for growing tea, but not much good for growing rice or anything else. Taichung is really good for growing rice, and other veggies. So Nantou and Taichung trade for what they need. So is that just trade, or is it capitalism?
No, that’s a classic trading system. The case of Taipei and Nantou, that’s capitalism, because Taipei doesn’t grow anything.
Taipei grows money!
Ha!
Taipei provides a place to trade everything and grow profit.
So the relationship between product and product is trade. And the relation between product and money is capitalism.
I like the way you think!
So the stock market, it’s only for money, it’s totally capitalism.
Yeah, when you get to futures and derivatives and all that crap, it’s like it really hasn’t got much to do with the actual products being exchanged.
So food for food is not evil, but maybe money for food…is money for food evil, question mark?
I think it’s a question of degree and emphasis, as the author said, because money is a very convenient medium of exchange.
Yes, that’s what I’ve learned during these five to ten years, money is the most convenient medium for exchange system.
Yes, ‘a question of degree and emphasis’.
I can’t choose a team, because I don’t really understand this question, really. It's hard to understand, ‘transferring wealth’.
Yeah, this time, it’s really an undigested question. I’ve been sitting on this article for weeks, because it’s all so new to me too, and finally, I finally figured out what I wanted to ask about it, but I couldn’t figure out what really kinds of positions you could take on it, so I though, I would just sort of prevail on you guys to work this idea through with me. I thought maybe we could think this through together.
Yeah, cuz there’s a lot of different questions that could be asked about this article, there’s a lot of material here.
Exactly.
I was thinking of the story of stuff, when I wrote example b. You know, the cost of the 5 dollar radio in no way reflects the whole production arc, from oil shipped to refinery shipped to plastics factory shipped to assembly factory shipped to warehouse shipped to store, and sold for only 5 dollars? How is that possible?
Coke for instance, it’s sugar water and flavoring, and the container, or packaging, is I think, just 3NT dollars, but it cost me 20NT.
That’s not the point I’m making. The whole process of making the can…. I know repetitive units make the money, but how could that can only cost 3NT?
But I think the profit on coca cola is 50% of the can, though.
But I think because nowadays, we produce those products by machines, and so-called automaticalized systems, so we can produce so large and amount of products, that in theory could reduce the cost. So maybe that’s why we can pay only a little money to buy those products. But for nowadays, oil and so many raw materials, their price go up, that makes, because in past time we can use low-labor from Vietnam or south Asia, and use low cost of raw material from south Africa or east Europe. But nowadays, oil prices, commodity prices…
What are commodities?
Oils, ores, or coal, is the definition we use at my job.
Okay.
So the commodities from those countries is more expensive, because transportation cost higher than before.
See, I wish I had a better grasp of economics, I can feel that it’s right, arghh, so I’m no better than Stephen Colbert’s ‘gut’. The Story of Stuff woman showed it but didn’t prove it.
Yeah, but it’s hard to get the exact numbers. But I do wonder how we can pay 10NT dollars for watermelon
Only 10?
Or whatever, we pay so little for watermelon, or other foods in Taiwan, but I can’t prove my thinking. I just feel …
I think it’s the balance between supply and demand.
Yeah, but that’s not the true cost of it, it’s just what you can get for it.
It’s like, how can I sit in this air-conditioned room and make so much more money than the Indonesian guy over there building buildings? He’s working much harder than me, but it’s what the market will bear. But how is my mental labor so much more expensive than his physical labor?
Yeah, that’s the market for you. We think the free market will set realistic value. In theory, something costs 100NT dollars, if you sell it to me, and I don’t want to buy it, so you slash it to 80 dollars, but you still don’t want it, then it goes to 50, so then you finally buy it. That’s the equivalent of the price. That’s how the market works. That’s how some guy like singer or artist, those guy in movies in movies or TV shows earn so much.
Actually they’re paying those guys for their availability. They’re paying for the year before and the year after the movie, so that you’re available to do their movie.
Only for movies?
I’m not sure. Another example is a painter. The actual cost of canvas and paints is negligible. But the reason they can charge so much is all the time and money they spent training, practicing, developing their skill and their talent, their unusual ideas, there’s a lot goes into a painting. This is true for musicians, too. You’re not just buying the object, you’re buying a kind of value, and you’re retroactively supporting all the work they put into getting to the point where they could paint that painting.
So when we pay for the cd, we’re paying not just for the materials, we’re paying for the talent,
For the machines…
For them taking the risk to do the music in the first place!
Exactly.
Question 8 to ten, it’s really a group of questions, and I wonder, what is really the answer of these question, because I think, these are really good questions, I want to know why?
Why did the Ancient Greek civilization die out in the 2nd or 3rd century?
Well, because of roman?
No, because they’re before the first century.
We need Lynn!
Yes, Lynn, where is you?!?
But I know the reason why roman empire came to an end. Because they were too big,
Just because the separation?
Yeah, the separation. And they failed to handle the different culture. Yeah. Do you remember?
Yeah, but the western roman empire, the east?
West!
Maybe, but…
It might also have been a food problem. The guy who wrote the book we sampled, in another part of the book he argues that the food quality of the Romans declined as they expanded and population expanded, and the fields were used for too long, so since the quality of food went down, the quality of intelligence also went down among the population.
So should we learn how to grow the vegetable or rice?
But the more important is to learn how to maintain the fertility. Sure, we have to learn how to grow vegetables or rice, but if the land dies…
In thirteenth century Europe, they separate their land to three part, and this year, the grow the two part of the land, and the third part
They let it lie fallow.
Yes, exactly.
Yes, that’s a Saxon practice. Before the Saxons became the Anglo Saxons in England, when they were still only in Germany, that was their habit.
So, does it possible to use this kind of system nowadays?
No, we use the chemical substance to increase the fertility.
Yeah, but it’s like drinking coffee. Does coffee actually give you energy? No, it just releases the energy from the body that’s already there. It’ doesn’t increase anything
I think, because we want to keep the price in certain range, so it’s hard to use the fallow policy.
Yes, right.
How does that affect it, can you explain?
Because if you use fallow policy…
The whole land of the farm, can produce, say for example, 1000 pounds rice, but if you use fallow policy, then you use only 2/3 of it, 60 or 70 percent, then it’s only 600 or 700.
But what if, as you use up the fertility of the land, then…fallow looks like a pretty good idea, stable 700, instead of decreasing yields
Yes, but how do you use this to talk the farmer, and say ‘oh, you can save the fertility of the land’
Well, you can tell them they can save the money from the fertilizer.
Population = nutrition = more people, so… we cant afford more population. So on one hand, do we really want to increase the land’s fertility? On the other hand, you can’t go around killing people off because they’re inconvenient, so what do you do?
Well, so the gods do it for us, that’s why there have been so many terrible typhoon and earthquake in recent years. I think that’s the penalty.
Well, global warming, if the scenarios are true, lots of people might die, but that’s us wiping ourselves out, right?
I read in the Chinese newspaper today that a guy is setting up solar systems and encourage us to use less oil energy. When I read this I was so happy to see someone has the same ideas about our future. But we need someone in gvt can, I just think maybe we can, is it possible to contact this guy, and discuss with him or her?
Sure, do you know his name?
No, because they will not show the real name.
Why not?
I have no idea, but maybe we can call the newspaper, to ask them the real name, who wrote this essay.
You can leave your information and ask them to give it to him to have him call.
Okay, so let’s maybe look at example a.
But, what is transferring wealth, actually?
See this is what I could barely get a toehold on, this is what I wanted to talk with you about, he gave this example, of farmers in England in the 1940s, their land didn’t produce quality enough feed for their cattle so they imported ‘oil cakes’ from somewhere in the 3rd world, and so the nutrition of the soil of wherever they got the cakes from was transferred to feed English cows, so the nutritional ‘wealth’ was transferred. Money was transferred back, of course, but the real wealth, the unreplaceable nutrition, was transferred away permanently.
Just like, now due to globalization, we absorb resources from developing countries, and the sell back products to them to earn money, and I think this is another kind of transferring wealth.
And in paragraph nine, he’s saying those European people took in resources from America and Asia and New Zealand and Australia, that made them so there was still so many resources to use, and then they over used the resources and overproduce, like the society nowadays.
Well, that’s not like that was then and this is now, this is still happening.
Right, if we only used local resources to produce, then when we aware the shortage of resource, then we will reduce the production, however, if we can import resources from other countries, then we will keep producing, and then on and on.
But also, the market end of things, Americans have too much stuff, now, they’ve no place to put it, and now they don’t have any money anymore. My friend Johnny was saying that if we didn’t have India and China as new markets, capitalism would have died by now, it needs new people to buy things. Capitalism is fucked, basically, you know what I mean? It’s a really off balance system.
Who create capitalism, anyways?
Who knows, I think we’re all sucked into being a part of the system.
Okay, but let’s look at example a. If I’ve thrown away all my resources, is it okay that I pay to get someone else’s? Is that ethical?
Its evil.
Why do you think it’s evil?
I don’t know, it just wrong.
What do you think, Miss Mary?
I just don’t know the answer.
Yeah.
Do you think it’s evil?
Well, I was trained by capitalism, and trained by economic courses, so I just think, if I have money, why can’t I use it? The teacher always teach us that’s the right way, if somebody grow rice, and somebody build house, and somebody sew clothes, and you just pay money for that. So I never think it might be evil to behave in like this way. But, …
I think capitalism is convenient for most of people, but it’s still evil.
But you like, it, right? That’s what you’re conflicted about, because you like buying things.
Well, yeah.
See, the question I’ve had for a long time, is buying and trading things capitalism? Is capitalism like trading things ‘on steroids’?
What I mean is, for instance, Nantou is really good for growing tea, but not much good for growing rice or anything else. Taichung is really good for growing rice, and other veggies. So Nantou and Taichung trade for what they need. So is that just trade, or is it capitalism?
No, that’s a classic trading system. The case of Taipei and Nantou, that’s capitalism, because Taipei doesn’t grow anything.
Taipei grows money!
Ha!
Taipei provides a place to trade everything and grow profit.
So the relationship between product and product is trade. And the relation between product and money is capitalism.
I like the way you think!
So the stock market, it’s only for money, it’s totally capitalism.
Yeah, when you get to futures and derivatives and all that crap, it’s like it really hasn’t got much to do with the actual products being exchanged.
So food for food is not evil, but maybe money for food…is money for food evil, question mark?
I think it’s a question of degree and emphasis, as the author said, because money is a very convenient medium of exchange.
Yes, that’s what I’ve learned during these five to ten years, money is the most convenient medium for exchange system.
Yes, ‘a question of degree and emphasis’.
Taipei Discussion Transcript: America the Beautiful
Participants: Mary, Maggie, Willie, Fanny, Lynn, Angela
I’m team b, because I think if the US is our friends, they don’t want to urge us to buy the worst weapon. So I think, we just, not just the weapon, Taiwan is also the weapon! So the US is not our friend. We’re just a toy or a tool.
I support team b. I think America just want to take advantage of us. That’s why they will force us to buy, or to set the budget to buy their weapon.
Weapon, that’s the most important thing! Because it costs a lot.
Yes, is costs us more than fifty...
Fifty!!!
Well, now it’s down, but almost fifty.
And they’re not true friends to us, or they would support us to join the WHO. I mean, it’s impossible for us to join the UN, because china will fight that, but the WHO, we have so many doctors who help with that, and we need to share the information, about SARS, and birdflu, but they don’t help us.
Well, I think Taiwan was partly America’s friends before Chaing Kai Shek died, partially, because of WWII, and because Chaing Kai Shek established some good relationship with the us. But after the KMT lost the war against the communists, and went to Taiwan, then the American gvt put Taiwan as a kind of point to resist an evil empire. But at this time, they don’t want to fight china anymore, so Taiwan’s status is like they put their hand into like east Asian circle. Because they can control china at least a little bit by helping or not helping Taiwan. But it’s not about communists anymore, they just worry that china will be very strong. So they just want to earn something, make some profit, and want to control china from helping Taiwan. They won’t help Taiwan like they did 30 or 40 years ago, at that time, china will send sailors to Taiwan’s outside islands, and at that time the US will offer weapons freely to Taiwan, but not anymore. The position of Taiwan has shifted. Although Taiwan definitely needs US, and especially Japan, I think lots of people know that the US can put some soldiers in Japan, because they have a treaty. So they have a range in south Asia, which Japan and the us work to protect from invasion. They don’t say which country, but everyone knows its china. And Taiwan is within that range. So that’s the funnies part of this. And also this main force, that china doesn’t dare to too much in Taiwan, because of the existence of this agreement, and give US a reason to bring soldiers here. So there’s the Diauyutai islands issue, but china doesn’t do too much about it.
Well, they’re building concrete buildings on reefs off the coast of Philippines.
But the Diauyutais, they weren’t important in the 70s, they don’t really care about those islands, so they just use it as a political issue.
But there’s oil there,
Yes.
Actually, the US supported Japan to own the Diauyutais in the 70s already.
They were given to Japan to control and manage the island, but the ownership belong to Taiwan, that’s what was agreed then. A court made that decision
Whose court, which court?
Many years ago, I remember Taiwan fight for Diauyutai with Japan, and finally the court in Japan made the decision, that the ownership belong to Taiwan.
Really? Because I’ve heard that, Taiwan have 11 or 12 conferences about the ownership, but there’s no decision. But I heard that in mid 70s, for some reason the us supported Japan to have Diauyutai. And at that time, some college students protest against this kind of thing. They didn’t protest the US, but they went to the Japan embassy, which still existed at that time, but since the KMT needed the US at that time, and the US hinted that it was Japan’s, probably there were some practical reasons, and the KMT didn’t want to go against the US gvt, so they just abandoned, abandoned?
(Laughter)
Anyways, they dropped the issue. And so what? Ma Yingjieu is 37 years too late.
Wait, what did he do?
They sent military ships to claim the Diauyutais. It was the executive branch, and they sent the coast guard there. And basically, only the executive yuan could do it. Of course, there were legislators on there, so it looks like a legislative action, but the legislative Yuan can’t control the coast guard, so it was the executive branch.
But basically all they did was sail around for awhile.
Yeah, and the Japanese hung around the edges, but there was no incident.
So basically, Taiwan is a checker.
Checker?
Like the game.
So we are a tool/toy.
So what do you want, do you want to be the 52nd state, or part of Japan? Or china?
Personally I’d choose Japan at this point...
We played a game with our classmates, asking this question, and they all chose Japan, I don’t know why?
We’ve all been influenced by Japan.
But my Japanese is bad!
(Laughter)
But some people want to be part of the US. And other groups, Japan.
Well, does anyone want to be mainland Chinese?
I think so, now, not before.
But people I meet that have been to mainland china, they’re really against them.
But there’s so many mainland Chinese on the subway these days!
My professor, she hates mainland chinese.
Why?
Because they always, just take WHO for example, they don’t treat us like their people. They also hate us.
I don’t think so, this is biased, from my point of view, I didn’t pre-assume the thing that will happen when I meet a mainland chinese. The WHO thing is terrible, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the individuals I meet. I don’t want to mix up politics with real things. But they do have some bad habits, and there’s a culture gap between mainland chinese and Taiwanese. In my experience, they’re very easy to get along with. But probably because I don’t brink up sensitive topics.
But they always bring up sensitive topics to year. Take my classmate for example. She always go to the top liver-fibrosis lab. And she says, Taiwan is our province, and you’re just choosing one province of ours. And my other classmates get angry, but we have no words to protect ourselves, but the classmates are shy, so they don’t say anything, but they keep attacking with this topic.
Also in the US, there’s so many mainland Chinese, and so we can’t do anything about this.
I agree.
Sure, but I never had this experience of machines brining up topics like this.
You are lucky. I met a guy, he’s 10 years younger than me, he said, why you don’t unite with us, actually, you should belong to us. Actually, I don’t want to fight with him on this, don’t want to talk about it, and he goes on, how they have bomb and weapon and ways to attack us, and I was so shocked, I just met him!
But they are trained by their gvt to be like that.
Well, we used to be trained like this by our gvt.
Yes, but we have access to information from all over the world, so we can figure things out. But they don’t have that kind of access.
Well, when we were small, we were taught that Chinese could only have banana peels, that’s all they had to eat.
Sure, but we have to distinguish. I hate US gvt, but don’t hate us people, and hate Japanese gvt, but not japanese people. In a country or race, they both have good guys or bad guys. Even in Taiwan, people just want to make them die.
Who?
In your life, you just want to make someone who look down on you and don’t treat you well. But if I’m hurt, I will defend myself.
I think I agree with fanny that, when I talk to machines about this issue, he said he doesn’t really care about the Taiwan issue. So in Taiwan, there’s people e who don’t care about this, so in china, some people don’t care about it, but he said some of his classmates really would care about it.
But then there’s that mainland china’s population is so huge, so as they travel around the world, they mention and proclaim that Taiwan is a part of china, and so that’s a big part of the problem.
Actually, my political scale is 0, so I’m not very concerned about this, it’s all okay, but we should, if everyone’s has good life and we could live well, I think everything is okay, but stop! Um…
You mean, stop mention…
No, please, let us enter WHO, please. I think some world organization, we should be allowed in. so it’s okay, but we also have right to participate in the world organization, that’s my point.
But unfortunately, in the world, or in politics, there are no true friends, so no one even big country like US or Japan, no one support us.
They don’t support us, because we’re so tiny.
Teeeeeny.
Well, think about Singapore, they’re very small, but they have a lot of power. We, we don’t have identity. If we say were from Taiwan, some people think it’s Thailand. So we have to promote our country, really.
So let me ask a question, because I’m just a person, I’m human. I wonder, if all of us want to gain our identity, even if it is necessary to have a war? I think about this?
I think most people don’t want to have a war. But Taiwan is in a very weird position, you know? Otherwise you could just unite with china, and become a special administrative area.
But the return of HK was written into a treaty.
Yes, the Ching dynasty.
They just rented the island for 99 years. It’s the same as Macao.
So sometimes I think we’re quite poor. When I was in Switzerland, they let us enter without a visa, but you must have a return ticket. And the custom guy, because I stick Taiwan stickers on my passport, and he said, Taiwan, no, I don’t know, and so I said to him, there is the visa policy, and I think, he just wanted to give me hard time.
I saw this in 1992, too, on the train, only the Taiwanese were bothered, these two sweet girls. My American passport, they smiled at me, but they gave them so much trouble.
Us too, when we arrived at customs of Swiss border, and these soldiers only checked the Taiwanese passport, only these 17 people.
Yes, and I think, hey, we spend money in your country, why you treat us like this. So why you announce we don’t need visa in your country, if you’re going to treat us like this?
And they don’t choose people randomly. They only check the Taiwanese.
Also, when we went from Germany to Czeck republic. They didn’t check the Malaysians, only Taiwanese. So we don’t have identity. We spend money, but are treated like second-class citizens. So we have to establish our identity. So do we have to choose one of the three to get our identity? China US or Japan?
Taiwan doesn’t have a powerful backup,. If we had someone support us, it would be different. But Taiwan’s been out of the picture since 1970, and those big countries don’t have profit conflict in this area. If we were in the middle east or eastern Europe, or the old soviet satellite, so there they have some people picking sides.
Well, that’s not true, you have the US.
Well, but they don’t support us that well.
Well, I think the support the US gives eastern Europe is just as shaky, I think they want to keep you on your toes.
But they also have western Europe helping them. and they give them much better weapons support. Like France doesn’t care about protest from china, and they’ll just give you, whatever you paid for. But the US, they’ll say, you have to pay first class price for second class weapons, because china protests. So I’m not so sure, maybe we should make some trouble, so that people will pay attention and give us help.
I don’t think we really want that kind of insecurity. It’s a high price.
Because Taiwanese people right now, there’ really secure,
Yeah, there’s an interesting balance point just now. Basically no one wants to push Taiwan to either side right now.
So that’s why no one shows us support, it will break the balance.
So this kind of thing is just ended abruptly from my point of view. We won’t see it, but when it happens, it’ll go really fast.
Just like the falling of the wall. It happened so suddenly, and no one knew what happened.
But the balance will tip in favor of china. The reality is we rely on them quite a lot nowadays. It’s quite sad, actually. I think lots of Taiwanese back to Taiwan to do the invest again. But the point is, we have lost a lot of advantage in the trading or production area. And it’s hard to compete in the globalization. I mention that I’m the sales for fabric. To be honest, it’s really hard to compete with china. Because maybe their quality is not excellent, but our quality is not as good as before. So I don’t know who will pay much more price to buy Taiwan’s product.
Why?
I think labor costs. Also, Taiwanese become lazy, we’re not diligent like we were in 1950. Also, they duplicate your items, quickly,, and perfectly. So it’s become very competitive in price and production time. So hard, really, we got a really tough time.
This is serious.
Yes it is, and you definitely will face that problem.
Because my job is to translate some economic article, and we found that mainland chinese are so huge and they always can finish the translation very quickly than us, because they have so many people.
And the point is, their salary is much lower than you.
So now, we can read the Chinese version of wall street journal and financial time, and whatever English journal and article, you can also find the Chinese version. To be honest, I feel their ability, to…but I think our enemy not only mainland china.
India!
Exactly.
Enemy?
Competitor.
The population of middle class, in India, is the most in the world. Much larger than mainland china.
I’m team b, because I think if the US is our friends, they don’t want to urge us to buy the worst weapon. So I think, we just, not just the weapon, Taiwan is also the weapon! So the US is not our friend. We’re just a toy or a tool.
I support team b. I think America just want to take advantage of us. That’s why they will force us to buy, or to set the budget to buy their weapon.
Weapon, that’s the most important thing! Because it costs a lot.
Yes, is costs us more than fifty...
Fifty!!!
Well, now it’s down, but almost fifty.
And they’re not true friends to us, or they would support us to join the WHO. I mean, it’s impossible for us to join the UN, because china will fight that, but the WHO, we have so many doctors who help with that, and we need to share the information, about SARS, and birdflu, but they don’t help us.
Well, I think Taiwan was partly America’s friends before Chaing Kai Shek died, partially, because of WWII, and because Chaing Kai Shek established some good relationship with the us. But after the KMT lost the war against the communists, and went to Taiwan, then the American gvt put Taiwan as a kind of point to resist an evil empire. But at this time, they don’t want to fight china anymore, so Taiwan’s status is like they put their hand into like east Asian circle. Because they can control china at least a little bit by helping or not helping Taiwan. But it’s not about communists anymore, they just worry that china will be very strong. So they just want to earn something, make some profit, and want to control china from helping Taiwan. They won’t help Taiwan like they did 30 or 40 years ago, at that time, china will send sailors to Taiwan’s outside islands, and at that time the US will offer weapons freely to Taiwan, but not anymore. The position of Taiwan has shifted. Although Taiwan definitely needs US, and especially Japan, I think lots of people know that the US can put some soldiers in Japan, because they have a treaty. So they have a range in south Asia, which Japan and the us work to protect from invasion. They don’t say which country, but everyone knows its china. And Taiwan is within that range. So that’s the funnies part of this. And also this main force, that china doesn’t dare to too much in Taiwan, because of the existence of this agreement, and give US a reason to bring soldiers here. So there’s the Diauyutai islands issue, but china doesn’t do too much about it.
Well, they’re building concrete buildings on reefs off the coast of Philippines.
But the Diauyutais, they weren’t important in the 70s, they don’t really care about those islands, so they just use it as a political issue.
But there’s oil there,
Yes.
Actually, the US supported Japan to own the Diauyutais in the 70s already.
They were given to Japan to control and manage the island, but the ownership belong to Taiwan, that’s what was agreed then. A court made that decision
Whose court, which court?
Many years ago, I remember Taiwan fight for Diauyutai with Japan, and finally the court in Japan made the decision, that the ownership belong to Taiwan.
Really? Because I’ve heard that, Taiwan have 11 or 12 conferences about the ownership, but there’s no decision. But I heard that in mid 70s, for some reason the us supported Japan to have Diauyutai. And at that time, some college students protest against this kind of thing. They didn’t protest the US, but they went to the Japan embassy, which still existed at that time, but since the KMT needed the US at that time, and the US hinted that it was Japan’s, probably there were some practical reasons, and the KMT didn’t want to go against the US gvt, so they just abandoned, abandoned?
(Laughter)
Anyways, they dropped the issue. And so what? Ma Yingjieu is 37 years too late.
Wait, what did he do?
They sent military ships to claim the Diauyutais. It was the executive branch, and they sent the coast guard there. And basically, only the executive yuan could do it. Of course, there were legislators on there, so it looks like a legislative action, but the legislative Yuan can’t control the coast guard, so it was the executive branch.
But basically all they did was sail around for awhile.
Yeah, and the Japanese hung around the edges, but there was no incident.
So basically, Taiwan is a checker.
Checker?
Like the game.
So we are a tool/toy.
So what do you want, do you want to be the 52nd state, or part of Japan? Or china?
Personally I’d choose Japan at this point...
We played a game with our classmates, asking this question, and they all chose Japan, I don’t know why?
We’ve all been influenced by Japan.
But my Japanese is bad!
(Laughter)
But some people want to be part of the US. And other groups, Japan.
Well, does anyone want to be mainland Chinese?
I think so, now, not before.
But people I meet that have been to mainland china, they’re really against them.
But there’s so many mainland Chinese on the subway these days!
My professor, she hates mainland chinese.
Why?
Because they always, just take WHO for example, they don’t treat us like their people. They also hate us.
I don’t think so, this is biased, from my point of view, I didn’t pre-assume the thing that will happen when I meet a mainland chinese. The WHO thing is terrible, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the individuals I meet. I don’t want to mix up politics with real things. But they do have some bad habits, and there’s a culture gap between mainland chinese and Taiwanese. In my experience, they’re very easy to get along with. But probably because I don’t brink up sensitive topics.
But they always bring up sensitive topics to year. Take my classmate for example. She always go to the top liver-fibrosis lab. And she says, Taiwan is our province, and you’re just choosing one province of ours. And my other classmates get angry, but we have no words to protect ourselves, but the classmates are shy, so they don’t say anything, but they keep attacking with this topic.
Also in the US, there’s so many mainland Chinese, and so we can’t do anything about this.
I agree.
Sure, but I never had this experience of machines brining up topics like this.
You are lucky. I met a guy, he’s 10 years younger than me, he said, why you don’t unite with us, actually, you should belong to us. Actually, I don’t want to fight with him on this, don’t want to talk about it, and he goes on, how they have bomb and weapon and ways to attack us, and I was so shocked, I just met him!
But they are trained by their gvt to be like that.
Well, we used to be trained like this by our gvt.
Yes, but we have access to information from all over the world, so we can figure things out. But they don’t have that kind of access.
Well, when we were small, we were taught that Chinese could only have banana peels, that’s all they had to eat.
Sure, but we have to distinguish. I hate US gvt, but don’t hate us people, and hate Japanese gvt, but not japanese people. In a country or race, they both have good guys or bad guys. Even in Taiwan, people just want to make them die.
Who?
In your life, you just want to make someone who look down on you and don’t treat you well. But if I’m hurt, I will defend myself.
I think I agree with fanny that, when I talk to machines about this issue, he said he doesn’t really care about the Taiwan issue. So in Taiwan, there’s people e who don’t care about this, so in china, some people don’t care about it, but he said some of his classmates really would care about it.
But then there’s that mainland china’s population is so huge, so as they travel around the world, they mention and proclaim that Taiwan is a part of china, and so that’s a big part of the problem.
Actually, my political scale is 0, so I’m not very concerned about this, it’s all okay, but we should, if everyone’s has good life and we could live well, I think everything is okay, but stop! Um…
You mean, stop mention…
No, please, let us enter WHO, please. I think some world organization, we should be allowed in. so it’s okay, but we also have right to participate in the world organization, that’s my point.
But unfortunately, in the world, or in politics, there are no true friends, so no one even big country like US or Japan, no one support us.
They don’t support us, because we’re so tiny.
Teeeeeny.
Well, think about Singapore, they’re very small, but they have a lot of power. We, we don’t have identity. If we say were from Taiwan, some people think it’s Thailand. So we have to promote our country, really.
So let me ask a question, because I’m just a person, I’m human. I wonder, if all of us want to gain our identity, even if it is necessary to have a war? I think about this?
I think most people don’t want to have a war. But Taiwan is in a very weird position, you know? Otherwise you could just unite with china, and become a special administrative area.
But the return of HK was written into a treaty.
Yes, the Ching dynasty.
They just rented the island for 99 years. It’s the same as Macao.
So sometimes I think we’re quite poor. When I was in Switzerland, they let us enter without a visa, but you must have a return ticket. And the custom guy, because I stick Taiwan stickers on my passport, and he said, Taiwan, no, I don’t know, and so I said to him, there is the visa policy, and I think, he just wanted to give me hard time.
I saw this in 1992, too, on the train, only the Taiwanese were bothered, these two sweet girls. My American passport, they smiled at me, but they gave them so much trouble.
Us too, when we arrived at customs of Swiss border, and these soldiers only checked the Taiwanese passport, only these 17 people.
Yes, and I think, hey, we spend money in your country, why you treat us like this. So why you announce we don’t need visa in your country, if you’re going to treat us like this?
And they don’t choose people randomly. They only check the Taiwanese.
Also, when we went from Germany to Czeck republic. They didn’t check the Malaysians, only Taiwanese. So we don’t have identity. We spend money, but are treated like second-class citizens. So we have to establish our identity. So do we have to choose one of the three to get our identity? China US or Japan?
Taiwan doesn’t have a powerful backup,. If we had someone support us, it would be different. But Taiwan’s been out of the picture since 1970, and those big countries don’t have profit conflict in this area. If we were in the middle east or eastern Europe, or the old soviet satellite, so there they have some people picking sides.
Well, that’s not true, you have the US.
Well, but they don’t support us that well.
Well, I think the support the US gives eastern Europe is just as shaky, I think they want to keep you on your toes.
But they also have western Europe helping them. and they give them much better weapons support. Like France doesn’t care about protest from china, and they’ll just give you, whatever you paid for. But the US, they’ll say, you have to pay first class price for second class weapons, because china protests. So I’m not so sure, maybe we should make some trouble, so that people will pay attention and give us help.
I don’t think we really want that kind of insecurity. It’s a high price.
Because Taiwanese people right now, there’ really secure,
Yeah, there’s an interesting balance point just now. Basically no one wants to push Taiwan to either side right now.
So that’s why no one shows us support, it will break the balance.
So this kind of thing is just ended abruptly from my point of view. We won’t see it, but when it happens, it’ll go really fast.
Just like the falling of the wall. It happened so suddenly, and no one knew what happened.
But the balance will tip in favor of china. The reality is we rely on them quite a lot nowadays. It’s quite sad, actually. I think lots of Taiwanese back to Taiwan to do the invest again. But the point is, we have lost a lot of advantage in the trading or production area. And it’s hard to compete in the globalization. I mention that I’m the sales for fabric. To be honest, it’s really hard to compete with china. Because maybe their quality is not excellent, but our quality is not as good as before. So I don’t know who will pay much more price to buy Taiwan’s product.
Why?
I think labor costs. Also, Taiwanese become lazy, we’re not diligent like we were in 1950. Also, they duplicate your items, quickly,, and perfectly. So it’s become very competitive in price and production time. So hard, really, we got a really tough time.
This is serious.
Yes it is, and you definitely will face that problem.
Because my job is to translate some economic article, and we found that mainland chinese are so huge and they always can finish the translation very quickly than us, because they have so many people.
And the point is, their salary is much lower than you.
So now, we can read the Chinese version of wall street journal and financial time, and whatever English journal and article, you can also find the Chinese version. To be honest, I feel their ability, to…but I think our enemy not only mainland china.
India!
Exactly.
Enemy?
Competitor.
The population of middle class, in India, is the most in the world. Much larger than mainland china.
Taipei Discussion Transcript: Racism
Participants: Amy, Anita, Doris, Ramona, Mary, Clark aka Superman, Maggie, Willie, Fanny, Lynn, Angela
I want team d and team f, just like team d said, there may have been problems in the past, but now everyone has the same opportunities. So I want to combine the two.
I choose team b. In my opinion, it’s not just in Taiwan, it’s around the world. And I think the Taiwanese people they all think racism exist in Taiwan, every time we have an election, politicians use the issue to, like, if we are the same race, we need to get together, we need to fight the other politician, because we are the same race. So it does exist in Taiwan.
I am team h, because racism exists in Taiwan, and also other countries. Sometimes I meet person who discriminate towards others, who discriminate against me.
I choose team h. I think racism exists in Taiwan. It also exists all over the world. Just as Mary says, sometimes discriminate towards others, and others discriminate against us.
Sometimes I think that yeah racism does exist in Taiwan, but here we do have equal chances for jobs. Because racism does exist, because people have racist impressions of other people, but people here are generally kind, we think it, but we don’t necessarily act it.
I do believe it exists in Taiwan, and it’s also a phenomena worldwide, especially in the neighbors with similar culture background, but still have racism, like Taiwan and China, Turkey and Greece, Malaysia etc.
So you’re team H?
Yes, team H.
I’m also in team H, I agree with Mary’s opinion, that racism exists not only in Taiwan, but also in other countries. Actually, people in Taiwan are kind to foreigners and all people like Hakka people or aboriginal people, and all Taiwanese people have the same opportunities for works, for jobs, however, sometimes we have different attitude impression on different races. Even for foreigners, we have different treatment for white people and black people.
I’m in team f. I believe that it exists in Taiwan, but I don’t think it’s important anymore. I think that the bigger problem is that people will discriminate by people’s economic difference, instead of their ethnic difference. So that’s my point. I really that racism is a political issue, it will be picked up jut for political purposes.
I like a, b, d, e and f.
So you think all the positions are true.
Yes. I think for my opinion, the racism not exist in Taiwan, compared with south Africa, we are much more better. We don’t have, we don’t have white people against black people, we don’t have much fighting, only for political reasons. But I also agree that the m shaped economy is gradually changing our thought level. You would think people are rich they have higher standards compared with other people, so it’s hard for me to choose one side to stand for that.
I choose team d. I think everyone got a standard chance. So I don’t think racism exists in Taiwan right now.
Can I just mention? I think one reason it seems that everyone has a standard chance in Taiwan is that most people look very similar, it's hard to tell if you're Minnan or Hakka by looking at anyone. So, unless anyone here identifies as Hakka, for example,
I'm Hakka.
Okay, thanks for saying so. My point was that, if most people here are Minnan, and I'm white, well, most of us have the privilege of being the dominant race, and so from this perspective, it's really easy to think that we all have the same opportunities. But I think if you were to ask an Aboriginal person from Pingdong, you would have maybe a different answer to that question. For example, a friend of mine was born in Pingdong, but when she was very young she was adopted out to a British couple because her family had 10 children and couldn't raise them, so she was raised totally British, she can't speak Mandarin or Taiwanese or anything, and she came back here to meet her birth family. When she was there, she asked them which Aboriginal tribe they belonged to, because she had done research, and found pictures of I think the Amis tribe, and found that her own face, especially her nose, looked just like them. Like a really uncanny resemblance. And her family were like, "No, no way, we're Minnan, we're not Aboriginals!!" But everyone knows that there was intermarriage and other things, so the chances are actually really good that they were partly Aboriginal, but they didn't want to think that at all. It affects their social standing too much.
I want to ask a question, for those who think racism really important in Taiwan, I want to ask, who ever had an experience to be treat by racism. Do you have any experience in Taiwan, because you are Hakka, you are Minnan, or you are Waisheng, do you have different treatment?
I have no experience to be discriminated against. However I once discriminated towards others. Once I met a black person on the subway. They talked to me, and then I left my ms address to him, and we talked a lot on line. One day he invited me to have a coffee with me, but I just think why was he not a white guy, and so I think for some people like me, racism exists.
If he is Obama or Tiger Woods? Or handsome?
But if Obama and another black person I would choose Obama, but if Obama and a white person, I would choose the white person.
Okay, let me choose the handsome guy to compare…
I think people Taiwan look down on people come from India or Indonesia. So we call them Thailau [=Thai laborer]. Why don’t we call white people Bailau [=White laborer]? And I think the white people aren’t that useful! But Chinese people think white people are better.
But they’re laborers, so we’re just calling them what they are.
But the white guys, what they do is like labor work [=teaching kindergarten, it's basically child care], but we don’t call them that.
The point is, if you saw someone who is darker, from south Asia, you’ll call them a Wailau [=outside/foreign laborer], but maybe they’re not doing that work. Some Indians come to Taiwan, they’re managers of IT company, but we don’t treat them well, because they’re darker than us.
So we treat them different because of the color of their skin?
Yes, we are racist.
Yes, but in Taiwan, it’s just that we call the dark people whatever-lau, if it is a racism, it’s just a small one, we didn’t treat them very bad.
No, we treat them very bad! For example my brother’s daughter has a Filipina maid, but she treats her like animal, she says, "Come, come!"
It’s an education problem. [=they’re ignorant/poor/unsophisticated people]
No! They’re not!
That’s an isolated case.
But I have a lot of anecdotal evidence to the contrary. It’s not isolated. I’ve personally known four people with maids, all of them treat them with serious disrespect. Also, my god, all you have to do is read the Sunday section of the English newspaper Taiwan News, on the page for the Filipinas, and you’ll hear stories that’ll make your hair stand on end. Even the less shocking stories, they’re just so common! Especially the CLA [=Council of Labor Affairs], they way they treat Filipinas is a national disgrace. In the 11 years I’ve lived in Taiwan, I would say I only know of one case where they treated the maid who worked for them with the dignity one accords to an equal.
I’m going to move to Team H!
But it’s a hierarchy problem. It doesn’t matter what the color of your skin is. It’s a question, that people think, we are the employer, we are the employee, so this kind of abuse happens frequently. It doesn’t matter the color of the skin.
But how about the foreign wives? Some type of people, they buy a wife from the Philippines or Vietnam, and their family treat them badly.
Well, that’s not a marriage, it’s more like a contract.
Yeah, you get a maid and you can have sex with them and legally it's not rape. Ugh.
Well…
So it’s more an economic difference than a racial difference. You know, lots of people from India, they are getting richer and richer. So they can buy Land Rover, the British company. Once they are the boss, we are not say they are ugly or they are whatever.
I think we won’t say they are ugly in front of them.
But we will say they don’t smell good when they can’t hear.
This is still kind of discrimination. So it’s not just only economic situation.
Well, my ex-boss is Indian, he doesn’t smell, and he’s handsome, so I don’t think I would say that we discriminated. Also I worked for a French person, he said he was discriminated against by British, so it’s not just race.
And race is not the only factor. If I richer than you I can make a lot of money, but you have to use your body to make money, so I can say my level is higher than you.
So Angela, the news you saw in the newspaper, the husband they say they have the money, then they can abuse them. But if they met each other and fell in love, then it’s fine.
Sure, but if you pick up someone from a lineup in a dirty bar in Vietnam, that’s hardly meeting and falling in love, is it?
No, I’m talking about two people from different cultures who met and fell in love.
Then you’re not talking about buying a wife, are you?
What I’m saying is, it’s an economic issue.
But will people who come from Iraq or Iran have higher status than US people? Not really. So that’s still a racial issue, I think.
Middle east people…
But how much do you know them, are there middle east people in Taiwan? And we only know they are rich because we read in an article or whatever, hey go invest there, so we don’t know that much about them. And India, too. But they have a huge racism problem. If you are a laborer, after 12, you can’t get much of an education. But here in Taiwan… if I was educated in US, probably I want to choose someone white from America to teach my kids, not a black person. So you don’t see a lot of black people, it’s hard for them to get a job. So I’m saying that there’s a lot of racism here.
So I’m arguing against that--it’s not just an economic issue.
But I think that the different part is that the maids are discriminated because of the economic issues, but lots of Taiwanese have an impression like people with black skins are dirty or dumb. Or those who are south Asian look dirty or dumb, or they have tendency to sexual harass other people. But it’s just kind of impression, because it really didn’t prevent them from treating us equally. We treat them like that, because we don’t want to get close to them. So we don’t treat them that badly in public. But in private, it’s hard to say, especially that a lot of maids or foreign wives are not treated well. So it’s our impression of them that matters. So it’s racism plus economic issues. For maids, maybe economic issues become more important a factor.
Do you think that mainland Chinese wives are treated better than Vietnamese wives?
Are you asking us to make a scale of racism?
I don’t think a scale is a good idea…
Yes, but I want to ask this.
I think so, because wives from china cost more than Vietnamese wives. I think there really is a scale.
So you pay more to get the same language.
It’s like a kind of merchandising. Cut rate wife.
Still produces babies but doesn’t speak the language so well.
Because I think wives from china get better treatment than Taiwanese wives.
Why do you say so?
Because I hear them talking at California Fitness.
But if they’re there, then they’re definitely on the higher end of the economic scale. So they could be treated better because they’re upper class.
I just think of a situation.
In the city, we can meet a lot of foreigner, they come from other country. And maybe we can change the situation of race discrimination. Like in HK, you can meet a lot of people, and so maybe they are less discriminatory because they meet people. Then you won’t think people smell different.
Actually we smell different because we eat different things. It affects our body odor. When I first got to Taiwan I realized this, because I started to smell different, eating the food here.
Yes, like a friend of mine, she won’t rent her house to Koreans, because they have kimchi, and she doesn’t like this smell.
So if Taiwan becomes an international city, then this will help the problem.
But HK has Filipina maids, and they still treat them like shit.
But when I travel in Philippines, they think I’m Filipina, and in Thailand they think I’m Thai, and at first this was a problem, but now I accept that. And now I have a Filipina friend, I think he’s so nice, he’s so smart, it really changed my mind. I think the more you travel, you get less and less racist.
So if we accept Clark’s suggestion to have the gvt make the city more international, it’ll help racism?
I think maybe, but I think we have to do it from our education, since the kids. We have to tell them that everyone is equal.
When I was a child, my parents always scare me, they say, if you don’t study hard, maybe you will have to go to the Philippines and clean houses, and become Taiwanese-lau.
Fanny just raise a—you mention about middle east people. I just think about another issue, maybe not the racism, I think it’s interesting, I want to share, I think that most people think that middle easterners are terrorists. We were affected by American movies, or American culture a lot, so we will be biased.
We have to blame our own news reporters, too.
In movies, the Russian men, or the middle easterner are always the bad guys, so they are the terrorists. You are right, we should be educated better, and more global-minded, instead of just taking images from the media. Because the media is from America, from CNN, whatever. We should think more about what is shown to us.
I agree with you, I think because our media is, it influence a lot of our thought, especially for kids, and our medias only translate news from CNN most of the time. We don’t have much news from France, not much from middle east, probably because we cannot translate.
Because we are America’s friend.
Are we?
Well our government wants to be. And the middle east is the enemies of the US, so it’s impossible to hear news from middle east in Taiwan, except for economy issues.
There’s one thing I want to share. A friend of mine from the US, he said Americans hate so-called terrorists, but he said that Bush has a strong relationship with the Saudis, in the middle east.
I have a question: I’ll go to Paris in December. Does France discriminate against Asian people? Because I’m going to travel alone. Does anyone have any experience?
How long are you going for?
Two weeks.
If you are in a big city, its probably fine, but if you are going to the country side, be patient, and be careful.
Be careful?
You know as a woman traveling alone, you have to be careful?
I have a personal question, you mentioned south Africa, are you from there?
No, I have friends from there, and they’re white, and they really hate black people. They say that the problems in the city are caused by black people. They have five layers of doors.
Well, women have trouble there, rape in your own bed is very common there, it’s why I’m never going.
Also men have problems.
So when I’m in Taiwan, and we’re out dancing, if a black guy wants to hang out with me, they’ll line up and force them to back off.
So these friends of yours are men?
Why do you ask?
Because that seems a very male thing to do, you know, males are trained to power, that was a power-assuming kind of move.
I want team d and team f, just like team d said, there may have been problems in the past, but now everyone has the same opportunities. So I want to combine the two.
I choose team b. In my opinion, it’s not just in Taiwan, it’s around the world. And I think the Taiwanese people they all think racism exist in Taiwan, every time we have an election, politicians use the issue to, like, if we are the same race, we need to get together, we need to fight the other politician, because we are the same race. So it does exist in Taiwan.
I am team h, because racism exists in Taiwan, and also other countries. Sometimes I meet person who discriminate towards others, who discriminate against me.
I choose team h. I think racism exists in Taiwan. It also exists all over the world. Just as Mary says, sometimes discriminate towards others, and others discriminate against us.
Sometimes I think that yeah racism does exist in Taiwan, but here we do have equal chances for jobs. Because racism does exist, because people have racist impressions of other people, but people here are generally kind, we think it, but we don’t necessarily act it.
I do believe it exists in Taiwan, and it’s also a phenomena worldwide, especially in the neighbors with similar culture background, but still have racism, like Taiwan and China, Turkey and Greece, Malaysia etc.
So you’re team H?
Yes, team H.
I’m also in team H, I agree with Mary’s opinion, that racism exists not only in Taiwan, but also in other countries. Actually, people in Taiwan are kind to foreigners and all people like Hakka people or aboriginal people, and all Taiwanese people have the same opportunities for works, for jobs, however, sometimes we have different attitude impression on different races. Even for foreigners, we have different treatment for white people and black people.
I’m in team f. I believe that it exists in Taiwan, but I don’t think it’s important anymore. I think that the bigger problem is that people will discriminate by people’s economic difference, instead of their ethnic difference. So that’s my point. I really that racism is a political issue, it will be picked up jut for political purposes.
I like a, b, d, e and f.
So you think all the positions are true.
Yes. I think for my opinion, the racism not exist in Taiwan, compared with south Africa, we are much more better. We don’t have, we don’t have white people against black people, we don’t have much fighting, only for political reasons. But I also agree that the m shaped economy is gradually changing our thought level. You would think people are rich they have higher standards compared with other people, so it’s hard for me to choose one side to stand for that.
I choose team d. I think everyone got a standard chance. So I don’t think racism exists in Taiwan right now.
Can I just mention? I think one reason it seems that everyone has a standard chance in Taiwan is that most people look very similar, it's hard to tell if you're Minnan or Hakka by looking at anyone. So, unless anyone here identifies as Hakka, for example,
I'm Hakka.
Okay, thanks for saying so. My point was that, if most people here are Minnan, and I'm white, well, most of us have the privilege of being the dominant race, and so from this perspective, it's really easy to think that we all have the same opportunities. But I think if you were to ask an Aboriginal person from Pingdong, you would have maybe a different answer to that question. For example, a friend of mine was born in Pingdong, but when she was very young she was adopted out to a British couple because her family had 10 children and couldn't raise them, so she was raised totally British, she can't speak Mandarin or Taiwanese or anything, and she came back here to meet her birth family. When she was there, she asked them which Aboriginal tribe they belonged to, because she had done research, and found pictures of I think the Amis tribe, and found that her own face, especially her nose, looked just like them. Like a really uncanny resemblance. And her family were like, "No, no way, we're Minnan, we're not Aboriginals!!" But everyone knows that there was intermarriage and other things, so the chances are actually really good that they were partly Aboriginal, but they didn't want to think that at all. It affects their social standing too much.
I want to ask a question, for those who think racism really important in Taiwan, I want to ask, who ever had an experience to be treat by racism. Do you have any experience in Taiwan, because you are Hakka, you are Minnan, or you are Waisheng, do you have different treatment?
I have no experience to be discriminated against. However I once discriminated towards others. Once I met a black person on the subway. They talked to me, and then I left my ms address to him, and we talked a lot on line. One day he invited me to have a coffee with me, but I just think why was he not a white guy, and so I think for some people like me, racism exists.
If he is Obama or Tiger Woods? Or handsome?
But if Obama and another black person I would choose Obama, but if Obama and a white person, I would choose the white person.
Okay, let me choose the handsome guy to compare…
I think people Taiwan look down on people come from India or Indonesia. So we call them Thailau [=Thai laborer]. Why don’t we call white people Bailau [=White laborer]? And I think the white people aren’t that useful! But Chinese people think white people are better.
But they’re laborers, so we’re just calling them what they are.
But the white guys, what they do is like labor work [=teaching kindergarten, it's basically child care], but we don’t call them that.
The point is, if you saw someone who is darker, from south Asia, you’ll call them a Wailau [=outside/foreign laborer], but maybe they’re not doing that work. Some Indians come to Taiwan, they’re managers of IT company, but we don’t treat them well, because they’re darker than us.
So we treat them different because of the color of their skin?
Yes, we are racist.
Yes, but in Taiwan, it’s just that we call the dark people whatever-lau, if it is a racism, it’s just a small one, we didn’t treat them very bad.
No, we treat them very bad! For example my brother’s daughter has a Filipina maid, but she treats her like animal, she says, "Come, come!"
It’s an education problem. [=they’re ignorant/poor/unsophisticated people]
No! They’re not!
That’s an isolated case.
But I have a lot of anecdotal evidence to the contrary. It’s not isolated. I’ve personally known four people with maids, all of them treat them with serious disrespect. Also, my god, all you have to do is read the Sunday section of the English newspaper Taiwan News, on the page for the Filipinas, and you’ll hear stories that’ll make your hair stand on end. Even the less shocking stories, they’re just so common! Especially the CLA [=Council of Labor Affairs], they way they treat Filipinas is a national disgrace. In the 11 years I’ve lived in Taiwan, I would say I only know of one case where they treated the maid who worked for them with the dignity one accords to an equal.
I’m going to move to Team H!
But it’s a hierarchy problem. It doesn’t matter what the color of your skin is. It’s a question, that people think, we are the employer, we are the employee, so this kind of abuse happens frequently. It doesn’t matter the color of the skin.
But how about the foreign wives? Some type of people, they buy a wife from the Philippines or Vietnam, and their family treat them badly.
Well, that’s not a marriage, it’s more like a contract.
Yeah, you get a maid and you can have sex with them and legally it's not rape. Ugh.
Well…
So it’s more an economic difference than a racial difference. You know, lots of people from India, they are getting richer and richer. So they can buy Land Rover, the British company. Once they are the boss, we are not say they are ugly or they are whatever.
I think we won’t say they are ugly in front of them.
But we will say they don’t smell good when they can’t hear.
This is still kind of discrimination. So it’s not just only economic situation.
Well, my ex-boss is Indian, he doesn’t smell, and he’s handsome, so I don’t think I would say that we discriminated. Also I worked for a French person, he said he was discriminated against by British, so it’s not just race.
And race is not the only factor. If I richer than you I can make a lot of money, but you have to use your body to make money, so I can say my level is higher than you.
So Angela, the news you saw in the newspaper, the husband they say they have the money, then they can abuse them. But if they met each other and fell in love, then it’s fine.
Sure, but if you pick up someone from a lineup in a dirty bar in Vietnam, that’s hardly meeting and falling in love, is it?
No, I’m talking about two people from different cultures who met and fell in love.
Then you’re not talking about buying a wife, are you?
What I’m saying is, it’s an economic issue.
But will people who come from Iraq or Iran have higher status than US people? Not really. So that’s still a racial issue, I think.
Middle east people…
But how much do you know them, are there middle east people in Taiwan? And we only know they are rich because we read in an article or whatever, hey go invest there, so we don’t know that much about them. And India, too. But they have a huge racism problem. If you are a laborer, after 12, you can’t get much of an education. But here in Taiwan… if I was educated in US, probably I want to choose someone white from America to teach my kids, not a black person. So you don’t see a lot of black people, it’s hard for them to get a job. So I’m saying that there’s a lot of racism here.
So I’m arguing against that--it’s not just an economic issue.
But I think that the different part is that the maids are discriminated because of the economic issues, but lots of Taiwanese have an impression like people with black skins are dirty or dumb. Or those who are south Asian look dirty or dumb, or they have tendency to sexual harass other people. But it’s just kind of impression, because it really didn’t prevent them from treating us equally. We treat them like that, because we don’t want to get close to them. So we don’t treat them that badly in public. But in private, it’s hard to say, especially that a lot of maids or foreign wives are not treated well. So it’s our impression of them that matters. So it’s racism plus economic issues. For maids, maybe economic issues become more important a factor.
Do you think that mainland Chinese wives are treated better than Vietnamese wives?
Are you asking us to make a scale of racism?
I don’t think a scale is a good idea…
Yes, but I want to ask this.
I think so, because wives from china cost more than Vietnamese wives. I think there really is a scale.
So you pay more to get the same language.
It’s like a kind of merchandising. Cut rate wife.
Still produces babies but doesn’t speak the language so well.
Because I think wives from china get better treatment than Taiwanese wives.
Why do you say so?
Because I hear them talking at California Fitness.
But if they’re there, then they’re definitely on the higher end of the economic scale. So they could be treated better because they’re upper class.
I just think of a situation.
In the city, we can meet a lot of foreigner, they come from other country. And maybe we can change the situation of race discrimination. Like in HK, you can meet a lot of people, and so maybe they are less discriminatory because they meet people. Then you won’t think people smell different.
Actually we smell different because we eat different things. It affects our body odor. When I first got to Taiwan I realized this, because I started to smell different, eating the food here.
Yes, like a friend of mine, she won’t rent her house to Koreans, because they have kimchi, and she doesn’t like this smell.
So if Taiwan becomes an international city, then this will help the problem.
But HK has Filipina maids, and they still treat them like shit.
But when I travel in Philippines, they think I’m Filipina, and in Thailand they think I’m Thai, and at first this was a problem, but now I accept that. And now I have a Filipina friend, I think he’s so nice, he’s so smart, it really changed my mind. I think the more you travel, you get less and less racist.
So if we accept Clark’s suggestion to have the gvt make the city more international, it’ll help racism?
I think maybe, but I think we have to do it from our education, since the kids. We have to tell them that everyone is equal.
When I was a child, my parents always scare me, they say, if you don’t study hard, maybe you will have to go to the Philippines and clean houses, and become Taiwanese-lau.
Fanny just raise a—you mention about middle east people. I just think about another issue, maybe not the racism, I think it’s interesting, I want to share, I think that most people think that middle easterners are terrorists. We were affected by American movies, or American culture a lot, so we will be biased.
We have to blame our own news reporters, too.
In movies, the Russian men, or the middle easterner are always the bad guys, so they are the terrorists. You are right, we should be educated better, and more global-minded, instead of just taking images from the media. Because the media is from America, from CNN, whatever. We should think more about what is shown to us.
I agree with you, I think because our media is, it influence a lot of our thought, especially for kids, and our medias only translate news from CNN most of the time. We don’t have much news from France, not much from middle east, probably because we cannot translate.
Because we are America’s friend.
Are we?
Well our government wants to be. And the middle east is the enemies of the US, so it’s impossible to hear news from middle east in Taiwan, except for economy issues.
There’s one thing I want to share. A friend of mine from the US, he said Americans hate so-called terrorists, but he said that Bush has a strong relationship with the Saudis, in the middle east.
I have a question: I’ll go to Paris in December. Does France discriminate against Asian people? Because I’m going to travel alone. Does anyone have any experience?
How long are you going for?
Two weeks.
If you are in a big city, its probably fine, but if you are going to the country side, be patient, and be careful.
Be careful?
You know as a woman traveling alone, you have to be careful?
I have a personal question, you mentioned south Africa, are you from there?
No, I have friends from there, and they’re white, and they really hate black people. They say that the problems in the city are caused by black people. They have five layers of doors.
Well, women have trouble there, rape in your own bed is very common there, it’s why I’m never going.
Also men have problems.
So when I’m in Taiwan, and we’re out dancing, if a black guy wants to hang out with me, they’ll line up and force them to back off.
So these friends of yours are men?
Why do you ask?
Because that seems a very male thing to do, you know, males are trained to power, that was a power-assuming kind of move.
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