Hello! Our next English Discussion meeting will be held at The Studio, on Sunday April 25th at 3pm.
The topic is "The Case for Flip Flops and Flowing Robes", a discussion of clothes women are required to wear in order to appear feminine, and whether 'appearing feminine' is useful.
你要什麼樣的自由?
你追求什麼樣的自由？一種是掙脫什麼的自由；另一種是努力創造什麼而自由。多數人要的自由大概就是第一種，幾乎很少人想過第二種自由。掙脫了枷鎖得到的自由很短暫，很快地，我們變會發現這樣的自由很空虛，因為接下來呢？我們找不到支撐自由的力量。而創造什麼而得到的自由，才是真正的自由，真正讓人能夠長久擁有的自由。
What kind of freedom are you pursuing? One kind of freedom comes from extricating yourself from something. The other kind comes from creating something. The former one is really temporary. Soon we’ll find this kind of freedom is quite empty because what comes next? We can’t find the supporting force behind it. However, the later one is the real freedom, a long-lasting freedom.
What kind of freedom are you pursuing? One kind of freedom comes from extricating yourself from something. The other kind comes from creating something. The former one is really temporary. Soon we’ll find this kind of freedom is quite empty because what comes next? We can’t find the supporting force behind it. However, the later one is the real freedom, a long-lasting freedom.
Discussion Transcript: A daughter’s disease, a mother’s hope
Participants: Maggie, Erica, Angela, Peko, Rachel, Fanny
I’m very interested in this kind of issue about how to treat disorder people. So when I read this story, I also, I’m a woman, so I can feel the mother’s feeling. And I just wonder if I were a mother with a child, like this one, can I keep calm and become so strong to assist her child? I just wonder. So maybe, I also think that our social system in Taiwan, can our system to support this kind of family? Somehow our medicine system, we can discuss this kind of system.
I also think this article is interesting in this topic, “A daughter’s disease, a mother’s hope.” The theme is not in the article, but I think when the daughter have some special disease, and no hope to cure, it’s very hard for a mother, maybe we have so many things to discuss.
Erica, what do you think?
I think to be a mother is hard enough. And to be a single mother is even harder, and to have a sick child is even harder. So just like Fanny said, to put me in her shoes, I think I won’t know how to deal with such a case. Because I don’t have a stable job, and don’t have enough money, and no social support or gvt support. I think I would feel desperate. But the mom is so strong. I admire her. And I think what she did is not just to help her daughter, but she wants to help people who have the same situation, I think she is very brave.
I once saw a movie, the name is Lorenzo’s Oil. I think that mother is braver than this mother—
I think because the character in the movie has more money, and has more knowledge. But this mother is blue collar, and her job is to care for other people’s child. Sorry to interrupt.
—but I think the LO mother is also brave in the same situation.
After I reading this article, I think my interesting part is to show that she is a single mother living in public housing, it means she is poor, she has a daughter with a rare disease. She try her best to live and take care the daughter. But their real problem is the gvt problem. Because the mother cannot get enough social support to get stable work and enough salary to take care of her daughter. So the problem is not enough money and resources to study on this disease, so the mother cannot do anything for this daughter, and especially for the disease. And this is probably a society problem.
Angela, I think in the US, they would take care of this problem, from the—
You really misunderstand the US. In the US, being a single mother is a social crime. Being poor is a crime. No one will help you, least of all the gvt. Because if you dare to be a single mother, it means you’re definitely a Bad Mother. And that is a crime. Because you failed to keep a man, and you’re selfish to keep the child.
There’s this case, a woman, she has two sons, one is 13 and one is 15. The 15 year old got in trouble with the law. So she’s a Bad Mother. She can’t pay the fees for the kid’s jailing, so they put her in jail too. So how’s that going to help her? Then, they let her out of jail to collect her paycheck from her part-time job, which she can’t keep because she’s in jail, but she got the check from the previous month, well they took that, to pay for HER jail costs! So she still can’t pay her son’s jail costs, so they put her back in jail? What the hell? She’s in jail for being poor! Being poor is now a crime! So she’s a Bad Mother, and why? Because her son is in jail, and she’s in jail so she can’t take care of her other son, and because she’s too poor to take care of her children. I tell you, whose fault is this? It’s not the woman’s fault. It’s the fault of the gvt.
In the US, it’s a social crime to be a single mother, because everyone knows it’s the woman’s fault if the kids turn out bad. It’s not the father’s fault for leaving, that’s for sure!
I think in Asia, single women’s situation not so bad.
I think in the world, there’s no place to achieve a really equal position between men and women. It’s hard to reach an equal world, I think.
Do you think in our society people will have more sympathy or support for single mothers, do we have it or not?
I think not.
[everyone shakes head in agreement.]
From the working environment, not—
I think she can get support from friends, but from working environment, or gvt, no.
But what kind of support single mother need from our society? I think we should figure this out.
If you have a baby child, and you have to go out for work, you need someone to help you take care.
But even for working woman, our society doesn’t provide enough child-care system.
It’s expensive.
But recently I hear from my neighbour, she’s a two children, and we discussed this problem for working women. She said there’s some problem for our rules. I ask her why her corporation didn’t build a place for children caring, and she answered that, once their boss wanted to build a place, however, our rules for building the place, it can’t be underground. So no, for a corporation, they have a building, but they only have room for the day-care underground. It’s hard for them to search another place just for children caring. So they decided to do it underground, so our rules don’t allow it.
Your friend must work for a good company.
Yes, Chunghua Dien Shin.
But my question is, why could they only find a place underground for it? You say, they have to take care of costs, and everyone will agree with this, because we all live in a capatilist system, we think capitalist. But did you ever think about that this system, how it is that there are rich people and there are poor people? The poor people donate their labor and time to the rich people. That sounds silly to you, but think about it. Why does someone in Vietnam only work for enough money to pay their bread? If they had a choice? They give their labor and time, and they only get, say a dollar. Because the system makes it hard for them to get paid more. So the money the company saves means they can sell us cheaper things. So when we buy cheaper thing, we are receiving the donation of the laborers. What are they donating? The cost of their housing, the fact that they are sleeping in a dormitory and not a more expensive apartment, the cost of their cheaper food, they are donating their time so we can have cheap plastic things. Of course we also donate our time to more rich people, we are all in the system. It’s just harder to see it clearly in Taiwan right now because we get a lot, too. But we are donating our time.
So, the day care. If the women in the company had a choice, they’d go to a place they could have their children close by, right? But there isn’at anyone. So they donate their own cost of daycare to the company because they have no choice. So you think it’s reasonable that they say, “Well, we tried, but it’s too hard to comkply with the law.” You think, yeah, daycare is not a cost of doing business, so they’re right not to go to the extra expense. But they’re just outsourcing this cost to their employees, who pay it because they have no choice?
I think, our law doesn’t ask our company to build a day care for their employees. So if Chunghua Dien Shin wanted to, then it’s a good thing.
So are they really a good company, just because they ‘tried’?
Yes, it’s true, but they still participate in the system, of poor people subsidising the rich.
Yes, I never though that we subsidise the rich people with our time, and our time with our children. But I never thought they should take care of our children, because we exchange our time for them.
But under capitalist system—
No, but it’s a cost!
But we are just tools, we exchange fairly—
So we are undervalued.
So it’s that actually we’re third class or fourth class, depending on the level in the company. So they don’t exchange fair value. Take it or leave it. I can find someone else. So they won’t complain, and just take it. Some companies, yes.
I can’t agree with you more.
You are the moderator!
But I can’t agree more. So, what do you think?
I think the daughter is not at fault, and there’s many cases in Taiwan like this. I think become a mother will make a woman stronger.
Or weaker.
What do you mean?
She has to spend her time on her child, so she can’t change her situation. She spends all her time taking care of her dependent, so she has no time to make the situation better for herself and others. It’s easier to change things when you have no burden of dependence.
That’s what I want to discuss. She feels guilty because it’s a genetic disease.
So she feels responsible! But most mothers will feel guilty.
Because it’s genetic.
Of course it’s not her fault, but she’s still think it is.
Like autism. The mother will feel really guilty I know that this kind of disease not to related with gene problem. But most mothers will think it’s their fault. So as a mother they discover their children is their responsible for—
It’s women’s nature!
Nature or nurture?
You’re so cynical.
Please believe me that when I ask this kind of question, I am not being cynical. I am really being sincere, I am sincerely asking this question.
Because I think when you say ‘nature’ it’s cynical. You’re saying we can’t change. You’re saying we’re fucked. I say ‘really, there’s nothing to change about this? We’re stuck with this?’ So when I ask, ‘nature or nurture?’, I’m asking you, “Really? We really can’t change this?”
But the women are more responsible than the men.
It’s because we let the men off the hook.
So we women here are all responsible, since we’re the ones all in society.
There are some men in class, when we talk issues like this, they’re—
Uncomfortable?
Not, it’s that women are more than the men.
More what?
No, there are more women than men.
Yes. In traditional thinking, the men be told to earn the money, and they don’t have to clean the room or do some, I don’t know—housework.
So even in the in the western society, really?
But the movies!
Movies are dreams!
Yes, don’t fucking believe the movies!
Right, when you see men and women together in western movie, when I was a child I used to believe this is true.
[general laughter]
So actually I think this article has many place like things are interesting, because we talk about women, men, and so many things, like Chunghua Dien Shin. I never thought we’d talk about Chunghua Dien Shin because of this article.
That’s why I love this class.
But I want to know from you guys, you are so familiar with some kinds of medical science, from your aspect, how do you think about this situation?
Well, the major is, social welfare policy. So I can say the modern situation, what’s problem. I think it’s not her problem. So I think this is our society situation have to change, and we hope to create a more fair system, and gather people together to think about long-term care system. I know the gvt is planning to—
Our gvt?
—yes, our gvt and some NGO people discuss our system, the social insurance system, they hope to use this model to care for the disabled people, like elderly with disability, the children with disability. They hope to combine the medical and social system, but—
—I knew there would be a ‘but’ soon—
—but I think the social system cannot do everything well. If they cannot touch the real people’s needs—
They just use their thinking without real knowledge.
—they just use the productive method.
Productive?
Efficient. They want to take care more people with limited resource.
Get more people.
Yes, but they don’t think to expand the resource on the social care system. So their thinking have to change.
I think I am trained to not trust our gvt. Because I am middle age person, so I will think about my own retirement plan. The gvt said we can give the salary first, then I’ll have the money later, but I don’t think so.
Like in the US, Social Security is a pyramid scheme.
I have to pay 6% of my salary. For my future. But maybe I will die at 50!
So I have to take care of myself in my own way. I have to take care of my mother you know, I won’t trust the gvt.
They will know how to get our taxes, very efficiently. May is the tax season. They know how to collect it very efficiently, even though I just accidentally skipped one item, and just 2000 NT dollars, they called me, after one year!
They called you!
They called and said I skipped one item, and I should pay on time.
Because they have no money.
But it’s so efficiently! Rachel just said that we need to make the social system efficient. The tax system is so efficient!
They collect it efficiently, but they spend it sloppily.
But the home care worker, they are assigned to the elderly, they will count how many hours the elderly people need. If you, so they pay, the service payment for the hours…
You mean…
They only give you 16 hours per person per month. Once you use that up, you have to pay for the worker’s time yourself. So if there’s someone needs 24 hour care, they have to use private contractors. So they are separate from the home care system, because that are only part time care.
I have a question. Does the criteria for 24 hour care, and home care the same?
The doctor will decide, depending on the level of care.
So even if you don’t have time for it, if they decide you don’t have enough need, you have to find a way to get the carer for yourself.
Taipei city’s requirements for a home carer is?
They have to take classes and get certification.
But if the gvt hasn’t got enough personnel, they contract it out to private companies, who then charge the patient directly.
I think if we get old, without enough money, then it’s really terrible!
Yeah, my girlfriend says that if she gets sick when she gets old, she’d rather commit suicide then have to depend on someone else. To which I say, I can care for you! But she says she doesn’t want to depend on anyone, and I just think, but I want to keep her around!
Wow, I want to find someone like you.
Ha, well, I’m taken.
Well—
Besides, you need a boy, and for boys it’s harder to find good ones.
Yes, that made me think an example.
Example for this, or for find person take care of you!
No, but I think if you could find a person that wherever you go, they will go with you, that’s really lucky. I have a friend, she just go to abroad, and her husband go with her.
And give up his job?
Not give up, but—
A leave of absence, or sabbatical?
Not very clear, but I think he’s really nice, I think my friend is very lucky, and they are married.
We often hear that’s someone’s girlfriend go abroad for boyfriend, but we seldom hear the reverse case. Usually the boy asks the girl not to go, to stay, because the centre of the case is the boyfriend.
So why do they have all of the power and none of the responsibility?
It’s a kind of weird tradition, or a weird value. It’s very common in my family, or our society. It’s a habit.
I think it’s a culture.
Culture means we get used to something.
And make it formal.
Yes. Recently I look at the interaction between my father and mother. Sometimes my mother is right, but she says, “But your father thinks so, so let’s go with your father’s idea.” I just wonder why she doesn’t feel confident, and why doesn’t she make him follow her? Because she is right. But because once when they were young, she didn’t follow him, and he got angry. Just one time. And since then she follow him.
She has to ‘try to make the relationship work’. [cutting stomach gesture]
That’s the woman’s responsibility you know, not the man’s [/sarcasm]
They don’t want to break up the family, so they sacrifice themselves. In my family, the men don’t do any housework. I even have to wash my brother’s shoes!
Wow.
Good lord.
But me, I object, I say I am not my brother's mother.
But my mom said I was disobedient, I don’t behave the way the women should behave. So I became the black sheep. So my mother said it’s a pity I wasn’t born a man.
Yeah, I think so too, because men have a better deal!
Because it doesn’t matter they are more foolish or smart, they just have more power than women.
It’s a worldwide culture.
I had the wrong idea, I thought that the western culture—
That’s the advertising. You fell for the advertising.
You know, if you have a flush toilet, you’re rich. If you have your own money, your own house, and no dependents, you’re doing better than 80% of the women in the world. You have a flush toilet and a college education, and no dependents, you’re one of the free-est women in the world.
I’m very interested in this kind of issue about how to treat disorder people. So when I read this story, I also, I’m a woman, so I can feel the mother’s feeling. And I just wonder if I were a mother with a child, like this one, can I keep calm and become so strong to assist her child? I just wonder. So maybe, I also think that our social system in Taiwan, can our system to support this kind of family? Somehow our medicine system, we can discuss this kind of system.
I also think this article is interesting in this topic, “A daughter’s disease, a mother’s hope.” The theme is not in the article, but I think when the daughter have some special disease, and no hope to cure, it’s very hard for a mother, maybe we have so many things to discuss.
Erica, what do you think?
I think to be a mother is hard enough. And to be a single mother is even harder, and to have a sick child is even harder. So just like Fanny said, to put me in her shoes, I think I won’t know how to deal with such a case. Because I don’t have a stable job, and don’t have enough money, and no social support or gvt support. I think I would feel desperate. But the mom is so strong. I admire her. And I think what she did is not just to help her daughter, but she wants to help people who have the same situation, I think she is very brave.
I once saw a movie, the name is Lorenzo’s Oil. I think that mother is braver than this mother—
I think because the character in the movie has more money, and has more knowledge. But this mother is blue collar, and her job is to care for other people’s child. Sorry to interrupt.
—but I think the LO mother is also brave in the same situation.
After I reading this article, I think my interesting part is to show that she is a single mother living in public housing, it means she is poor, she has a daughter with a rare disease. She try her best to live and take care the daughter. But their real problem is the gvt problem. Because the mother cannot get enough social support to get stable work and enough salary to take care of her daughter. So the problem is not enough money and resources to study on this disease, so the mother cannot do anything for this daughter, and especially for the disease. And this is probably a society problem.
Angela, I think in the US, they would take care of this problem, from the—
You really misunderstand the US. In the US, being a single mother is a social crime. Being poor is a crime. No one will help you, least of all the gvt. Because if you dare to be a single mother, it means you’re definitely a Bad Mother. And that is a crime. Because you failed to keep a man, and you’re selfish to keep the child.
There’s this case, a woman, she has two sons, one is 13 and one is 15. The 15 year old got in trouble with the law. So she’s a Bad Mother. She can’t pay the fees for the kid’s jailing, so they put her in jail too. So how’s that going to help her? Then, they let her out of jail to collect her paycheck from her part-time job, which she can’t keep because she’s in jail, but she got the check from the previous month, well they took that, to pay for HER jail costs! So she still can’t pay her son’s jail costs, so they put her back in jail? What the hell? She’s in jail for being poor! Being poor is now a crime! So she’s a Bad Mother, and why? Because her son is in jail, and she’s in jail so she can’t take care of her other son, and because she’s too poor to take care of her children. I tell you, whose fault is this? It’s not the woman’s fault. It’s the fault of the gvt.
In the US, it’s a social crime to be a single mother, because everyone knows it’s the woman’s fault if the kids turn out bad. It’s not the father’s fault for leaving, that’s for sure!
I think in Asia, single women’s situation not so bad.
I think in the world, there’s no place to achieve a really equal position between men and women. It’s hard to reach an equal world, I think.
Do you think in our society people will have more sympathy or support for single mothers, do we have it or not?
I think not.
[everyone shakes head in agreement.]
From the working environment, not—
I think she can get support from friends, but from working environment, or gvt, no.
But what kind of support single mother need from our society? I think we should figure this out.
If you have a baby child, and you have to go out for work, you need someone to help you take care.
But even for working woman, our society doesn’t provide enough child-care system.
It’s expensive.
But recently I hear from my neighbour, she’s a two children, and we discussed this problem for working women. She said there’s some problem for our rules. I ask her why her corporation didn’t build a place for children caring, and she answered that, once their boss wanted to build a place, however, our rules for building the place, it can’t be underground. So no, for a corporation, they have a building, but they only have room for the day-care underground. It’s hard for them to search another place just for children caring. So they decided to do it underground, so our rules don’t allow it.
Your friend must work for a good company.
Yes, Chunghua Dien Shin.
But my question is, why could they only find a place underground for it? You say, they have to take care of costs, and everyone will agree with this, because we all live in a capatilist system, we think capitalist. But did you ever think about that this system, how it is that there are rich people and there are poor people? The poor people donate their labor and time to the rich people. That sounds silly to you, but think about it. Why does someone in Vietnam only work for enough money to pay their bread? If they had a choice? They give their labor and time, and they only get, say a dollar. Because the system makes it hard for them to get paid more. So the money the company saves means they can sell us cheaper things. So when we buy cheaper thing, we are receiving the donation of the laborers. What are they donating? The cost of their housing, the fact that they are sleeping in a dormitory and not a more expensive apartment, the cost of their cheaper food, they are donating their time so we can have cheap plastic things. Of course we also donate our time to more rich people, we are all in the system. It’s just harder to see it clearly in Taiwan right now because we get a lot, too. But we are donating our time.
So, the day care. If the women in the company had a choice, they’d go to a place they could have their children close by, right? But there isn’at anyone. So they donate their own cost of daycare to the company because they have no choice. So you think it’s reasonable that they say, “Well, we tried, but it’s too hard to comkply with the law.” You think, yeah, daycare is not a cost of doing business, so they’re right not to go to the extra expense. But they’re just outsourcing this cost to their employees, who pay it because they have no choice?
I think, our law doesn’t ask our company to build a day care for their employees. So if Chunghua Dien Shin wanted to, then it’s a good thing.
So are they really a good company, just because they ‘tried’?
Yes, it’s true, but they still participate in the system, of poor people subsidising the rich.
Yes, I never though that we subsidise the rich people with our time, and our time with our children. But I never thought they should take care of our children, because we exchange our time for them.
But under capitalist system—
No, but it’s a cost!
But we are just tools, we exchange fairly—
So we are undervalued.
So it’s that actually we’re third class or fourth class, depending on the level in the company. So they don’t exchange fair value. Take it or leave it. I can find someone else. So they won’t complain, and just take it. Some companies, yes.
I can’t agree with you more.
You are the moderator!
But I can’t agree more. So, what do you think?
I think the daughter is not at fault, and there’s many cases in Taiwan like this. I think become a mother will make a woman stronger.
Or weaker.
What do you mean?
She has to spend her time on her child, so she can’t change her situation. She spends all her time taking care of her dependent, so she has no time to make the situation better for herself and others. It’s easier to change things when you have no burden of dependence.
That’s what I want to discuss. She feels guilty because it’s a genetic disease.
So she feels responsible! But most mothers will feel guilty.
Because it’s genetic.
Of course it’s not her fault, but she’s still think it is.
Like autism. The mother will feel really guilty I know that this kind of disease not to related with gene problem. But most mothers will think it’s their fault. So as a mother they discover their children is their responsible for—
It’s women’s nature!
Nature or nurture?
You’re so cynical.
Please believe me that when I ask this kind of question, I am not being cynical. I am really being sincere, I am sincerely asking this question.
Because I think when you say ‘nature’ it’s cynical. You’re saying we can’t change. You’re saying we’re fucked. I say ‘really, there’s nothing to change about this? We’re stuck with this?’ So when I ask, ‘nature or nurture?’, I’m asking you, “Really? We really can’t change this?”
But the women are more responsible than the men.
It’s because we let the men off the hook.
So we women here are all responsible, since we’re the ones all in society.
There are some men in class, when we talk issues like this, they’re—
Uncomfortable?
Not, it’s that women are more than the men.
More what?
No, there are more women than men.
Yes. In traditional thinking, the men be told to earn the money, and they don’t have to clean the room or do some, I don’t know—housework.
So even in the in the western society, really?
But the movies!
Movies are dreams!
Yes, don’t fucking believe the movies!
Right, when you see men and women together in western movie, when I was a child I used to believe this is true.
[general laughter]
So actually I think this article has many place like things are interesting, because we talk about women, men, and so many things, like Chunghua Dien Shin. I never thought we’d talk about Chunghua Dien Shin because of this article.
That’s why I love this class.
But I want to know from you guys, you are so familiar with some kinds of medical science, from your aspect, how do you think about this situation?
Well, the major is, social welfare policy. So I can say the modern situation, what’s problem. I think it’s not her problem. So I think this is our society situation have to change, and we hope to create a more fair system, and gather people together to think about long-term care system. I know the gvt is planning to—
Our gvt?
—yes, our gvt and some NGO people discuss our system, the social insurance system, they hope to use this model to care for the disabled people, like elderly with disability, the children with disability. They hope to combine the medical and social system, but—
—I knew there would be a ‘but’ soon—
—but I think the social system cannot do everything well. If they cannot touch the real people’s needs—
They just use their thinking without real knowledge.
—they just use the productive method.
Productive?
Efficient. They want to take care more people with limited resource.
Get more people.
Yes, but they don’t think to expand the resource on the social care system. So their thinking have to change.
I think I am trained to not trust our gvt. Because I am middle age person, so I will think about my own retirement plan. The gvt said we can give the salary first, then I’ll have the money later, but I don’t think so.
Like in the US, Social Security is a pyramid scheme.
I have to pay 6% of my salary. For my future. But maybe I will die at 50!
So I have to take care of myself in my own way. I have to take care of my mother you know, I won’t trust the gvt.
They will know how to get our taxes, very efficiently. May is the tax season. They know how to collect it very efficiently, even though I just accidentally skipped one item, and just 2000 NT dollars, they called me, after one year!
They called you!
They called and said I skipped one item, and I should pay on time.
Because they have no money.
But it’s so efficiently! Rachel just said that we need to make the social system efficient. The tax system is so efficient!
They collect it efficiently, but they spend it sloppily.
But the home care worker, they are assigned to the elderly, they will count how many hours the elderly people need. If you, so they pay, the service payment for the hours…
You mean…
They only give you 16 hours per person per month. Once you use that up, you have to pay for the worker’s time yourself. So if there’s someone needs 24 hour care, they have to use private contractors. So they are separate from the home care system, because that are only part time care.
I have a question. Does the criteria for 24 hour care, and home care the same?
The doctor will decide, depending on the level of care.
So even if you don’t have time for it, if they decide you don’t have enough need, you have to find a way to get the carer for yourself.
Taipei city’s requirements for a home carer is?
They have to take classes and get certification.
But if the gvt hasn’t got enough personnel, they contract it out to private companies, who then charge the patient directly.
I think if we get old, without enough money, then it’s really terrible!
Yeah, my girlfriend says that if she gets sick when she gets old, she’d rather commit suicide then have to depend on someone else. To which I say, I can care for you! But she says she doesn’t want to depend on anyone, and I just think, but I want to keep her around!
Wow, I want to find someone like you.
Ha, well, I’m taken.
Well—
Besides, you need a boy, and for boys it’s harder to find good ones.
Yes, that made me think an example.
Example for this, or for find person take care of you!
No, but I think if you could find a person that wherever you go, they will go with you, that’s really lucky. I have a friend, she just go to abroad, and her husband go with her.
And give up his job?
Not give up, but—
A leave of absence, or sabbatical?
Not very clear, but I think he’s really nice, I think my friend is very lucky, and they are married.
We often hear that’s someone’s girlfriend go abroad for boyfriend, but we seldom hear the reverse case. Usually the boy asks the girl not to go, to stay, because the centre of the case is the boyfriend.
So why do they have all of the power and none of the responsibility?
It’s a kind of weird tradition, or a weird value. It’s very common in my family, or our society. It’s a habit.
I think it’s a culture.
Culture means we get used to something.
And make it formal.
Yes. Recently I look at the interaction between my father and mother. Sometimes my mother is right, but she says, “But your father thinks so, so let’s go with your father’s idea.” I just wonder why she doesn’t feel confident, and why doesn’t she make him follow her? Because she is right. But because once when they were young, she didn’t follow him, and he got angry. Just one time. And since then she follow him.
She has to ‘try to make the relationship work’. [cutting stomach gesture]
That’s the woman’s responsibility you know, not the man’s [/sarcasm]
They don’t want to break up the family, so they sacrifice themselves. In my family, the men don’t do any housework. I even have to wash my brother’s shoes!
Wow.
Good lord.
But me, I object, I say I am not my brother's mother.
But my mom said I was disobedient, I don’t behave the way the women should behave. So I became the black sheep. So my mother said it’s a pity I wasn’t born a man.
Yeah, I think so too, because men have a better deal!
Because it doesn’t matter they are more foolish or smart, they just have more power than women.
It’s a worldwide culture.
I had the wrong idea, I thought that the western culture—
That’s the advertising. You fell for the advertising.
You know, if you have a flush toilet, you’re rich. If you have your own money, your own house, and no dependents, you’re doing better than 80% of the women in the world. You have a flush toilet and a college education, and no dependents, you’re one of the free-est women in the world.
Article for 4/12 : A daughter's disease, a mother's hope
Article 4/12 will be discussed on Sunday April 12, at 3pm, at Goethe Cafe. Maggie is the moderator.
Goethe Cafe
Address: Roosevelt Road, Sec 3, Lane 283, No. 11
Tel: 02 2362 0060
Subway exit: Taipower Building Station exit 2
Article:
North Side mom searches for answers to the puzzle of her daughter's rare disorder
By Deborah L. Shelton Tribune reporter March 25, 2009
In her former job as a school bus attendant, LaSonya Thomas helped care for other people's disabled children. Now her life is consumed by the around-the-clock needs of her own severely ill daughter.
Thomas became a full-time caregiver last year for Maureeka Wilson, 15, when she was diagnosed with a rare disorder. Maureeka can no longer talk, walk, swallow or use the bathroom on her own.
Thomas escorts the 71-pound teenager to countless medical appointments. At home, she handles her daughter's tube feedings, administers medications every three hours and even tucks Maureeka into bed with her most nights, fearful the frail teen will choke to death without quick intervention.
All this leaves Thomas, a single mother living in a public housing development on Chicago's North Side, often feeling utterly alone in a search for treatment, despite being in a sprawling metropolis full of medical providers and top specialists.
That's because of the rareness of the disease with which Maureeka has been tentatively diagnosed—sepiapterin reductase deficiency, a pediatric neurotransmitter problem. Fewer than two dozen cases have been identified worldwide, and most diagnoses have been made around the Mediterranean region, said Dr. Jennifer Friedman, a neurologist at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego who is considered an expert on pediatric neurotransmitter diseases.
The deficiency is one of an estimated 6,000 rare diseases that afflict about 25 million to 30 million Americans. Each is considered an orphan disease because so few people have it and little or no research is being done. A disease is considered rare if it affects fewer than 200,000 people in the U.S.
"I pray a lot," said Thomas, who talks regularly to a silent, largely unresponsive Maureeka. "I ask God to direct me, give me strength, help me to take it one day at a time."
Seeking answers to the puzzle of her daughter's disorder, Thomas has been searching for other families dealing with the deficiency. So far, she has located only one, in New Mexico. She has called organizations around the country looking for help.
It appears Maureeka has no idea of her mother's devotion. She stares blankly at the world with wide, dark eyes. Her disease has robbed her of an awareness of what goes on around her. On a recent day, she sat stiffly in a wheelchair across from a TV screen filled with static."
It's hard, it's real hard," said Thomas, sitting on a sofa in her sparsely furnished living room, her eyes fixed on her only daughter. "But I love my daughter, and it's not her fault."
Maureeka never walked or talked normally as a youngster, but she attended school and lived a relatively normal life. She was misdiagnosed with cerebral palsy when she was 1. When she was 13, she started having seizures and her condition suddenly worsened, prompting her doctors to rethink their diagnosis.
A special test was done on her spinal fluid to measure levels of neurotransmitters. Doctors determined that she had been born with a genetic defect that affected her body's ability to make neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin. Neurotransmitters are chemicals that relay signals between neurons in the brain.
"We don't have the ability to reverse the genetic problem or to do gene therapy," said Dr. Sarah Elizabeth Zauber, Maureeka's physician and a neurologist at Rush University Medical Center who specializes in movement disorders. "Perhaps down the road as we learn about these diseases, that might be possible."
For now, those diagnosed with the disorder are treated with medication to try to restore their levels of neurotransmitters.But for Maureeka, the medication appears to have triggered periodic body movements that resemble seizures.
Unlike many parents who have sick children with more common and better understood disorders, Thomas has no idea what the future might hold. That adds to the stress.
"Nobody can give her the answer if [her daughter] is going to get better, get worse or stay like this," Zauber said. "Hopefully, with more testing we will know more."For now, Thomas would like to set up a support group and spur research.
"I do understand and accept that there is no cure for Maureeka's disease," Thomas said in her calm, quiet voice. "But I would like to find something that will make her life better."
Goethe Cafe
Address: Roosevelt Road, Sec 3, Lane 283, No. 11
Tel: 02 2362 0060
Subway exit: Taipower Building Station exit 2
Article:
North Side mom searches for answers to the puzzle of her daughter's rare disorder
By Deborah L. Shelton Tribune reporter March 25, 2009
In her former job as a school bus attendant, LaSonya Thomas helped care for other people's disabled children. Now her life is consumed by the around-the-clock needs of her own severely ill daughter.
Thomas became a full-time caregiver last year for Maureeka Wilson, 15, when she was diagnosed with a rare disorder. Maureeka can no longer talk, walk, swallow or use the bathroom on her own.
Thomas escorts the 71-pound teenager to countless medical appointments. At home, she handles her daughter's tube feedings, administers medications every three hours and even tucks Maureeka into bed with her most nights, fearful the frail teen will choke to death without quick intervention.
All this leaves Thomas, a single mother living in a public housing development on Chicago's North Side, often feeling utterly alone in a search for treatment, despite being in a sprawling metropolis full of medical providers and top specialists.
That's because of the rareness of the disease with which Maureeka has been tentatively diagnosed—sepiapterin reductase deficiency, a pediatric neurotransmitter problem. Fewer than two dozen cases have been identified worldwide, and most diagnoses have been made around the Mediterranean region, said Dr. Jennifer Friedman, a neurologist at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego who is considered an expert on pediatric neurotransmitter diseases.
The deficiency is one of an estimated 6,000 rare diseases that afflict about 25 million to 30 million Americans. Each is considered an orphan disease because so few people have it and little or no research is being done. A disease is considered rare if it affects fewer than 200,000 people in the U.S.
"I pray a lot," said Thomas, who talks regularly to a silent, largely unresponsive Maureeka. "I ask God to direct me, give me strength, help me to take it one day at a time."
Seeking answers to the puzzle of her daughter's disorder, Thomas has been searching for other families dealing with the deficiency. So far, she has located only one, in New Mexico. She has called organizations around the country looking for help.
It appears Maureeka has no idea of her mother's devotion. She stares blankly at the world with wide, dark eyes. Her disease has robbed her of an awareness of what goes on around her. On a recent day, she sat stiffly in a wheelchair across from a TV screen filled with static."
It's hard, it's real hard," said Thomas, sitting on a sofa in her sparsely furnished living room, her eyes fixed on her only daughter. "But I love my daughter, and it's not her fault."
Maureeka never walked or talked normally as a youngster, but she attended school and lived a relatively normal life. She was misdiagnosed with cerebral palsy when she was 1. When she was 13, she started having seizures and her condition suddenly worsened, prompting her doctors to rethink their diagnosis.
A special test was done on her spinal fluid to measure levels of neurotransmitters. Doctors determined that she had been born with a genetic defect that affected her body's ability to make neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin. Neurotransmitters are chemicals that relay signals between neurons in the brain.
"We don't have the ability to reverse the genetic problem or to do gene therapy," said Dr. Sarah Elizabeth Zauber, Maureeka's physician and a neurologist at Rush University Medical Center who specializes in movement disorders. "Perhaps down the road as we learn about these diseases, that might be possible."
For now, those diagnosed with the disorder are treated with medication to try to restore their levels of neurotransmitters.But for Maureeka, the medication appears to have triggered periodic body movements that resemble seizures.
Unlike many parents who have sick children with more common and better understood disorders, Thomas has no idea what the future might hold. That adds to the stress.
"Nobody can give her the answer if [her daughter] is going to get better, get worse or stay like this," Zauber said. "Hopefully, with more testing we will know more."For now, Thomas would like to set up a support group and spur research.
"I do understand and accept that there is no cure for Maureeka's disease," Thomas said in her calm, quiet voice. "But I would like to find something that will make her life better."
Vonnegut in Charge
Discussion Question:
From THE NATION:
If you were president [either of Taiwan or the US], what do you think would be the most important things to take care of, and how would you do it?
Ever concerned with raising the level of political discourse in this country, we asked novelist Kurt Vonnegut to compose an acceptance speech for Michael Dukakis. Of course, writers have contributed to presidential oratory in the past, but their efforts were lost in the revision-by-committee process. Here's the real thing, unfiltered and undiluted.
I am here to serve the people of the United States of America -- all of them, in all ways which are lawful.
I will not now speak of my humbleness. It has been said with some truth, I suppose, that almost anyone can grow up to be President. I have to add, ''But surely not an humble child.'' The Presidency is simultaneously a pinnacle of power and of vanity, and God help us all.
An aspect of my vanity, which seems to have found favor with a majority of those who chose to vote, is my belief that, with the help of the fourth branch of government mentioned in our Constitution, ''We the people,'' I can do a lot to help the United States of America become the United States of America--at last, at last.
The echo of Martin Luther King in my words is intentional when I say ''at last, at last.''
It will do us no harm today, as it has surely done no harm to other nations I need not name, to acknowledge a past soiled with atrocities, including, in our case, slavery and genocide, and the treatment of women of whatever race under law as though they were not citizens but property. Let us celebrate how far we have come from such bad old days in so short a time, and measure how far we have yet to go.
What better measurement might we use for progress made and progress yet to come than the health and happiness and wisdom and safety of all our people? And make no mistake about it: This nation is the most astonishing and admirable experiment in pluralistic democracy in history. Because of our wealth, the fairness of our Bill of Rights and the openness of our long borders, every conceivable sort of human being is now an American.
We are the world.
There is much in the recent past I would undo, if I could, especially our overwhelming national debt, whose undoing will be slow and painful. I will try to find out what good things, if any, we bought with all that money, borrowed mostly from foreigners. I will report back to you, whose children and grandchildren must pay it back with interest. I will be surprised, as I am sure most of you will be, too, if I find many purchases our descendants might thank us for.
With your encouragement, and with the cooperation of your elected representatives, I will attempt, after listening to the best-informed advisers I can find, to give future generations reasons to think well of us after all. There you have it, the principal mission of my administration: to create and bequeath to the future a decent habitat for all, free of poisons, free of hunger, free of ignorance, free of hate.
Too much, too much?
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?
Those are the words of Robert Browning, of course. I can put it a lot less elegantly, if you like:
Company's coming! Let's clean up this mess.
Many of the poisons in the water and the air and the topsoil are new. One which can sicken our spirit is ancient, and only since World War II has this country begun to fight it with any seriousness: the idea that females and persons of color are second-class citizens. That poison would love to make a great big comeback, to take its lethal place alongside nerve gas and radioactive wastes and PCBs and crack, and DDT and Agent Orange and the AIDS virus, and on and on.
Not while I'm President. In the words of Patrick Henry:
If this be treason, make the most of it.
Am I proposing a redistribution of wealth? You bet, since the wealth is being redistributed in any case, and often most crazily, and against the national interest. Am I proposing that we tax and tax and spend and spend? Yes, I am. Virtually every transaction is being skimmed already, and some private persons have done this at such confiscatory rates as to become as rich as smaller sovereign nations in a few years' time. And they spend and spend. On what? On what?
Ah, me.
Am I proposing an enormous public works program? How else might we describe our military-industrial complex, so mistrusted by that great Republican, General of the Armies Dwight David Eisenhower, when he himself became our President? With your encouragement I want to take much of the money now going into that public works program, and invest it instead in the arts of peace, the noblest of which are public health and education.
Who says otherwise? And why?
Company's coming.
I thank you for your attention.
I am here to serve the people of the United States of America -- all of them, in all ways which are lawful.
I will not now speak of my humbleness. It has been said with some truth, I suppose, that almost anyone can grow up to be President. I have to add, ''But surely not an humble child.'' The Presidency is simultaneously a pinnacle of power and of vanity, and God help us all.
An aspect of my vanity, which seems to have found favor with a majority of those who chose to vote, is my belief that, with the help of the fourth branch of government mentioned in our Constitution, ''We the people,'' I can do a lot to help the United States of America become the United States of America--at last, at last.
The echo of Martin Luther King in my words is intentional when I say ''at last, at last.''
It will do us no harm today, as it has surely done no harm to other nations I need not name, to acknowledge a past soiled with atrocities, including, in our case, slavery and genocide, and the treatment of women of whatever race under law as though they were not citizens but property. Let us celebrate how far we have come from such bad old days in so short a time, and measure how far we have yet to go.
What better measurement might we use for progress made and progress yet to come than the health and happiness and wisdom and safety of all our people? And make no mistake about it: This nation is the most astonishing and admirable experiment in pluralistic democracy in history. Because of our wealth, the fairness of our Bill of Rights and the openness of our long borders, every conceivable sort of human being is now an American.
We are the world.
There is much in the recent past I would undo, if I could, especially our overwhelming national debt, whose undoing will be slow and painful. I will try to find out what good things, if any, we bought with all that money, borrowed mostly from foreigners. I will report back to you, whose children and grandchildren must pay it back with interest. I will be surprised, as I am sure most of you will be, too, if I find many purchases our descendants might thank us for.
With your encouragement, and with the cooperation of your elected representatives, I will attempt, after listening to the best-informed advisers I can find, to give future generations reasons to think well of us after all. There you have it, the principal mission of my administration: to create and bequeath to the future a decent habitat for all, free of poisons, free of hunger, free of ignorance, free of hate.
Too much, too much?
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?
Those are the words of Robert Browning, of course. I can put it a lot less elegantly, if you like:
Company's coming! Let's clean up this mess.
Many of the poisons in the water and the air and the topsoil are new. One which can sicken our spirit is ancient, and only since World War II has this country begun to fight it with any seriousness: the idea that females and persons of color are second-class citizens. That poison would love to make a great big comeback, to take its lethal place alongside nerve gas and radioactive wastes and PCBs and crack, and DDT and Agent Orange and the AIDS virus, and on and on.
Not while I'm President. In the words of Patrick Henry:
If this be treason, make the most of it.
Am I proposing a redistribution of wealth? You bet, since the wealth is being redistributed in any case, and often most crazily, and against the national interest. Am I proposing that we tax and tax and spend and spend? Yes, I am. Virtually every transaction is being skimmed already, and some private persons have done this at such confiscatory rates as to become as rich as smaller sovereign nations in a few years' time. And they spend and spend. On what? On what?
Ah, me.
Am I proposing an enormous public works program? How else might we describe our military-industrial complex, so mistrusted by that great Republican, General of the Armies Dwight David Eisenhower, when he himself became our President? With your encouragement I want to take much of the money now going into that public works program, and invest it instead in the arts of peace, the noblest of which are public health and education.
Who says otherwise? And why?
Company's coming.
I thank you for your attention.
Taipei Discussion Transcript: Vonnegut
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.
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.
Conversation: It’s better than television.
So, in a conversation about rethinkingourselves, the woman I was talking with said: “Well, I’m easily influenced.”
I thought about this.
I think the process goes like this: First you’re easily influenced, but then you read and listen some more, and then for awhile you declare that it’s all crap, and you don’t trust anything. But then you read some more, or listen some more, and then you start realizing, hey, you know, some of these things make sense to me, and they fit a pattern, and over time you start to realize what you truly believe in. And then you read and listen some more and refine your ideas, take some new ones on, throw out some that don’t fit anymore, and your opinions get clearer and better fitting. Wash, rinse, repeat.
And then there’s this thing called the Socratic method, which I understand to be basically a bunch of people sitting around talking and discussing something, and bouncing their ideas off each other and arguing with each other until new ideas are born. And if no new ideas are actually created, well, in the meantime a whole lot of information has been disseminated and chewed on and hopefully digested.
Conversation: the art of sharing ideas and figuring out new things together.
I thought about this.
I think the process goes like this: First you’re easily influenced, but then you read and listen some more, and then for awhile you declare that it’s all crap, and you don’t trust anything. But then you read some more, or listen some more, and then you start realizing, hey, you know, some of these things make sense to me, and they fit a pattern, and over time you start to realize what you truly believe in. And then you read and listen some more and refine your ideas, take some new ones on, throw out some that don’t fit anymore, and your opinions get clearer and better fitting. Wash, rinse, repeat.
And then there’s this thing called the Socratic method, which I understand to be basically a bunch of people sitting around talking and discussing something, and bouncing their ideas off each other and arguing with each other until new ideas are born. And if no new ideas are actually created, well, in the meantime a whole lot of information has been disseminated and chewed on and hopefully digested.
Conversation: the art of sharing ideas and figuring out new things together.
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.
The Simple Life
Questions to Ponder:
1. Why do so few people really enjoy their jobs?
2. Why is it so hard to earn money doing things you really enjoy?
3. Does our education system preclude people from finding out that they would be happy doing garbage collecting type jobs?
4. Why do we have to earn money?
5. Why do we need to own an apartment/house?
6. Why do we need a scooter or car?
7. What is the point of a college education? Does it really lead to an improved life?
8. Does the investment in bushibans and education really improve people’s lives?
[Consider the difference between schooling and learning.]
9. Taiwan has entered an era of real prosperity, full of name-brand clothes and automobiles, and access to an amazing array of consumer goods, both locally made and imported.
10. Does this make Taiwan a better place?
11. Does this make Taiwan a happier place?
12. Do you agree that the more money you have, the better off you are?
Discussion Question:
Why work?
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Articles:
Hsinchu Discussion Transcript: Simple Life
Participants: Liyun, Kevin, Wilson, Angela
Okay, our question today is ‘Why work?’
You ask me, I’ll say, trading daily necessities, or trading value. It could be intangible.
I totally like that definition. That’s the portfolio life, totally.
My opinion is, the reason we work is not only to satisfy mandatory needs, like obligation to our children. We also have to fulfill your own goals, or enjoy some achievement.
But how does that relate to work?
Of course we want the money, but beyond the money we want to achieve something. Maybe it’s the character of my job, because I work for a research institute. Our dream is we want to establish something, or design some product. So it’s not a commercial purpose, necessarily, if we establish a product, it’s for a dream. So earning money is the mandatory purpose for our work, but beyond that we want to satisfy our dreams, or some enjoyment. It’s kind of like a portfolio life, but a little bit different.
What’s the difference?
It’s not the money, for portfolio life, you must control your needs, especially if you want to earn much more money to fulfill your needs, that’s the concept there, but for the concept, to earn money is your mandatory needs, because you have obligation to your children, so earning money is your first purpose for work, but beyond the bottom line you have another purpose.
That’s why I went into architecture. I wanted to make money and also pursue my dreams. I found it didn’t work. It wasn’t anything like pursuing my dreams, really.
But for Kevin, the key term is value?
I would say money is a kind of value, I want to get this thing, and so money is a way to do that, but I use value, as its broader than money. in ancient time, we trade thing, now we use money, but it doesn’t have to be money. So it’s trade.
Let’s exchange.
Right, so in the beginning, it’s a tiny thing, but it probably grows in to something valuable. Maybe for you it’s not very important, but maybe for your trading partner, it’s quite valuable. So it’s an intangible trading value.
What is tangible?
The thing you can touch. Let say, that’s my mobile, I trade for your watch, okay, that’s very conventional form of doing business.
So your opinion is you’re working to own something, the real something, and to include, some intangible things.
No my point is, to work, you create your own value. When you work , you have to continuously create your value, so someone can take advantage of your value, otherwise they can kick you out.
So the value is evaluated by some other people?
Could be. You could think you’re very valuable, but actually nobody want to hire you, so, you have no value.
So your opinion is like, uh, you are more concerned about the society point of view about your value. I mean, the other people make, for example, you think you are valuable, but other people don’t think your value is reasonable.
So then your position is not that reasonable, yes. You live in this society…
You need to obey the society rule.
What about if society has conflicting ideas about your value. For example, if people ask what I do, I tell them I’m an English teacher, and they go, ‘oh’, and kind of look down and away. But I know my work is valuable, because lots of people ask me to work for them, and I’m paid well. So it’s a bit difficult to determine if my skills have value. I’m paid well, but looked down on. It’s kind of interesting.
So there’s fairness and justice. You think you’re valuable, but other people don’t think. It’s a judgment, it’s an own opinion.
According to this article, it says, just as work distinguish some different types of job, like dirty work, or non-dirty work. I just interested about, just as you say, if you feel it is your…it’s your responsibility to clean up your environment, your environment surrounding your house. If you think it is your responsibility, you will make it clean.
It’s your job, right.
So you think it is your responsibility?
So yes, no one has to pay you or force you to. Some people have different standards, someone ask you to clean, but you think it’s okay. Like washing the dishes, it’s a kind of responsibility. I wouldn’t say it’s that someone has to pay you, for me it’s quite natural to do this thing.
I know that sometimes in western society, the standards or different you have to clean your house or garden, or they will fine you.
It’s a community force.
A kind of standards, yes.
I think even inside, they will check. Like when Taiwan was colonized by Japan, the authorities would go into your house to check if it’s clean. Because they thought Taiwanese are not clean, not disciplined. They think, if your house is not clean, how can your environment be clean? So they do a checkup, to see if your house clean or not. So they want to, so they try to help people have the idea, you got to keep the area good. Otherwise you go to prison.
It’s like the Japanese cultural approach to discipline, they like to have a regular life.
I was taught in Netherlands, there’s something like this, they will check your garden.
In the US, it’s property owner’s associations. I heard that in the US, in 90% of suburbs, the property associations have a regulation that you can’t hang your laundry outside. All that sunshine, and you have to use a dryer, which destroys your clothes, dryers do, really, and all because someone’s afraid of seeing your underwear?
[general laughter and discussion about whether or not it’s okay to see others’ underwear]
So what’s your opinion?
My simple life opinion, is earn money is okay, and spend other time on things you like to do. Because I have been working for almost 33 years, because I was working since I was 16 years old. I worked all day, and went to school, and my, so one year ago, I stopped my work, the routine work. I didn’t get the pay from that time, take a rest and to maintain my health. So, that’s why I’m learning English in here. That’s my hobby, and my, I was major in management, so I think I will find a job like our teacher, in my near future. That’s my opinion of the simple life, because I’m still simple too, also. I’m not married before, so I think one person living alone is simple.
I really agree with you.
I don’t have obligation to next generation, and my parents died 10 and 4 years ago, and so yesterday I went to the Hualien tower mausoleum, to see my father and mother. I went to there for worshipping them yesterday afternoon. I asked the management of the tower, a middle aged lady, asked do they have somebody here, and she said, already there were 4 people here, because the doors were open, because it’s ghost month.
Oh, ghost month! I always have so many accidents in ghost month! I’m starting to believe in it for real.
So anyway, for me, everything for me. I don’t have any responsibility.
No, you have responsibility for yourself, and for your life!
Of course, for your life!
So you have no burdens.
For money, like our teacher told us, she lost money on the stock market because she didn’t take it out in time. For me, the same. I had the chance to earn a lot of money, but I lost it. We had money in the science park, and should have sold it when it was high, for about 10 years, but I didn’t. Now I can tell myself, that’s how it is, because I didn’t handle my money well. I don’t want to think it over again, so I just deal with what’s in front of me. So I just want to take a rest, and maybe next year find a job. Still in preparation for myself.
That’s brave, though, that’s a brave thing to do.
But it’s good. In this year, I do exercise, chi gong, almost every day. This is helping me to recover my physical condition. And I eat right. Everything is not more than what I do to recover myself. In my old job, had a lot of pressure, and I like to do everything perfect, and so I did things on my work very careful, and I did a lot of good job, very good job. TSMC, I was the assistant of General Affairs, and I got prize in the company internal contest. In 30 years I got 8 promotions, and, I design, you know one furniture, and got the designer prize. That’s not my main job, but I think there is some room for improvement. That’s why I stop my job, the environment, the people was not good, and not made us feel comfortable.
It’s interesting, for a young man, if you ask the question, why do you work, the standard answer is to earn money. but for middle age worker, if you as the same question, they say, to earn money, but I want to get something else.
Yeah.
As the article mentioned, the simple life represent the less needs, so you need to control the needs, so the needs include the money, and include some necessary you want to get.
Good question. For my part, I think I need to prepare if someday, I lost everything, property, without a place to live in, and how to survive. That’s what I always ask myself, these years, the idea is stronger than before. I think, if I can overpass the challenge, then I will be a happy person. I know what the really value in my life.
Can I ask, what kind of challenge?
If you have the opportunity to start over your life, what kind of work you want to do?
The work where people need me.
Like you said, if you have value for others, then you are valuable.
It's like service, there's two sides. You think about other side, other side think about us. What we think about ourself, where is our value, what is value to us. So, I would say, I do…yesterday and before, is for the future. I don’t want to ask someone borrow me money, or give me something else, so my ideal would be healthy and simple life, and I can do something for others, and enough money, not too much money, and I just think if money is enough, don’t eat too much, don’t wear too beautiful. Don’t spend too much. That’s the simple life. And the value others think about us, we need to create or that’s…potential. We need to calculate really our daily life to make strong our mind than before. Do not be hurt by others anymore. I think we all nice people, we don’t want to hurt others, but daily life, another people want to make money, but don’t care honest, so maybe they hurt honest people.
In some cases yes.
But although the simple life is want to reduce your needs, less needs, I would say it is difficult. For example, for money, you want to get enough money, but I would say it depends on what is your needs. If you ask young people, they say they want to earn more money. But the same question to middle age workers, they would say just a little money, but they want to get other money from other side. So it's difficult to control enough, to be satisfied for enough money. It’s difficult to identify or achieve.
Okay, my major in management in financial, I work a long time in financial before. Recently I read some of financial articles, just like a review, and how can in the future I can manage my money, better than before, because in Chinese, there’s a saying, money have four legs, and people just two legs, we don’t care money, and money don’t care us. So I don’t worry for money since I have some passive income.
Some people say, they want more money so they want to help other people, so they want to have more money.
Yes, I do some charity.
Yes, so they want the satisfaction so that they can help people and from the engineering side, if you can earn enough money, you can plan the efficient good way to earn the money, so you can do well plan. That’s the engineers aspect. If I need 10000 dollars, I can achieve the enough level. I can use one year to achieve 10000 level, then I can use the other time to do something else. That’s young people thinking logic.
I think the young people, it’s better they save money than spend, that’s important.
You know, I didn’t start saving money till I was 34. But I know how much I need, how much is ‘enough’ for me.
So if you know what’s enough, then you can make a plan to earn that money.
I always though if I just work hard, just study hard, then I will get what I worked for. And I think a money plan, I can make money again, don’t give myself too much pressure.
Yes, if you worry about money, you might as well go back to work.
During my career, I had a lot of pressure, because I had a mortgage on my house, and I was very nervous, and I sold my stock very low, and paid down the mortgage, and that was a release for me, because we have a loading. Someone said to me, you are so young to be tired! Someone asked me, why you just stay at home? I was very shy about this question, I was worried about a lot of things. After a year, everything is okay.
So you have retired? You retired 2 years ago.
Yes.
So you have fixed income?
She said, she sold her stock to pay off her morgage.
But stock is not fixed, you said fixed income?
Passive income, not fixed income. I have a house I rent to others. So I have a simple life.
But renting out property is not simple!
It’s simpler than running a business!
Yah, true.
But now she has free time.
But now I have adventures in learning. Before I have an MBA degree, but I never used it, so I think that’s a pity. So now I think I study hard, I can learn till I understand. Life is harder than before, for everybody, so we need to be a commercial animal.
(laughter)
Because money has four legs? So we have to get four legs like money?
(laughter)
We have to use all four limbs!
Actually I have a question. When we say career, just like she was retired. So she finish a career, and started another career.
So living the simple life is really like a trade off. I need a 30 ping house, but I don’t want a car.
But you live in Taipei city, so you don’t need one.
Exactly, that’s why I live in Taipei city, so I don’t have to have a car. If I lived in Hsinchu, I would have to have a car, and that would make me really unhappy, and I know that, so I would never live in Hsinchu.
You know, before, I was afraid to die, but now I’m not. That’s one kind of value. If you’re a good heart person, you care about when you die, or waste your life. But if we do something worth in our life…. That’s one kind of concept, in such a complicated society, it’s very strong and big challenge, how to manage ourself, especially in my experience. Not only money. Just for money, just earning money, I think both of you, you get salary, fixed salary, because you got salary…if I pass through this kind of life, I just continue the way as before. I have pressure, but I adjusted myself. Now, I feel peaceful than before. It was very hard way to go, because lonely.
Actually I know an organization, they set up, like, a house, and this is for older people, it’s set up by private company.
Retirement community.
Each day they have a program, and each person, you can stay there, and you don’t feel lonely.
There is one in Zhubei.
I go to a class, in such a community, I learn drawing. Some of my classmates from EMBA travel abroad. But I don’t like that, I think that’s a very simple life. 2 or three times, just go overseas and take a trip.
But some people they just stay at home and play mahjong everyday.
It’s their lifestyle.
But I don’t want to live like that. You said, retirement community, some of them, they don’t really know what they want, they just spend their time, and what do they think about? The meaning? Why do they go to that place?
The company of others!
But the company is for what? It depends on who your company is?
They do that for what? They don’t really know why they are here? Doing what? They don’t really have one self thinking or opinion. I should say, thinking by themselves, independent.
That’s the point of community. You don’t have to think.
Sure, but that way you don’t have to stay with your children. You could be a public volunteer, you could find some activity to do, instead of sitting at home, watch TV every day, because your life gets more and more boring that way.
So retirement community is to establish environment to have friends, so you don’t feel lonely.
You could do that a different way, just get involved in things to find friends.
I think every character is different. When they retire from their career, they stop growing. They did the same thing for 30 years, they always do the same thing to organize their life, and so that’s why the talking would be boring. So I like to spend alone, and I could think something by myself, not around people, and I don’t want to care my time in such place.
It’s just an option.
That’s my option, yes.
Okay, our question today is ‘Why work?’
You ask me, I’ll say, trading daily necessities, or trading value. It could be intangible.
I totally like that definition. That’s the portfolio life, totally.
My opinion is, the reason we work is not only to satisfy mandatory needs, like obligation to our children. We also have to fulfill your own goals, or enjoy some achievement.
But how does that relate to work?
Of course we want the money, but beyond the money we want to achieve something. Maybe it’s the character of my job, because I work for a research institute. Our dream is we want to establish something, or design some product. So it’s not a commercial purpose, necessarily, if we establish a product, it’s for a dream. So earning money is the mandatory purpose for our work, but beyond that we want to satisfy our dreams, or some enjoyment. It’s kind of like a portfolio life, but a little bit different.
What’s the difference?
It’s not the money, for portfolio life, you must control your needs, especially if you want to earn much more money to fulfill your needs, that’s the concept there, but for the concept, to earn money is your mandatory needs, because you have obligation to your children, so earning money is your first purpose for work, but beyond the bottom line you have another purpose.
That’s why I went into architecture. I wanted to make money and also pursue my dreams. I found it didn’t work. It wasn’t anything like pursuing my dreams, really.
But for Kevin, the key term is value?
I would say money is a kind of value, I want to get this thing, and so money is a way to do that, but I use value, as its broader than money. in ancient time, we trade thing, now we use money, but it doesn’t have to be money. So it’s trade.
Let’s exchange.
Right, so in the beginning, it’s a tiny thing, but it probably grows in to something valuable. Maybe for you it’s not very important, but maybe for your trading partner, it’s quite valuable. So it’s an intangible trading value.
What is tangible?
The thing you can touch. Let say, that’s my mobile, I trade for your watch, okay, that’s very conventional form of doing business.
So your opinion is you’re working to own something, the real something, and to include, some intangible things.
No my point is, to work, you create your own value. When you work , you have to continuously create your value, so someone can take advantage of your value, otherwise they can kick you out.
So the value is evaluated by some other people?
Could be. You could think you’re very valuable, but actually nobody want to hire you, so, you have no value.
So your opinion is like, uh, you are more concerned about the society point of view about your value. I mean, the other people make, for example, you think you are valuable, but other people don’t think your value is reasonable.
So then your position is not that reasonable, yes. You live in this society…
You need to obey the society rule.
What about if society has conflicting ideas about your value. For example, if people ask what I do, I tell them I’m an English teacher, and they go, ‘oh’, and kind of look down and away. But I know my work is valuable, because lots of people ask me to work for them, and I’m paid well. So it’s a bit difficult to determine if my skills have value. I’m paid well, but looked down on. It’s kind of interesting.
So there’s fairness and justice. You think you’re valuable, but other people don’t think. It’s a judgment, it’s an own opinion.
According to this article, it says, just as work distinguish some different types of job, like dirty work, or non-dirty work. I just interested about, just as you say, if you feel it is your…it’s your responsibility to clean up your environment, your environment surrounding your house. If you think it is your responsibility, you will make it clean.
It’s your job, right.
So you think it is your responsibility?
So yes, no one has to pay you or force you to. Some people have different standards, someone ask you to clean, but you think it’s okay. Like washing the dishes, it’s a kind of responsibility. I wouldn’t say it’s that someone has to pay you, for me it’s quite natural to do this thing.
I know that sometimes in western society, the standards or different you have to clean your house or garden, or they will fine you.
It’s a community force.
A kind of standards, yes.
I think even inside, they will check. Like when Taiwan was colonized by Japan, the authorities would go into your house to check if it’s clean. Because they thought Taiwanese are not clean, not disciplined. They think, if your house is not clean, how can your environment be clean? So they do a checkup, to see if your house clean or not. So they want to, so they try to help people have the idea, you got to keep the area good. Otherwise you go to prison.
It’s like the Japanese cultural approach to discipline, they like to have a regular life.
I was taught in Netherlands, there’s something like this, they will check your garden.
In the US, it’s property owner’s associations. I heard that in the US, in 90% of suburbs, the property associations have a regulation that you can’t hang your laundry outside. All that sunshine, and you have to use a dryer, which destroys your clothes, dryers do, really, and all because someone’s afraid of seeing your underwear?
[general laughter and discussion about whether or not it’s okay to see others’ underwear]
So what’s your opinion?
My simple life opinion, is earn money is okay, and spend other time on things you like to do. Because I have been working for almost 33 years, because I was working since I was 16 years old. I worked all day, and went to school, and my, so one year ago, I stopped my work, the routine work. I didn’t get the pay from that time, take a rest and to maintain my health. So, that’s why I’m learning English in here. That’s my hobby, and my, I was major in management, so I think I will find a job like our teacher, in my near future. That’s my opinion of the simple life, because I’m still simple too, also. I’m not married before, so I think one person living alone is simple.
I really agree with you.
I don’t have obligation to next generation, and my parents died 10 and 4 years ago, and so yesterday I went to the Hualien tower mausoleum, to see my father and mother. I went to there for worshipping them yesterday afternoon. I asked the management of the tower, a middle aged lady, asked do they have somebody here, and she said, already there were 4 people here, because the doors were open, because it’s ghost month.
Oh, ghost month! I always have so many accidents in ghost month! I’m starting to believe in it for real.
So anyway, for me, everything for me. I don’t have any responsibility.
No, you have responsibility for yourself, and for your life!
Of course, for your life!
So you have no burdens.
For money, like our teacher told us, she lost money on the stock market because she didn’t take it out in time. For me, the same. I had the chance to earn a lot of money, but I lost it. We had money in the science park, and should have sold it when it was high, for about 10 years, but I didn’t. Now I can tell myself, that’s how it is, because I didn’t handle my money well. I don’t want to think it over again, so I just deal with what’s in front of me. So I just want to take a rest, and maybe next year find a job. Still in preparation for myself.
That’s brave, though, that’s a brave thing to do.
But it’s good. In this year, I do exercise, chi gong, almost every day. This is helping me to recover my physical condition. And I eat right. Everything is not more than what I do to recover myself. In my old job, had a lot of pressure, and I like to do everything perfect, and so I did things on my work very careful, and I did a lot of good job, very good job. TSMC, I was the assistant of General Affairs, and I got prize in the company internal contest. In 30 years I got 8 promotions, and, I design, you know one furniture, and got the designer prize. That’s not my main job, but I think there is some room for improvement. That’s why I stop my job, the environment, the people was not good, and not made us feel comfortable.
It’s interesting, for a young man, if you ask the question, why do you work, the standard answer is to earn money. but for middle age worker, if you as the same question, they say, to earn money, but I want to get something else.
Yeah.
As the article mentioned, the simple life represent the less needs, so you need to control the needs, so the needs include the money, and include some necessary you want to get.
Good question. For my part, I think I need to prepare if someday, I lost everything, property, without a place to live in, and how to survive. That’s what I always ask myself, these years, the idea is stronger than before. I think, if I can overpass the challenge, then I will be a happy person. I know what the really value in my life.
Can I ask, what kind of challenge?
If you have the opportunity to start over your life, what kind of work you want to do?
The work where people need me.
Like you said, if you have value for others, then you are valuable.
It's like service, there's two sides. You think about other side, other side think about us. What we think about ourself, where is our value, what is value to us. So, I would say, I do…yesterday and before, is for the future. I don’t want to ask someone borrow me money, or give me something else, so my ideal would be healthy and simple life, and I can do something for others, and enough money, not too much money, and I just think if money is enough, don’t eat too much, don’t wear too beautiful. Don’t spend too much. That’s the simple life. And the value others think about us, we need to create or that’s…potential. We need to calculate really our daily life to make strong our mind than before. Do not be hurt by others anymore. I think we all nice people, we don’t want to hurt others, but daily life, another people want to make money, but don’t care honest, so maybe they hurt honest people.
In some cases yes.
But although the simple life is want to reduce your needs, less needs, I would say it is difficult. For example, for money, you want to get enough money, but I would say it depends on what is your needs. If you ask young people, they say they want to earn more money. But the same question to middle age workers, they would say just a little money, but they want to get other money from other side. So it's difficult to control enough, to be satisfied for enough money. It’s difficult to identify or achieve.
Okay, my major in management in financial, I work a long time in financial before. Recently I read some of financial articles, just like a review, and how can in the future I can manage my money, better than before, because in Chinese, there’s a saying, money have four legs, and people just two legs, we don’t care money, and money don’t care us. So I don’t worry for money since I have some passive income.
Some people say, they want more money so they want to help other people, so they want to have more money.
Yes, I do some charity.
Yes, so they want the satisfaction so that they can help people and from the engineering side, if you can earn enough money, you can plan the efficient good way to earn the money, so you can do well plan. That’s the engineers aspect. If I need 10000 dollars, I can achieve the enough level. I can use one year to achieve 10000 level, then I can use the other time to do something else. That’s young people thinking logic.
I think the young people, it’s better they save money than spend, that’s important.
You know, I didn’t start saving money till I was 34. But I know how much I need, how much is ‘enough’ for me.
So if you know what’s enough, then you can make a plan to earn that money.
I always though if I just work hard, just study hard, then I will get what I worked for. And I think a money plan, I can make money again, don’t give myself too much pressure.
Yes, if you worry about money, you might as well go back to work.
During my career, I had a lot of pressure, because I had a mortgage on my house, and I was very nervous, and I sold my stock very low, and paid down the mortgage, and that was a release for me, because we have a loading. Someone said to me, you are so young to be tired! Someone asked me, why you just stay at home? I was very shy about this question, I was worried about a lot of things. After a year, everything is okay.
So you have retired? You retired 2 years ago.
Yes.
So you have fixed income?
She said, she sold her stock to pay off her morgage.
But stock is not fixed, you said fixed income?
Passive income, not fixed income. I have a house I rent to others. So I have a simple life.
But renting out property is not simple!
It’s simpler than running a business!
Yah, true.
But now she has free time.
But now I have adventures in learning. Before I have an MBA degree, but I never used it, so I think that’s a pity. So now I think I study hard, I can learn till I understand. Life is harder than before, for everybody, so we need to be a commercial animal.
(laughter)
Because money has four legs? So we have to get four legs like money?
(laughter)
We have to use all four limbs!
Actually I have a question. When we say career, just like she was retired. So she finish a career, and started another career.
So living the simple life is really like a trade off. I need a 30 ping house, but I don’t want a car.
But you live in Taipei city, so you don’t need one.
Exactly, that’s why I live in Taipei city, so I don’t have to have a car. If I lived in Hsinchu, I would have to have a car, and that would make me really unhappy, and I know that, so I would never live in Hsinchu.
You know, before, I was afraid to die, but now I’m not. That’s one kind of value. If you’re a good heart person, you care about when you die, or waste your life. But if we do something worth in our life…. That’s one kind of concept, in such a complicated society, it’s very strong and big challenge, how to manage ourself, especially in my experience. Not only money. Just for money, just earning money, I think both of you, you get salary, fixed salary, because you got salary…if I pass through this kind of life, I just continue the way as before. I have pressure, but I adjusted myself. Now, I feel peaceful than before. It was very hard way to go, because lonely.
Actually I know an organization, they set up, like, a house, and this is for older people, it’s set up by private company.
Retirement community.
Each day they have a program, and each person, you can stay there, and you don’t feel lonely.
There is one in Zhubei.
I go to a class, in such a community, I learn drawing. Some of my classmates from EMBA travel abroad. But I don’t like that, I think that’s a very simple life. 2 or three times, just go overseas and take a trip.
But some people they just stay at home and play mahjong everyday.
It’s their lifestyle.
But I don’t want to live like that. You said, retirement community, some of them, they don’t really know what they want, they just spend their time, and what do they think about? The meaning? Why do they go to that place?
The company of others!
But the company is for what? It depends on who your company is?
They do that for what? They don’t really know why they are here? Doing what? They don’t really have one self thinking or opinion. I should say, thinking by themselves, independent.
That’s the point of community. You don’t have to think.
Sure, but that way you don’t have to stay with your children. You could be a public volunteer, you could find some activity to do, instead of sitting at home, watch TV every day, because your life gets more and more boring that way.
So retirement community is to establish environment to have friends, so you don’t feel lonely.
You could do that a different way, just get involved in things to find friends.
I think every character is different. When they retire from their career, they stop growing. They did the same thing for 30 years, they always do the same thing to organize their life, and so that’s why the talking would be boring. So I like to spend alone, and I could think something by myself, not around people, and I don’t want to care my time in such place.
It’s just an option.
That’s my option, yes.
The Grandmother Factor
Are old women important?
Choose a side:Team A) No. If you look at it in economic terms, they can’t have children any more, and they’re too old to have jobs, so they’re not economically useful at all. Old people are just a burden on society.
Team B) Yes. They play an important role in child raising, and strongly influence the quality of the people around them, both economically and spiritually.
Team C) Moderator.
Team D) No. Old women shouldn’t raise children, because they’re not modern enough. They don’t understand what a modern society needs, and they’ll teach the child all wrong.
Team E) Yes. Old women have a lot of life experience, and they’ve seen a lot more children than a young woman. So they know what to expect from a child, and will have a lot more mature of a response when difficult situations arise.
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.
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