madethisjusttosendyouthis-blog

[madethisjusttosendyouthis-blog]

I feel the need to write some sort of prologue before beginning this report. every time I tried to write this report I would put it off because so many thoughts would come into my head This month proved to be very challenging with many downs but right when everything seemed bad it would become good again. After hearing what happened when my German friend sent her report to her club they tried to send her home because they thought she was suffering because of how she described the culture. I can assure you I am fine and in good health mentally and physically. I'm just scared you might interpret my report the wrong way like the German rotary club. There was moments when I began to question my well being but now I'm fine. Back in December when I was mourning about Taiwan's lack of Christmas I kept telling myself to only hang on until Chinese new year, then I will finally see a happy Chinese family all eating merrily together taking a well deserved break from their stressful life's. This idea that the Taiwanese values of a holiday season had some sort of similarity to our own was quickly disproved for me this Chinese new year. I knew something was wrong the moment Chinese new year started. My family comes from Taiwan's southern city of gaoxiong so we had to take a 7 hour drive to the southern tip of the island. At the time I was looking forward to this as I saw it as a family road trip with lots of opportunity to spend some time together which rarely happens. The entire 7 hours ended up in total silence. On two occasions I attempted to talk to them and both times they gave me a short answer indicating they were annoyed. It was partially my fault because I asked a question in mainland Chinese Mandarin and not Taiwanese Mandarin because I forgot how to say it in Taiwanese Mandarin. which for what ever reason really bothered them. This whole issue of China and Taiwan Chinese is a whole other problem with me that I will talk about in another report. Anyways the 7 hour drive was extremely awkward. My host brother played the same 10 songs over and over again which drove me mad and I sat in total silence thinking I must be doing something wrong. We finally arrived in gaoxiong and we drove to the grandparents house. When we stepped through the door I thought "this is when they will start smiling and talking". Not at all. We walked in, my host father exchanged a rather awkward glare at his father handed him some bag as a gift and muttered a few words in Taiwanese which I didn't understand but judging by the attitude it wasn't a "long time no see" type of conversation. Immediately after he just went up stairs along with all the other members of my host family as if they were ignoring the grand mother and father. I was absolutely horrified. Afterwords I gave the old couple a big smile and said hello but they don't speak much Mandarin but I still talked to them and they were very nice people. About an hour later an exchange student from my city arrived by train because she is also staying with my family for Chinese new year and I quickly explained what I had just witnessed. She didn't believe me and I don't blame her. We then sat on the coach because we were alone downstairs. A little bit after the door bell rang and all the other relatives arrived. To my surprise they did the exact same procedure my host family had done. Shot a glance at the grandfather toss him a gift and go upstairs without saying a word. The exchange student sitting beside me couldn't contain herself and we both burst out laughing more out of stress and confusion then because we thought it was funny. One by one the family trickled down stairs until they were all together in one room. However I wouldn't consider this together because they were sitting in different spots as far away from each other all playing on their cellphones. Me and the exchange student were the only ones ever talking and we had to whisper because we sounded too loud. We thought maybe it's just because we are in the room with them so we pretended to go upstairs but just waited out of sight listening, but still silence. That night was to be one of many awkward nights. The next day was to be one of true frustration. That  night me and the other exchange student couldn't stand sitting in the house all day so we told our parents we would walk to the park. Before leaving my host dad gave me a very serious look and told  not to get lost. On our way back we got lost but we knew we had made it to around 150m of the house but couldn't find the specific back alley so I called my dad and told him we were at the 711 beside the house and couldn't find the specific street and I just politely asked for the name of the street. He responded by screaming through the cell phone to the point were it actually jumped away from my ear because it hurt. I didn't understand one word he said. He was just in some fury yelling directions at me. I kept saying speak quieter but he kept getting more loud and harder to understand. I eventually got home but I learned that day not to ask my host dad for directions ever again unless I wanted to feel his rath. The next day the family prayed and told me I don't need to so I sat on a coach all day completely ignored by my family. I wasn't allowed to leave the house so I had no choice. I was just about at tears when I went to bed. Little did I know that tomorrowwould be the best day of my exchange so far. Over the course of these miserable days my attitude towards traditional Chinese culture was increasingly becoming more negative and hateful which also made me feel guilty because I thought I'm just not a good enough exchange student to understand the culture. On the morning of the 3rd day after seeing my state of total misery the younger members of the extended family who I had never met decided to do something for me that touched my heart and it was the nicest act of kindness anyone in Taiwan has ever showed me. During that day everyone is supposed to be following these strict traditions and superstitions in preparation for the official beginning of new Years the next day. My host cousins instead broke tradition and took me around the entire city. The whole day we chatted about things most people in Taiwan have little interest in but I do and apparently they do to judging by how much they knew about things.  and we got along very well. They explained everything I ever needed to know about Chinese culture and why everyone seems to hate each other. I felt extremely comfortable talking to them and it was the first time I felt like I could speak my mind to a Taiwanese person without worry of repercussions. During our lunch together there was probably foam hanging from my mouth because I was in such a deep emotional rant releasing all my bitter attitudes towards everything I had a problem with in Taiwan. The education system, government, parenting methods, family values, women being treated like objects, inequality, work culture. Over the past 6 months I have witnessed so many things that have bothered me immensely. Because of the culture here I'm not allowed to just say I don't like this so every day these hateful emotions kept building up inside of me with no one to share with. I finally had an opportunity to share my thoughts and I wasn't going to pass that chance up. I can't share everything we discussed that day in detail because it would take far too long and also some things I said are best never mentioned again. Especially in formal reports like this. Every time I essentially yelled at them for something I don't like in Taiwan to my surprise they would become very happy and say something like "we know we have had to suffer this our whole life's too". I also said this is the first real time I can be honest and critical about Taiwanese culture and they smiled back and said the same for us. Keep in mind these people were in their late 20s early 30s. What we talked about can only fully understood by people who have had a extensive experience in Taiwanese culture. maybe after a lengthy face to face conversation could I properly explain to you what we discussed that day. To put it short by the end of the chat my new Taiwanese friends had used keywords such as barbaric, medieval, zombie, robotic, dark ages, and torture to describe their own culture. Their is definitely a growing resentment of the traditional culture here by the younger generations that seems to be reaching its maximum amount of tolerance. I couldn't help but feel a little annoyed like them because of how I was treated by my host family this new years. But then I remembered my host siblings who get it 100 times worse than I do. I can always tell myself I have a loving supporting family back in Canada, but I don't think my host brother or sister have been raised properly. At least if they were being compared to the average upper middle class family in Canada. They sit in one spot all day just staring at the wall or the phone. Their face is that of a statue never moving. Any attempt to talk to them always somehow ends in extreme awkwardness. The soul has been ripped out of their body and only a fleshly hollow shell remains. It's no wonder why Taiwan Japan and Korea have the highest suicide rates in the developed world. It was explained to me that in a traditional family there is no such thing as a family. The house is almost considered a communal hotel where you simply check in and spend the night. You wouldn't talk to the hotel manager in this case the father because no one talks to the hotel manager and if you do they would get angry at you because they are busy running the hotel. Another analogy is the family unit is what we would consider a business. The father is the CEO. He is in charge of a company and when you see lazy employees it's only natural to get angry at them. Your boss isn't your friend or your loving father he's just the boss and he's only there to bark orders at you to make sure the business doesn't fall apart. A family in Taiwan with the Western values of kindness and affection are discouraged and unofficially outlawed here. After all it would be bad for business if everyone just loved each other. As children you were not allowed to go play with friends and your parents would never show you affection, as a result almost no one in Taiwan has developed the proper social skills to succeed. Most of the people in school act extremely childish because of this. The day I went out with my host cousins was the first time I had a real conversation with Taiwanese people. My problem is because of hualiens extreme isolation Western values haven't crept in like in places such as gaoxiong and Taipei. Being emersed in another culture is fine but sometimes you need a break and need another human being to show you love and physical affection which I have totally been deprived of. That was soon to change. My host cousins brought me to the port of gaoxiong it was truly an impressive feat of engineering. A 12 km long stretch of loading cranes, dry docks and oil refineries. In 1999 it was the worlds 5th largest port. Taiwan's economy is mainly export based and the island only has one major port so chances are if you bought something with "made in Taiwan" on it, it probably passed through this port. One of my host cousins is a commercial shipping engineer and did an excellent job explaining the chaos of the harbor to me. I pointed out to him that half the ships here were registered under Panama or Singapore. He explained that ships passing or docking in their native countries pay considerably less fees compared to foreign ships so all the Taiwanese shipping companies registered their ships under Singapore and Panama because they most frequently pass or dock there. When this giant ship passed right in front of us he laughed and pointed to this specific part of the ship and explained he had personally designed it. My other host cousin said he was on the ship for its first sea trial to inspect the integrity of the steel. Very interesting people. We watched the sunset together and if you looked out into the ocean you saw dozens and dozens of ships all waiting to get onto the harbor. The number was probably more in the hundreds but there was so much smog that you couldn't see that far into the horizon. Truly amazing seeing all this industrialization after coming from my little hamlet in hualien. I never thought I would be happy to see smog and smell the chemicals from all the factories. After our excursion to the port we took the subway to some mall and had the best dinner of my life. I explained to them I was really having trouble enjoying the traditional Taiwanese food here so they made sure I would enjoy it we had traditional thai and Hong Kong food and it was too good because I ate so much that I needed to vomit halfway through our meal. The 3 days prior to this I was only being fed extremely traditional food by my host grandparents which much to my regret makes my stomach churn even thinking about it. So for 3 straight days I maybe had 3 small bowls of rice and a few vegetables here and there. I was definitely starving by the time my host cousins got to me, and they definitely noticed. It just felt nice to be taken care of. Around 10pm we started going home and for the first time that day my smile wiped off my face and I stopped talking after realizing what I was going back to. When we stopped Infront of the house I just said 我不要回家(I don't want to go home) I stepped through the door and knew it was all over. I slowly drudged my way to the stairs and gave one last look at the door. It suddenly opened and one of my host cousins walked in staring at me. All the people in the house rotated their heads to give her a cold stare. The look she gave me wasn't that  kind if strange stare girls in Taiwan do when they usually see me. It was one of true worry and affection and not perversion.  She wanted to say good bye before but was too shy. She then looked at my face and studered out "don't cry" she then proceeded to hug me and I probably hugged her back so tight that I crushed her with all my strength, then the rest of my cousins came in the room and hugged me all together. What the young women just did to me was cultural atrocity. She walked into the cold emotionless room and hugged someone that wasn't even married to her in front of the elders, then openly emitted in front of the elders I don't enjoy them because she said loudly across the room for me not to cry. And she did all of this because she genuinely cared about my feelings. I don't know if you can fully understand the magnitude and significance of that moment. A complete disrespect of the culture just to make me feel better. It was the first time anyone in Taiwan did something like that for me.  I have so much respect for my cousins now. They promised to see me again then left. I turned around and this time my host father was glaring at me. After being shown so much love I was left with the rather annoyed elders who didn't seem very happy about their daughters and nieces showing me love. This infuriated me to such a level that the German exchange student told me English doesn't have a word for what I'm feeling but told me that this word in German that translates as the disgust rising out of my throat would best describe me in that moment. I knew if I stayed in that room any longer I would snap. I said very rude to them I would take a shower. At this point I didn't really care how rude I sounded.  I then sat in my room  crying for an hour. It wasn't normal tears though. More tears of joy . After being deprived of emotion for 6 months it only took a small dose of affection to bring out all the emotions I had to store inside of me. I will never forget that day and what my host cousins did for me. I was right on the breaking point and they saved me. The next day proved to be challenging. I spent most of it with my host family but I was a changed person. I was now the Canadian who needed emotion and socialisation to survive like most human beings. My cousins woke me up from my long emotionless sleep. I don't know if you have read the giver but I was like the part of the book where the boy could could see colour and emotion for the first time. I wasn't going to tolerate being talked to like some overworked employee at some awful company and whenever my host father talked to me in a way I thought was rude I would snap right back. I think at that point I was becoming  emotionally unstable because the giant dam of emotions in my head had built to it's maximum limit and was beginning to break. I never did anything extreme but if I didn't enjoy how someone was treating me you can be certain I let them know. This is also A very bad thing to do in Taiwanese culture stating you don't enjoy something about someone normally you just let it build up inside of you.

This is very dangerous. In communist China they had a period called the cultural revolution where they told all these people who had to store their emotions inside of them because of Chinese culture to release it. After 10 years and 30000000 deaths they ended it. The Taiwanese are going to have their own cultural revolution if their not careful. The next week I had to go to some large family dinner at a restaurant that's supposed to be very famous in the city I was in. The only reason I was looking forward to it was because my host cousins were supposed to be there but they never came. I noticed they would never show up to these traditional events and always had some excuse. I was told my meal was very expensive and judging by the environment I was in they weren't lying. However the food was rather revolting and the little hole in the wall Hong Kong noodle shop my cousins took me to tasted a lot better then what I had to eat at this over extravagant restaurant. The whole meal ended up being this horrible blood bath of family arguments and rude house wife's bragging how her child and husband are some how better then the person they are talking to. My host uncle seemed to be running the lunch because he would go around from table to table checking on people. He eventually went to my table and started this really loud conversation in English so everyone could hear him so he could boost his ego or something. He told me he's an international business man and he has been to Canada and the US 100s of times. After noticing how unimpressed I looked he ordered everyone at my table to do a toast for me then awkwardly left. So strange. I just remember my host mother refusing to talk to anyone because she was too nice to take part in all these nasty conversations I was hearing. At one point this rather rude looking lady strode up to my host grandmother and started yapping something in Taiwanese which I don't understand but it sounded really crude. My grandmother suddenly launched her hand onto the old ladies arm to clutch it and yanked her ear close to her mouth so she could say something back privately then suddenly released her. Me and my siblings started laughing because of how strange it was but quickly stopped after everyone at the table glared at us. By the end of of this meal I realised why my host cousins never showed up. Anyone with a bit of smarts in them would know to stay clear of something like this. This lunch has painted a very bad picture of the upper echelons of Taiwanese society for me. I felt more like a foreign observer to some genocide then a guest at a family lunch. Culture is one thing but a backwards practice you have been doing for generations is just a mistake not your culture. Should we say European culture is war and brutality because Europe has a habit of doing it or just label it a mistake that should be corrected. The same can be applied to Taiwanese culture. Women used to be objects in Europe too but we realized our mistake and are now considered equal in most places. The Taiwanese seem to use culture to mask their bad habits. "Its just the culture for women to stay in the kitchen all day". "Its just the culture for our boss to exploit us on a 12 hour work day". When the Taiwanese realise how oppressed they really are it's going to be messy. The problem is they will never change the culture because it's against the culture to criticize the culture so they will never change. I thought I had finally completed my task of writing my report but then I had to switch families just a few days ago so I'll add a brief summary of what I think of them so far. Before switching I was told my next families mother and father argue a lot and might even divorce in the future. Unless they are really good at faking everything is okay then I haven't noticed a bit of hostility between them. They are by far the wealthiest out of my host families. They own 4 cars 3 of which are luxury cars and bought 2 houses side by side then knocked a hole in the wall to connect the two houses. My host fathers job is real estate. next year he will be the district governor of Taiwan's largest rotary district. My mother seems to just hang around the house. I have 1 host sister who is very shy around me but seems like a good person. She is the 3rd best French horn player in Taiwan. Much to my surprise this family seems to function in a way that resembles a western family. For instance during a meal they actually have a CONVERSATION. Its just nice to sit around the table and have a good laugh with my host family. This was a luxury in short supply with my old host family.The child although worked hard at school realises the importance of rest and family time. When we sit in the living room together she always has her cellphone with her but never uses it. This is a miracle. She isn't some other Taiwanese drone she seems to be able to think freely which is an extremely rare trait in Taiwan. I will say she acts a little strange around me always staring at me when I'm not looking in her direction but I don't blame her because they have never had foreigners in their house before. I think the mother has figured out how bad of an experience I had in my last family and watches me like a hawk. She also stands out from normal Taiwanese because she sates her opinion whenever she feels like it.  I love this. As soon as I do something she doesn't like she immediately corrects me. If there is something about me she thinks needs improving she just tells me. It's about time someone finally whipped some discipline into me. My old host family assured me I wouldn't get dangerously skinny but due to their traditional lifestyle and diet I only partially recovered. My new host family will to do anything for me. When we went to a business meeting with my dad at the lunch they served an assortment of traditional Taiwanese dishes ranging from boiled pigs feet to squid fried whole. My mom noticed my facial expressions as I tried to eat the apparently "edible" pig bones and she just said to me " I know you hate that, stop eating it" she then proceeded to ordering something a little more recognisable for me. That was a first. Someone accommodating for me. Usually when it tastes awful I still eat eat it and put on a fake smile but sometimes its so revolting I can't eat it like the time I had to eat a bowl of chicken testicles. When this happens my old host father would look extremely unimpressed and say I'm a bad exchange student. One night I came home from Taipei with bread and imported cheese and my father again told me I was a bad exchange student. After a week he kept pressuring me to throw it out  because it would apparently get mouldy. I think he really hated when I would on the rare occasion bring Western food to his home.  My new host family has told me they know I hate the traditional food here and she prefers western food too and if we ever eat as a family it will only be western food. I was scared she was only doing this for me but people told me she always does this. Fine with me. I have this problem where I love Asian food, I just hate Taiwanese food. Something's I'll never understand about the Taiwanese. When I went to my grandparents for Chinese new year they were by no means poor they owned a 5 story building downtown complete with an elevator. When it came to dinner time we ate something straight out of the great depression. Imagine just throwing  cabbage into boiled water and letting it cook for long enough that it looses all the texture and becomes this green sludge resembling the shape of a leaf. Nothing added. Just cabbage and water. We can't forgot about the meats either. Usually the finest cuts from the most unappealing parts of the animal. The meat is often an unrecognisable chunk fried in a pan until charred beyond edibility and  keeping with tradition adding nothing of course. Imagine being a millionaire but eating something like that? I once asked them why do you eat to such a low standard and they said to save money. Save money?! You own a downtown five story building with a BMW that by the way has a 130%tax in Taiwan so adds up to $100000CAD just for the car and your telling me you live off of boiled cabbage to save money. I don't think so. Why are you lying to me? You can get good food in Taiwan for extremely cheap here so they have no excuse. The Taiwanese always confuse me with extremely illogical things like this.  I must add one more extremely illogical thing that happened to me the other day. Me and the other exchange students agree this sums up the rotary in Taiwan. Or at least our district. The other day me and my city's exchange students left by train to a supposedly "fun"rotary activity. after transferring to a bus and traveling for 10 hours we finally arrived to our intended destination. It was this giant outdoor show similar to a county fair.  They told us to go to this one spot where there was a special rotary statue then took 5 or 6 photos of us then told us to get back on the bus so we can go home. Excuse me? This place we were at looked very interesting but we weren't there for fun. We then traveled all the way back to where we were supposed to catch a train but we were late and got stranded in a small city in the north of Taiwan. The Taiwanese rotary club being what they are booked us this extravagant hotel room so we could catch tomorrows train. By now me and the other exchange students have grown used to the strange and illogical ways of the Taiwanese rotary. We almost feel used to ending up traveling for a total of 19 hours to take photos for 20 minuets around a rotary statue so they can show us off on Facebook. The amount of money they spent transporting us that day could of went to a lot better causes. It wasn't all doom and gloom if you pack a bunch of Latinos in a bus for 10 hours they will figure out ways to have fun. at one point they were so loud that me the Australians, Americans and Europeans all took refuge in the buses underbelly intended for luggage.  When your packed into a stuffy little box it's a great opportunity for bonding. After all this madness I'm lucky to say my new host family is logical. If they are together as a family they talk. They have money so they buy good food. They work hard so they rest. You would think these traits would be common sense. But I'm praising it like it's some miracle that my new host family spends quality time together or my host sister isn't on her phone 24/7 like every other Taiwanese her age. But if my family was perfect that would just be too easy. I have absolutely nothing against this but as in the last report I discovered when I meet new friends or people I enjoy they never seem to be fully Taiwanese. I learned that my  current host mothers family is actually Pacific islander aboriginals and not ethnic Chinese. The culture of the aboriginals here is totally different then that of the Taiwanese. We often go to my grandmothers house for family dinners something unheard of in my old families. I was almost scared because when I arrived at her house instead of staring me down like she wanted to kill me, like my old families grandparents, she was acting like my grandmother in Canada. I guess the Aboriginals still value family over misery. There they all eat and drink happily. They aren't shy and I have been humiliated in front of everyone many times which I actually enjoy because no one is holding back anything they act like a real family. I'm glad I'm getting this multicultural experience but its starting to feel increasingly strange how the only people I respect and get along with aren't Taiwanese. you may ask what about those host cousins of mine aren't they Taiwanese? I forgot to mention that they spent their child hood in China and one studied in the US for a while so they were never raised in Taiwan. I remember a while back in Canada talking about my exchange to people from east Asia and whenever I mentioned I was going to Taiwan they would always look suspicious and say something like if you want to learn Chinese just go to China and not that phony island pretending to be the "real" China and a country at the same time. Some of them even visited and studied in Taiwan but always had something negative to add. Especially the mainlanders. I remember talking to this really sweet old Malaysian lady that lived in Taiwan for a year and she was more than eager to tell me all the things she didn't like about Taiwan. At first I thought she was just some grouchy old lady but now I'm starting to understand the things she said  The east Asians seem to have some sort of resentment towards Taiwan. I think it has something to do with honour which I'm really sorry but I'm too lazy to explain because it would take a really long time to explain why the East Asians view Taiwan in a bad light. Anyways I like my host family unfortunately because they don't act like traditional Taiwanese.  It's too early to give my full opinion of them but I would say they are the best family I have had so far simply because they act like a family and not like a bunch of indentured servants. It's hard to say this but the farther I get away from Taiwanese culture the better my exchange gets. I

would like to conclude this report by saying I had no intention of saying my host parents or anyone in Taiwan has treated me wrong. I'm sure they view me as equally strange and as my host cousin put it "barbaric", but we probably have more in common then we would like to think. I'm not asking anyone to change their culture just because I complain about it. All I'm saying is the way I have interpreted certain things here in Taiwan has led me with negative attitudes but not everything. I have definitely appreciated a lot of things here. This report only scratched the surface of what happened this month and what I'm thinking right now. I just wrote the first things that came to mind. I hope I in some way gave you a better glimpse into a world so few of us have an opportunity to explore. Until next time.