WHY I AM TAIWANESE, NOT A FOREIGNER

[MAOMAN]

Jaboney wrote: Given a certain desire and effort to disassociate yourself, you could acquire (or forge), a new identity: nationality as cultural or ethnic identity. And in some important ways, you would not be the same guy you are today.

Just as Canadians, Canadiens, and Americans are not British North Americans... and some Quebecois would prefer to be recognized as not Canadien. And Bismarck is no longer South African... and would seem to prefer recognition as Taiwanese.

It's the legal part that is the meat and potatoes part of the equation. Everything else is just window dressing. Sure, I've forged a new identity in the 20+ years that I've lived here. But I don't kid myself. Despite my affinity for the place, I'm not seen as being Taiwanese because I don't have the racial background (extremely important) the cultural background (very important) or the paperwork (less important).

[BUBBA 2 DUMB]

I have no problem with Westerners who become naturalized citizens of this fair land. I'd like to become one too if it didn't mean giving up my US passport.

What puzzles me is when I encounter those who are under the impression (delusion?) that since they have this government-issued piece of paper in their hands, their past upbringing, acculturation, life history and even physical appearance are magically erased and they are instantly transmogrified mentally and physically into the equivalent of a Taiwan-born, -educated, and -acculturated person who would be automatically recognized by every random person on the street who they meet as belonging to the category "not a foreigner".

Well, it's not the case. Canada, like the US, has a long history of immigration. If I see an Asian person on the streets of Toronto or Chicago, I will assume they're Canadian or American. Taiwan, however, is not like this. It's 97% Han Chinese, 2% Aboriginal, and a smattering of expatriates, mostly here on an impermanent basis and most of them being Southeast Asian. If I see a non-Asian person on the streets of Taipei or Kaohsiung, I will assume they're not Taiwanese.

[BLACKCRUSADER]

JABONEY WROTE: Ditto. But my assumption has nothing to do with whether or not they are. Seeing a Chinese face on the street I'll likely assume the person's Taiwanese, but she may very well be a fourth-generation, unilingual American. You know what they say about assumptions.

Yes but you see Jaboney, one night I was at a bar where Bubba 2 Dumb tried to find out how I was really accepted by telling some people I was Taiwanese.
Yes they were Taiwanese people, of course they were surprised but lets face it how many Caucasions have Taiwan citizenship? Bubba 2 Dumb was trying to place the race card and say I would never be accepted as a Taiwanese because of my ethnicity. The other people just told him, if the guy immigrates here, speaks Chinese, and has an ID card then he's Taiwanese, so what's your problem Bubba? And Bubba, it was you asking me to show my ID card to prove I was a citizen here, not me. But most of my life history is in Taiwan and I am what Bubba calls aculturation here. Yes I think in Chinese first and English second. I relate to people here quite well because Bubba, unlike you I think like them. I've spent more of my life in Taiwan than anywhere else yet you cannot get over the fact people here accept me as being Taiwanese. That's because you are a bigot.

Bubba had to slink off back to his I work for the CIA stories. And yes Bubba you also made the mistake of calling another Asian a Taiwanese person at the same bar, yet they were ethnically Korean who had grown up in Canada. You so smart you can see who is what nationality or not from looking at their faces.

[BLACKCRUSADER]

Jaboney wrote: Given a certain desire and effort to disassociate yourself, you could acquire (or forge), a new identity: nationality as cultural or ethnic identity. And in some important ways, you would not be the same guy you are today.

Just as Canadians, Canadiens, and Americans are not British North Americans... and some Quebecois would prefer to be recognized as not Canadien. And Bismarck is no longer South African... and would seem to prefer recognition as Taiwanese.

It's the legal part that is the meat and potatoes part of the equation. Everything else is just window dressing. Sure, I've forged a new identity in the 20+ years that I've lived here. But I don't kid myself. Despite my affinity for the place, I'm not seen as being Taiwanese because I don't have the racial background (extremely important) the cultural background (very important) or the paperwork (less important).

Really? the racial background? Are you telling us you are "racially Canadian". The only thing that defines someone as being Taiwanese here is whether or not they have citizenship. You are not seen as being Taiwanese because you keep telling everyone you are a Canadian, you hometown is in Canada, your kids are Canadian, Canada yada yada yada.

[BUBBA 2 DUMB]

JABONEY WROTE: Ditto. But my assumption has nothing to do with whether or not they are. Seeing a Chinese face on the street I'll likely assume the person's Taiwanese, but she may very well be a fourth-generation, unilingual American. You know what they say about assumptions.

Yes but you see Jaboney, one night I was at a bar where Bubba 2 Dumb tried to find out how I was really accepted by telling some people I was Taiwanese.
Yes they were Taiwanese people, of course they were surprised but lets face it how many Caucasions have Taiwan citizenship? Bubba 2 Dumb was trying to place the race card and say I would never be accepted as a Taiwanese because of my ethnicity. The other people just told him, if the guy immigrates here, speaks Chinese, and has an ID card then he's Taiwanese, so what's your problem Bubba? And Bubba, it was you asking me to show my ID card to prove I was a citizen here, not me. But most of my life history is in Taiwan and I am what Bubba calls aculturation here. Yes I think in Chinese first and English second. I relate to people here quite well because Bubba, unlike you I think like them. I've spent more of my life in Taiwan than anywhere else yet you cannot get over the fact people here accept me as being Taiwanese. That's because you are a bigot.

Bubba had to slink off back to his I work for the CIA stories. And yes Bubba you also made the mistake of calling another Asian a Taiwanese person at the same bar, yet they were ethnically Korean who had grown up in Canada. You so smart you can see who is what nationality or not from looking at their faces.

Yup. Ass, U, Me and all that.

But at least Bayesian probability theory would justify my assumptions!

[Bismarck]

ThreadKiller wrote: You are still - I'm sorry - South African, as far as I am concerned. That's not to say that I don't appreciate everything you went through to get Taiwanese citizenship.

I'm not sure what you mean by that exactly, but I believe you mean it in the best possible way. But when it comes down to me being an old bugger one day and people refer to me as. "That old ________ guy?" I'd prefer to be referred to in the way I was in South Africa, "That English guy?" Kind of like how in SA they still refer to certain Saffas as Portuguese, Greeks, Italians etc, even when their families have been in SA for generations, i.e. as a way of removing confusion. "Max? The Italian guy?" In that sense it never meant they weren't considered South African or were considered foreigners, just distinguishing which Max.

ThreadKiller wrote: Make a good life for yourself and your son and and don't berate him too much and don't worry about what nationality you are. What does it matter? We are all a little bit off. Nobody is really American or South African or straight or lesbian. And Taiwan sucks about as much as South Africa does. And it shines as much as South Africa does.

I don't think I berate Josh. He knows we're Taiwanese. He knows his daddy is from South Africa. He knows daddy's mommy lives in South Africa. He wants to visit her and go see the lions. He's old enough to remember and enjoy such a trip. We're currentlyplanning on doing just that. But when he's older I'll also take him to Europe, especially England, Scotland, France, Holland and Germany and explain that that's where our family came from too. We'll even do a China trip one day for the same reason.

I think people should remain proud of their heritage. Heritage is important (at least to me, as a historian), in that it helps to know where we come from. There's no shame in your origins. But it's also important to realise they're just origins.

Bunks wrote: I guess it is hard for Bismarck, Blackcrusader and others when the very people who you'd expect should be championing the right for them to be seen as naturalised Taiwanese fall so compliantly in line with the bigots and pricks who don't want them to be seen as Taiwanese.

I wouldn't put it so hard, but I also don't get this. I'm heavily in favour of greater western immigration for the very point of making Taiwanese more mindful of the fact that all Taiwanese aren't Han in origin. We're an immigrant nation, but 50+ years of KMT propaganda have people fooled into believing we're a homogenous state of Han folk. This is simply not the case.

divea wrote: Bismarck, sorry but you'll get the you're of western origin, coz all first generation Indians, Pakistanis and Chinese got it. Heck the blacks, who've been in the US for hundreds of years et the African-American crap. No one's saying it's right, but it's there.

But I've never denied that. Why would I? It's written on my face. I'm proud of my heritage, but I am not my heritage.

HeadhonchoII wrote: What a divide discussion this became? I think Bismarck has the passport, not only that he has put his roots down here and made a long term commitment. So if he says he is Taiwanese I will agree 100%.

jimipresley wrote: Don't listen to the naysayers, Bismarck You are Taiwanese. You made a brave and honourable decision.

Taffy wrote:
There are two issues at hand here. The first is how you choose to see yourself and represent yourself to others. The second is how others perceive you. By the first, Kal El is Taiwanese. I don't think the qualifier "naturalised" is necessary at all, "Taiwanese" will do nicely. By the second view, he may be any and all of the terms used above, including things that he himself may reject (like "South African"). Some people will hear that he is Taiwanese, accept it, and move on. Other people won't. His place of birth, skin colour, heritage, and passport might be things that others use to label him.

For me though, if Bismarck considers himself Taiwanese, and makes it known that he would like to be called Taiwanese, then he is Taiwanese. If people think that's odd, it's their problem, not his.

The three of you, each in his own way, put it very nicely. Thank you.

maoman wrote: For me, I guess I care more about a person's cultural orientation. Having met Kal El on many occasions, I know that he is a good guy, but he's not culturally Taiwanese, at least to me. I'm aware of his nationality, and of his preferences when it comes to nomenclature, so of course I defer. That's just good manners.

I would say I'm not typically Taiwanese culturally. That's ok. When I hang out with the Taiwanese rugby crowd, we have our own culture. A Taiwanese rugby culture. The majority of Taiwanese don't get this. They think we're odd. But we don't care. We have a brotherhood built on rugby. They accept me as a Taiwanese, albeit an immigrant. And as far as "foreign" members of the Rugby Club are concerned, the vast majority of my mates are Kiwis. I have a lot more in common with them culturally than with most Saffas, and that may be because of our common English heritage and our love of rugby. I really have nothing in common with the majority of Saffas in Taiwan, because the majority are Afrikaners. I really only have four Saffa friends here, TK and JP are English like me, another English Saffa in Tainan and a coloured guy.

maoman wrote: Finally, you'll notice (or not) that Facebook profiles don't even have a space for nationality. Current location? Yes. Hometown? Yes. Nationality? Who cares?

And you'll notice that on FB my hometown is Tainan. And why shouldn't it be? It's the town I've lived in for far longer than any other town anywhere in the world. My son was born here. I know it intimately, from main roads to dodgy alleys. When I was up in Taipei when they were having that "Ah Bian xia tai" rally a few years back an old bugger asked me where I'm from. When I said Tainan, he didn't laugh or say "impossible" or whatever, he just said, "We don't like you guys down there." Fair enough.

Bubbha wrote: What puzzles me is when I encounter those who are under the impression (delusion?) that since they have this government-issued piece of paper in their hands, their past upbringing, acculturation, life history and even physical appearance are magically erased and they are instantly transmogrified mentally and physically into the equivalent of a Taiwan-born, -educated, and -acculturated person who would be automatically recognized by every random person on the street who they meet as belonging to the category "not a foreigner".

I think I know who you mean, but I don't think I ever asserted that.

[DIVEA DIVYA NARANG]

I;m here in NY and everyone is mostly from wherever, but of course most hod or are trying to get the American citizenship. You talk to anyone and if they're like you know born in America, they;ll say I'm from texas, arizona, blah blah. But everyone else?? They mention their home countries.

We were at the bank, and our banker was you know filling up the forms and my girl got upset and a min later I offered an explanations as mothers sometimes do, 'it's all new for her, we came here a couple a days ago' and this fabulous, lady went on about how she is from Ghana and she came here as a 9 year old and how it was for her. Sweet.

The kids Doctor is an antiquated Romanian lady, and has been in the US for at least 50 years but she talked about her home and early life in Europe and blah blah.

The house keeping staff comes in and they ask us if we're India, and then well they'll always say 'we're from Puerto rico, or Jamaica or wherever' and they've all been here for like forever...........they all gladly accept thy have a background. They come from somewhere.

I think Threadkiller means that Bismarck. I understand you may not want to talk about your time in South Africa, and it's okay. Really okay coz the present is what matters most.

Yet a lot of people don't want to deny their past. So you maybe a TW citizen now and you see it that way, and yet there'll be people IRL or here who'd want to know who you were before you were TW or where you came from

[Bismarck]

Those US, and specifically NY, examples aren't quite the same as here. That nice lady at the bank who originally comes from Ghana, doesn't get asked everyday where she's from and when she's going back. The Romanian doctor doesn't get pointed at in the street by small kids and have "Mommy, look! A foreigner!" yelled at her when she's walking to 7-11 with her six year old kid born in America to an American father. And I'm willing to bet that none of them come from countries where they were also made to feel like foreigners or unwelcome interlopers their entire lives. So, ja. It's a bit different. Not quite the same thing.

I went to go buy flowers for mother's day I tried a new angle. When they inevitably asked me where I'm from I said I was born in SA but I'm Taiwanese and I don't have SA citizenship. Of course they asked me how that's possible and if I'm married. I said no, not married, but my grandmother is aboriginal and my dad was English so I was born there. There was a big fuss about me being part English and part Aboriginal and they wheeled out some old Aboriginal dude from the back.

Apparently, he was the shop owners dad. Long talk about being aboriginal in Taiwan and happy that I had chosen to "come home". No mention of being a foreigner etc etc. I think I got lucky with the mix of people there, but I'm going to give this one a few more tries and see how it plays out. It's entertaining, if nothing else, and sure beats the old answers I've been giving for more than a decade

[over_active_moderator]

It's the legal part that is the meat and potatoes part of the equation. Everything else is just window dressing. Sure, I've forged a new identity in the 20+ years that I've lived here. But I don't kid myself. Despite my affinity for the place, I'm not seen as being Taiwanese because I don't have the racial background (extremely important) the cultural background (very important) or the paperwork (less important).

What puzzles me is when I encounter those who are under the impression (delusion?) that since they have this government-issued piece of paper in their hands, their past upbringing, acculturation, life history and even physical appearance are magically erased and they are instantly transmogrified mentally and physically into the equivalent of a Taiwan-born, -educated, and -acculturated person who would be automatically recognized by every random person on the street who they meet as belonging to the category "not a foreigner".

Well, it's not the case. Canada, like the US, has a long history of immigration. If I see an Asian person on the streets of Toronto or Chicago, I will assume they're Canadian or American. Taiwan, however, is not like this. It's 97% Han Chinese, 2% Aboriginal, and a smattering of expatriates, mostly here on an impermanent basis and most of them being Southeast Asian. If I see a non-Asian person on the streets of Taipei or Kaohsiung, I will assume they're not Taiwanese.

The above are the opinions of the respective (but not respected) writers only. They are a reflection their own lack of comfort with the local culture and identity.
On "acculturation:" I recently saw a Buddhist parade in my neck of the woods in Taiwan. Monks were marching while holding signs with religious messages and vessels to receive donations from passersby. I notice one monk in full garb, and with a shaved head, was unmistakably Caucasian. He's an orthodox member of a local religion. Is he Taiwanese?

As for not a foreigner, an anecdote: On a recent trip to visit my family in my country of origin, I was pleased to come across a milk tea shop in the food court. I began to order in English, but switched to Mando for the actual item: "Do you have 玉香奶茶?" Upon hearing the last four words, the guy behind the counter exclaimed in Mando, "You're a Taiwanese! I'm from Taibei. Where are you from?" Obviously, this guy did not have trouble accepting the white guy as a compatriate.

"2 Dumb's" use of the word "acculturation" is somewhat inappropriate. A definition: "cultural modification of an individual, group, or people by adapting to or borrowing traits from another culture; also : a merging of cultures as a result of prolonged contact (Webster's Dictionary)" I don't think there's any doubt that some, or most of us, have acculturated to varying degrees. I know I certainly have. Some resist totally, and do not learn local languages, customs, nor accept local foods. Some, like the Buddhist monk, acculturate to a further degree than many locals.

The crux of the argumentation coming from the anti-naturalisation respondents seems to be: "You're white, came from elsewhere, therefore you will always be a foreigner." It's racist at its core. And, further, it's just not a position which has a proverbial leg on which to stand. Whites can and do acculturate here. Locals can and do accept whites as members of local families and the society at large.

[serial killer on parole]

The above are the opinions of the respective (but not respected) writers only. They are a reflection their own lack of comfort with the local culture and identity. On "acculturation:" I recently saw a Buddhist parade in my neck of the woods in Taiwan. Monks were marching while holding signs with religious messages and vessels to receive donations from passersby. I notice one monk in full garb, and with a shaved head, was unmistakably Caucasian. He's an orthodox member of a local religion. Is he Taiwanese?

As for not a foreigner, an anecdote: On a recent trip to visit my family in my country of origin, I was pleased to come across a milk tea shop in the food court. I began to order in English, but switched to Mando for the actual item: "Do you have 玉香奶茶?" Upon hearing the last four words, the guy behind the counter exclaimed in Mando, "You're a Taiwanese! I'm from Taibei. Where are you from?" Obviously, this guy did not have trouble accepting the white guy as a compatriate.

"2 Dumb's" use of the word "acculturation" is somewhat inappropriate. A definition: "cultural modification of an individual, group, or people by adapting to or borrowing traits from another culture; also : a merging of cultures as a result of prolonged contact (Webster's Dictionary)" I don't think there's any doubt that some, or most of us, have acculturated to varying degrees. I know I certainly have. Some resist totally, and do not learn local languages, customs, nor accept local foods. Some, like the Buddhist monk, acculturate to a further degree than many locals.

The crux of the argumentation coming from the anti-naturalisation respondents seems to be: "You're white, came from elsewhere, therefore you will always be a foreigner." It's racist at its core. And, further, it's just not a position which has a proverbial leg on which to stand. Whites can and do acculturate here. Locals can and do accept whites as members of local families and the society at large.

Bubba 2 Dumb must feel like a complete tool when he has to argues with what he considers to be "ethnically Taiwanese" people that a Caucasion with Taiwan citizenship won't be accepted here and they are telling him otherwise. Of course that doesn't stop Bubba 2 Dumb from not knowing who is or who isn't ethnically Taiwanese by calling a Canadian or Korean ethnicity a Taiwanese.

Way to go Bubba 2 dumb