cultural relativists are dishonest about the negative side of taiwan?

Question

do they just pretend that everything here in taiwan is good, or not as bad, in order to feel that they have adapted in taiwan? do you feel the need to accept every aspect of this country, and deny those things that suck, in order to feel better? You are dishonest to yourselves.

Undeniable reality in taiwan: bad air, cockroaches, filthy air, dishonest people, stinky air, beggars, polluted air......

How do you cultural relativists accept this reality? I would like to know.

according to some of you, all the things i experienced in taiwan are just lies! amazing how some of you groundlessly accuse someone!

hmm, i never said honest/dishonest is racial or ethnic, more it's cultural...

>friendly, honest, hospitable people

such heaps of self-congratulation........lol

Answer 1

Cultural relativists? Are you a missionary or a born again christian or something?

Anyway, everybody knows that Taiwan is a dump. Not the least are us Taiwanese. That's why any of us who has the money will send our kids to study abroad.

Yes, there are plenty of things to complain about, if you are so inclined.
-Humid climate
-Bad air (or as you so very eloquently said, "bad air, filthy air, stinky air, polluted air")
-Pollution of all kinds
-Shameless littering.
-Generally half-assed way of doing things.
-Hopelessly f#$%ed up government.

These are facts of life in Taiwan. No one denies them.

Taiwan also has its endearing side:
-low crime
-breathtaking mountain scenery
-friendly, honest, hospitable people

Your boorish allegation that Taiwanese people are dishonest, or that there is some culture of dishonesty is totally unfounded and deeply offensive. Yes, I know that some quack dentist made a train wreck out of your teeth. Then go sue the bastard.
One dishonest person does not indict an entire country or culture. The Taiwanese are good-natured people and more honest than most. If you want a country with a track record for dishonesty, you need to go to the other side of the Taiwan Straight. Or are you saying that people in the West are all honest?

.

You're just whining and whinging and demanding that everyone else accept and validate your cultural chauvinism, racism and xenophobia.

Fat chance. Until you straighten out your own heart, negative things will just keep following you wherever you go.

Answer 2

I have seen some here who continually defend the negative side of living in Taiwan, and they do so by telling me the air is also polluted in Los Angeles too. Since none of us live in L.A., that kind of argument is irrelevant. I have also seen them accuse you of many things, since to adjust to a new/different culture to them means to drop the right to criticise the negative things and accept them because "it is a different culture." I would agree that this is being dishonest.

There are several things in Taiwan I do not need feel the need to accept, for example the inability to constructively criticise the negative things, the worship of the homegrown idols (Jolin, Wang Jian-ming, etc.), chewing Betel Nuts, talking with food in my mouth, cutting into a line, pointing to foreigners and saying "An American!", riding with three other people on a scooter, burning paper money in hallways or under my neighbours' windows, and treating McDonald's food as if it were some kind of high class Western food.

The beggars here do not bother me, since few of them speak English. The bad air/polluted air/stinky air bothers me, so I clean my window screens every month and remove the thick black soot that always accumulates. I also take more vitamins C and E to make up for the slow corrosion of my lungs. As for the cockroaches, I just implement the food denial program at home and I see far less of them, although several times a year my neighbourhood is fumigated, and the cockroaches crawl out into the alleys to die.

In reality, they do not accept it, they are trapped and they just deny it as a survival mechanism.

Answer 3

yea but bad things are everywhere and its impossible to escape. bad air...yes there is bad air, however in some places in taiwan the air is better, and have you been to china?! i would take taiwan's air. cockroaches....is there a place where cockroaches dont exist? again filthy air...i dare you to go to china and inhale deeply and see if you can without coughing. dishonest people. again, bad people exist everywhere. and to be honest there are probably few in the asian culture, because of their pride and family honor. america alone probably has the biggest crime rate. beggars, when i was in taiwan i saw 1, ONE beggar. and he wasnt even begging, he was just sitting on a cornor. the homeless in america follow and literaly beg for money. most chinese people wont go that low to beg for money in the public. so yeah you're right taiwan has bad aspects, but it also has alot of good ones. bad things happen everywhere, there is no such thing as a perfect country, place, or world. and it seems to me that you are really mad over the air pollution and that is going around everywhere. so in reality you are being dishonest to yourself, not accepting that there is no perfect place and the things that suck will always follow you.

Answer 4

Cultural relativist? It's the first time I've ever been accused of that!

Seriously, I for one do not look at Taiwan through rose-coloured glasses.

I see you as being a very unhappy person in Taiwan.

There is no denying the air pollution in Taiwan--unless you're lucky enough to live on the east coast. I smell flowers in the air on my motorbike, on the highway, morning and afternoon.

Cockroaches. Yes there are cockroaches, but they are not associated with filth as at home. They are a tropical phenomenon.

I do take issue with your comment about dishonest people, because I consider your position to be racist. I have said before that neither honesty nor integrity is a racial or ethnic characteristic.

While it is true that there are beggars here, it is also true that there is no welfare to speak of--unlike home (Canada for me). While I'm on the subject, we have no beggars in Canada. We call them panhandlers instead, and our major cities swarm with them.

I assure that I do not speak highly of Taiwan in order to assert that I am a sophisticated man-of-the-world who can adapt to foreign cultures. Man of the world? Sophisticated? Hell, I like "Trailer Park Boys"!

My wife and I have been living in Taiwan off and on since 90 (2001) and we have come to love this place and the people in it. Consider the other side of the negatives to which you refer.

Medical care is faster, better, and cheaper than in Canada.

Nearly everyone with whom we have come into contact has treated us with INCREDIBLE warmth and kindness and generosity.

There are a lot of good jobs around. I personally have done well financially, and enjoyed every minute of my work as a corporate English teacher in Taipei. Yes, Taipei, where the air is indeed bad, filthy, stinky, and polluted.

The scenic wonder of this place (not just on the east coast) takes your breath away.

The travel opportunties here are fantastic. We went to Malaysia last year, and Hong Kong and China. We will go to Viet Nam for the long weekend of mid-Autumn Festival.

I wish, for your sake, that you could avail yourself of all the wonderful things about Taiwan, instead of your focus on the UNDENIABLE negativity.

When I got down on this place, when I felt that for two cents I'd go back to Canada, I would phone friends or family at home. They would ask "How are you enjoying yourself?'

As sure as gun's iron, I wasn't about to talk about "bad air, cockroaches, filthy air, dishonest people, stinky air, beggars, polluted air" I talked about food and new friends and cheap beer and musical garbage trucks and flowers in December and the spotless MRT and the safe streets and the nice people.

I have broken the rule I made for myself. It is futile and inappropriate to compare Taiwan to home. Taiwan is Taiwan. Canada is Canada.

Be happy. It's a sin not to try.

Answer 5

I lived in Taiwan for 5 years. You are right. The air is filthy. The island is overcrowded thanks to Chiang Kai Sheck. They still have open water drainage and it is a developed country. I didn't see any beggars or homeless people like you see in the U.S. now. Garbage everywhere. Drinking water needs to be boiled. Yes, Taiwan has a lot of problems but it is still the most important Chinese democracy in the world.

Answer 6

bad air, cockroaches, filthy air, dishonest people, stinky air, beggars, polluted air.. 4 x ...... Air :):):)

This is not restricted to Taiwan: Try India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Indo China, PRC , Two places I 'd give a pass would be Japan and SIngapore but my son says Singapore's Air is not too good because of Indonesia. .

We who have lived in Asia all our lives find it common so we dont dwell on it.

Just where is it that you see these Beggars?? Really, I dont see them in Places like Ximenting, Shihlin NM, Wufenpu, Xinyi Shopping District, Dinghow , Taipei Station area, Neihu, Tian Mu.

Roaches come out in Summer here but if you keep your place clean, NO Roaches.

Out of 23 Mil Taiwanese, Just how many dishonest people have you come across?? :):):) You are funny.

Answer 7

All those problems are real and do exist. Yet you appear to deny the existence of good here or the efforts to improve, seemingly. We try to make our existence tolerable by looking at good things, doing what we can to minimize bad things in our personal life, because a life spent staring at what is wrong with everything, many things beyond our personal control, is a futile waste of our existences. It makes you sicker, and seems mentally unhealthy to only dwell on negative things to me. Most environmentalists are prone to suicide in the modern world due to their focusing only on negatives and failing to provide any positive examples of how things can be done better.

Reality is: life is a jungle. We adapt or die. protection is an expensive illusion. The strong survive, the weak fall. it is nature and there is little we can do when nature calls to reap what we have sown.

You can grow to even be fond of hunting the cockroaches and be selective about your protective mask's appearence to take minute pleasure from the chilling reality that you are f#$ed, your future is f^&ed and you might as well deal with it.

But if you manage to stick around Asia long enough you can see the glacial progress towards a slightly cleaner, healthier Taiwan/ Asian/ future urbanized planet. Or else be the first to see it all come crashing down, be on the front lines and have the fortune to be a lucky first death so you dont need to experience the misery of a slow lingering death in a quickly dying world that will adjust itself without us around.

I cant say if you are lying or not, I dont know you. I experienced many of those same emotions and some similar experiences upon my arrival in Taiwan. Maybe not ALL at the same time, which is what I found in-credible. But they do happen.

cockroaches and bugs are everywhere, even in Hawaii. rats are in New York restaurants. Rodents persist next to my parents home and oil refineries flare out black smoke near my parents house in Canada, causing my asthmatic mother fits and the rest of my family to be prone to it. Fortunately somehow I escaped that fate (so far) God bless the oil industry that makes Canada so good to live in! You can still see nature, but every time I go back the onward creep of suburbia consumes another hectare of what I remembered as forest and scrub where deer used to be. Taiwan is the logical last step in that process, and will be the logical first step in seeing the results of changing our filthy habits. But it wont be anytime soon.

Where ever you go you are f&&^ed. You just have less space to move away from discomfort here. Feel free to join my 'illogical' rants against oil. We are hooked on it, unfortunately. The reason Taiwan is the way it is- look at disposable consumer culture.

Invest in (solar) AC for your house and a facemask. And an electric car/scooter (all if you can afford it). Encourage your politicians to continue moving away from oil with wave power, wind power, solar power...

Or consider going to Beijing's version of China to learn/teach environmental responsibility and agricultural methods that dont lay waste to nature (while learning mandarin) over there. There probably is more room there to get away from the unpleasant aspects of overpopulation. (possibly...) At least some business people here (and I suspect even there) are TRYING to move towards mass production of alternative power sources. Here is where it is needed the most.

...Cockroaches seem to be prone to the cockroach traps. We havent seen them for months (likely they are better at hiding now) --Dishonest people unfortunately are harder to deal with. You get to accept your losses and avoid em and bad mouth them every chance you get. But dont overgeneralize and curse every person on this island with every breath you speak. Look for something positive, SOMEWHERE.

There are bad people everywhere, its just those in power here (and in China) did what they had to do to survive many years ago when things were alot worse than now. If you are looking at a slow starving death realistically every day you would lie, cheat, murder and steal to avoid it too. This is the history of Asia. And North America. And even England/America did its butchery to deal with its populations problem back in the 1700's, 1800's. Lets hope China doesnt do the same and line us all up in reserves and exterminate our languages when its population expulsion happens. All we can do is try to educate them on alternative ways to deal with it that have worked. Of course everyone thinks they are special and try the easy ways that everyone else already came up with and f#$ed up already in history.

I am fully aware of reality. I accept and attempt to fight it every day of my existence. but I dont dwell on it any more than I need to. thats just unhealthy. I just do what I can to change myself and affect my own space in such a way to get change during my life, so PERHAPS i could consider having a kid with some chance of surviving.