Glowing-up in Taiwan

It has been a hot minute since I’ve written a personal blog! And for some reason I’ve found the blank page more daunting here than for any of my writing gigs over the last few weeks. Oh, writing gigs you say? Why, yes, in fact I have been pursuing writing as a career. Look at me go.

So the short and slightly salty, but sweet (for me), story is that I have quit teaching after two years of giving it my sweat, tears, and full emotional capacity as a human being. That is one of the hardest jobs I’ve ever had, and damn was it ever exhausting. I don’t understand how people can go through their entire lives working the 9-5 grind every damn day. For 7 months I would wake up around 6am, get to the MRT (metro in Taipei) late, that being slightly after 7am, and then get to work (usually late) around 8:15. Work a full day, teach a few classes, in and out, bouncing around the school, exhaustion, children running, screaming, crying, the works. This. Is. Public School.

Public school in Taiwan is a trip. The system is incredibly regimented and strict, with kids lining up nicely, sitting in rows, napping on schedule, washing hands in a line, and doing everything their teacher tells them to do with diligence. The homeroom teachers were very strict at my school and the kids wouldn’t dare go out of line in their class, lest they get yelled at in the hallway. 

I found it pretty jarring at first, but came to appreciate the order that was retained when the homeroom teacher was present. When I would go down to art class to teach ten year olds how to paint watercolours LORD that would be the time when paint (shit) would hit the fan. Managing a group of 30 children is not my calling. 

So I quit my job the second I stepped back into school after Chinese New Year, when COVID was popping off across the globe, and Taiwan was trying to maintain the chaos that was threatening to ensue. Luckily, another school needed an emergency teacher for the second semester, so I fulfilled the role of high school ESL literature teacher for a quick 4 months. I enjoyed chatting and relating to the teens, but the gig brought on other sets of challenges, like bullying, exam stress, kids who were dating, underage drinking, and the like.

In my second week at the school, a student committed suicide by jumping off the 7th floor of our building. It was a horrifying event and I remember the students were in shock, unable to process what had happened. Unfortunately, schools don’t really have useful counselling services here, and ours being a Catholic school, they basically just said a prayer and called it a day. I remember a few weeks after it happened there was an announcement on the loudspeaker and my students froze, some of them holding their breath, eyes wide. A moment later, a collective sigh: “just a doctor for someone who slipped on the wet ground”, my student told me. Conversations resumed as normal.

The stress that elementary and high school students are put under in this country is genuinely appalling to me. They have SO many exams, and in grade 9 (the grade I was teaching) the students have one of their huge national exams that determine their future in this country. They’re only 15 years old. 

The second big exam is in grade 12. It determines which universities they can get into, which is apparently when they can finally start to relax. In Taiwan, school is super stressful, busy, and difficult until you get to university, which is kind of treated as a time to chill, have fun, and party, rather than focus on studies. My students were at school from 7am to 9pm all week and even had to go in on Saturdays to prepare for the National Exam. There was no time to rest or play. Most of them didn’t even know what to do with themselves after they finished the exam because they’re not used to having any free time.

A big problem in Taiwanese schools is that there are no opportunities for students to collaborate and work as a team. They’re accustomed to individual work and rigorous testing, but nothing else. It’s a system made up of information acquisition and dumping. I was talking to my client the other day at Taipei Fashion Week about the nearby arena that has been under construction for almost 10 years, and we were wondering why it’s taking so long to build. She thinks that Taiwanese people struggle to make decisions, or if there’s a problem they don’t know who will handle it. In my mind, I could see how the school system wouldn’t prepare people for big projects like this, which require a lot of brainstorming and group cohesion in order to execute the tasks.

I don’t want it to seem like I only see the bad things in Taiwan, and these things I don’t even mean to paint as bad per se, but they’re very different from what I’m used to. And what I’m used to is this Western model of education and social structures, which have a host of other problems themselves – because no system is flawless. 

Actually there’s so many amazing things about Taiwan that make it one of the most liveable countries on Earth. Did you know that we have a receipt lottery? Yeah, I can win money just by buying things, no need to get tickets to enter. Just go to your local 7/11, Family Mart, OK Mart or HiLife, of which there are MANY, and you could buy a winning loaf of bread. Who knows, the world is your oyster (bread?).

A friend asked me recently what my top five 7/11 purchases are and I knew right away: roasted sweet potato, coconut water, banana, ramen eggs, and sushi. You can basically live in a 7/11. It fulfills all your needs, such as banking, paying fines, bills, or tickets, collecting packages, photocopying stuff, eating a meal, getting your caffeine fix, and even providing you with a housing contract if needed (in Chinese, of course). I was baffled at the fact that 7/11 is basically a hub for your everyday existence, and at this point I go in almost every day to do one thing or another.

There are many, many other reasons that Taiwan is awesome, including, but not limited to: the kind and considerate people, superb nature, cheap living costs, fun events and activities, small but interesting foreigner community, endless opportunities, and super convenient medical system that is cheap and efficient. I could go on, and I will in another post detailing the magic of Taiwan, but I mainly wanted to raise some awareness through this piece.

Today I met with King, the project manager at the Garden of Hope Foundation in Taipei. This NGO focuses on helping vulnerable women who are stuck in poverty or cycles of abuse in Taiwan. I think Taiwan is similar to Canada, in the sense that to foreigners it’s viewed as some cotton candy dream land where no bad things happen because the people are nice and we have cute animals. Although Taiwan is very safe, much more so than many other countries, there are people here who are suffering and our privilege allows us to ignore that fact.

The Garden of Hope has a number of services for disadvantaged women, including work programs that help women escape the cycle of poverty. If you didn’t know before, it is a cyclical, oppressive state that is very hard to get out of once you are in – you can’t just chalk it up to “they’re being lazy” or “just get a job”, because it’s never that simple. Garden of Hope gives women the opportunity to gain practical skills and experience through their projects, which they can then use to try and get a job in the “real world”. King was telling me that the women who are most vulnerable in Taiwan are aboriginal and migrant workers (usually from the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia).

Despite being an internationally-minded country that claims to be “diversifying”, what Taiwan is really doing is allowing (usually) Western foreigners to get visas for professional skills they deem important (like English teachers). This leaves workers with general labor skills, or without university degrees, struggling to get a visa here and often staying illegally in the country with no rights, thus having to work under the table. This work force is incredibly valuable, as they care for the elderly, work labour jobs, and help keep the cities running. Yet, even though many are coming here for a better life or to escape problematic countries, there is no refugee or asylum status in Taiwan that will allow them basic human rights.

Because Taiwan is technically the ROC (Republic of China), they can’t actually implement refugee or asylum laws because China doesn’t have any. Doing so would piss off the CCP, which could potentially lead to a siege or something crazy. Maybe even a war. Sometimes we hear city-wide siren tests, which is jokingly called “the Chinese invasion alarm”, but it’s legitimately in place if China ever bombs Taiwan and people need to go into hiding.

It’s an incredibly tricky dance that Taiwan has to play in order to keep the CCP happy while also maintaining strong alliances abroad. Unfortunately, it doesn’t allow the government to protect the people who are most vulnerable here, such as the aboriginals and migrant workers. It was a little heartbreaking to speak to King about all this, because there is a sense of powerlessness, and hopeful waiting that something would change. But I could tell he didn’t believe it will anytime soon. 

So for this NGO I will be doing some writing work in English, just on a volunteer basis, and trying to help out however I can. Now that we’ve come full circle, I can tell you about my writing work. I started freelancing, with no expectations, about 4 weeks ago and damn it has been a whirlwind. I got a lot more clients than I expected and managed to get a pretty sweet remote position with a startup called Oasis Marketing Group. It’s a team of young, vibrant, passionate people who are all about communicating well and making sure everyone feels valued. I love it. 

I’ve been writing some pretty weird stuff, such as copy (ie. words) for a toilet seat cover brand, information about dental work, and landing pages for a corn removing serum. Random, I know. The clients we have are unique and of high quality, and I genuinely support the work that they do. It’s weird to think that I work for a marketing group, consider my previous rants about capitalism, but I think I’ve come to accept the system I’m in and try to be the best version of myself within it.

Out here trying it all, and helping people with the little wisdom that I may have, whenever I can. Only by acknowledging our own ignorance can we start to learn how to improve on it, little by little, every day! Hoping you find some clarity today, wherever you’re at in life. 

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