A Muslim and a Jew

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“Oh, so you’re not from the states?” he asked suspiciously.
“No, I’m not. I’m Israeli. Yi-se-lie ren” I smile back.
He looks puzzled. He pauses for a few seconds, looks at Mas sitting next to me, then asks me “A Jew?”.
Ah, hmm… Where is this question leading to? - “Yeah, I’m Jewish”.
He smiles, “So, let me get this straight. Mas - a Muslim, brings you - a Jew - to talk to me here about a job opportunity. Is that right?”
Oh, yeah, Mas and I. Staring at each other, laughing, we could all see the possible irony.

I don’t know if this technical writing job will work out since there are too many parameters involved that might fail this process. But, the basic concept of my fellow Muslim-Pakistani-origin-UK friend-Mas - offering that I try out for his outsourcing company’s technical writing position is a brilliant one, no doubt, and it took seconds for the company’s PM to pinpoint the uniqueness of this happening.
The whole meeting was an interesting experience, culture wise. Mas was using the standard UK English of “bl##dy hell… f#cken bullsh#t… ” etc every other sentence and each time I would glance over to the Taiwanese PM to try and catch his reaction. He was extremely polite, and whereas I would laugh or sigh - he would give no vocal indication, but I think some of his facial expressions gave away some of his curious thoughts. Seeing UK business, or to be more exact - Mas business, mixed up with the Taiwanese PM business, was at times comic.

I also felt I wasn’t very business-oriented as far as Taiwan considers serious business, coming in with regular jeans and jacket and no business card to show my status. I’ve been told to hold the card received with both hands and consider the content for a while before putting it infront of me, and a bunch of other things just like that, but in general - I had no clue how Taiwanese think.

If this turns out okay - great. If not - not that bad. Plenty of opportunities outthere for a skilled professional and my Chinese is improving by the day. In the meanwhile - here’s another Taiwanese experience to add to my experiences-backpack.

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