Taiwanese and foreigners : Stereotypes, assumptions, attitudes, and interactions

To continue the TOEFL discussion..

Every once in a while some one would come up to me on the street, usually Taiwanese males in their 30s or 40s, and ask me to give them private English tutoring.

I find that extremely peculiar that :

1. They assume, just by looking at me, that I have good English skills.
2. They assume, just by looking at me, that I teach English.
3. (They assume, that I would be thrilled to take just about anybody)

Here’s something amusing from a classmate regarding Taiwanese perceptions of foreigners teaching English with “Why I don’t teach English”:

1) I did not come to Taiwan to teach English but to study finance at the PhD program.

2) I do not have an appropriate education to teach English. For some it is not a reason. For me it is. I can help a friend or have conversation hours with someone, but to teach kids or youth to speak proper English – I am just not qualified for that. […]

6) If I wanted to teach English or babysit kids, I would have studied kindergarten teaching at high-school (it was one of the options in my high-school) but I chose computer programming.

7) Money is not a strong motivator for me, but the money English teachers earn here, is not of the same value back at home as it is here. (And if money was what motivated me now, I’d be working in my field back at home earning more than English teachers here.)

I do not think teachers job is easy. I think teaching is a noble calling and requires talent and constant improvement and learning. But I think I can do something more. I can teach finance, something what seems more complicated to many, and I think I am qualified to do it already and I keep educating myself to become better.

9) Teaching English just would not be a challenge for me, and if this is my only choice here, I rather go somewhere else and look for other challenges. […]

Every foreigner in Taiwan just isn’t a potential English teacher.

To which I would add :

1. The fact that I’m a foreigner doesn’t mean that my English is any good. If it is okay then it’s because I’ve struggled my whole life, just like many Taiwanese do, to sustain and improve my English skills.
2. I would never ever want anybody studying English to pick up on my accent. For those arguing that it’s okay to have an English teacher that’s not a native speaker, I would say – it might be, as long as expectations are that he’s not a native speaker. I feel for the Taiwanese kids who study with some of the German/Russian English teachers I met in Taiwan whose English skills are less than average with an accent thicker than Schwarzenegger’s.
3. Many of the foreigners that come to Taiwan are not English teachers. It’s really a troubling stereotype, as it is my personal perception that the  Taiwanese perceptions of English teachers suggest that they assume all we can do is make profit of speaking our mother tongue in class.  Not that it’s the same, but approaching an Indian in New York and asking him whether he’s a Taxi driver and open for private hire is as disturbing.
4. Even if some foreigners are to make the decision of teaching English in Taiwan, by doing so – they might breaking the local law and/or the regulations of their studies and scholarships.

Another friend recently wrote a post called “Caucasians≠Americans –Taiwanese≠Thais” about the same topic, with reference to a situation I was really uncomfortable with :

CEO of [censored] in Taiwan just gave a speech in NCKU for the English Eagle Project today. […]

My Israeli friend was there. After the lecturer noticed there was an international student in the audience, he called my friend’s name from time to time. Listening to how he responded to the CEO every single time, I could see he was really troubled, which made me want to laugh. […] To my surprise, or actually I would not say I was surprised ’cause it was not totally unexpected to me, the CEO took him as an American.

“He was a white man and spoke English so he was an American.”

What I can’t understand is how he could make the judgment quickly that my friend was an American. (He didn’t call him an American in a straight way but you still could notice he thought of him as one.) Because he was a Caucasian from the appearance? It seemed to me he didn’t even think about it. No time to think?

I would possibly make the similar mistakes a few years ago before I got chances to get along with ex-pats and international students. But, how come, as a CEO working for a global company and interacting a lot with people from other countries, did he make judgments about foreign people this way? And ironically, one of audience asked the CEO about how to broaden his own global view.

This is really mysterious to me.

It is to me too. Not only did he assume that I’m American, he also gave me way too much personal attention in a hall full of hundreds of Taiwanese students, asking my opinion on just about every other statement he was making in his speech. What is it about this proclaimed top-500 Taiwan CEO that made him focus his attention on the one student in the hall that wasn’t Taiwanese? I can’t speak for my fellow Taiwanese, but if I was Taiwanese I would find that troubling if not offensive, and I thought that some of the remarks were somewhat patronizing. It was as if he was connecting himself with me as the “internationals” maybe in contrast to all the other Taiwanese in the group. Something like “Internationals can stand up for themselves, young Taiwanese – can you?” and with the assumption that they can’t, after explaining that it’s important “do you understand now? will you change your attitude?”. Is it a face thing? does he really feel more international than Taiwanese? does he really believe in internationals supremacy over the average Taiwanese attitude? I’m not sure, but the situation almost made me rethink going to other lectures at the university. Needless to say, this wasn’t the only occasion. I’m usually the only international student to attend university events and this repeatedly draws attention my way. Although not as extreme, something similar happened that same week with a university official. I can’t help but wonder how it must look for those Taiwanese attending all those events.  In some cases I’m being asked questions that draw me into a discussion I don’t necessarily want to be part of. If it was up to me – I would like to choose my level of participation, but my unique status and my fear of causing Taiwanese to lose face doesn’t always allow me to do so.

I thought I would get used to it, the attention, the stereotypes, the approaches, the assumptions, the general attitude but I can’t really say that I have. I still don’t know how to respond to it all. It’s a process… even after a year in Taiwan there is still much for me to learn.