Introdaction
People in Europe usually don´t see a difference between Asian people. But now, after 5 months which I spend in east – Asia, I can distinguish it very well. I don´t know why – but all people in Asia look smaller than in Europe or America. How is it possible? Is it because of genetics or another style of food? The scientist would like to find cause, but it´s not very easy.
How do they look and how is their behavior?
I can say that Taiwanese people look the same like Chinese people. But we can see the genetic difference between Han Chinese and Aboriginals. Aboriginals are usually darker and they can speak very well foreign languages, because their ancestors spoke many languages. They have it genetically determined.
Taiwanese people are differentiated to these ethnic groups:
1) Han Chinese – 98 % of Taiwanese
· Hakka 15 %
· Hoklo 70 %
· Mainlander 13 %
2) Indigenous Taiwanese (aboriginals) – 2%
Taiwanese people include also people living in minor islands and Penghu islands. Also ancestors or migrants of Japanese rule of Taiwan had moved to the Taiwan or Penghu. It includes ancient Yue people, Han-Chinese, Taiwanese aborigines and Dutch people. Also people living outside Taiwan before 1949 such as People´s Republic of China and people which don´t hold the nationality of the Republic of China. Outside Taiwan are known as Overseas Taiwanese or people of Taiwanese descent. In a poll in December 2006 by the Straits Exchange Foundation consider 57% people themselves to be Taiwanese, 23% Chinese and 20% both (Chinese and Taiwanese).
Now are Taiwanese usually mixed from all ethnic groups living together!
Taiwanese people are very helpful. It happened to me many times that I was lost somewhere in the middle of the city and there were very nice people, even not speaking English, but they wanted to show me the way. One woman in Taipei was walking with me almost 2km to show me the place which I was looking for. She was also happy that she can practice her English. Something like this can rarely happened in my country. But also many times happened that a lot of young people don´t speak English or they are too shy to speak with foreigners even they speak very well.
Before I arrived to Taiwan I heard I shouldn´t point with finger to anyone, but people here do it. When some people see me or my friends they start to point with finger and what is really not nice from them – they start to whisper with hand near the ear about us. For me this is really impolite, because it looks like that they are gossiping about us. I cannot let be their behavior in the local trains as well. You can see a lot of young people or students sitting in the train and some very old ladies or woman with small children without place where to sit. I cannot understand why this young people don´t let them sit? Maybe it´s because there are a lot of people – more than in Europe but still it´s not nice! Some these places are intended for disabled, old or pregnant women but I did not see somebody to let them sit.
From the beginning I don´t know why Taiwanese girls and women want to be so white. It´s not possible to buy here normal face crème because everything has whitening effect. If you don´t want to be white you have to buy anti-age crème. Maybe it´s just new style of beauty but some women look very unnatural. Maybe it´s because people usually want to have everything what they don´t have. Also people in Europe like to be tan so they use self-tanning lotions and go to solariums. Here people use whitening crèmes and go to the Whitening centers. But sometimes it is greatly exaggerated – girls are walking in the street with umbrella in hot weather.
Another problem is in restaurant. Rarely can happen that they have English menu and even they have waiters which don´t understand what it means. But even with that they try to help as much as they can.
Style of living
Style of living
Taiwanese people go to the restaurants or shops for lunch, dinner and also for breakfast every day. Nobody cook at home. I was surprised of these. I thought it can be just in big cities where people are busy but it´s everywhere. In my country people usually say if woman know how to cook you should marry her. We cannot say the same about Taiwanese women. Unfortunately in my opinion Taiwanese eat more to have full stomach than to enjoy the food. But I cannot compare it all the time with Europe because it is totally different culture. There is still one point in Taiwan – people can meet a lot of new friends or to find easier partners.
Big family - Is it better to live with grandparents?
Big family - Is it better to live with grandparents?
Nowadays we can just rarely see big families in Europe live together. But in Taiwan it´s not true. We see very often grandparents with small children and they take care of them almost every day. Children may have better background in families and they feel there is someone to help them when parents are in work.
I cannot imagine that I will have my own family and live with my parents under one roof with them. Parents can often disturb the household and in modern time is sometimes very difficult to have the same opinion on the same thing.
What should European and Taiwanese learn from each other?
A lot of Taiwanese girls are beautiful. They know very well how to use make-up, how to do nice hairstyle. Taiwanese women are usually very attractive for western men. But isn´t it because of short skirts and short shorts which they are wearing all the time? Western men like to have women, who are doing exactly, what they want. But in west it´s not so easy that women obey them. Maybe here they found what they wanted.
Taiwanese women like to wear modern clothes but sometimes they combine too much things together. They should know that simple means often more beautiful. Taiwanese are naturally romantic, caring and loving and have a great sense of humor. But women are mostly depressed of their body figure. I also heard that Taiwanese boys like to have girl which is very thin so that you can see her bones. Thanks got this is not in Europe – boys like to touch blood and milk how we say.
European woman are more lively, temperament and more feminist. They managed to make their own opinion on the matter. But the bad thing is that they are very often gossiping without reason – they are usually just jealous. A lot of European people are envious of money, property, happy life, good looks or they just want to have good car.
For a lot of people can be strange to see swimming Taiwanese in long clothes. Is it really true that they believe in demons and that´s why they are so afraid to swim in the sea? Maybe yes – because you can see them really rarely to swim. So why are Taiwanese people coming to the beach even if they don´t swim and women are so afraid of the sun and brown skin that they are taking umbrella? I lay on the beach and I watched these people in Kenting. Taiwanese couples arrived to the beach, took their big cameras and started to do a lot of pictures. After half an hour they changed the positions and then went back home. People should come to the beach to enjoy the sun, hot weather, hot water and enjoy each other. But here it´s not like it should be. I think they do it because they want to show another friends all these photos of themselves even they didn´t enjoyed it. I think it´s not very nice.
From my own opinion a lot of Taiwanese girls are really crazy about taking pictures everywhere and very funny for me is – they never forget to put two fingers up.
You cannot see Taiwanese people walking in the streets some long distances. They use scooters all the time and everywhere. We saw a lot of students which used scooters from school to the train station. It can be about 200m and they are so lazy! I was in restaurant many times and I was really surprised, how can people so small and thin eat so much food. Sometimes it is really incredible.
European people drink very much and everything. In Europe is not possible to have clubs and discos where All you can drink is just for 500NT. But still there is big difference – compare to Taiwan, European know very well how to drink and also when to stop. Surprisingly in some clubs you can find special rooms for vomiting. People go out and like to drink alcohol – but for fun and for enjoying the dance and not to be disgusting.
Personal Resume
Personal Resume
In my opinion Taiwanese are very nice people. I have never met people, which are so helpful and willing to do everything for me. I feel for Taiwanese are very important relationships and friendship. They build it in the first place. And very nice is that family is usually the most important thing in their lives. People in west should learn from them how to be happy and how to behave to other people – friendly and with smile on the face.
