Cultural Differences of Little Consequence

There are lots of chances for culture shock and cultural misunderstandings in expat life. These often revolve around big cultural differences, but not all cultural variance assaults our core ideas. Some are simply quaint. These are the cultural contrasts a vacationer might notice between spa treatments, or might turn up in a high school report. They’re interesting, light, fluffy, and fun.

Generally Taiwanese prefer to shower at night while Westerners prefer to shower in the morning. For the Taiwanese, it’s a time to unwind, shed the day’s cares, and prepare for bed. Apparently Taiwanese people don’t sweat or spit all over themselves in their sleep. Us more messy Western sleepers tend to prefer an invigorating morning shower to wake up, wash away the sleep goo, and get ready to face the day.

Relaxing versus prepping is also a theme in eating soup. At banquets Taiwanese have the soup toward meal’s end, to settle the stomach and aid in digestion after gorging. Clearly they’re wrong—that’s why God invented whiskey and tobacco. In formal dining, Westerners usually have soup at the beginning of the meal, to warm the stomach, and lay the groundwork for the coming meal.

Continuing with the stomach theme, most Westerners are comfortable with a drinks only night out, or inviting friends over and entertaining them with drinks and perhaps light snacks. [See: Starvation Culture]. In Taiwan it is very odd to spend time with friends without talking around a mouthful of food.

Dating has a lot of small cultural differences. Kissing is culturally different, not so much in structure or delivery, as in timing. The kiss is an important part of early dates in the West. Should I? Shouldn’t I? Was that the signal? You have to get through the kiss to get to the good stuff. These things have stages, hence the whole first-base metaphor. Kissing has a less important role in dating in Taiwan. Kissing on the first or even second date is a bit odd, not wrong, possibly even charming, in a hey-I’m-dating-a-foreigner sort of way. It isn’t uncommon to hit a homer before circling around for some of that hot first-base action, which is also charming, in a hey-I’m-dating-a-Taiwanese-woman sort of way.

Yet picking your nose on a first date might be acceptable. There’s definitely an odd tendency towards public nose-picking. The number of times I’ve seen someone engaged in a third-knuckle-deep snoot root on the street, in a bus, at a restaurant is disturbing. Man, woman; old, young; hot, not; high-class or low-class place; it does matter, nothing stands in the way of a good rhinogasm. Oddly despite the fascination with the nostrils, blowing your nose in public is bad form. They’d rather snuffle. Taiwanese nasal culture is opposite to the West’s.

Private space blends with public space in Taiwan in other ways. At the traditional morning market it’d be surprising if you didn’t see women shopping in their pajamas, or old men in their undershirts and—what looks like—boxer shorts. I don’t really mind. We have Walmart, so, you know, there’s no room for aspersions, but it drives my French friends nuts.

As a teacher, one cultural difference I find myself dealing with is that plagiarism is not a mortal sin like in the West. A traditional way of studying in Chinese culture is to copy accepted authorities. Also Taiwanese students tend to be more communal in their study habits; they study together, share their research, and copy each other. It is not so bad here. You look like a raging lunatic if you get too over-the-top morally indignant. Sure you’d have been expelled and blackballed, but what’s that to do with here?

The Taiwanese are generally good savers. Even though I’ve been a part of a Taiwanese family for over a decade I still don’t entirely understand the mechanics of it. My wife seems profligate, yet saves an awesome percentage of her income. My parents-in-law are the same. My wife has me saving/investing 65%+ of my income, and despite doing it, I don’t get how it is happening. [I’m pretty sure I’m suffering]. I’m frugal, but left to my own devices, I’d be lucky to save 15-20%.

It’s always amazed me how often little things are the opposite. We have a 20% off sale, in Chinese it’s a 80% on sale. Which direction does a compass point? North? In ancient Chinese it pointed south. These little cultural differences are interesting, but won’t cause much culture shock or intercultural discomfort. They’re just fun.

Diversity in Expat Culture

One annoyance of expat life is its tendency to create shallow friendships. Everyone is transitory, and friendships are fleeting. [See: Expat Friendships]. The upside is expat life offers diversity of friendship. It’s charming how expat life throws together people from all the world’s corners, each bringing their unique backgrounds. Despite a certain American cultural hegemony, traditions from the world over jostle and blend delightfully in the expat community.

On big holidays you’re quite likely to get invites for a special meal or party. If you’re alone on the holidays someone is likely to be looking out for you, and invite you to something. If not, it’s easy to band together with other lonely expats and create some drunken holiday cheer. At these parties, the expectedness of different traditions doesn’t diminish their beguiling nature. I’ve been at expat Christmas potlucks that have included the requisite turkey and fixings, but also the host culture’s interpretation of Christmas, and dishes associated with Christmas’s around the world; Beijing Duck (Taiwan), Kentucky Fried Chicken (Japan) [still makes me giggle, but it’s a Japanese thing], pickled herring and snus (Sweden), oysters and foie gras (France), mincemeat (England), kutya and nalysnyky (Ukraine), topped off with malva pudding (South Africa). It sounds like a pot-pourri of horrors. However—like people—each regional dish blended smoothly to create a harmonious meal, with just a soupçon of cacophonous flavors, adding tang without being too jarring.

Cross-cultural togetherness is somewhat expected during big holidays: we’re all here without much family. I’m more enchanted with the countless small examples of cultural sharing that happen serendipitously. For me, these have included being invited by a group of Americans to a pub to watch The Super Bowl live. I don’t care about football, and even less American football, but I don’t want to meet the person that can’t enjoy hot wings and binge drinking at 5:30 am. Being unexpectedly slipped a container of pierogis from a Ukrainian coworker. Attending a funeral and afterwards finding the Irish attendees had created a spontaneous wake, reciting Irish funeral toasts and getting slowly swizzled. It was touching. Perhaps one of my favorite incidences was stumbling upon a French-Canadian teaching assorted Anglos some Québécoise curses. (Not to be confused with cursing in France. The Québécois curse like they’re taking inventory of a cathedral). Mon tabarnak—it was funny.

Another area of expat diversity is across socio-economic lines. Admittedly class distinction influences inter-expat relations and inhibits friendships, still the shared experience of being foreigners in a foreign land does create some odd-bedfellows. And, definitely in interactions with the host culture, it is easy for a poorer person to have friendships with rich Taiwanese. I suppose the social indicators of class are a little confusing across cultural lines.

Another charming aspect of expat life is the way it throws together people of different ages. Expats often interact across age groups without much prejudice. If I were still in Canada I wouldn’t expect to have many cross-generational friendships outside of work. Here my friends range from twenty-five to seventy-five. Admittedly sometimes it creates slightly awkward situations. I get invited to clubs, music festivals, and raves by (much) younger friends. I love being included, but it sucks to have to spend a night listening to some DJ (why are they considered performers?) delivering EDM; Techno, House, Trance, etc. True my generation had similar music, but most thought of it as syntho-shit—admittedly it’s still shit—but it’s nice to be included. It’s healthy to be around other age groups. It keeps your mind youthful and expanding. At these outings I’ve learned important life lessons, for example middle-age white men can’t twerk.

Likewise the host culture and their openness to intercultural friendships prevent expats from becoming homogenously foreign outsiders. The Taiwanese also play an important role in diversifying the expat experience. Many are happy to include a foreigner in their circle.

The expat experience makes me think of first-generation immigrants to New York in the early twentieth century. Diverse cultures—a medley of backgrounds and experiences—rubbing together. Heterogeneity is the spice of expat life.