Communisim vs Democracy
Most white people are brought up being taught that Communisim is bad and Democracy is good. Most popular media paints China is as a scarey and dangerous place and as having out of date and corrupted leadership. I want to leave you with a simple question, in a western country we change leaders every few years, the direction and philosophy of leadership changes every few years, and leaders of western countries end up pushing and being elected on short term political interests. Imagine a country where the leaders plan and strategise for the benefit of a country (and well maybe themselves as well) for the next 10, 20, 50 years. Strange concept to us!
Church in Taiwan
Imagine walking down a street, as a white person, where everything is completely strange and weird, stray dogs walking around, buildings falling down and filled with random pieces of old machines and materials, everything covered completely in dust, and half way down the street is a church, and not just any old church, but a traditional Presbyterian style church. Very ordinary looking by western standards, but completely strange and well just weird by asian standards. Inside it looks and feels exactly like an old western church. It was a weird experience for me simply because after a week of everything being strange and out of the ordinary because its Taiwanese, I end up in a building that is strangely uncomfortable because it was completely Western (ie out of place)!
Having recently spent one month in Taiwan, I learnt quite a lot in that time. From cooking, to culture, to politics, and religion. One of the most interesting things was the style of the church music and traditions. For the most part, they are an image of a 50's style church. So not is the culture of the church completely alien to the culture it is in, but it this same style that is completely alien to western culture as well. So if you want to know what a western church was like in the 50's, head over to Taiwan and check it out.
The night Shower
The first time I had an Asian house mate, I encountered a strange thing, she showered at night. I have since discovered that almost all Asians shower at night. For most white people, showering is something you do to wake yourself up, not to put you to sleep. If you think about it for a minute it actually makes much more sense, after a day of being out, getting dirty, smelly and oily, do you then want to bring that into your bed you sleep in 1/3 of your life?
Being married I understand this even more. My wife is used to her bed being a pristine, clean environment, however now instead it made more and more dirty every night! I now see that it is much more logical to shower at night than in the morning, however I still need that morning shower to wake myself up. Maybe I should resort to showering at night and in the morning.
Disclaimer: Some of you might be thinking this is a strange weird post, however believe it or not for Asians married to white people this is actually quite a serious issue.
Clean your teeth after you eat?
It was probably a few days after an international student from China moved into our share house that I noticed that she cleaned her teeth as soon as she got up, instead of after breakfast. Out of surprise I asked the simple question; Why do you clean your teath before breakfast, wouldnt it make more sense to clean them after breakfast when they are dirty? From that day on she cleaned her teeth after breakfast.
Why would I turn this into a blog post? It is quite simple, it seems that most Asian cultural differences are quite logical, most Asians clean their teeeth before breakfast.
Asian work ethic
If you know much about asian countries, most asians work from 8am - 8pm and as one Singaporian friend put it to me at one point, work collegues eat together at 7am for breakfast to talk work, and go out afterwards for drinks and talk work. Other asian countries seem not much different. Our western centric reaction to this is that is crazy? What about your 'me' time, your time for 'self' and for relaxing? It was not long ago that for an asian, working meant you own a shop, sleep upstairs, come downstairs when you get up and work, and then go back upstairs to bed.