Foreigner

Sometimes, being “a foreigner” in Taiwan is tiring. I have avoided this topic because I feel that there is nothing particularly fresh that I can bring to the descriptions of my experiences in this regard. Yet recently I’ve wondered why exactly it was that I decided to come back to Taiwan, and face all the little side effects of living abroad. Especially in moving to Tainan this year, a much less modern and bustling international hub than Taipei, my experience as “a foreigner” is dialed up to an even stronger level.

Of course, there are plenty of reasons why it is interesting to be “a foreigner” in Taiwan. It can be fun that people strike up conversations with me because of their curiosity. It can be fun to try to check the preconceptions that people have, and possibly try to broaden their perspectives. It can be convenient that people recognize me immediately and remember my name (and often most things about the interaction that we had before). Sometimes, people just want to be extra nice to me – maybe because they want to ensure that I have a good impression of Taiwan and Taiwanese people, maybe because there’s a inferiority complex, maybe it’s simply because they want to see how I’ll react, maybe because they’re uncomfortable, or all the above and some other reasons that I can’t even guess. It can be fun to be the tallest person in the room of adults – something that never happens when I’m in the US.

But also I’ve felt worn out when I am trying to go about my business, yet I am also constantly on display as “a foreigner”. It can be irritating to have people stare at me all the time (as I type this, I am watching people stare at me in the window reflection as they walk by behind me; but it’s easy enough to see people staring me just by looking at people’s faces directly, such as everyone walking in front of the window, many of whom also give me very long glances). Automatically receiving obviously differential treatment is unnerving; there is no reason people need to address me in English and assume I’m incompetent. It can be frustrating to hear people talk about me as I pass by – muttering things about “老外” – as if there are general statements that can be made about me simply because I’m “a foreigner”. Knowing that people will take my actions and use them to represent an entire category of people, “Americans” or “foreigners” or something of the like, can make me consider every action with great strategic importance. And sometimes I just want to be able to take off this mantle, and put it aside to have people see me first as an individual and not as a collection of labels.

Yet no matter where I live, I am going to bear the weight of a collection of labels and biases. Living abroad also gives me even more opportunities to learn: I am amused by and can reflect a great deal on things that are very simple aspects of every day life. And instead of the Taiwanese people that I meet who are trying to build an understanding about America from me and the handful of other Americans in they’ve encountered, every day I can build my understanding of Taiwan from not only every person I meet, but also through every one of my senses at all hours of the day.