I'm going to splice in random photos of Taiwan while I write this bloggue. Hope you don't mind.
Blinded by the white is a saying that we have here in Taiwan. It is a take on the classic tune titled Blinded by the Light and our new meaning works out to correlate quite well with the original song. I, of course, am talking about white people. Not just any old white person, but the white people from all over the world who choose Taiwan, and more specifically Taipei, to be their new place of exile.
The term blinded by the white is most true on two levels. The first level is the reaction that the rest of the population (ie. Taiwanese people) have when they spot a blatantly different looking vanilla face. Almost anyone, despite his or her inability to pick up any other Chinese, will understand the commonly whispered and not uncommonly shouted "Why go ren." (This of course is the phonetic spelling of the Chinese term for foreigner.) The most common person to use this when you're standing in line for food or simply checking the mail is a child. In the same way that everyone burps and farts without regard for those around them, so too do they allow their children to point and stare and shout at the crazy blond-haired blue-eyed demons lurking around them.
This of course, is the light side of the blinded by the white factor. That is more of a sun in your eyes by the white experience. The next group are those who become physically impaired by our vary existence. There are others, who simply stop dead in their tracks at the mere sight or reference of a white person. Often times, while strolling down the street people will stumble, mouth agape, as if I were spouting a unicorn horn and farting bubbles. They are truly blinded by my mere presence and are incapable of resuming any normal activity until I pass or depart. This makes being table neighbors a difficult process for some Taiwanese children who can barely make time to watch the fork going into their eye as they gaze wondrously at the strange alien enjoying the hot and spicy chicken next to them.
Now of course, there are many Taiwanese who think nothing different of the white person. They pass by them on the street like any other member of the human race. Many will say hello to you and you feel like your snappy "hey" really brightens their day. So many of the Taiwanese are very thoughtful and love the idea of foreigners enjoying their wonderful home.
So from now on let's leave the Taiwanese out of it and focus on craziest and weirdest minority on the planet: the whites of Taiwan.
Frankly, most of the other white people here just scare the living shit outta me. The blinded by the white term is really the most relevant for the white people because there are sometimes so few that the mere site of one makes you feel like you are characters in a World of Warcraft game who must dodge the monsters to finally discover the mystical cave with all the missing gold.(Or something to the extent of that nerd crap.) Honestly though, I would rather fight to the death with the majority of the crackers I see on the street than meet them and talk to them. Aren't I optimistic?
You see there are really only about three types of white people in this country. (Keep in mind that there are some darker skinned peoples here as well but they have even different problems. Like the photo screening process that most schools have in order to select the candidate with the most "ivory" coloring. Seriously.) The first group would be people like myself. I admit, I am no perfect man, nor do I embody the essence of a true ex-pat traveler who soaks up every bit of culture thrown at him, but I can at least hold a conversation with all types of different people and, like the others in this category, I can still function like a normal person having a normal life in perhaps a slightly abnormal place.
You also have the second type who are really the more admirable white people. These are the folks who have come here and decided to make this island their home. They have perhaps learned Chinese, made lots of Taiwanese friends, gone out (successfully) with Taiwanese girls or guys, and they have managed to find order in this place. They can live and prosper as they would any where else. I like these people.
And then you have the third group. This is the group I would like to discuss for the remaining part of this bloggue. The third group is a bunch of people, and by that I almost always mean white males, who come to Taiwan as a form of escape. Yes that's right, these guys were so fucked up and lame and weird and bizarre in their own countries that they have been forced to exile themselves literally onto an island in the middle of nowhere. (Taiwan is actually geographically located at the epicenter of international Asian commerce, bringing in techniques and cultures from north eastern Asian nations as well as south east Asian cultures, but for these dudes, they just couldn't fit in anywhere else.)
The most common features of this third group are a pale and pasty skin, most likely due to reclusive and overall antisocial behavior, bad posture, strange walks, and terrible clothing. These guys are the dorks with which the dorks of our own nations would not even accept. I mean these guys are blindingly goofy, whether its the see-through white shirts combined with man boobs, or the guarded and creeptastic glances they will give you on the metro when they realize that they weren't able to escape every single white person on the planet. One girl I met characterized this group of nut jobs simply as "drips."
The problem is that we white folk are the minority and like all minorities around the world, "we gotta stick togethah." Combine that with the fact that almost every white person here is an English teacher, and you are bound to meet some "drips" in a training meeting or at a teacher's convention or on the street.
These "drips" can often be deceiving at first, allowing you to consider that they are normal travel fancying buffs like yourself. They may even drink some beer and hang at some bars and go to the same restaurants that serve the same western food you miss so much, and you may see each other at the museums and around your neighborhood, and in the parks....oh wait they do do those things and you really can't avoid them. They go to your dance parties and stumble and contort, they do the head nod to you without notice to the latte cream forming a mustache across their face, they wave in the metro exposing yellow pits stains, and they just sort of go to all the same places as you. You see I too am one of these random white pool pocket playing kind of guys.....Ha gotcha! I'm actually cool as shit and these dudes really are crazy lame creeper dick bags! We just happen to do the same stuff.
Oh that felt good. Please don't think me high and mighty. I suppose what I should have done was to put the cool people who actually make their life here as the first group thus allowing them to be the top of the wacko white minority pyramid. They are the true ex-patriots. But I mean, my level of people at least do what they can to try the foods and go to the Taiwanese places. Some of us put great effort into learning Chinese and almost all of us are social and kind to our hosts; the Taiwanese. These other guys though make basic social behavior look as awkward and impossible as trying to lick your own elbow.
So when you travel the streets of Taiwan it is OK to feel blinded by the white when it happens. The wild part is that you really are in that different of a place and you aren't around many other people like you. That is what adventure is all about and that is how you learn to be able to communicate and to enjoy the company of others. You see, a weirdo from the third group wouldn't be able to say that kind of wisdom because he would be too busy playing his eight thousandth game of hearts on the computer.
TAIWAN IS WEIRD!!!!! I'm out
