...."Sex in Taiwan: Taiwanese girls and Chinese Whispers
Forget temples, praying to Buddha, burning money paper for good fortune and the whole other host of ways that exist to connect to the celestial world.
In Taiwan, a girl’s parents are god.
Going against one’s parents is unheard of, no matter how absurd or selfish the request. For this reason when it comes to sex a seemingly unreal world exists between reality and belief.
I’ve long given up trying to understand or rationalise it but that doesn’t make it any less peculiar.
My first encounter with the parental Chinese whispers phenomena was back home in Australia with my ex-girlfriend. She was Taiwanese and practically any time we were together and her mother called, she had to tell her she was somewhere else.
If we went away for the weekend she had a designated friend she said she was staying with. Presumably if her mother called up the friend would come up with a predetermined cover story.
Staying with your boyfriend is complicated business for Taiwanese girls. And on the surface it seems unnecessarily so.
The most common reason I’ve found over here for the lies are that children (and by that I mean young women) seem to think their parents will disown them if they mention they are with a guy.
Now this in itself I can understand. If the stereotype is to believed Asian fathers are batshit crazy. I myself haven’t run into one but I can certainly sympathise.
If I ever have a daughter I’d probably find the fact that she’s out screwing her brains out with some guy a hard pill to swallow too. Still, reality is reality and as hard as it’d be I’d rather she was truthful. At least I’d know where she was.
What tends to happen in Taiwan is that the daughters will just flat out lie to their parents. Either out of ignorance or plain denial the parents seem all too willing to swallow any story their daughters throw at them.
I was on a date once and the mother called up five times demanding to know where her daughter was. Eventually we called off the date because she was running out of friends to cover for her.
Whilst I can deal with the lying what gets me are the long term effects of it. I know relatively speaking the mobile phone hasn’t been around for ages but surely Taiwanese parents aren’t that naive.
I mean they were young once too right?
It could be a face thing but seriously, has no parent ever just called out their child on the lies? I’m pretty sure when my Taiwanese ex-girlfriend from back in Australia went home a bit sweaty and smelling like my aftershave, that her mum didn’t for a second believe that she was at a friends house.
Yet she’d swallow the line and never challenge her daughter on her whereabouts. Much to my often at times sense of frustration, this game of Chinese whispers went on for the entire duration of the relationship.
After dating western blase open girls, it’s hard not to initially take a Taiwanese girls reluctance to tell her parents the truth as she’s ashamed of you. After a while you just accept it for what it is. At times I’d even appreciate the extraordinary planning efforts she’d go to just to spend time with me.
Of course regrettably I never told her that…
Still, it does feel a bit strange never meeting the parents or going over to their house. I guess that luxury doesn’t come until you’ve put a ring on someone’s finger.
What I find hilarious is that in twenty years time there will be a whole new generation of young girls lying to their parents. What’s more is whilst I can’t guarantee the current generation of parents were running around screwing their brains out and lying to their parents about it, the current generation of would-be parents in 5-10 years certainly are.
I mean what, do parents think all those love hotels and advertised short stay (1-3 hour) rates are exclusively for businessmen and their mistresses?
As it stands half of Taiwan’s girls seem to be living at home and lying to their parents about where they are half the time. The other half are lucky enough to be students living out of home and whilst they don’t have to lie so often, still tell their parents they spend all their time studying.
As a guy who’s enjoyed the freedom of living out of home in the west for nearly a decade it’s quite amusing to watch the cycle of Chinese whispers between mother and daughter self perpetuate.
March 13th, 2010 at 8:49 pm Steven(Quote)
Mate, I enjoy reading your posts and have been meaning to reply to a few of them. This one hits the nail right on the head.
I can’t say much about the girls lying to their parents, but I know the guys do it just as much. I’ve been dating a taiwanese guy here in Taipei for the past 3yrs, he’s 30yo still living at home, and each Saturday night, between 11 and 12 he has to call his mother to tell her some story about why he isn’t coming home.
Excuses range from things such as “going to the hotspring and staying overnight, trips to Taichung, and at KTV with coworkers”, etc. I really don’t see any end to these stories and it does make me wonder if he can lie to his parents so convincingly each week, how hard is it to lie to me about things also
btw i fully support your movements (pardon the pun) regarding the flushing of toilet paper instead of using the trash can. It’s a foul (pun #2) state of affairs when you walk into a bathroom and see it overflowing with used skidmarks. I also neglect to use the bin and flush everything down and if it gets stuffed up, so be it!
Keep up the blogging, i enjoy reading it
March 13th, 2010 at 9:14 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Gday Steven, glad your enjoying the posts. I’ve only been blogging for a few months about Taiwan now but I love any feedback from other people living here. I’m far from an expert on anything here (well except maybe beef noodles) so it’s nice to get feedback from other people living in Taiwan.
I’m just waiting for the day when my first impression about something I write about is completely off the mark and someone points it out to me
.
Good to hear it’s not just the girls doing it, although I was always under the impression that guys are relatively free to do whatever the hell they want here?
I couldn’t help but notice your comment was left under ‘Stephen’, are you a guy yourself? If so perhaps that’s why your partner goes to such efforts to hide things from his parents.
Also on that note more power to you! Coming from Australia I’ve noticed a distinct lack of represenation of a gay community here. I know gay Taiwanese people must exist but I never really seem to see them out and about. The only people that seem to hold hands and what not are the straight couples!
Totally hear you on the toilet paper thing although I have noticed that people tend to fold the skidmarks inward so I don’t have to look at them. No idea if this is taught by parents or in school but it seems to be pretty universal.
Doesn’t stop the smell though…!
March 15th, 2010 at 10:47 am Erica(Quote)
From my understanding of Taiwanese culture, it is very likely that your ex-girlfriend was just ashamed of you (my apology for saying this).
One of the many reasons that she refused to admit being with you and had to lie about it may well be the ugly truth that you are not what her parents were hoping for. Was she raised in Austraila or did she only move in her adulthood?
March 15th, 2010 at 12:53 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Hey Erica,
No apology needed as the thought had already crossed my mind at various times. I even brought it up with her occasionally.
She always told me no but I guess whatever the reason was it was kept between her and her family. Her mother had met me but I don’t know in what capacity she thought I was involved with her daughter in (she didn’t speak much english).
Having said that I had a decent enough job, I wasn’t a doctor, lawyer or dentist but I was financially independant and debt free… I guess it’s one of things I’ll never know for sure.
She came over here when she was 11 from memory. Lived her a few years with her aunt till her mother came over (father died when she was young).
March 15th, 2010 at 1:52 pm Erica(Quote)
ah ok. That explains quite a bit. She was raised in Australia so I’d assume she is not the typical taiwanese girl. Its somehow fascinating, she had introduced you to her mother but yet still needed to lie about it.
Just out of curiousity, is she a doctor or lawyer herself? Although I can understand that her mother might be somehow overprotected as her father died a while ago.
March 15th, 2010 at 2:03 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
She was/is studying Psychology, when we were together her plan was to open her own practice and treat children one day.
I’ve also considered the overprotective mother thing but seeing as I didn’t really know her that well couldn’t really put it down to that for sure.
Oh and definitely not the typical Taiwanese girl (or in a broader sense Asian girl born overseas) that we usually get in Australia. It was her open personality that attracted me to her in the first place. I’d never gone out with an Asian before, usually considered them too shy.
March 15th, 2010 at 2:11 pm Erica(Quote)
I guess it’s the complex situation of her family structure – e.g. overprotective mother.
You have plenty of opportunities now!
March 16th, 2010 at 1:56 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
Could very well be… but that doesn’t explain the sudden dissapearing act.
I’ve since sucked it up and put it down to one of those things I’ll just never know. I think about it from time to time but what can you do?
True but I have to get my mandarin polished up! WHY IS CHINESE SO FREAKING HARD TO LEARN!?!?
Like they have simplified chinese and traditional chinese in written form, someone needs to seriously come up with simplified chinese in the spoken form already.
March 16th, 2010 at 3:25 am Erica(Quote)
lol. Didn’t your ex-girlfriend teach you mandarin? you should ask her about it while you were together.
that disappearing part i’d say she just want to break up with you.
March 16th, 2010 at 5:03 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
I didn’t have any interest in learning at the time. Being here for so long though her Mandarin had become a bit broken over time. She could talk in it but from what I understood her grammar had gone a bit crap. She’d tell me people could understand her but she wasn’t speaking ‘correct’ Mandarin.
I guess sort of like we can understand people speaking in broken English.
Probably. Leaving the country sending nothing more then an sms message saying ‘forget about me’ is a pretty crappy way to do it though. She was the first person I seriously saw myself marrying and having a family with at some point.
And she was the one that brought all that up!
March 16th, 2010 at 7:30 am Erica(Quote)
so she is not in Australia anymore? thats interesting! Maybe the moving overseas is the key factor for breaking up.
March 16th, 2010 at 11:58 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
I’ve since learnt she’s overseas studying. This was a big relief as for a long time I simply had no idea what had happened. I thought she might have been sick, dead, some emergency happened etc. or something. It wasn’t the best feeling.
March 16th, 2010 at 12:48 pm Erica(Quote)
wow. you actually thought she was dead??? some grudge you held there. lol
March 16th, 2010 at 2:21 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Wasn’t a grudge, she had some pretty complicated health problems. She used to talk about that if she ever got too sick she’d leave me because she went through her father’s death and didn’t want to put someone else through that. I said I’d always stick by her no matter how sick she got.
Her health problems were stable as far as I knew when she dissappeared but I thought maybe she’d taken a turn for the worse and this was her putting her plan into action. At the time I didn’t know what to think because it was so sudden and there was no communication.
March 16th, 2010 at 3:22 pm Erica Chen(Quote)
so you decided you move to Taiwan? that’s quite a story!
March 16th, 2010 at 5:32 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
I decided to move to Taiwan sometime in June/July and started to put the plan in motion. I didn’t come here looking for her but part of the reason was to perhaps gain a better understanding culturally of what the hell happened.
Main reasons I moved were as a single guy I was sick of paying for Mr. and Mrs. bogans 10 kids with my taxes and seeing nothing for it, I wanted to learn Mandarin and in general I just don’t like the way Australia is going.
At that stage I had no idea what had happened to her or where she was. I’d kind of accepted I wasn’t going to find out (she knew how to contact me if she wanted to know) so as hard as it was I left it at that.
Wasn’t easy but that’s life.
I found out she was studying over in the US about a week before I left for Taiwan. It was a massive relief to find out that at least she was ok. I just wish she’d told earlier me instead of me finding out months later via a 3rd party.
March 17th, 2010 at 2:41 am Erica(Quote)
perhaps she couldn’t tell you or something. maybe she moved because of family pressure and all. it is possible that she had her difficulties. Now that you are in TW you know about the culture and how girls had to lie so I guess you would appreciated your ex girlfriend a bit more?
March 17th, 2010 at 3:28 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
I’m not saying she didn’t have difficulties or that leaving was a walk in the park either, just that I think she could have at least told me something.
Telling someone who loves you to just forget about you and then dissappearing over the next few days (as in disconnecting your mobile number, quitting your job and leaving your house) is like a massive kick in the balls. I seriously remember going out of my mind those first weeks with worry.
I’ve had a few ‘ah so that’s why that was’ moments since I’ve been here. I guess the more i learn hopefully the more will make some sort of sense.
Phew, I hadn’t intended for this post to get so personal!
March 17th, 2010 at 5:01 am Erica(Quote)
um well, thats not very nice of her by disappearing like that i guess.
oh im sorry Oz, no more personal comment!
March 17th, 2010 at 12:41 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Ah it’s ok. I started it by injecting a personal tone into the article itself.
I guess people are going to be curious. I don’t mind sharing.
March 17th, 2010 at 1:55 pm Erica(Quote)
ehe. thanks for sharing. I do think it’s a very touching story though. Perhaps you can write an article about it one day, only if you are up for it of course.
March 17th, 2010 at 4:07 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Not sure what context the story would come under as a stand alone article. It might make for good reading but I think it would still be more of a personal entry then something I could publish under a larger context.
Still the more I write over time more of my personal experience will come out in my work I guess. Sharing is easy, thanks for reading!
March 19th, 2010 at 11:56 am yi(Quote)
sorry to break up the erica/oz conversation rally. i think that people’s view on relationship/marriage/sex etc change every generation. when it’s our turn to become parents i would like to think that i would be more open minded as my parents were. samething may apply with OZ’s Ex, when she is a mother and has a daughter she may be a bit more opened minded.
March 19th, 2010 at 4:15 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Man if the current generation of parents are open minded and think their daughters are all virgins running around at age twenty something, what the hell were their parents like?!
March 20th, 2010 at 2:38 pm Rolls(Quote)
Well this may be extreme or uncommon compared to what we are used to, but it reminds me of a few incidents concerning seriously anglo Aussies.
Item; girlfriend was drying dishes for her mother during a home visit. Said 27yo g/f had been in at least three long term relationships before me , yet mom was still able to remark that “at least I know you will go to the altar a virgin”. She later told me it was all she could do not to drop the dish she was drying.
Item; sister of a friend who was actually engaged to marry her b/f in a few months, same scene washing dishes. She tells mom they are going camping with another (unmarried) couple. Ends up mom demanding that the girls and boys each sleep together or “the wedding is off – you must promise”. She promised. “So…what did you do?” I asked. “I lied” she said, “what would you say to someone who told you she was so glad that she was able to have two such wonderful children, and only had to do … it … five times?”.
Item; female friend told me her mother blundered in on her and her b/f while they were hard at it (but under a blanket). Later gave her a serious talking to about “heavy petting” and how it could too easily get out of control and lead to “other things” unless she continued to be careful. “Heavy petting?” she guffored to me as she fell about.
Even when confronted by the bleedin’ obvious some mothers and fathers go into a totally irrational denial, just not see what they did see, or refuse to accept the possibility of eager consent.
In the 60′s and 70′s girls pretended not to know what a condom was, but if a guy had one it was most likely to be a taken as a presumption or expectation of sex that would extinguish any such prospects, not a sign of forethought, caution, consideration.
By the 90′s condom vending machines in women’s toilets were outselling the ones in the men’s by over 7-to-1. {in a past life I was one of the people who got these machines into washrooms at all}
When some TV programme fronted young women at clubs seven out of ten were carrying packs of condoms in their bags.
The mid line of what is “responsible sex(uality)” may have shifted, but there are still extremes, normally denial, to be found all over the place.
March 22nd, 2010 at 2:49 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Hey Roly long time no see!
Thanks for sharing those experiences. I guess it does happen around the world in most cultures but it just seems to be overbearingly prevailent in Taiwan (and I guess other Asian countries).
Back home some people are indeed caught in the circle of lying to their parents but there’s also your fair share of people who are just open about it, especially those in their 20′s.
Here I’ve found all of the local girls so far wouldn’t be caught dead telling their parents what they get up to! And forget about kinky bedroom acrobatics, I’m talking about on a basic level ‘so I’m having lunch with a guy’ kind of stuff.
July 7th, 2010 at 4:47 pm D(Quote)
Hey, a second (fourth?) opinion here… well, actually not an opinion but a sharing of perspectives.
I definitely did a lot of the subterfuge growing up… even now, actually, I tell my parents absolutely nothing of what I do. Honestly? I really don’t think they want to know. So we play the game.
At this point I’d be somewhat embarrassed to have any sort of discussion on it. If I show them photos of my life and work, I carefully edit out or put aside any photos that have just one male and me. Especially if there were several (like I was dating the guy at the time.)
And… I think they definitely were innocents, at least a generation ago, I’d believe it. Even my Taiwanese cousin who was engaged had separate bedrooms with her fiance in her brother’s house (we were in California away from parents.) and she was convincingly embarrassed by our bridal shower gifts.
Different culture I guess. And slow to change. It will. Give it time. I’d say at least another generation and a half.
-D
July 8th, 2010 at 4:34 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
Out of curiosity are you Taiwanese?
Thanks for the insight… your cousin sounds like a whole new ballgame of repressed
. I can just see her going wide eyed and red faced at the bridal shower gifts lol.
August 30th, 2010 at 8:36 pm Ralb38(Quote)
Hm… I must say, this sounds exactly like my situation. I come from a very strict Taiwanese background but have lived in Oz since I was very young. Hence, I have both Eastern & Western cultures but my parents are still very traditional.
This doesn’t stop me from dating Oz guys my parents would not accept in a million yrs (not because of their race or the colour of their skin but because they don’t meet certain parental criterias). It just means I date them in secret.
I have yet to figure out what I’ll do when they do eventually find out or I want more out of life than just dating.
August 31st, 2010 at 3:23 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
Whatever you decide on, don’t just vanish and leave the poor guy wondering. Back home I’ve been on the receiving end of that stick and it’s mental hell.
September 2nd, 2010 at 3:03 pm Wen Xing(Quote)
mate nice blog,
November 27th, 2011 at 1:41 am Isabelle(Quote)
nice one
i think i can understand why the girls had to lie to their parents in some occation(since i am one of them)
the relationship between parents and children are complicate in taiwan,parents in taiwan think children are some kind of asset,u reley on them when ur old
i am 17 now and i never really go to “have some fun” with any of my girlfriends without lying，and i hate that,but my mother will kill me if she knows the turth(not to metion seeing anybody)
parents here r control-freaks
by the way,do people in western culture consider themselves a purde or unpopular if they’re still a virgin at 17?
November 27th, 2011 at 1:43 am Isabelle(Quote)
what r bridal shower gifts
November 27th, 2011 at 5:55 am ausGeoff(Quote)
Difficult to answer even from a westerner’s viewpoint…
At age 17 in Australia, lots of males and females are not virgins, but those that are aren’t necessarily considered prudish, or suffer unpopularity solely because of it.
Often it’s something that’s not discussed at any great depth by teenagers, but at the same time certain presumptions are made about the sexual status of one’s peer group. Often though, those presumptions are incorrect — as a result of simple untruths, or calculated misdirection.
It’s hard to determine the sexual status of (older) teenagers here because surveys are often skewed — by the necessary personal nature of the “virginity question” — and also because of the reluctance of many teens (particularly males) to answer honestly.
From a personal perspective, I can’t really see that the age at which one loses their virginity is of any importance — and is most certainly nobody else’s business.
As a matter of interest, the minimum and maximum average ages globally range from 15.6 years in Iceland to 19.8 in India. In the USA it’s 17.3 years for females, and 17 for males.
November 27th, 2011 at 1:50 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
@Isabelle
Being 17 now, do you plan on having kids in the next 2 decades?
Knowing what goes on – how do you think you’ll respond as a mother to the lying game that currently goes on between mother and daughter here?
I can’t speak on behalf of ‘western culture’ but unless you’re stupidly religious, nobody would bat an eyelid if you were still a virgin at 17 and vice-versa if you weren’t.
21+ and you might get a few raised eyebrows but probably 23-25 or so if when the real rib poking would start.
Note that this is different for girls and guys. 25 for a girl and you’d just assume she was a prude, career slave or something. 25 for a guy and you’d just assume he was some fugly social retard.
When some people get married they have a bachelor and hens party. Some people give gifts to the bride when they come to her hens party. Gifts for the bride before she gets married.