在台灣 24 年了但我剛來台灣的時候真的很討厭這裡超級討厭｜外國在臺灣｜Living in Taiwan as a foreigner

For me Taiwan, in my mind, it was this kind of like huge factory. When I first arrived in Taiwan I hated it. I absolutely hated it and I wanted to go back to England. I was living with my mum, had no car. When I first arrived I was in this tiny little like shared room in Taipei. It was raining, cold and wet and I was really hungry and I was walking around the street. Many Taiwanese people would stop and just stare at you and that was my first meal in Taiwan and I just thought this sucks. My name's David Coles. I come from England, a place called Gosport in between Southampton and and in Taiwan I work in Montessori in education. Let's go back memory lane. Why did you choose to come to Taiwan? 24 years ago I traveled around the world and a large part of that was in Asia. I found myself in a taxi in Malaysia, a little town called Kota Bharu and I was traveling to a port to get a ferry to an island and I shared that taxi with a South African guy. Never met him before, we just were going in the same direction. He told me he was a teacher trainer here in Taiwan and by the end of the taxi ride he'd offered me a job to come over to Taiwan and teach English. But then six months later I returned back to the UK. I'd spent all my money traveling. I was living with my mum, had no car and the thought of going back to my management career, it wasn't very appealing after experiencing, you know, independence traveling around the world. So I found that card, looked it up online, applied for a job and then a few weeks later I was here in Taiwan. That was, yeah, 23 years ago now. I knew very little. For me Taiwan was, in my mind, it was this kind of like huge factory because in England everything at that time you just turned it upside down and looked to the bottom it said made in Taiwan. I knew it was an island. I had no idea about the people here. I had very little idea about the language. I knew they spoke Mandarin and they had their own sort of dialect, Taiwanese. Even though I traveled around Asia a lot, I never actually met anyone that had been to Taiwan apart from that teacher trainer Not knowing much about Taiwan and you just came in, could you take us through your first wow experience to the point where you found your feet? When I first arrived in Taiwan I hated it. I absolutely hated it and I wanted to go back to England. It wasn't so much about my experience in Taiwan. It was about having left the UK for over a year traveling then returning to my family and my friends but then literally weeks later leaving again for at least another year. I was very very homesick. When I first arrived I was in this tiny little like shared room in Taipei. It was raining. It was it reminded me of England and it was cold and wet and I was really hungry and I was walking around the street and everything was in Chinese. There wasn't much English on the menus so all I could do was like point and nod and I just remember I came across a stall um where they were selling like uh where you you have a little basket and you select all your like little things like uh mushrooms and yeah where they sell jipai that kind of place and I remember just like what is that and I just didn't recognize a lot of the stuff so I remember pointing to the french fries and maybe the mushrooms and I don't know maybe a corn and that was my first meal in Taiwan and I just thought this sucks and I really wanted to go home um but then I just told myself okay give it give it another week give it one more week um give it one month and if it's really that bad I can just hit back and I did and almost instantly the next well the next day I started to meet people um walking around the streets people started to talk to me and they were very friendly and I actually moved to Jilong my first place where I worked was in Jilong and in Jilong there were very few foreigners at that time so as you walk around many Taiwanese people would stop and just stare at you and I found that very sort of uncomfortable in the beginning but quickly kind of got used to it and then eventually found other foreigners in that area and started to yeah build make contacts and make friends and then through them make more friends and then suddenly when you have that connection that human connection everything changed yeah that's the day similar happens to me when I came I think for the first three months I think literally I cried you know in my bed cried but I don't know why am I here right no because I couldn't eat anything all that I could eat was McDonald's yes so every day after when I started interacting with the other international students we had a soccer team okay so I started playing soccer with them and I started settling down and calm and started feeling like home or something but before that literally I cried at night that I want to go home the two main differences between the way of life oh the way of life between Taiwanese and the British in the UK things are much more slower the pace of life is slower children for example have much more free time they go to school they start school later they have more recess times they finish school earlier and then after school they tend to go home rather than in Taiwan where they're in school much longer each day after school they then go to these like cram schools or bushi ban for extra English or extra Chinese or extra math so children get very little time to really work out who they are what they want to do you know because they're they're constantly busy they never really get time to be bored also I think one thing I've noticed in Taiwan when children are struggling at school in a certain area say for example math the parents will then spend a lot of money and time for those children to take extra classes in math to raise their math ability so in England when children show strength in something that's where all the resources go instead of trying to raise all these weaknesses why not go for like identify what the strength is and then just let them go with that strength focus on the strength rather than the weaknesses so I think that's that's one one difference the other one family in Taiwan and this is one thing I really really do admire about Taiwanese culture is the extended family different generations lived together in Taiwan so you could have like the kids the parents the grandparents potentially even the great-grandparents all in the same house and taking care of the elderly meeting their needs is mostly done by the the family whereas in the UK this burden is pushed to the state in the UK we pay a lot of money in tax and insurance ultimately so that when we are old the government can then take care of our needs our health needs our social needs whereas I prefer the way it is in Taiwan where the family takes on that that responsibility so what part of Taiwanese culture you find most interesting something that's always been interesting to me is the culture here of queuing just on any given day walk around the city or wherever and you see a long queue outside of a restaurant or a store or something as a Montessori teacher I'm very used to observing so things like this will get my attention and standing there watching observing you do see more and more people join that queue but you don't after like you know a little bit more careful observation you realize some of these people actually don't know what they're queuing for but the queue itself seems to create demand for the product or service that's on offer so it's almost like the longer the queue the more value the product and that's always been fascinating to me because there could be another restaurant right next door selling almost identical food for example and no one's there no one's eating it yet you could go straight in and order and get served straight away and and have your lunch and then leave whereas if you join the queue you could be there for an hour two hours even three hours that's always been very fascinating to me. What advice would you give to anyone who wishes to come to Taiwan? Traffic. Taiwan as friendly as Taiwanese can be and as generous and as kind as they can be from my experience once they're behind the steering wheel with the blackened out windows you see a different side they can be very aggressive on the road having said that since living here and driving here being aggressive on the road is actually in many ways a safer approach because if you are you know letting everyone out all the time you've got everyone behind you you know beeping potentially crashing into the back of you so you do need to have some degree of aggressiveness but I think that's something you kind of need to be prepared for. I come from England in England people follow the rules on the road people give way on the road however in Taiwan it's a little bit chaotic but I guess there is some organization to the chaos but yeah that's definitely something to be aware of. I used to work in recruitment at the end of the interviews teachers maybe they're preparing to come to Taiwan to teach for a year I would always say to them Taiwan's one of the few countries in the world where you need to look both ways when you cross a one-way street so yeah traffic is definitely a big one. So if you had to change anything in Taiwan what would it be? Education for sure education so I worked in recruitment before I've also worked in career coaching and in that line of work I tried to help and advise mostly university graduates on getting work with international companies I did this for quite a few years and a lot of these candidates they look fantastic on paper they really do like the academic achievements are phenomenal but when it comes down to the soft skills like the interpersonal skills and just the lack of eye contact for example it's it's quite worrying and I think this is not going in the right direction I think this is getting worse so in my from my experience I feel that this is largely the result of the education system in Taiwan that's focus on almost sole focus on academics instead of the whole development of children problem solving critical thinking negotiation all these kind of things do not come from academics they come from play they come through socialization they come through exploration and experience and I just worry that the lack of that in Taiwan for children Taiwan's competitiveness in the world in my opinion is going to it's going to struggle some it's a tough one so if I could change anything it would be to revamp the whole education system here and let children have a childhood. Montessori is it common in Taiwan? It's becoming more and more popular I think in Taiwan parents are trying to seek alternatives to the current system education system in Taiwan and Montessori is one of these alternatives. So would you give us a quick description what's the biggest difference between Montessori and this ordinary well-known education system? One way the difference was explained to me when I first started learning about Montessori is that Montessori is a common sense approach to education ultimately what Montessorians do is to follow and to meet the needs of the children and it's really that simple is to meet the needs of the children and children have all the all the potential everything is there it's just a case of sort of creating the right environment guiding them and allowing that that potential just to to come out and to flourish and it's I mean for me the highlight of this kind of this line of work is seeing children come into the classroom every day with that spark in their eye just ready to to find out new things to experiment to experience things themselves not have someone tell them something for them to remember all right all his links will be in the description below let's go check it out okay and do you have anything else to tell Taiwanese people? My advice to Taiwanese people is advice I should follow myself which is to slow down you know take a step back just especially with parenting we all want the best for our children and everything we do comes from a good place even like screaming and scolding a child it comes from a good place because we want children to stop doing something bad but sometimes we we actually do a bit too much we we tend we micromanage too much whereas what could actually be not just an alternative but a much better alternative is to just stand back and observe children let them be bored let them be innovative and creative like children especially like 6 to 12 years old they it's almost like a superpower it's their imagination imagination yeah but we don't they don't get to use it you know it's such a shame don't organize so much when they're bored don't find something for them to do let them come up with it themselves and just watch observe what they do and you'll be you'll be amazed of course we can be there we can guide we can help but try not to be so hands-on just step back and enjoy thank you very much for giving us your time and sharing your life experience living in Taiwan and hope you continue to enjoy your stay here in Taiwan thank you it's been a pleasure thank you thank you thank please don't forget to let us know what part of the video we can improve and see you in my next video your computer deserves the best protection don't wait until it's too late protect your files your privacy and your future with so soft one click the link below in the description to get yours and stay one step ahead of hackers