A survey on potential net migration conducted by US-based Gallup Market Research last year showed that Taiwan ranked 91st among the 148 countries surveyed, with a score of minus 21 percent, indicating that 21 percent of the country’s population was interested in moving abroad if they had a chance.
Taiwan ranked behind regional neighbors, such as Singapore (plus 20.9 percent, the highest score in the survey), Malaysia (plus 23 percent), Japan (plus 1 percent), Thailand (minus 1 percent), Indonesia (minus 5 percent) and China (minus 6 percent) in the latest Potential Net Migration Index.
Many longtime expatriates in Taiwan have no problem identifying some of the blemishes that may have hurt the country in the survey, but they also tend to offer praise for their adopted homeland.
One of them is an “elder stateswoman” of the Taiwanese foreign community.
“I became a Taiwanese a long time ago,” said Doris Brougham of the US and founder of the English teaching program Studio Classroom.
Born in Seattle, Washington in 1926, Brougham came to Taiwan in 1951 as part of a Christian mission and started her career as an English teacher in Taiwan in 1962.
Since then, many local residents have come to regard her as their “lifelong English teacher.”
In an interview with Chinese-language monthly magazine CNA Newsworld, Brougham said it has been the kindness of Taiwanese that has made the greatest impression on her.
Michael Wendel, a baker from Germany who came to Taiwan in 1996 at the age of 26 and opened Wendel’s German Bakery and Bistro in Taipei three years later, has the same affinity for people here and describes Taiwan as “my -second homeland.”
“I had only planned to stay here for two years,” Wendel said, but he never returned home.
Asked what kept him here, the man who introduced German cuisine and bread to rice-eating Taiwanese said the people here are kind and willing to learn new things, and they treat acquaintances like members of their family.
“There is no place that treats strangers as kindly as Taiwan does,” he said.
In the eyes of Brougham, there is little wrong with Taiwan, though as an animal lover, she noted that the nation was not always friendly to animals. However, even that has changed for the better, she said.
Wendel’s main issue has been with traffic. In the 14 years he has been here, the streets have become cleaner, he said, but many motorbike riders continue to ignore traffic signals.
Coming from a country that is orderly and respects laws, Wendel said Taiwan would be better off without its prevailing “close enough is good enough” attitude.
Cheryl Robbins of the US, a freelance writer who has lived in Taiwan for nearly 21 years, echoed Wendel’s view.
Robbins is the co-author of a book titled The Real Taiwan and the Dutch: Traveling Notes from the Netherlands Representative, a collaboration with the former Netherlands representative to Taiwan Menno Goedhart. The book was published in April last year in both Chinese and English in Taipei.
Her extensive writing about the nation has given her a nuanced, though largely positive view of Taiwan, and she said she could not imagine living anywhere else.
“Taiwan is a very dynamic place and that is one of the many aspects that appeals to me,” she said. “There is never a dull moment. That is the freedom of Taiwan, to be able to choose your own lifestyle.”
She described Taiwanese society as being extremely tolerant of different lifestyles and religions.
“I still remember attending the opening of the Museum of World Religions in Taipei many years ago. The thought that ran through my mind was that Taiwan is one of the few places where such a museum can exist,” she wrote.
However, if there is one overriding frustration for expatriates living in Taiwan, Robbins said, it is the existence of a kind of “us and them” mentality that may actually be holding Taiwan back.
“For example, in Hong Kong and Singapore, foreigners are not seen as different in terms of the type of job they can hold. They can work in business, media, health, tourism, education, etc,” she said.
“In Taiwan, there is the assumption that Westerners can only teach English, edit English and translate Chinese into English. They are put in a very small box in terms of their career choices,” Robbins said.
Taiwan should allow Westerners, who have diverse skill sets, out of this box if it truly wants to be an international society, she said.
Robbins also took aim at other frustrations, such as having trouble buying a car or a cellphone in her own name even with permanent residence status, but ultimately, she said, they were outweighed by other positive attributes.
To Association des Francais de Taiwan president Dominique Levy, who came to Taiwan from France in 1982 and has lived here ever since, the nation has captured his heart in a different way.
“Taipei sometimes reminds me of Paris, the one when I was still a child,” Levy said.
At that time Paris was pleasant because the neighbors were kind and close to each other, but now the city is crowded with tourists and a sense of detachment prevails, Levy said.
The reasons for coming to Taiwan vary with the individual, but Brougham, Wendel, Robbins and Levy, along with foreign diplomats Goedhart and Sweden’s former representative to Taiwan Henrik Bystrom, who retired from their posts last year, all found reasons to stay, even if they believe the country has room to improve.
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