Living abroad is an endeavor mired in faith. Who among us didn’t wonder on the plane: how we would survive when we landed in an alien culture that speaks in an unfamiliar tongue? How does one find a store or restaurant when one can’t read a sign? How does one procure assistance when one can’t speak the language?
Yes, xpats are a unique strain of anthropoid. We all have, at least at one point in our lives had, the voluminous self-assurance that it takes to fling oneself halfway around the globe and plunk oneself down in the thick of an alien culture. Anyone who chooses this difficult and foreboding path must be: just plain stupid, fleeing a disagreeable life, or have a high degree of faith in himself.
Indeed, faith is an integral part of the xpat experience — not only referring to faith in oneself. Many xpats here in Taiwan are forced, when facing the most dire of circumstances, to place their faith in an organism larger than they are.
This point was made grossly apparent to me by an incident that occurred on Halloween.
I was hanging out on the patio at a bar in Kaohsiung dressed up as a Taiwanese schoolgirl drinking banana daiquiris and fighting off a group of Chinese guys who were too drunk to tell the difference between a hairy girl and a foreign transvestite.
Suddenly I heard a shout and a thud. Everybody moved toward the edge of the balcony to see where the noise had come. A girl had fallen off the stairs onto the concrete landing; she was laying on the ground unconscious. An acquaintance of mine, a former first-aid instructor, rushed to her side to brace her neck. The girl wouldn’t wake up. An ambulance was called.
The ambulance arrived. The guitar player from the band, who speaks fluent Chinese, leapt into the back of the vehicle with the girl and began rattling off the story of what happened to the ambulance crew. With the guitar player still inside, the ambulance cranked up the sirens and wailed off into the night.
A short time later the party ended. The same busses that we’d come to Kaohsiung on began departing to return partygoers to Tainan. I got on the last bus. A Tainan businessman boarded the bus before it departed and announced that he was looking for the injured girl’s friends. He needed to find them right away to tell them which hospital she was in before they were bussed back to Tainan.
They weren’t on our bus so he ran off to continue searching. Our bus left. Fifteen minutes later a cab pulled up beside the bus and waved it over. The businessman got on and sat next to me.
”Did you find them?” I inquired.
”Yeah.” He responded with disgust. “But they didn’t care. They just went home.”
I was repulsed. Three friends of mine, none of whom had ever met the girl before, rushed to her assistance when she needed it, while her ‘friends’ abandoned her in a strange city, in a hospital without bedside care, with injuries the extent of which nobody knew.
At that moment I realized how few people I could count on in this country if I found myself in a similar bind. Like many others, I came here with only one other person and we don’t even talk to each other anymore. I’ve made friends, but how good are those friends? Who among these people, whom I’ve known for only a matter of months, could I ask to spend days caring for me; changing my bandages; emptying my catheter; and bathing me if I were to be so maimed?
When most xpats arrive in Taiwan they count on others to help them: to show them where to buy cheese; to tell them about the apartment for rent in their building; to teach them how to say “ting bu dong”. We all rely on the community for the things we need here to build a life. That girl, when she fell from the balcony, was forced to place her faith in the community. She had to rely on it for her life.
And in the end, thanks to the swift benevolence of strangers, she came out fine.
Few xpats have family in this country, so when situations arise where family usually steps in to shoulder an unforeseen burden, the xpat will usually find himself amidst a plethora of amiable strangers, but precious few dedicated friends.
As cheesy as it sounds, we all are family here. We must act as each other’s brothers and sisters; mothers and fathers; aunts and uncles — for we are all forced into closer relations when we lack family ties and are pitted against the obstacles of language and cultural incongruence.
So, the next time you see a wide-eyed Taiwan rookie wandering aimlessly down the street; a stranger in an accident; or an xpat falling over drunk in an alley, remember: they may not have anyone to help them — anyone but you.
Take Care,
Salvatore Paradisio |
