I think someone else mentioned it, but you're going to run into a TON of Japanese influences if you go to Taiwan.

Maybe my story is unique but -> my mom is Taiwanese. Her parents are Taiwanese too and were born there (my grandparents).

At the time that Japan was colonizing Asia, they were worried Japan would invade. That was when my grandparents were younger. They moved to Japan for high school to avoid being bombed, learned the language fluently, and my grandfather went to Tokyo University. He met my grandmother in Japan and they got married.

Eventually they moved back to Taiwan to have kids, but as a result my mom had a ton of Japanese cultural influence and often went to Japan as a kid.

She doesn't speak Japanese fluently like my grandparents, but I often tell people when asked what ethnicity I am that I am Taiwanese, but with Japanese influences. My mom is more Japanese than Taiwanese, really. She speaks Taiwanese dialect but that is pretty much the only Chinese thing I know about her.

That's my interesting story . The point is that a lot of Taiwanese people, especially older ones, will have a lot of Japanese influence.

Forgot about this thread, but just to keep everyone up to date: plane tickets are booked, I'm moving to Taiwan on June 1st (6 weeks time).

First hard choice - I've decided to complete giving up Japanese, and 100% dedicate my study time to mandarin. Yes I've spent 2.5 years learning this language, but I didn't really spend that much time on it, and I didn't make great progress. Figure I can always pick it up again at a later date if I really want to, but it's still really hard letting go..

Second hardest thing is getting rid of all my stuff! Have no where to store stuff, so desperately deciding what to sell and keep. Basically going to sell 90% of possesions, and just take laptop, ipod touch, kindle3G (newly bought) and clothes...that's it.

Will keep some sort of blog on what's going on, will link it on here when I start.

Thanks to all the replies btw, you really helped me make up my mind

Good luck. ^^ Do you have a plan what you'll do about career now then?

I hope one day my girlfriend can take the plunge you did. D:

Good luck with the new adventure. I had a cousin who lived in Taiwan for a few years and taught English, and absolutely loved it. Learning kanji will help with traditional hanzi, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.

And good luck getting rid of the stuff. Reminds me that I should really roll up my sleeves and clear out my house soon-ish. Stuff turns into crap way too fast, really.

dizmox Wrote:Good luck. ^^ Do you have a plan what you'll do about career now then?

Inital plan is to find a part-time English teaching job in a school, and spend rest of time studying Mandarin. Will also keep an eye on programming/sysadmin jobs, but not massively hopeful due to lack of language skills..

Will also work on iPhone games projects in my spare time, if I can find the motivation..

rich_f Wrote:Good luck with the new adventure. I had a cousin who lived in Taiwan for a few years and taught English, and absolutely loved it. Learning kanji will help with traditional hanzi, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.

That's true - though I'm considering starting RtH from scratch. Should be easy with such a huge cross-over of characters.

rich_f Wrote:And good luck getting rid of the stuff. Reminds me that I should really roll up my sleeves and clear out my house soon-ish. Stuff turns into crap way too fast, really.

Yeh true! 30 years worth of stuff going, it's actually quite liberating!

Thinking of offering all of my Japanese media to UK peeps on this forum - expect a thread on that soon..

Dear aphasiac!

I wish you good luck on your journey into the 'east'. It is indeed a pity you will stop learning Japanese, which you did 2.5 years, even if you didn't concentrate much on it or spent much time. Perhaps you manage to do it parallely to Mandarin, as Khatz did? You will have to see. It was really motivating knowing that there is another user who uses core2k and that we are about the same level. I deeply hope you will find at least time reviewing this anki deck also in future in Taiwan. As already written above, knowing the kanji is a huge plus and in your case I wouldn't fear the hanzi, man! (fear the grammar.. see Japanese' grammar is much more complicated and has a lots of nuances. kanji were a piece of cake with Heisig haha).

Seriously good luck man. I will visit you after I had a bath in Fukushima's radiating ocean XD

hokaidogirl Wrote:I've never tried going abroad yet, But I used to transfer from one city to another. And it's not an easy thing, it's an ordeal but I was able to live for 3 years now in a different city.

Language is very important especially when you are in a foreign land but like all things "it can be learned". And for your job??? It does not matter if you are a graduate of any degree or not, for as long as you're eager to work, you can get the job that you want especially that you are an IT.

I hope I am not too late.

I am a noob here trying to learn Japanese just because I am studying a contrastive analysis for two languages and I might be going to Hokaido, Japan pretty soon. So you are not alone. You will learn to acquire the Language.

so Go go go.

Why Hokkaido, out of curiosity?

So since I last updated this thread I've sold all my worldly possessions, chucked the rest, and now here I am sitting in Heathrow airport waiting for my flight to Taipei.

Still have no plan of what to do there, but I have my PS3, laptop, Kindle and my copy of Remembering the Traditional Hanzi in my luggage, so imagine it'll be a mix of learning chinese and wasting time.

Maybe I should start a blog or something, otherwise I'll keep updating here..

Quite excited now! hope this was the right choice!

glglglglglglgl!!!

i'm sure you'll have a great time!!! yeah, definitely, get a camera & start a blog!

Yeow. Good luck! If you decide to do a blog with your Chinese progress, make sure you update your profile with the link.

So, i already landed a teaching job and a 1 year working visa.

Funny thing is, the job is only 8 hours a week, yet I'm earning 2/3 of the salary of a full time Taiwanese college graduate (and full time means 6 days a week here). I was offered the job before i even sat down at the "interview" - it seriously pays to be white + blonde + blue eyed out in Asia

Other than that, its awesome - everything is insanely cheap compared to UK. We eat out every meal, beer is like 60p a can, petrol and public transport is nothing. Only expensive things are clothes and electronics. My ps3 somehow died on the plane, so only have internet to amuse myself. Only issues are its bloody hot, and cockroaches / gheckos constantly invade the house. Oh and NO-ONE speaks English..

Oh yeh, huge japanese influence in Taiwan - japanese clothes and shops everywhere, and a few tv channels. Lots of cute sh#t - for example, everyone has stupidly cute dogs. Also big links with Korea - but they hate mainland china.

One interesting thing - I can confirm the "charisma man" effect is alive and well here - everytime i see a male foreigner, no matter how unattractive, he's with some stunning hot young Taiwanese girl. Its absolutely ridiculous! All the white girls i see are alone though, or with middle aged white guys..sorry ladies.

Anyway keep meaning to start a proper blog, but im too lazy! will keep updates in this thread till i find the motivation.

Sounds like you've landed on your feet with that job

pudding cat Wrote:Sounds like you've landed on your feet with that job

Pure luck to be honest. Got it through a junior school friend on my girlfriends.

Thing is, English teaching is still big here, and cost of living cheap so its easy to make a comfortable wage (as long as you look the part!), but its poor compared to what i can make in the UK. Also I should mention that I'm lucky (and sort of unlucky) that I can afford to work part-time, as dont have to pay rent, as I'm living at my girlfriends parents place.

They dont actually live here, but they sure like to visit alot - like twice a day. Reminds me of that sitcom 'Everybody Loves Raymond'..

Glad to hear you having a nice time in Taiwan, aphasiac! I wish you lots of successes in your Mandarin studies and I guess your girlfriend will help you out a lot concerning that.
I wonder just how your parents and friends reacted in the UK when you told them about your plans going to Taiwan. After I graduated from school here, I'd like to take a month or two off before I decide on what to study finally and go to Tokyo or another place in Japan (former is better, since I'd have a flat there already) in order to get my Japanese more stable and experience another world and culture far away from Germany.
I'm soon turning 18 (12th July), but I suppose the fact I'm 18 would make my parents accept my decision as an adult, though, which makes me feel a bit acerbated and like a child, to be honest. まあまあ～

Tori-kun Wrote:Glad to hear you having a nice time in Taiwan, aphasiac! I wish you lots of successes in your Mandarin studies and I guess your girlfriend will help you out a lot concerning that.

Thanks! yeh having a native gf is damn useful - it's like having a constant living dictionary at your disposal..

Tori-kun Wrote:I wonder just how your parents and friends reacted in the UK when you told them about your plans going to Taiwan.

Friends and family all reacted in the same way - they were sad to see me go, but also excited for me.
Now in the world of Skype and Facebook, it doesn't make such a huge difference anyway..!

Tori-kun Wrote:After I graduated from school here, I'd like to take a month or two off before I decide on what to study finally and go to Tokyo or another place in Japan (former is better, since I'd have a flat there already) in order to get my Japanese more stable and experience another world and culture far away from Germany.

You should definitely do it!! I did a gap year between highschool and uni, and yeh was great to have a break from academia, get my head straight and earn some money. Actually alot of brits do this..

Tori-kun Wrote:I'm soon turning 18 (12th July), but I suppose the fact I'm 18 would make my parents accept my decision as an adult, though, which makes me feel a bit acerbated and like a child, to be honest. まあまあ～

Honestly it's slightly different as you're 17 and I'm 30 with savings / a career, but all I can say is, I wish I did this earlier! Trust me just do it, no regrets, just tell your parents you gotta grow up sometime! Sounds like you have a girl in Japan who will help look after you? Maybe use that as an extra bargaining tool

What i can tell you is that they do not endorse nor appreciate my interest in japanese culture and language. If i go, i would not need to come back.

Tori-kun Wrote:What i can tell you is that they do not endorse nor appreciate my interest in japanese culture and language. If i go, i would not need to come back.

Wow man thats harsh. maybe theyre just worried this hobby will affect your studies and career in the long term? You could still visit japan over the summer without affecting that!

This kind of family discouragement has been discussed before, in this thread. Sorry if you've already read or posted in it, but it might help:

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=1762&page=1

Somehow it seems my parents are in a way that conservative that it leads to racial issues. They wouldn't appreciate my "half-Japanese" girlfriend either and would mess up with her often. Well, I'm just 17, soon turning 18, and some of you could claim that my parents just want the best for me. But it's different; I recognise that I have a different understanding of intellect and interests, how this world works and so on. They don't want to discuss about that matter to me (because they know they have no 'punch'-argument that's plausible, well argumented, justified and persuasive!).
Learning Japanese is just a hobby. In the beginning I started, because I had to much time and didn't want to end up as an otaku watching tons of animes of every kind daily. I discovered Japanese a wonderful language; you could achieve fluency by intensive learning and effords. I'm such a person. I would play one and the same tact of Chopin's Fantasy Impromptu like 4 hours unless I could play it flawlessly and perfectly. I got devoted to Japanese and have a border: every day one hour. That's it. It seems this one hour is too precious for my parents. I even learned Japanese secretly?!? o0 That was strange (but also funny ).
The point is, they think they *know* what's best for me, for my later life, for my career, but they have no interest in what I am interested and in what I feel and what I want to feel with whom and with whom not. That also includes them, wanting me to marry a wife (!) who would be fluent in Russian and German both.. Russian is the language I know perfectly since I'm a child and it's at some point harsh tone (commands..) and the way of talking of my parents at least made me hating it so much. I thought often about just quitting Japanese and breaking up with my girlfriend for the sake of family's peace, but hey.. do I have a life, too, or not?

Grateful to get any suggestions and comments. Anything conventional and 'normal' won't work anyway