Women in Taiwan: What I have seen

"Maud, do you have any plans for your future? When do you want to have a child?" My friend Amber asked when we took on a bus to our job interview. "Nope." "To the child thing or to the plan?" "Both. I haven't gotten a boyfriend or even a job. What I need to focus on is my job." In fact, I have plenty of talks like these for the past few weeks. It astonishes me that I am the only one who don't actually care about a husband or a child. My friends are so worried about their future husband and children, so they choose jobs discreetly. Compared to them, I am completely an optimist. I don't care about what kind of jobs and sometimes when I pass the interview, I turn down the job for some excuses like I don't like manager or the company used to own their employees money, which I think it's reasonable for me to reject. All I want for a job is the potentials. I don't care how long I need to stay in the company. If I could l...

My grandmother always loves her sons, my uncles, more than my mother Vivian. For her, they are her beacon of future. She used to dream about living with them, but everything changes soon. One of the sons she loves so much has his own family. He only shows up while necessary. The other takes care of her but she doesn't cherish him much, torturing his wife with multiple reasons. My mother is her least favorite, and she shows it extremely obviously. It doesn't mean she hates my mother. On the contrary, she takes care of her two children, me and my brother, when my mother isn't available. She looks after her after her labor. According to my grandmother's belief, those jobs aren't assigned to her but my father's mother. In our culture, that's what a mother-in-law in Father's side should do. However, she did it anyway. She claims my mother as sprinkled water after her getting married, but she doesn't leave her completely. Sometimes, I wonder what s...

My mother is called Vivian. She is not very good at English and has no idea what the name means, but it caught her eyes in the first glimpse. When I was a child, I was tortured by her. It's a little bit weird to mention it when this is a story about her. However, I think it's really important to bring it out because we are going to discuss it in the later paragraphs. Is she a tiger mother? No. She never pushes me to study or learn some piano. When the grade cards were sent home, she just laughed at me, since my best friend was top of the class and her name was right next to me. She seldom disciplined us crazily. My brother and I could sleep at any time as long as we finished our homework. The only rule she gave us was to finish what should be done. And she had been a totally different woman before the previous description. Before I was about seven, she beat me for any misdeeds. Those included stealing, lying and disobeying her requests. It's normal for a Asian paren...

Hello, everyone, I am Charis, a woman from Taiwan. It's a little bit weird to call myself a woman since I turned twenty one in March. That might puzzle some women in the Western culture. I know how grown they must be in twenty one, but in my culture and my family's eyes, I am just a little girl struggling to find a job, newly graduating from college. A month ago, I joined a great GoodRead group called Our Shared Shelf, founded by our beloved and beautiful Emma Watson. When I read the books she recommends, I am often astonished by the books and people's comment. It's obvious that whether it's in Western countries or Eastern countries, Feminism is ignored by the majority, including women.  How could it be? We occupy half of the people, but some of us are isolated because of what we believe. If women don't cooperate with one another, men wouldn't care at all. They have already had their power over us. If we don't work together, would it be c...