le vingt et un janvier - partie trois

I'm sorry, but I seem to be on a roll today, haha.

I remember wanting to post an entry regarding cultural things. For a while, I've had the notion that Asian people are less friendly and self-centered, while Americanized people are, essentially, more friendly and more open with other people. In GENERAL, the culture is like this because of how each culture thinks, as well as the history that goes behind the cultures.

However, going back to Taiwan the end of 2011 quickly reminded me that this isn't always the case. It is, however, probably like 60% of the cases as from my observation of working at the bakery (which I guess isn't THAT bad of a ration... but still). But anyways, going back to Taiwan, I realized that most of the time, it really depends on the person. I ran into some extremely friendly and polite people in Taiwan that weren't working in restaurants or stores - just people on the streets. The other half of the time, the people were rather cold. We got lost in the streets of 高雄 once and there was this lady that was really helpful in giving is directions. She even began to talk to us like a tourguide and recommend some nice sights around the city, haha. Another time, though, we asked directions to this one old man walking by us and he just COMPLETELY ignored us.

Another time I think I dropped something from my bag(?) and this couple behind me quickly bent to the ground to help me pick up whatever I dropped. I said thank you and they basically gave back the polite response. There were other times I would say "sorry" or something and people would say "it's okay" but then again, there were people that gave me this dirty look whenever I bumped into them. Also, there was a time where I was late for this train and I obviously couldn't carry this huge luggage by myself, and this young man decided to help so I was soo thankful of that. But there was also another time when my sister were trying to be friendly and waved to these group of people on this yacht-thing that was passing by near this harbor and that whole group of people just looked at us like we were crazy or something.

So yes, it generally depends on the person(s). Stereotyping is bad. It's a quick, subconscious thing we do - to be judgmental and whatnot, but we just need to remember not to act on it.