November, 2021
Meet Jon
“It is really sometimes very hard to think about, like your friends are not going to wait for you. They'll move on with their life. It's a very heavy question, I know, but like I said, being here, I've missed my friends getting married, seeing my friends, my family grow.”
It was around this point that I started to tear up, cursing Jon for his candor. We were sitting outside of a temple a few blocks from his house in rural Taiwan, and I’d asked him about the sort of person who could move here – move anywhere, for that matter – leaving everything they knew for something less certain. Could anyone migrate and find happiness? Not according to Jon.
“It can be lonely,” he cautioned. “I think definitely, to move to a new country where, for example, you don't know anybody, and you don't speak the same language. I think you have to be a special person mentally to come here and do this. Because a lot of people assume teaching English - mainly my own fault, you know through Facebook - you only teach 10 hours a week and drink Pina Coladas on the beach, it's not even so much teaching. You know what I mean? But coming here could be extremely lonely and isolating and frustrating. You don't have your family you can really rely on here, right? Family and friends. And being here, life goes on, your friends move on without you, your family moves on without you.”
He'd suggested this temple as a meeting spot, since it was a short walk up a steep hill, affording us a beautiful view of the lush green mountains around us. It was a hot day under the sun, but we fortunately found shade under one of the temples’ many pavilions, where a light breeze cooled us both. Temples like these are plentiful in Taiwan, and one of the reasons Jon loves living here. “I’m a temple whore,” he professes unashamedly.
Temples, and raw beautiful nature, are some of the things that drew Jon away from the Toronto area and to Taiwan in the first place. “I chose Taiwan, I think because I knew one of my good friends from college visited Taiwan and he said, ‘Oh it's really cool, you gotta check it out.’ I decided to do my own research and I was kind of like ‘wow.’ It's got mountains, I like hiking. It's got beaches, yes, me and my beaches. A really cool, interesting culture here, and food.”
I was impressed that this college friend had been to Taiwan, an atypical tourist destination for Westerners. Jon had been surprised as well. “I know, very rare, most people don't know where Taiwan is,” he says. “I still get people saying, ‘how's Thailand?’”
“I think you have to be a special person mentally to come here and do this.”
Before seeking the beaches and temples of Taiwan, Jon was a funeral home director in Canada. “Do you miss it?” I asked him. “No, not at all.” Next question.
Initially, he’d had a few options before deciding on Taiwan as his next home. “I actually accepted a teaching job in China before I came to Taiwan, a company in Shanghai. What drew me to Taiwan was, I guess you could say, freedom. [The salary] was a little bit less here, but at the same time it's not about money, it's about quality of life and whether I would be happy or not. And I’ve been very happy here. Some highs and lows.”
The ‘lows’, it turns out, include work culture and language barrier. “You know it's partially my own fault, but sometimes the language barrier. I am now studying Chinese, I guess you'd say that is slightly helping a little bit, but yeah, there's a language barrier. I'd also say as well, kind of the work culture sometimes, you know in schools? It's very different here, in respect to the hierarchy of things, just very different to a Canadian workplace. I don't know if that makes sense. Your manager is kind of like untouchable, you never really question your boss. It's not very constructive feedback.”
In contrast to other expats I knew (mainly, me), Jon had spent some time and effort learning Chinese. “Yeah, I actually started studying professionally, Chinese. I guess you could say at a school. And it’s been leaps and bounds, it has been super helpful. I still get tripped on vocabulary. But I know the sentence pattern and I know what to say. I can even go to Starbucks and order Peppermint mocha in Chinese. It’s very simple.”
“....at the same time it’s not about money, it’s about quality of life and whether I would be happy or not.”
Easy communication is one of the things he misses about home. “Actually, you know I guess it’s the convenience of just being able to explain yourself. You know what I mean? Getting things done. Some things here in Taiwan are very old fashioned, like banks. We're not gonna talk about banks, we're gonna leave banks alone.”
(We proceed to talk about banks.)
Banks aside, Jon also misses food from home, like many foreigners in Taiwan. Between black eggs and stinky tofu, Taiwanese cuisine is an acquired taste. Although Jon has a sense of adventure when it comes to food, he nonetheless misses familiar meals. And family, he adds quickly. “I do miss them. Especially around holidays, right? Holidays can be hard. I love Christmas, just mainly because they don't do Christmas here. Christmas is not a thing.”
“Is that why your room is full of Christmas things? You trying to fill the hole in your life?”
Jon laughs. “Fill the hole in my heart, you know.”
Despite missing his family, he’s not in a hurry to return to Canada. “I considered going home next year, after my ARC runs out here, my resident card. But it scares me. A big reason why I stay is because I'm scared to go. Does that make sense? I think it's just because you know, the longer you stay here, it's hard to go back to that life. It's different now. Right? I do have savings, but it's like you kind of have to start all over again: connections with friends, start a new job. Just kind of rebuild your life. Here at least you can have an affordable quality of life in a sense.”
Jon and I muse on the weird emotional contradictions involved in living abroad: missing home but wanting adventure, seeking stability but needing change. We watch a group of worshippers leave the temple grounds, the smell of incense wafting toward us on the breeze. A few people smile and nod in our direction as we talk. “The connections I see here are something very memorable,” Jon says. “Like complete strangers will take you in, and you don't speak the same language.”
“You're always dancing with random people in parks, doing Tai-chi,” I point out.
Locals are nice, Jon agrees, and his life here is better than he imagined, but he still yearns for something different. Most of his time in Taiwan was during Covid, where he was thankfully safe but functionally unable to leave.
“I think it’s just because you know, the longer you stay here, it’s hard to go back to that life. It’s different now. Right? I do have savings, but it’s like you kind of have to start all over again...just kind of rebuild your life. ”
“I think I’d have a new appreciation for Taiwan if I could travel. To leave and come back. I've seen the four corners of the island. I'm sure there's tons to see of Taiwan. But I'm ready to see somewhere new. Japan or anywhere. Just for a weekend, right? A big reason why I always like to do things, is because it gives me perspective on why I live here. Sometimes when you go somewhere new, you're like ‘wow, is this really Taiwan?’ It's very beautiful.”
“It's important to make your own memories.” He goes on, his elbows on the table, earnest now. “I have to say, when I moved here, I admit I was very dependent on other people. And I feel like now, I’ve kind of broken away from that. I was very afraid to be alone. I guess it's just part of it, you move to a new country, you don't know any people, right? But I have to admit it was at times… you’re just afraid of somebody doing something else, and then just being alone. But now I’ve come to more peace with that. I’m fine on my own, you know. I make peace with it. But I have to say, probably my first year in Taiwan, I was very dependent on others and I think it affected me, mentally, a little bit. Now I feel I'm in a much better place.”
“Yeah, you're always doing stuff.” I agree. “Or you're trying to distract yourself by doing stuff.” Jon’s social media and our private chat is filled with photos of Jon’s regular weekend exploits, his restless and near constant quest for adventure taking him all over the country.
“You know, it was really good, especially the tour I did last Saturday, it was so beautiful,” he continues. “I felt really… I don't know. It's really weird to explain how I felt at the end of the day, but it was a really good feeling. It was very peaceful, very relaxing.”
He wasn’t always so eager to travel alone, and we talk about how different his life is now, in contrast with his first year in Taiwan. “Do you feel like you've grown or changed since you moved here?” I ask.
“Oh, how fitting at a Buddhist temple, asking that question,” he smirks, and I admit it was a bit on the nose. “Uh, yeah, I think I've definitely grown and changed. I've definitely become patient, have more cultural understanding, you know, I appreciate how the world is really a small place. We're all the same. I've done a lot of self-realization. I don't need people in my life to be happy. You know, like I said, when I first came to Taiwan, I really struggled with always having to be around people for happiness, now I don't need it.”
I ponder that for a second. “That's actually really nice. It's a great way to grow. Do you think you would have gotten that back home?”
He shakes his head. “No, that's a big reason why I came to Taiwan. I just didn't want to get stuck in that North American rat race where you settle on a career, you work at it 40 years until you're dead, buy a house, get married. I didn't want that. Especially because I worked in death, and I met with people who lived a life with so much regret and they would tell you, you know the stories, regrets. People said, “I wish when I was younger I did this” or “I wish I did that.” Life is so short, tomorrow is never really guaranteed. I saw that a lot.”
“Especially because I worked in death, and I met with people who lived a life with so much regret and they would tell you... “I wish when I was younger I did this” or “I wish I did that”
“So, you did this to avoid regret.”
“Kind of, yeah, because life is too short, right? I think everybody should live in another country at least once in their life. I do think my life is better here. I'm way happier than I was. I think it's because, mainly, I can have work life balance. I made good connections here. Taiwan has also pushed me to do things I wouldn't be comfortable doing, like I got my scuba diving license. Go hiking in high mountains. Just meeting complete strangers and trying to have a conversation with them, I mean, even teaching has its own challenges because I'm not a teacher by trade.”
The sun is lower in the sky now, its light creeping onto our table. We take our cue to pack up and head back down the hill, passing a decrepit cemetery along the way. We pause a minute to explore the old headstones, peek at the photos and flowers left there years ago. I ask him, just to be sure. “Do you have any regrets, moving here?”
“No, I have no regrets. I'm glad I did it.”
