Countries I've visited

I don't want to write my entire lifestory in one post so I'll try to keep this brief: I've visited Canada (of course because that's where I'm from), the U.S. (again, of course, although not as often as you'd think), England, France, Morocco, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Korea and Taiwan. I've never been to Thailand, Vietnam, Australia or New Zealand but I've met enough people from those countries over the years that it feels as though I have.

I went to England in 1975, 1980 and 1985 with my parents, each time for two to three weeks and over the summer vacation. I didn't ever visit the U.S. until I was an adult and then the only places I've visited are Rochester, New York and New York City. Oh I had a stopover to Chicago once on the way to Japan but I never left the airport. I did leave the airport when I visited New York and Paris, France but that was just so I could go to city's other airport and catch a connecting flight.

The less I say about Morocco the better: I was only there four months. Let's just say that it is better to be happy and make a little bit of money than to be miserable and make a lot of money.

My first trip to Asia was in 1991: I went to Japan, Singapore and Malaysia. I had penpals in Signapore and Malaysia (and Taiwan and the Philippines) and I went to meet them.

Let me explain: I desperately wanted to get married, even at a young age. This attitude seems silly to me now: I now realise 1) that people really need not get married unless they want to have children and 2) that a relationship should be about more than satisfying one's need for companionship and sex. I now believe that two people need to be friends first before they get married: a physical attraction alone is not enough, although it is obviously necessary. Back then I was just interested in finding someone who looked nice and then marrying her. I can now see that this is actually demeaning: it would actually be less demeaning to have cheap, meaningless sex with somebody and move on then expect someone to be with you for the rest of your life simply so they can continue to satisfy your needs. What about their needs? Basically I was being influenced by my parent's religious values but I can see now that such values harken back to a time when women were considered property and not individuals.

The second time I travelled to Asia I went to the Philippines (via a stopover in Hong Kong during which I didn't even leave the airplane). That was when I met my wife.

What can I tell you about when I met my wife? The good news is that she was somebody like me: like me she wanted to get married and like me she wanted to marry somebody from the other side of the world. It worked out perfectly. Oh and she's only two years younger than me so we have more in common than you'd think. On top of that, there was a great deal of mutual physical attraction. Like I said, it worked out perfectly.

After Imelda and I got married, we lived in the Phillipines for two years. I stayed long enough to see my first son, Michael, start walking. But even though it is better to be happy than wealthy, you can be neither on the kind of salary that they pay in the Philippines. I reluctantly decided to seek a job in Korea (because teaching in Taiwan would have meant having to teach young children which is something I didn't want to do) and spent the next four years being pretty much miserable.

Things turned around after I came to Taiwan. For a long time I had wanted to come to Taiwan because I didn't like the winters in Korea (although I was able to bring Imelda and Michael to stay with me and they did get to see snow it was a thrill for Imelda but old hat for me). Besides, I could speak and read a little Chinese (having studied Chinese for two years and Japanese for one year back in Canada) whereas after four years I was still struggling with Korean.

It turns out that I've liked Taiwan a lot more than Korea. Yes, I know I'm sounding like a broken record but it happens to be true: the food, the people, the language, it's all better in Taiwan. I hated eating kimchi everyday, I hated not understanding anything that people said to me and I hated the fact that Korean lessons in Korea charged more per hour than I'd make in a day. (I guess they were expecting wealthy businessmen to sign up.) I learn more Chinese everyday here in Taiwan than Korean I would learn in Korea every year. I've been here six years now, by the way.

Oh and on top of my previous trips to Japan and Hong Kong, I've also had to make visa runs to Japan and Hong Kong over the years: including stopovers at airports I've been to Hong Kong and Japan five times each. I feel as though I have deep familiarity with the Philippines, Korea and Taiwan and passing familiarity with Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. People have told me in the past (including Imelda herself) that I should have gotten -or could still get- a job in Hong Kong or Japan and then make more money than I make here but, like I said before, it is better to be happy and make a little money than be miserable and make a lot of money - not that I would necessarily be miserable in Hong Kong or Japan but I am happy here and I remember how things were in Morocco and Korea. Quite frankly I'm on to a good thing here and I wouldn't want to mess that up.

Martin