PhD thesis final - Royal Holloway, University of London

Chapter 5 – Workplace belongingshaped their interactions and socialising with their Chinese colleagues to what theyexperience at home at domestic scale.In addition, Taiwanese expatriates‘ practices in keeping their distance from their localcolleagues are also manifested by their maintenance of their superiority and powerdistance in the workplace. As mentioned earlier, their professionalism is often stressedby my respondents as indicative of their skills and ability to outshine their Chinesecolleagues, as following statements show:Every time when I gave them assignments, they always said to me: ―No problem, I can doit!‖ Hearing this, it‘s natural to think that they can do it by themselves, so I just wait for theresults. But, it normally turns out to be either nothing or something you never expected tosee. This is really annoying and bothersome because I have to show every step to them toget things done. If I don‘t do this, things are going to be very terrible.(Adam, a production management senior supervisor in his late 30s who worksfor a notebook manufacturing company,)Yita: Um, I think there is always a gap between us…Probably; this is because we[Taiwanese] have a sense of superiority; just like the ways the Japanese perceivedTaiwanese people to be when they colonised Taiwan. But I don‘t think the localsthink this way. They think that we are just the same and they are not inferior to you.That‘s why they will challenge you or test you …Yuhui: So, in this case, what you will do?Yita: I just take their challenges. As long as we have better skills and stronger motivationto learn, we have nothing to worry about from their challenges.Yuhui: What if they know that you are unable to do something?200