Hello everyone,

I'm new here in this forum. I'm a 35 y/o male, and work as a medical doctor (a dermatologist) in Taiwan. I plan to spend about 6 months break in Switzerland, in the Zurich area, learning German. Still waiting for my student visa, and hopefully will be there in Switzerland since April.

My profession doesn't seem to offer me advantage of finding a temporary job in Switzerland, so I'm looking for opportunities that enable me to explore more than just language learning in language schools.

I'm hard working, decent, friendly, and easy to get along with. I speak fluent Chinese, Taiwanese, English, and basic Japanese and German(am learning Japanese and German at the moment.).

Anything is welcome, including volunteer jobs(I once searched online, and found that they even require work permit for volunteer jobs, so I feel somehow hopeless in that respect.)

If you're interested, please feel free to PM me.

Thanks a lot!

Edwin

Hi Edwin

Welcome to the forum!

Jia pa buay?

Hope you will find something here! Good luck! and regards to Taiwan!

Hello Goodhill,

Thanks a lot! That's very sweet of you. Indeed, I know I probably have little chance finding anything here. Still, it's worth a try, isn't it?It seems like you've been to Taiwan before. Hope at least you've had some good memories about it here. You're most welcome to visit Taiwan, and if you do, let me know, perhaps I could show you around a bit.

Warm regards!

Edwin

I suggest you change this to "thaiwaneese multilingual dermatologist looking for work"
It does not matter where you come from but what your skills are.
In switzerland there is high demand for dermatologists and also chineese speaking people.
Contact the job agencies as early as possible to find out about your options, despite 6month is too short finding an interesting employment.

Here is a not so bad plattform finding a job and it is free to get in contact, but be always carefull not to get decived.
http://ch.gigajob.com/index.html

You could open a place in Basel selling bubble tea and some of the snacks from Shilin night market.

It might not be popular but you'd get enough to scrape a living just from one customer. Me.

I think Tom73's suggestion is a good one - concentrate on your skills, which at first glance are you being a dermatologist and the fact you can maybe teach people some Mandarin (if you know pinyin). If you want to learn German then maybe Chinese/German language exchange would be the way to go.

Not too sure about volunteer work, but I went to the "Welcome to Basel" thing at the town hall last night (I arrived a few weeks ago) and they did mention that there are volunteer organisaions however I didn't pick up any info on them unfortunately.

..you had to bring up bubble tea!! You know how long it has been since my last bubble tea..?!

Good idea! Thanks a lot! But in fact I still have to come back to Taiwan in 6 months for my next job in a private clinic. So I doubt if I could find anything related to dermatology here in Switzerland (or anywhere else.) Besides, Taiwan is not a member of UN nor WHO(well, we're not considered as an independent country.....thanks to China!) so our dilploma is not really recognized.

I don't mind if I do anything that's not related to medicine. I take it as a way to spend the day than just langauge learning....and maybe I get to practice my Geman as well.

Thanks a lot for your suggestion, I'll do accordingly.

What is the Bubble Tea?

@Edwin, I think that you may try to work for those Chinese Medicine Cabinet in ZH. There are a lot in the Swiss french part, and very popular! Maybe you can combine your knowledge in dermo and Chinese medicine? Just an idea

Bubble tea is the American (I think) way of saying Pearl Tea. It's the hot or cold milky tea with tapioca balls. 珍珠奶茶 (zhen zhu nai cha).

he mentioned Shilin night market as well... the b******

If I haven't come up of anything in the end, I'll give it a serious thought of opening a teashop, and you'll be the first one to be invited, the guest of honor :-)

I'll go to Zurich town hall to see if there's anything possible for me if I haven't found anything online before I arrive at Zurich. Thanks for the tip!

...are you a Chinese that speaks Taiwanese or are you a Taiwanese that speaks Chinese?

...am I the only one who doesn't understand?

Thanks a lot!! Indeed, it seems like a stereotype that chinese who learn medicine should also know or have learned chinese or herbal medicine. But unfortunately it is not the case for us. I studied western medicine in medical school, so I know nearly nothing of chinese medicine. That's a shame really!! But here we are......It's nice to see people are responding to me though... really a nice surprise! Thank you!!

all Taiwanese speak Chinese as it is the national language there..

Good question!! I've been asked by many people about this. Well, since i'm not good at history, so I would skip the long story of how mainland china and taiwan split decades ago. In short, after World War II and the civial war in China, there were two Chinas. One communist in mainland(PRC), and the other led by KMT who withdrew from mainland China to Taiwan(ROC). UN was about to acknowledge both Chinas, as the same as north and south Korea. But our president at that time couldn't tolerate the fact that the communist china was recognized too. So we(ROC, Republic of China) left UN and the PRC took over. Since then, whenever china is heard, people think of mainland china. No one thinks of Taiwan, and tend to think Taiwan as a part of China because China claims so. We gradually give up on calling ourselves Chinese, and we call ourselves Taiwanese to avoid confusion.

Your question only applies to Taiwanese, or people who live or origin from Taiwan. It's not suitable for Chinese (people from the mainland, or PRC) since they don't speak Taiwanese. People from the Chinese province, Fujien, speak a similar language though.

Ethnically, yes, my ancestors came from mainland China centuries ago. So that makes me Chinese in that respect. Culturally, we share the traditional chinese inheritage, or we might have even much more since we didn't go through the cultural revolution years ago as the communist china did. So you can call me chinese in that sense. But you don't call me chinese, or I would deny that I'm chinese when it comes to national or political identity, since whenever china is mentioned, it's PRC or mainland china. Taiwan is never governed by China, at least, not the communist china.

But would you call a Singaporean Chinese? No, because he might be Malays or Indians. You might call him Chinese in terms of his ethnic background, right? So I'm a Taiwanese, in terms of my national identity, and I speak Chinese (the language, or Mandarin to be more precise).

Am I making a fuss about all this? Maybe? But if you were in my shoes, you would have known how I feel (or how we feel) and why I would explain like this. But again, my bf often teases me by saying I'm chinese......at moments like that, I can just laugh and complain! :-)

Population of taiwan is today around 650people per square Km. Must be very thick air and hard to find a home there.

I thought there are around 10 different languges in china and thaiwan or are they just some sort of dialects.

OP, I think you might be better off claiming that you speak Mandarin, instead of Chinese.

I did not assume that you should know about Chinese traditional medicine. On the contray, I suggested that work with them In any case, welcome to ZH and good luck!

THE Official language in China ( Mainland ) is Mandarin. In Taiwan it is the same. In HK or Macao, it should be Cantoness, English , Mandarin, and Portugal.

There are more than 10 sort of dialects, but not official languages .

so you are one of those who fussy about your ethical roots, that you are not Chinese, but rather Taiwanese, but speaks Chinese, but not sharing same value as Chinese, but sharing historical Chinese cultures...

Sorry, but Singapore is a country, and usually they automatically tell us if they have Chinese roots or rather Malay roots ...

I have no intention here to offend you neither to offend your political point of view. Just a note that it might be easier for you not to be fussy around about all these differences.. just as your bf said, he would still call you a Chinese

Wrong. Hong Kong's official languages are just Mandarin and English though Cantonese is most widely spoken, with heavy code-switching.

PS: OP, 欢迎! 欢迎!!

I doubt that you are a Singaporean because you wont be making such an inaccurate statement.

I dont think the OP's being fussy at all about differentiating but proud of his/her Taiwanese heritage just like we Singaporeans are (well generally anyway), despite our history not being as rich as the Brits or even the Yanks. You will never catch a Singapore differentiating themselves as Singaporean-Chinese, Singaporean-Malay or Singaporean-Indian. Roots arent usually brought up unless asked.

Another reason is also because there are Singaporeans of Peranakan or Eurasian descent, who fall in neither of the previous categories. So, we are just Singapore and we call ourselves Singaporeans because we have quirks that the PRCs, or even the Malaysians dont have, that make us uniquely Singaporeans. Period.

I am however, happy to be corrected by my fellow Singaporeans.

In this instance, I see it like this: Taiwanese is a nationality (passport) and Chinese is a race. It's easy to understand, it's not some massive political statement.

OK, so the passport says Republic of China, but ... ;)

Indeed, there's nothing to be fussy about and I'm not offended at all. I do appreciate your opinions on this. But since you mention that Singapore is a country.....and Taiwan is......NOT? Taiwan belongs to China? I think it would be easier for us to take if we're really governed by them, and Taiwan is just a province of China, or Taiwan is an independent country worldly recognized with normal diplomatic relationships with other countries..... Then, there's no such complicated issues as calling ourselves Taiwanese or Chinese. You know, years ago there were debates for us, how we address ourselves, Taiwnese or Chinese...Sadly, we're independent, but not worldly recognized.

It's not just a matter of ethnical roots....it's more of a result of chaos from history, humanity, and political point of view.

This is not a proper place to discuss all these things since my intention is just to find something I can devote to other than language learning in Switzerland. I just used the wrong word, I should have picked up Mandarin than Chinese. Thanks for reminding me of this.

Unless there's anyone who's really interested in sharing different points of view regarding Taiwanese or Chinese. Let's stop the disccusion related to it, shall we? My experience of topics like this is that people might be more politically and emotionally involved, and things get ugly.

Again, thanks for all the responses, I'm surprised and I do appreciate!

Yes, you're right. Taiwanese is more of nationality.(some people might complain though) Chinese is more of a race.(mostly it's a mix of race, language, culture...)

ROC in the frontcover of passport is just a political statement. PRC is recognized by most countries in the world, and ROC is recognized by the rest 20-30 small countries (mostly islands, mostly smaller than Taiwan). PRC claims they own us, as we used to claim that we have whole mainland china. and it was not until about 10-20 years ago when we acknowledged that Mongolia as an independent country. Isn't that rediculous?

Now we add Taiwan in below of ROC in our passport, just to make it clear that this passport is from Taiwan, for pepole can never understand the difference between PRC and ROC. So to avoid being mistaken as chinese from mainland china, Taiwan is then added.

For God's sake, no more history!! especially when we see how people can twist the truth due to humanity and their own desires