Eric, second from right, at a 16-year reunion with his Chinese-language prep school classmates.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nHis classmates? They were all overseas Chinese who came to Taiwan to pursue further education but needed language prep. Their Chinese wasn’t up to scratch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It was very fun,” he said. “But when I started university, that’s where the headache started. That’s where I understood my language ability wasn’t that good.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Foreign-born Chinese vs local-born Chinese<\/h2>\n\n\n\n In addition to language fluency, integration into Taiwanese society also showed the rift between his Peruvian upbringing and a Taiwanese upbringing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“To be honest, I didn’t make many friends in university,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He explained that his classmates were all very intelligent and very good at school, which meant they spent a lot of time on the books. Eric believes this mentality carried onto university from a competitive high school environment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“In the first two years, I was like, ‘Wow, why is it that everyone only talked about studying,’ ” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I suppose going to a prestigious university in Taiwan would invite people of such mentality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Everyone’s very hardworking. It’s all about studying. Everyone needs to get good grades. Everyone’s competing on grades,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the end, his friends came from schools that weren’t as prestigious as the NTU and others who he met while working.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He elaborated that it was only in the later years of his time in university that his NTU peers started to open up and go clubbing, drinking, and have hobbies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Later in the conversation, when talking about his son, Eric also said that Peruvian children can also grow up much more protected by their parents, perhaps because of the less safe environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said his upbringing could be considered unique, given that he left his parents at 17 to go to school in Taiwan while his parents stayed in Peru for almost another decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\nEric, right, in China around 2006.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n“In China, my opportunity has passed”<\/h2>\n\n\n\n Eric spent a total of 15 years in Taiwan and China. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He spent three in China working at a relative’s factory, shuttling between Shenyang and Shanghai. The latter city was where his parents were living after retiring from Peru in 2001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He observed how people got into the property boom in Shanghai and shared his admiration for the people who made a ton of money. Yet, at the same time, property felt increasingly beyond his reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Eric’s observations, in 2001, a 100-square-metre apartment in the best area of Shanghai, Xujiahui, cost US$100,000. Loans were cheap and easy, and rental income was high. That property would double in value by 2004. Today, it would cost $2 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I didn’t have their foresight. I saw them buying property, but I didn’t have much money at that time either,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That’s why in 2005, he came to a realization that his time in East Asia is up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“In China, my opportunity has passed,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2008, Eric returned to where he came from.<\/p>\n\n\n\nEric with his wife, Fiorella.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nFather, husband, realtor, businessman<\/h2>\n\n\n\n Thirteen years have passed since Eric returned from Taiwan to Peru.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In sum, he says life in Peru is more comfortable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Life here is quite comfortable. You don’t have to make a lot of money here but you can live a very comfortable life,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said he could buy property in Lima and since labour is cheaper, hiring people for help at home is more affordable. He wasn’t sure if those were possible in China and Taiwan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In fact, he rode the economic boom in Peru from 2008 to 2014, meeting his wife in between and getting married in 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nonetheless, each step from China to Taiwan to Peru seemed like a step down in materialism and conspicuous consumption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Life is simpler,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the same time, he recognizes that his family doesn’t have the same freedom to roam freely. Safety is a larger concern in Lima than in Taipei or Shanghai and varies between areas within Lima.<\/p>\n\n\n\nFrom left, Eric’s wife, his son Nicol\u00e1s Yuan Chumpitazi-Montepagano and Eric. His son’s Chinese name is \u8881\u777f\u8a00, given by Eric’s father.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nRaising a Chinese-Latino son<\/h2>\n\n\n\n Observing North American Asians in families of mixed backgrounds taught me that people from two different cultures can have different opinions of how their children should be raised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of a certain poignancy was the difference in how the Chinese parent viewed education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I asked Eric whether he had any disagreements with his wife on his son’s upbringing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It turned out that Eric wanted to get his son a tutor when he was five years old. That left his wife flabbergasted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“She was like, ‘What the hell is going on?’ ” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the tables turned recently when the coronavirus pandemic broke. His wife became much more anxious about their child’s education as it was done fully at home. That became Eric’s turn to say “you relax!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the same time, Eric has made some effort to teach Chinese to his son. For a while, his son went to Chinese classes and from time to time, he tries to teach his son some Chinese. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But he recognizes that he doesn’t have the same gravitas as his father did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I feel I should work a little harder,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His son goes to a British school now, conforming to Eric’s belief that English would continue as the most influential language in the world. Eric hopes that, just like him, his son can gain his independence after high school and study abroad. His wife has shared her hesitancy with this plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eric says his son has a “very Chinese look.”<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nAs it relates to racism to his son, which he says has a “very Chinese look,” Eric said he doesn’t feel that he would experience serious racism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I want my child to know that despite him being Asian, that he would be less valuable or inferior,” he said. “I don’t think my son feels that way.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eric with his son at the National Taiwan University, which is Eric’s alma mater.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nA confidence derived from his father and education<\/h2>\n\n\n\n The last few minutes of our conversation looped back to being a Chinese minority in Peru.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I got a sense that Eric believes that the reason why he experienced little, if any, racism came from his confidence and his upbringing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His father inculcated in him that education is important and had high expectations of him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I admire my dad,” he said. “I think from young he gave us a self-confidence that can’t be beaten.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also noticed that his peers who have done well in schooling have also had similar success in their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the flip side, those who haven’t done well in education, have also had lesser levels of success. Eric said it might be because those peers had parents who might not have had such high expectations of their children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Parents must impart confidence to their children,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Much unlike my previous guests, Eric Yuan Jan’s family comes from a different region of China and of a much different professional background.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":215,"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141\/revisions\/215"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}