Discussion Question: What about who you are is hard for society to accept?
Questions to Think About:
1. What is a tradition?
2. Do you enjoy traditional things?
3. Which traditions do you enjoy? What’s your favorite tradition?
4. Which ones irritate or frustrate you? Which one bothers you the most?
5. How do you know something is ‘traditional’?
6. Is there a difference between ‘tradition’ and ‘this is how we’ve always done it’?
7. Do traditions evolve? (i.e. barbeque at moon festival) Which ones tend to stay the same, which ones tend to evolve?
8. Does the evolution change what the tradition is about? Does it change the essence?
9. What does ‘early adopting’ mean?
10. Do you like to early adopt, or do you prefer to wait and see? For technology? For new foods? For new clothing styles?
11. How does early adopting make you feel?
12. What does waiting to see make you feel?
13. What do people see an ‘early adoptor’ as. Are they looked up to? Laughed at?
14. Does it matter what kind of change they’ve made? (new technology, new way of eating, new style of clothing)
15. Do Taiwanese in general do early adopting, or do they wait till a new technology has proven itself?
16. When do you know that some way of doing things should change? (in your personal life, in your family, at work, in society)
17. Is there a feeling that tells you things have to be different, or have to be done differently?
18. What kind of feeling do you get when you realize something has to change?
19. How do you feel when you’ve made a change, and it’s right? What does ‘right’ feel like?
20. How do you feel when you’ve made a change, and it’s wrong? What does ‘wrong’ feel like?
21. How do you know if adopting a change is moving forward or if it is destructive? (e.g. genetically modified foods: an advance or a threat?)
22. Which of the following choices is controversial in society?
23. Can you think of any other choices you can make which are universally accepted in modern society?
• choosing to carry one’s own bags and containers with which to buy things
• choosing to grow/consume foods without chemicals
• choosing to not own a television
• choosing not to eat meat
• choosing to not eat wheat, milk, sugar
• choosing to live simply, with few possessions
• choosing to live with a partner without getting married
• choosing not to have children
• choosing to openly live your sexual orientation (transgender/intersex/bi/gay)
• choosing to live a religious life
24. Which of the above choices would be hard for you to accept in yourself?
25. Which of the above choices would be hard for you to accept in someone else?
26. Which of the above choices would be hard for your parents to accept?
Discussion Question: What about who you are is hard for society to accept?
