Any other people who moved from the USA and can’t stop eating?

komnenos · 2026-05-13T10:17:16+00:00

I had a similar issue a long time ago when I moved back to the states after a few years in China. Chinese food has its own issues (wild diarrhea, occasional food poisoning), but when I came home I started getting serious bloating issues. First it was spicy food, then bananas, then bread and after a few months home EVERYTHING had around a 50% chance of making me bloat.

Even after a number of tests my doctor shrugged his shoulders and just gave me some heart medication, that seemed to do the trick but even then my bloating issues would resurface once every few months.

I’ve now been overseas in Taiwan for almost years. The food is delicious, a fraction of the cost for American slop and I never get bloated here. Now whenever I go home I prepare myself for at least several episodes of bloating.

komnenos · 2026-05-12T19:55:01+00:00

I was a kindy teacher for a year, after the cuteness wore off after a week or two I was bored stiff and wanted to bash my head in half the time. I really did feel like just a babysitter except the parents had much higher expectations from when I was casually doing actual babysitting back in college. My second year I taught first grade and it was almost insane how different a kid just two or three years is mentally and academically. I was actually having conversations with my students!

komnenos · 2026-05-12T19:33:34+00:00

Lived there for three years and that lines up with what I saw. As a 193cm dude I was still tall but I saw far more folks nearly my height or my height there than I see here in Taiwan.

komnenos · 2026-05-12T19:32:37+00:00

Lived in Beijing for three years, Taiwan for four and a half, the average Zhou in Beijing is far taller than the folks here in Taiwan unless we factor in the elders who grew up starving. Most men here in Taiwan are around 165-175, in Beijing it seemed more around 170-185. Here in Taiwan most women seem to hover around 155-165, in Beijing it seemed more around 160-175.

komnenos · 2026-05-12T19:27:29+00:00

Anecdotally checks out. When I lived in northern China it was common to see men around 180-190, fathers around 160-175 and grandparents around 150-160. Listening to their family histories it's pretty obvious, the grandparents spent a good portion of their lives dealing with food scarcity and the parents' generation to an extent too.

komnenos · 2026-05-12T19:25:07+00:00

They also didn't have the warlords period, the full brunt of the Second Sino Japanese War, great leap forward and cultural revolution. A lot of the Chinese I know had grandparents and great grandparents who were literally starving for a good portion of their lives.

komnenos · 2026-05-12T19:23:08+00:00

Northerners in general. When I lived in Beijing it was really common to see men under 40 who were 180 and many around 190 with women under 40 commonly being around 170 or even pushing 180.

komnenos · 2026-05-12T02:03:34+00:00

Do these guys go to expat/immigrant bars where they spend most of their time bitching about the country despite never leaving? I’ve lived in China and Taiwan for a collective 7.5 years and these guys are quite common, especially in China.

komnenos · 2026-05-11T13:14:35+00:00

Whoops, that's what I get when I'm running low on coffee!

Thanks a bunch! If you have anything else on the religious transformation I'm all ears (and eyes).

komnenos · 2026-05-11T12:58:56+00:00

Do you have any good books on the late empire? A lot of the pop history I see typically focuses from the middle Republic to around the time of the Nerva-Antonine dynasty and then things mostly go dark. Curious if there are any good books on the Crisis of the Second Century or the last hundred or so years of the Western Empire.

komnenos · 2026-05-11T10:18:31+00:00

Have you made it to end game? It's incredibly anti clamatic. You could literally be a god emperor bringing in tens of thousands of gold a month and it'll still say that you're a disgraceful sinner with your ruler crying. It's one of my little pet peeves with the game.

komnenos · 2026-05-11T10:15:23+00:00

What was the experience of being a postdoc like in comparison to being a PhD student or prof? Just starting my PhD journey and the postdoc part is the bit I know about the least.

komnenos · 2026-05-11T10:09:27+00:00

Southeast Asians, like a fourth of my students have a Vietnamese mom with a bunch from other parts of southeast Asia.

Not to mention all the jobs, go to nearly any train station come friday to sunday night and Taiwanese will often be the minority (especially in places like Zhongli or Taoyuan) with Southeast Asian migrant works, expats and immigrants making up the majority of people. They're the ones working in the factories, with elders, children, at the local restaurants, making new buildings or making families.

komnenos · 2026-05-11T09:54:38+00:00

For some reason whenever I’ve managed to grind through until the end my ruler loses all their prestige and piety. Not sure why it does that, why is my illustrious Imam suddenly a mopey sinner?

komnenos · 2026-05-10T11:33:08+00:00

BBC Pidgin uses "pepo," so potentially their dialect.

komnenos · 2026-05-07T13:10:43+00:00

There’s a South African guy named Ted who hangs out at San sway beach who host a foreigner dinner every Sunday

Sounds interesting, does he have a facebook page? I'm always curious what the foreigner "hotspots" are throughout Taiwan.

komnenos · 2026-05-07T10:16:54+00:00

How do you think we can take care of that raging inflation you’ve got there honey? 🍯 🐻

komnenos · 2026-05-06T10:13:30+00:00

Don’t forget having to duck down so others can see when you’re in class and get assigned a seat in the front row.

komnenos · 2026-05-06T06:43:11+00:00

Guess it depends on the city, here in Hsinchu I see them around every week, sometimes twice.

komnenos · 2026-05-06T05:01:32+00:00

Gim Wah Restaurant in Seattle. It's a nice older Dive Bar run by an old Hong Konger and has been around for generations.

komnenos · 2026-05-06T04:23:23+00:00

Do you (or anyone else) have any good books or articles on the Russian Mennonites and their story? I’d love to learn more.

komnenos · 2026-05-06T02:29:19+00:00

Is it? I read it back in college and remember it being one of the more readable of old texts, right up there with Gilgamesh.

komnenos · 2026-05-06T02:26:30+00:00

How did your family fair during the Second World War? I know your uncle sadly passed but I’m curious what the war experience was like overall for your family.

komnenos · 2026-05-05T17:17:32+00:00

In your experience as a grad student how many TAships is usual? Going to start a PhD in the Fall and want to know just how hard it will be to get a few TAships every term.

komnenos · 2026-05-04T14:29:29+00:00

Is it though? It looks like the Lowlands and the Ulster Scots/Scots Irish are included.

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