Taiwan Today

Busy urbanites are using social groups to combine leisure with meeting goals such as learning to dance, networking, or even finding the ideal partner.

One, two and three, four.... One, two, and three, four...."It's 7:00 on a Saturday night in the offices of Kingtex Securities Co. and about twenty couples are shuffling back and forth to the steady pacing of a dance instructor. The atmosphere is a bit stiff in the makeshift dance hall. The desks used by stockbrokers during the work week have been cleared out of the room, and the wall of stock market moni­tors has been neatly hidden by mirrored panels. A disco ball turns amid the dimmed fluorescent lights. But despite these festive touches, the group is quiet and a little awkward.

The tension in the air is caused by more than dance-class jitters. This is the Coconut Boulevard Social Club, one of Taipei's many singles groups. Every weekend, the club hosts dances and din­ners to help eligible men and women meet prospective partners. Ask any of the danc­ers on the floor why they are here and they are likely to put it bluntly: "I want to get married."

"We don't have a chance to meet young people-women or men," says Charles Lin, a civil servant who joined the club two years ago. "Our lives are very busy." Lin attends Coconut Boulevard functions about once a month. The biggest benefit, he says, is that he can talk to people with the same interests.

Along with about forty other members, Lin has skipped the dance lesson in favor of the club's discussion group, held next door. This, he explains, is a more efficient way to mingle. Seated at small ta­bles of three men and three women, groups introduce themselves and chat for twenty minutes. When the moderator gives a cue, the men in each group switch tables. By the end of the evening, every­ one has met everyone. The goal is to get the phone numbers of potential dates.

"At first I didn't want to come here because meeting people this way is not natural," says Lolita Chang, a representa­tive for an export trading company. She heard of the club through a friend. But af­ter several visits, she found it an easy way to meet people without feeling self-con­scious. Now, when she attends club functions, she says, "I don't feel shy at all."

After eight years of operation, Coco­ nut Boulevard has twenty thousand people in its computer database. Two thou­ sand of these are active members. Besides the Saturday and Sunday dance lessons and discussion group, the group occasion­ ally organizes hikes, picnics, and even travel to the Penghu Islands, Hong Kong, or Thailand. Those more serious about finding a mate can use the computer dat­ing service.

"It is a kind of social service," says Brian Lin (林繁男), organizer and emcee of tonight's events. The president of Tai­ wan Yellow Pages Corp., Lin has been volunteering to oversee Coconut Boul­evard events for several years. He proudly states that, to date, five hundred couples have met and married through the club; one pair even married in the securities of­fice dance hall.

Dating clubs are just one variety of the social organizations that are booming in popularity in Taiwan's urban centers. From sports clubs and recreation classes to or­ganizations that combine socializing with business networking, clubs are becoming a mainstay of leisure life. For many urbanites, joining a group is the most com­fortable way to work leisure into a busy schedule. And in a society where it can be difficult to meet people outside of family and work, it is an easy way to socialize.

Chiou Rong-hui (邱榮輝), 37, deputy general-manager of international financing at Taiwan Securities stock brokerage, is one social club enthusiast. For the past fourteen years, Chiou has spent most of his Saturday afternoons with the Taipei Hash House Harriers, a men's jogging club. As of May, he had run just over two hundred times. One 70-year-old club member has run with the club four hun­dred times since 1979.

Each week, about sixty of the group's several hundred members gather to drive outside the city. Directing this caravan of cars through weekend traffic and into the hills surrounding Taipei takes a lot of or­ganization for whoever is leading that week's run. It is common to drive for several hours, then run for ninety minutes.

Why not just run alone or with a few friends? "Several reasons," Chiou says. "The first is for my health. We run in the mountains around Taipei. Tile air up there is better." Belonging to the club forces him to leave the city smog once a week.

Second, it is a way to escape the pres­sure of work. Chiou appreciates the unpretentious air of the group. "On the Hash, if you want to join, all you need are shoes and running clothes," he says. "It is very simple. The only condition is that you can run." And friends made along the run often tum into business contacts. "Many people come to each tun," Chiou says. "The members are from all different industries. It is a kind of information club."

Consider, too, the popularity of for­eign language clubs. For example, the Toastmasters, an international organization that helps members improve public speaking skills, has ten branches in Taipei. Most of these focus on perfecting spoken Eng­lish. Each branch has about fifty members who meet two to four times a month.

Businesses are also turning the ap­peal of social organizations to their own interests. English-language cram schools have long been ubiquitous in the city centers. One school combines leisure, so­cializing, and travel with learning Eng­lish. Actual Living English opened in the fall of 1991 and already has 4,500 mem­bers. For a fee of NT$35,000 (US$1,400), students receive a two-year membership and a series of English-teaching videotapes and materials. For additional fees, they then practice speaking English with native speakers while taking surfing lessons, partying in a nightclub, bungee jumping, vacationing in Thailand, or at­ tending other club functions.

Organizations that mix socializing with business are especially popular. Chi­nese American Professionals in Taiwan, for example, started in April 1992 and had attracted 250 members by May 1993. The organization hosts happy hours, dances, weekend outings, and business seminars. Despite the name, the membership con­sists of two-thirds native Taiwan resi­dents, one-third American-born Chinese and other foreign nationals. Founder and President Larry Wang believes the group has grown rapidly, partly because people in Taiwan are often starved for social out­ lets. "In the States, you have so many extra­ curricular activities," Wang says. "Here, for many people, work is their social life."

But for some people, the aim is to es­ cape work. Tina Tu (涂薔) is one such professional. "I'm a typical working mother: I am very, very busy," says Tu, an executive secretary at Pacific Engineering and Contractors. Despite long working hours and the heavy responsibilities of motherhood, Tu decided last winter that she needed to add some leisure to her life. But how to find something both convenient and worthwhile?

The answer was to join an after-hours leisure class -a variation on the social club theme. For six months, Tu has been spending two hours a week learning the art of flower arrangement through classes offered in her office after work. At first, she found it hard to rationalize the time. "But later, I realized that it is very good for me," she says. "During those two hours, I can forget almost everything, and just think about what the instructor is say­ing. During that time, we can just be our­ selves-not mothers, not employees. And we learn something."

Each employee pays NT$1,000 (US$40) per month and the company kicks in the remaining NT$500 (US$20) per person. Other after-hours classes sub­sidized by many large companies include martial arts, dancing, and painting.

Winston Chen (陳照旗), editor-in­ chief of Leisure Life Monthly magazine says hobby clubs and classes are a growing trend. "People want to get together with people who have the same interests," Chen says. "At the same time, they can also learn something." And these organizations offer a way to socialize without feeling awkward. "Chinese people are shy and lack a sense of security. Doing things as a part of a large group provides confidence and the satisfaction of being a part of something."

Gordon Brooks, an advertising repre­sentative and photographer at The China Post, one of Taipei's two daily English newspapers, is an avid advocate of leisure clubs. Brooks oversees and promotes half-a-dozen social groups, including the Dinghao Square Dancing Club, Gordon's Gourmet Club, Toastmasters, the Hash House Harriers, and several sports groups. He believes social organizations improve the quality of life for Taiwan's urbanites. "Average Chinese, they don't know how to enjoy life-they don't know what to do with their time," Brooks says. "They think quality of life is going to a restaurant and paying NT$20,000 (US$800) to toast each other, or playing Pachinko for three hours. They're not meeting people, not socializing."

A native of Taiwan and an ethnic Chinese, Brooks was adopted and raised by an American. Compared to Western­ers, Brooks feels, Taiwan residents work too much and play too little. "I am pro­moting leisure," he says, "as a way for the Chinese to balance their lives."

Back at the Coconut Boulevard Social Club, member Sarah Tso (左乙萱) tells why she thinks people in Taiwan join classes and clubs as a way to socialize. This 29­ year-old editor of an English teaching magazine belongs to five singles clubs in Taipei. Such organizations appeal to people who are too busy or too shy (or both) to socialize, she explains.

Part of the difficulty of socializing be­ gins in high school, Tso believes. Com­pared to high school and college students in the West, she says, Taiwan students have relatively little opportunity to mingle. "I think it's the educational system," she says. "You do nothing [social] before you go to college. You study all day. Even in the uni­versity, your requirements for core courses are so heavy that you really don't have time. I didn't play at all in college. I went to two picnics, one ball-that's all."

And it can be even harder to have a so­ciallife after graduation. "Once you go into society and find your own job, you are too busy," she continues. For her, singles clubs provide a solution. "They are a quick and efficient way to find someone who is your peer," she says. "In one evening, you will meet thirty to forty people."