Maldwyn (Mal) Turner Jr. (left) returned to Osoyoos over the Chinese New Year from Taiwan, where he is teaching English. He was visiting his parents Margaret-Anne Turner and Maldwyn Turner Sr. (Richard McGuire photo)

An Osoyoos man is living the life of an expatriate in Taipei, Taiwan, a lifestyle that most people here could never imagine.

Maldwyn (Mal) Turner Jr. still makes a point of returning to Osoyoos at least once a year to visit his parents, Maldwyn Sr. and Margaret-Anne Turner.

Mal Turner, 40, who spent most of his childhood in Osoyoos and keeps in touch with friends here, was in town recently during the Chinese New Year holiday.

“I maintain a foothold here in case one day I do decide to move back so it will be as seamless a transition as possible,” said Turner. “One of my best friends in Taiwan … said we all come back one day whether on our own steam or we’re in a box.”

The self-described extrovert speaks quickly, and you have the impression he never sits still.

“I have 11 jobs,” he said, describing employment ranging from a full-time job teaching English to kindergarten students, to shorter commitments such as one-to-one tutoring and coaching hockey. Yes, they do play hockey in Taiwan.

“You have to have a hustle on if you’re a foreigner there because one job doesn’t make it lucrative enough to stay there,” he said. “Some foreigners have small restaurants, plus they teach a little bit and sell stuff online or do a bit of acting or modeling on the side.”

Turner has done many of the above. He’s learned to speak Mandarin, he’s starred in television commercials and, as a professional bagpiper, he periodically gets well-paying gigs dressing in a kilt and performing at functions.

In Canada, Turner might have played bagpipes at weddings and funerals to earn “beer money.”

“There I’m getting calls from big companies that hire me and are willing to pay top dollar, thousands of dollars,” he said.

And sometimes being a white foreigner leads to gigs where the Taiwanese want an exotic-looking person to play a role – such as television commercials.

Once he landed a role in a commercial for Mr. Brown Coffee, a Taiwanese canned coffee brand that promotes its western style and flavours ranging from macadamia nut to espresso.

“They wanted a white guy in the middle of a room with computer-graphic bubbles, so I’m in this commercial pretending to look around at bubbles that aren’t there, but on the commercial, the bubbles are there,” said Turner.

His girlfriend did a Sony ad that was plastered on the side of city buses.

“I’d be trying to work on my motorcycle and a bus would pass with my girlfriend on the side,” he said.

He did a weight-loss commercial where he had to wear a lab coat and pretend to be scientist.

And he worked on a Pixar Brave film where he came face-to-face with a Taiwanese singer and actor who he calls a “Taiwanese Madonna” who was doing Chinese voiceovers.

Turner got the travel bug in the late 1990s when he was just 18. He wanted to play junior hockey, but there weren’t the same opportunities then and he wasn’t sure that he could make it here.

Then an opportunity opened when he was sponsored as a Rotary Club exchange student to travel to Pori, Finland and play hockey for a year in a league roughly equivalent to the junior A level.

A few years later he was backpacking with a friend through Asia and they made money building houses in Australia, a job he also did during the summers while he was in Canada at university.

They stopped over in Taiwan at the end of 2002 and the following year he returned to teach, and he’s been teaching there since.

Turner is not a teacher by background, but all that was required at the time was a university degree and a criminal background check to get a work permit. People from seven countries where English is spoken as a native language were in demand as teachers.

In his “main job,” he said, he’s been teaching English as a second language (ESL) continuously since 2003.

Taiwanese children are pushed hard to learn from the youngest age and they spend most of their waking hours in school, often cramming in math.

“They are busy from six or seven in the morning until eight or nine at night and then on weekends they have extra curricular stuff,” said Turner. “So, I’m kind of like a break almost.”

He tries to make his classes fun for his young students and his extroverted personality is indispensable.

The job has given him a chance to tour extensively throughout Taiwan and elsewhere in Asia, even travelling to Ladakh in the north of India, next to Tibet, to play hockey.

He lives in downtown Taipei, the Taiwanese capital, which he describes as “a fantastic city,” modern, clean and safe. There’s very good public healthcare and the island nation has built up its infrastructure with high-speed rail, a subway network in the capital, bike paths, modern highways and parks.

Once known as “Formosa,” the Portuguese word for “beautiful,” Taiwan has maintained de facto independence from mainland China, despite being claimed by China and internationally recognized as a part of China.

“It’s a really beautiful country,” he said. “It’s volcanic, with hot springs, lush and tropical, beautiful beaches, lots of parks. It’s a beautiful island, it’s really fantastic.”

The people are friendly to foreigners. And although the other expats have their own community, Turner said they are also well integrated into Taiwanese society.

But Taiwan is also prone to natural disasters, though its modern construction can usually withstand it.

“Living there is not all roses,” said Turner. “We’ve had about 20 earthquakes in the last two weeks. We get several typhoons a year.”

Still, Turner is happy there, though he recognizes that as he enters his 40s, he’s not going to be able to keep running at the same pace.

His views about Osoyoos have also changed as he’s grown older.

“When I was a kid in Osoyoos, I wanted to get out of here and go see the world because this place was boring,” he said. “But I come back, and I appreciate the pleasant lifestyle that people have here. I’m in a different time of my life too, so I’m more drawn to it here now than I have been in years past.”

Turner said he still wouldn’t be able to live here because of the difficulty getting employment with his skills and lack of formal teaching credentials.

“But coming home now, it’s good,” he said. “I enjoy it and take it for what it is.”

RICHARD McGUIRE

Osoyoos Times