At a quarter past seven in the morning, when most Taipei office workers are still fast asleep and dreaming, Amy Chen is already standing at the side of the street, trying to kick-start her rather feeble 50cc scooter in order to go to work. In a small country town like Hsinfeng here in northern Taiwan, this is nothing unusual. Most factories start work at eight, unlike the nine-to-five routine of companies in the big cities. But there still seems to be something different about her.

Perhaps it's the seemingly careless way her tousled curls fall down over one eye, or maybe her subtle but fashionable make-up, or those outrageous, outsized earrings. . . But somehow it's not any of those either. Yet all in all, she has a special air about her. Ah, that's it! When she stops at a roadside stall to buy a vegetable stuffed bun for breakfast, the strong Western accent in her Mandarin gives it away: this girl surely didn't grow up in Taiwan!

Of course, some people who see her get the wrong idea. Once a couple of months ago she went into a little shop to buy something, and as she went to pay she smiled and said "Hi" to the shopkeeper in her usual way. To her surprise, the woman asked inquisitively "Are you a hairdresser?"

At that time Amy didn't yet understand what "hairdresser" really implied; when she found out later, she could not help feeling a rush of embarrassment. "That day I was wearing tight clothes from head to foot." From then on she no longer dared to casually greet strangers in the street the way she would in Canada.

As an industrial designer, Amy's daily routine includes drafting and modelling.

The first time she came back, she arrived at the airport in tears:

From the time when she emigrated to Canada with her parents after finishing primary school, to when she completed her university studies, Amy never dreamt that one day she might come back to work in Taiwan. But a summer vacation trip to Hong Kong after her third year at university changed everything.

The three-and-a-half months she spent working in Hong Kong was the first time as an adult that she had been together with so many Chinese people. She didn't like the unromantic, coldly practical attitude of people in Hong Kong, or their way of sucking up to the rich and powerful, so she left two weeks early. Before going back to Canada she decided to take a detour to Taiwan, to visit her grandmother, whom she had not seen for so many years, and who had always been the one who cared for her most; and to eat her favorite iced taro. Reunited with her relatives, she spent the warmest time since she had emigrated.

"I'd always thought that I had adapted fine to life overseas. I never expected that when the plane arrived over Taiwan and I saw the Taiwanese coastline, I would be really emotional, and I actually arrived at the airport in tears," Amy remembers with a smile.

After she and her family had emigrated, this naturally lively girl had not had too many problems adapting at first, and because her school provided special tuition, after only six months the language was no longer a big problem. "I have my father to thank for that. For the sake of our education, he passed up living in Toronto, where there would have been more business opportunities, and chose instead to settle in the capital Ottawa, which has more to offer culturally."

At the time Amy found a little boyfriend; they didn't speak the same language, but he took great care of her. But later, because she had too many friends and too many interests out of class, her mother thought that the reason for having emigrated with the children in the first place was being negated, and during the first four years, arranged for Amy to change schools every year in the hope that she would concentrate more on her studies. "At the time I was terribly unhappy, but at least it taught me how to survive and make new friends wherever I happen to be."

Doing overtime on a Sunday, there's no-one else around in the office to mind if she puts her feet up.

Down to earth with a bump:

Problems started with puberty, three or four years after the family arrived in Canada. Trying to get more opportunities to go out, she started to rebel.

"Dad and Mom had traditional attitudes, and so in front of them we acted very differently than at school, and it was hard to reconcile the two." At that time her classmates would party all day, and as a sixteen-year-old she would secretly slip off to dance halls. Her rebellious spirit was so strong that she would argue with her mother all day rather than let her tell her what to do.

Then her family's circumstances changed. Her father's business failed, and the girl who had worn mink coats as a child had to go out to earn money with her older brother. She sold cosmetics, worked as a cashier at a car park, and as a cleaner in a hotel. When they ran a stall at the weekends. They would have to get there at four in the morning to grab a space. "We couldn't go away on holiday any more; my little brother and sister would cry, but my big brother and I were old enough to understand that life was going to be different from then on."

Chatting and joking with her colleagues like one of the lads, they all say she's "half girl and half boy"

Am I a bird or an anima?

As a strong, independent child, it was actually all the easier for her resistance to be broken down by her relatives' loving kindness. Amy had always thought she was completely Westernized, but when she returned home after two weeks in Taiwan, she found she had changed.

Arriving at Canadian customs, she almost forgot how to speak English. From high school on, she had doggedly refused to let her mother put rice in her lunch pack, but now suddenly her friends' oft repeated "Amy, you're just like us" no longer felt like a compliment. She was just about to graduate as a designer, and she remembered afresh what one of her teachers had said: you have to have your own individual style. "But I felt like a bat: half bird and half animal." Her grandmother's sudden death cast her emotions into even greater turmoil, and she felt like running away from everything she was familiar with.

"Why don't you come to Taiwan?" suggested her father C.Y. Chen, who had himself returned in February of last year. On the one hand he hoped that his eldest daughter, who once dyed her hair purple and even planned to get herself tattooed, would start acting less like a foreigner and more like a Chinese; but more importantly, over the last decade the North American economy had been going steadily downhill, while Taiwan had been developing far better than he had ever expected, and with family and contacts here, he thought that if his children returned they would have better chances for the future. Apart from trying to persuade Amy to come back, he had already arranged for his eldest son Paul to return to Taiwan and set up in business.

Amy Chen's favorite piece. Her greatest challenge since coming back to work in Taiwan has been how to match her designs to the needs of the local market.

A small town is just her style:

In the last few years, large numbers of graduates have come back to start a career in Taiwan after studying overseas, and many scholars and emigrants have also returned. Apart from those trained in high-tech fields who go to the Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park, most of the rest choose to settle in Taipei. On the one hand Taipei has many large organizations and foreign companies, so that they are more likely to find jobs and salaries in line with their expectations, and there are more opportunities for those wishing to set up in business themselves; and on the other hand, Taipei is a large cosmopolitan city, with standards of fashion, food, accommodation, transport and leisure activities more in line with their lifestyles. But Amy Chen went to live in Hsinfeng--a small country town between Chupei and Hukou, with a mainly Hakka population.

"I couldn't survive in Taipei," says Amy, not finding her choice in the least bit strange. Taipei has bad air, traffic jams, and rents and prices are so high: "I'm just an ordinary office worker. How could I afford it?" Not only is Hsinfeng much cheaper than Taipei, but what she likes about it even more is how friendly everyone is. "It's not like Taipei, there they won't even say sorry if they bump into you in the street." Although some of her relatives worried that livi out in the country she wouldn't find a boyfriend, her father was relieved to have his daughter living there, because she would be less likely to "go wrong."

Back home in her rented flat in the evenings, Amy often leafs through her old student projects, thinking of the past, and of the future.

Culture shock in the factory:

After she started work at the factory in the Hsinchu Industrial Zone, she immediately became a focus of attention throughout the plant.

"Hey, that funny new kid in your department, she does her exercises like dancing aerobics!" the Plant Manager Jackson Chiu said to the R&D Manager one day after 8 o'clock morning exercises, grinning as if he'd just discovered a new continent. Apart from morning exercises, there are plenty of other things about her which her co-workers can't quite get used to. "Don't put your feet up on the chair when you're using the computer!" "Don't keep twisting back and forth while you're talking!" "Don't keep jumping about like a frog when you're walking along!" . . . her supervisors and colleagues are always telling her, half in jest. Amy finds it very hard to get used to everyone telling her to sit properly or walk properly. "If I have to act like I'm bound hand and foot, then how can I express my feelings?"

The ways in which Amy gives people "culture shock" are not only to do with body language. One day when she was walking along behind Senior Section Chief Robin Wu, she suddenly yelled out "Robin, you've got a lovely butt!", while making big curves in the air with her hands. At the time Robin was left bright red and speechless. Sometimes when she's pleased, she can't help bursting out to her colleagues "l love you, I want to give you a hug!" Her male colleagues can only stammer out "I'm married, you'd better not." Her male colleagues say "We are always larking around with her, saying we're going to sue her for sexual harassment," and in Taiwanese they jokingly call her "half girl and half boy."

Her trademark: designer earrings in all shapes and sizes.

Good friends on the production line:

Some people may have thought the Western way she speaks and acts seemed a bit freakish in a conservative factory environment, but it was not long before her colleagues were infected by her. and gradually let down their "mask." After work on Saturdays, she likes to find someone to go out with, for instance going to see the adult-rated movie Damage with two other girls from her office.

But these few 'quirks' notwithstanding, there is a side to Amy which people admire. Three days before starting her new job, like other new recruits she first went for some practical experience on the production line. "Most people just go through the motions, but she isn't a bit stuck up like other college graduates. She fitted in very well, and didn't hold up our work at all," Manufacturing Section Chief Timmy Chen says sincerely. And she made firm friends with two of the women production workers, who she eats lunch with every day, chatting with them about anything and everything.

"The office workers mostly don't have much to do with us in Manufacturing, but she comes to see us of her own accord--she's not like the rest," says Li Kui-ying, a production operative. She says that Amy doesn't mind turning her hand to anything; she'll try to find a way of moving even the heaviest materials herself, unlike most Taiwanese girls, who often like to be waited on.

The other girls in the office admire the way Amy isn't afraid to demand what she considers to be reasonable deadlines, "Not like us, we mainly just put in some unpaid overtime to get things finished."

A new member of society in two ways:

Amy has gradually adapted well to everyday life in Taiwan. Every day after work, she likes to go to a book hire shop near the factory, where she hires a cartoon story book to read. Not only has her Chinese progressed so far that she can read kung fu novels, but she has also made good friends with the owner, Liang Mei-Yun. Through Mrs. Liang, Amy was able to find a small rented apartment with a television, fridge and kitchen equipment, for no more than she had been paying before. And as she adopts more and more of the local ways, she even had Liang Mei-Yun consult an almanac to choose a lucky day for her to move house.

But as a new member of society in two ways--having returned to Taiwan from abroad, and entering the world of work after graduating from college--the real problems Amy has had to face in adapting to life here have been at work. At the moment she has six or seven projects in hand, but only one of them has been accepted. Her supervisor says that her work is quite creative, but she doesn't understand the local market, so her designs have not been quite right.

In this situation it is no use trying to make excuses--she just has to go back to her drawing board. She is well aware that as an emigrant returning to her native land to work, although she has various natural advantages such as knowing English, making friends easily, and being more easily forgiven if she speaks out of line, on the other hand she has to become accustomed to things which other people are already used to, learn the demands of the local market, and overcome the difficulties of communicating in a language which she only half understands.

Homesick nights:

Although rationally she can accept all these factors, emotionally they are a heavy burden. Recently her colleagues have found that she hardly laughs any more, and is no longer as vivacious as before. They guess that she has already "assimilated. " But Research and Development Manager Sam Chen says: "An R&D department needs diversity; I'm not happy to see this change in her."

Naturally, Amy herself doesn't want to be "assimilated." "I want to have my own individual style"--but what is that style? Wasn't the very reason she came back to Taiwan to find that part of her which is different from her Canadian classmates? She feels frustrated and at a loss.

On another night spent missing her family, Amy is surprised that she has finally started to understand what it means to be homesick. And the last time she phoned Canada, her mother actually said she missed Amy too. As she writes a letter home she thinks of her cat, and of her younger brother, who still wants to lie on his mother's bed when he has a stomachache, even in his third year at university. "Oh well, I'll go back to see them in July; no, why not June. . . ?"