TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A Malaysian student living in Taiwan said she was left baffled and feeling that Taiwan is not Muslim-friendly after she was asked to remove her hijab during a job interview.
PhD student Liyana said that when interviewing for a part-time job at a restaurant in Taipei’s Zhongshan district earlier this month, she was asked by the interviewer if she would be prepared to remove her hijab while she was working.
Liyana told Taiwan News that this was the first time she had been asked to remove her hijab after interviewing at four different restaurants. However, she said that she has also been told by potential employers that she would only be allowed to wear a hat at work, not a hijab.
“After these incidents, I tried asking first if I could wear hijab prior to accepting interviews and all restaurants blatantly and hostilely rejected me,” she said.
“After living here for four years, I feel that Taiwan is not a Muslim-friendly place,” Liyana said, but added that this experience will vary from person to person. “I just feel powerless, and eventually know that I’ve got to suck it up,” she said.
Liyana said reliving the experience is painful for her, and though Taiwan is full of opportunities and good friends, she feels she will always be self-conscious as a Muslim in the country.
Aimi is a fellow Malaysian student in Taiwan and practicing Muslim, and an undergraduate student in Hualien. She said that she has also faced discrimination because of her hijab and the way she appears to people.
Aimi said that strangers had told her to remove her hijab because of the heat, and said that she has felt afraid in public spaces because of the way people looked at and spoke about her.
Because she is Chinese-Malay, Aimi said that strangers have responded to her saying she is Muslim by suggesting that means she can not be Malay, and must be Indonesian. Aimi said that because the majority of Muslims in Taiwan are from Indonesia, people often assume being Muslim and Indonesian are linked.
When applying for a job herself, Aimi said that she was asked by an agent to provide a photo for employers in which she was not wearing a hijab, after she provided a photo wearing one. However, she said she did not consider it discrimination, and it was likely for safety reasons.
“It was a semiconductor company, so I would work in a factory, and they have to consider safety,” she said. “Wearing a hijab, they are afraid that the cloth is going to get into the machines.”
She was able to reach a compromise with the agent, and wore a turban instead. Despite the initial request to remove her hijab, Aimi said she was treated well by the company.
Men pray in the main hall of Taipei Grand Mosque. (CNA photo)
“When I first started, I wore the turban, and then I slowly started to wear a normal hijab style. So, I covered my neck and everything.”
“They had no problem with that, they just kept on reminding me that I have to be careful of the machines,” Aimi said.
Abdullah Cheng (鄭平) is a second generation Taiwanese Muslim and software-engineer who founded Islam Taiwan, and has recently begun to lead prayers at Taipei Grand Mosque in English and Chinese. Cheng told Taiwan News that he agreed with Liyana and Aimi’s assessment that hijab-wearing women are often assumed to be Indonesian by Taiwanese people.
However, Cheng said that he feels Taiwan is a very friendly country for Muslims compared to other non-Muslim countries, though he said the experience varies for Taiwanese Muslims compared to others.
“When the non-Muslim Taiwanese people see me, they wouldn’t expect me to be a Muslim in the first place, so they wouldn’t have that prejudice,” he said. “But for the foreigners, especially the sisters wearing the hijab, I think they might have some problems.”
In contrast to Liyana's experience, Cheng said when strangers approach his wife to ask about her hijab, they are simply curious about why she is wearing it. “Overall, the Taiwanese are not negative, or you could say not violent, towards the idea of women wearing the hijab.”
Cheng said he believes that where it does exist, prejudice against Muslims is largely a result of Taiwan’s media environment. “Most Taiwanese people are not familiar with Islam at all,” he said, and added the news is many Taiwanese people’s main source of information about Islam.
“Islam isn’t covered in the media a lot, and when it is covered it usually focuses on something that is not part of Islam,” he said.
“Sometimes we see people who identify as Muslims committing certain acts that are not part of the religion,” he said. “Either the media makes it look like it’s part of the religion, or people misunderstand the action being part of the religion,” Cheng said.
Cheng reiterated that he feels Taiwan is generally a very friendly place for Muslims, and noted government initiatives to install Muslim prayer rooms in public spaces such as train stations. “Of course, it’s really unfortunate for the sisters to face that kind of situation they did,” he added.
Cheng said he recommends Muslims facing this issue negotiate with employers, though he said if they did not compromise, it would not be appropriate to remove the hijab for a job.
“If a company is forcing you to take off your hijab, then that is not a job that you should go for,” he said. “In my experience I think this is a minority case, and not the case for most Taiwanese companies."
