British Guy & Taiwanese Girl - Which Country to Live/Work in?

Legal Legal - Marriage
1

Hello

Would anyone be able to give advice or even an opinion on the following?

I live in the UK and my girlfriend lives in Taiwan. We have been together for approx 18 months and during that time i’ve been over to Taiwan once, going again next week, and she has been over to the UK once, and she is coming over again in April. We see each other on skype every day without fail, very much in love, and I am thinking about proposing at some point next year.

My problem is where we would both live and work. I think it would be better if we lived in the UK and she thinks it would be better to live in Taiwan.

We both have good jobs, i work as an IT Engineer and am currently on a years secondment to Paris for my work, and she works for China Airlines Ground Staff / Checkin.

Unfortunatly i do not have a University degree and from conducting endless research online i understand that it is very hard for me to obtain a work visa in Taiwan without one, even if i just wanted to teach English. I am not sure if this is correct but is the only way i could get a job in Taiwan is to get married first?

Therefore i think it would be easier for her to come to UK to live/work. She speaks almost perfect English and being fluent Chinese i dont think she would find it difficult to get a job in the UK. Maybe a UK airline, or i have even heard some of the big department stores in London are looking for fluent chinese speakers and earn good money.

However, she doesn’t want to leave Taiwan. She enjoys her job a lot and doesn’t want to be away from her family. She thinks that i could earn good money teaching English, but doesn’t seem to understand why i can’t do that without a University degree.

The long distance is becoming very hard for the both of us as we get closer and closer, especially on the moments where we have to say goodbye at an airport, but i dont want to rush getting married either just for a work visa to be together in one country.

I was thinking about saving money and going to live, but not work, in Taiwan on a 6 month visitors visa, just to see what it is like to live in Taiwan, but not really sure if thats the best way of doing it.

Anyone have any advice on what we should do? If i knew that i could find a job in Taiwan without a University Degree i would move to Taiwan to be with her in a second, but i think it is a huge risk for any future family we may have together if i can’t find a job.

Thanks in advance

2

FWIW:

  1. Don’t get married until you have had a relationship that involves more than fleeting visits.
  2. Do what you said: save some cash, get a tourist visa, and stay in Taiwan for as long as possible.
  3. I don’t see why you have to make a choice. You ought to be able to arrange things - eventually - so that you can, say, work in England during the summer, and in Taiwan during winter. I would have thought your gf could arrange something similar with China Airlines. If you can throw a third country into the mix you drop off the taxman’s radar, in the UK at least.
  4. Find yourself a moderately-reliable source of contract work (shouldn’t be difficult in your industry) so that you have the freedom to go where you want when you want. This will mean a fairly modest income (on average), and it would be worth finding out how your gf feels about that. I’m not saying she’s only interested in money, but in general Taiwanese people do have different attitudes to money than you might be used to. Find out what her attitudes are towards family finances, conspicuous consumption, etc. If they’re radically different to yours, you might have issues.

That kind of thing doesn’t fall into place overnight, but it seems like your best solution. In the meantime, I’d say your first order of business is to scrape some money together and spend some quality time together, either in Taiwan or England.

oh, and you’re right about the English-teacher thing. I believe it IS theoretically possible to get under-the-table work as a private tutor without official credentials, but you’d still be here on a tourist visa and you risk get fined and kicked out of the country, with a black mark on your passport. It’s not worth the hassle.

3

Thank you very much for the advice, its always helpful to have a different opinion

I think you are right about getting some quality time together first. I’m on a years secondment in Paris but after that has finished i will take an extended trip to Taiwan.

My girlfriend is very worried about our future, thinking if we even have a future because of the long distance and that i dont speak Chinese. I keep telling her that you either want it to work or you dont and that i will learn chinese, especially if i need to find a job in Taiwan.

It is a big risk for me as i doubt my current employer will let me take 6 months leave for a stay in Taiwan, so it means quitting my job and then trying to find another when/if i come back.

Her opinion on money is that i should be able to provide for the family. I know that in the future she wants children and would like to be a house wise, which is another reason i think it would be better to live in the UK. I am happy for her to do this but obviously worried about being able to provide everything we would need, and what her parents would expect.

4

What? DId you check her out while she was checking you in? YOu wanna marry this girl and remain married. YOu may have to make it work in taiwan. Many taiwanese girls do NOT want to leave the rock and be very far from their families. Some are fine with it, but many are not. IF you cant hack it on the rock you may have to find another one. There are other China Airlines check in girls too ya know? Some already live in the UK.

Its a tuff road you’re on. Better go live on the rock for a year and see if :

  1. you guys are really gonna make it as a couple
  2. you can hack being long term on the rock (its a life sentence but some get out after 20 - 30 years)
5

Her opinion is outdated it takes a working couple to provide for a family nowadays.

6

Her opinion is outdated it takes a working couple to provide for a family nowadays.[/quote]

Yes and with two cats but no kids.

hey im seeing double or there are two identical threads here?

cept the replies are different?

7

Her opinion is outdated it takes a working couple to provide for a family nowadays.[/quote]

Yes and with two cats but no kids.

hey im seeing double or there are two identical threads here?

cept the replies are different?

8

Her opinion is outdated it takes a working couple to provide for a family nowadays.[/quote]

Yes and with two cats but no kids.

hey im seeing double or there are two identical threads here?

cept the replies are different?[/quote]

Yup 2 threads out there. He could come here and find good work with a marriage based visa but its a long hard road. His woman will demand of him a lot of sacrifices she would not be willing to make herself. So he will have to bend over and take it to please his woman.

9

My two cents worth of commentary is as follows:

Typically, your average “Taiwan citizen” has no concept of the work restrictions in Taiwan regarding foreigners. Hence, when this Taiwanese lady says she feels that you could find a good job in Taiwan . . . . . . I would ask:

Is her statement in this regard actually based on any amount of research? You, the UK male, have said that you do not have a University degree. That fact alone puts you outside of the possibility of being hired by any language center here as a full time teacher.

Moreover, emotionally speaking, do you think you would enjoy “English language teaching” more than the work you are currently doing??? In my experience of teaching English, I find that there is a significant bottleneck which Chinese students have in learning English and that is VERB TENSE. In the Chinese language, there are no tenses. Hence, the average Chinese student basically has no sense of VERB TENSE. However, in English that is all important.

So . . . . . when you get to that point in your teaching, be prepared for serious problems. By comparison, “irregular plurals” and “idioms” are a minor issue, although of course those cause lots of problems.

Can you get a job in the IT field in Taiwan without a university degree?? I would imagine it would be very difficult. You have to get a work permit, and without a college/university degree, your employer cannot apply for your work permit. Certainly, you don’t want to work illegally?

10

If a Taiwanese says you can find a job easily, forget it! They only see the Americans who teach English, they don’t understand that any other job is very hard to get if you’re not in a management position back home. The most jobs here are in the higher management. However you are an English speaker and in the IT profession, it might be possible to find a job here after all. Just come here for a couple month and give it a try, you don’t need a university degree to get a work permit but 5 years of work experience. I am quite lucky cause my gf would be willing to relocate, after two years in Australia she realized that Taiwan kinda sucks :wink:. But now I got a job (lets see for how long :unamused: ) and everything is fine. So give it a try!

11

[quote]
Can you get a job in the IT field in Taiwan without a university degree?? I would imagine it would be very difficult. You have to get a work permit, and without a college/university degree, your employer cannot apply for your work permit. Certainly, you don’t want to work illegally?[/quote]

Yes you can get a work permit even if you’re just a high school graduate… all you need is 5 years working experience!

12

Perhaps your IT work doesn’t require you to be present on site, and you could perform your duties just as well via VPN.
So would your UK employer be open to you working remotely from Taiwan, for a trial period at least?

If your current employer won’t play ball, then do your IT skills in general lend themselves to working from home?
If so, might be time to switch jobs. Get a few interviews lined up, and ask the WFH question - explain your specific circumstances.

Or look out for jobs in Hong Kong, that might be close enough to Taiwan and family for your gf.
Does your Uk employer has a Hong Kong office? - maybe you could take a secondment there.

13

You work in IT, plenty of contract work and remote working, don’t see any big issues to try moving to Taiwan for a year, if it doesn’t work you can get something else later in the UK or elsewhere. Don’t even bother with English teaching is my advice.

14

where to find all this IT work? I’ve been looking for ages and only found bloody sales jobs…

15

YOu dont suppose one of these sharp mods could merge these two identical thread ya think?

16

I assume you mean 5 years work experience in the UK?

I wouldn’t mind teaching English for a couple of years but it is not something i would want to do for the rest of my life, nor would it provide enough income

The problem im having is that if she is refusing to event think about moving to the UK for me, perhaps she isn’t in love with me as much as she says. I’ve spent hours and hours researching Visa’s, jobs, getting married, Chinese lessons, even looking into what we would need to do if she came to live in the UK. When i’ve asked her to do the same thing, find out what i would need to do to live in Taiwan, she says that she hasn’t had the time…

I’m currently on a years secondment to Paris with my company’s parent company, and after that i may have an opportunity to go to another country but i wont know until closer to the time, they have branch offices everywhere.

Just wish that she would understand that it would be easier for her to come to the UK, but from what you are all saying it is very unlikely for a Taiwanese girl to give up everything and move away from her family.

She is quite an immature girl sometimes. We once had an arguement over something small that i had done to embarrase her, and the first thing she did was tell all her mates and then change her relationship status to single on facebook, before even talking to me about it all.

I really want the relationship to work but the long distance (14 hour flight) and the not knowing about how the future will be and where we will be living is very stressfull

17

Take ten years from her chronological age and there you are. YOu have a baby :slight_smile:

18

So she’s only 14 then! Not good! :unamused:

19

We have only been together for approx 18 months, im 26 and she is 24, we both dont really want to get married until 30ish

At the moment i am quite happy for things to carry on as they are just see how things go, but she is insisting she wants to know what will happen in the future. Where will we get married, where will we live, how many children we will have.

She wants me to start learning Chinese right now, because she wants someone to be able to say sweet things to her in chinese, even though im now having to learn French for my job.

She tells me that because she is a girl she wants to know that she is not wasting her time

Does all this sound normal?

20

So she’s only 14 then! Not good! :unamused:[/quote]

OKOK, i wont be so harsh on you, but shes more akin to 18 mentally then 24 that is for sure. Taiwanese girls arent allowed to ripen too quickly because their parents keep them under their umbrella for much longer then western parents. They dont have the maturity of a 24 year old German or American or French lady. Just think of your GF as being 18 and you will be able to handle her better and understand her better. The changing relationship status on facebook to “single” after a fight should be a dead giveaway here bro.

ITs not hopeless, its L>O>V>E> and somewhere it is written . Man shall love one that is far away rather then one that is nearby because in suffering the long absence of distance , his heart shall yearn…something like that. OH why oh why cant we just get sex much nearer? Instead of going halfway round the world? God is a funny Being He is , aint he?

Heck, im about to embark upon a weeks blind date with a girl iv never even met cept online who is convinced she wants to marry me. So maybe im not the guy to give sage advice here !! :laughing: :laughing:

The funny thing is im going along on this ride?? Blows my mind.

So your predicament is a relatively SANE one .

(ps to your above post…its all normal for taiwanese girls…welcome to taiwan and its lassies…she WILL blow your mind, after she blows you know what)

Taiwanese girls , you may Hate to Love them but you Will, oh yes , you will.