Love my new job, but missing Taiwan :(

By 9 classes do you mean 9 hours? For me when you say 9 classes it’s like 9 different subjects, so that’d be 18-36 hrs of lectures, which I don’t think is possible.

I do have days, when i start missing Taiwan, but than i try to remember reasons why i left in first place, and i feel better immediately

  • constant overwhelming pressure from parents in law. Either for over pricey marriage cookies or drinking warm water on bloody hot day, or having constant trip with their generation, and taking tone of non important pictures. Imagine time when we gonna have kids

  • pollution everywhere, can not even drink water from pipe, food scandals being normal, fake oil etc

  • driving safety

  • kids educations (although is good for learning chinese langauge and gaining hard work skills, overall kids do not get back in real life for effort they putting in taiwanese schools - hell yea i was in competitive high school, almost half of my classmates enroll medicine, and am telling you we have way more time + freedom than Taiwanese kids teenagers can ever dream)

  • whole labour market

  • crazy groceries prices, not mention - kindergarten prices

  • not enough variety.

In europe, there are cheap tickets to everywhere. Week in Portugal,hit real beaches, no problem. Can rent car there for like less than 200 bucks/week. Jump to Island, having great hot spa. Or fly to Istanbul for like 100 bucks, and have great food on every corner. When i had stopover in Istanbul from taiwan,i was blessed by food. Was year since i ate real chicken, real beef, without paying 20 bucks for a dinner. It cost like 2 to 3 usd outside of center. Everywhere food was damn tasty. And meat everywhere. Than i realized how much actually food in Taiwan sucks outside of soups, veggies, sea food.

Yea sure was cool as hell in my 20s, when i was freelancing, earning more than engineers, but hey a man must have responsibly. 80 % someone life is education & jobs. No way i will suck up in taiwan and listen to dump boss and controlling parents in law. Only way for me going back is having a lot of cash $$$$$. Or maybe later in life, once kids are older. Really do not want they have strict narrow mind by chinese values. World is way bigger. No way am putting my kids in it.

I was like yea, let go back to Taiwan every summer, but am not sure anymore. I was there like my whole 20s, wanna see other places to. Japan

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Actually a second look at my schedule shows me I’m teaching 8 courses for a total of 15 hours a week. Most are 2 hours and one is 1 hour. Profs only have to teach 9-12 hours a week, but lowly lecturers get the crap schedule. Annoying split shifts, 14-16 hours a week, and if a prof wants to teach the same elective as you they get first dibs, etc. Oh well. Still beats cram schools and public schools.

You know you can live in Taiwan too and visit other countries, what a novel concept!
This year we have already been to Koh Lanta , Krabi, Singapore, KL, Sarawak and Malacca for vacation. I actually have to resist putting pictures up on social media to not piss people off.

For work I have been to Bangkok and Huahin and arond Asia. Oh I’m going to spend a week in Kyoto for work next month. That’s going to be tough lol.

Agree with the general working conditions suck , groceries cost issues.
My in laws are mostly okay but my parents can annoy my spouse too!

My kids will have awesome Chinese which will help enable them to gave a prosperous future along with fluent English.
Schooling is not great and lack of neighbourhood kids is a problem but there are choices that can be made along the way.

There can be issues for families wherever you go.
In many major cities costs have gone crazy which is a global problem. A lot of the stuff you point out is related to living in Asia as we have large populations and competitive societies here in East Asia and environmental problems related to the concentration of population and industry.

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as to what brianjones said. i’ve travelled to plenty of places since living here, i’m going to have seen all of asia soon enough. back home travelling is a hell of a lot more costly. taiwan is a good location for travelling thats for sure.

not sure what you mean by real chicken either. the chicken here is fake? i have an oven, i am not missing out on chicken.

I guess it depends on the places you’re interested because to me travelling in Europe >>>>>>>> travelling in Asia.

I know a guy who lives in Taiwan and flies to Germany for a 3-day (in fact only 24 hours) vacation.
1st day: On the plane from Taoyuan to Frankfurt, which took 12 hours painfully.
2nd day: Stay in a club for the whole day.
3rd day: On the plane from Frankfurt back to Taoyuan, which took another 12 hours painfully.
And I won’t tell you who that guy is.

sure, depends on your perspective. personally i’ve already lived 30 years in europe and visited most of it so asia is good for me now and the lower cost is super good…

Home is where the heart is

Well yea, is not all bad neither, taiwan has many pluses indeed. It is kinda real mix, i just could not ignore negatives anymore. What do you do for a living Brianjones?

Sure you can travel around asia, but how much you think i did it with gf havin like 10 days off per year? Not mention, had to share those days with her mummy. So in the end we had like 5 days trips every year. Wow, so much of travelling. To most of places you mentioned i went alone. Not saying my parents in law are all annoying, they are nice as well, but they are very traditional, matter of facts Taiwanese are pretty much conservative folks. Anyone marrying with a chinese/ taiwanese knows what am talking about. They have their demands, and they never stop with it. I was 25 when we married, had rough year in business and they did not give a damn. I gave them face, but i keep my sanity and soul. We moved to europe.

Not many places are like hour flight from taipei. Hardly just jump for weekend trip. I rather spend my time in hills, exploring water falls, driving with scooter around. I mean this is taiwan all about, being so small, you can have many lovely short trips.

When it comes to language, yea i agree is beneficial for kids to learn mandarin. Frankly speaking only attending chinese elementary school makes one fully literate in chinese language. But look from another direction, from time/money invested or rate of return, than is just so simple west education >>>>>>> chinese education. How would you feel, your parents put you in school, where you learn from 8 am to 10 pm being 10 years old. When i was so old, all i care is to play as much football as possible. And folks you will not believe i finished degree, and i even end up earning more than most of taiwanese. Only reason why i would put kiddo in chinese school, is his heritage, so he can be close as well with taiwanese family, my wife.

When it comes to food, locals are convinced their cuisine is best, anyone travelling a bit, know this is just a myth. Yea, it does help there is a lot of japanese, thailand restaurants on the rock.

I might one day return to taiwan, but not now. I think i will take deep thoughts when kiddo is 7

Just got to make the best of where you are really. Europe is pretty awesome for many. I’m European myself and would love to spend a few years there again.
Most of the world is not so fortunate as Europeans in general, in that regard Taiwan is pretty good.

Thank you for all of the replies!

Yes, the awful work culture is essentially what drove me out of Taiwan. I know someone who has pretty much exactly my position at Academia Sinica (just found out the details of his job). He has to sign in and out every day or get his pay docked. I, um…never have to even go to campus unless I have to teach that day. I also make around 6 times what he makes. I do most of my work in my bathrobe on my balcony surrounded by gorgeous trees (90% of my job is research/writing, and my juices don’t flow when in an office). So I shouldn’t complain.

As my research involves Taiwan, I will go back for fieldwork, maybe the short trips will help with the whole missing Taiwan over time.

An excellent compromise. Good luck with your research going forward.

Guy

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That’s probably adjunct lecturer’s deal (which is crap, obviously). A permanent professor teaches like 3-8 hrs a week at NTU and it’s almost impossible to fire them.

It’s not the best gig in the world, but I think calling it “crap” is relative. I’d rather teach college-aged adults 15 hours a week, have no desk warming, and get 4 months paid vaca a year than work at any cram-school or public school. So all things considered, I feel pretty fortunate.

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No, also postdoc.

Plenty of Taiwanese professors actually teach 6 courses a semester. Those jobs are anything bit cushy. And the backstabbing politics…don’t even need to go there.

Yeah I included that in lecturers.

It depends on the school. At NTU it rarely gets more than 4. It’s usually 2 or 3 per semester for most, even the exploited assistant profs.

And yeah the politics is fucking pathetic.

Just like France :laughing: The system here is pretty Bolshevik. But it may change, although I doubt it. Macron is too busy spending thousands on make up (over 20K since coming into office) rather than making substantial liberalizations. That being said, as someone who is innovative/productive but offends a lot of people (people seem to either love me or hate my guts, and sometimes I confess to enjoy riling people up), I don`t mind the protections.

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Lecturers and postdocs are different animals. Each has challenges, of course, but the OP’s current gig sounds like a terrific opportunity that bears little resemblance to any lecturer position I’ve seen in Taiwan or elsewhere.

Guy

Have a taiwanese girlfriend and wife!!