Same guy had killed Bai Pingping’s daughter. Pretty nasty cookoo mafioso, at a time there where things did try to get out of hand here in Taiwan. It was the ambassadors family, no less, at a time SA had diplomatic relations with ROC. Police messed up greatly, and if was a real miracle that the loss of life was not higher. The real villains there, though, were the disgusting so called media corps… You can search here for details if you have the stomach, but it is repulsive.
Same guy had killed Bai Pingping’s daughter. Pretty nasty cookoo mafioso, at a time there where things did try to get out of hand here in Taiwan. It was the ambassadors family, no less, at a time SA had diplomatic relations with ROC. Police messed up greatly, and if was a real miracle that the loss of life was not higher. The real villains there, though, were the disgusting so called media corps… You can search here for details if you have the stomach, but it is repulsive.[/quote]
What did the media do?
Same guy had killed Bai Pingping’s daughter. Pretty nasty cookoo mafioso, at a time there where things did try to get out of hand here in Taiwan. It was the ambassadors family, no less, at a time SA had diplomatic relations with ROC. Police messed up greatly, and if was a real miracle that the loss of life was not higher. The real villains there, though, were the disgusting so called media corps… You can search here for details if you have the stomach, but it is repulsive.[/quote]
What did the media do?[/quote]
Start here at your own risk
forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtop … ng#p975013
forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtop … t=bai+ping
forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtop … ping#p3577
Duly noted that Taiwan has come a long way from that horrible place, and society’s reaction was firm.
[quote=“Icon”]From China Post:
Famed domestic thoracic surgeon and former Taipei City Hospital Superintendent Perng Reury-perng’s 66-year-old wife, surnamed Lin, was robbed and stabbed yesterday morning at Yongkang Street; police are investigating the case.
Lin is in stable condition after emergency treatment and is currently staying in the Intensive Care Unit at a hospital for further observation.
Police said surveillance footage shows that Lin was walking alone in an alley at the Yongkang Commercial District when a man followed her and suddenly grabbed Lin’s bag from behind, tripped her and then stabbed her neck and back. The victim was dragged on the ground for a while, resulting in abrasions on her face, police said, noting that the suspect fled the crime scene after the incident
So this guy’s been caught… end of story 24 hours later.[/quote]
They caught the guy in less than 24 hours thanks to surveillance footage from more than 300 cameras. There are thousands of surveillance cameras all over Taipei. While they help deter crime, I’m not sure what civil libertarians think of them.
Not that I researched this, but I think the cameras belong to individuals and businesses, and not the government for the most part (unlike London). This means that no one entity can spy on everyone from behind their desk, and individuals are likely delete footage after a while without looking at it if nothing happened.
[quote=“crazyguymanhorse”]Dear forummers on Forumosa,
I have been interested in Taiwan for a while now and so have been browsing through the forum a bit. I have found many posts about road rage (people being pushed off the road after flipping the bird), attacks with baseball bats. Beerbottles smashing on heads. I am getting the feeling Taiwan is a pretty violent place. Now is it, or is it just because ive been reading the wrong posts? I know you have violence everywhere in the world. But lets face it, there are some places that are more violent than others. Liberia for example is a lot more violent than Germany. Of course we are now taking two extremes but you get the point. So overall do YOU as a person that lives in Taiwan personally perceive Taiwan as a violent country or not?
Thanks for your information in advance!![/quote]
Hey CrazyGuy,
From a person who doesn’t like Taiwan as much as every other poster here, I will say that Taiwan is relatively safe. I drive in Taipei and frequently like to use the horn and I will say that my car horn is relatively loud, however there’s no violence that ensues…
As an observation, I think there is more violence than what people think but still relatively low. If you do not watch news in Chinese, then you really don’t know how society is… there’s so much in the news about scandals and violence that is not translated into English
Many belong to the government, every district has a control room that records but not full time manned, some are traffic cameras, lots of others are private …
Responses to dumb posts were sent from my Nexus 7, I hate Apple BTW, with Tapatalk 8
“Taipei City Police Department is ‘protecting’ you.”
most are kept by police stations. there are lots of special shit with them,but they are mostly government based. private homes/businesses can of course also have them, for example 7-11 and higher business will always have their own.
if you are an upstanding resident keeping your nose clean, Taiwan is SUPER safe. but it is a very violent place indeed, it is just usually somewhat deserved, or asked for, and is also equally as much hidden from media. stay away from debt, drugs, women and spontaneous rage (ie pettiness) and you are fine.
if you are involved with lots of violence here, chances are it is largely due to your own decisions and who you hang out with.
the difference here is how well things are hidden, yet so well known at the same time. Taiwan is a living oxymoron, literally. the other difference is there is little petty theft kind of street violence you would expect in north america for example. here theft is more like machinery or spending a full night stealing an orchards crop, but for some reason no one thinks to knock out that guy at 7-1 counting $20k to pay for an $8 egg…about the only similarity between western and taiwan theft is thieves are still stupid here, if they arent they are just known as business men or politicians, collectively known as “boss” 
beyond safe here unless you are stupid though. the big risk here is pollution/disease and traffic.
every country will have a few bad apples and violent crime/incidents - taiwan included - but some countries are more violent than others. taiwan is definitely much safer than most countries in the world. i’ve lived in big cities like nyc and los angeles and when you’re in those cities you definitely need to be street smart like looking behind you every few min when you’re walking down the streets at night or in the subway system and need to avoid certain neighborhoods. i never felt the necessity to do that in taiwan. i never felt like i had to look behind me every few minutes when taking the taipei metro at night. i never felt like i might get mugged in taiwan. taiwan is definitely a very safe country.
Told you guys about my last trip to US. Every single day there was at least an incident so violent my stepmom and bro, who live in Central America in one of those places where life is certainly borrowed, were startled. Fights on the metro, robberies or shoplifting security encounters at the malls, break ins around us… and this is middle to high end places, no barrio ghetto whatever. With private security around and still you felt as in Central America, but without the flavor: as if you were there on borrowed time, as if any minute something would actually reach out and take your life away. Violence that would get you when you least expected it. Like a stray bullet going through your celling and falling on your lap.
It is not the same here. You can let go of the fight and flight tension. Sometime I look at my 50 year old gates and locks and my door held together by sheer will because termites have done it good, and I smile as I do not have to wonder if when I come back my stuff will be there. Any thief would probably be crushed by the gates if he tried to use a crowbar on them. I am a single woman living on my own and the only thing that disturbs my sleep at night is the horny cats making kittens on the roofs.
Every day at work there is some kind of protest going on. Swear to God, there is this guy who comes every Friday at noon to scream: Down with Ma! so the guards will treat him to lunch. There is an old lady out there by the main gates who comes every day who has been here longer than me or anyone else I know. No one can tell me what she’s complaining about. She sits there and has her tea from a full size kettle while siting on a plastic stool, next to her list of petitions.
The figures are interesting. According to the numbers, Taiwan is much more dangerous than my hometown, yet I always felt a lot safer there. I guess because I don’t have the same awareness of the media there. I’m also probably safer ‘at home’ because I can read people and situations much better. Dunno. Perception versus reality is interesting.
Where was this at? In most places in the US it is hard to find somewhere that has daily occurrences like that. Don’t get me wrong, that stuff does occur, but that kind of frequency of events tends to be isolated in certain areas.
Where was this at? In most places in the US it is hard to find somewhere that has daily occurrences like that. Don’t get me wrong, that stuff does occur, but that kind of frequency of events tends to be isolated in certain areas.[/quote]
Thing is, we moved around, it did not just happen in one place, but basically New York and Washington DC, Maryland areas, even Minneapolis. Maybe I was more sensitive to it, seeing its rare here, maybe it is just urban areas -though I have been told suburban is more “dangerous”… and I do hate suburbia with fierce panic.
The general feeling I got was that people were “angry” and that anything could spark a confrontation. Like putting strange cats in a small cage. Everything looked pretty and clean and fine yet people … were not. It is the exact opposite here, where the streets are dirty, the buildings look so-so, but people just go around their business calmly. It is not the warmth of Latino countries but ain’t sparring cats either.
[quote=“Icon”]
The general feeling I got was that people were “angry” and that anything could spark a confrontation. Like putting strange cats in a small cage. Everything looked pretty and clean and fine yet people … were not. [/quote]
Why don’t they just take soma?
There are parts of the US that have traditionally been rich, but the economy is slowly falling apart. The yuppies are a little tense. They put their faith in the service sector, and now it’s not looking so hot. A lot of yuppie kids have worthless degrees in majors that end in the word ‘studies.’ They’re looking for someone to blame besides themselves, and deluding themselves that they’re the 99%. They’re just a lost generation. They’ve got time on their hands, and they drink heavily.
well, not to piss people off but lest face it, the US in many ways can be compared to the stereotypical third world. Its not all like the movies play ti out to be. But people still use the USA as some kind of higher standard for comparison when in reality it is more rightly far lower down the ladder than many places being compared with it. only big difference is there is no outright war on their own soil i guess, and organized threats are often twisted into something else or hammered hard. but the US is a pretty fucked up place, i never felt safe there in any capacity. I felt more safe back packing through most of SE Asia than i ever did driving throughout the western US… Even now i will never travel through the US to transfer, ever. no matter the cost, i opt for a different destination before i layover there 
Not to mention transferring through the US has its own set of troubles for non US citizens… you have to get a visa to transit through the US or even make a fueling stop, no matter the circumstance.
Or just tunnel under the border and get an amnesty.
I’ve tutored kids from Africa. They much prefer the US to the actual third world, which they tell me is a much worse place than the sterotypical one. People I know from Honduras tell me the worst slums of Massachusetts are preferable to home. I wonder if Pingdong is going out of his way to find trouble.
Been to Manila. A guy tried to pick my pocket in broad daylight with no else nearby. Got to give him points for chutzpah. That never happened to me in the US. Not even in New Jersey.
It’s not so bad, except for the time I was in LA and told me and my Taiwanese gf were in the wrong place and to go now (friendly suggestion) by two black teenagers. I said where do you get a taxi? They said they won’t stop here. We will call you one. Nice folks. The place just looked like a regular suburban strip mall but 99% of the clientele were black, very ghettoised America in parts.
Then there was the time I was in Harlem with friends and a police cruiser picked us up and took us downtown because ‘it wasn’t a good area for us to be in’.
Now they have presidential offices there.
I’ve personally spent overnight in jail there, so I guess I didn’t help the crime statistics (was not charged with anything at least although was assaulted by the cops).
In the European capital city I’m from petty crime is rampant ,
junkies hang around the streets and gangland murder is routine, so it does not feel very safe either. Gun crime on innocent people is rare though.