Does anyone else share my fascination with windows, or am I alone in this? In job interviews, when asked about my expectations for the workplace, a window is at the top of my list. This preference often earns me bewildered looks from some Taiwanese people. It baffles me how anyone could be content spending their entire day in spaces devoid of natural light. Take, for instance, the local doctors’ offices—a place you’d expect health and wellbeing to be a priority. Yet, I’ve hardly come across any that feature windows, despite the numerous visits I’ve made. It’s ironic how these health professionals, who dedicate their lives to healing others, neglect their own wellbeing by working in such environments. I just needed to vent about this and get your thoughts. Interestingly, my Taiwanese husband mentioned he’s never even considered it.
Personally I prefer MacOS
MacOS is great but I can’t afford their expensive hardware. MacOS is based on Unix though.
Maybe the computers all run on Windows.
I wonder about it too. Cultural difference I suppose, and perhaps there’s also an aversion to the sun and getting darker skin.
There are also many, many apartments where if you open the curtains all you see are the walls or windows of neighbors, so I suspect many people grow up without natural light as even an option.
In the morning, I open the curtains on our west-facing windows, and east too if it’s cloudy. At lunchtime, the curtains are opened on the east side, and they come down on the west side if it’s sunny. But I almost never see my wife open the curtains - she just doesn’t seem to care about getting natural light in. Students in my classrooms will often adjust lights and air conditioning, but almost never open curtains.
Tour buses that I see here: beautiful scenery, but all the curtains / window shades down.
Then again, it seems like airplanes now are the same, with those new-no-longer-new tinted windows staying tinted for the whole damn flight, until a few minutes before landing, even if breakfast was served two hours ago and it’s a gorgeous day and you’re flying over the west coast of British Columbia and Vancouver Island and the scenery is amazing but will the window let you look out, no no no.
No need for natural light when your house has soccer stadium lights brightening up your house.
My office room is windowless. I really don’t like it. But…I’m moving to another floor next week and my office will have windows.
I’m always surprised when I go to talk to someone at the company and his/her office has windows, but the shades are pulled all the way down!
Office rent without window is about half of with window, so the value is recognised.
I mean honestly, if we are talking about the Taipei area, unless you live in a new building, your window is going to be looking at a dank alley or someone else’s underwear hanging out to dry. There isn’t much to see. Those gongyu sucks if you want natural lights. In fact many don’t have real windows because they’re so damn close together.
Those tall high rises are much better in this regard, being above all these gongyu. In fact when it comes to high rise living, higher floor units cost more than lower floor unit (except for ground floor). So if your unit is on the 3rd floor, it’s going to be cheaper than the 27th floor. This is because on the 27th floor you’re seeing the sky and natural lights. So the value is recognized.
Isn’t it more of a status thing?
Higher floor is superior class
I was in beautiful house in yilang in a beautiful day but the old Taiwanese just put the shades in all the windows and enjoy the cold white light.
And again when back home, small windows in apartments. Or buildings built close together with almost no natural light in some rooms.
It’s also just being above all the gongyu and stuff. Only way to really enjoy natural light without paying for expensive properties is to move to rural areas.
I’m big on natural light as well. I can’t stand fluorescent lights. When I came to Taiwan I was shocked to see how bright the Taiwanese like there rooms but only with fluorescent lights. I’ve seen apartments with florescent lights. Just insane.
All of the above, plus many middle to upper price range restaurants are sealed up windowless dungeons. There’ll be nice furnishings, cute little ornate chopstick holders, and a million courses, but… no windows. I feel suffocated in these places, leaving aside aghast at the general lack of taste that prevails here.
I really like world gym at taipei main station because it has really big windows facing the taipei main station, but now they’re moving underground…
Ugh. I’ve been to a couple of places like that over the years - the little private banquet rooms. I’m mildly claustrophobic, and never enjoy walking down into such establishments: there’s often a moment catching my breath, with an internal “Oh crap do I have to do this?”. It’s no biggie once I’m in them, but I do usually go for a glass of wine a bit faster than usual, and fairly early I’ll “go to the bathroom”, partly to go to the toilet, but mostly to confirm my mentally-soothing map of how to get out in a hurry.
If there was one reason I would leave Taiwan, it would be the lack of windows and peoples aversion to natural light. My brain and body literally can’t handle artificial lights all day, yet even when there is an option to have windows, people have the curtains closed. I left a job because my entire body started to shut down working in a Taiwanese-created cave all day. Somehow, one hour of sunlight on my lunch break did not make up for the entire remaining hours of sunlight spent under only artificial lights. That’s gotta be some form of torture.
The biggest windowless abomination I’ve ever seen is in Kinmen though. They finally finished building that stupid bridge and there are like 3-4 high rises that are being built right at the foot. We’re talking ocean on three sides, with view of Xiamen in one direction, the Kinmen bridge + Little Kinmen in another, and open expanse of ocean on the third. Except, if you go live there, you get NOTHING! They have CONCRETE WALLS with tiny little peek holes facing one of the ocean sides. What the hell is wrong with people? Who thinks “I want to live right on the ocean, far from convenience stores, grocery stores, etc., but I don’t actually want to look at the ocean”?
Yeah, it makes a massive difference for me too. My sleeping patterns are ordinarily fucked anyway, but having strong sunlight in the morning definitely helps a lot. The two places I’ve lived in Taiwan aren’t terrible but aren’t great either (too dark in the mornings), and when I’ve stayed in really windowless places I get even more dysregulated than usual.
This! While most McDonald’s have nice large windows and often a good view.
Actually, it’s a biological thing. Especially with diurnal animal species such as our own. Nearly infinite research on the subject.