you missed the fireworks 
Banned or suspended?
when a pickle gets in a pickle of a situation, the mods go depth-con status
What a prickle.
I lived in Taiwan over 30 years ago and left around 20 years ago when my wife died. The palpable relief and freedom to leave Taiwan for a better life was a great joy to behold. We had a great marriage and no kids but she was stuck in living in Taiwan as everything was convenient for her, not so much me.
I travel back frequently and can see a lot of the new infrastructure and the cites like Kaohsiung are really nice now. I just spent a few days there down by the harbor. The LRT and MRT make getting around really nice. Took a nice cruise.
Thing is a lot of bitter expats live in Taiwan because of a wife or children and they feel tethered down and lack the guts to make a choice to leave. Then they get into a rut of poor employment choices. Some expats seem tho thrive by doing business but Taiwan is still 5th rate.
There were a lot of smart people on this forum 15 years ago and I assume many moved on to better things. Also FB where they can just relate with people they actually have as friends rather than just hanging out with their own kind because they in reality donāt like Taiwanese people very much. You can see a lot of that on the threads.
my 2 cents. Just checked into to fly back home to the US for awhile and the airline staff ask me what is my favorite place in Taiwan. They look a bit queer when I reply the international airport as I leave.
sorry bout your wife. just curious, if you are not tied to taiwan, why did you go back? just curiosity? or passing through?
Don"t know bout the site 15 years ago, donāt remember if I was on it then? I donāt remember what I did 15 days ago 
okay, brah, just cuz Cali went legal on green candy doesnāt mean itās Halloween every day. 
4 Likes
He is the good foreigner, all the rest are the bad ones - syndrome.
No idea about 15 years ago. 15 years ago I was living on the other side of the island, and I wasnāt using any forum sites like this one. I think you raise some valid points though.
I think on any platform like this a certain type of person tends to dominate discussions. Whoever uses the site the most ends up leading most of the conversations. On r/taiwan I think itās ABC/čÆå type people who tend to dominate, whereas this site is more expats. Itās really hard for me to not think of Forumosa as what r/taiwancirclejerk used to be, but I could be wrong. Some of the xenophobia you mention could stem from that.
I think the charge that most threads are populated by the same six people has merit. But again, you could say the same about any forum. Some people have a lot of spare time on their hands - a lot more than others - and their opinions carry more weight through repetition. I might be one such person. Iām not sure. But I can tell you that my work gets EXTREMELY easy around this time of year, Iām trapped in an office, and yeah, I tend to post on sites like this more when that happens.
Loathing of Taiwanese? I havenāt seen that much, though at times I do wonder at the lack of Chinese on this site. I get that itās supposed to be in English, but sometimes itās just easier to type Chinese. Iād like to think this isnāt some safe space created by local expats for their own enjoyment, but Iām too new to say.
All of the above said, this place does get moderated hard. Iāve been frustrated with it on more than a couple occasions.
1 Like
Quite a few posters here have awesome Chinese given that they grew up overseas and learned it here. Do you know how much effort and time that takes as an adult ? Do you know how few people have achieved that worldwide with no ethnic Chinese background , especially for traditional Chinese ?
A few of the top posters even make their living as translators !
Assunption Fail No.1
Mostly they donāt write in Chinese because other posters canāt understand it and this is AN ENGLISH FORUM.
Also writing in Chinese is slower than writing in English .
1 Like
Thanks Tommy, howās your Chinese coming along ? 
Extremely moderated hard. Free speech with any type of cynicism or ribbing isnāt allowed!
Hard, but fair.
2 Likes
Agree, moderstion is often over the top, but mostly fairly meted out . Been on the sharp end a few times myself. The two week bans were too much though.
Not quite sure what kind of assumption youāre assuming Iām making. For me to know whether or not Iāve failed in an assumption I have to know what it was I was assuming. All I said was that I was surprised by the lack of Chinese on this site, not that I was trying to make it dual language or anything.
You seem to be implying something .
Also its rarely easier to write Chinese for stuff.
Never at any point did I make any implications regarding the Chinese level of other users on this site. Not sure where youāre getting that from. Sure, itās an English-language forum, but weāre in Taiwan and Iām sometimes surprised that I donāt see Chinese characters pop up here once it a while. Thatās all.
Not easier to type in Chinese? What about addresses? Certain foods? I canāt speak for you of course, but sometimes I just find it easier to type that stuff in Chinese. I have other foreign friends that do the same.
maybe you just donāt read threads where Chinese characters pop up.
Maybe I donāt.