But the difference between back home and here is that back home paying dues is seen as normal. You want to be x, then learn the rope at a semi-decent salary. (For a guy in his late 20’s or early 30’s with no experience NT$60-80K is a semi-decent salary)
Here, quite a few people seem to expect more than that, and they are unhappy when they find out that it’s 3-4 years of NT$80K or less and long hours.
Perhaps it’s because the English thing, IE you can make more teaching English.
Mr He is right on. I started a business when I was 14 and all things considered I was making a pittance or nothing at all for 8 or 9 years. Two years ago things really took off, now we are expanding very quickly and I can finally take a good wage. So even though I am doing quite nicely now it took nearly a decade of outrageously hard work for no pay to get here.
No it isn’t. It’s stupid. I want it ALL and I want it YESTERDAY, goddammit. Because I’m WORTH it!
[quote=“headhonchoII”]So how would you ‘pick’ a job as being a stock broker or banker , accounting or finance professional in Taiwan as a foreigner with no experience, no financial education and mediocre Chinese skills? We could have as much chance as picking up a job as a medical doctor. And if you were qualifed/educated in this area Taiwan wouldn’t be the place to come by a long shot. I have met research analysts in Taiwan but most of them left/quit already and they tended to get their jobs many moons ago (7-10 years ago).
You are choosing one limited profession with high entry level barriers, especially for foreigners, to make your point.[/quote]
I can think of a dozen professions where Forumosans and offline buddies I know personally are doing pretty well for themselves… lawyers, doctors, diplomats, managers, engineers, designers, bar/club/trading/manufacturing company owners and of course Satellite TV. If you work in some kind of English teaching profession you’re probably likely to meet other English teachers which might skew your idea of just how many foreign professionals there are out here.
You pick the job then you work hard for low salary until you end up in a position where you are doing better than you ever could teaching English. In the short term you will be worse off, but long term planning is what seems to fuck a lot of people up. And the great thing about Taiwan is that living is cheap enough to try various things out without ending up in the shit if they don’t work out.
Sandman is right. We don’t want average vage, we want top of the line pussy!
[quote=“the bear”][quote=“Huang Guang Chen”]Sorry, not that comfortable talking about it. Salaries are very guarded secrets in this industry. However, do a search. At international houses they’re pretty much the same wherever you are.
HG[/quote]
lets just say he makes enough to have his betelnut shipped fresh daily from his preferred supplier in Pingdong straight to his desk…oh and he has his own binlang girl on site to do the cutting, rolling, and pasting…[/quote]
Well, yes, there are some “fringe” benefits . . . and certainly not your average, as almas mentions.
HG
Aiyo! Grrrim.
[quote=“headhonchoII”]
So how would you ‘pick’ a job as being a stock broker or banker , accounting or finance professional in Taiwan as a foreigner with no experience, no financial education and mediocre Chinese skills? [/quote]
Well, I would plan for it. The first thing I would do would be to spend the NT$10k a month boning up my Chinese for a few months. I would do that before I started, as I would be too busy after.
Once my language skills were a bit better, I would apply for an editing job, either in tech or in finance, or perhaps at one of the English rags here.
After a year of that, I would look for an editing job at a “proper” house, which could be a big local one, my old employer, or a second tier foreign place.
I would then work my way up from there.
OK, as I mentioned I landed here, and got offered a job in a stock brokerage FOB. Note that I had no financial experience, and no work experience. I learned on the job and worked myself into a position. I saw other foreigners do the same.
A friend of mine worked in tech in marketing, then he became my colleague, afterwards he had 1-2 positions, and then he became an assistant editor at a big house, basically by replying to an ad on f.com. This was a bit less than 4 years ago. His Chinese was mediocre, and his finance experience was zilch. I think he’s doing well, he has worked his way into a research position.
I know other stories as well, it still happens I think, but again, I left finance 5 years ago. My former employer has tried to bring me onboard again a few times, and trying to take one on again, who left screaming half a decade ago, smacks of desperation if you ask me, so the foreign talent base here must be shallow.
[quote=“headhonchoII”]We could have as much chance as picking up a job as a medical doctor. And if you were qualifed/educated in this area Taiwan wouldn’t be the place to come by a long shot. I have met research analysts in Taiwan but most of them left/quit already and they tended to get their jobs many moons ago (7-10 years ago).
You are choosing one limited profession with high entry level barriers, especially for foreigners, to make your point. [/quote]
The entry barrier, IE the chance to get a job at a local house as an editor first, and then moving into either institutional sales or research aren’t that bad. It happens.
The barriers are much tougher for the locals, and they are in general paid less, especially at the local houses.
I am taking notes off this thread, I am glad I joined this forum
A very interesting point about initially higher paying EFL work distracting people from building there career, many people at the start of their career wouldn’t think about it.
[quote=“llary”][quote=“headhonchoII”]So how would you ‘pick’ a job as being a stock broker or banker , accounting or finance professional in Taiwan as a foreigner with no experience, no financial education and mediocre Chinese skills? We could have as much chance as picking up a job as a medical doctor. And if you were qualifed/educated in this area Taiwan wouldn’t be the place to come by a long shot. I have met research analysts in Taiwan but most of them left/quit already and they tended to get their jobs many moons ago (7-10 years ago).
You are choosing one limited profession with high entry level barriers, especially for foreigners, to make your point.[/quote]
I can think of a dozen professions where Forumosans and offline buddies I know personally are doing pretty well for themselves… lawyers, doctors, diplomats, managers, engineers, designers, bar/club/trading/manufacturing company owners and of course Satellite TV. If you work in some kind of English teaching profession you’re probably likely to meet other English teachers which might skew your idea of just how many foreign professionals there are out here.
You pick the job then you work hard for low salary until you end up in a position where you are doing better than you ever could teaching English. In the short term you will be worse off, but long term planning is what seems to fuck a lot of people up. And the great thing about Taiwan is that living is cheap enough to try various things out without ending up in the shit if they don’t work out.[/quote]
Lawyers, need law licence. Doctors, need medical license. Engineer, need engineer degree. Designer, need design talent, diplomats need to be posted from african banana republic… Sure there are foreigners working in these fields, I’ve met them too, few and far between unfortunately. There used to be a lot more of them when the economy was better. Anyway everybody has to work hard in Taiwan to make it along, kudos to people who do well for themselves. These professional people would get paid well anywhere, most likely get paid better in their own countries though (except for industrial designers). I agree with the point that you have to earn your dues in a lot of professional jobs first no matter where you are.
The main point of this tread is that pay is bad in Taiwan for employees in most positions and most industries, foreigners/locals alike. Especially the run of the mill sales/marketing/admin type stuff which most of us do. We foreigners have it easy compared to the locals so I gave up the complaining lark years ago. What to do about low pay, leave Taiwan, switch fields, try your own biz. For many like me we’d rather leave then teach English our whole lives (no slur at all intended). Not easy but that’s life. No point complaining life’s not fair, it’s certainly fairer for us than most people in the world.
For locals, not much choice at all. If you don’t have a foreign degree it’s very hard to get ahead, I see a lot of stratification here i.e. if you don’t have a foreign degree that your parents paid for then you won’t get advancement/salary in many cases (not all). I know it’s the same thing in Korea etc.
[quote=“headhonchoII”]
But he could have got his money through inheritance also or his family could have been linked with KMT and therefore got state-sponspored housing which they later sold at big profits. Actually it is a high likeliehood (although not 100%) that he is from such a background due to his age.[/quote]
Hmm… your analysis seems very viable. Now, the question is, how can I get linked to the KMT, the richest political party in the world? HOW?! Maybe I should start my own country and run the various land/tax/liquor/farming/sugar monopolies. It’s weird… the political situation in Taiwan now is kinda like Western countries a couple hundred years ago.
For the state-sponsored housing, aren’t those the “juan cun” that are in the end reclaimed by the government and you’re left only with the “market value?”
[quote=“Mr He”]
I did interview for positions in market research while trying to get out of finance, and was told that I would have to start at NT$40k, work on that level for 2-3 years, and after that rise like a rocket once my dues had been well and truly paid. I met some foreigners in that industry, and they confirmed that.
I think that a low salary for an individual has a fair bit to do with the attitude of the job seekers as well. I have mentored a couple of people wanting to get into finance, and only one of them made the leap successfully. (He would have done so without me, I just gave him a bit of advice).
For the others the issues were a matter of sheer stupidity:
Wanting good salaries from the get go. Idiot 1: “I can make NT$90,000 teaching, but only NT$50,000 editing English at a local brokerage, why change?” He will make NT$90k teaching his butt off for the next decades.
Expecting things to be clear cut from the start when starting out. Idiot 2: “The stock brokerage says that I will have to work without a work permit for a few months, that’s breach of contract, I have asked a lawyer to sue them”. Needless to say, that guy is not in Taiwan any more. I started working at the stock brokerage in December and got my work permit in June the year after.
Not wanting to actually work. Idiot 3: “OK, so they are paying NT$60k, and I will work from 7AM to 7PM… what are they, insane?”. No mate, but you are paying dues, and that’s not out of pocket money, but time at a relatively low wage.
After a few years of working for somebody else in Taiwan, I decided to set up a small trading operation, and you know guys? The same things apply. You ahve to pay your dues, make your mistakes and improve. Once you spent a few years doing that, you all of a sudden find more and more money coming you way. It takes patience, persistence, and smarts, however it certainly can be done.
Note that if you were to launch a cereer as a top marketing consultant, or a financial analyst in say the US, Denmark, or Canada, you would normally have to work a few years at long hours and for an average vage. That’s life. It ain’t that much different here, apart from the fact that there’s a respectable easy way out here, IE teaching.[/quote]
So, Mr He, you’re in market research? And Huang Guang Chen is driving blue trucks, but calls it an “office?” Haha… HGC, you’re in finance of some sort, right? I know a dude who works for Bloomberg here, and he started maybe half a year ago - I heard he’s making around $42,000/month only. He said that the Hong Kong workers make more. I guess his salary will rise over time, however.
Mr He, when you say editing for a local brokerage - do you mean a research firm? As in marketing or in finance? I’m currently editor for a weekly bilingual publication in Taipei that is sold in newspaper format (I’m sure it would be easy to guess what it is!). Anyway, I don’t see much of a future here… y’know, the newspaper industry is going to shits. I guess the advantage of working here would be the experience and the ease with which it would be to transfer these job “skills” to a new field/industry. However, I do feel that after a couple months, I’ve really learned all that I can about this. The only thing I’m learning each day, I feel, is from the contents of what I edit!
In regards to the idiots… well, I do understand the point of view that someone who wants to build their career and is going to stay in Taiwan for the long haul should give up a little now for possibly a lot later. And, what intrigues me the most, is that you started your own business after all those years of experience. That is a great path to go down, for sure.
But, well, I plan to go back to Canada in 2-3 years… and I can either earn bigger bucks teaching English (and have an easier job) - or I can earn less doing this editing job, which would probably open doors in Canada (but is boring and takes up a lot of time). Hmm… and furthermore, working in the fields you all mentioned is not my goal. I just want to be a landlord and call it a life.
Great advice, Mr He, thanks!
14 years old, eh? What kind of business is it? The first time I started a business was selling stickers from a drive-thru window (well, it was a window in my house, which kids could walk by)… I was maybe 7 or 8, and I scored by selling $0.50 worth of stickers for $10, but my mom made me give the money back. What kind of lesson is that to teach your kids!!! Maybe she should’ve told me to return $7 only, if she wanted me to be an honest businessperson. Needless to say, that business closed shop after two weeks of being open 15 minutes a week.
[quote=“llary”]
I can think of a dozen professions where Forumosans and offline buddies I know personally are doing pretty well for themselves… lawyers, doctors, diplomats, managers, engineers, designers, bar/club/trading/manufacturing company owners and of course Satellite TV. If you work in some kind of English teaching profession you’re probably likely to meet other English teachers which might skew your idea of just how many foreign professionals there are out here.
You pick the job then you work hard for low salary until you end up in a position where you are doing better than you ever could teaching English. In the short term you will be worse off, but long term planning is what seems to fuck a lot of people up. And the great thing about Taiwan is that living is cheap enough to try various things out without ending up in the shit if they don’t work out.[/quote]
Yes, I totally agree that being isolated in the English-teaching world skews your perspective of stuff. Most English teachers think that the average Taiwanese earns about $30,000/month. I read that it was $49,000/month in Taipei and $36,000/month in Taichung and Kaohsiung. Hmm… I really want to move to Kaohsiung… what a nice place.
Ilary, I agree with your last point, too… teaching English for too long makes it worse off for you in the long run. Or y’know, you could teach English and use your wages to open up a pizza restaurant with partners!
[quote=“headhonchoII”]
The main point of this tread is that pay is bad in Taiwan for employees in most positions and most industries, foreigners/locals alike. Especially the run of the mill sales/marketing/admin type stuff which most of us do. We foreigners have it easy compared to the locals so I gave up the complaining lark years ago. What to do about low pay, leave Taiwan, switch fields, try your own biz. For many like me we’d rather leave then teach English our whole lives (no slur at all intended). Not easy but that’s life. No point complaining life’s not fair, it’s certainly fairer for us than most people in the world.
For locals, not much choice at all. If you don’t have a foreign degree it’s very hard to get ahead, I see a lot of stratification here i.e. if you don’t have a foreign degree that your parents paid for then you won’t get advancement/salary in many cases (not all). I know it’s the same thing in Korea etc.[/quote]
What kind of business would you recommend? I’m of the ideal that owning your own business is the only way to go. Of course, that doesn’t rule out investing in other people’s already-started business, buying stock in existing business and taking it over Carl Icahn-style. You see… the workers are the ones getting screwed by not having degrees/qualifications/abilities - but it’s definitely not the case with owners/founders, because their trial-by-fire were the risks they took and the hours they put in starting the whole thing. Or y’know, the hours they put in working for someone else and stealing the ideas.
I just thought of a new question for everyone that would like to take a stab at it! Basically, everyone has their various interests and things that stimulate them… and I’ve got to find that, too. The longest I’ve ever stayed at one job is 1 year, 5 months, which is quite short (I’m 26, but that’s plenty of time to have stayed in one place for a long time)… and a lot of people I know have had their part-time jobs turn into full-time jobs and have stayed at various places for a long time. People usually emphasize staying at one place and learning the ropes and moving around.
For me, however, I just can’t take the boredom of doing the same task day-in, day-out for extended periods of time. I need something that changes every couple of months and is either exciting, intellectually stimulating, or dangerous or something! Any recommendations?
Or am I just asking for too much?
(Of course, the money matters, too, because I don’t currently have the means to support myself without input of my own labor.)
Your bloomberg friend is paying his dues, I would say. He will rise once they stopped training him and he’s adding value.
I never made the jump into market research, as I had kids to care for, and the stock brokerage was paying me a few times more than that.
Huang is rolling in it, however he can’t get a blue truck so he rides a push bike instead. His employer is one of the best ones in finance in Asia.
A stock brokerage is a stock brokerage, they do research in support of sales. Foreigners mainly do work for the foreign institutional sales bit, IE QFII as they were called in my time.
Your feelings don’t matter unless you have done it for several years. You still have something to learn. I would not care about the future of your employer or that industry as long as it gives you editing experience. Try to get into a daily first or start applying at all the local brokerages you can find. If you get a no, try the next one, don’t stop searching.
I can have my doubts when you have one of those days. I felt that options for me living where I lived were slimming down, so I decided to strike out on my own. Not a desire to open a business, more like a desire to improve my life and not have a boss lording it over me.
Idiots, well, I can’t respect people who do not really put in an effort. When people ask me to help, they have to run with it, not make stupid excuses because they at the end of the day have an easy money addiction.
In that case, you must work in either the field I used to work in, or start a company.
[quote=“shawn_c”] I just thought of a new question for everyone that would like to take a stab at it! Basically, everyone has their various interests and things that stimulate them… and I’ve got to find that, too. The longest I’ve ever stayed at one job is 1 year, 5 months, which is quite short (I’m 26, but that’s plenty of time to have stayed in one place for a long time)… and a lot of people I know have had their part-time jobs turn into full-time jobs and have stayed at various places for a long time. People usually emphasize staying at one place and learning the ropes and moving around.
For me, however, I just can’t take the boredom of doing the same task day-in, day-out for extended periods of time. I need something that changes every couple of months and is either exciting, intellectually stimulating, or dangerous or something! Any recommendations?[/quote]
It helps if you love the job, however writing shipping information or sending the same info to a customer for the n’th time gets boring.
Wait, so what type of job were you doing exactly? And my friend can really start earning “a couple times more” than what he’s earning now after training’s over?
When you say local brokerages, what type of business do you mean?
I could actually move into the daily of the company that I work for without a problem - as a copy editor - but the work hours are from 18:00 onwards, and wouldn’t allow me to teach evening adult classes (which is enjoyable work with fairly high hourly wages). I did try two nights of copy editing at the daily, at the insistence of my manager, and obviously I don’t know everything there is to know about it; but would staying there for a couple of years really advance my knowledge of the industry much more than having been at the company for several months?
What field did you use to work in?
I will start a company! I guess I’ve been taking my time, but I’m an impulsive person who has suffered due to not planning… I had one retail establishment in my second year of university and shut that down within four months. I thought about it for exactly a week, didn’t write anything down, didn’t do any calculations… and well…
Mr He, would you say that what allows you to get ahead in the corporate world is sometimes not how much you know, but how much experience you can write down on your resume? As you said, writing the same thing for the n’th time gets boring and you pretty much get into the rhythm after a month or two… so is it the “x years for x company” that gets one into the door of higher position/pay, is it contacts, or is it actual furthered knowledge. Because as I suppose, there are many workers who do exactly their job every day and never find out more than they have to know.
Anyway, really, my goal is to be a landlord. It is what I’m truly interested in! (even if one could make lots in the world of high finance…)
Shawn -
respectfully, I think you’re going to have the same bitches and moans when you get back to dear Ol’ Canada.
Its the same game wherever you go. You got to make your bones in the trade no matter what,
Unless, of course, your Daddy owns the business.
Well I run a business more than have a job.
But it has taken me this year to working with a major satellite television broadcaster in Asia.
My next project for them is broadcasting a new Asian Series that will lead to some enormous wealth for the Championship winners. ( oh yeah, and me too lol )
In the satellite field I have become a well known and respected for my skills
Provider
In
Radio
And
Television
Enterprises.
This led to a DTH provider asking me to use my skills for their benefit rather than mine only. A new investment group approached me and initially I was skeptical until they plonked some moolah into my accounts.
Working hard has it’s benefits. 
[quote=“shawn_c”]
Wait, so what type of job were you doing exactly? [/quote]
Investment strategy, quant and tech analysis, later advising on a hedge fund and firm’s prop trading division.
That’s up to him. If he wants a future in finance, perhaps a CFA will help. At the end of the day, the value he adds decides
his salary.
I will be nice and to the point, stock brokerages, like Yuanta, Polaris, Capital etc.
Paying dues is good, no its not, it’s something you have to do, unless you are thrilled by a teaching career. 2 nights is zilch, I kid you not. I would rather be able top write copy editor for ****** times for 1-2-3 years on the resume than teaching, however individual preferences are different. I know people who are happy teaching.
Finance. I nthen switched to a sales position in a local company making food equipment, and used the contacts gained to start a trading comapny.
Write down your mistakes from tath venture and start to consider where you could add value. Apart from my finance stint, no experience in the corporate world. I don’t expect to gain any going forward.
[quote=“TainanCowboy”]Shawn -
respectfully, I think you’re going to have the same bitches and moans when you get back to dear Ol’ Canada.
Its the same game wherever you go. You got to make your bones in the trade no matter what,
Unless, of course, your Daddy owns the business.[/quote]
Damn, I wish my daddy owned a business. However, he’d have to have been the one to put in the time.
TC, thanks for reminding me… haha… well, I feel that, at least, I could make double or triple in Canada and end up saving just as much (living with the parents temporarily). Then eventually, buy a decent-sized house and turn half of it into “mortgage helping” units; while at the same time pursuing other interests and ventures, of course.
In Canada, I actually have over two years of banking experience, so I could probably get a job there and start making around $450 NTD per hour right away and move up the “corporate ladder” in short order - if I so chose. But as I mentioned, climbing up people’s ladders ain’t for me.
Hmm… you’ve been living in Taiwan a long time! Please tell me the secrets of your witty commentary and also the secrets of how you put tea eggs on the table!
As for my soscooter.com - I installed a wiki yesterday, and I’m going to turn it into a guide for scooter models. The forum only has 50+ members after more than half a year! Mercy me…
That’s exactly what I want to hear!
Mr He, thanks for telling me about your experiences! It gives me a lot of insight.
I concede that working for the ***** Post would look good on the resume, but honestly I enjoy teaching a whole hell of a lot more. I also do feel that there’s probably a lot to be learned in this industry/at this company, but I recall another guy who makes only a couple thousand more than I do there per month, and he has over a decade of experience in related fields. Now, maybe he just isn’t ambitious or isn’t playing his cards right, but that doesn’t sound like a good deal.
And we all know that money today is worth more than money tomorrow. If one is shrewd enough, there’s no telling what double the salary today could lead to.
Hmm… many, many things to consider.
Ehem, it’s official: Taiwan has been losing competitiveness because of low salaries. (Duh!)
From CNA
Yeah… companies in Taiwan better learn to be competitive, as this country moves from a manufacturing-based economy to other fields.
On the other hand, I can provide some guidance on salaries as I am not in the industry any more. I’m not going to discuss my own pay or that of anyone else currently in the industry, so this info is a few years out of date. I’d also be grateful if others on the board who know me didn’t identify me or any of the firms I worked for.
An editor in the research department of a securities firm in Taipei will be paid between NT$70k a month and NT$120k. I know of one guy who was paid NT$200k - that was actually an error, it should have been NT$120k (shi’er wan versus ershi wan). I know of a chap who was paid NT$37k in 1997 and one a number of years ago and was paid NT$80k and another NT$90k. The bonus at CNY was two months. For this a 7:30am to 7pm day is the minimum, Monday to Friday, and in The Good Old Days, Saturday mornings. It takes ages to get a job as you have to wait for other editors to die, or move up into research or sales. When you move into sales or research you may not necessarily get a pay rise, but you will participate in the bonus pool. Sales generally start at 6:30am. Suddenly getting the sack is an occupational hazard. On the other hand two of the guys I worked with ten years ago are now worth some very serious money in anyone’s language.
Participating in the bonus pool will certainly double your salary and should ideally triple it - depends how well you and the firm do really. You would expect to receive a basic of NT$150k to NT$200k as a basic salary as an analyst, tending towards the higher if you’re in something exciting like tech stocks.
At a decent foreign firm as an analyst you would certainly expect to be on a basic of NT$200k doubling that at bonus time in a good year. For those who do well but are on shite basic, 20+ months bonus is not unheard of. Come tax time this has resulted in some hilarity at the tax office as bonuses used to be paid without deduction of tax at source. Some firms are notoriously stingy. At this level the salaries are almost on a par with Hong Kong. In Hong Kong a local junior equity analyst (2 years) will receive HK$30-70k a month plus bonus. On the other hand, if you have an angle, a talent for writing, and flair for a new industry, or the clients simply like you, that number can be as high as HK$100k. Basic salary tends to jump greatly when you move to a foreign firm. One of my ex-colleagues who left the industry altogether a few years ago after some years as part of the New York Clique of ex-Taiwan foreigner analysts went from NT$50k to NT$200k when he left A Certain Local Firm and moved to Certain Foreign Firm with Gallic Tendencies. This was ten years ago though when things were bright and we were only the second wave of foreigners working in the TSE. Worth noting that it is a sackable offence to discuss your salary with others at your firm, but in those days there was more cameraderie amongst the 20 or so foreigners working in the markets and we did of course tell each other.
For Taiwan you need to be able to read Chinese financial documents and have a fair grasp of accounting. They make you do exams and things now and everyone including the tea lady is expected to have a CFA. In the old days this just meant reading the newspapers and financial reports and interviewing some doddery old operations manager or finance director, but nowadays you’re up against investor relations people with MBAs from daddy’s alma mater so it’s not as easy. Terry Guo will still take negative comments about Hon Hai personally, so I suppose some things never change. Maybe his new incredibly young and attractive wife will mellow him out a bit. It’s getting harder and harder to start from scratch in Taiwan, but ground floor editing jobs have been the starting point for people I know personally and have worked with who worked themselves up to what they mysteriously call a “bar” (US$1m a year) in a timeframe of about ten years. Indeed editing is where I started my meteoric rise to obscurity.
It is mindboggling to put in 14-hour days for years and earn less than you did teaching English, but if you can learn the lingo and babble at the clients, there are opportunities in less financially abstruse areas. Unfortunately, moving upwards in the industry now will inevitably take you off the island to Hong Kong, or worse, Shanghai. On the positive side, you’ll never get into the racket as easily anywhere in the world as you will in Taiwan. It’s such brutal hard going I don’t really know whether I’d recommend it any more.
Suffice to say anyway, there a quite a few well-paid foreign bods in Taipei. However, having worked abroad (“abroad” for me is “outside Taiwan”) recently, I am gobsmacked at the low rates of pay generally in Taiwan. Very disappointing.