Scanned by what? Do they have walking scanners? If so, I’d be impressed (makes me think of Total Recall). I just don’t see Taiwan’s Customs as being that high tech. Do you have actual information on this, or just paranoia?
Not that I travel with piles of meat or anything. I just have never had my bag searched coming into Taiwan, unlike other countries. And in general, I have never seen anyone in the search area of customs either.
Here a downloadable list of goods that can or cannot be bought in:
https://www.baphiq.gov.tw/en/ws.php?id=16172
Here a nice drawing set in Facebook for clear understanding:
Yes, spam is pork, so no, heavens, no.
No pet food, either.
Pale face furriners have been fined when they bring nice German sausages for example. So nope.
They have dogs. And x Ray machines. Yes, it has to do from where you are coming from. But except for Japan, that’d be mandate search for all Asian flights.
I’m still confused. Where does this x-ray take place coming into Taiwan? Especially for your carry-on (maybe for stowed luggage coming in and you don’t see it?) … I just don’t recall any sort of scanning when I arrived in March, and that flight was from Malaysia. And definitely no mandated search. It was a straight walk from immigration through customs with no slowing down after we got our bags.
All luggage is x rayed before it gets on the plane. They call you over the speakers before boarding if they see anything suspicious.
Upon arrival, all luggage from infected areas is passed through dog and x Ray controls. Both carry on and checked. Mandatory especially before Lunar New year.
Before customs, there are bins were you can dispose of any stuff that could be problematic. After that, there are heavy fines if you have a half eaten sandwich.
Yes. Twice coming back into Taiwan I’ve encountered a temporary bag check station in a part of TPE that’s on the way to the Immigration/Transfer fork.
In both cases there was a guy out front who “randomly” chose people to go right (no check, just keep heading to Immigration) or left, where you encountered the typical horizontal passive conveyor and had to place your laptop/devices in a tray with your carryon in another. Both trays were scanned, you walked through a metal-check gate, and then proceeded to pick up your stuff.
I was chosen once and once I was directed to the right so missed the check. I didn’t have to remove my shoes, and the check added maybe two minutes to the time it normally takes me to reach the Immigration/Transfers fork inside the arrivals area at TPE.
I’ve only seen this temporary check station the two times, and it appeared to be slap-dash assembled.
Ya sorry i wasnt clear. I mean your baggage not you. Its not paranoia, just simple tech. Its done most places. They acan you too but it is more a walk by thing tonsee if you are running a fever. Everytime i come back sunburnt from somewhere tropical i get stopped. We all laugh. And I carry on 2 minutes later.
Check in gets checked. Carry on does as well. Normally on both ends. Taiwan is changing a lot these years. Long gone are the days of bags of ______ being passed by in icing sugar bags. So they are checking more and more now. Imports as well, not just air traffic. The only thing is to think about what they are looking for. The obvious stuff, but also tobacco, booze, money now is manufactured to be easily trackable when in large quantities etc. Not really a problem, just be aware. In taiwan it is mostly about actual straight up illegal stuff, safety (see bomb dude on news recently), quarantine related stuff and taxes. More or less common sense.
You would think with the pretty severe issues with disease control in taiwan people would already know not to bring in pork from a contaminated enemy nation…but here we are. The pork thing happened already here and cost shit tons of money and mass horror movie level white suite farmside genocide. Pretty extreme actually. Then sars was a thing. And many more lesser stuff like aids and tb laws, everyone has that vax scar, hepatitis, all kinds of agriculture pests and diseases, etc etc. Taiwanese arent new to this sort of thing. And thus the scan/check more now than before. Probably a good thing. They arent assholes like in the USA or china haha.
But when is the carry-on checked? OK, there’s the security check at the departure airport, but I assume Vancouver isn’t checking for pork products, because security has no idea who’s going to which country. And in Taiwan there’s no moment when my carry-on is going through a scanner. I’d be very surprised if the fever-scans are also somehow X-raying my carry-on.
there is carry on scanning station before passport control. right after the thermal cameras.
they scan all incoming passengers from relevant flights
But I’m confused how those scanners can even work. If scanning my body for security requires individually walking through a machine with someone checking data, and the carry-on scans involve a slow process through an X-ray machine, then how can those scanner stations at the thermal cameras pick up on much?
(I don’t think I’ve ever had my bags searched at TPE, somewhat to my surprise - I usually come back from Canada with very full bags. As far as I know nothing in them is illegal, but it’s one of those cases where I’m not sure how much gray area there is: for example, could a grumpy customs official decide that blocks of cheese are an animal product? Or could dried chiles qualify as seeds?)
they scan your bag, if they see any thing that looks like a food container they ask you to open your bag and check it.
Has this happened to anyone? I often have ziplock bags or containers in my carry-on, and it’s never happened to me.
yes, to me on my last 4 business trips.
twice coming back from VN, once from KR, once from TH
Part of the point is they dont teach us all their codes and short hands for baggage. I am likely from your region, as i as well alwyas go through vancouver (quite dialike the customs in canada compared to other countries). So it can be fair to say they arent checking for pork when you leave. In fact, leaving they dont give 2 sh*ts as long as it is a weapon or security risk. But it is most certainly noted. The cimputer programs now are quite efficient, fast and save a lot of money. If you have a bunch of vacuum sealed jerky in your bag it is certainly noted. Not as a problem but as a scanned point. The arrival country always has their own rules. In Taiwans case pork is important now. So if there is a note, together with your flight ticket check before entering customs and your passpirt it is all recorded (obviously). Unlike before its all pretty clear on the computer.
Aside from your race, age, gender, visible tattoos etc which are all of course loomed at by customs, thats their job, there is the country of origin. Canada is still pretty low on the radar in most places. If you came from China, look asian and have a bunch of crinkled sealed bags of whatever color red mea . reflects as on scanners, best bet they might have a quick look this year. Even if ypur passport is canadian.
In the end it is a numbers game, rightfully so. Taiwan in general treats people quite well at customs unless they are rude. But profiling is important. White and black canadians rarely enter taiwan with luggage full of animal parts. Asians do. Its not negative or a witch hunt just a fact. Same reason white male backpackers from canada would be suspected of drugs more than asians in their bags. Just a numbers stat.
It’s never happened to me, but I’ve never carried a food container back into Taiwan (if by container you mean a ziplock or a tupperware-like container). I’ve carried lots of in-flight snacks, those have never held me up.
Here’s a change that might affect you. I’ve flown in twice in the past seven months from the US west coast, and checked one bag each time. Both flights my bag was set aside by (I assume) EVA Air at TPE. Both times I found it in a small area a couple meters away from the carousel, standing upright on the floor, where the floor is chalked off (painted off) with words to the effect of “unclaimed luggage.”
The first time I waited at the carousel for more than thirty minutes and I was almost the last person standing. Finally decided EVA had lost my bag and began walking over to their desk when hang on, that bag on the floor looks familiar, is it mine? Yeah, it was. The second time, after no new bags were appearing on the carousel, I knew enough to walk around and find my bag on the floor. Keep in mind that both times this special part of the floor was swallowed up by other fliers also swarming the carousel; my bag only stood out when the crowd thinned.
That’s a new one for me, never had that happened before. Before I’ve always picked my bag off the carousel, like everybody else.
I use an EVA Air bag tag with my name, Hsinchu address and phone, etc., looped around my bag’s handle. Everything’s in English, assuming that’s relevant.
In the above case it is most likely due to other flights incoming and they are clearing it, or they feel that type of bag might cause priblems with the machines (new employees would likely do this). With eva and strikes i could see a new wave of employees over the last 2 years.
Or maybe your bag just looms so good they had to single it out 
Both times I was at the carousel before any bags dropped. My bag, a bog standard wheeled carryon bag made from black nylon, never passed by me on the carousel. So if EVA didn’t set it aside then in both cases some fellow traveller pulled it off immediately and stood it up very carefully in the “unclaimed luggage” area marked off on the floor.
I think it’s far more likely EVA set it aside. Both times there was at least one other bag standing near mine just off the carousel.
In both cases my EVA flight was connected to a US domestic flight. My sense is that the US carrier that handled my outbound (to TPE) check-in somehow flagged my bag for “special handling” by EVA, or something similar. That might not happen with a Canadian carrier, and so I qualified my remark to say it “might affect” the experience of a fellow North American traveller landing in TPE.
In both cases the US domestic airline was Alaska Airlines, and so that carrier may be the culprit here since it’s never happened to me when using Delta or Southwest, etc., outbound to TPE.
No, they have dogs that sniff out meat.
It reflects organic materials in a different color.
Yes very true. They trigger on organics. They also often trigger on plants and drugs. They are keen little fellas but generalists at best.
What confuses me is Taiwan has just as much tortured low quality pork as china, why bring it? Its not like it is ivory or amphetamine…