yeah it’s just not what I want to raise my kid in, if it was just me and my wife here or if I was single I’d probably just live here forever
Thirty years in, and I reckon I’m here for what’s left. I like where I live. Taitung is fairly laid-back, I have friends, a wife, three grown kids and one grandson. I’m pretty well settled.
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That sounds great, I’m also thinking of moving to a smaller city (currently in Taipei).
I’ll move back to the States after I’ve made my fortune.
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It’s like going bankrupt, in the US no one really cares when a business goes bankrupt, just start over as many times as you want, it’s part of daily life. In most other countries bankruptcy is shameful.
Try the convent?
Like I hear people say “I don’t want my tax dollars going towards rehabilitation” or that they don’t force rehabilitation in prison. I think they need to force rehabilitation because people in prison aren’t the kind that wants to make the right choices in life, or have the drive to, so the choices have to be made for them. Guys spending their sentence running gangs, watching TV, playing chess is not going to change. They have to be forced in a boot camp setting.
I think America needs to put their foot down and start making people succeed, especially if they are on the verge of failing. A society where people are failing isn’t going to do great things.
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Interesting. I’ve just joined the forum because I’m seriously thinking of moving to Taiwan to teach English. I’m from Australia and keen on Taiwan because (1) I’d like to learn Mandarin; (2) it’s pretty close to home; (3) I can earn more money here than, say, in PRC - or so I’ve heard.
To those of you who are thinking about moving to Australia: Australia is a really nice place to live in. Wages are good and the education system is pretty decent. But everything is really expensive. Job security may be a bit of an issue for some - and there’s a great deal of emphasis on local (i.e. Australian) work experience in certain sectors. Make extensive preparations if you want to move there (I say ‘there’ cause I’m currently living elsewhere); it’s not the kind of place where you should just wing it and hope for the best.
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I don’t plan on living in Taiwan ever.
I don’t even plan to travel there for the time being. I love Taiwan but I have the rest of the world to explore.
I might visit sometime to get some cosmetic operation that’s much cheaper than what it costs in the US.
My mom has an empty apartment in Taichung I can stay in when I visit.
Are you sure about this? Taiwan is notorious for its crappy pay, although that is mitigated by the relatively low cost of living. Back when I was teaching English there about 10 years ago, the pay was pretty good and rent costs were extremely low. But the pay now is the same as it was 10 years ago and the rent is higher (although it’s still not too high outside the city centre). And don’t get me started about the pay in anything outside of English teaching…
Taiwan is a country you go to because it’s an awesome country, not to make money.
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One thing that is going to change for foreigners is the job market. Speaking to a friend today and she said that Taiwanese companies now are focused on the rest of the world, rather than China. They have been used to thinking that they had to sell to China. Her company even refused investment from big Chinese companies.
This is change coming. Taiwanese are starting to face the world and they know that China isnt a reliable business partner. Looking at the wider trend, this should mean more job opportunities for foreigners here.
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Well…There’s always been many SMEs that are looking at the global market too. Hopefully more companies here will invest in beefing up their international sales ,distribution , service and support.
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It’s my wife’s home, so compromises need to be made. In 2-3 years, we plan to move back to the US. Taiwan is fine and there’s certainly aspects of it I like a lot, but there’s some things I’ll never get used to here like the traffic/lack of sidewalks, air pollution, ghost island mentality, etc.
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Not for private university and highschool teachers. Huge birth-rate decline means lack of new enrollment and the foreign instructors are the first to go.
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I think what @OrangeOrganics is saying here is that the field of possibilities in Taiwan (beyond teaching, which has been the traditional route to get here) is expanding.
Guy
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I get that.
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Yes, but the for the last decade, China was the focus for a lot of industries. For many reasons, that is changing now.
Yeah, if you are teaching, then things dont look like improving.
That’s hard to say. At the moment, there are already a lot of uni professors with wages being cut by a lot (some down to 38,000/month, making a PhD as worthless as can be), but Taiwan still wants to be bilingual by 2030, and they’ve got that on the books.
That will never happen if they don’t start hiring high-proficiency English speaking teachers (could be from places like Germany and Sweden/ not necessarily native speakers) as regular subject area teachers and not just EFL and Taiwan’s interpretation of “CLIL” teachers.
That will depend on what the government decides to do, and if they can put aside their pride long enough to realize that very few “advanced” English speakers in Taiwan have sufficient English to teach all subject areas.
With the current tax structure and declining birthrate, there isn’t going to be much money for anything in the coming decades though, so jobs across the board will not be great if Taiwan doesn’t do something about its (lack of a) younger population.
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Is that a good thing?
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