Well said.
Very interesting, what will be your next city? Iāve visited a similar amount of countries as you and have yet to find a better place for living than Taipei. What are you referring to when you say cost? Rent? healthy eating?
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Iāve always found the complaints about water pollution in Taipei really ā¦ dare I say bizarre? Noise pollution and air pollution I get (though I personally find the air pollution to be on par with major cities in Europe, and noise kind of depends on where you live). I guess you mean you canāt drink from the tap? I guess that part is true, but in many countries/cities where they claim the tap water is potable, it doesnāt taste very good. Londonās water in particular is hard water. Iāve always found it odd that people would willingly drink that.
Are people actually bothered by water quality in Taiwan? Can you not shower fine with it?
The cleanliness complaint I find even more perplexing. Do people confuse run-down (which is true) with cleanliness? I really canāt fathom anyone from major Western cities genuinely considering Taiwanās streets particularly dirty. I mean ā¦ really?
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I donāt think the views of Dougie Fresh are anything out of the ordinary. Most people who have stayed a year or so want to leave ASAP.
What you thinking here?
You ever walk by a creek? Grooosssssss.
It depends. Some of them can be gross but it can be fine as well.
And I was referring to Taipei, the city.
Yes, and the water pollution in taipei, evidenced in the creeks, is gross. 
Re: water pollutionā¦this is about more than what comes out of your tap. Think about the water being used to grow the fruits and vegetables you eat.
Re: cleanlinessā¦ I donāt find Taipei to be all that clean. There are a few parts of Taipei like the shopping area in Xinyi that I think you could say are ācleanā but most others are not really that clean. Cigarette butts, plastic waste, etc. etc. is easy to find and there are many places where trash is just dumped on the street waiting for pickup. For example Taipei vs Singapore or most cities in Japan is not even close in my experience.
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This is a good point. And the animals we eat (cows and chickens arenāt getting bottled water, I imagine). This is one of the reasons I donāt eat fish or seafood.
Famously one of the cleanest cities in the world, so if that is the aptest comparison it reflects well on Taipei. Iāve been to India and Africa, Iāve waded through Bangkok in flood; from my hotel window Kaohsiung looks like the buildings could use a good wash but the streets are very clean.
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Havenāt decided on the next city yet. If I stay in Asia it will probably be a city in Japan. If I go to Europe it will probably be a city in Spain or Portugal.
Costā¦ rent for a real apartment (not tiny studio/room). Restaurant meals and high quality food (when itās even available). Cafes. Bars/alcohol. I also used the last year to travel a lot around the island and am stunned at the cost of hotels/homestays given the quality of most of them.
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You are learning that most foreigners in Taiwan struggle with basic critical thinking and fall into a fallacy trap when presenting an argument.
Typical fallacies are ad hominem, straw man and red herrings.
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Yes, Iām marking a generalization. But thatās my experience. Nothing critical can be said of Taiwan since people have invested so much in Taiwan. They will not hear or recognize anything negative.
Taiwan is a great place. But like any place it has flaws. Sadly most flaws are long hanging fruit and can be easily improved using existing laws just with strict enforcement. But that is off topic.
You donāt say?
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Oh irony.
You mean the ditch?
Have you had any problem eating fruits and vegetables in Taiwan? I (and every foreigner I know) never had a problem. The fruits in particular are usually really great. The farms primarily use water from the recevoir, not water in the shallow creeks.
The most dangerous part about produce is the packaging. There was a case last week in Canada where a kid had permanent brain damage from a packaged green salad. The water used in irrigation etc. seems a bit far fetched.
And yes Japan and SG are even cleaner, but streets in Taiwan are still pretty clean. If streets in Japan and SG are 9/10, Taiwan is probably 7.5/10. Most Western countries are way worse than that these days.
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Can you not accept that people have different opinions?
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Still worth worrying about, together with everything else Dougie has a point about the health of the environment here being not the greatest from a global perspective.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935120305703
How much better it is in other places depends on the place, though. Yes, Canada is imperfect, but environmentally way cleaner than Taiwan. Taiwan doesnāt seem so bad, environmentally way cleaner than India. Iām here for professional opportunities more than environmental security, personally.
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