This topic is my challenge.
@gracewang02 have you figured out if it is Taiwan or Taipei?
Most cope by having their parents provide the down payment, while they pay unsustainable mortgage payments for 40 years.
One can solve this by not working.
This seems to work for many Taiwanese people young and old.
1 Like
Indeed
The post is specifically towards Taipei but I am curious all about the rest of Taiwan.
I appreciate the extra detail. Thank you for adding it.
Buying property in Taipei City is (from my narrow perspective) a matter of paying lots, getting little. HK folks who have emigrated here seem to agree and many of them have set up in Taichung instead. But for those of us in the international resident community with jobs, we disproportionately end up in the capital, as that’s where many (not all) of the jobs for professionals are. A typically means of resolving this issue is to buy property (or rent) on the edges of the Taipei basin out in Xinbei.
I don’t find Taiwan to be “fast paced” at all compared to other major cities in East Asia. Lots of people look like they are sleep walking here. Of course in the factory zones and other industrial areas people are working hard, with many of these workers from SE Asia.
Public transport here (with the exception of some sketchy bus companies in cities such as Hsinchu, Tainan, etc) is a piece of cake and—along with the youbike system—one of the very best things about living in Taiwan. The biggest gripe among forumosans seems to be the driving culture (such as it is). Statistically in terms of accidents and deaths Taiwan is frankly atrocious in the driving part, though some forumosans do shrug it off and go with the flow.
Air quality remains a problem, with large coal burning power plants operating in central Taiwan and elsewhere and polluting industry up and down the west coast. The air is cleaner of course in the mountains and in the east, but most of our jobs are not in those places. On the plus side, widescale electrification of scooters and buses in some cities are reducing the exhaust (and noise!) in those cities, so there is some change happening. On the negative side, the air quality issue is also a regional issue (Koreans know about this) where national or city policies can help but the particles from across the strait continue to cause harm, especially in southern Taiwan in the winter due to the wind direction in that season.
I would add a few more things. Dealing with government agencies, including at tax time, is (mostly) a piece of cake, especially compared to dealing with their counterparts in the west. However if you’re a foreign resident trying to marry another foreign resident (we have some threads about this, in which a Pakistani married a Filipina) watch out as the extraordinary racist idiocy of the government machine swings into (no) action. I’d say many of the problems we see are mostly racist against brown people, though professionals from around Asia including South Asia are here and in many cases doing exceptionally well as researchers, in tech, and so on. It’s hard to imagine life in Taiwan without their contributions.
That’s my take. I hope this helps.
Guy
But Taipei is not all of Taiwan. Challenges differ between locales.
This is not a Taiwan thing. It’s a Taipei thing. Prices plummet as you leave Taipei.
Is it really so hard for people to look at a map?
Taipei’s air quality is good. It gets worse out of Taipei.
Then you misunderstood my post.
Isn’t that just for women? Blokes seem to know their way around as they are usually the ones driving, the girls job is sit on the back of the scooters and swipe on their phones.
My gf can handle driving around her neighborhood. The GPS is needed everywhere else.
Would driving a car be safer or a scooter?
Personally, in the US I would go the car option in suburban California, I am curious as to why driving a car is unsafe in Taipei.
Being a pedestrian is already quite daunting.
Of course you’d be more exposed on a scooter.
Cars however are part of the problem, hogging precious space, and involved in countless accidents.
Have you been here? The density in Taiwan’s cities is completely dissimilar to the suburbs of Southern California, or whatever your point of reference is. Residential, commercial, and (in many places outside of the capital) industrial are all piled up alongside each other. If you’re in Taipei, I really don’t see the point of owning or driving a car.
Guy
Here’s a poll for fun! 
Guy
In your specific circumstances, owning and driving a car in Taipei is:
- Utterly essential—can’t live without it!
- A good idea.
- A bad idea.
- Utterly pointless—what are you thinking!
0
voters
Pointless.
The MRT is Everything.
Don’t post. Vote!
Guy
Do you not care for my reasoning?
Sort of unwilling to vote … depends too much on context. For me, owning a car is utterly pointless. If I had kids, yeah, I’d think a car is a good idea.
A good point. I’ve adjusted the question accordingly.
Guy
The only thing I don’t like about the MRT is the lighting. It is horrific, like a North Korean jail. It made me sick to sit under it. I eat a lot of Dill, so perhaps I am photosensitive.
Once I came back from Hualien with one of those Mexican farmer hats. A doulu, or something. I wore it on the MRT on the way to work. I wasn’t trying to be edgy, or cute. I really hated the lighting, and the hat afforded me some protection from its pitiless glare.
Why can’t they install dimmer switches?
At Taipei Main, a kindly stranger told me I would ‘lose face’ if I wore a farmers hat in Taipei. I am normally all smiles and BuHaoYisi… but I just told him to go away. Then I composed anti-Taipei rants in my head for the rest of the journey.
Apart from that, its one of the cleanest MRTs in Asia. Cleaner than HK, more exciting than Singapore. Each line has a different flavour. The people of the Southern Yellow line are more Earthy. The Red Northerners, past Beitou, more free. Danshui to Huilong is almost like a different country. You can feel the climate change.
They should also have a drinks car on each end of the train, like a buffet car. Why not? I am deadly serious. Don’t they think they are the most sophisticated people in Asia? So why don’t they have buffet cars?
You would if you had children.