Forumosa has helped many, many people over the years. If you’re one of them, and you’d like to share your positive experiences, we’d love to hear your stories!
I did a quick search through the feedback forum and moved a few obvious candidates, but I’m sure there must be more. If you’ve written something in the past that you think would be appropriate to this forum, let me know, and I’ll either link to it or move it. Thanks for helping to spread the love! 
Forumosa has helped me to get in touch with my inner child.
Speaking of which, shouldn’t this be in the “unwanted perverts” thread?
Forumosa’s provided me with hours and hours of entertainment and for that I am thankful. It’s also allowed me to meet a bunch of fine folks I’m unlikely to have ever met otherwise, and for that I’m thankful too.
But are they thankful? Hmm?
Forumosa provided me with the networking opportunities I needed to successfully fight an unjust attempt by the “Glossika” company to get me deported and land me in tax difficulties in 2002, when I had just started my MA and had the most to lose if I had to leave Taiwan.
Forumosa.com is funny and informative. But my favorite is Forumosa.irl
I’ve met many wonderful, interesting, funny and smart people through Forumosa. Some of them have become close friends. Some of them I’ll even take home with me.
Thanks, Forumosa! 
I, too have met some wonderful, wonderful people through Forumosa.
Thank you F.com for providing me with a wide range of opinions on just about every restaurant in Taipei that I might ever want to eat at - it helps me avoid a good percentage of them entirely without wasting the dough.
Ah, I’ve met a great group of people who enabled me to waste plenty of time offline in bars and in the liquor sections of every 7-11 in the Taipei area.
Seriously.
It helped me find 2 wonderful dogs,a good beer or wiskey, a good 7-11 dinner, good advice on job situations, a place to vent/rant/argue/laugh my arse off, understand the mind of a good TWese woman, extol on the virtues of a good TWese woman, find a OBGYN, find meds to keep from going crazy, good tv shows, good movies, activites in abundance, waste my time on endless dateless Fridays and Saturdays and all in btw.
And bday wishes too.
You know Oprah’s got your back, baby girl!
Forumosa has been there even before I was here. And I feel like I’ve grown up on Forumosa. I have learned a lot about life and about myself from when I was a talkative 21-year-old who thought she was hot shit and knew everything to a talkative 27-year-old who is still working on her egotism, such as not referring to herself in the third person, but is much more aware that the world is much bigger than her own experience and education will ever cover.
Forumosa has helped me sort through my thoughts on all sorts of things, helped ease my worries about finding a job here and then went and helped me get my first job in the 11th hour.
Later it helped me get my…uh…actually, every job that I held this past summer, the summer of that difficult break from my first employer. I got four job offers through four generous forumosans - Limey, dangermouse, Loretta, and jdsmith. I wouldn’t have been able to survive through those tumultuous three months if it weren’t for them. I also got my current job through an ad on Taiwanted.com.
I got my very luscious 12th-floor downtown apartment (with a breathtaking view of the mountains of northern Taipei) through an ad on forumosa (I’m glad that I saw it as soon as my landlady-to-be posted it because it was a very sweet deal).
It helped me refind Iris (through the circumcision thread, no less!) a few months after I met her IRL. And it kept me from going insane with loneliness when I was working a ten-hour day with a one-hour commute each way (basically, my life revolved around work from the time I left my apartment at 6:30am until I got home after 8pm) so I had no time to do any more socializing that from my computer before I had to go to bed and get ready for that 5am wake-up call. Fortunately, that commute was for only 6 months before I found a closer apartment in Muzha (through Forumosa, again).
Through Mother Teresa, I went to my first Games Club, back at Shuang Yu Cafe in 2002. Which in turn introduced me to the mythical island of Catan (and its subsequent settlers, cities, and knights…and one typhoon day all of them and its seafarers to boot over an 8+ hour gaming session) and taught me that not all of the great games out there come from the labs of Milton-Bradley or Parker Brothers.
It helped me be there to celebrate Alleycat’s when he opened his first restaurant (taking the shepherd’s pie and macaroni and cheese off the menu is the only business move of yours that I question ‘cause they was good eatin’).
One infamous thread taught me how to swear in Mandarin.
Another thread lead me to Ubud Sari on Bali which in turn lead me to yoga, meditation, and surfing. I won’t tell you which thread that was, though. 
Except after my experience, I am a believer, no matter what modern medicine says.
It has given me tons of chances to ponder “what-if” from everything from fantasies like “if I won the lottery” to tough choices like “if I knew I was carrying a child with birth defects”. It has taught me that the best way to keep loving my conservative friends is to stay out of the IP forum… ah, I remember when the Open Forum was where politics were discussed… and to not take myself too seriously. Except when it comes to teaching. Dammit.
It has also taught me that I am not the only one who thinks the way I think and that the world, or at least Taiwan, is full of gifted, eloquent, thought-provoking writers.
Also that ninjas are wa-ay cooler than pirates.
Ah, the tear-inducing, breath-taking, headache-causing laughs I’ve had from reading things on here and the times where my hands shook as a thought tried to escape my fingers faster than they could type it (I’m sure my typing speed has improved as a result too… 610,000+ words is a lot, after all).
And most importantly, forumosa has taught me that there is a human side to board discussions which from the day I met my first forumosans (ones that I had talked to online, as opposed to ones like Iris, Okami, and Ironlady who I met before they were full-fledged forumosan legends), has humblified me to think before I type…well, okay, not always, but I never thought about the people on the other side of the screen before Forumosa.
Last, but definitely not least, I met a bunch of cool people. If I tried to list all the great people I have met, my word per post count average would double…which considering how high it already is and how many posts I already have… well, I never was a math major, but it’s a lot. 
Thank you, Forumosa for all the years, tears, and cheers. I may never understand Chinese culture, but I’ll always have Forumosa to explain it to me over and over again with loving patience.
ImanIndebtedPoster
I have made friendships through this site that I hope will last for the rest of my life.
I hope I can make more.
The irony of this site is that MOST of the fun takes place offline.
I’ve only met one forumosan in person, but I’ve been supported by you all. Some have spoken words of support and encouragement, and some even very recently. Others have just posted and I’ve been able to read and be entertained by what they’ve had to say. There’s always helpful advice for the asking. And of course, not living in Taiwan any more, Forumosa helps with a fix when I start jonesing for “home.”
[quote=“jdsmith”]I have made friendships through this site that I hope will last for the rest of my life.
I hope I can make more.[/quote]Me too.
[quote=“jdsmith”]The irony of this site is that MOST of the fun takes place offline.[/quote]Most of the fun, I guess, though I do have a good chuckle at the online stuff from time to time.
But as regards practical stuff, Forumosa and Forumosans have been immensely helpful to me in all aspects of living here and also as regards developing as a teacher.
We’ve just relocated/returned to Taiwan and Forumosa has been indispensable:
Rep office stuff posted by llary, rice_t and others helped me land a ‘job’ in Taipei while I was overseas.
Lotus Hill thread (Maoman & others …) led us to discover a great little community outside the city where we now live. (Previously we depended on agents who focus their efforts in downtown Taipei area and near vicinity.)
We’ll likely adopt a dog from Stray-dog; go whoop some a** or, most certainly, get it handed to us at BJJ; and get the CHT9000 w/ HSDPA based in part on Hobart’s rave review.
We’ve been in transition (moving) the last few months and that is when you really discover the value of a virtual network that one can plug into so readily …
Much Thanks to All.
Anyway,Forumosa has helped me with regards to having been unfairly dismissed.(I got a payout from the offending buxiban.)
Thanks guys!(Jlick & Sandman in particular)
Forumosa has helped me with every question I have had and helped answer questions I have posted. I have learned a lot about things I never would have thought of or never would have considered. I have met some awesome people and hope to met them in real life once I am in Taiwan in August. I have gotten the down low on the different places I was considering living. It is nice to get a first person perspective on where they live, which allows me to make an informed decision about where I want to live.
I believe that I will also be making better decisions about employment in Taiwan because of Forumosa. Without forumosa.com I might have wound up in a bad work situation or done something I shouldn’t have. I will probably also receive better pay and working conditions because I have read a lot about ways to negotiate a position.
Everything dealing with arcs, visas, airline tickets, pet importation, etc… has saved me so much time. Which means I can spend more of that time bullshitting on the forums. Aren’t you all lucky.
Thanks EVERYONE
I would willingly sell my house and all my possessions, including my children, if it was necessary in order to continue posting on forumosa. I would live in a cardboard box outside Big Fluffy Matthew’s house just to be able to use his wireless to get onto this site, and subsist on Miltownkid’s left over sushi bits so I didn’t need as much money to live, so I could work less and have more free time to post here.
Forumosa has helped me out of my shell to go online and exchange information, opinions, and banter with strangers while I was in Taiwan. Even though the friends I made after joining Forumosa were not Taiwanese (which I had hoped living in Taiwan would ensue), I would not trade discovering Forumosa for anything else.
There was a period of three months where I stayed home all day and only went to the gym and library – alone – and had no one to speak English with, to watch movies with, and resorted to very nails-on-the-chalkboard format of Taiwanese “newstainment” when bored. My one and only friend mentioned Txxlxx and I think through there, whilst perusing various ads, I clicked onto Forumosa.com. I don’t know how I made it through those first three months! But I really think Forumosa is a great website. It’s resourceful, informative, and if you log on long enough, like everyday, five times a day, it will become your oasis in the middle of the desert. When you think why oh why you’re here, you log on and voila – instant friends.
Use it wisely, and it will become the most valuable thing you have during your stay in Taiwan, or if you are just interested in on knowing more about the country. It costs nothing, you give a little, but gain a lot. I would recommend it to all my friends.
The most invaluable thing I walked away with is the abundance of information from posters from all walks of life imaginable. Never ever would I have thought I’d be able to meet online and/or in real life the people from all over the world who call themselves Forumosans. I am the first to say I used to have an insular view on people, jobs, countries, you name it. Having a website such as this one really changed my way of looking at things and I am thankful.
I only wish my friends where I am now could have the opportunity to discover this website, unfortunately not many of them are interested. Life gets better post-Taiwan because I had Forumosa during those years by my side. I keep in regular contact with the friends I made there, it’s so great to hear their stories about Taiwan after I’ve left.
There’s a fine line between enjoying this website and overstaying it. But for either sides, it’s a buoy that kept me afloat during my best and worst of times in Taiwan.
In short: Forumosa is the ultimate go-to website on all things Taiwan. It’s the best $0 I never spent. It’s nice. I maked many happy time there.