Whether you’ve already left Taiwan, are thinking of leaving or just imagine leaving some day…
What is the hardest thing to give up, habit to change, what would you miss the most?
Also, have you acquired some habits, behavior that wouldn’t fit in back where you come from?
One of the first things that comes to mind for me is the convenience of being able to do grocery shopping any time of day and night.
And as for habits and behavior, the fact that here people don’t mind yawning with an open mouth, burping out loud, eating with an open mouth, etc. bothers me less and less. I hope I don’t pick up that habit
You can still grocery shop 24/7 in most American cities of any size (Albany is not very big yet we have plenty of 24 hour grocery chains). However, here you would think twice, as a woman, before going out at 2 a.m. In fact, there are a lot of places you think twice before going, or do not go alone at all. Taiwan was not that way 99% of the time.
Eating out. It’s much more expensive where I come from. You have to brown bag and eat at home. Eating out is for special occasions only in my home country. Here, I eat almost one meal a day out.
But I gave up loads of things to come here*, so it all balances out. Every change is a huge sacrifice and a huge gain of other thing.
Oh, Buttercup is DEEP, today.
nice clothes, proper haircuts, my native language, live music, Euro food, nude tights that are the same colour as my legs, silicon based hair products, humour, big potatoes.
The ability to replace eyeglasses at 9 p.m. Takes weeks here. In Taiwan it was over night, and they threw in a pair of contacts so that I could see the next day until I got back to the shop.
But mainly, I miss my health insurance! And I miss going to the Dr. and getting seen quickly. It’s a two hour minimum waite here, and the dr.'s office visit fees alone are at least $NT2,000. Usually, meds are as much or more. Even with insurance there’s a co-pay of about $700~800 for the dr. visit, and another for the med.s, and that’s on top of paying about $NT 2,500 per pay check, or $NT 5,000 per month for the premium.
And gas is more than $NT100 per gallon now. Yesterday I filled up for $2.95 per gallon. This morning the gas prices had jumped to $3.09 per.
