First time visit in 1990, 3 days Taipei and can’t remember much of it… 
On and off for the past 5 years, alltogether 2 and a half years now I guess :loco:
54 days, 11 hours and 30 minutes… or so.
18 beautiful, frustrating, boring, suffocating, wonderful, tedious, sunny, wet, miserable, confusing, disgusting, delicious, enlightening, happy months…
Must be time to try the chicken feet 
Thinking of going home?
THIS time around, been here for eight months. Went back to visit twice already. Yikes.
looks like most stay longer than they thought…
How do you like here?
I think that if you’ve been here longer than 10 years, you’ve probably stayed too long. Unless you are some sort of mutant, that is.
[quote=“Erica1973”]looks like most stay longer than they thought…
How do you like here?[/quote]
I read an anecdote years ago, I think in Reader’s Digest: A lady who worked at a laundry/dry cleaner wrote in that one of her customers, an old guy, found fault and made trouble about the job the laundry had done on his clothes every time he picked them up. One day, in an especially heated quarrel, and after these incidents had been occurring regularly for a long time, the customer concluded his side of the argument with, “Every time I come in here, you guys give me a hard time!” In response, one of the workers at the laundry asked him, “If you really feel that way about us, why do you keep coming here?” The old guy replied, “Because I like this place!”
I like it here just fine! But I also like to gripe! 
8 month or so. Waaaaaaaaaa… it seems like 8 years though.
It’s kinda nice, if you are into such things.
I arrived Jan. 6th 1991. I’ve left plenty 'o times but keep getting sucked back.
I figure that for every year you spend here it add 1.5 year to your total sentence. If you get married just forget ever leaving.
[quote=“Elegua”]I arrived Jan. 6th 1991. I’ve left plenty 'o times but keep getting sucked back.
I figure that for every year you spend here it add 1.5 year to your total sentence. If you get married just forget ever leaving.[/quote]
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrggggggggg, I am married to a local! Every month I think of some excuse to go back, but I never make it. She told me BEFORE MARRIAGE she will move to Germany for me. Now look where we are: I sit in a cubical, the fishdish-polluted air here is still cleaner than outside, everywhere are giggling secretaries, at home 2 or 3 nephews call me names in Chinese [and one sister got another 2]… so is this Germany???
So I never get out of here. I knew it! I knew it! My wife tells me one day we go to Canada, but… okay, I better learn Mandarin then.
12 years. I am starting to like stinky Tofu. How bad is that?
18 years, 10 months, 7 days, and close to 8 hours since I disembarked from the boat at Keelung with the aim of spending a couple of years here learning Chinese and chasing skirt.
I got married to my Taiwanese wife on the 18th anniversary of my arrival, to mark my coming of age as a “New Taiwanese”. I suppose I’ll eventually obtain an ROC (Taiwan) passport and truly become one of the locals in all but appearance.
[quote=“bob_honest”]
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrggggggggg, I am married to a local! Every month I think of some excuse to go back, but I never make it. She told me BEFORE MARRIAGE she will move to Germany for me. Now look where we are: I sit in a cubical, the fishdish-polluted air here is still cleaner than outside, everywhere are giggling secretaries, at home 2 or 3 nephews call me names in Chinese [and one sister got another 2]… so is this Germany???
So I never get out of here. I knew it! I knew it! My wife tells me one day we go to Canada, but… okay, I better learn Mandarin then. [/quote]
hahahahahahaha… Poor you, I almost pity you, if it was not because my situation is somewhat similar…
You get stuck here when you marry a local… Case in point:
Young American:
Year 1.
“I have this girlfriend, but we will go back home together and live there when we get married”.
Year 2.
“We got married, she wants to stay another year before we go home. But she has said that we will definitively go”.
Year 3.
"My wife is pregnant, and wants to give birth here. However, when the baby is 1 year old, we will go back home.
Year 4.
“My wife yesterday told me that we have bought a house. I think we might stay for a while”.
You wanna go home? Get a divorce.
Also, when you marry a Taiwanese, then you are more or less forced to stay behind.
I have known a few Taiwanese women living in Denmark with their Danish spouses. They often got together and complained to each other about this weir place, and how hard it was for them to create a real network there. Most of them took their frustrations out on their husbands. they had a few of those.
The heart of the matter is that Taiwanese women are brought up to build all their networks thru their or their husbands family. When that fails, which it will in some cases do in the west, then they are screwed, alone, and homesick. You as the non-Taiwanese spouse will suffer for that.
Mr. He,
Never were truer words said. :bravo: :bravo:
absolutely right. 
I had her 3 month in Germany and she made it hell for me. Your post explained quite a lot to me (feeling alone, no network…)
It was so horrible, when I came home from work, something waited for me in the dark of the old house… something … ill … horrible …
… my formerly sweet wife. This unique form of psychoterror made me try to send her home (forget it, she never took the taxi), run away (… ups…yes Darling, nice you are phoning. No I do not know where I am, it is all dark here and something is moving between the trees. … yes … I think I be home in an hour or two after finding my car…)
Here, she is cute and sweet again. And after explaining to her I do not know if I stay long and therefore do not want to rent a big apartment and furniture… we rented a big apartment and I bought furniture .
Mine has started (after 4 years) to think about going and living somewhere with sidewalks and breathable air. I’m not sure she could handle the isolation. When I really think about, I could stay or leave and it wouldn’t matter that much to me. 