[quote=“Flicka”]
Oh, so true. The few prize editing jobs in this town that pay well are so mind numbingly boring you’ll go crazy, or they are held by the “pear-shaped middle-aged old boys club,” and good luck breaking that forcefield.[/quote]
There are prize editing jobs for pear-shaped, middle-aged foreigners? Where do I sign up?
[quote=“jeff”][quote=“Flicka”]
Oh, so true. The few prize editing jobs in this town that pay well are so mind numbingly boring you’ll go crazy, or they are held by the “pear-shaped middle-aged old boys club,” and good luck breaking that forcefield.[/quote]
There are prize editing jobs for pear-sheped, middle-aged foreigners? Where do I sign up?[/quote]
Where can I joing this club ?
[quote=“hexuan”][quote=“jeff”][quote=“Flicka”]
Oh, so true. The few prize editing jobs in this town that pay well are so mind numbingly boring you’ll go crazy, or they are held by the “pear-shaped middle-aged old boys club,” and good luck breaking that forcefield.[/quote]
There are prize editing jobs for pear-sheped, middle-aged foreigners? Where do I sign up?[/quote]
Where can I joing this club ?[/quote]
You’ll have to wait until their arteries are fully hardened from too many American Club hamburgers and they die. Then there might be an opening.
[quote=“Flicka”][quote=“hexuan”][quote=“jeff”][quote=“Flicka”]
Oh, so true. The few prize editing jobs in this town that pay well are so mind numbingly boring you’ll go crazy, or they are held by the “pear-shaped middle-aged old boys club,” and good luck breaking that forcefield.[/quote]
There are prize editing jobs for pear-sheped, middle-aged foreigners? Where do I sign up?[/quote]
Where can I joing this club ?[/quote]
You’ll have to wait until their ateries are fully hardened from too many American Club hamburgers and they die. Then there might be an opening.[/quote]
Pear-shaped editors never die. They just file away.
How about a club for voluntary salary cuts?
Having been a teacher and various things my job is now career related. I guess many people can relate to how I feel when I see teachers pull in much more for less hours and great holidays. I pull in around 70k including bonus, 1 week’s holiday.
Sometimes you got to put the graft in and there’s no easy way around it. The hardest thing is the lack of holidays. Foreign hires, there’s not too many of them these days. The real successful people of the next 10-20 years will be people on this board who put the graft in the hard way and know how to speak chinese and enter the culture in some manner and learn their niche. It’s not what you are earning now, it’s what you will earn in the future.
I encourage people to give their career a shot in Taiwan. Don’t settle for teaching and editing if you don’t like it. It’s hard at the start. My salary was pitiful. People look at you like a moron. You might have to borrow from your friends. You have to teach part-time to make ends meet. You realise you are nothing special when English is not important and that is why they pay you the same as the Taiwanese. You think everyday why don’t I teach full time.Teaching has its advantages if you are a free spirit or creative to give you time to do things. However how many people actually take advantage of these free hours.You got to hustle and think of better strategies. You make mistakes and you learn. You get bored and disillusioned. Then you find something or somebody finds you in the industry or your area and you go from there. Things get a bit easier and you become more sure of it. You begin to forget how hard things were!
Now my salary is almost respectable compared to teaching. I’m only one of two foreigners in my field in Taiwan. I use my foreign standing to my advantage but nobody can accuse me of just that, I know more than my colleagues about this field in Taiwan and overseas and they know it.
I’m thinking of starting my own business. Don’t know if I will do it. Two years after giving up teaching I’m on the verge of something but only after sticking through the rough times and waiting for something better to turn up. I still deal with the Taiwanese bullshit and it can be difficult but I get on with it.
Become the expert in the field and you will make the money. I’ve seen it happen to others and there’s no free lunch although sometimes it might seem that way. You live in Taiwan you got to do it the hard way in 99% of cases. There’s no sureity of success.
I’ve had guys foreigners telling me they got a degree in this field, they are pissed off with teaching and how do they get a job in this field. I knew nobody in this business in Taiwan and I haven’t even worked with another foreigner for two years.
If you have to ask …
I’ve heard the stories of teachers earning huge money. I also know none of them can sustain it more than a year or two. Plus what can most of them if they leave Taiwan? (DISCLAIMER: some have a good stash so I suppose that’s not a problem, some like to live in Taiwan for a long time, some love teaching, teaching is undeniabely a nice lifestyle in many ways:) good for you guys!)
I also heard a story of a computer sales guy making 200k plus/mth a year or two ago and liked to tell everybody. My guess is he was laid off last year.
It also gives you humility to learn that money is no indicator of anybody’s prowess.
I’ve known an engineer here who told me that he never paid over less than 1000 NT in 7-11 cos he couldn’t be bothered messing with change. People avoid him like a bad smell. He also happens to be the greatest ass I know here and changes mistresses regularly in between his wife and kids visits.
All right. What field are you in? Just point me in the right direction if you don’t want to say.
So, it’s probably OK to at least tell us which industry you work in. If you rarely work with foreigners, what could possibly be the harm of at least letting on a bit more about what you do.
Um, I have to ask, but I guess I’ll never know.
Good post. Interesting. I am intrigued and want to know more…
double post
I work in a subset of the technology field doing some research and marketing…now work in the business end and distribution overseas. I like to remain as anonymous as possible so I can rant and rave at people here!
Now i earn three times what i earned (average) as a corporate english teacher running around taipei like a fool for all those years for that Welsh git. I should say i bloody deserve it, too! I should also say I made the proper ‘connections’, which are always useful. Then next year, I hope to triple this salary (at least) when I open a consultancy and take on several people to do what I do now. I swear I will make my first million before I’m fifty! 
haha! (bit sad, innit?) And then I will buy a lovely villa in Tuscany with olive groves, a vineyard, and a crew of Italian studs. Sorry, I think the words ‘italian’ and ‘stud’ will pop up as word partners quite often in my posts henceforth.
I understand what you mean, headhonchoII, and I respect your desire for anonymity.
I didn’t mean to be noisy, and I apologize if I came off that way.
From your post, it sounds like you’ve worked hard to make your own way here in Taiwan. It also sounds like you may still have few projects up your sleeve that you might want to try out, so I wish you the best of luck with those.
Thanks for the interesting post.
Semiconductor equipment service;
When I first came here 7 years ago, I worked average 50 hours a week at US$21 hour. Stayed 1 year and didn
I have also avoided the “English” industry, but that’s more because I’m not a native speaker. Before, I worked in finance, now I work in international sales in a small local company. The last avenue is a good one to explore if you are tired of teaching. Salaries doing that are low, but in my case enough to sustain myself and my family.
[quote=“KE6JOI”]Semiconductor equipment service;
When I first came here 7 years ago, I worked average 50 hours a week at US$21 hour. Stayed 1 year and didn
In Taiwan, I earn less than I probably would “back home.” But the taxes are pretty low, and with the exception of rent in Taipei city, the cost of living is not that bad.
So, perhaps it’s not how much you make, but what your spending power is?
Well yes. But there are other longer-term benefits by working here. Making the jump over to the other side of the strait is easier and you gain experience in working with Chinese people by working here.
People say that the expat jobs are gone. I doubt that there ever was that many of them anyway. I know of some who made it into expat positions here - but that was some time ago. I don’t expect that to happen to me here.
However, there are lots of people who have started out here, who have gone on to great things other places.
I’m here for the experience - not the money… yet