Our new place at MaLinKen, just off the highway on the way to WanLi, is very clean. A great view of JinShan, Taipei lights in the distance, two clean streams, flowing either side of our land. Eagles (or are they falcons?) flying overhead each morning and afternoon. Neighbors are close enough to be helpful, far enough away to be unheard and unseen. About thirty minutes to downtown, Neihu, Muzha, JiLong.
I never thought I would live in a place like this in Taiwan.
(Need transport for convenience - there is a bus to JiLong every hour but you don’t always want to go to JiLong.)
My dreams of Chinese mountain landscapes were perhaps a little short sited I may now add.[/quote]
You want to live in Yangmingshan or Wulai for that. Of course you will have to be prepared to commute.[/quote]
He can also live in Muzha. Here’s the view out my window and I am 5 minutes from the MRT:
jimi, here’s what you need to know. Taipei gets the lion’s share of tax dollars and so has the best infrastructure and the most money for street cleaners, urban regeneration, etc. It also has the most educated population and so the most demanding. In addition, our current mayor has made beautifying the city a priority and the place is very clean these days and getting better and better all the time. Pollution levels are around the same as London, and much better in the suburbs near the mountains.
Taipei is also ringed by mountains which are littered with unlittered trails. Wulai or Pingxi, 30 minutes from the southern part of the city have dense jungles with clean rivers you can swim in. Hell, Bitan, which is at the far end of the MRT line in Xindian has swimmable river water.
The city also has about 200km of bike paths along the river and these are kept very clean. I ride them all the time, day and night.
As Chris wrote, there has been huge changes for the better in Taiwan over the past 10-15 years. If you like it here know that it will continue to improve. As for the mountains, Taiwan is gorgeous and most of the national parks and forest reserves are up to western standards. Chris and I were out hiking to 2000 year old trees on Saturday along a sturdy natural and completely unlittered path not an hour from Taipei. Look at my blog for an idea of all the beautiful hiking and swimming opportunities around Taipei.
One last point: many people come to Taiwan and assume that what holds in the west holds here: ie, that the smaller towns and cities will be quaint and clean and have better air. This is not true. Most small towns combine the worst of the big cities with none of the advantages (good public transportation and money for street cleaners).
Is this kind of scenery not enough for you. This is a 15 minute ride from my house.
[quote=“TheLostSwede”][/quote]Undeniable. Something Taiwan and mainland China have in common is that the streets get swept every night,
Which streets are these?
I woke up this morning to a freshly laid dog turd sitting eminently outside my front door. I sweep and mop the street outside my door. I have never seen anyone else do this. Come to think of it I have never seen a mop or broom in anyone else’s yard.
Taiwan is far better today than it was 15 years ago in all three categories.
If you want to see true beauty, you have to get away from where people are: the more distant hiking trails and mountain wildernesses, the places only environmentally conscious hikers and nature lovers go.[/quote]
That may be true, but is it possible to actually live somewhere healthy rather than just visit with a bus load of tourists on the weekend?
Taiwan is far better today than it was 15 years ago in all three categories.
If you want to see true beauty, you have to get away from where people are: the more distant hiking trails and mountain wildernesses, the places only environmentally conscious hikers and nature lovers go.[/quote]
That may be true, but is it possible to actually live somewhere healthy rather than just visit with a bus load of tourists on the weekend?[/quote]
jimi, you have just been unlucky which is easy in Taiwan, especially if you listen to locals. People here like crowds but it is simple enough to get away from them. This is an extremely mountainous place and it doesn’t take long to get away from the urban jungle into the real stuff where it’s just you and nature.
Healthy living is easy. I live right by the mountains and a university built on the slopes and can walk around day or night on paths and roads that are traffic free. I can bike along 200km of dedicated bike paths that start 30m from my front door. I can also ride around in the mountains on roads that see one car every hour. There are 10 hour trails starting almost from my door and dozens more within a short drive.
Omniloquacious, who lives just outside Taipei goes for a hike and a swim in the clean rivers of Wulai almost every morning.
[quote=“barfomcgee”][quote=“Muzha Man”]
jimi, you have just been unlucky which is easy in Taiwan, especially if you listen to locals. [/quote]
… or the Lonely Planet [/quote]
Hey man, I’ve been downgrading Taichung for years. Don’t blame me if you can’t read between the lines.
[quote=“barfomcgee”][quote=“Muzha Man”]
jimi, you have just been unlucky which is easy in Taiwan, especially if you listen to locals. [/quote]
… or the Lonely Planet [/quote]
LOL Rough guide actually. Yep, it’s heading for the bin!
Taipei is clean in parts but the buildings are in a bad state mostly. The artificial division of Taipei City and County causes a lot of problems. The air pollution level in Taipei mixed with the damp and bad building quality is fairly severe (I have bad allergies now after years living here). It needs to clean up it’s act as a whole. Half the city requires knocking down and rebuilding. There are still open stinking sewers beside 5 star developments. Driving into Renai area from XinDian recently I was struck by the enormous difference between the two areas as a microcosm for most of Taiwan. Unfortunately the residents of Taipei City (that small area between the rivers), who count among them the rich and government officials and the double passport holders, don’t really care about the rest of the country which leaves the country in this mess (look at KenDing as an example to see how some places have actually got worse in the last few years). Sure it’s improved in spots where some wealthier residents live, but it’s not really improved in most places in the last 8 years since I’ve been here.
[quote=“Juba”][quote=“TheLostSwede”]You’re from London and think it’s dirty here?!?! :loco:
London is about the dirtiest place I’ve ever lived in, I mean, blowing your nose there you ended up with soot in the tissue…[/quote]On Oxford Street, maybe. Not in the suburbs. Here in Taiwan the suburbs are worse than the city centre - much worse.
[quote=“TheLostSwede”]It smells rank, there’s even more dog shit on the streets[/quote]Undeniable. Something Taiwan and mainland China have in common is that the streets get swept every night, but Britain can’t get it together. Maybe labour in Britain is too expensive or something. Bloody unions!
[quote=“TheLostSwede”]not to mention chewing gum and what not else…[/quote]Yeah, I noticed those little black gum spots all over the place last time I went back. We need Lee Kwan-yu in charge instead of Red Ken and what’s his name the Tory fop who’s taken over now.
[quote=“TheLostSwede”]Most houses look worse than here…[/quote]No way.
[quote=“TheLostSwede”]and the overall standard of living is down the toilet.[/quote]Not as far down round the S-bend as Taiwan.
I’d concur with TheLostSwede about London. London is an amazing place to visit, but it’s horrible to live in unless you have a ton of money or you want to live in a sharehouse with fifteen other Antipodeans or South Africans, half of them dossing on the loungeroom floor, and the other half set to move by next Tuesday, only to be replaced by a new set of party animals.
Dealing with Londoners in any service provision is an exercise in torture. Actually, I found much of the populace to be more surly, and less helpful, than your average Muscovite babushka (seriously, I hated Russians in Russia, and never thought I could find ruder, meaner people on the planet until going to London). Commuting (especially if you have the misfortune of ever having to use the National Rail), the weather, litter (I saw people drop litter not one metre from a bin on station plaforms, and in one bizarre incident, I had a whole station full of people watch me as I walked more than ten metres to a rubbish bin) early closing times for many businesses…these and more things (ie. children if you work in education) make daily life an absolute grind. Oh yeah, no one has mentioned the ever-present threat of random violence that exists in the U.K. In most other parts of the world, you know where the bad areas are and you can avoid trouble. In London, it finds you.
Taiwan, for all its faults, is easily much more livable than London, although London did afford me the opportunity to save buckets of Pounds that converted very nicely into many eastern European currencies pre-EU membership.
