No, absolutely not. I make $NT 70,000 a month working illegaly. It’s much better since you don’t have to pay 20% tax for your first 6 months. But if you do want to work legally and pay 20% tax, than you do need a diploma. Tell your friend to come over. He could save a nice amount of money and if he studies hard in his free time he could learn basic mandarin in a year. There are many taiwanese people looking for english speakers to have a language exchange. I spent the last year in Thailand, had a thai girlfriend who spoke no english, so I was forced to learn and speak thai with her, and in 10 months I was speaking pretty decent thai. Don’t listen to all the negative comments. They’re just losers. Tell your friend to come over. He’ll have a good experience.
To summarize the comments in the Legal Matters section, regarding whether or not you need a COLLEGE/UNIVERSITY DIPLOMA (from an institution in an English speaking country) in order to get a legal teaching job, the answer for the unmarried newcomer to Taiwan is: Yes, you definitely need the diploma.
If you have been here over five years with residency permission, or are married to a Taiwanese, then there are ways around this DIPLOMA requirement.
Actually, Toronto and NYC each have about 500,000 Chinese.
Don’t discount Chinatown, if you meet people (who speak Mandarin instead of Cantonese) then you can practice your Chinese. Other Chinese-speaking neighborhoods are on either side of Golden Gate Park.
Try Chinese-speaking temples or churches. Many of them offer Chinese classes (mainly for their kids, who don’t know it enough to read), or English classes. I went to a Buddhist temple that has classes for foreigners.