Here is a link to a recent blog post about living in Zhongli.
leakypen.blogspot.com/2006/10/jh … -pt-3.html
Makes the place sound OK, but I am sure you will suffer major culture shock when you arrive.
[quote=“naunau”]OK! I will try to discuss with the project supervisor about conditions and salary …
:s[/quote]
Salut naunau,
There are two french groups on yahoo:
Liste Taiwan:
fr.groups.yahoo.com/group/listetaiwan/
With about 50 members and very open and active discussions about the Taiwan social life.
And the list of the Association des Français de Taiwan
fr.groups.yahoo.com/group/fr-tw/
With much more (but mainly sleeping) members, besides this list is run by shameless moderating dictators.
PS. 55K is a normal salary outside Taipei. Even above averrage if compared to most Taiwanese salarys.
PPS. Zhongli stinks. Move to Taichung or at least Hsinchu if you have a choice.
dont some of the bushibans offer french?? French and Spanish are slowly becoming popular languages for Taiwanese to learn?
How many people live in Taichung (and in Zhongli)?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chungli_City
A tad below 400k. You are i little bit below one million in Taizhong.
We just moved from Switzerland to Zhongli last weekend and wanted to find out, whether other people on this forum are located somewhere around here. We would be interested to find out about events going on in this area and maybe build up some contacts here.
BR
I live there but I never go out.
There are other foreigners in the area, I know of a few. Bigger social events tend to be in TPE, though.
One of my first pressing issues would be to find a Chinese teacher in Zhongli, who would be able to give one-on-one tuition at my company. Does anyone have any recommendation?
Thanks in advance for the help.
I would contact chungyuan university, and Yuan Ze university. both have mandarin programmes, and should be able to point you in the right direction.
Depending on where you are located, Chung Yang University would be the other option.
Chris, I wouldn’t be discouraged by those here who say that 55K NTD is “low wage” and therefore “not acceptable for a foreigner” or something to that effect. The people who consider 55K (currently 1267 EUR) to be low wage in Taiwan probably have a family with kids to support, a big house, a big car, probably debt to pay off and/or have an expensive lifestyle that they wish to continue after retirement (and therefore need to put back a large amount from their salary every month).
To answer your question directly, I think that 55K is definitely a reasonable salary in Taiwan which will allow you not only to survive in Taiwan, but to live quite comfortably (again, people with a “big” lifestyle will not agree with that). If you get 2000 EUR for a similar job in France, it would be crazy to expect the same salary in Taiwan, given the average income levels and cost of living here, which are A LOT less than in western Europe. I know fully qualified lawyers who are employed and make about 60K a month, same with CPAs and other professionals. There are 30 year old engineers working at big companies in Taiwan earning 40-50K which is considered normal, just to put things in perspective.
Also keep in mind you will be working at a university as a post-doc researcher, not at a big tech company which can shell out big salaries to their top people (who in turn will pay for the big salary with extremely long hours and work weekends). I have a friend, 37 years old, who is assistant professor at a uni in southern Taiwan and he makes around 70K a month, I believe, and that’s considered quite good here.
Finally, you should compare what other universities around the world pay for post-doc researchers like you. For instance, my brother went from Germany to Harvard for a medical post-doc research job for a year. He was employed there full time and received exactly zero dollars every month, yep nothing! He lived on savings and small jobs. Still, he says that was the best year of his life so far and the benefits of the experience totally outweigh the costs and the non-existant salary. So, I believe you should really be grateful for the 55K that’s been offered to you. Of course, more is always better, but then you’re not doing a post-doc to get rich in that year, do you?
I agree that generally 55k is considered a high salary in Taiwan. But we are talking about postdoc. Unless you are a postdoc in Art (any area that has not much financial support), then I don’t find it a low salary. Otherwise it is considered to be low for a post-doc. Of course if you don’t mind it, then it is ok.
Exactly 70k is a starting point for a post-doc. One more issue: if you have no publications in any important journals, then 55k is ok. The salary depends also on this what you can offer in your CV.
So, the Chinese seems to be working out. Thanks for your input.
Here comes my next question: does anyone know an English-speaking Christian church in Zhongli?
Thanks in advance.
The Catholic church in Zhongli has at least two English masses every Sunday. For information on other churches have a look over here.
Welcome to Zhongli, swisskogame. My husband’s Dutch and I’m Taiwanese. I grew up and currently living in Zhongli so you are more than welcome to ask any questions you might have or you can simply PM me.
Naunau, I know the salary sounded to be on the low side by European standard, but like GC Rider said, you can live pretty comfortably here with it. I mean you can eat in restaurants every freaking day if you like, I don’t remember having this luxury when we lived in England. 
Just don’t expect finding fancy French restaurant here.
The Taiwanese tourism bureau is gonna want to kill me but to be honest with you, the city isn’t much. It’s crowded, messy and polluted, but some areas are bearable. My husband always says that they should destroy the whole city and rebuild everything, I can’t say that I disagree. However Taipei is just 40 mins away by express train, so don’t worry too much about entertainment. There are some great places for hiking in the greater Taoyuan area in case if anyone’s interested.
One thing I have to warn you though, is the traffic in Zhongli, well, in the whole country actually. People here are usually very nice to foreigners but when it comes to driving, it’s like they have schizophrenia or something, they go completly nuts. But it’s easier to get around Zhongli if you have a scooter or bike, unlike Taipei.
Good luck, everyone!