Living in Nantou County

I think they are more chill, because they are mostly bored to death from doing nothing.

Do you have an opportunity or just thinking about it?
Lived in one of the townships. Not what I’d consider small town though. Has anything you’d need and Taichung is easily accessible. I didn’t enjoy it that much, but it would have been 10x better with a scooter or car
I guess it was fairly laid back. I didn’t make any friends but I’m not exactly the most outgoing person. Some of the people I regularly bought food from were friendly though. If you’re outgoing and can speak Chinese you’d probably be able to meet some friends.
Living in town it’s mostly just as ugly and dirty as the rest of Taiwan but you can see the mountains over the buildings so it’s a bit better.
I don’t think the school I left a few months ago has replaced me yet, if you don’t mind working for less than 50k a month

Yep it’s very helpful if you can speak some Chinese in those places. Forgot to mention that. Also that you aren’t a psycho scaring people off .:grin:

Did you move to nantou

How has it been

Dude, Taichung Man the Second (aka the OP) asked what it’s like to be in Nantou, like, two days ago. Give the man some time to make up his mind! : D

Guy

Yeah, then he’ll have to find a job and a place, pack all his stuff, move there, wind down and get into the flow of things a bit

So…check back on Wednesday, then? :thinking:

What I want to know is if @Taichungguy2 will change his name to nantouguy if he moves there.

rude

Language barrier is obviously a huge factor. I don’t have personal experience but I’m assuming broken mandarin won’t suffice like it does in Taipei. I don’t even know what they speak in Nantou, is it Hakka or Tiawanese?

I am by no means a Nantou County specialist. But I do know that a critical mass of Hakka speakers is concentrated in only a few places in Taiwan: the hills of Hsinchu County (not the city), Miaoli County, the town of Meinong in what used to be Kaohsiung County.

You wouldn’t need to (or even want to) speak Hakka in Nantou.

Guy

Nantou is probably mostly Mandarin with some Taiwanese pockets and also aboriginal people. Tonnes of South East Asian labourers as well.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time in Nantou over the years as my wife is from there. I thought it was utter shit at first, but I slowly came around to enjoying what it has to offer. If you’re in Nantou City, there is no actual pub of which to speak but many KTVs. As mentioned, there’s a cinema, plenty of restaurants and coffee shops. There’s shrimp fishing, some amazing pineapple cake bakeries and good old Carrefour if you’re feeling lonely (that’s the place to get eyeballed from other foreigners who were convinced they were the only big nose in town). Western junk food is also well covered with McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and KFC.

While it can get a little boring, it’s a very relaxing place to live - especially if you have a car or scooter. There are some amazing trips to be had and some fantastic scenery. Head out to Puli (which is a little busier than Nantou City) or go for day out in Taichung.

With regards to getting a job. All my wife’s nieces and nephews have gone to cram school for years and not one can speak English. The only kid I know there with good English attends a private place run by a foreigner, so there might be an opening for providing quality English tuition lol.

In my opinion, it’s really a place that you grow to love and suits westerners wanting away from the big city life. If I could get a suitable job there, I’d buy a house and settle because the prices are super cheap compared to where I am now.

In saying all this, I know a guy from Korea who lived in Nantou City and thinks it’s very boring. When his kids were born, he stayed there with the in laws and the boredom part caused arguments with his wife. From what I understood, he found it hard to make friends even though he’s fluent in Chinese. They seem much happier now they moved back to Taipei.