Someone hurt my feelings once.
“年(月)別
Year (Month)” “發生件數(包括補報數) (件)
Offenses Known to the Police (Cases)” “破獲件數(包括破積案) (件)
Offenses Cleared (Cases)” “嫌疑犯人數 (人)
Offenders (Persons)” 刑案發生率(件/十萬人) 犯罪人口率(人/十萬人) 破獲率(%)
Offender Rate (Persons/ 100,000P.)
Total Theft Violent Crime Others
九十八年2009 264,912 105,073 4,678 155,161 155,161
[quote=“vermis”]First off, I apologise if something like this has already been posted.
I’m going to be living in Taipei for about six months (attending Shi-Da, staying with a family about 15 - 20 min away). I was just wondering what the violent crime is like in Taiwan. I’ve never been there before, and I had a little run in in Amsterdam, so obviously I’m a little worried about going overseas again.
So I guess my two questions would be:
What’s the best way to not get my ass kicked in Taiwan?
What’s the biggest cultural difference between America and the island?
(Really, the two could end up being intertwined, lol)[/quote]
Don’t get angry and leave things be. Don’t get drunk and stupid at any bars. Especially don’t get stupid on foreign night. Semi gangstars like to puff their stuff on those nights cause ur an easy target. Breathe take a shot and walk away.
Never transfer money through an ATM, even it its a SHIDA account. Talk nice, tell them you prefer transactions and receipts in person they won’t bother you in fact some tw ppl will admire you. Thinking, why don’t I do that?
Always get your reciepts for big transfers just like in the west.
And if you decide to mouth off and get into shit that is your own fault. No one will bother you here but if you want to find trouble there is plenty waiting.
[quote=“djkonstable”][quote=“vermis”]First off, I apologise if something like this has already been posted.
I’m going to be living in Taipei for about six months (attending Shi-Da, staying with a family about 15 - 20 min away). I was just wondering what the violent crime is like in Taiwan. I’ve never been there before, and I had a little run in in Amsterdam, so obviously I’m a little worried about going overseas again.
So I guess my two questions would be:
What’s the best way to not get my ass kicked in Taiwan?
What’s the biggest cultural difference between America and the island?
(Really, the two could end up being intertwined, lol)[/quote]
Don’t get angry and leave things be. Don’t get drunk and stupid at any bars. Especially don’t get stupid on foreign night. Semi gangstars like to puff their stuff on those nights cause your an easy target. Breathe take a shot and walk away.
Never transfer money through an ATM, even it its a Shi-Da account. Talk nice, tell them you prefer transactions and receipts in person they won’t bother you in fact some tw people will admire you. Thinking, why don’t I do that?
Always get your reciepts for big transfers just like in the west.
And if you decide to mouth off and get into shit that is your own fault. No one will bother you here but if you want to find trouble there is plenty waiting.[/quote]
Why not? I do that all the time – it’s how I pay my rent. Never had any problems.
Me too. I transfer money all the time.
I also mouth off people on occassion. 
People steal things, so make sure you do lock the door carefully when you go out, and don’t leave valuables in plain sight. Watch your wallet too though, pickpocketers do roam the streets. There are a lot of scammers who will try to fish their marks over the telephone, but once they discover that you’re not local and can’t speak Chinese very well they’ll hang up on you.
Other than that you should be fine. Most of the crimes you may see and experience personally in Taipei do not usually inflict bodily harm. Rapes do apparently come on the police blotter. I’d worry more about being careful in traffic than crimes, really. Pedestrians need to always yield to scooter riders and taxi drivers even when they have the right of way; failure to yield will result in honks from the vehicle’s horn and very dirty looks.
If you are female, you are safer than in a lot of countries. But, be careful in the street with scooter muggings. I’ve witnessed these twice on Shida Rd - a woman (one time not very vigilant because fussing with small children, another, they hit her really hard on tha back of head with a baseball bat) got hit and had her bag stolen then the thief escaped on a scooter. I’m sure men get robbed too, but women are more of a target because of the shoulder bags, I guess.
Taiwanese women have often told me taxis are dangerous and women get raped by dodgy taxi drivers. I don’t know what the chances of this are, in reality.
Occasionally there are stories about women being dragged off in public places, but despite the media outrage, it doesn’t seem to happen as often as one would expect. A place with a dense population is good in that less crime seems to go on, but the flip side is no-one even notices if something odd is happening.
And stay away from windows if there are Irish in the house!
Generalizations are bad, but I’m going to make one here:
if you’re a white male, chances are that you won’t find very many violent crimes against you here in Taiwan.
Reasons:
-
Foreigners typically carry much less cash than the locals here. I’ve seen some people on the street and at ATM’s pull out a huge wad of blue NT$1000 bills that probably contained no less than NT$20k. How many of us carry that kind of money around here on Forumosa? If we’ve established that then what’s the point for a mugger to mug you, a highly noticeable individual on the street compared to the rest of people, when they can just target a local and probably get more money out of it?
-
Most of the foreign populations are younger and don’t have family locally. Why bother kidnapping somebody like you and running a higher risk of being found and noticed if there is no one who will be able to pay the ransom?
[quote=“catfish13”]People steal things, so make sure you do lock the door carefully when you go out, and don’t leave valuables in plain sight. Watch your wallet too though, pickpocketers do roam the streets. There are a lot of scammers who will try to fish their marks over the telephone, but once they discover that you’re not local and can’t speak Chinese very well they’ll hang up on you.
Other than that you should be fine. Most of the crimes you may see and experience personally in Taipei do not usually inflict bodily harm. Rapes do apparently come on the police blotter. I’d worry more about being careful in traffic than crimes, really. Pedestrians need to always yield to scooter riders and taxi drivers even when they have the right of way; failure to yield will result in honks from the vehicle’s horn and very dirty looks.[/quote]
Exactly. For thos eof us used to the well-based paranoia of really violent places, living here is like Heaven… but you should not lower your defenses too much. Complacency breeds trouble.
I can leave my clothes drying out in the street. Heck, i’ve forgotten half my groceries out by teh door for hours. But several bikes have been stiolen from inside or building, and people have had run-ins when leaving the main doors open. So, a modicum of care is still necessary.
Would you accept drinks from a stranger back home? No? Then don’t do it here. Follow your instincts when in isolated places.
A friend who’s stufying in Germany was telling me she took a wrong turn and ended up in a “bad neighborhood”. Here, it is hard to say there is a red district or bad area, and gansters keep to themselves most of the time. The purse snatchers and pickpockets are infrequent enough to merit extensive coverage, making the problem look bigger than it is. When I think of back home, with random shootings and stuff, here at least they steal your stuff, I mean…
Make sure as a foreigner you knwo how to say HELP in Chinese, and yell loud and clear if you think you might be threated -yes, beforehand, ahead of the situation getting really ugly. The one who cries first win. If you act like a waiguo and think “no one will play me for a fool” and shout and glare and even get into fists, well, for people here, you’ll look like an abusive brat. Play teh victim and people will flock to you and take your side. Defend your right like a man and you wil lose the fight even if you think you’re right and you have teh guy on teh ground.
[quote=“Buttercup”]If you are female, you are safer than in a lot of countries. But, be careful in the street with scooter muggings. I’ve witnessed these twice on Shi-Da Rd - a woman (one time not very vigilant because fussing with small children, another, they hit her really hard on tha back of head with a baseball bat) got hit and had her bag stolen then the thief escaped on a scooter. I’m sure men get robbed too, but women are more of a target because of the shoulder bags, I guess.
Taiwanese women have often told me taxis are dangerous and women get raped by dodgy taxi drivers. I don’t know what the chances of this are, in reality.
Occasionally there are stories about women being dragged off in public places, but despite the media outrage, it doesn’t seem to happen as often as one would expect. A place with a dense population is good in that less crime seems to go on, but the flip side is no-one even notices if something odd is happening.[/quote]
The Taiwanese women fear the taxi drivers since a female political activist was (allegedly) kidnapped and killed (by one). Foreign women are also wary of rapes since a student was raped in Shida and her cries for help were unattended.
The spat of snatching in the 90’s got us into the trend of Taiwanese boyfriends carrying the bags for the ladies. More cameras have also acted as a deterrent.
[quote=“Icon”][quote=“Buttercup”]If you are female, you are safer than in a lot of countries. But, be careful in the street with scooter muggings. I’ve witnessed these twice on Shi-Da Rd - a woman (one time not very vigilant because fussing with small children, another, they hit her really hard on tha back of head with a baseball bat) got hit and had her bag stolen then the thief escaped on a scooter. I’m sure men get robbed too, but women are more of a target because of the shoulder bags, I guess.
Taiwanese women have often told me taxis are dangerous and women get raped by dodgy taxi drivers. I don’t know what the chances of this are, in reality.
Occasionally there are stories about women being dragged off in public places, but despite the media outrage, it doesn’t seem to happen as often as one would expect. A place with a dense population is good in that less crime seems to go on, but the flip side is no-one even notices if something odd is happening.[/quote]
The Taiwanese women fear the taxi drivers since a female political activist was (allegedly) kidnapped and killed (by one). Foreign women are also wary of rapes since a student was raped in Shi-Da and her cries for help were unattended.
The spat of snatching in the 90’s got us into the trend of Taiwanese boyfriends carrying the bags for the ladies. More cameras have also acted as a deterrent.[/quote]
An article on rape in Taiwan. Pasted below
Who Are Rapists, and Why?
(Laura Li/tr. by Jonathan Barnard)
Pictures & text
Text only
“When men are successful, they seek out women as trophies; and when they are at a loss, they rely on women to dispel their sorrow.” This is the way one woman writer describes “how men treat women.” Unfortunately, the statement is still very fitting in the context of sexual abuse. Only by understanding the special characteristics and background of men who abuse women sexually will women gain an understanding of who is likely to be a sex offender, and will society be able to treat this illness.
“In a dark night, a woman in a revealing dress returns home from her job in the night- life industry. The sight of her inflames the passions of a villain, and he strikes.” In the wake of research about sexual abuse, this view of rape has less and less credibility. That being the case, what sort of person becomes a sexual offender? What motivates their behavior?
Police departments of every nation have begun to unravel this mystery, and have come up with a vague outline of the type. Now various clinical experiments are being undertaken to determine how to treat sexual offenders. With the number of these cases rapidly climbing and the rate of repeat offenders growing to new heights, society will have to show greater concern and commit more resources to gain a deeper understanding of this issue.
The ineradicable wound of rape
Professor Chen Juochang, the director of National Tsinghua University’s General Education Center, who once worked at a sanitarium treating sexual offenders, says that among those who commit the serious offense of thirddegree rape, their behavior seems to be rooted in their personal history. In particular, many were sexually abused as children.
It has been revealed that half or more of all rapists were sexually abused or raped as children by adults, including both men and women. If they don’t deal with the psychological impact of these experiences and seek counseling, these nightmarish incidents are likely to haunt them for the rest of their lives. The littleboy victims often turn into perpetrators themselves, whereas the girls tend toward the opposite extreme. Their own bodies have been so violated that their sense of proper boundaries has been weakened, and they grow up to become women who are repeatedly raped.
Secondly, rapists come primarily from dysfunctional families-for instance, where an alcoholic father is physically abusive, the parents have frequent fights (both physical and verbal), or the family is constantly moving. Without proper guidance, some of these children turn into delinquents, and others, who are whipped and beaten, develop low selfesteem. Regardless of the individual circumstances, these children all bear heavy psychological pressure and lack an sense of right and wrong. They hold many misconceptions, such as thinking that society is unfair, that one can only get respect through fighting, or that “all women need to be taught a good lesson.” Using terminology currently in vogue, they have low EQs (emotional quotients).
With these personality problems, it’s easy to imagine that these children wouldn’t have respect for authority: they tend to have poor grades; have trouble finding good jobs; and have difficulties with interpersonal relations, particularly in establishing stable relationships with members of the opposite sex. It becomes a vicious cycle, one that reinforces their anger at the world. Many of the famous “angrytype” killers, such as the “neck slasher” who attacked women in the Panchiao area of Taipei County or the assailant who killed Peng Wanju, the director of Women’s Affairs for the Democratic Progressive Party, fit this type. ROC statistics suggest that such crimes of anger account for about 35% of all criminal cases, an abundance that strikes fear in the hearts of women.
Of course, “anger” and “frustration” are causes for many types of violent crime, but why do these criminals target women who as individuals have done nothing to incite their wrath? The obvious answer is that women are weaker and more easily taken advantage of, and in fact many sexual offenders were torturers of small animals first. Nonetheless, even if the psychological problems of sex offenders are rooted in personal history, the impact of the social environment should not be ignored.
Objectifying women
Wang Lijung, an associate professor of sociology at Taiwan National University, points out that as men are socialized, they will accumulate experiences that shape how they think about women. Many of these are misconceptions, and in extreme cases are quite twisted. These views are illustrated in pornographic videos and magazines. Absorbing these derogatory views of women’s character only strengthens sex offenders’ misogyny.
“Men cling stubbornly to misconceptions that objectify women,” says Maria Cheng, the director of the Back to Authentic Self Counseling Center. In sports men will frequently have their upper bodies exposed without any meaning attached to it, “yet women’s bodies have always been covered, and even today are still thought to need covering, as if to show that a woman’s body is some man’s personal property and for his eyes only.”
With this idea of girls and women being a man’s private property and the tradition of “obeying one’s father and then one’s husband,” fathers who commit incest have been known to shamelessly assert, “When girls grow up, they’ll be used by someone else. You might as well use them yourself first!” What’s more, in traditional society the authority that a master had over his maidservant could easily extend from their working to their private lives, and between them adultery and flirtation were treated as no big deal. This way of thinking survives in the present day, among businessmen who sexually abuse or harass their secretaries with the expectation that they will become their mistresses too. This is the category of the “respectable” sex offender, whose behavior is illustrated by the expressions “power is the best aphrodisiac” and “after getting comfortable, thoughts turn to sex.” Though they lack exposure, they incur the wrath of feminists, who find them particularly loathsome.
From this idea of "private property and “privilege,” so follows the belief that “he who gets the girl in bed first, gets the girl.” When showing off, male youths often ask each other “What base did you get to?,” almost with the attitude that “once you’ve hit a homer, you won’t be worried she’ll run away.” Absurdly, there have even been cases where a family of a rape victim will not try to protect her by keeping her well away from the culprit, but to the contrary will throw her into the lion’s den by insisting that the rapist marry her! Chang Juwen, who in a celebrated case killed her own husband two years ago, was one such woman. More recently, after one of the leading disciples of con-artist-cum-religious-master Sung Chi-li raped a woman follower, rapist and victim married at the insistence of her father.
Wolves in sheep’s clothing
Maria Cheng also warns that many sex crimes are committed in the name of love. In many cases, particularly those involving children and teenagers, the rape occurs conspiratorially without any force being used by a father or other older family member, or by a teacher or elder student or someone else with powerful status who seems to have a protective attitude toward the youngster. For young girls, caught in the trap of love or ignorant about the ways of the world, “they simply don’t think about it, for they don’t want to hurt the offender’s feelings or get him in trouble.” It is only after the sexual relations occur that they realize they have been tricked and manipulated. One college student knows one such scoundrel who has “caused seven women to lose their virginity, only to break up with each of them after getting them into bed.”
At the same time, Cheng warns about the many incidents of “date rape.” In such cases the offender sets up in advance a romantic environment and takes advantage of a women after she has imbibed alcohol and is no longer herself. Caught in this trap, the woman hesitates or panics, and is half forced, half persuaded into the sexual encounter. Instead of calling this “love” or “sex,” perhaps it would be better to say that it is enjoying the feeling of manipulation and conquest.
When it comes to sex, there is poor communication between the sexes. This may be another cause of sexual crimes.
Luo Tsanying, an associate professor of psychology at the World College of Journalism and Communications, points out that the two sexes have traditionally had the socalled “sex and love script,” wherein the man is supposed to be the initiator and the woman is supposed to refuse the sexual advances to demonstrate her demure propriety. Women very rarely speak about their sexual expectations, likes and dislikes, and since men, intentionally or unintentionally, ignore what women have to say anyway, it results in the “guy on offense, gal on defense” script that is largely taken for granted. In the film “Gone with the Wind” when Rhett Butler and Scarlet O’Hara are in the middle of a nasty fight, Rhett doesn’t defend himself against her kicks and sharp cries, but instead just picks her up by the waist, carries her upstairs and enters the bedroom. The next day, Scarlet smiles bashfully with a radiant face that exudes happiness. It’s a classic example.
Rewriting the script
The survey conducted for this issue of Sinorama shows that onethird of all respondents (both women and men) feel that if a woman allows a man to kiss or embrace her it signals she is willing to have sex. Many women victims of sexual crimes have stated that they said something to the effect of “It’s O.K. to feel, but you can’t go beyond that!” But because the men were aroused and mistakenly believed that “women are only impressed by shows of force” or that “when women say no, they couldn’t be wanting it more,” the men wouldn’t take no for an answer and even refused to accept blame afterwards. There are even some rapists who will ask their terrorized victims, whose vaginas are torn and who have been scared half to death, “Did you like it?” or “I’m pretty good, huh?”
Sexual misconceptions not only have an effect on the crime but also on the verdict. In particular, in regard to date rape and sexual harassment in the workplace, women need the courage to endure gossip when they make an accusation, and they may not be believed. The whole thing may be treated very lightly as “a misunderstanding” or “lovers’ quarrel.” The only solution is for women to raise their guard. “If a nearby man frequently makes lewd remarks, establish greater distance,” Wang Lijung suggests. When you feel that “something is amiss,” don’t hesitate; get out of there right away!
Sex crimes are rooted both in individuals’ personal histories and general social phenomena. They can be seen as a form of release, vengeance, possessiontaking, and manipulation, and maybe even a mistaken search for love. Only with proper emotional guidance and sex education, so that women are respected as equals, will the number of sex crimes decline.
similar but more heavy about domestic violence in Taiwan
http://www.stanford.edu/group/beagle2/student_reports/ChaoReport.pdf