If “better” means “more attractive to the average Westerner”, I don’t think 5 years will make much of a difference.
Taiwan isn’t going to be bilingual in 5 years. It’s not going to be an international financial hub. The old buildings aren’t being torn down fast enough and replaced with the kind of modern housing you can easily find in Singapore, KL, Saigon, etc.
Even so, Taiwan is relatively expensive if you want to have a nice Western-style apartment, eat at nice restaurants, drink on the weekends, etc.
There seems to be more expat interest in Taiwan during the corona but the students and teachers still way outnumber the working professionals and business people. I don’t think that’s going to change much TBH.
The thing is Taiwan doesn’t have to try to be something it isn’t. I think it’s better to stay an acquired taste than try and fail to be something some people think it should be.
Taiwanese prefer Taipei to be more international(so many Taiwanese would like to come back) and attract international companies and wages. And this is happening, I’m not sure if you have noticed Taiwanese reinvesting in Taiwan and foreign companies like Microsoft and Google. Taipei office vacancies are at a 19 year low, and new office buildings are being expedited.
The old expat concept is dying. Hong Kong is effectively dead and Singapore is making it harder for foreigners. You just have Dubai and Shanghai. I don’t really give a fuck about if Taipei is attractive to banker wankers, it’s becoming a better place to live and easier. This thing of being a privileged foreigner is going.
Don’t pull your punches. The thing is I know quite a few expats around Asia and only some of them are white. Theres plenty of Indians and Chinese and Japanese etc. You can’t criticise white people for working in companies founded and run by mainly white people overseas, can you ? Would you criticise a Japanese working as an expat for a Japanese company ?
I don’t think so !
This is also true. But point stands the “expat” of old is
dying out. I know many in Shanghai who are feeling the heat for not learning the language and never leaving Shanghai.
When Canadian coffee chain Tim Horton’s recently they skipped the expat thing and went with a completely local management team and tailored the product mix and experience completely for locals
I don’t mean that. Nothing working for a company, but more the HK/Singapore/Shanghai private school, international school etc expat of old Is dying out.
OK I will retract that , I knew a lot of entitled Koreans in China who walked around like they owned the place. But stereotypically when I think of expats I think of Anglo types doing certain things and behaving in a certain way. There was a global expat culture which was pretty Anglofied. But yeah not necessarily white to act like a prick
Taiwanese companies moving money back from China accounts for much of the commercial RE boom. It doesn’t mean that the capital coming back to Taiwan is raising wages for workers.
You mentioned Google and Microsoft. I work in technology. I know what engineers at large international companies make in Taiwan versus US/Europe/China. The wages in Taiwan are nowhere close and that’s the reason brain drain has been such a problem here. Why get a PhD in compsci and work for 5 years in Taiwan to make substantially less than what a new grad who goes to work at Google HQ in Mountain View makes?
And that’s not to mention the language issue. Many international companies require that candidates here speak fluent, idiomatic English.
As for finance, it’s not about “banker wankers”. Where money flows, business grows.
In any case I don’t know what you’re upset about. All I’m saying is Taiwan can be Taiwan. It doesn’t have to be what Singapore is, what Hong Kong once was, etc. It can continue to evolve/improve without trying to be something it’s not. Taipei doesn’t have to become a city filled with soul-less high-rise apartments and second-rate Western restaurants in an effort to become more “international”.
Yep. Like 1/4th in a lot of cases. Taiwan salaries are so pathetic.
Here, here. My impression has always been that Taiwan is pretty much the way Taiwanese people like it and they’re in no rush to become Hong Kong/Singapore. More power to them. And living in Taipei, I happen to be just fine with third rate Western restaurants. I don’t need that second rate shit they got in Singapore, what am I, some fancy asshole?!
Yeah true. I do hope for Taiwan’s sake that more companies based in HK start setting up shop in Taiwan. That can only be a net benefit for Taiwanese people. And honestly, there’s virtually no chance a bunch of multinationals coming in and hiring people will really change Taiwan all that much. It’s just too big a country. 24 million people is a lot. And they aren’t going to stop riding scooters and complaining about prices anytime soon, even if Google and Goldman Sachs suddenly open huge offices and bring in a bunch of clueless white folks to run them.
Really? My impression is that a software engineer in the Bay Area (San Fran) earns around US$10,000/month, and in Taiwan around US$2,000/month. Surely most European cities would pay more like US$6,000/month? Or is that too high?