Most people I know came to Taiwan and started out teaching.
Most of them began teaching in buxibans, and some eventually moved into public or private schools.
Some ABTs came back and joined a family business (usually something real-estate or import/export related).
In a different life, I earned a biology degree with a business minor. I worked Stateside before coming to Taiwan. The original plan was for this to be temporary. I was going to spend a year or two to learn Mandarin and visit family members.
Eventually I got a job at a cram school near my grandparents’ house. Back around 2014, NT$60k/month was OK, especially considering I didn’t pay rent or bills.
A few years ago, I figured that if I was going to keep teaching, I should at least make use of my biology degree. I was lucky in that I found a place that was willing to hire me while I did a teacher prep program. Then I got hired at a private school that does Bio classes in English. The pay is OK I guess. I’m not getting rich, though.
So I’m curious about the people who’ve been here for the long haul (since the early or mid-2010s) and aren’t teaching.
What do you do?
How did you get into it?
Did you come to Taiwan specifically for that job, or did you transition into it after arriving?
If you’re comfortable sharing, what’s your rough income range?
An interesting snapshot of what we’re up to, and what people earn—now a few years old, but still very interesting—can be found in the google doc in the first post in this thread:
It was a different time. Eclectic mix of horn dogs, folks with fake degrees, Canuckistanrrs in debt , Vietnam vets that never left….less careerist, less woke.. yet the opps were plentiful
I borrowed from the library a DVD of the Michael Jackson movie, “This Is It”. The elderly librarian handed over the DVD and, wanting to appear sophisticated, read off the title as “This is I.T.”
Came to teach. Fell ass backwards into my current job, had no interest in ever doing sales before this. I do still teach PT on the side, because…
Local company, so local salary. Not super awesome, but the job is pretty chill so I don’t mind. The teaching supplements my income so I get to live a pretty comfy life.
I mean those of us working outside of teaching, it was the the land of opportunities. People can ask what we did as long termers, how much we were paid but not really equivalent or transferable to today.
This screams “written by AI” and it’s so generic that I doubt the person is real. Also, the OP is not responding to replies, which is typical for this type of thread. If you, @maria156, are a real person, write something less generic and also tell everyone why you want those questions answered.
The OP has been posting here for eight years, and has a range of topics that looks plausible.
Who knows who is a bot. Given my posting, it’s possible for people to conclude I am a parody account, but not a bot—I don’t think a bot could dislike certain things as much as I do.
Ha ha, I did not do a background check, I just got this impression when reading the post. Getting paranoid, apparently. Trying to tell real from AI is getting harder and harder. At least my wrong assumption was not generated with the help of AI, I swear.
