[quote=“aquagirl”][quote=“Kawa”]Hi there!
It’s been a while that I’m regularly reading this forum in search of information about life in Taiwan, and as a potential future expat in Taipei I’m registering today to request some advice about my case.
I’m finishing my studies this summer, and after that I’m planning to settle in Taipei. I’ve been in this city twice, and I really fell in love with the place, the people, the food, and all the usual stuff I’ve read 10’000 times on this forum. As I will be absolutely free for the first time in my life in a couple of months, I decided to take this probably unique opportunity in a lifetime to go live abroad.
The problem is that I don’t speak Chinese. I’m currently learning the very beginning, and in spite of my motivation the learning pace is really slow (no way). I believe it’s more efficient to learn a language on the spot anyway, so here’s the deal: I’d like to find a way to subsist in Taipei for a few years, the time to reach a correct level of Chinese.
What’s your opinion about that? How should I proceed?
Is it possible to find a decent job that doesn’t require to speak Chinese? What are my chances to find one? Should I go for an internship, knowing that I’ll be financially on my own?
I have a master in business management, so I’m quite versatile and not very constrained about what kind of job I can do 
Forget English-teaching jobs, I’m not a native speaker so I guess I don’t have any chances in this option.
Thanks in advance for your comments![/quote]
Unfortunately if you don’t speak Chinese, you will have a very hard time finding work other than teaching English (you just need to possess a passport from one of the designated English speaking countries, like the U.S. and Canada, for example), unless you were sent here by your company, in which case they’d take care of your ARC and most likely your housing/living situation, etc. I have a Business degree from a top U.S. university, I speak, read and write fluent Mandarin Chinese and I have worked as a marketing executive in the financial services industry for over 13 years AND I have ROC citizenship. I spent two years after arriving in Taiwan looking for work and to no avail. However, my husband, who’s a native English speaker, with zero English teaching experience, found a job before we got here and successfully found another position, this time with a local elementary school. Go figure. I know you don’t want to teach English, but you may not have a choice if you need a job to stay here. Many schools will sponsor your ARC, if you’re not doing it through the school you’re going to be enrolling in for Chinese language learning. You can still try looking for non English-teaching jobs but it’ll be really hard if you don’t understand Chinese.
Here’s one of the largest local job websites you can try, many times the employer will post jobs in English: 104.com.tw
You might still need someone who can read Chinese to help you navigate through the pages.
By the way, you might want to have your resume translated into Chinese, even if you can’t read or write it.
Good luck![/quote]
Just realized that you’re from Switzerland. Don’t think that’s one of the qualifying countries but I’ve read in so many places on this forum that people know people who can’t speak English got teaching jobs. There was even someone who was actually English illiterate and got a teaching job at a school. It’s not something I’m advocating but if you’re Western and have good command of the English language, you can probably get a job teaching English. It’s just a matter of whether you want to or not.
). I call the rental company – Eurocar (!!) – explain at length what’s been going on, and eventually the lady asks in her sweet geordie voice if I’ve by chance pulled the choke out (or pushed it in, I forget).