I would like to come and live in Taiwan so that I can learn Mandarin (not through a formal school). I do not need to work so I don’t need a work permit. Ideally I would like to to be able to stay at least 3 months at a time before having to do a visa run and expect to stay here for at least 2 years. How can I get multiple entry visa if I don’t have an employer or an approved educational course?
If you are going to be studying Chinese but not through a formal school, how are you going to study? At a private school or by yourself/with a private teacher.
The main private schools, like TLI, CLD, Pioneer etc can give you documentation which will alllow you to receive a 60 day extendable visa (sometimes referred to as a student visa, but it’s just a visitor visa with studya s purpose fo visit). You have to get this outside of Taiwan, so you’ll need to get the papers first (and pay fees first) or leave and come back. This allows you to stay 60 days and pop into the police station to get it updated fairly effortlessly every month up to a total of six months before you do a visa run.
If you’ve got someone to teach you privately or are just planning on doing it alone (which I don;t think is a good idea) I think you may as well sign up with a school for 10 hours a week anyway to get that visa and the extra classes can’t hurt right? This would be impossible in smaller cities, countryside though.
The other alternatoive is to sign up for classes with a dodgy school like Flag/CLI where you don’t have to actually attend classes. This is done by a lot of illegal teachers etc. You could even live in the country and pop into Taipei every month for the visa extension.