Returning home to the UK

Discussion Greater Forumosa
41

I was in the opposite position. I was in the UK and I thought about staying because of the reasons many people cite (better career prospect and all that jazz), then I decided NOT staying was a no brainer because:

  1. It is extremely difficult to find a (good) job in London, especially if you don’t have an EU passport. I know so many ppl in really desperate positions (like from India or Ukraine or something) and it’s been forever and they are still working part-time job for £7.50/hr. These are all people with really good qualifications (perfect English, master’s degree etc.). I even know an Australian whose like a straight A student with lots of work experience in Melbourne and I dont’ think she’s found one (though her standard is higher since for her salary in London is shit and she’s only staying for her British bf). The job market is so saturated.

  2. Even if you do get a job, the rent is just too much. I don’t know a single person living in London, in their 20s, who’s not living with a flatmate or 2, even couples are living with flatmates OR with LANDLORDS, haul ass no thanks. I’m still doing an internship in Taiwan (so I get paid shit money) and my shit money is enough for a studio that’s 3 mins away from a metro stop and 3 stops away from work (near Taipei 101) and I’m not completely broke after my other expenses (which granted aren’t a lot).

  3. Overtime sucks but in my field overtime is much, much worse in places like London.

  4. I hate commuting in London. The tube sucks balls and is soooooooo expensive.

  5. The food in general sucks and I would not want to cook after work.

  6. The internet connection is a joke. Though I guess that actually is a good thing since I was a lot less attached to my phone in London.

  7. Everything is just really expensive except dairy products like cheese and yogurt and junk food from Iceland, both of which I can live without.

I didn’t really mind the grim/pessimism there since I never really followed English news.

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42

Yeah, maybe i’m just being an ungrateful millenial turd about my life in the UK :laughing:

My personal work culture in the UK sounds comparable to Taiwan to be honest, if not maybe a little worse. I know a lot of people with serious health issues which are a direct consequence of their working environment, including me, and that magically went away on the first week of my trip. Funny that. But then again, in the UK I’m not going to be splattered by a blue truck anytime soon. Ironically though, I did get knocked over by a bicycle when I was in Japan haha

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43

My family and I have a very easy going life in Taiwan , stress free mostly in terms of lifestyle. I take the MRT in Taipei and I don’t even know how much it costs. I rent a decent place with security , near the MRT for just a small percentage of my salary. The govt only takes less than ten per cent income taxes and I don’t need to get private health insurance. If I move back to my homeland the hassle factor and taxes are going to be a huge drag at first. I wouldn’t move back because my life would be easier …It definitely wouldn’t. There’s more opportunities though for my whole family in the future I think.
Living in Taiwan is easy precisely because it is not a booming economy and hotspot for immigration . We should be careful what we wish for I guess.

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44

I don’t fault anyone for not wanting to live in the wretched hole that is London.

Wonderful place if you’ve got loads of cash, but then so is Detroit!

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45

My rent and bills is 50% of my monthly salary at home, not including car insurance, petrol, food and all the other “necessary” crap. What little I save, I spend on holidays to get away, or random impulse purchases to give myself something to do.

Yeah, I fear it’s only a matter of time before the instagrammers and vloggers clock onto Taipei and it’s turned into what Tokyo is now, we’ll all dye our hair blue and the rents etc. shoot up due to the Airbnb effect and everything else. At least Taipei has more going for it than a glorified zebra crossing… (my opinion)

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46

I don’t agree with all of your points, but I agree with what you’re saying over all. This is why I say that you have to be in a well-paid job for London to be “better” than Taiwan. I think you can get by fine on an annual £40K salary, but to have the kind of free and easy life of an English teacher in Taiwan, you probably need more like £50K. If you pay a mortgage instead of renting, you can get a decent studio or even one-bedroom flat on £50K, as monthly repayments on mortgages are much cheaper than rent here. I realise being on a £50K salary and having a mortgage is much easier said than done, but I do think it’s easier to get into that kind of position here than it is in Taiwan, especially if you have in-demand qualifications like Data Science and Artificial Intelligence.

47

I agree, but you have to wait for someone to die to afford the initial deposit and stamp duty on buying a home, unless you buy a new build ikea shitbox.

I know the gongyu’s look awful but they stand up to typhoons. I don’t think some of the new builds in London would!

Completely off-topic and i apologise, but is Xinbei and New Taipei City the same thing? Xinbei is New North, which makes sense for it to be NTC?

48

Well if you do engineering it’d be easier to get into that kind of position in Taiwan too, it’s just that the work environment would be horrible (TSMC and Mediatek and stuff like that) and you’d be living in Hsinchu, not Taipei.

Anyway my field is law so I was doing an LLM there, and to practice in England is just an absolutely appalling process. After graduation you’d need to be offered a training contract, study for 2 more years (and the law firm would give you like £6000 per year, £8000 if they are generous) and the fat salary only comes in the 5th year. For every vacancy there’s liteally >1000 other candidates fighting for it. I’m qualified in Taiwan so it just makes no sense to spend that much time to starve in London.

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49

Big fish small pond that is your home that you know and like. Makes sense of course.
Small fish big cold far away pond…Not much fun.
I’d move back ‘home’ for family and cultural reasons more than anything else. My culture doesn’t really exist outside of my small homeland. Same for Taiwanese people. Taking London as a benchmark is a bit misleading cos it’s full of foreigners as well.

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50

Got a very close friend who studied law and worked in London. She started work at 7am and finished at 9pm every day but some days would have to go to society things afterwards.

After a couple of years she collapsed at work due to exhaustion, she’s never quite been the same since. She got a new job in a very small local firm, but that is still too much. Law in the UK has an awful culture.

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51

I think you mean 9pm.

Tbh city law firms around the world all have the same terrible culture. The French lawyers I know also work till midnight or even past midnight often. We collaborate with some American firms and they are always working when we are working in the morning and there’s a 12 hrs time difference. There are a few Taiwanese firms that are notorious for the horrible work load too, but yeah they all make a lot of money.

52

Sorry yeah, edited now.
It’s crazy, seems unnecessary.
Well, good on ya if you can cope with it, and career is important to you.

Personally I don’t want anything apart from just a simple, easy-going life with a couple of mates - somehow that seems hard to achieve back in the UK. Unless you’re living on the street. Don’t tempt me

53

which food sucks?

54

My wife and I moved back to the UK (London) at the start of 2017 having lived in Taiwan for just under 3 years. I’ve never suffered any culture shock going either way to be honest, so can’t really help you there.

Work wise there’s no comparison. I have an engineering/physics background and I moved from academia in Taiwan, back to the private sector in London. As a result my salary increased almost threefold instantly, and I’ve had 3 promotions since moving back. If I calculate my hourly rate (I work 35 hrs a week) and include the impact of holidays, then I’m now probably earing 8 times what I was in Taiwan. We’re about to buy a house here, and basically don’t need to worry about money. If you have talent and ambition, particularly in engineering, or an analytical/tech field, and you’re looking for work satisfaction, career prospects and want to work with the some of the brightest minds, then London is the place to be. I have friends at Google and in Finance who earn staggering salaries, and I’m constantly being contacted by head hunters, particularly for Finance jobs.

I should point out that we never had any intention of staying in Taiwan long term, and I completely expected doing a post-doc in Taiwan would be pretty much worthless on my CV. I just fancied living somewhere different for a few years.

As for London vs Taipei or UK vs Taiwan, then that’s really a personal thing and will be very different for everyone. Personally I prefer London, mainly because there’s so much more to do culturally and the food options are so much better. We come back to Taiwan once or twice a year, and whilst there are a few things I miss – cheaper whisky, cheap Japanese food, some of the good friends we have there, and not having to wear thermals when I go out cycling – I’ve never once contemplated moving back.

I don’t agree with the mood here being pessimistic or grim, I find it quite the opposite, especially compared to when I was living in Taiwan. Maybe it was just working in academia, but I’ve never heard so much moaning. Brexit and the upcoming election are all pretty dull, but if it bothers you just don’t watch the news.

If it wasn’t for the fact we planned on moving back anyway I would say it was the best decision we ever made, but YMMV, as they say.

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55

Thanks for your comments!

General consensus seems to be:
Taiwan: simple life, easy going, probably won’t get you anywhere long term, cheap life, death by blue truck
UK: good for career, money, diversity of culture in London, expensive life, death by arsehole.

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56

Taipei can be fun in the beginning when everything is still new. But once you hit the brick wall; it can slam hard.

57

it may be similar to this.

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58

Basically, the good restaurants are all expensive, the cheap restaurants are all shit, and the queues are awful for the good and less expensive restaurants.

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59

be more specific. which restaurants?

60

Why are you so obsessed with the restaurants I’ve been to?

Dishoom is good and not that expensive (for London anyway) but the queues are awful.