Some do it. Definitely the bian dang shops do it. But itās not a standard addition to home cooking. Iāve never seen a Taiwanese recipe video on YouTube that includes MSG, whereas itās common to add a pinch of the stuff in HK, Malaysia/Singapore, Philippines, and possibly other places that Iām not aware of.
āChicken essenceā is sometimes added, which I suspect contains MSG.
Wow, didnāt know that. Thatās surprisingly low. Especially when theyāre only a short plane ride away from the famous Taiwanese cuisine. 
I donāt have time for you.
There are street interviews asking Japanese passerbys about Taiwan and most of their answers are oishii gohan. I donāt see how thatās being polite.
Maybe itās just older white people who donāt like it. I think thatās a reasonable assumption. 
Gotta disagree with this one too. Iāve found lots of people to use it in home cooking. We got my mother-in-law to stop eventually, but I know plenty of people who still use it pretty liberally, and a lot of the fake soy sauce brands contain MSG too.
Iām really surprised. Nobody I know even keeps it in their cupboard. I guess we hang out with different sorts of people ā¦
I think soy sauce naturally contains MSG?
I didnāt like it when I was younger either. 
Sorry, I guess Iām just kinda low-rent.
Unless you shell out big bucks for real soy sauce these days, you get all kinds of crap in it.
Iāve got a little bag. I hardly ever use it though (I just bought it on a whim in an ASEAN store because it was like NT$15 or something).
Yeah, everybody says that, donāt they. Just a recreational user, are we?
You start off with a little pinch out of curiosity, and before you know it, itās three times a day.
At the risk of this branching off into yet another thread, whatās a good ārealā soy sauce to get? I usually just pick a random mid-range option from the dozens of bottles in the supermarket. (Although Iāve been using the low-sodium one from Costco for the last few months.)
There are lots of boutique brands out there. The key is to look at the label. If itās a short list of natural ingredients, youāre probably good to go. If itās a long list like youād see on a bag of Doritos, then best to stay away.
Iām just holding it for a friend. Iāve never even seen it before!
Have you been here long enough to notice a big difference/have a preference? I mostly just use it in cooking tbh.
Well it Japanese people all ages in Western and Southern Japan (mostly friends or relatives), speaking my first language (Japanese) and I have seem them tell me in Japanese something not so good, and in English (or Chinese) say some much more polite and very nice. Not everyone is like this, but in general Japanese try be polite in not saying bad things even if they feel bad. I do not know about white people in Japan much so not sure what they think, but if they told you that maybe so.
Not really. Weāre always trying different brands. We just try to stick with the ones with natural ingredients.
Some me are pretty eager to come here to eatā¦Especially the hua qiao.
If it also comes in a three liter bottle that you see in your local restaurantā¦Avoid.
Some towns down South specialise in selling soya sauceā¦Xinhua in Tainan.
The Thai place using local rice is interesting since I thought Thai rice was cheaper (from what I saw at the market) or they use very cheap local rice. And Japanese rice cookers are good, also see people carrying it back to Taiwan on the aeroplane since its cheaper in Japan. (Taiwan and Chinese people pre COVID)
They use local rice because a lot of Taiwanese people who didnāt have a lot of experience travelling outside of Taiwan do not like long grain rice. So by being authentic, they would drive away a lot of the casual Taiwanese costumers.
Itās sad, since even back in the 1930s most Taiwanese would be eating long grain rice (already much shorter than Thai rice). The short grain rice that the Japanese introduced (which is a hybrid of Japanese and indigenous rice by an happy accident) is referred to as Ponglai (Japanese) rice, and the local long grain rice is referred to as Zailai (local) rice. Now Zailai rice mostly made into rice flour for traditional rice dishes, and not eaten as plain rice anymore.
My wife is Hakka and knows a thing or two about rice but she is an expert as to what is real Mi Fen (rice noodles).
According to her most of the Mi Fen sold in the supermarkets and restaurants is fake and not even made from rice (similar situation for dong fen glass noodles supposedly made from beans).
There are also two kinds of Mi Fen styles in Taiwan, Hakka and Taiwanese (Hoklo). So she was completely confused the first time somebody served up the other version to her.