you marry up. A lot have done this.
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I used to think that, but then found out I actually spend more per month in Taiwan than when I was in the States. And this is not taking into account rent/mortgage. But my lifestyle change also is big factor. Starting to eat more healthy cost a lot more than eating fast food all the time. I found cell phone, water bill, transportation is a lot cheaper. Good food, electronics, housing, automobile are a lot more expensive.
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How do we define rich? With the advent of remote work there are plenty of foreigners here with gold cards making 80-120k USD a year. Could you source that sort of income from Taiwan? Probably not.
My definition is you can afford everything you want and working is optional. 
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There are? Lol
Define a lot.
Unless you mean those with their own company. There sure aren’t any Taiwan based businesses paying that type of salary to foreigners. Regardless if they have a Gold Card or not.
It depends on what you do and how you feed yourself. Milk costs 80-95 NT/liter, which comes out to be ~US$12/gallon. You can get two half gallons from Costco for ~US$8, but only when they have them (because everyone else is buying them up in bulk). I grew up in farm country, but even now people in the US are getting sticker shock from US$3/gallon of milk. I could forgo cereal for breakfast (something else that costs ~3x more than it does in the US, which much fewer options), but then what are my alternatives for something quick and easy for breakfast? Any and all dairy is incredibly expensive here compared to the US and the dairy alternatives are highway robbery on top of that (Oatly is US$8-$9/liter here vs US$2.50/liter in the US, as an example. Yes, I know Costco has a much cheaper version but that’s not the point).
As for housing, Taiwanese have different standards for what their home should look like. Harsh, florescent lights and warped folding tables are the norm here, which doesn’t really jive with most foreigners, who expect to at least have a real kitchen (something that quite literally doesn’t exist unless you built the entire building yourself)
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Coming from the Netherlands, I concur that all dairy products are horribly expensive. But when you consider that 88% of the population is lactose intolerant its actually amazing the stuff is being sold at all.
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I’m wondering if maybe he lived in a low-cost exurban or rural area in the US. I live in Tianmu and I get significantly more apartment for my monthly rent than I could anywhere in the US where I’d actually want to live. Sure, I could buy a house with a yard in some boring US suburb or small town for way less than I could in Taipei, but that doesn’t equate to higher quality of life to me (though I realize it does to others), and I have no desire to own property in Taiwan anyway.
Edit: All that is to say Taipei for me offers a much higher quality of life for less money than the US for all the reasons you mention (housing, transportation, health care, taxes, etc.), but I can see how it doesn’t for others, depending on what they associate with quality of life and the spending choices they make.
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Some interesting pictures, thanks for sharing! It’s got me thinking about a project a Spanish teacher I knew in the US did where the students had to negotiate/plan (in Spanish) the layout of a Guatemalan kitchen, given the indoor space constraints. I’ll redefine “real kitchen” to mean “what is expected from a middle class and above average income individual living in a developed nation”. We are comparing quality of life in the US to TW; I am going to make it a first world problem thing.
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Yes I was thinking that it had something to do with property, land, distance from neighbors since that would be hard to replace from the US. My place here is about the same I’d pay if I rented my house in the US, but it’s larger and I don’t have to drive if I don’t want to.
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It would be hard in Taipei, but it would also be hard in Manhattan or San Francisco. If you went to certain rural parts of Taiwan it would pretty easy. I wonder if he’s comparing the densest and most expensive city in one country with a more sprawling and cheaper area in another country.
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Wait, what? Your money goes further in the US than in Taiwan?
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Yes, and it’s not even close.
That’s what he keeps repeating in this thread without giving much in the way of specifics. It certainly doesn’t match the experience of me or most of the other westerners I know here. If that were the case we’d have all either never come here or would have returned home rather quickly! I wish my money went half as far in the US as it does here.
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Do you spend all your money on Gucci bags?
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Nope, on a house that isn’t as good, has as much land, or the same quality as in th US (but is 4 times as expensive), in addition an extremely expensive school, TVs which are up to 5-times more expensive than in the US (as well as all other good electronics), and more expensive cars. As I said above, it’s not even close.
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Also for health insurance, it’s not that cheap if you are a high earner here as all the family’s premiums are adjusted according to the income of the parents (father/mother) . Although there are ways to be creative about how to reduce that for a family but not for the primary earner if on a salary here.
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I believe there is a cap to this but may be wrong. What we pay is still way cheaper than the US. The worst thing is global insurance since it’s the same US companies offering coverage but they can still refuse coverage for pre-existing conditions which they can’t do in the US.
Yup this is what I suspected - land and construction quality. Given that Taiwan is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, if you’re looking for wide open spaces this is not the place.
As for construction quality, I’d only care if I was buying the place but agree even the nicest places cut corners.
And if the school is paid for it doesn’t really add anything to your cost.
Ultimately, I’d bet for most expats if you’re paying out more than you’re getting then that is likely a choice of trade-offs.
Let’s not forget that living in Tianmu is also one of the factors driving up cost of living. For one, you’ll likely need a car, and two the properties are older and more expensive for what you get. For this reason, many expats choose Dazhi or Neihu. Places are newer, you can get western style kitchens, close to public transport, and not far from the schools.