we never go to restaurants but we also don’t have a kitchen so we usually go to he night market eateries and we spend around 80NT each for a meal, thats 240 per day…sometimes 300 - 400 if we want to eat beef noodle. That is not that cheap. When I was saving for moving to Taiwan in Ireland I spend most of the days 5 to 6 euros for food, that was around 2.50 to 3 in the cantine and the rest for groceries from Aldi or Lidl for dinner. Thats 200 NT per day for one person in Europe.
Groceries in Taiwan are expensive. It costs you way more to cook by yourself then going to a shop. Of course the unhealthy fried stuff is cheap, but you can’t eat that crap everyday. If you want to cook pasta by yourself it will cost you around 200 for all the ingredients plus the time to cook while you might get the same amount of pasta in a restaurant for 200 or less for two people.
You might do it like my gf parents, they eat the same food every day! Usually fried rice from the night market, a simple veggi soup and some fried veggies. Sometimes they have a fish soup but that’s it. The food is always the same. That’s the only way people can live ok with the low salaries in Taiwan.
BTW, off topic, senior engineers there do rake in 6 figures/year. This may explain why Bay Area prices are so outrageous.
It rains around Jan through Feb and part of March…that’s all. And the damn water from NorCal feeds into SoCal where it hardly rains and so I wouldn’t complain.
True. You can almost bed with the folks at Skid Row and not worry about rain/snow/blizzard/etc.
That’s only in Frisco (Tommy525 can attest to this).
[quote]
Ok rant over, but the Bay Area is hella expensive[/quote]
Iv met at least two young IT engineers from India here on the B1 visa or whatever they call it and their contract is a signing bonus of 20,000 dollars and 100,000 per year !! Those are kids too, early twenties.
Where are you getting 300nt beef noodles? that’s really expensive for beef noodle. I’ve never paid more than 120 for beef noodle, and that’s really good beef noodle, large portion, with lots of beef in it. Without beef was about 50nt cheaper.
Um… yeah. Sorry if I’m hijacking the thread. I do think it’s relevant though - the reason for the rising cost of living must surely be the rising cost of food supply, just as the rising cost of industrial production is rooted in energy prices.[/quote]
I don’t mean it as a bad thing. I think there’s so much you can say about all of this you could have your own sub-forum. The Japanese guy you mentioned, Masanobu Fukuoka, wrote One Straw Revolution. Have you ever read it? I’ve tried to find it at various times, but it’s been out of print.
Incidentally, there was a point, before I came to Taiwan, where I really wanted to go to live at Chiiori in Japan, partly because I think Fukuoka was also based in Shikoku. I think if I hadn’t come here, I probably would have ended up doing some sort of permaculture thing. I’d just started learning before it by the time I left and I was looking at different courses and other things on the subject. It’s something I’d like to learn more about in the next decade or so.
I gather you’ve read Bill Mollison and John Seymour. I actually have hard copies of these two at home (I brought them back with me from Australia last time I went):
Yes, things cost more now than they did back in 2004-2006. Eating out, portions have definitely gotten smaller and prices have risen. A couple of local places where I sometimes buy lunch from weigh the noodles before putting them in my bowl. Produce have also gone up. I pay the same price here for the same things in SF, and here they’re not even organic, just regular stuff I would probably overlook in SF, but having no alternative here I’m stuck with them. It’s still not as pricy as SF, but it’s shocking that for some items it’s quite on par.
Cab meters seem to “beep” every few seconds. Don’t remember that happening before.
$150 is pretty high for beef noodle here too. I think the high food prices are people living in big city centres. here its $80 tops for beef/chicken. You can get all you can eat buffet beef noodle for $210. Things can get up there, but if you live by farmers veggies and produce can be pretty cheap here. Dont know about Cali, but far cheaper than Back in SW BC Canada!
eating out is all we do and we can eat -ok- food (tasty but i mean ok quality) for 2 @ $300-400 a day. Good food brings up to abtou $500 a day. When we cook (rarely) we spend about $150 a meal roughly (meat and western food being the most expensive) and its very good quality.
Though the older generation eats simple veggies, fish soups etc…there is a reason these type of diets have far few related health concerns such as cancer and heart disease. I am trying very hard to go to these foods, not avoid them. My dairy, meat loving soft drink drinking lifestyle gives me 2 stomach issues and im in my 20s… There are some good arguments to be made for raw food diets. Not the least of which is price.
I think it’s still out there. I bought a paperback copy a couple of years ago from Amazon. You might prefer to read “The Natural Way of Farming” (PDF free online) which I think he wrote first and contains more-or-less the same information. One interesting thing mentioned in TNWoF which is skimmed over in OSR: he puts an almighty amount of chicken poo on his fields, a couple of tonnes per hectare. So although he makes a big deal out of his limited-inputs method, that’s actually a lot of manure. The point being, of course, if you want to maintain soil health, you need animals. I have no time at all for so-called cruelty-free farms (vegan farms) which “don’t exploit animals”. Utter nonsense. A farm without animals is a hydroponics factory.
Yeah, that’s a good resource! If they don’t have it there, it probably isn’t available. I recommend reading the stuff on ‘keylines’ by P A Yeomans. It’s a bit hard to follow, but he’s obviously been there, done that.
I’m not sure how useful the permaculture certification courses really are. I think the main point behind permaculture is that one should observe and think (probably the main reason it’s got precisely nowhere in Taiwan), rather than just follow prescriptions. There’s a lot of free online material. For example, look for the “Greening the Desert” video on youtube, which is fascinating. But yes, it would certainly be nice to work with someone who knows what they’re doing and get some practical advice. I’ve tried to read as much as possible, but I’m really just making it up as I go along…
I would imagine you could rent some land quite easily where you are, if your landlord prevents you using the garden.
[quote]I gather you’ve read Bill Mollison and John Seymour. I actually have hard copies of these two at home (I brought them back with me from Australia last time I went).
If you’re interested, you’re welcome to borrow them from me. I’m going to re-read them, but you’re welcome to borrow them.[/quote]
Actually I didn’t read Mollison, but I have David Holmgren’s book. I wasn’t impressed with John Seymour - I think his work is a bit dated, it puts far too much emphasis on work for work’s sake, which is precisely what I’m trying to avoid! I certainly would like to borrow Mollison’s book. Is it small enough to mail? I can send you Holmgren’s “Permaculture” and “One Straw Revolution” if you like.
Pingdong - I’m curious, how much of your farm output do you use yourselves? Is it all cash crops, or do you have a garden area for a kitchen supply? Do you manage to get a fairly constant supply throughout the year?
Yes, I agree. It frustrates me that we can’t have chickens at our place for that very reason. Animals are an essential part of the equation. Having animals on a farm does not equate to animal cruelty. I’d actually like to go further than just having “productive” animals there. I’d like to set up a pond, amongst other things, in the hopes of encouraging wildlife to hang out too (though they are, of course, “productive” in very subtle ways). I’ve actually seen all sorts of crazy wildlife around us. I saw an enormous crane-like bird the other day, and I see what appear to be pheasants all the time. We have tons of frogs, toads and lizards that live in our yard.
I’ll check that one out.
[quote]I’m not sure how useful the permaculture certification courses really are. I think the main point behind permaculture is that one should observe and think (probably the main reason it’s got precisely nowhere in Taiwan), rather than just follow prescriptions. There’s a lot of free online material. For example, look for the “Greening the Desert” video on youtube, which is fascinating. But yes, it would certainly be nice to work with someone who knows what they’re doing and get some practical advice. I’ve tried to read as much as possible, but I’m really just making it up as I go along…
I would imagine you could rent some land quite easily where you are, if your landlord prevents you using the garden.[/quote]
You’re right about observing and thinking. Permaculture is design. I was trying to impress upon my wife, for instance, that she shouldn’t just rip into planting things as soon as she can. She needs to look at the soil, the sunlight patterns, winds, all that stuff to get an idea first. I’ll watch that video. I have also thought about renting some land, and I’ve discussed it briefly with my wife, but she needs more convincing.
You are right about Seymour. He is a bit “In my day, we got up before we went to bed. Then we walked twenty miles in the snow in barbed-wire boots. It built character. That’s why the modern world has all gone to the dogs.” However, he does have some good ideas.
The Mollison book is a veritable tome. It would have to weigh a couple of kilos (it’s hardback), and it’s quite large. I don’t think it’s too expensive to send stuff within Taiwan though, so don’t worry. I’ll get in contact with you later about this as I have a class in a few minutes.
Um… yeah. Sorry if I’m hijacking the thread. I do think it’s relevant though - the reason for the rising cost of living must surely be the rising cost of food supply, just as the rising cost of industrial production is rooted in energy prices.[/quote]
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