Here you go:
[quote=“Mother Theresa”]Yea, that is helpful/interesting, Feirin. I agree, but . . .
NT$10 million/yr is roughly US$300K-$350K/yr. Does that article make clear if that’s total compensation or just base salary? I would expect options and bonuses would easily equal or exceed base salary for most of them. And, we used to have a superstar, US-trained/educated CFO in our leading Taiwan tech firm whom I always assumed earned about US$1 million/yr (total package). Again, that’s something of a wild guess, but if that was anywhere near correct, that works out to roughly NT$30M/yr or NT$2.5M/month. Admittedly, we’re one of the bigger companies and he was a real hotshot, but still, I’d be surprised if the total package is just US$300K-$350K/yr for the CEOs of Acer, Asus, Compal, Compaq, Hon Hai, HTC, TSMC, Tatung, Formosa Plastic, Delta Electronics, etc.[/quote]
Certainly CEOs of billion dollar corporations will get more. CEOs are often connected to the major shareholding family in Taiwan. The Chairman is often the one who calls the shots.
[quote=“Feiren”]Here you go:
tw.nextmedia.com/applenews/artic … D/20101012[/quote]
The video proves having money doesn’t mean you’ll have a great house. It’s all relative. The Wang family live on top of their really grotty company offices on Dunhua Bei Lu, funny (well I am sure they have houses all over the world…but still…how classy)!
[quote=“headhonchoII”][quote=“Feiren”]Here you go:
tw.nextmedia.com/applenews/artic … D/20101012[/quote]
The video proves having money doesn’t mean you’ll have a great house. It’s all relative. The Wang family live on top of their really grotty company offices on Dunhua Bei Lu, funny (well I am sure they have houses all over the world…but still…how classy)![/quote]
Hey, thanks for pointing that out. I knew the Formosa Plastic family lived on top of their office building (which is admittedly an ugly old building, despite being in a nice neighborhood), but I always assumed they fixed it up nice up there. Can’t see it fixed up nice from that video. If I were them and lived up there, I’d have an awesome garden, swimming pool, etc.
But the other thing is that for the most part, there are NO really nice neighborhoods in Taiwan. As far as I know there’s no La Jolla, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Big Sur, Vail, Aspen, etc. Heck, even my perfectly ordinary brother lives in a suburb of Denver that’s truly outstanding, with its million dollar homes each on an acre or more of beautifully landscaped grounds, with private swimming pools and tennis courts and bike paths, etc. My brother’s place is a little more modest but he’s surrounded by Presidents, CEOs, lawyers and doctors who all choose to live in very beautiful residential surroundings. Taiwan doesn’t have that. You may have a multi-million dollar shiny glass and marble suite with underground parking and security guards, etc., but once you step out the front door, it’s the same ugly, noisy Taipei that everyone else lives in.
Agree with the last comment of Mother Theresa.
When i asked a local friend how do they define a “nice” neighborhood (we were walking in Daan area between Anhe road and Dunhua which according to what locals say it is a pricey and nice area) she told me it is not the building and general scene that define the quality of the area but the kind of people living in it… 
… to an extent it could make sense but still this way of setting prices it so strange to me a european… Interesting though…
As for salaries (in Taipei) the numbers people give i think are valid. Taipei can be a really expensive place to live … like any other modern city it is each ones lifestyle that determine the living costs… Mine are a bit higher than i initially expected once i want to keep a bit of more western standards.
In Taichung the ShiZheng area (behind Shinkong Mitsukoshi) would definitely seem to be the fanciest area to live in Taichung. Every building there is new. No street vendors or even convenience stores to shoddy up the place. Just fancy furniture stores and the odd brothel.
Not enough space… I think you could just about fit the whole of Taiwan into any of the big LA communities. Like Adam said there are some rather nice western style communities springing up in Taichung but I’ve gone house hunting there and realised we haven’t been missing much. Rows of neatly trimmed, perfectly kept and boring as shit streets. I kind of like being able to live somewhere calm but head into the chaos at will.
Well, there’s Wellington Heights for one such area:
and another similar but much smaller community on the northern side of Zhishan road about 1 km beyond the Palace Museum.
Way off about foreigners with teaching credentials working in elementary schools.
Here’s part of the MOE pay scale for different qualifications (and years teaching in the Taiwanese system – years elsewhere don’t count):
0-1 year
PhD 70,895NT/month
MA 67,925NT/month
BA 60,890NT/month
11-12 years
PhD 88,755NT/month
MA 84,290NT/month
BA 75,770NT/month
It’s for an 11 month contract, with a performance bonus of up to one month’s pay. It’s all tax free. There’s also a 5,000NT/month housing allowance, 10,000NT/month if you have a spouse or kids.
As for TAS, I don’t know, but I think 200,000NT/month would be extravagent to say the least. That’s $80,000/year, and it would be tax free. Foreign teachers would be flying over by the jumbo jet load every day to apply for jobs there if that were the case. Hell, every bum buxiban teacher in this country would be getting a fake degree or going back home to get teaching credentials to apply for such a job. That figure of 200,000NT/month would greatly exceed anything most people, not just teachers (but especially teachers!) would be getting in the West once you worked out the implications of not paying tax. Add the lower cost of living and it would be serious money that would be even better than the Persian Gulf (the highest salary I’ve seen advertised there was in Saudi Arabia and that was $5,000/month tax free plus other perks). I’m guessing that at most, the pay is about 130,000NT/month, but probably something more like 100,000NT/month, perhaps with a few perks such as a housing allowance.
Seriously, when people – be they foreigners or Taiwanese – start throwing these numbers out, do they even try to base them on reality?
Also, keep in mind that locally-hired “foriegn teachers” at schools like TES and TAS get less than those hired from overseas. I remember it being between 80,000 and 100,000 depending on the place of hire, but that info could be outdated. The benefits are the holidays and use of the resources at the schools for local hires, and other benefits like housing for the overseas hires.
As for local new graduates, my friends who graduated with computer engineering degrees were being offered 24-26,000/month, and a couple of them decided to try their hands at selling insurance instead.
Once I moved out of Taipei city, I also got to see how hard some people have it. About one third of the kids at my son’s school are from low-income families, that is, receiving less than 18,000/month per family in income. Makes me appreciate the income we get.
Well, it’s come to light that teachers at TAS can actually earn up to 200,000NT/month. I was wrong on that one.
I heard something like that aswell, obviously it wouldn’t be that easy to get a job there and they and the TES are probably the only schools paying that type of money. But a good gig if you are a qualified teacher yeah, don’t know about the tax free bit, everybody has to pay tax in Taiwan if they are earning a salary.
I don’t think it’s NEAR that number at Kaohsiung American School. Could there really be that much of a premium in Taipei? I’ve heard that KAS is somewhere near 130 per month. Don’t know if that’s local hire though. I DO know that these schools almost NEVER hire from overseas, as it’s easy to hire someone local and save the money for the perks. So, while an overseas hire could be getting 200 or so a month, I doubt that there are many of those.
Froggers, 200K, not even our bosses here at the “iron bowl” make that. Wow, that is a lotta dough.
My husband and I were offered jobs at TES (when it was TBS) in 2002, and they offered us each something around 75,000 without housing or any other perks because we were already in Taiwan.
Monthly housing allowances of NT$35,000 or more are common for foreign-hired teachers at TES. It used to be that TES would pay landlords directly; but it’s my understanding that the school recently switched to providing the amount directly to teachers, which means teachers there can supplement their incomes by living in less expensive housing.
I don’t think any regular teachers (even with full teaching qualifications) are getting paid $200k, that sounds like exaggerated hearsay.
Funnily enough, I heard exactly the same figure last night from someone that I trust to have an informed opinion. Again, it was TAS. His friend was also a local hire, a trailing spouse of someone on a huge salary. I think if you’re moving in those circles, it’s just assumed that such a salary is normal. (My friend was explaining that he and his wife ‘get by’ on ‘just’ NT$40,000 per fortnight and save the rest. That’s aside from rent, which is paid by his company.)
I thought Tienmu was supposed to be the beverly hills, at least for ABC/TAS families and certain types of expats.
Way off about foreigners with teaching credentials working in elementary schools.
Here’s part of the MOE pay scale for different qualifications (and years teaching in the Taiwanese system – years elsewhere don’t count):
0-1 year
PhD 70,895NT/month
MA 67,925NT/month
BA 60,890NT/month
11-12 years
PhD 88,755NT/month
MA 84,290NT/month
BA 75,770NT/month
It’s for an 11 month contract, with a performance bonus of up to one month’s pay. It’s all tax free. There’s also a 5,000NT/month housing allowance, 10,000NT/month if you have a spouse or kids.
As for TAS, I don’t know, but I think 200,000NT/month would be extravagent to say the least. That’s $80,000/year, and it would be tax free. Foreign teachers would be flying over by the jumbo jet load every day to apply for jobs there if that were the case. Hell, every bum buxiban teacher in this country would be getting a fake degree or going back home to get teaching credentials to apply for such a job. That figure of 200,000NT/month would greatly exceed anything most people, not just teachers (but especially teachers!) would be getting in the West once you worked out the implications of not paying tax. Add the lower cost of living and it would be serious money that would be even better than the Persian Gulf (the highest salary I’ve seen advertised there was in Saudi Arabia and that was $5,000/month tax free plus other perks). I’m guessing that at most, the pay is about 130,000NT/month, but probably something more like 100,000NT/month, perhaps with a few perks such as a housing allowance.
Seriously, when people – be they foreigners or Taiwanese – start throwing these numbers out, do they even try to base them on reality?[/quote]
Well, US…Jesus, I hate to burst your favorite bubble, but I live in SE Virginia, USA, and I can’t swing a friggin’ cat without hitting a kindergarten teacher or another teacher of one stripe or another who doesn’t pull down NT$180,000/yr*. At least that, and many make considerably more than that I believe (so they say - and spend IME, at least the females I know).
Of course they’re visited by the taxman, but are you sure your US figures are grounded in something more substantial than whatever that is you use?
*-Edit-per month, sorry. $NT180,000/mo or roughly $US1,250/wk.