Wow, I thought those would be starting numbers. That’s good to know. So, you were able to negotiate along European standards?
Not even a reference point. Don’t even look at it. They just put it there as a formality.
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My many BIL’s and SIL’s are all in their 40’s and early 50’s and all work for foreign companies here in Taiwan. Not many years ago they were all just getting by on mediocre wages. Something happened in the last few years though and now all of them are making between $150 to $250 USD a year. It’s been really weird.
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Just a few other thoughts. Sounds like Taiwan could use your skills. I hope you join us.
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In general, you must be on the ground in Taiwan to get jobs and develop other business opportunities.
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You are correct about salaries being about 1/3 what they are in the US. For example, I have seen tech multinationals cut the salary of an employee based in Silicon Valley from about about NT$5 million/ year to about NT$2 million per year when the employee was transferred to Taiwan.
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BUT the cost of living can be signficantly lower in Taiwan. For example, you can rent an apartment for around US$1,200 in the most expensive parts of Taipei (not a new one).
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But your cost of living will not be lower if you frequently indulge in western treats like the NTD 470 (USD 15) burger that I impulsively had for lunch today. This ends up being about the same price as, for example, the Avocado Cheeseburger available at Davis Ca’s burgers and brews. My Taipei burger was the same size but perhaps not quite as good as these. Comparable though.
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Another example is beer. A tall boy Taiwan beer is now NT$51 (about US$1.63). Good deal. But foreign imported tall boys are now pushing NT$100. Bad deal. Not everyone on these boards likes Taiwan beer as much as I do though.
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FYI this is for expats living an expat lifestyle. That may or may not be you. The cost of living in Taichung, for example, might be 10% less but you would get a nicer apartment and much better weather.
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Haha! It’s never bad to let oneself enjoy the simple pleasures every so often. Especially if it’s comparable in quality. But, yeah, I’m sure I’ll have to re-evaluate where my spending goes while I’m there.
Ah, thankfully I’m a fan as well!
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I think in Taiwan generally it’s cheaper to eat out than cook. If you shop at places like Costco/Carrefour and cook yourself, it can be pricey, with the same cost or higher than North America since many things are imported. But lunch boxes are cheap.
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Taiwan is a cheap place to live , that’s just not a concern here for a professional and restaurants aren’t actually expensive either , may charge a service fee but no tip required.
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I have read this thread with some interest. I own my own business but my clients are based in Asia EU UK USA / South America… I work in providing live sports to the sports betting and data odds companies. So in our is in fact a 24 hour a day operation as sports are played around the world. I can have sports in Asia / Australia start as early as 8am Taiwan time and those sports like China soccer and basketball may go until 10pm at night. That means my EU UK based clients require their staff to be trading analyzing in the early am hours their time.
Then behind us the early European sports can start around 6pm Taiwan time… but can go until 4am Taiwan time for starting like La Liga. But then you have US sports like the NFL which start at 1am and can go to late start around 9am… also NBA and Boxing and UFC Major league soccer. We also supply IPTV content to a US IPTV company.
There will be businesses that do operate irregular hours… if you can work in a pattern your employer or clients can accept I think you can have a rewarding time. That said if you had an IT consultancy you could also employ staff for day time work here so you could sleep and do work at night.
I do believe it’s always good to work for yourself and set your own hours. Not quick or easy though. I resigned from what Americans call the State Department… foreign service, moved to Taiwan to start a business with Taiwanese as my clients in 1988, and I spoke no Chinese and many of my clients had very little English.
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Wow, that’s a very interesting operation. I couldn’t have imagined something like that existing before. How did you find your clients, given that they’re so dispersed? Was it from your work as foreign service?
Right, I can see that if the work is necessary, the hours would be tolerable. However, when I was in Malaysia still working remotely for a US employer, I was only there as a digital nomad trying to travel while working. So, it had nothing to do with the work, and working the opposite hours was only just taking away from my experience abroad.
Just thinking out-loud: I suppose with this endeavor in Taiwan, I need the work to align somehow with the geographical location. Otherwise, I might find myself questioning what I’m doing there in the first place.
That just adds another dimension. I don’t know how you did it, but very impressive!
While I don’t know our elder statesman @Satellite_TV, he seems to be an excellent example of someone who has not only created his niche in Taiwan, but is also a business owner.
His lack of Chinese at the time demonstrates another important point: you don’t have to speak Mandarin to thrive in Taiwan.
That said, learning it will enrich your life here immeasurably. You don’t really want to be illiterate in a highly literate society. And not speaking Mandarin will lead to countless frustrations and miscommunications.
In my experience, the first couple of years after arriving in Taiwan is crucial to mastering Chinese,which for most mortals requires formal study. If you put off starting Chinese past the first six months, you are likely to delay forever because you will soon be too busy with other things and lulled into complacency by how easy it is to operate in English here despite initial contrary impressions.
He lives in an incredibly beautiful corner of the country deep in the mountains. His wife runs a guesthouse. Go stay there for a few days to understand what is possible for those brave enough to create their own world in Taiwan.
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I had ads in the Chinese newspapers. Cost around 100k a month in 1989 / 1990. I went around to schools doing seminars about study abroad. I had adverts in Studio Classroom for immigration and education overseas. Took a long time for them to approve those ads they were not sure about someone buying and selling people advertising in their Christian magazine.
I met some Taiwanese when I was in Brunei who wanted to immigrate to Australia. They wanted me to do their immigration cases but I could not at the time as I was working for Aus Government. But I quit and they were my first clients… once they were approved I got referrals. I was 28, people here did not think young people could have the skills or knowledge so there was a lot of hesitation. I did first some students then business migrants then skilled migrants and family migration.
I would stay in the Hyatt Hotel in Taipei on Sundays as there was a 6 day working week. I lived in Taichung… later had HQ in Taichung and branch office in Taipei lol
I would have my first clients in that day as one’s picking up their passports with their shiny new visa’s, the second clients being interviewed would be new clients who by happenstance would meet my clients so happy to show them their immigration visa’s lol
Rotate and repeat. I also did quite a few clients who had been rejected and got them approved as local immigration agents knew nothing. Later on a lot of these agents would hire me as a consultant for their clients. I stopped advertising as I had enough business by referral only. I also represented some Australian universities and did monthly seminars around Taiwan for them in hotels on weekends. So my seminars to the universities paid me to do to get students also have me the opportunity to have people come to ask about migration as well. Two birds with one stone lol
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I studied Chinese at Feng Chia university and classes were from 8am to 12pm Monday to Friday in 1990. Then I was back in the office in the afternoon. Only to find out all my business clients spoke Taiwanese… well feck me I studied the wrong language lol.
I always hear people say they are too busy. Don’t underestimate yourself either. I was told by many a so called expert in 1988 that I would fail in Taiwan and come running back to Australia.
I was told my IPTV / satellite business would fail because I have no IT background, have no broadcasting background, have only a high school education, and hey what the hell did I know about IPTV anyway back in 2007.
I didn’t know jack shit… what I did know is how to find IPTV forums and learn… what I did know was how to have contact with a satellite broadcaster and have them they hire me as a consultant to run their sports broadcasting, from that sports betting and data odds companies came to me.
Oh well… luck of the Irish I guess.
My USA IPTV client… came to me from one of those IPTV forums… Put yourself out there. my wife initially thought why is my husband wasting his time on all these forums… not anymore.
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When I opened my Taipei branch office I put out an advert for staff. This young very attractive lass comes for an interview, with her parents. Now my office hours were Monday to Friday only so that was very unusual. I paid the lass 25k a month. She had studied community college in the USA but found it hard getting a job back here as no degree. But a perfect for me as she had lived abroad, was attractive, spoke the languages I could not. and had the experience of living overseas.
She was really good. she knew not to answer things she did not understand on the phone to callers… she knew how to filter out time wasters from being interviewed, who were sometimes staff from other companies in the same business… Or the kid who says I have my 5 year community college in Taiwan, just graduated, has no work experience and wants to get into an MBA program with no English lol
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What an incredible story. Thank you so much for sharing.
The details of your journey, albeit atypical, connects the dots / sheds light on what would otherwise be nebulous for a novice like myself. It’s very inspirational and I can already see myself putting together some idees along the same lines for something like an IT consultancy.
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As amazing as his journey is, Taiwan was a different place then. Your takeaway should be to trust your intuition as there will always be negative Nancies sucking all energy out of you and themselves.
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Opportunities abound, the key is seeing them and vetting them well enough. 