Going back two decades, when I asked students what was great about living in Taiwan, close to the top of the list was convenience. No disagreement with me. MRT, 7-11, and fast food are just the start.
Fast forward, marriage, relocation to the west, lack of the conveniences Taiwan afforded.
I quickly noticed the objection my spouse had to the cupboards I filled with canned soups and other long-term storage items.
I get that space is limited in the cupboards there, but I am perplexed while living there, I saw little to no disaster preparation among the locals, and only a fraction of the foreign population I had the pleasure of meeting had a plan in order.
hardly practiced, people are taught about typhoons and earthquakes but are generally useless. it amazes me each time that before typhoons ppl buy chips and beer, instead of rice and pasta or other useful things.
what use is rice and pasta if you can not cook it, beer and crisps (chips) are ready to eat. The good thing in urban Taiwan is that most shops reopen quickly (or maybe never close at all) and its rare power if off for a long time. It surprises me to see in USA power off for such a long time after a storm. Rare for that to happen in modern Taiwan or even my home Japan, the exception is very remote places where less than 1% people live.
Fact is self sufficient living sucks. Try living in remote places for any length of time and you will know what I mean. Plus it requires a lot of capital and resources to live this way in any sort of ongoing basis.
Given Taiwan’s high population density it’s going to require some disaster of biblical proportions for power to be out for a long time. When a lot of people live together it’s far cheaper to take care of all than have each individual have their own everything.
If you’re asking about emergency preparedness, then I would say it’s practiced here.
Experts advise keeping 72 hours of food and water in your home. I believe most Taiwanese households keep enough food in their fridge out of common sense, and have enough water in their water cooler or water drum.
In addition, most Taiwanese live within walking distance to several convenience stores, which is itself a form of emergency preparedness. None of my neighborhood convenience stores closed during any of the power outages or typhoons or earthquakes in recent memory.
In the event of a city-wide disaster-level earthquake large enough to shut down a 7-11 (which happens to each city maybe once every few decades), you probably wouldn’t want to remain in your home due to structural damage or gas/power/water outage, so canned soups won’t do you any good.
A lot of those canned soups don’t really last that long anyway. Plenty of them probably can last 18 months after purchase anyway. It means you can’t just buy them in bulk, then put them aside until emergency strikes. You probably have to eat them pretty regularly if you don’t want to let them go to waste.
Back when I was working in the US, I used to eat those canned soup with a piece of toast.
Realistically, self-sufficiency in a city is impossible, particularly one that isn’t designed for it (like Taipei). People just assume that the machine will keep working.
I’ve lived off-grid in locations where the environment is conducive to it. In a concrete jungle, you just have to accept that if there’s any sort of serious disaster that persists for more than a week or two, the best option is to leave.
I have seen Taipower along with the fire brigade fixing the power lines during a typhoon abd restoring power to the neighbourhood, with lashing rain, wind and flooding going on around them. Amazing stuff.
Yes my plan is to head to Miaoli countryside and set up a bolthole there if the worst comes to the worst, the in laws have food and community . I doubt Miaoli will be a priority bombing target somehow.
This is the only reason we would need to stock up food and whatnot I think-war.
Well…there are odd little military bases all over Taiwan you are right (many closed but some remain). Just don’t sit your ass beside one when shit goes down.
Hideout you say…I’m curious
You can’t leave when the shooting starts. This isn’t Ukraine. At least it will be very difficult.
Besides some of us have family here not sure how easy it is to cut and run. Difficult choices.
I can’t see anybody coming over here shooting at anybody in the near future, but if (hypothetically) anybody did, I suspect they wouldn’t want the political fallout from foreigners embroiled in whatever-it-is. They might arrange for some helicopters off the roof of AIT, at least, but more than likely they’d just let people leave on commercial flights … or tell them to get out.
Won’t be any commercial flights once missiles fly. Whole place will be lighting up land and sea.
Even if there were a few, which I dont see how when airports are wrecked or not operating and carriees dont fly into war zones, they will all be taken by those with connections.
Even if you get some ultimatum everything will be booked up within minutes.
