Tainan or Taichung?

We’d love to get thoughts on pros/cons of Tainan vs. Taichung as a place to move to for several years for the family to learn to speak Mandarin. Mom and Dad speak passable Mandarin (from learning in college), three primary-aged kids speak, read and write age-appropriate Mandarin having attended an overseas Mandarin-only school since they all started school.

We’ve ruled out Taipei, too big and crowded, and loved our visits to both Tainan and Taichung on a recent “exploring” trip. (Dad loves to bike and there looks to be lots of that in both!) Alot of the decision comes down to finding a good Mandarin speaking primary schools for the kids, something we are discovering may be more difficult in Tainan.

Would LOVE any suggestions on mandarin (private or public) schools in either locale, and thoughts on deciding between the two locales. Right now, we’d just do a coin flip!!!

PS. Mom and Dad are going to enroll in intensive Mandarin as well.

[quote=“taiwanbound”]We’d love to get thoughts on pros/cons of Tainan vs. Taichung as a place to move to for several years for the family to learn to speak Mandarin. Mom and Dad speak passable Mandarin (from learning in college), three primary-aged kids speak, read and write age-appropriate Mandarin having attended an overseas Mandarin-only school since they all started school.

We’ve ruled out Taipei, too big and crowded, and loved our visits to both Tainan and Taichung on a recent “exploring” trip. (Dad loves to bike and there looks to be lots of that in both!) Alot of the decision comes down to finding a good Mandarin speaking primary schools for the kids, something we are discovering may be more difficult in Tainan.

Would LOVE any suggestions on Mandarin (private or public) schools in either locale, and thoughts on deciding between the two locales. Right now, we’d just do a coin flip!!!

PS. Mom and Dad are going to enroll in intensive Mandarin as well.[/quote]
Contact Michael Turton of the View From Taiwan (blog) about Taichung and parenting and education there.

Not to dissuade you from either Tainan or Taichung, but you might find that with the bike-friendly MRT system, you’d have more biking options in Taipei, especially if you live in the suburbs, like Xindian or Danshui. Although Tainan and Taichung have improved A LOT in the last ten years, they’re still poor cousins to Taipei in almost every regard, weather being the notable exception.

Having lived in Taichung for 7 out the last ten years, and ten years before that, I’m going to have to go ahead and disagree with you there. I’d say Taichung has a worse living environment than ten years ago in almost every respect, and especially when compared to the improvements seen in Taipei and Kaohsiung. Ten years ago I’d have posted that life in Taichung was better than Taipei in many ways. Now I can only say it has better weather.

+1 on redwagon’s appraisal above, in May I’ll have been in Taichung 10 years and the place while not quite descending into squalor is certainly not on the rise and has been comprehensively left in the dust by Taipei and Kaohsiung… On the other hand if your goal is your family learning Mandarin, I’d rule out anywhere much South of Taichung as you’ll find fewer and fewer people speaking Mandarin or at least Mandarin without a heavy accent… IMO your best bet is the leafy suburbs of Taipei, for the reasons Maoman mentioned above and many more… We do have better weather though… :s

Sorry, I was talking out of my ass when I said Taichung was better. In fact, I’ve heard more accounts like redwagon’s and plasmatron’s. I HAVE heard that Tainan has improved, though. But that would be a lousy place to learn Mandarin, unless you want to get mocked by the rest of the Madarin-speaking world.

Actually, I tend to find I speak more Taiwanese at Shilin in Taipei. Yes, many people in the south speak Taiwanese, but the only people who speak it to each other are at least 30+.

With younger people you don’t tend to speak Taiwanese much at all and it’s mostly spoken by guys who drink. Generally people tend to converse in Mandarin.

Taiwanese is often used at home within the family or when talking to the grandparents. Most kids down here speak only Taiwanese until they’re about five and then start learning Mandarin at school - several of them actually end up speaking only Mandarin (though they never lose their ability to understand Taiwanese, I know several younger Tainan-born-and-raised who can’t speak Taiwanese).

If your kids have been attending Mandarin-only schools then they know how to roll their tongue, and that’s the only thing that’s lacking with a lot of Mandarin language education outside of Taipei.

Also, because the private schools down here are so few, there’s an impression that they’re all really good. Whether that’s true or not I have no idea, but it’s a bit of a ‘woah’ thing if somebody went to such-and-such private school.

If you are converned more about living environment than convenience, you might consider Hualien. Other than earthquakes and typhoons, it is a lovely place, with pretty good hospitals and shopping as well.

Thanks! These suggestions are all great food for thought, pls don’t stop. We’re going to make a couple more “reconnaissance” trips out in the coming months to try to nail down a locale. We’ve been through Hualian several times and did love it. I see us going back to the area for weekends and such, but it seemed just a bit too small for a move. It was awesomely situated for some great biking up and down the East Coast though! A friend and I biked from Gaoshiung to Hualien several years ago up and over Highway 20 and then up the East Coast, which is how we stumbled across the idea of picking up the family and trying Taiwan or a year or two.

Alot of acquaintances think we are crazy leaving Hong Kong- “What is there to do in Taiwan, too much pollution, too back-wards, nothing to do or see, etc. etc.” One bike ride up the East Coast cured all that for me…!

[quote=“taiwanbound”]
Alot of acquaintances think we are crazy leaving Hong Kong- “What is there to do in Taiwan, too much pollution, too back-wards, nothing to do or see, etc. etc.” One bike ride up the East Coast cured all that for me…![/quote]
Classic! :roflmao: What is there to do in HK beside shop and eat?

Of course these would be Cantonese friends asking you this, right?

Taichung is hard because it’s such a pain to move around, driving from one place to another drives me nuts, but they have nice middle class eateries, which are sorely lacking in Changhua. I like Taichung, but I don;t live there

Tainan is also a good choice

What do you exactly want from your stay in Taiwan?

I’d personally go for Hualian due to cleanliness, shopping and general livability since working isn’t an issue. Taidong is too rustic. Pingdong may also be another option due to being close to the sea, close to parents in Tainan and scenic mountains. I’d avoid Kaohsiung, no matter how nice people swear it is now. Chiayi is another good choice with scenic mountains, yet it’s plagued by a routinely-drunk half-dressed Kiwi searching for Yeti’s. I’d avoid Yunlin, unless pig farming is your thing. Changhua is a hard call, parts of it are nice and scenic and biking is big here. There is a Chinese language program at the national university here, but Mandarin is a young person’s language here. I’d actually like it more if I wasn’t watched by my in-laws so much. Miaoli is the sticks, like Taidong without the charm. Hsinchu has 2 parts, the mountains and the city. Neither are what you are looking for. Taoyuan is best avoided, though I did have the best Hakka style pig leg there. Ilan is nice, but with the new highway and the construction it has brought, I’m not sure that is what you are looking for.

Wow, sounds like you know the Island!

After 15 years in Hong Kong, we are looking for (a) somewhere the kids can learn Chinese full-time (b) somewhere the folks can as well - NCKU seemed pretty good in Tainan © somewhere we can decompress from the big city, traffic, noise, stress (d) somewhere we can ideally walk to school and not sit in traffic for two hours a day (e) someplace with at least some small expat community to hang out with (f) safe for small children - moto drivers terrify me that they’ll clip one of my kids one of these days (g) someplace with good food, mild weather and lots of places to jump in the car with the family on the weekend and explore (h) lots of biking opportunities and (i) somewhere you don’t feel like you could buy a small island every month for the rent you pay.

Things we don’t particularly need are (a) too easy living (b) ruths chris, tgi friday, or chilis © commuting (d) a huge expat community or (e) more than one nice hotel in town (not that we’d stay there, but at least there’d be a gym there to work out at.

We just drove around the entire Island over christmas and I have to say we really loved Tainan, the temples, the history, the “feel” of the place. I actually really like the streets winding all over the place like they do. Hualien was nice as well, although it seemed just a tad too small. The area around the Golden Triangle seemed to be all there was to the “main area” of town.

Still need to visit Taichung as we skipped it for Sun Moon Lake and Alishan on our round Island trip.

I’ll go over your points
a) You can do that almost anywhere in Taiwan
b) NCKU seems ok, just beware getting stuck in a class of Indonesians, Vietnamese or Filipinos who are only taking the class to stay here and work. If you do make the teacher ignore them and teach you and the other serious students.
c)Traffic, noise and stress are part and parcel of living with Chinese people. It seems almost genetic with them. Let’s go out to a beautiful scenic area and sing karaoke really loud. I’m not making that up either.
d) Tainan sounds right. I know Taichung has some nice parks. I do know traffic can suck in Taichung.
e) Every city has that it’s just finding them.
f) There is no safe place from drivers on this island. That includes people coming into you head on in your lane.
g) Tainan or Taichung would be good
h) Almost anywhere in Taiwan
i) Anywhere outside of Taipei. Rent can be dirt cheap outside the big cities of Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung.

I’ve never been to Tainan, though I have eaten the cuisine in Taipei and liked it. I’ve always heard good things about it.

From your list I’d say it’s a coin toss between the two. If you like the rustic feel of Tainan, Taichung would probably feel big and too modern for you. Tainan has a core of expat hangouts which seems to remain fairly constant in size. Taichung’s selection was bigger at one point but is now shrinking.
Taichung is a very short drive to the mountains, though out of Tainan you get on the expressway and there are a lot of options out there. Tainan you have the port there and all that fresh seafood.
If you have kids it should come down to the schools and let other considerations fall in behind.

Have come back from visiting both and looks like Tainan is the place. Both are nice, but Tainan is so much more convenient to get around the city given smaller size and the “historical Taiwan” feel is so much more in evidence. Very balmy, “tropical” weather in the winter (I’m sure we’ll pay for that in the summer) and looks to be close to lots of hiking, camping, biking. We really like the old town feel of much of the city, ye only an hour from a big city (Gaoshiung), they have some pretty good schools (visited a handful), a fine hospital, NCKU looks like a pretty good place for the folks to study, and we can achieve our goal of pretty much being able to walk btw an apartment, NCKU and places the kids could go to school. Thus, no more long commutes! Plus the food was awesome. Still alot to do on getting the move set up, but Tainan looks to be the place.

Hi Taiwanbound,
I’ve lived in Tainan for the last 12 years with my family. I definitly vote Tainan. NCKU is great for studying Chinese and there are a huge number of parks here. They have just introduced bike lanes everywhere so it is a lot safer now. The bird park is open now so you can cycle all the way down to the beach a long the waterway which is great now as the beach has been all cleaned up.

If you need any help or get stuck then you can find me in Willy’s bar and grill, the big guy behind the bar.

I hope, with the help of Bismarck, that we can set up an expat family picnic soon. Tainan definitly has better weather than Taipei

Tainan?

Doesn’t exist.

Its a myth built from a legend.

Its closed.

Not accepting applications.

Lights are out.

Doors locked.

Shades are pulled.

Leave a message at the sound of the beep.

…ssssssssshhhhhhh!

(its too “rustic” doncha know… :loco: )

[quote=“TainanCowboy”]Tainan?
Doesn’t exist.
Its a myth built from a legend.
Its closed.
Not accepting applications.
Lights are out.
Doors locked.
Shades are pulled.
Leave a message at the sound of the beep.
…ssssssssshhhhhhh!
(its too “rustic” doncha know… :loco: )[/quote]

DON’T LISTEN TO HIM! Tainan is TOTALLY AWESOME! Much better than crappy polluted Taichung. All the cool people are in Tainan. And Taichung smells funny. Tainan is definitely your best choice.

Tainan Cowboy… still keeping Tainan the hidden secret of Taiwan.

Sorry I forgot.

Tainan …don’t know the place.

Tainan - filled with history and good eats.
Taichung - crime capital of Taiwan.
Taipei - the place to be if you want to learn the most standard Mandarin.