Taiwan or China?

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
41

Taiwan’s advantages: safer, cleaner and more organized in general; higher standard of living; greater concentration of traditional Chinese culture forms not destroyed in Mao’s Cultural Revolution, such as Kung Fu, Chinese medicine, temple culture, etc. Also, here you can learn traditional Chinese characters. Higher pay; generally better food (personal opinion); interaction with Taiwanese less based on your wealth level as theirs is OK, unlike China where - I have heard - the difference between girlfriends and “working girls” is more slippery. Taiwan has excellent access to natural areas from urbal areas due to the fact that it is mountainous and earthquakes and typhoons make construction on the mountains unsafe; easy access to the sea; friendlier people - in general.

China’s advantages: cheaper, larger and more varied; more of a global power and less an isolated anomaly; more cultural variety; Tsingdao beer for 2RMB; stronger sense of national pride; stronger feeling of a glorious future.

These are just a few impressions.

42

Big J said it well.

Also, Taiwan is only slightly less poluted than mainland China - though the mountains can be quite nice, so at least there’s an escape from the smog.

I’ve heard from a couple of friends in China that it’s very hard for a foreigner to get a drivers’ license in China - actually they said it’s impossible but I suspect there’s some exageration going on there. In Taiwan it’s almost freighteningly easy for anyone to get a scooter/motorcycle license(no course, one quick multiple choice test, ride a straight line without falling, stop at a red light in a parking lot and there’s your license) and the only thing that you’ll study in the drivers’ ED course here for cars is how to park.

You can make more money in Taiwan, but it’s also easier to spend it here. Things cost slightly more in Taiwan. From what I’ve heard there are no TGI Friday’s on the mainland - that could save a foreigner $100 USD a month easily.