What are your experiences regarding Taiwanese hospitality?
By hospitality I mean either the personal type or the hospitality of the country as a whole to foreigners.
Personal hospitality:
In my experience, it has been very rare to be invited to a Taiwanese person’s home and to enjoy a meal with them and their family. In my previous countries (European and North America), it was quite common for friends to invite friends over to their place for a meal, to know the family and during my student days to even let me crash at their place without charge. If Taiwanese people want to spend time with you as friends, it’s usually to a restaurant or some other third party location. The friends who invited me and my family over were almost invariably other foreigners.
Hospitality of the country as a whole:
Our visa process was smooth so no complaints here. But in terms of doing business with Taiwanese, in my experience they are pretty tight fisted, shrewd businessmen/women. Caveat emptor. If I think I got a good deal now, I double check things
Many Taiwanese especially in Taipei don’t have homes that they feel are suitable for hosting guests. I feel this is why KTV, hot pot, and 熱炒 places are popular. White collar foreigners on average are going to be more affluent and more likely to have a home they feel comfortable inviting people over to.
I’ve lived the life of a lower middle class person in Taipei and never really invited my close friends over because my place just kinda sucked at the time.
I’m not posting to complain. I’m posting to invite comments as to whether my experience with Taiwanese hospitality is par for the course or whether we just lucked out and have an insular bunch of local friends.
All this is true. There’s also the small size of many apartments here and the inconvenience of many places. It’s so much easier to pick a place central to the group and close to an MRT station.
And by the way, all this will be true of most places in East Asia. It’s not just Taiwan.
My parens visited me in Taichung some years ago (pre Covid). Their flight back was from kaoshung early in the morning so we booked a hotel and I took them down to Kaoshung the day before.
In the evening they had gone out to eat to a local restaurant. Menu was all Chinese so the neighboring table had helped to translate an order. When they were done eating and tried to pay they found out the next table had also paid for their dinner.
Yesterday I went into the local police station to turn in a phone I found.
While they did a lost and found report we chatted and they gave me biscuits and tea.
In past years I remember many home invitations to family meals especially on holidays. Maybe people are different now or it’s just with age I turn the invitations down often so people stop.
Maybe not exactly hospitality but several times per week our neighbors leave veggies or fruit in front of the door
Fair enough. As the explanations show there’s a specific reason why we don’t get invited round for dinner. Also Taiwanese just love to dine out.
Regarding business deals I don’t really think they’re especially hard headed. Buying in shops I’m always impressed how willingly discounts are given. Although there are a lot of fake discounts.
Yea because Taiwan isn’t south Europe or middle east where the culture makes a huge deal about hospitality.
In Taiwan face is important, and the home may not be kept clean at all times unless they’re rich enough to afford cleaners to clean it daily. Yes it really takes daily cleaning to keep it spotless, public venues are like this because they have janitors.
Also face is a huge thing in Taiwan and the state of your home is how others will judge you, so that means you don’t invite strangers inti your home not because they distrust you, but they fear their home may not be spotless at all times, and thereby losing face.
So meetings take place at restaurants because they’re equipped to serve food and is always clean.
Most people living in small apartments don’t have the seating space for inviting others over so restaurants it is. In the mountains though it’s sometimes do an outdoor food event at home.
Every year though our tribe has Homeyaya. It’s a weekend where you open your doors and have plenty of food at the ready and you visit the homes of all the people in the village and they come to your place.
I’ve had groups of over 30 people at my place for some BBQ events but I have the space for it.
haha, I my date’s father pay for a taxi to the airport many years ago in Taipei without me knowing it, then I paid the Taxi in cash so the taxi got paid twice. I later found out her father paid and taxi was a cheat ha., and I stayed in her sister’s room at the parents house so not the same room.
I would say this happens quite a bit for me (but not in KHH where I live unless a date ha), though sometimes I would prefer a quite hotel room. (I few times the house is not as clean as I would like to haha). Also you mention with out charge? Would people charge a friend, not my expereince as Japanaese in Japan or Taiwan?
Nice! Our people had a similar tradition back in America. It’s an evening where you open your doors and have plenty of candy at the ready and you visit the homes of all the people in town and they come to your place.
I think this is just a big city thing? When I lived in big cities in the US, I don’t remember ever being invited to anyone’s home for dinner. We only ate out.
Now I live in southern Taiwan and have been invited to plenty of homes, usually for hotpot.
The Taiwanese hospitality I usually experience comes from complete strangers in the streets. They always like to assume I’m lost just because I look like a foreigner, and then approach me with excitement to offer help in English.
I usually just entertain them by pretending I’m lost, and letting them think they were very helpful.
