No wonder I earn such a meager salary! Most money goes into foreigners’ pockets!!! :?
Er…most of the rolls of sushi I’ve seen here in Taiwan have mayo in them. Check out the 7-11 conveniently on every corner in Taiwan for confirmation.
Why do foreigners stay here in Taiwan? Because life here is so EASY. This is the most convenient place to live in the world. A slacker’s paradise. No worries. You start to feel guilty staying here so long because life becomes so easy.
did anyone read that series last summer in the wall street journal with the different food guides to major asian cities. the hong kong guide was pretty damn pathetic. the author was almost apologizing for how hard it was to find a good meal in hong kong. on the other hand, the taipei guide raved about the food in taiwan. calling it one of the major food meccas of the world.
hey, different strokes for different folks. personally, i’ve traveled to many places around the world and find it hard to fatom that you would rank taiwanese food that low on your list. maybe you’ve just never been to the parts of europe that i have.
ever been down to the seaside in taiwan at one of those places where you pick the seafood you want and they cook it for you fresh? lightly sauteed shrimps with garlic and rice wine? steamed whole fish with green onions in a light soy broth? broiled sea snails? clams in black bean sauce? deep fried crab stir fried with basil, garlic, and chili peppers? oily, greasy, and tasteless? there’s more to taiwanese food than the food stalls at the night markets(though i’m a pretty big fan of night markets myself). 
because taiwanese people think it tastes good? begians think mayo on french fries tastes good. shrug go figure.
The restaurants I went to in Taipei were mostly excellent. There was one (a second-floor soup place, near Starbucks on a main north-south road in downtown) which was greasy and awful, but the rest compared quite favorably with the best in Seattle.
I’ve heard that Hong Kong lost most of its great restaurateurs to Vancouver BC just before the 1997 takeover. Having gone to some of the “highly rated” BC dim sum places, though, IMHO they were not as good as the ones in Seattle – greasier, less meat in the dumplings, and so on. (Five-second Seattle guide: best dim sum is at Imperial Garden in Kent, second-best is Top Gun in the Int’l District.)
Most foriegners (Westerners at least) know so little about Taiwan before they come that I would guess for 90% of people they are attracted by a job opportunity.
They may stay longer for many other reasons.
Anyone attracted by the food would be someone who mistakenly thought they were going to Thailand …
In a nutshell: the job (and the money which comes with it) brought me here. The food here doesn’t suit my pallate, Chinese food in Malaysia was way tastier though Thai and Sushi ranks as my favorite.
Hexuan:
I talked to a few foreigners here in TW and they seems to enjoy this kind of HOT weather a lot!! Hey, dont’ worry, I don’t quite understand either! 
I can’t be outside for too long because I feel like I am going to evaporate…
LittleBuddha:
You don’t like Taiwanese food?? Hmm… I guess you haven’t had any good one yet, let me show you to some yummy Taiwanese food 
BB:
Now you know why some of us are suffering for the $$ here. I don’t want to start a flame but if you look foreign (non-asian looks) you will be making quite a few money here. This doesn’t apply to everybody, but a few ppl on here can vouch for that, since they are mostly here for the good $$.
- MiakaW
I am being to think I am in the wrong country because I can’t seem to find all the money everyone says a foreigner should be making. The most I ever made from teaching was NT$50,000 a month and when I was working for Hess - after subtracting all the time spent on grading homework, meetings, etc., my average hourly rate was about NT$300! Of course I realize all of this is relative, but in 1984 at my first job (after being in the army) in the U.S. I started out making more that NT$50,000 a month. I guess I am lucky I didn’t come here for the money!
Perhaps the question could be rephrased “Why do so few foreigners like Taiwan?”
The fact is that most foreigners dislike Taiwan and don’t stay here very long. The number of foreigners living in Taiwan is rather small.
How many Western tourists come to Taiwan (I’m talking about real tourists - not visiting family members)?
Both of these things are pluses in my book.
I think that most of the people who stay for any period of time do so out of inertia - there is no compelling reason to be somewhere else and, as has been mentioned, life is so damn easy here.
Finding the woman of your dreams may play a part too!
Are we living in the same Taiwan? I’ve traveled all over the world, and I’d have to say that I find Taiwanese food to be the least appetizing of anything I’ve eaten … oily, greasy, and flavorless. That’s not to say that I don’t like Chinese food … I loved the food in Xi’an, Beijing, and elsewhere in China … but Taiwanese food is just … yuck! And while I’m on the topic of food, what in the HELL is up with Taiwanese putting corn, mayonnaise, and rou song (that fluffy dried meat crap) in sushi!!! Sheesh …[/quote]
I have to say that, ironically, Chinese food in China is the most horrible Chinese food. I think the cultural revolution and communist revolution wiped out all traces of culinary art, etc. I mean when there is a famine etc and people are eating bugs and rats, do you really think a chef and a culinary school is going to go far (unless you are chef to the Party I guess).ok, if you can pay top dollar in PRC, you can get decent food, but still not that great.
worst danger about chinese food: health hazard. you eat enough seafood eg crabs etc in China, you have a good chance of getting a liver disease. I know many people who have this problem.
Chinese food in HK and Taiwan are decent, but IMO, west coast CA and BC chinese food are the best. NY chinese food sucks too.
Second worst chinese food I’ve had? in the Vaticano. don’t ask.
Another problem with Chinese food in China: rat poison.
Couple of years ago, it seemed like there must have been half a dozen cases of less-successful Chinese restaurant owners (in China itself) sneaking into rivals’ kitchens and poisoning their food supplies, to try to destroy the rival businesses. The media reports even made it into the U.S. press.