What is the best place to live in Taiwan?

Lists were made to be refuted. What sort of economic opportunity could possibly exist in Peng Hu?

Good old Taibei county for me.

Boohoo. I remember seeing a post by modlang not too long ago that listed all the different bars Tainan has. Oh, the things I would do to live in a city with even a fraction of that amount of nightlife.

I’ve only visited once, but Tainan seemed to be a great city with a near perfect combination of just enough city things to do at night, nature things to do right outside the city, all with a very reasonable cost of living. If anything, you should be rubbing other people’s noses in it about how much better it is than that city to the north.

You took TC’s post the wrong way. He agrees that Tainan is a great city! He is indeed a rubber of northern noses from time to time.

If we move my wife’s godddamned mama including her goddamned sofa and the whole rest of the family bunch with us, my wife may agree to move out of Taipei.

Sigh.

Hello All,

I’m hoping you can help me out. I have do give a presentation to a local (Taiwan) HR next week on pros/cons, etc. of expatriates living in Tainan, Kaoshiung vs. Taipei. I need to let them know (or things they don’t see) which are special to that area of Taiwan. So far I have thought of a couple very obvious things that foreigners would see which is – many different pinyin systems in the south (Taipei mostly uses Hanyu system), majority of the people speak Taiwanese whereas most people in Taipei will speak Mandarin, and lack of good public transport.

I’m hoping people that live in Tainan or Kaohsiung could help clue me in on living there which may be good to bring up. Also, are there any foreign organizations/groups down there that you would recommend to newly arrived expats and their families? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Here’s a recent post that may help.
[url]Kaohsiung vs Taipei

Following my previous topic ( or possibly rant), I’d like to know your views on best places to live.
City or country. North, west, east or south. Where’s hot, where’s not. Where’s improving and what’s going to the dogs.

I don’t think it matters much as long as you find a decent house. I bought a nice house in a really arsebackwards part of Taichung county and it’s done us grand.

Taipei has the best infrastructure but the roadworks, traffic, pollution and awful weather make life miserable. Taichung has the nicest public areas, parks, museums etc. but it’s not actually that much cheaper than Taipei any more. Tainan has nice weather, boats, bikers and a laid back lifestyle - take that as paradise or hell according to your personal temperament. Kaohsiung is… somewhere I am still trying to find something nice about. Pingdong is a lot of fun in a backward kind of way and full of cute aboriginal girls, plus it’s not far from Kending but it’s miles away from anywhere. Don’t bother with anything East of the mountain range unless you enjoy driving 6 hours to get anywhere.

Taichung rental prices are not even in the same league as Taipei. I pay 10 000NT for a 35 Ping apartment, it would be more than double that in TP. Many of my friends have 2 and 3 bedroom apartments for under 10 000Nt. In addition to the other things listed, Taichung also has excellent restaurants and entertainment options, great weather and is centrally located. Taichung has a bright future indeed.

No offense llary, but what are you talking about? Other than the weather, Taipei has far better air quality than Taichung and far better traffic. We also have the MRT remember, which is a clean, cheap sane way to travel and makes living in the suburbs (where the air is even better) a breeze.

And one connection non-Taipei people fail to make is that the rainy weather is part of the reason we have better air. There’s nothing like the evening after the afternoon monsoon has washed everything out of the sky and it’s clear skies and fresh air for the rest of the day. You go for a bike ride and can see stars.

As for parks, Taipei has 200km of bike paths along the rivers, much of it nicely landscaped and improving yearly. We have more park space per person than anywhere else in Taiwan. We have a national park to the north and the mountains of Maokong to the south (accessible by a cheap gondola once it gets back going) and places like Elephant Mountain right in the city. And as jimi and others have discovered, it’s hard to get out of taichung to anywhere fresh and green and uncrowded in a short time.

I wonder if you are remembering a Taiwan of ten years ago. Yes, Taichung used to be the better city but it hasn’t been for years and has been eclipsed by all the other major cities. Crime is certainly the worst. Kaohsiung, you have nothing nice to say about Kaohsiung? It’s becoming one of the most liveable cities in taiwan. Give it another ten years to get air pollution down (already 50% less than 5 years ago) and it will be probably the best city to live. Great weather, wide streets with sidewalks, a good MRT that even goes out to the beach (yes, the city has a beach), a great harbour, good hiking, bike paths, the lovely Love River running through the centre, etc, etc.

As for the east, Ilan, Luodong, Jiaoshi are less than an hour to Taipei via the tunnel. Even Hualien is only 4.5 hours from taipei now.

Time to get out there and re-explore the land, llary. :wink:

Actually, I live here in Pingtung county, and I’m dreading going back to Taichung next year to finish my MA.

The weather is awesome and the people are friendly. As long as you don’t mind living in the countryside, (I’m about 40 minutes by motorcycle away from KKH), the south and east are the best.

You had me at “Pingdong county”.

Feel the same way.

Taichung did look good on specs, but now I’ve been here a few weeks it seems a bit of a disappointment.
As for air quality I know Taibei seemed pretty bad when I arrived from Australia. I’m looking forward to revisiting it after living in Taichung for a while. Is there any data on air pollution to compare?

I’ve been living in Taichung for a year now and I definitely think it was a mistake. As Mucha Man pointed out, we tend to expect smaller cities like Taichung to be better than large cities like Taipei, but in Taiwan this simply isn’t the case.

Pingdong, Tainan, Hualien and Taitung all seem like much better choices.

Taiwan’s EPA has a chart comparing different parts of Taiwan over time:
Comparative trend proportion for different area of poor air quality

The Gaoxiong area is in purple.
The Taizhong area is in yellow.
The Taibei area is in dark blue.

Worth a thousand words.

The main things to remember about Taipei air pollution is it is 98% vehicle exhaust according to the EPA. Get away from traffic and you are fine unless there is an inversion such as before a heavy rainfall. Then the air can be still and foul for the whole day. Ozone is a problem on hot days during the late morning and afternoon but then it is too hot to be outside anyways.

On average statistics show the air quality downtown is comparable to London or New York. Much better in the suburbs. I hike in the hills in the south and there are lots of days I can see clear across town to the ocean.

MM, I know you live on the south side of the Taipei basin, but have you ever lived on the north side? Why did you pick the south side over the north side?

Happenstance. My wife was from Muzha. We met when we were both in Taoyuan and on visits back to her family I noticed it was a hell of a lot greener. My wife of course was happy to move closer to her family. Over the years this neighborhood has gotten better and better, so there is no reason to leave.

I like the north part of the city too. We do have quicker access to the mountains here though unless you live right on Yangmingshan. Also the trails are natural and a lot less busy. But Tienmu, Guandu, Bali and so on are all good places to live. I love that I can go for long walks and bike rides here in Muzha at night completely off road and hear owls and crickets and breathe fresh air. And we have all the tea houses and restaurants in the hills. Nothing like sitting on a patio at 6pm overlooking a lush valley that drops into the city teeming with traffic and noise and knowing how lucky you are.

But I must get going. I’ve got to drive to Tatajia. I am finally going to climb Yushan tomorrow.

I’m sorry dude, but you’re way off on this one. Taichung air is mildly offensive; Taipei air is fucking disgusting. I know you live in Mucha blah blah but pick any city in the world and there will be somewhere out of the way with vaguely clean air. I used to live in Da Keng - part of Taichung City - and the air was as clean as it gets. I would bet cash money that the air is cleaner than Mucha in fact, but that’s because no sod lives there. My wife did not want to live up a mountain any more so I made a compromise for her and moved into the city. After a few hours in Taipei City I am guaranteed to start coughing up black shit, so if I must live in a city it ain’t gonna be Taipei.

Better traffic is subjective, but I happen to enjoy driving/motorcycling and driving in Taipei is a fucking nightmare. The roads are insanely congested, there is never any parking and half the city is under construction which means you are competing with half a million other cars and scooters for arterial roads that have been turned into half-lane alleys. It takes me longer to drive from Taipei City to the wife’s family in Linkou than it does to do the same drive from Taichung. The only people who say that Taipei traffic is better than Taichung don’t drive.

That’s a romantic way of talking about a city where it pisses down every other day.

Whatever dude.

Taipei:


Taichung (first pic is from my old house, second pic is 10 minutes from my new house in Taiping):


Pingdong:


I can get to Osaka in 3 hours from Taipei and I know which I’d prefer.

I ain’t here to defend Taichung. I AM here to bash Taipei. Maybe it’s time to stop rating world cities by how many bike paths they have. :wink: :wink: :blah: :wink:

Weird, weird, weird! I spend a lot of time in Taichung and I KNOW which place I prefer, hands down, for both driving and clean air. It sure as hell 'aint Taichung, home of some of the craziest driving and most non-existent parking in the country!
I like the way you select pics of the Hehuan expressway at rush hour for Taipei and some mountain retreat for Taichung, though. :laughing: