Taiwan’s educational system is the best!!! 
btw Alien, I am kidding 
someone mentioned the beautiful women, well… I’d like to put in a vote for some really cute guys…
plus, less hang-ups about physical touch. I may be alone in this, but I think it’s good to see guys and girls, gay and straight holding hands and touching without worrying about what others think.
Jennifer mentioned
‘Fish ponds with huge coy we can feed.’
That reminded me of an icecream factory in Hualien where there’s an icecream kiosk and a big fishpond. The visitors throw lumps of icecream to the fish, who climb over each over to get them. They look quite fat.
Another ‘impressive’ animal phenomenon is the twig-climbing hermit crabs in Yeliu. Salespeople near the beach have big open-topped boxes with lots of hermit crabs inside for sale as pets. In the middle of each box is a big twig with several ‘branches’. The crabs climb up, seem to fight each other, and often fall off. I asked a stallholder’s small daughter what the crabs liked best - meaning what food. She replied that they liked climbing trees best.
Another wierd crab phenomenon that I saw - natural this time - was quite close to a reservoir/lake in Miaoli. In a big bush, on one of the flowers, was a very small, white-colored crab, complete with shell, and claws. It was alive and seemed to be at home there. It was about 10 metres above and 30 metres far from the lake.
Just to get back to the topic, in addition to all the things already mentioned, I like all the attention that is paid to physical comfort and health here such as the back-massaging chairs, the nobbly walkways in parks, the variety of different spa-type devices in swimming pools etc, the pink leather aeroplane chairs in coaches, etc.
Probably other countries, especially in Asia, are similar but I come from Britain where we don’t seem to have much of that kind of thing.
Joe
I love to swim in the crystal-clear waters of secluded mountain streams where nature’s surrounding beauty has not yet been tamed with concrete or otherwise spoiled.
I also love to be immersed in a Chinese-language environment where I can hear, read and soak up Chinese to my heart’s content.
But best of all, and the thing which nails my feet to Taiwan, is the girls and the xiaojies, the ladies and the lasses, the cummers and the colleens, the gals and the babes, and all of those luscious lissome darlings who make Taiwan so special.
I love watching (from a distance) the road worker topping up his stone cuttung machine with gas with his cigarette hanging out of his mouth. The anticipation is electric!
Just the top few:
Low cost of living.
Ah mahs, or any old lady who’s still got a lot of spunk. They always let me practice my Taiwanese on them.
Night market food, particularly those burritos the Pakistani dudes sell.
NT$59 VCDs.
Soy milk and most of the breakfast foods that go with it.
Typhoon days.
Taxi drivers. Seriously. Some are real philosophers. Some are just funny as hell, spitting betel nut and cracking dirty jokes as they rush you through town like they were avoiding bombs.
Tomas
[quote=“littleiron”]While I’ve bitched my share about low-class people I’ve met here, one should never forget they exist everywhere. Check this out:
http://www.knology.net/~carlos/redneck.htm
Classic.[/quote]
That’s so funny. Even funnier that it’s in Georgia (where I live now). I’ve moved three times while in Georgia and each time I seem to get one of these guys next to me. I think they’re everywhere down here.
What I love about Taiwan now?
Barbecuing in my garden over summer.
The cool days and clear air where I live.
Looking out over the mountains when taking my daughters for a walk.
The hustle and the bustle of the night market.
Squid on a stick for a yankee dollar.
The mountains… still a love of mine.
I love the post above Mr. He’s. I must have been having a terribly bad hair day that day!
Last week I dropped my wallet at a local station down here in Tainan. I got off the train three stops later where the station manager was waiting to tell me I had left my wallet at the other station. When I got it back the next day, no tip had been taken or anything. 
The station manager had also given me a laugh earlier in the day - I had been unsuccesfuly trying to mime ‘return ticket’ when he decided he had had enough and ordered me to ‘speak english!’ 
Ugh! Suanmei! Can’t stand the stuff, nor the dried salted plums, nor the dried salted olives. If I ever lose my sense of taste, suanmei just might bring it back, it’s so powerful.
You’re right about Asians and salty, refreshing drinks - salty lassi (from India) comes to mind.
I’m very picky about my seafood. Love fish; no too crazy about squid, sea cucumbers or fish sperm.
Yes, they’re great!
As a geek myself, I wholeheartedly agree. Hell, the stores here make Best Buy look line an INconvenience store.
I just wouldn’t want to kiss them after they eat that stuff.
Or even when its overcast, with not a hint of rain.
And their earmuffs!
Yup. I’ve never seen that in the US, where to-go soup is usually put in a plastic container.
i was about to ask where the hell all these guests came from until i noticed that they apparently came from 2001 
how quaint… time travelers from a bygone era coming to remind us the taiwan bashing isn’t very PC…
whilst i firmly believe that Taiwan deserves 90% of the bashing it gets, i’ll admit there are some redeeming features to take into account…
- mountains : the further away from people the better
- the ocean : east coast / green island / lan-yu
- 10pm closing time : try going back to the world shutting at 5pm
- insanely low income tax : compared to the 45%+ i’d be paying at home
- spring and autumn: all 2 weeks of it
- twisty roads: if only they had any idea how to resurface them properly
- factories : tricky one, since they are the root of all taiwanese evil and pollution, but yet make it possible to order any quantity of any conceivable item on Wed and have it delivered to your door by Fri, for some reason wrapped in about nine times the required amount of packing material , what is with Taiwan
I love:
[ul][li] Working 20 hours a week and being paid almost as much as I earned when I was working 40 hours a week in Australia
[/li]
[li] The food - diverse, delicious, and dirt cheap
[/li]
[li] The incredibly friendly people (I live in Taipei, YMMV)
[/li]
[li] The fascinating culture
[/li]
[li] The language (though learning it is breaking me)
[/li]
[li] All the tech (Gonghua rules)
[/li]
[li] The fact that I can create the simple lifestyle in this country which was impossible for me in Australia
[/li]
[li] The proximity to the rest of Asia (and therefore to my friends in Malaysia, Singapore, HK and China)
[/li]
[li] The MRT (it whips every mass transit system I’ve experienced in the US, UK and Australia)
[/li]
[li] The opening hours
[/li]
[li] The nightmarkets
[/li]
[li] The children (teaching the ones I have is just dreamy)[/li][/ul]
I forgot the income tax, which is ridiculously low compared with the 35% I was paying in Australia.
And the beautiful scenery. I can’t wait until I get my hiking gear sent over here from Australia.
my family (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc… god i’m feeling so homesick 
)
the food
the people (most of the time)
the atmosphere
the shopping
the fact that stores remain open past 6pm
great public transport system (im not really a fan of the buses but the trains and MRT are terrific)
??egg pudding
keelung ??
really swift immigration process (no forms to fill out, just swipe my passport and i’m good to go)
not having bags checked when coming through customs (when i return to australia, everything gets looked through, its so bloody annoying)
my 3 bitches (dogs) (actually there’s 5 now as one of our dogs had puppies this year)
very cheap shampoo and blow outs (NT130 compared to the AU50 it costs here)
cheap and good TR (thermal reconditioning) for my hair
the super cute toys which macdonalds always have… my dad collected all the Hello Kitty stuffed toys for me one year
cable tv… there’s always something to watch (most of the time reruns of Stephen Chow movies )
my grandma’s house… it’s a beautiful house (that’s right… not apartment or anything like that attached to another building) in Hsi chi which my grandparents built themselves
taipei zoo
down south… like Taiching, Tainan, etc
im sure there’s heaps more i could think of
I like closed captioning on all tv shows.
Damn, I dont get any captions at all lol
[quote=“butcher boy”]Last week I dropped my wallet at a local station down here in Tainan. I got off the train three stops later where the station manager was waiting to tell me I had left my wallet at the other station. When I got it back the next day, no tip had been taken or anything.
The station manager had also given me a laugh earlier in the day - I had been unsuccesfuly trying to mime ‘return ticket’ when he decided he had had enough and ordered me to ‘speak English!’ [/quote]
Same thing happened to me on Christmas Eve… lost my wallet with all my ID and NT$15,000- doing last minute shopping for gifts- “Well, sorry, kids, Osama bin Laden slipped a bomb into Santa’s bag, and took out four reindeer, so Christmas will be late this year…”
Christmas morning, a store called up- some kid had found the wallet, gave it to the clerk, who looked in it and found my number.
Every last NT$ was still there
So Merry Christmas to the much-maligned people of Taiwan.
[quote=“MikeN”][quote=“butcher boy”]Last week I dropped my wallet at a local station down here in Tainan. I got off the train three stops later where the station manager was waiting to tell me I had left my wallet at the other station. When I got it back the next day, no tip had been taken or anything.
The station manager had also given me a laugh earlier in the day - I had been unsuccesfuly trying to mime ‘return ticket’ when he decided he had had enough and ordered me to ‘speak English!’ [/quote]
Same thing happened to me on Christmas Eve… lost my wallet with all my ID and NT$15,000- doing last minute shopping for gifts- “Well, sorry, kids, Osama bin Laden slipped a bomb into Santa’s bag, and took out four reindeer, so Christmas will be late this year…”
Christmas morning, a store called up- some kid had found the wallet, gave it to the clerk, who looked in it and found my number.
Every last NT$ was still there
So Merry Christmas to the much-maligned people of Taiwan.[/quote]
:bravo: Yes, indeed. Thanks for sharing!