When did you fall in love with Taiwan?

‘The reality of Taiwan with it’s bleak prospects, austerity, job uncertainty, and zero-hours contracts’

Apart from austerity I don’t see how Taiwan is any better for a lot of folks. ESPECIALLY if you don’t have family to fall back on.

Besides the UK has a lot of well paid jobs still in many sectors such as finance, IT, legal , medical etc.

Absolutely. Great place for lust in your 20s while sucking when you are in your 50s (unless you are independently wealthy).

I guess I have to agree with that. I guess.

I’d like to know how you would rate Taiwan for somebody who is not 20 nor 50, but in the middle. :stuck_out_tongue:

I don’t think Taiwan has zero-hours contracts either?

When I went back to the UK, I spent several months struggling to find work, before finally being given a chance in a shop, which was on a zero-hours contract. I realise that I’m in a position of privilege in Taiwan, as a white-looking young man with a British passport, and I never took that for granted. But, as far as my personal experience goes, the contrast between Taiwan and the UK is enormous for me. Those months I spent unemployed, and later in retail, were among the most unpleasant months I’ve ever had, and they completely tainted my view of the UK after being away for four years. I’m sure what many (maybe even most) young Taiwanese people go through is just as bad, or worse, than the few months I just described, but I never had to deal with that there.

I’m talking purely from a selfish perspective and not trying to suggest that Taiwan is “better” than the UK. For instance, one thing that struck me about Taiwan was just how desperate virtually all the young people I met there are to leave the country, which isn’t something I’d previously encountered in a developed country. I have no doubt that the situation there sucks for them.

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Depends on your lifestyle. When we lived in Taiwan, we had an apartment, and sometimes I wished we had held onto it (would have made a fortune–enough to justify the lower salary). That being said, working in Canada, the EU and the Middle East has been pretty cool and money is relatively easy to make and spend. Important thing is go where your career can develop the best (and to me, that is outside Taiwan—Taiwan is great for experience when u lack experience, but less great when you reach the foreigner glass ceiling, which is hard to break). In the eyes of the power structure, you are a replaceable white face whether you are a business consultant, bureaucrat, English teacher or a finance guru etc.

To answer your question —if you are in your 30s or 40 (I am early 40s) it is good if you have a plan (and save a bunch) if you remain.

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:upside_down:

:roll_eyes:

:disappointed_relieved:

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I fell in love with Taiwan when I came here on Christmas break, right in the middle of an outlandish academic year in Japan.

Out at Taoyuan I wandered onto one of those highway buses to Taipei with the lace window curtains and copious strips of LEDs. It felt like a cross between a Blade Runner fever dream and an Irish Catholic grandma’s living room in South Boston. “Where the fuck am I?” I wondered. Wasn’t this supposed to be a developed country? I spent the dark ride to Taipei with my eyes glued to the window, heart sinking at the sight of depressing apartment blocks as far as the eye could see. “Well shit, there’s Christmas break in the crapper.”

The next morning I woke up on Shida Road to drizzle, ambience, life in the streets, markets, breakfast restaurants, a Real City. Over the next couple days, friends from all over the world started arriving for a Grand Rendezvous. We spent a couple hilarious weeks exploring this beautiful country with an ugly buildings problem, where people take things seriously, but not too seriously (I’m looking at you, Japan).

Yeah sure, I fell in love with it. I was back the next year for a Huayu scholarship, then I left for a while because who the hell wants to start a career in Taiwan (and my girlfriend was going back to New Zealand and Lord of the Rings was great).

Now I live & work here. This island gets in your blood and she just keeps calling you back, like a cranky 阿姨 with a bad temper. You can’t visit without missing her, you can’t be somewhere else without feeling like it’s boring and you’re missing whatever shenanigans are going down in the clusterfuck of wealthy tenements packed in cheek to jowl on the Taipei Basin.

Taiwan ain’t perfect, but it’s better than most. I know others feel differently, but to me Taiwan is Taipei and the rest of the country is the backyard where you go to stretch out. I love this city and think it still has years of surprises left up its sleeve. For me, that’s enough.

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Young Taiwanese on the whole don’t really know what it’s like in the rest of the world and that is why so many want to leave as you are led to believe

Most of them go back like homing pigeons.

Met this Taiwanese girl here who was astonished that I wasn’t going back…she kept saying …we are Taiwanese we MUST go back… you must return tommy !

As she got out of my car when I drove her back that’s what she kept saying

:smiley:

The rock ain’t gonna be the same for me I’m sure
Remembering this super hot maybe 20 year old I sat next to on the bus in 2012 ( gee that Long already) with the short skirt and the legs that went forever.

She had a bouquet of flowers with her and I asked if they were from someone or was for someone…she said they were for someone …in a tone so icy that shut me up …no things ain’t gonna be the same

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I like your word painting.

Taipei is a city. Do you mean Taiwan is kind of a city to you?

Ohhh you should definitely try Italy and Spain. Or Korea. Same as Taiwanese young people, or worse.

I tend to agree with this, but a lot of them stay abroad as well, or have gone back due to technicalities, like not being able to find work in wherever they studied in etc.

To comment on that, Taiwan feels like a huge mega-city devouring the whole island. Or a mega-village. There are no empty spaces between cities left, especially on west coast. East cost can be counted as suburbs. They even have a circular metro line for this monstrocity already (TRA trains).

I was wondering when the road created that people have not think about the whole island. It’s shows they don’t have a good island planning in the past.