Where is Taiwan's armpit?

Everyone seems to have a place they most love to hate, their own private hell hole.

Which town or city in Taiwan do you nominate for the Armpit of Taiwan? The ugliest, smelliest or noisiest place in the country, where the traffic is the most insane or the pollution most appalling? Which place would you least want to live?

We can’t vote that place off the island or send it on a cruise to Hawaii, but we can honor it and it’s inhabitants as it deserves. And let’s not forget those inhabitants. Remember folks, a slum is an attitude, not a geographical location.

Zhongli

Chia-yi

It’s tough to decide between Chungli and Keelung but I think Chungli wins–weather is equally awful but Keelung just has a little too much green. Other contenders would be Taoyuan, Neipu (near Pingtung) and Yongkang City near Tainan.

Gaosu in Pingtung County.

Game over.

Mailiao, Yunlin County. I dare anyone to go there and then say they’ve seen worse.

Linyuan!




Nobody’s going to argue with that!

Are you kidding? Those could be pictures of just about anywhere on the island.

Agreed, Dr Z… sad but true :frowning:

C’mon, Kaoshu isn’t that bad. I haven’t lived there but I pass through all the time. I think Pingtung city is much worse. Chiayi is unsophisticated, but I’m looking for a little industrial grime, a certain toxicity or danger. :beatnik:

The others all make my shortlist. Linyuan is great at night eh? Reminds me of the intro to Blade Runner… Kangshan is pretty awful too.

How about Homei in Chang_hua county? Heavy metals, rice production, carcingenic chemicals…

I second the nomination for Yunlin County. Half the people seem to live in poverty and it’s extremely boring.

Don’t forget broiling hot in summer.

[quote=“The Taipei Times”]Local residents and officials from Mailiao Township yesterday expressed their bewilderment at the interest Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) showed in their sex industry when she visited Yunlin County on an inspection tour on Sunday.

“Is [Mailiao] very desolate? I heard that the sex industry flourishes at night. Where are those places exactly?” Lu asked township head Lin Shih-chung (林世崇).[/quote]

And the Lu-natic is not wrong on this one - the town consists of SE Asian working girls, dirt-poor hicks, gangsters and Formosa Plastics (they of the famous Filipino riots and deportations). The FP factory enclosure is miles long on each side and belts out noxious fumes day and night. The flat country(!)side around there is the most polluted I’ve seen in Taiwan, and that’s saying something. I helped a friend move there from Tainan when he got a short-term contract working for FP teaching their engineers English. NT$90,000 a month for two teaching hours a day (honestly!) and still he couldn’t wait to get out of there.

I will concede that there might be places worse than Mailiao. But I’ve seen a lot of shitty small towns in central and south Taiwan and none of them have quite the level of pollution, evil labour practices and scary f*cking gangsters that Mailiao does. Maybe we should get together on a road trip and settle this once and for all. Hellholes of Taiwan '06 - who’s coming with me?

Hah! I myself have been reminded of the intro to Blade Runner more than once. And I live in Taipei.

Chiayi has the grime. Inland and nestled at the foot of the mountains, the pollution doesn’t have anywhere to go, so it just hangs there. The air pollution gets so thick that it actually hides the mountains from view. I was in Chiayi four months before I knew there were mountains (ie: before it rained).

I’m in. Hey, it’s not like I have anything to do in Cin Shuei.

[quote=“Ironman”][quote=“MJB”]A move within Taiwan can also improve your mental state. I live on a hilltop with no tall buildings, no garbage trucks/morning vendors and lots of green. Makes Taiwan living a lot more enjoyable…Had I stayed in the city it’s likely I would have left long ago.
[/quote]

[color=blue]The place MJB mentions above is the same place I am calling the armpit of Taiwan.[/color]
[/quote]

Quoting Yangmei as the armpit in December 04.

I’ve got priority rights to naming YangMei the armpit. I was also told it was the armpit a year before that.

I’m starting to think of it as the arsehole now though. It’s moved downward in bodily reference terms.

The Gangster factory, smoke on the water-fire in the KTV, don’t-wanna
get- lost- there, blue-rubber-slippers to match the truck, permed hair shuffling down the filthy street,
the place we love to hate:

San Chong!

Taiwan is an armpit, with a few exceptions in Taipei I suppose.