from your perspectives does the younger generation care about city appearance more then the older?
I used to wonder about this, too. My former boss in San Francisco was Taiwanese. Drove a big black late-model Mercedes, had a nice house on the Peninsula, traveled frequently, yet pleaded poverty at every chance he got. When I moved to Taiwan, I also noticed a general tendency for people to complain how poor they were, when in fact they had piles of money.
Case in point; my partner. My jaw hit the floor when we were arguing about money and he said he didn’t come from a rich family like I did. Say what? My dad was a blue collar shop rat in a printing company and my mom a housewife, living paycheck to paycheck. I bought everything I owned myself in my adult years. Whereas in his case, both his parents are retired civil servants making full salary, 20% interest on savings, low-interest loans, sold a lucrative cram school they used to own, own 5 different residential properties (including the house we currently live in, which they gave him), sent both him and his brother to grad school in the US (brother to Harvard) (I took student loans to go on overseas study programs), gave both him and his brother cars… But I’m the one who came from a rich family?
Someone explained to me that it’s leftover from the era when they had to claw and scrape to survive, and that there is effectively no social safety net. They have a general feeling of financial insecurity, making them feel it’s essential to save for the future. I’m also told that people don’t flaunt their wealth here to avoid moochers.
1 Like
I was honestly surprised that my firends knew were Taiwan was. These are typical 17 year olds who work all week to spend it all on weed in one day.[/quote]
On one of my trips back to the US in the earlier years of my stay here, oh say 5 - 6 years ago, a US Immigration officer asked me how I liked living in Bangkok when he saw on the Customs Declaration that my country of residence was Taiwan.
i still remember the time this old farmer type came back into the bank I was making a small withdrawal at was complaining to the clerk that she made a mistake. He had asked for a 20 Million Taiwan dollar check not a 2 million taiwan dollar check. He got his check rectified and went back outside and hopped on his bike and took off.
I think i was cashing in my measly pay check at the time. A far far cry from 20 Million taiwan dollars !
One of the major reasons they don’t advertise their wealth was kidnappings in the 80s and 90s, even today you have to be careful because jealousy is rife. It doesn’t take much for somebody who has lost everything to see where the easy target is. Lot of unhinged people around.
The rich folks have their own circles here, my wifes friends family own a factory here but never talk about it and she has never been invited into their house , mainly because they had been victims of attempted extortion before. She has just married a son from another rich family and they were all looking at emigrating to the US on investment visas, but the economy there has made it a less attractive option than it once was.
The other reasons as Craig said is the moochers, because Taiwan is generally a little poor and unstable it’s common to have other members of your family or your circle fallen on hard times.
There are plenty of farmers with land worth a good deal of money, the problem is when you have sold off your land you may not have any income and lots of them are and with managing money.
Oh, I get the don’t flaunt policy and that people here are humble, but from there to the kind of scraping by existence you see most of teh time, the squalor, it’s disgusting. I do not think they need a 55 inch TV and a Mercedes, I think a coat of paint, new pipes, maybe a decent sweater, a proper meal in non-paper plates, is that too much to ask?
I had an interesting conversation with a Taiwanese friend yesterday, who’d spent quite a long time in Australia. We were visiting her relatives in Wanfang Community and they were asking if we were interested in moving there (we’re currently looking for another apartment - if anyone knows somewhere near the mountains or the river in the Wanlong/Jingmei area, please let me know! - I’ve already seen the places advertised on 591.com and Happyfun). When we said it was too expensive, that we could probably afford it currently but didn’t know what the future holds, as my husband works on a contract basis, she said that’s a very Chinese way of thinking. And she also felt quite strongly that Taiwan was a developing country, not at all on a par with places like the US or Oz.
I’m not really sure what I’m trying to say here. I took from it that at least some Taiwanese people believe their country to be poor. Personally, I know the stats and can also see several advantages that Taiwan has over my own home country, the UK. Yet I know if I were to ask the average Brit about Taiwan, once I’d explained I didn’t mean Thailand, they’d lump it in with their other mental images of ‘places other than the West’ that are therefore inferior in every way, including national wealth.
There was an interesting exercise I did once on world perceptions with some other teachers where we had to rank nations according to the quality of their healthcare. The others in my group overwhelmingly wanted to place Singapore and Hong Kong near the bottom and we nearly had an argument when I insisted they should be placed near the top, and certainly higher than the US.
I suppose it just goes to show how skewed our perceptions of other nations are. I don’t know about elsewhere but in Britain this is primarily driven by the media. I can’t account for the Taiwanese perception of themselves as a nation though.
1 Like
taipeitimes.com/News/front/archi … 2003529870
No doubt you are all aware of this case. About the wangs refusal to move. Cases like these make it hard to redo Taipei. Allegations of mafia invested construction companies making illegal gains etc etc. The Wangs by the way, got more then 70 million Taiwan dollars in compensation IIRC. Not really chicken feed. They supposedly asked for 500 million Taiwan dollars (but they say thats not true).
Who said what, who is lying etc. Who stands to gain ,etc. Its a right mess and an example of how hard it is to rebuild.
People are certainly flaunting their wealth if you actually go to places that wealthy people frequent. Luxury hotels and restaurants are doing very well these days and the people in them are wearing expensive clothing and accessories.
I agree with icon though that the dreariness of the overall environment here is quite depressing and is probably the biggest reason I am questioning my long term commitment to living here. As prices rise the law of diminishing returns kicks in and I am not going to pay canadian prices for a third world living environment.
What we need here is not “urban renewal” but bylaws stipulating that you need to maintain the outside of your building. All buildings should also have management companies take care of them as they do in the west. I know it can be done. The apartment we have out in Taoyuan is in a 15 year old complex that looks as new as when it opened. Every other complex around it, most much younger, look like absolute shit holes.
But whatever. I have just about given up on Taiwan actually ever learning to do the right thing within a time frame that matters to me.
1 Like
[quote=“tommy525”]http://taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2012/04/09/2003529870
No doubt you are all aware of this case. About the wangs refusal to move. Cases like these make it hard to redo Taipei. Allegations of mafia invested construction companies making illegal gains etc etc. The Wangs by the way, got more then 70 million Taiwan dollars in compensation IIRC. Not really chicken feed. They supposedly asked for 500 million Taiwan dollars (but they say thats not true).
Who said what, who is lying etc. Who stands to gain ,etc. Its a right mess and an example of how hard it is to rebuild.[/quote]
The problem there was that they lived in an old house that should not have been torn down. Yes, we need to tear down the crumbling shit holes, but not buildings over 100 years old unless they are hazards.
Also, the whole process is rigged in favor of developers who in most cases are not building good new units but more “high end” crap. They promise parkland and public areas but as soon as the gov approves they expand the development. In a few years those buildings look as shitty as the ones they replaced.
Old areas need to be torn down. But most places could be improved with paint, new facades, and a little touching up here and there. They’ve done it in a few areas (see across from the flora expo grounds) and it works.
[quote]I’m not really sure what I’m trying to say here. I took from it that at least some Taiwanese people believe their country to be poor. Personally, I know the stats and can also see several advantages that Taiwan has over my own home country, the UK. Yet I know if I were to ask the average Brit about Taiwan, once I’d explained I didn’t mean Thailand, they’d lump it in with their other mental images of ‘places other than the West’ that are therefore inferior in every way, including national wealth.
There was an interesting exercise I did once on world perceptions with some other teachers where we had to rank nations according to the quality of their healthcare. The others in my group overwhelmingly wanted to place Singapore and Hong Kong near the bottom and we nearly had an argument when I insisted they should be placed near the top, and certainly higher than the US. [/quote]
This is worth a read:
http://www.bwater.com/Uploads/FileManager/research/how-the-economic-machine-works/a-template-for-understanding–ray-dalio-bridgewater.pdf
Note especially his “five stages” theory of economic development, which does explain a lot of observations in this thread. Taiwanese people are rich but still think they are poor. Britain is poor (as a nation) but still believes it is rich. It takes a while for people’s perceptions to catch up with reality. Presumably, people’s perceptions of other countries are subject to the same rule.
The building management companies are part of the problem. Buildings are not designed or built to high standards because the building company knows that, as long as the building stays standing for the guarantee period (5 years or whatever it is) they can completely wash their hands of it once it’s been handed off to the management company. The management, in turn, simply view it as a cash cow rather than a commitment: tenants must pay extortionate monthly fees but have little recourse to law if the management company don’t do anything useful. In other words, the building company has an economic incentive to construct the shittiest possible building with no attention at all to energy efficiency or ease of maintenance; all that is somebody else’s problem. The management company have no economic incentive to look after the building because doing so erodes their profits.
Yes i agree. Some intelligence is needed here. NO make that a heaping whole LOT of intelligence is needed to redo Taiwan in a redeeming fashion.
I’m talking about management companies to take care of ordinary small buildings with multiple owners not the giant complexes where you pay that monthly “guard fee.” Yes, some of those, most of those, are a problem as you say. Some are good though, but the problem is the law, tenant laws, management laws and so on. We need stronger tenant rights and laws regarding the maintenence of buildings. It works everywhere else; no reason it can’t here except the present system is designed to maximize profit at the expense of living conditions.
As a side note, my cunt of a landlady is pissed off because when I signed a new two year contract I asked that she pay for the aircons to be cleaned and for the trim on the kitchen counters to be replaced as the seal was coming off and it was impossible to clean under it (hence becoming a breeding ground for bacteria). She thought about it for two days and agreed to NT6000. Then last week during tomb sweeping day she must have told the rest of the family (many of whom have units in the building) and I surmise they laughed at her for doing this. Now she is trying to figure out some way to recoup the losses by asking me to pay for some maintenance fees (not in the contract).
I should be able to tell her to fuck off, but this being Taiwan all the advantage is on her side.
You are touching on an important point here. Taiwan’s legal software is missing to make this happen. Taiwan has building management committees that collect funds from residents but they don’t enforce the covenants to take care of the buildings. It probably doesn’t make economic sense to try. In the US at any event, people don’t care for the outsides of their houses and mow their lawns because they are aesthetes. The homeowner’s association will sue your ass if you break the rules that you agreed to when you bought the property (the covenants that run with it). They will win and the court decision will be enforced.
Also, given that housing prices are going up anyway, I don’t think that a nice exterior really does very much for your property values in most cases.
I’m with Icon and MM about the general, unnecessary shabbiness of this place.
finley: I also think you need to encounter the right Taiwanese people in terms of how much they’re willing to throw the money around. Around where I live, tourism is all the rage. There are some fairly average resorts around where I live that charge 8,000NTD/night! That’s crazy, yet they do a roaring trade, especially during the holidays.
Also, when I lived in Taoyuan, through my work, I started running some group classes, primarily for the local Rotary Club (in which the principal was involved). I seemed to go to more Rotary dinners than actual classes. You should have seen these things though. They were lavish, and they were always talking about how much money they’d given to this group or that group, as in six, seven, eight figure sums. The top guys also used to give each other the most extravagent gifts (like huge jade statues) whenever a new committee member was elected and so on. These guys were extremely ostentatious in everything they did. I went to the apartment of one of the minor members and it was actually quite tastefully done (but very expensive also). The lobby of the building was intense though. It was all golden mythological beasts, chubby cherubs and that whole thing. My wife’s cousin is in a similar situation and the place they live in is like that.
On the other hand, there’s a guy at a sporting club I’m in here who is a doctor. He drives a beat up old scooter, and wanted me to ride on it without a helmet (which I didn’t). If you met him without knowing he was a doctor, you’d think he was just some dude. When I went to his clinic, I realised that he’s mega-loaded. He’s got a six storey building (and each level is big), four or five levels of which make up his private ob/gyn clinic, and the top one or two levels of which (or there might have been a mezzanine level, but I can’t remember) make up his family’s apartment.
Thanks Finley. It does look interesting but it’s quite long so I’ll save it for when I have time. I take your word for what he says, though. I think it makes sense that people don’t really have an accurate perception of the state of their own nation. Living within it you lack perspective.
If one lives within the shallow defile that is Taoyuan City, then I truly feel sorry for the dim lighting and ill repose.
I lived there for quite some time, and it was not a pretty sight. Drove me a far sight more than slightly awry, I must say!
Every occasion I drive back on through that SinkHole, it just brings me down. praise allah for the French Poets that saw me through.
“Blessent mon cœur
D’une langueur
Monotone.”
[i]"D'abord, il faut endurer."[/i]
With all due apologies to Verlaine & Hemingway.
Taoyuan is about as close to the 3rd World as one should allow.Unfortunately, in Taiwan, YES.
A new coat of paint spells trouble down the horizon as your neighbors (or others who happened to walk/drive/ride by) think you’re stashed to the max.
Furthermore, why make your home stand out amongst the uglies when all you’re doing is inviting thieves and what-not.
Unfortunately, in Taiwan, YES.
A new coat of paint spells trouble down the horizon as your neighbors (or others who happened to walk/drive/ride by) think you’re stashed to the max.
Furthermore, why make your home stand out amongst the uglies when all you’re doing is inviting thieves and what-not.[/quote]
Come on, that’s a bit of a stretch. One comes a cross many lovely houses in the countryside now, and even condos in large complexes. Furthermore there are hundreds of complexes that scream MONEY from the outside and one can see interior renovations happening all the time. I know of several around me from the noise and dust. Are they advertising themselves for thieves?
I lived in a 6 story building for a while and when some new tenants moved in they wanted everyone to agree to redo the staircase and also retile the outside of the building. Most agreed but a few did not and so the project went nowhere. Other buildings though have been successful.
Simple bylaws such as feiren mentioned would be all it required. In many case all a lot of buildings need is to be powerwashed twice a year. That would hardly set them up for theft.
[quote=“finley”]
The building management companies are part of the problem. Buildings are not designed or built to high standards because the building company knows that, as long as the building stays standing for the guarantee period (5 years or whatever it is) they can completely wash their hands of it once it’s been handed off to the management company. The management, in turn, simply view it as a cash cow rather than a commitment: tenants must pay extortionate monthly fees but have little recourse to law if the management company don’t do anything useful. In other words, the building company has an economic incentive to construct the shittiest possible building with no attention at all to energy efficiency or ease of maintenance; all that is somebody else’s problem. The management company have no economic incentive to look after the building because doing so erodes their profits.[/quote]
After a certain number of units are sold, the developer is obliged to had over management of the building to a management committee. However, since the committee is made up of residents, they certainly DO have an incentive to look after the building. Adding bars to the windows or random illegal extensions DOES reduce property value, and is much less common on buildings built in the last decade.