Why I love Taiwan

So, another good story about Taiwanese people. I was riding on a ubike in Her Ping Fu Xing area, wallet falls out of pocket, 5 mins later, notice wallet is missing, frantically retrace route, no luck. Get a phone call from a woman who has found my wallet (name card was in wallet with cell no). Wallet returned. Seriously, how lucky is that.

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Plenty of nice stories like this for Taiwan.
My wife lost her wallet around Bi-Hu Lake in Neihu one day. A jogger happened to run by it, picked it up, and dropped it off at the nearest police station about 2-3 blocks away. The police called up my wife and told her, and she went and picked it up at the station.

Just for the record, Da’an District(where the OP was) and Neihu District are considered rather wealthy residential areas.
If you lose your wallet in Wanhua District, say around Longshan Temple, then probably won’t be so lucky.

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Yeah those wealthy civilized Da-an/Neihu people are definitely higher quality than the riff-raff in Wanhua. /sarcasm off

Guy

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I’ve had about ten of those types of experiences. Losing things, dropping things, leaving things behind (or my wife or kids doing something like this), and then someone going out of their way to return it. And then I’ve done things like accidentally leaving my valuables in plain sight at a swimming pool and not in the locker, and finding everything untouched after my swim.

Then there is a small percentage of the population that screws the place up for everyone else. I’ve had a scooter stolen, for example. I sometimes wish for Singapore-like control here in Taiwan because, again, I believe it’s a small (very small) percentage of the population that ruins things for everyone else. I’ve heard many Taiwanese say basically the same thing.

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Nice thread.

Taiwan and its people deserve this, and I strongly believe that all the negativity here on the forum is largely by people who should just go back home (only to find out how bad it might be there …).

I have been and seen half the planet, and been living half of my life overseas.
Taiwan might not be perfect, but which place in this world is?

Most of its people are more than nice, its lifestyle a nice combination between business orientated and relaxation, it is safe, its not poor, its got plentiful of beautiful places, and most of that all just a step outside the door.

Yeah, I know the problematic areas, but again, tell me which place does not have its problems.

And about Singapore, yeah, it is nice for a week as a tourist, but gets into your nerves if you are there any longer, at least to me.

The freedom you have in Taiwan, in combination with its general safety, is almost unprecedented, and we should treasure it all.

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I’ve been here 13 years and my wife and I are already discussing a house in Hualien for retirement. I obviously find something good/positive here! I should have been more careful about throwing Singapore into the conversation. I’ve never been to Singapore. I just mean some serious policing of the bad elements would be nice. And my impression is that most Taiwanese would agree with me on this.

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When we decided that China was really enough, we made a 3 weeks trip through most of Taiwan, with early retirement in mind.
That was probably the best preparation we ever made, and a bit surprisingly, but for many reasons, we ended up in Tamsui, and not in Hualien or Taidong.
What I want to say is, think about all of the consequences, including transport, convenience, healthcare, etc. before you decide, or just try it out for a year by renting something where u plan to retire.

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When I go out for bike rides, we usually stop at convenient stores. Sometimes, our bikes, some of them worth well over 100K NTD, aren’t able to be placed in our line of site, but we don’t fret because there’s probably a 0.001% chance of it being stolen. It’s been two years and the most that has happened is a pedestrian not noticing his surroundings and accidentally knocking over our bikes.

Another instance, more like multiple instances, with my scooter, I’ve left the keys in the ignition from 9AM in the morning to 530PM in the afternoon and the scooter is always there. This is by work near Zhongshan MRT. Another time I left the keys in the ignition near Gong Guan/NTU area and I got back to find the keys in the bottle holder area right under the ignition. Not sure if they just don’t want my 10 year old hunk of junk or they’re just nice people.

You know lose of short term term memory is the beginning, right? :wink:
Luckily an other good point of TW, their medical care is above standard, and costs are rather low …

Going off on a tangent here, but I think I agree with you. We go to Hualien several times a year because my wife is originally from Hualien and so there’s family there. But we’ve been living in big cities for so long, I think we need to carefully consider that move.

And to make this post relevant, I think it would be possible to get a small place in Hualien and keep our place in New Taipei City. 2 hours on the train. Another reason to love Taiwan. (Moderators is that good enough to not get this pulled into another thread?!)

Longshan Temple is practically inner city Johannesburg. I never go their without an armed escort.

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I’d choose Taiwan over Singapore every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Those people have some rather large sticks up their attitudes. The only thing Singapore has over Taiwan in my eyes is the food. If the two countries could trade cuisines, I’d be a happy man.

Funny, I’m over there on a pretty regular basis and I’ve never had even a whiff of trouble. The atmosphere is a bit seedy, but I’ve never felt unsafe there.

How long did you pay your health insurance and labour insurance fees here?
Maybe you should go back home instead of being a leech on our health system?

People can have any opinion they like. Maybe they have a reason for that opinion. That’s their business.

Yours, Longtime resident.

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Taiwan is so safe the whole country looks like Fort Knox.

Maybe that’s why it’s so safe?:whistle:

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if you mean the literally area around the MRT station that is full of homeless people then yes but thats stating the obvious. the rest of the district is fine actually. i go there often.

Armed escort? You’re kidding, right?

The only danger you may encounter there is probably being pestered by beggars and street prostitutes, and that’s all. Ignore them, walk past them(or go with them if that’s your thing), and nothing more.
How can it be compared with South Africa or the US where people literally got shot or stabbed?

If you want to make an analogy for LongShen Temple with other foreign cities, then probably Amsterdam or Frankfurt central train station are the most suitable ones, where there’re also quite a few beggars, junkies, and prostitutes around the area, but hardly any criminal crime. Your losing wallet may well be taken away and then it’s gone forever, but hardly any criminal will commit crime against you. So, probably Amsterdam or Frankfurt, but definitely not Johannesburg.

I think it might be harder to find an area that is unsafe in Taipei. Unless we’re talking about standing at the edge of a cliff on Yang Ming Shan.

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If you think the mean streets of Taipei are dangerous I have to wonder what cities you are comparing it to. It’s by far the safest city I’ve ever been to.

What metro in the western world is safer?

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