I’m from the US, and I’m happy to return to Taiwan after every visit home. People in the US seem fake and wasteful to me, and I have been treated just like another Taiwanese in the 20+ years I’ve been here. Outside of property, costs are much better here and health care is great. I have about as much buying power as someone making three times as much in the US because the cost of living is so much less and I’m not taxed to death. Plus I only need to work 4-6 hours a day to be in that position. To succeed here, you just have to get yourself accepted into the right social circles and take advantage of the opportunities that arise.
Home is the word most people would use in English as well IMO.
People always ask me things like
I go home every single day!
Home is 20km, how can I miss it?
Tonight.
You make it sound like Danshui is very far away. It’s only 20km. I know you’re used to having 30 711s and 19 FamilyMarts across the street, but come on.
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So, are you taiwanese?
No. I am Italian-Canadian
Why does this person have the username “Test”?
Maybe that’s why.
In their line of thought, you can’t be home if you aren’t a national. You could be kicked out of the country, for whatever reason, which wouldn’t be possible if this was your home.
Obviously, I understand that. But I like answering this way because home is what you make of it.
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Locals will never miss an opportunity to remind you that you are an outside country person! Just when I’m starting to feel a little Taiwanese, it tends to happen…
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I just moved there actually, loving it so far.
Maybe I’m mistaken but I never saw it that way. Like if they are from Kaohsiung but live in Taipei, they say I wanna go back home when they go to visit their parents’ home. Basically your real “home” is where your parents live, which also probably is where you grew up. I disagree with that notion but I never felt like it comes from bad intents either.
How long have you been in Taiwan?
Not long, a little over 6 months.
That answers why you are still naive about the locals’ comments.
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i think i’m going to just give an honest answer to the ‘when are you going home’ question. when i finally get tired of the pollution, scooters and general backwards-ness of taiwan.
its not like taiwan is a shit hole and the west is the land of milk and honey like taiwanese imply, but its pretty depressing that things can’t move forward on the things that actually matter to me such as the environment because people don’t want to stop being selfish assholes.
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Maybe you are right, we’ll see. Maybe I’ve been lucky so far but in general my experience have been more positive than Forumosan comments (except scooters and the shear magnitude of urban ugliness which are actually understated here).
Fun to read. I ‘enjoyed’ similar questions many years ago.
Post-Brexit Britain awaits you with open arms 
Generation Y Taiwanese here. I dreamed of an American Town in Taiwan, much like the “China Town” you’ve seen in big US cities. BUT back to reality…It’s true that Chinese culture is closed-minded; that’s why there’s China Town in the first place, so those who don’t want to join the melting pot can stick with their own. Cultural Characteristics are hard to shape into something that can fit everyone’s appetite…the only thing I can say is…walk away. And I don’t think labor jobs are much better.
Americans, or more broadly western people, also stick to their own. There’s many expats who only eat western food, only have western friends and don’t really engage in any Taiwanese or Chinese cultural activities. So that’s not a uniquely Chinese phenomenon, and I also don’t think it’s fair to label Chinese culture “close minded.”
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