After spending 2.5 years in mainland China on and off, I decided to go to Taiwan. I’ve been in California now for about a year where I’m from. Itching to leave, but don’t want to go to the Wild West Mainland. I have a feeling Taiwan would be more livable. I guess I’ll probably end up teaching english at first until something else pops up. I am acupuncturist as well as a video editor. Maybe can work with that in Taiwan., maybe not. It’s ok. I like teaching. I speak pretty good Mandarin. What do you guys think? You think I’ll notice a difference between Taiwan and mainland or is it equally as frustrating? Those of you that get frustrated with Taiwan and its people and have never spent considerable amount of time in China, you have no idea! I was living in shanghai for a lot of it. I lived in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Big cities aren’t that interesting to me. I hear Tai Zhong or Taichung, weird pinyin you guys got going on, is cool. I hear the air is better and its cheaper and more mellow.
I look forward to lots of late night drinking with some of you!
Yeah mellow is totally the wrong word choice. Less hustle and bustle than Tai Bei and better air? Thats what I heard. Maybe you can tell me the differences between the 2 cities since you are familiar with them.
Taipei’s got the best air of all the cities now. Especially out in the suburbs near the mountains. Air pol here is almost all traffic related (as opposed to other cities where it’s cars and factories). Get away from cars and the air is fine.
Taichung is at least 10 years behind Taipei in its public transportation system and basic infrastructure. It’s about the least liveable city in the country now.
Taipei is actually fairly laid back for a big city. Taiwanese are friendly everywhere. There’s very little attitude. No one tries to rip you off. You can walk around drunk at 3am and not worry about your safety. It’s not like Shanghai or HK. Tainan is a good place too.
As I’ve said before, most smaller cities in Taiwan exaggerate the problems of the bigger ones (pollution, traffic, etc) without offering any of the benefits.
Mucha Man thank you for that very thorough response. I keep hearing Taipei has horrible air. What I consider horrible air pollution is Beijing. I doubt its that bad there. So TaiPei or Tai Bei is the cool spot to live huh? What about living expenses. Apartment rentals. In Shanghai I had a 2 bedroom apt in the heart of the city for around $400. 3200 RMB. Is Taipei expensive? I guess you get more for yoru money there than Tai zhong.
I may actually make my decision where I live by the responses on this site. Funny. I have no friends in Taiwan.
[quote=“Acujer”]Muzha Man thank you for that very thorough response. I keep hearing Taipei has horrible air. What I consider horrible air pollution is Beijing. I doubt its that bad there. So Taipei or Tai Bei is the cool spot to live huh? What about living expenses. Apartment rentals. In Shanghai I had a 2 bedroom apt in the heart of the city for around $400. 3200 RMB. Is Taipei expensive? I guess you get more for yoru money there than Tai zhong.
I may actually make my decision where I live by the responses on this site. Funny. I have no friends in Taiwan.[/quote]
I was in Beijing last summer. My god, the air here is so much better. Beijing is nasty all day. Here, right downtown it gets bad during the business day but at night it’s fine. During the windy fall months you don’t even notice the air at all. On average the air downtown is comparable to London, though there are maybe 20 days a year when it is much worse, usually in the spring when we get a sandstorm from China. The air quality has improved a great deal in the past ten and five years so old rumors persist.
You’d proably pay twice what you did in Shanghai in downtown Taipei. But if you live in the outer suburbs it’s cheaper (and the air is better and you are close to the mountains. I’m 10 minutes from the trails, and 20 minutes from downtown.)
Don’t listen to them. If you aren’t a city boy, don’t move to Taipei. I have to leave taipei at least one weekend a month (usually more) to stay sane.
I LOVE TaiJhong. But I have also heard of people being able to make a living in BaiShaWan, HuaLian, PingTou and other wonderful places. If you are chasing the dollar and/ or wish to be around a bunch of other foreigners than Taipei is your best bet. If you want somewhere nice and somewhere away go somewhere else.
However, if you want the best of both worlds I suggest something on the end of an MRT like Danshui, Xindian, or Muzha.
I have lived in all three. Other than people staring constantly in Danshui, i have loved all three. I just moved into XinYi (downtownish) from Muzha (suburbia) and man do I miss Muzha.
Very interesting to see the different perceptions.
I may be on the long term plan for Taiwan. But i’ll teach first, and I am not gonna make my millions teaching. I would like to save some money though for travel and beer and stuff. I like cities but I am not attached to them. Lots of foreigners I don’t care either since I speak Mandarin and am very familiar with Chinese people. But some foreigners, definitely. I need some sort of expat scene. I guess best of both worlds is what I want. Close to nature, if possible, cleaner air, decent teaching jobs, expat scene, and markets where you can buy Cheese and stuff, and not pay through the roof. But a small village in Mainland you may be treated like a freak. I don’t want that.
This may develop into a good discussion hopefully.
One big advantage about Taizhong and the surrounding area (I’m in Zhanghua, about 15km south of Taizhong) is that in an equal amount of time you can be in either Taipei or Kaohsiung (the big city in the south). And everywhere in between. Makes it great for easy travel. The only place it’s not easy to get to is the east coast (unless you have a car and drive over the mountains).
Can you make comparisons to Mainland? Like Taipei is like Beijing and Tai Zhong like Shanghai or something? Suburbs are like Gu Bei. Maybe you never been over there.
I guess I fly into Tai Bei anyways. I don’t even know where I’ll go once I fly into the airport.
I live at the end of the Xindian MRT line. I can hike on a trail – a choice of several, actually – and go for a stone oven-baked pizza and draught Stella within 5 minutes of the trailhead. Or go for a swim in the river. Or both.
The above is 2 minutes from my house, 20 minutes or so by MRT from downtown. I pay a bit more than you for rent – you’re on NT$13,000 or so for 2-bedroom, I’m NT$17,000 for a semi-detached 3-bedroom with a yard. It suits me just fine.
