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[Jamer]

Well I thought I'd add my two cents on teaching and living in Taiwan. One thing I have learned since coming to Taiwan is every single person has a different intepretation on working and living here. I remember reading websites, articles, etc. about teaching and living and in Taiwan, and my experience shared similarities, but did not mimic the experiences of other people. In categories, I'll lay out the pros and cons

Landscapes, cities, Geography

Pros The nature here is amazing and definitely without a doubt Taiwan's biggest tourist attraction. I, unfortunately, only got to see Kenting and a few mountains in south Taiwan. But the sites were easily comparable to trips I've taken to Yellowstone in the US. Hotsprings are abundant, the mountains are amazing and the coasts and wildlife are amazing as well.

Cons The cities here are, in a word, horrible! Extremely crowded, lack trash facilities and the people who do come and pick it up don't do a very good job, grime filled buildings saturate the skylines, virtually impossible to walk as sidewalks are filled with scooters and streets are filled with reckless car drivers and scooter drivers(and this overadundance of cars and scooters leads to sometimes unbelieveable pollutions). I'll probably get a lot of shit for this point but this is my perspective and I have travelled throughout the US, Asia and Europe, and out of all the places I've been Taiwan takes the cake for having the worst cities imaginable. Clubs and bars here get boring so fast!

Teaching

Pros Pretty easy work and I had a hard working gig as an English teacher here-easiest job i've had in my life actually. Money is awesome as I have saved tons of dough and plan on doing some big time travelling that I never thought would be possible. Kids can be great as special bonds easily develop and this really helps in dealing with isolation and homesickness as since this is a common symptom of living abroad

Cons Employers will scam you, sometimes to a big extent, sometimes to a little extent, but they will always break the contract in some way to their favor as they did with me luckily only in a minor extent. Often times the owners of school have next to no idea on education or language learning, and put forth very unrealistic expectations of students as I found that they thought kids who barely even knew how to say "hello" could speak English fluently after 10 weeks of classes. Of course as other posters have noted, it's a business and it's expected. I could go on, but I don't have the attention span to rant.

Social side
Pros I have made some of the closest friends ever here in Taiwan and it is by far the hardest part of leaving here. The fact that you are abroad and going through the struggles and joys that may come with it makes it extremely easy to meet fellow expats who are going through or have gone what you are going through, and bonds develop very quick-again this is with me. If you are a guy, of course, getting women requires only a little difficulty though sometimes the women aren't that great(read on)

Cons Taiwanese, I find and generally speaking are extremely uptight and for that matter pretty boring; moreover, it feels wierd walking around town surruounded by hundreds, thousands of people yet you are treating like thin air (note all of my close friends here are expats, I don't have one local friend and I speak failry good Chinese and very open to meeting and getting to know anyone). The women while they may go crazy for foriegners, the cultural divide makes it pretty hard to date. I dated a few girls here and I found that they were both very immature when it came to sex(product of society I know) and they would often times get into arguments for very trivial things, and these two things made the relationship not that fun and subsequently the reason I don't think I could ever date a local unless they have lived in the west and understand where we come from. There are also of course the club girls-not delving into this!

Misc.
Pros 24 hour food places are abundant, I mean I got a teppenyaki place right outside my apartment so if I want steak at 3 in the morning, I got it. Driving around on a scooter is a lot of fun. Food can be good-hot pot, fresh fruit juice, green tea.

Cons Driving is dangerous and people drive like total idiots. The Taiwanese taste in food can be rather unappetizing-stinky tofu, sushi filled with mayonaise corn, ham-whatever you can think of, duck's blood rice, fried everything. I also am pretty athletic and man taiwanese are the most non-athletic people on the planet (that's off-record LOL).


So I've spent a year, gonna do some travelling and head home and move on to Grad school. I may come back to Taiwan, I've found that Taiwan has all the positives that I don't have at home, but the positives of my home country aren't there either-so I guess it balances out and I'll have to see how I feel when I get home.

That's my view on living and teaching in Taiwan

[BigWally]

good post....like you said your experience seems to share similarities of a lot of others, and there are some differences...i really like reading personal opinions like these because it gives you another look at Taiwan that you cant get from a website or a book....

cheers

[Jamer]

Well I should also mention one more thing. I am not a fashion nut though I do like to dress somewhat decently and Taiwan has the worst fashion sense known to mankind-think modern Japanese fashion meets Walmart. I remember I would look hours for a simple shirt and I found either the shirt wouldn't fit right as my western body is not suited for it or it would fit right but it would have cheesy logos and crap on it. This is one of the reasons I'm actually glad to leave Taiwan.

[dangerousapple]

I love this place, but still need to get out for a long weekend a couple of times a year. One of the great things about Taiwan is that everywhere in Asia is just a short trip away, and flights are fairly cheap.

As for shopping, I get my clothes at the Russian market in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Fill a duffel bag of name brand goodies for US$100. See a different culture, decompress for a while, and get your clothes for a year. Nice.

[SanChong]

Very interesting post. It's always good to hear an individual perspective on being here. Some of my thoughts:

[Jamer]

[mpan]

"irregardless" is not a word ..... sorry ... just makes me nuts when people use it

[Pop Fly]

[I_is_teach_English]

[Pop Fly]

[Deicide]

[dangerousapple]

Korea? Back when the Asian financial crisis hit (1997 or so) hundreds of teachers came over here from Korea, because they couldn't find work. People joked that it was a Korean refugee crisis! Every one of them that I met said the only reason they were in Korea was for the money, and that living there was pure hell. I wouldn't personally know, as I haven't been there yet, but even my Taiwanese friends who have been there say it's boring!

[I_is_teach_English]

[SanChong]