Living my life: February 2016

Taiwan (My third home)

First i would like to post something that a good friend of mine wrote for me on the topic of Taiwan and later you can see why i love Taiwan so much!

Taiwan in different aspects by Hui-Yu Chung

Diversification

Due to the geographical position, Taiwan is an island with a lot diversity. Centered in the coastal area of East Asia, it seems that Taiwan is not only affected by China from the west, but also Japan and Korea from North, Southeastern Asian countries from the South, and US from the East due to the historical military strategy.

In history, Taiwan was colonized by Dutch and Spanish since 17th century, by Japan in early 19th century, which make it kind of westernized compared to China. The arrival of US after the WWII also changed the lifestyle here. By the way, we're also gay and lesbian friendlier than most of the Asia countries (including South Korea and Japan).

As for nature, Taiwan also has a lot of ecological diversity. It's located in subtropical zone, which makes the south part of the island scattered by tropical vegetation, while the northern part has a subtropical. Moreover, temperate and frigid creature also existed since we have very high mountains all around. There are more than 100 mountains exceeding 3000m in height in the central area of Taiwan. Surrounded by The Pacific Ocean, Taiwan also has a thriving coastal Eco life such as sand, wetlands...etc. Because this island is just too wet all year round... haha!

Convenience

Since this island is not too big, it has difficulties on delivering enough living space. We live in quite a comfortable and convenient life. Most online shopping malls provide delivery within 6 hours in Taipei City or New Taipei City. Even if you don't live in these two metropolitan areas, you can still get your goods within 24 hours (otherwise you'll get some coupons for compensation). Wide-spread 24hr-running convenient stores also make life easier.

Religion

Major two religions here are Taoism and Mahayana Buddhism (A little different from Theravada Buddhism in countries such as Myanmar), or a mixture between them. Christian and Catholic are very common here, too, while Muslims also take some small part. There are also quite a lot people without certain religion.

Generations

Our Grandma and Grandpa live in times when Japanese was colonizing this area. To benefit from them occupying Southeast Asia during WWII, Japanese people educated Taiwanese and make them regard themselves as Japanese. Moreover, since Japanese built Taiwan and made it a better place to live, some people of that generation appreciate Japan even if they were colonized. Therefore, Japanese culture effected part of elder Taiwanese people. (For example, my grandma speaks some Japanese because she learned it in elementary school.)

After the civil war between the Communist Party of China and Kuomintang (named KMT here), in Mainland China, the defeated KMT retreated to Taiwan and formed a government (which represents the currently Republic of China, or R.O.C) in 1949. Our Parents grew up at the time when KMT was ruling and constructing this place. However, it's also known as the time of "white terror", which means you cannot say something bad of the government, otherwise, you'll "disappear" or "BEING committed suicide" somewhere without any reason.

Even though the political environments was bad, it was also a great time for economy. Business opportunities were all around. You could accumulate more and more money in case you are willing to work harder.

I was born in the year when Taiwan totally opened and embraced democracy. However, we still remember the time when China's missiles were heading to us during the time of our first president election in my childhood. We grew in a fairly wealthier environment compared to the previous generation. However, somewhat like Japan, the economy also seems to halt these years.

Difficulties to the younger people

The most urgent difficulties to the youngsters here is that the house prices rose to high compared with the salary here. Due to the traditional thought of "There is soil, there is wealth" from Chinese culture, it is also considered that one should own some real estates before he/she has a "complete" family (or to be a real "grown up"). Therefore, except for some people who are lucky enough that their parents support them buying their real estate, lots of Taiwanese borrow money from the banks to buy a house, working very hard to earn more money to pay back, however live in a very tight budget, sacrificing the whole family's quality of life for decades. It is also obvious that one might miss some other possibilities in their life if they want to meet this "successful prototype".

The ambiguity of political situation with People's Republic of China is also a subtle challenge for younger people here. We don’t see a clear future for this island due to these complicated problems. Therefore, people with good skills and ability often plan to move out because they don't want to be unified with China, which is a great loss for this island.

for more info about the China-Taiwan(R.O.C.) problem, you can refer to this BBC report:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34729538

Thanks again to my great friend for taking her time to write this!

My story

After Slovenia and America this is definitely a place I want to live one day. Since I’m actually planning to move to America soon I am definitely looking for a job in Taiwan. Why? It’s a perfect combination of Chinese/ Asian culture, speaking Chinese and English (some), friendly people and It makes me feel like at home (actually definitely more than Slovenia :/). I actually visited Taiwan two times for 14 days in total. Each time was better and each time I didn’t want to leave Taiwan!

The island of Taiwan is actually not that small and most of it is covered by forests or hills and cities only go from north through west side down to the south. Taipei is the capital and most touristy as well with many able to speak English. The interesting thing I found about Taiwan is that their habits are very civilized and organized (standing in line for an elevator and bus or anything else, will always apologize, respect rules, etc.), while keeping their standards of living as high as well (little pollution, good food quality, health conscious, etc.). Sounds like Europe, except that nothing looks like Europe, with narrow streets filled with small eateries, local shops, and cute older people talking amongst each other. The smaller the cities you go to the more Chinese people get, but in a good way. I’ve been to quite a few places in Taiwan, but the Taipei area and surrounding cater to some of my favorite places on the island.

Yeliu（野柳）

Yeliu is a park north east from the capital and it’s a small park by the shore with very interesting rock formations. There are many sights and great views nearby, so if you plan to visit it do take at least half a day to walk around.

jiufen (九份)and Shifen (十分 )

Jiufen

Shifen

Both jiufen and shifen can both be seen in one day since there is a direct bus from the city to shifen and between the two is an old train that takes you back a couple of centuries. Jiufen is really famous for its food street and an amazing view from the hill, while shifen is famous for the lanterns where many everyday come and write on the lantern, let it go and hope what they wrote will come true!

Yangmingshan national park (阳明山公园)

Going to the highest peak in Taipei	Volcanic rocks and Sulfur coming out

It’s a nice park just a little out from the city with many hiking trails for tourists and locals. There is also a nice path to the highest peak of Taipei at 1120m.

Beitou (北投) hotspring

Beitou is a nice little village at the end of the subway track. It has this main hot pool and there are numerous public and private hot pools where you can soak all your troubles away. A really great way to spend your morning or afternoon in Taipei. For the private pools you will have to be naked.

Taipei city (台北市)

A temple in the city, the respect for the religion is totally different than in China.
Bags of herbs, from which they can also make you a very bitter tea, but healthy	Market
This is only one out of hundreds stands in shilin food market	A great pictures of the Taipei 101 tower from the nearby hills
	One of the masterpieces in the art district
Normal Taipei street with motorcycles everywhere	Bali part, on the other side of the river in Taipei

This is the art district from far. The streets are full of small boutiques, art galleries and painted walls	The oldest part of Taiwan, really nicely maintained full with medical herb shops
More modern herb shop	The national Taiwan museum (with only Chinese history!!)
Old more traditional herb shop	Temple in Taipei Center

TIP: All these places (except Taipei city) is a little outside of the city, but they are really easily accessible with the public bus from Taipei city. Traveling by bus is the cheapest way to travel in Taiwan also very comfortable and convenient. There are also high speed trains between the cities but these cost much more and are actually not that much faster. I mean it’s a small island, it can’t be that much faster. The above places are within one from the city. Especially jiufen is very famous for its food, but of course in Taipei you could also find all sorts of different sights that will really surprise you, especially when It comes to buildings and places that have a really long tradition.

If you decide to visit this paradise take at least 2 days around the city and 1 or 2 days out of the city. But Taiwan isn’t only about Taipei, but it’s actually much more. I’ve also been on a random bus tour for 2 days. One day I just decided I would go to a bus stop and take a random bus and see where it took me (only because a friend of mine promised me to go with me for the weekend, but then didn’t want to, which turned out to be even better!). I ended up in the Taoyuan city next to Taipei (Zhongli district), I didn’t have a clue where I was going which was half of the fun. Once I arrived I decided to just walk around for a couple of hours and see what good the place has. This was like a test of how much I really love Taiwan, wanted to prove that no matter where I’ll be I will like it and of course I did! The place where I disembarked was much slower than other cities and I already knew I would like. Zhongli part of Taoyuan was nice and nature oriented with many signs warning about the danger of pollution, parks, temples and I also found really old streets.

The other place was Taizhong which Is a place I wanted to visit the first time I came to Taiwan but it didn’t turn out that way, well this time it did, I guess! This would be my favorite place in Taiwan, because it has free public transport, free entrance into museum and combining the fact that the parks are amazing, people are heavenly and there is not one single thing bad about it! It’s just heaven\

The last place I have been is Tainan (So I’ve everywhere, accept Taixi...Chinese joke). This was another one of mine on a whim trips. I took a speed train one way and a bus the other way and bus is much cheaper and comfortable as well. I spend two wonderful days there and it was so discovering to meet such relaxed and cool people! I actually didn’t have anything booked and just found a place online and went there. When I got there I found that no one was at the hostel, so I called the number given and the lady told me that someone will let me in. A couple of minutes later a lovely girl my age came to open the door, gave me the tour, and give me a bike to rent out. The funniest thing was when she told me she just got there 2h ago and that she is a guest as well, so I asked her if she wants to meet at the food market later and this is where our friendship started. The night and next day we had sooo much fun, riding on her scooter around the city, she riding on the back of my bicycle around Tainan, eating million different types of food and soo much more. It was just so nice to meet someone who you immediately get along with! The funny thing is that I actually met the owner next morning for breakfast and what she told me will always stuck with me: I trust everyone and I know they will return that trust, people are not bad but sometimes others make them to be bad! That’s why I let all my guest be like a family!

This part is written by my really special friend, she said a couple of things about the people and live on Taiwan. But first I'll show you my Taiwanese family!