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Laocius
Jul 6, 2013

Sorry to tell you this, but I’ve lived in both Tallahassee and Taipei, and Taipei is the significantly hotter and more humid of the two.

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CovfefeCatCafe
Apr 11, 2006

A fresh attitude
brewed daily!
Same, I grew up in NW Florida and I would say Taipei is on par, often worse in terms of heat and humidity.

LimburgLimbo
Feb 10, 2008
I've been surprised by how many people don't realize, but you can opt-in for vaccine already if you like jfyi. Grabbed mine today. It's AZ so some people might want to wait for one of the mRNA ones, but it's there if you want it.

GoutPatrol
Oct 17, 2009

*Stupid Babby*

I believe you still need to tell them you intend to travel out of the country soon.

LimburgLimbo
Feb 10, 2008
Yeah but seems they're not strict and not a massive wait list; wife called Thurs and got me an appointment immediately on Monday. There's actually concerns that their first received AZ doses are going to expire as-is. This is in the South so may be more to go around relatively though. I think more people are waiting for Moderna since 5mm arrive in May: https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202104150022

I'm considered high-risk and even qualified to get it free since I live with wife, who is a front-line worker, at any rate:
https://www.cdc.gov.tw/Bulletin/Detail/R1uGsf55IMBBnu24rzUGCA?typeid=9

POCKET CHOMP
Jul 20, 2003

me irl.
I've been debating all week about whether to go get it, precisely because it's the AZ one. If the choice is between AZ and nothing, I'd take the AZ shot, for sure. But I have definitely considered holding out for the Moderna shipments to arrive. It's not really clear if the government will allow people to choose their brand when multiple brands are available, though, so... I dunno, I kind of just want to get it done with. Would feel pretty dumb if I die of a rare blood clot or whatever, though, lmao.

And this data's a few weeks out of date by now, but I'm not so sure there are a lot of people waiting out for Moderna:

https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202104220024 posted:

In a recent poll conducted by cable television channel TVBS, 41 percent of respondents said they were willing to be vaccinated if COVID-19 vaccines are made available to everyone in Taiwan, down 7 percentage points from a previous survey in March. A total of 45 percent were not willing, up 6 percentage points, with 14 percent expressing no opinion.

Meanwhile, only 29 percent of respondents indicated they were willing to take the AstraZeneca vaccine, with 52 percent saying they were not willing.

That compares to 46 percent who were willing, and 36 percent unwilling to get the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and 36 percent who were willing and 41 percent unwilling to take the Moderna vaccine.

The poll, which surveyed 1,005 adults in Taiwan between March 30 and April 6, has a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.


TL;DR: Taiwanese in general seem to be really COVID-19 vaccine-averse. 41% overall willing to get any vaccine, 46% willing to get Pfizer, 36% willing to get Moderna, and 29% willing to get AZ.

TBQH, this kind of mentality made sense with the realistically very low risk of catching it domestically when this survey was done in mid-April. But the CECC has indicated that the recent domestic cluster infections hasn't really led to a huge surge of people getting the vaccine. And my own anecdotal evidence suggests the same, as I've watched the reservation system for the self-paid option at the hospital nearest to me (and I live in the northern metropolis). Up until 6 PM today I could've booked an appointment for tomorrow, and Wed-Fri is varying from 50%-70% booked. Next week is basically wide open.

LimburgLimbo
Feb 10, 2008

POCKET CHOMP posted:

TBQH, this kind of mentality made sense with the realistically very low risk of catching it domestically when this survey was done in mid-April. But the CECC has indicated that the recent domestic cluster infections hasn't really led to a huge surge of people getting the vaccine. And my own anecdotal evidence suggests the same, as I've watched the reservation system for the self-paid option at the hospital nearest to me (and I live in the northern metropolis). Up until 6 PM today I could've booked an appointment for tomorrow, and Wed-Fri is varying from 50%-70% booked. Next week is basically wide open.

Yep, for real I would not be surprised if some of the early AZ expires unused

Spanish Matlock
Sep 6, 2004

If you want to play the I-didn't-know-this-was-a-hippo-bar game with me, that's fine.

LimburgLimbo posted:

I've been surprised by how many people don't realize, but you can opt-in for vaccine already if you like jfyi. Grabbed mine today. It's AZ so some people might want to wait for one of the mRNA ones, but it's there if you want it.

AFAIK the AZ vaccine is an mRNA one. You might be thinking of the China one that's just like, regular rear end "Here's a virus we slapped around for a bit" kind.

POCKET CHOMP
Jul 20, 2003

me irl.
AZ and J&J are adenovirus-based, while Pfizer and Moderna are mRNA-based.

thegoat
Jan 26, 2004
Getting mine today. Also in the south.

Edit: all done. Nurse said to check business as my reason. Said it doesn’t matter. Also signs up saying they don’t have any more bookings open.

thegoat fucked around with this message at 03:52 on May 4, 2021

LimburgLimbo
Feb 10, 2008
Remember back when we posted this stuff and there was no domestic spread? Good times, good times.

At least we're down to 54 cases and only 37 of those out of quarantine, but also Delta may have got out, and at that right where most of my family lives so we'll see how that poo poo goes down.

POCKET CHOMP
Jul 20, 2003

me irl.
lol remember when you could just walk in and get a vaccine and they were worried that they were actually gonna expire? lmao.

has anyone here who got the first dose gotten the second shot? i know they announced a week ago or so that people who got their first shot before 5/9 could go in for round 2. i missed that cutoff by 2 days but supposedly the second shot is more effective if you stretch it even further to 10-12 weeks after the first, so i'm not exactly super worried, but i do kinda wonder what the process is for us totally stupid weirdos who got the vaccine back when nobody wanted it.

LimburgLimbo
Feb 10, 2008

POCKET CHOMP posted:

lol remember when you could just walk in and get a vaccine and they were worried that they were actually gonna expire? lmao.

has anyone here who got the first dose gotten the second shot? i know they announced a week ago or so that people who got their first shot before 5/9 could go in for round 2. i missed that cutoff by 2 days but supposedly the second shot is more effective if you stretch it even further to 10-12 weeks after the first, so i'm not exactly super worried, but i do kinda wonder what the process is for us totally stupid weirdos who got the vaccine back when nobody wanted it.

I'm waiting to hit 10 weeks since I got mine 5/3, so we'll see. I've seen comments from people who got it or set up reservations already. Seems like everything varies according to hospital though so who knows.

GoutPatrol
Oct 17, 2009

*Stupid Babby*

I'm also waiting to see when I can get the 2nd shot of AZ. I had mine on 5/12.

in the final all hands meeting (on Google meet) my boss said that all teachers would be expected to get vaccinated before school begins on September 1st. Now this dude is a dumbass but I could see the MOE saying something like that. The school had been collecting info on how got shots already. They didn't tell how to to get these shots. My original waiting time was supposed to be until July 8.

LimburgLimbo
Feb 10, 2008
Some interesting stuff someone posted in the CSPAM thread:

https://twitter.com/wearytolove/status/1409179879786967042?s=20

It has crossed my mind how it’s interesting Taiwan still uses 武漢肺炎 so much whereas elsewhere it and similar terms are frowned upon because of rising sinophilia and not wanting to contribute to that.

Ailumao
Nov 4, 2004

tbf people in China also used it early on, but I never really saw it used anywhere official? Deffo a lot of zhihu and wechat stuff about it early on, and anti-hubei people weirdness continued through the year.

LimburgLimbo
Feb 10, 2008
Yeah it’s a flu-like disease that was first discovered in Wuhan; it’s a reasonable name in isolation, it just became a racist dogwhistle in the US so now frowned upon. Outside of that context it’s not *as bad* but clearly people and the greens in particular still leverage it to remind people it came from mainland originally.

url
Apr 23, 2007

internet gnuru
"Fluhan virus" & "Xinnie the flu", are still the two best things to come out of all of this

LimburgLimbo
Feb 10, 2008
Due for AZ #2 tomorrow, fairly happy they're letting people get our second ones.

Just wish we could stomp out these last few cases, but people are so chomping at the bit to go gently caress around in restaurants I don't think it would pass.

POCKET CHOMP
Jul 20, 2003

me irl.
Did you just contact the hospital you originally got it at? The registration system at the hospital I went to was taken down after self-paid no longer was an option. I know I should research it but I just passed 8 weeks a few days ago, so I want to give it a bit longer before I bother with it.

(Also, I'm in the middle of a move so I got about a zillion other things on my mind but yeah, I really shouldn't forget about it.)

LimburgLimbo
Feb 10, 2008

POCKET CHOMP posted:

Did you just contact the hospital you originally got it at? The registration system at the hospital I went to was taken down after self-paid no longer was an option. I know I should research it but I just passed 8 weeks a few days ago, so I want to give it a bit longer before I bother with it.

(Also, I'm in the middle of a move so I got about a zillion other things on my mind but yeah, I really shouldn't forget about it.)

They’re being strict with 10 week thing so yeah you got time.

Ended up being at the same place as before, apparently other places didn’t have openings. Wife just called around the other day since she knew I was close to time. I hear there’s a place in Tainan a lot of people are going to but can’t remember which one.

GoutPatrol
Oct 17, 2009

*Stupid Babby*

POCKET CHOMP posted:

Did you just contact the hospital you originally got it at? The registration system at the hospital I went to was taken down after self-paid no longer was an option. I know I should research it but I just passed 8 weeks a few days ago, so I want to give it a bit longer before I bother with it.

(Also, I'm in the middle of a move so I got about a zillion other things on my mind but yeah, I really shouldn't forget about it.)

In Taichung the sign-ups for this week opened on Friday at 130 pm and filled up almost immediately. I'll try again this Friday to get one.

LimburgLimbo
Feb 10, 2008
7 day average of local cases in the wild (i.e. not discovered when already in quarantine) 3.4/day.

Pretty fuckin solid and beginning to think there’s a chance that save for a super spreader even we could actually wipe out domestic spread again with some luck.

USDA Choice
Jul 4, 2004

BIG TEN PRIDE
Has there been any talk of opening Taiwan up to international tourists in the next couple months? I searched online and it looks like as of a week ago some international students are being let in which is a step in the right direction, curious what you've seen on the ground though.

Pirate Radar
Apr 18, 2008

You're not my Ruthie!
You're not my Debbie!
You're not my Sherry!
It’s possible that things will improve to that level, but not a sure thing. I think what they’ve said they’d be looking for before changing things that much is 28 days with no new domestic cases (i.e. enough time for two 14-day incubation periods to have elapsed so nothing is sneaking by them) and even then you’d still need to do your 14-day quarantine upon entering the country.

GoutPatrol
Oct 17, 2009

*Stupid Babby*

I don't think they will let us the 14 day quarantine again until vaccination rates are high enough. They are very afraid of Delta getting in, because they saw how quickly they death count came for their elderly. Still only 3.5% fully vaxxed, and that's with AZ ( I'm one of them.) 40% have their first shot, and all of that is in the past 3 months.

My parents had plans to try and come here to see my baby in January if the quarantine went down to 3 days/nothing, I don't think that is happening any time soon, and I have no idea how I could go to the US with him and go through a 14 day back.

Enjoy our Palau bubbles if you want to leave the island any time soon.

Atlas Hugged
Mar 12, 2007


Put your arms around me,
fiddly digits, itchy britches
I love you all
Honestly this is probably the easiest age at which to travel since really all they do is sleep, poop, and eat, mostly at the same time. Baby isn't going to care of they're in America, a hotel, or an airplane. The hardest part is making sure you'll be able to get diapers and formula to the quarantine hotel.

GoutPatrol
Oct 17, 2009

*Stupid Babby*

This thread is now dead but if people are thinking about flying here, the mandatory quarantine is over.

Dick Boat
Jul 3, 2009

Pulse Demon

GoutPatrol posted:

This thread is now dead but if people are thinking about flying here, the mandatory quarantine is over.

I was going to visit for Chinese New Year, see my 姥姥

Haven't visited since 2019, really looking forward to it.

kenner116
May 15, 2009
Have noticed lots of foreign tourists the past couple weeks. Feels like 2019 again. 🙂

Atlas Hugged
Mar 12, 2007


Put your arms around me,
fiddly digits, itchy britches
I love you all
The LINE group was suggesting Jeremy Lin may not be the most relevant thread title these days, so maybe we should try and come up with a new one?

I suggest "Taiwan #1" as a classic default.

POCKET CHOMP
Jul 20, 2003

me irl.
The Taiwan Megathread: Uhhh... Dwight Howard?

Atlas Hugged
Mar 12, 2007


Put your arms around me,
fiddly digits, itchy britches
I love you all
The Taiwan Megathread 2.0: Comes for the bubble tea, stay for the Chinese invasion.

BabyFur Denny
Mar 18, 2003

kenner116 posted:

Have noticed lots of foreign tourists the past couple weeks. Feels like 2019 again. 🙂

I'll be one of them in April/May.
Currently the plan is to go to Hualien first, for Taroko gorge, hike to Hehuanshan
then Sun Moon Lake (which will require us to go back up through Taipei and down the other side of the island via train, I think?)
Then Chiayi for Alishan Forest and a hike to Yushan Peak before going back to Taipei for a week or so. What else is recommended around Chiayi?

How do locals react to non-local dialects? Do they assume you're from Mainland China?

GoutPatrol
Oct 17, 2009

*Stupid Babby*

BabyFur Denny posted:

I'll be one of them in April/May.
Currently the plan is to go to Hualien first, for Taroko gorge, hike to Hehuanshan
then Sun Moon Lake (which will require us to go back up through Taipei and down the other side of the island via train, I think?)
Then Chiayi for Alishan Forest and a hike to Yushan Peak before going back to Taipei for a week or so. What else is recommended around Chiayi?

How do locals react to non-local dialects? Do they assume you're from Mainland China?

There is a road that goes across the island between Hualien and Taichung/Nantou but regular traffic can't use it I think? Only a bus service.

Pirate Radar
Apr 18, 2008

You're not my Ruthie!
You're not my Debbie!
You're not my Sherry!

BabyFur Denny posted:

I'll be one of them in April/May.
Currently the plan is to go to Hualien first, for Taroko gorge, hike to Hehuanshan
then Sun Moon Lake (which will require us to go back up through Taipei and down the other side of the island via train, I think?)
Then Chiayi for Alishan Forest and a hike to Yushan Peak before going back to Taipei for a week or so. What else is recommended around Chiayi?

How do locals react to non-local dialects? Do they assume you're from Mainland China?

Just to be sure, maybe check and see if the road through Taroko up to Hehuanshan is open again—it goes in and out because of rockslides and such.

If you’re ethnically Chinese and speak like a mainlander people might think you are one, yeah, though they might also sniff out if you’re an ABC or similar based on how you dress and act.

vanity slug
Jul 20, 2010

GoutPatrol posted:

There is a road that goes across the island between Hualien and Taichung/Nantou but regular traffic can't use it I think? Only a bus service.

The bus service ends at Lishan and you have to stay overnight to take the next bus to Taichung (at least that's how it was when I took it in 2018). That bus also stops at Puli (the geographical centre of Taiwan~~~) and from there it's not too far to Sun Moon Lake.
Lishan is really nice too, good tea, and you can stay in the same room Chiang Kai-shek did when he stayed there with his wife!

Teriyaki Koinku
Nov 25, 2008

Bread! Bread! Bread!

Bread! BREAD! BREAD!
I'm considering my options for after passing HSK5 and I'm considering moving from Beijing to Taipei instead of going to the southern mainland like Chengdu or Shenzhen.

The last time I attempted to move/visit Taiwan was in 2013. How much have things changed there? Apparently there was a pretty major pro-independence election lately in Taiwan?

Also, as far simple visits go, I'm considering either early May or late July. Which is better for Taipei? I remember it can rain there quite a lot and get humid.

Finally, how hard is it to move from simplified to traditional writing? I'd like to read more of the Taiwanese manga I've collected while in the mainland.

Pirate Radar
Apr 18, 2008

You're not my Ruthie!
You're not my Debbie!
You're not my Sherry!
The election recently wasn’t explicitly pro-independence, but the winning party, the DPP, is generally more anti-China than the others. Maybe more significantly this is a third term in the presidency for them, the first time that’s happened in the pretty short history of Taiwanese elections. It remains to be seen what the result will mean in terms of cross-strait relations.

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Atlas Hugged
Mar 12, 2007


Put your arms around me,
fiddly digits, itchy britches
I love you all
Going between Simplified and Traditional can be frustrating at first because one of the things that some simplified characters did is to take homophones and give them all the same character, which means you'll have to figure out which word uses the character most similar to the one you're familiar with already and which words use similar characters but with the addition or change of a radical. There are some consistencies you can look for as well, with certain radicals being reduced in stroke count in the same way across multiple characters, though this isn't always true.

My go-to recommendation for Traditional is still to grab the Heisig "Remembering the Hanzi" series for Traditional characters. It alongside whatever resources you already have, or alongside the Simplified version of the same, would probably be a good point of reference for how Traditional radicals change form depending on which zone* of a character they occupy.

You'll likely find that Traditional characters are surprisingly easy to read once you start becoming familiar with them as they have a more robust 'etymology' present, often with a radical indicating something about pronunciation and a radical indicating something about meaning.

*I'm not sure if there's a more specific term for this, but like how radicals can be written on top, to the left, inside, under, etc a root radical/character.

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