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TetsuoTW posted:but that would pull the kid away from their homework! nah, he'd pick it up on the way back from cram school
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Aug 12, 2015 08:55
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TetsuoTW posted:but that would pull the kid away from their homework! I asked one of my students if he was scared by the typhoon, he said no. I asked him if he watched the typhoon, he said no. I asked him how come, he said he was doing Chinese homework. These poor freaking kids.
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Aug 12, 2015 13:58
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USDA Choice posted:Where exactly? TetsuoTW posted:Also how long? Like if it's a vacation, you can probably find bed-and-breakfasts easy enough. If it's in a touristy-enough location you might be lucky enough to get English-capable operators, but I wouldn't want to bet on it. I'm thinking a few days here and there, mostly to go hiking and check out the scenery. I don't have any places in mind just yet (recommendations would also be appreciated). I can speak some Mandarin and it sounds like that should help a little bit.
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Aug 12, 2015 15:30
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Sea Monkey posted:I'm thinking a few days here and there, mostly to go hiking and check out the scenery. I don't have any places in mind just yet (recommendations would also be appreciated). I can speak some Mandarin and it sounds like that should help a little bit. I like Puli. It's in Nantou, near the center of Taiwan, near the Sun Moon Lake area. Good hiking, and a big-rear end lake nearby. There are a couple good hostels with English service; I stayed at one called Islet Inn and it was pretty cool and cheap and everyone spoke English. Really though there are hostels all over the place, and most of them have at least some English service. It's a little inconvenient to get anywhere from there if you don't have a scooter though. There are buses, but if you wanna bus around everywhere you might as well just stay someplace in Taichung and take a bus out to the mountains. It's up to you, but Nantou and Hualien are the two most popular rural nature-y tourist areas I'd say.
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Aug 12, 2015 16:02
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quadrophrenic posted:I like Puli. It's in Nantou, near the center of Taiwan, near the Sun Moon Lake area. Good hiking, and a big-rear end lake nearby. There are a couple good hostels with English service; I stayed at one called Islet Inn and it was pretty cool and cheap and everyone spoke English. Really though there are hostels all over the place, and most of them have at least some English service. After those two would probably be Alishan, which has a hotel/resort on the summit. Otherwise, you'd be riding the train/bus from Chiayi, in either case you'll not be far from an English speaker. Not really sure if there are any hotels/hostels between Chiayi and Alishan. You could also check out Guanzilin, which is a hot springs resort town not far from Chiayi (though technically "in Tainan City").
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Aug 12, 2015 16:32
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USDA Choice posted:The best typhoon activities. Sometimes Taiwanese people are TOO helpful. I left my wallet in a u-bike and realized what I had done about 2 minutes later. By the time I crossed the street and back, it was already gone (leading me to think that I had left it somewhere else instead). Turns out someone picked up it and immediately took it to the police station nearby. Still not as impressive as Korea. My fiancee left her wallet in a taxi, and the taxi driver found it and delivered it to her at her school in another town the next day.
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Aug 12, 2015 20:57
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Hi all! It's been a few years since I Iived in Taiwan and I'm headed back for a short vacation in September. I never made it out to Hualien and Taroko when I lived there, so it's number one on my must-see list. I unfortunately have an extremely short time in Taiwan this time around, only three days. I have a lot of stuff I want to do in Taipei. Is a full day (transport in the morning, explore, stay the night, back the next morning) enough for Taroko, or am I going to wish I had more time there? Also, what's the best way to get to and from Taipei/Taroko? And last, any guesthouse recommendations? Looking to stay anywhere on the Red Line in Taipei and anywhere convenient in Hualien. Edit: Already booked my hotels, so no worries there. Harriet Carker fucked around with this message at 08:30 on Aug 17, 2015 |
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Aug 17, 2015 07:26
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Full day should be fine for Taroko I think
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Aug 17, 2015 08:07
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duckfarts posted:Full day should be fine for Taroko I think Excellent! I assume the best way to get around Taroko (staying in the Hualien city center) is to rent a scooter for the day, right? I drove a motorcycle when I was there last so I think it should be better than dealing with bus schedules.
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Aug 17, 2015 08:31
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Hey Taiwan Thread, looking for some advice... I currently have a job that would basically let me work from anywhere remotely and they would especially love it if I could cover NYC graveyard shift hours, so East Asia would be perfect. I minored in Mandarin, but it's getting weak, so I'd really love to maybe do two or three years in Taiwan studying it while working. Does anyone know what the minimum courseload I could be taking to qualify for a visa? I could probably get work to take me down to like 30 hours a week instead of 40, so I think I'd be cool with 1.5-2 hours a day/5 days a week of classes, plus some light homework. Does anyone know of any programs like that which would cover the visa?
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Aug 17, 2015 08:38
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dantheman650 posted:Excellent! I assume the best way to get around Taroko (staying in the Hualien city center) is to rent a scooter for the day, right? I drove a motorcycle when I was there last so I think it should be better than dealing with bus schedules. Yeah, I imagine bussing around Taroko would be the biggest pain in the rear end, scooter's the way to go. There's a scooter shop outside of the Xincheng train station, as you leave, on the left hand side towards the road. The best way to get down there would be to take a train to Xincheng, at the foot of the gorge. Best to buy one early though, or else you might have to stand up for 3 hours.
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Aug 17, 2015 09:40
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Barracuda Bang! posted:Hey Taiwan Thread, looking for some advice... It may have changed but when I was on a student visa it was 15hrs/week to qualify.
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Aug 17, 2015 14:14
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Barracuda Bang! posted:Hey Taiwan Thread, looking for some advice... I was discussing this at university last week and they told me that if you have a student visa, you can't work.
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Aug 17, 2015 15:10
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House Louse posted:I was discussing this at university last week and they told me that if you have a student visa, you can't work. You can't work in Taiwan, but shouldn't it be ok for working remotely for the US? I mean, excepting doing something that has to do with doing business here.
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Aug 17, 2015 15:17
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House Louse posted:I was discussing this at university last week and they told me that if you have a student visa, you can't work. You can apply for a work permit in some cases to work legally. But literally no one in Taiwan would know/care if he's working remotely with a job in NYC.
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Aug 17, 2015 15:18
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this is a stickup posted:You can apply for a work permit in some cases to work legally. But literally no one in Taiwan would know/care if he's working remotely with a job in NYC. Working remotely at a job in NYC would not legally require any paperwork in Taiwan afaik. My wife technically works in Tuvalu so she doesn't need a work permit.
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Aug 17, 2015 15:34
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Yeah I mean half of Taiwanese society operates under the premise of "see nothing, say nothing (until you cross me)".
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Aug 17, 2015 15:51
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Yeah but still courteous to mention that your plan for the next few years might involve being working illegally, right?duckfarts posted:You can't work in Taiwan, but shouldn't it be ok for working remotely for the US? I mean, excepting doing something that has to do with doing business here. Didn't think of it that way, so I dunno. The other students on my course seems to be doing 14 hrs/week (2/3 hours, 4 days a week), roughly what you were talking about.
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Aug 17, 2015 17:08
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House Louse posted:Yeah but still courteous to mention that your plan for the next few years might involve being working illegally, right? I don't know about Taiwan but this situation is kind of common and as long as he fulfills the requirements of his student visa it should be fine. I know a bunch of freelancers or guys who work remotely for US or Euro companies in Asia, even in stricter places like Japan, and they all seem to be fine. None are really putting down roots and move on after 6-12 months though, so maybe that's why? The issue with working illegally is generally that someone generating NTD income from a Taiwanese company and not being taxed on it, but in this case he's generating USD income from a (presumably) US company and (hopefully??) being taxed on it there. Someone should find the legal print, but for MOST countries it's like "working illegally in X country" breaks the visa and this is kind of a grey area.
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Aug 18, 2015 03:22
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Looks like there's another typhoon coming. The projections I've looked at have it turning northeasterly before hitting Taiwan, but the rain could be torrential. Not looking like the double typhoon that idiot meteorologist warned about, at least for now.
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Aug 18, 2015 04:57
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FINGERBLASTER69 posted:Looks like there's another typhoon coming. The projections I've looked at have it turning northeasterly before hitting Taiwan, but the rain could be torrential. Not looking like the double typhoon that idiot meteorologist warned about, at least for now. There is a double typhoon, the second is hitting Japan. The first one looks like it'll hit from the South. http://www.cwb.gov.tw/V7e/prevent/typhoon/ty.htm
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Aug 18, 2015 05:32
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Magna Kaser posted:The issue with working illegally is generally that someone generating NTD income from a Taiwanese company and not being taxed on it, but in this case he's generating USD income from a (presumably) US company and (hopefully??) being taxed on it there. Someone should find the legal print, but for MOST countries it's like "working illegally in X country" breaks the visa and this is kind of a grey area. Having a source of income from outside the US while on a tourist or student visa in the US is legal, for example
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Aug 18, 2015 09:51
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Taiwan wo ai ni https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3h03ef8dWo
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Aug 18, 2015 10:29
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Taiwan Citibank Global Transfer is only available to Taiwanese citizens  Just trying to soak Indonesian and Filipino immigrants from remittances I imagine.
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Aug 18, 2015 10:56
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GoutPatrol posted:Taiwan Citibank Global Transfer is only available to Taiwanese citizens Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck  Are Permanent residents out of luck? Citizens only?
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Aug 18, 2015 11:03
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GoutPatrol posted:Taiwan Citibank Global Transfer is only available to Taiwanese citizens 入出國及移民法第62條 posted:任何人不得以國籍、種族、膚色、階級、出生地等因素，對居住於臺灣地區之人民為歧視之行為。 Immigration Act, Article 62 posted:Any person shall not discriminate against people residing in the Taiwan Area on the basis of nationality, race, color, class and place of birth. sub supau fucked around with this message at 12:19 on Aug 18, 2015 |
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Aug 18, 2015 12:17
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My fiancée works at a bank and lol if you think claiming that it's discrimination will get you anywhere, unless you're loaded, which... you're probably not having problems in the first place. Getting an inside view of the banking industry here is downright scary sometimes, I have no idea if it's the same in the West but I don't think it is quite so bad. Taiwanese banks are a bunch of dinosaurs with varying degrees of ancientness. I mean, it's Taiwan so you never know, you could get lucky and a manager might override a bunch of rules/SOP but again, unless you can offer them a good reason to, they typically won't, as usually foreigners are just more trouble for them. Especially if you're American. When FATCA went into effect, Citi Taiwan no longer even offered their services to Americans.
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Aug 18, 2015 13:32
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POCKET CHOMP posted:a bunch of rules/SOP This is the crux of the problem, really. A lot of people would love to help you, but it's either against the rules(sometimes) or they don't have an SOP to help you so there is no possible way to help you(most of the time) and they are unable to think of a way themselves so welp.
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Aug 18, 2015 13:41
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POCKET CHOMP posted:Getting an inside view of the banking industry here is downright scary sometimes, I have no idea if it's the same in the West but I don't think it is quite so bad. Taiwanese banks are a bunch of dinosaurs with varying degrees of ancientness. Also yeah I have no actual faith waving law at them would do anything, because they're more scared of the boss than the actual law (because the law here is frequently a B-grade comedy act that can be bought off with minimal effort).
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Aug 18, 2015 14:41
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TetsuoTW posted:You could always see if that scares them into not being dicks. I have the feeling most of that bullshit is predicated on them expecting us to take it like bitches. I don't expect it'd work, but sometimes all people need is the wind put up them. There's every chance it's like the whole "foreigners can't get credit cards" lie. This is not like someone just told me. There were multiple documents from Citibank saying this. They had already started doing paperwork in the system when it asked if I was a citizen and they had to look and see.
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Aug 18, 2015 15:07
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thegoat posted:It may have changed but when I was on a student visa it was 15hrs/week to qualify. This is really good to know, thanks. Magna Kaser posted:I don't know about Taiwan but this situation is kind of common and as long as he fulfills the requirements of his student visa it should be fine. I know a bunch of freelancers or guys who work remotely for US or Euro companies in Asia, even in stricter places like Japan, and they all seem to be fine. None are really putting down roots and move on after 6-12 months though, so maybe that's why? Bloodnose posted:Having a source of income from outside the US while on a tourist or student visa in the US is legal, for example As is this. From the sounds of it, it's not even really a question of Taiwan allowing it, since it's not happening on their soil (where I'm getting paid, NYC, being where I'd technically be working). Thanks everyone for all the advice. edit: actually, does anyone know anything about Chengchi's Mandarin program? This is supposedly the site, but it's been broken: http://mandarin.nccu.edu.tw/ Other than that, I was looking at National Central University's program (http://www.lc.ncu.edu.tw/main/clp/en/index.php), which looks like it'd be the easiest to manage schedule wise, since I could just do mornings. It's in Taoyuan though. Does anyone have any experience in Taoyuan? I get that it's near Taipei, but how convenient are they to each other in case I want to do some foreigner stuff in Taipei?
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Aug 19, 2015 03:25
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NCCU is a good school, and IIRC has a p good reputation for languages that goes back to its origins as a training ground for KMT civil servants.
sub supau fucked around with this message at 03:38 on Aug 19, 2015 |
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Aug 19, 2015 03:35
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The slowest train between Taoyuan and Taipei Main Station is 37-38 minutes. If you catch an express that'll save you a few more minutes. There are also buses and stuff but I just usually take the train. Taoyuan is alright, assuming you're in the city itself. It has the basic amenities and it's not that far away from the real big city experience. But it's pretty crowded and very much an "old style" Taiwanese city that never seemed to have any urban planning compared to what Taipei and a few other places are starting to benefit from now. Just build poo poo wherever, and hope it all works out, repeat as the city grows, and marvel at the mess you've created.
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Aug 19, 2015 03:40
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You'll also be fairly close to the HSR and the airport, so travel both in Taiwan and regionally will be fairly easy. It is a mess of a city, but it has a couple of good bars and of course a smattering of "famous" restaurants and shops. I've run into a fair mix of foreigners there, from teachers to flight simulator engineers. And as everyone else has said it's relatively connected to the big city. But you'll also be able to hop around to ZhongLi, Sanxia, and Yingge which have their own things to do.
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Aug 19, 2015 04:00
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Idea: combine giant rubber duck sculpture and bent mailboxes, conquer Taiwan while everyone is distracted.
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Aug 19, 2015 06:39
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POCKET CHOMP posted:The slowest train between Taoyuan and Taipei Main Station is 37-38 minutes. If you catch an express that'll save you a few more minutes. There are also buses and stuff but I just usually take the train. Atlas Hugged posted:You'll also be fairly close to the HSR and the airport, so travel both in Taiwan and regionally will be fairly easy. It is a mess of a city, but it has a couple of good bars and of course a smattering of "famous" restaurants and shops. I've run into a fair mix of foreigners there, from teachers to flight simulator engineers. And as everyone else has said it's relatively connected to the big city. But you'll also be able to hop around to ZhongLi, Sanxia, and Yingge which have their own things to do. Looking on the map, it actually seems like National Central University (Zhongda?) is in Zhongli (is that the right spelling? I'm bad with non-pinyin romanizations....). How is that? Would I be in scooter commuting distance in Taoyuan? Is Zhongli so far out that I'd be bored out of my skull and should just look for a different school? I'm not sure how to calculate commute times for scooters, based on Google Maps' car driving estimates. I assume it's slower, but I don't know by how much. I'm thinking everywhere but Taipei is "definitely get a scooter" territory. Is that basically true?
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Aug 19, 2015 09:50
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Barracuda Bang! posted:Looking on the map, it actually seems like National Central University (Zhongda?) is in Zhongli (is that the right spelling? I'm bad with non-pinyin romanizations....). How is that? Would I be in scooter commuting distance in Taoyuan? Is Zhongli so far out that I'd be bored out of my skull and should just look for a different school? I'm not sure how to calculate commute times for scooters, based on Google Maps' car driving estimates. I assume it's slower, but I don't know by how much. I used to live in Sanxia and would go into Taoyuan and Zhongli sometimes. There are buses and trains that go between them and a taxi ride is surprisingly affordable. That whole patch of Taoyuan County and New Taipei City is accessible by scooter, though that will depend on how long you are willing to sit on a scooter at any given time. In theory, it's entirely possible to scoot from ZhongLi to downtown Taipei. I've got a buddy who lives in Sanxia and commutes into Taoyuan daily for work. Given the roads, it might be easier than taking the local buses. But yeah, generally speaking if you're not downtown you definitely want to invest in a scooter, but they're cheap so it won't be a big deal at all. As for being bored, that will fall entirely on you. There's a goon out in Yingge who seems to be doing alright. At least three goons have lived in Sanxia and enjoyed it well enough. And there have been other goons who got on just fine without being downtown. It will just depend on what you're expecting. There aren't going to be a lot of western style bars with loads of foreigners out partying. There will be plenty of places to get food and a beer and mingle with locals. The grocery stores will have minimal imports. You might go days without running into people who speak English well. Movie theaters might not have the best selection. But there's always going to be McDonald's and probably a Subway or two. And the apartments will likely be older with less modern facilities, but they will be large and cheap. It's just what you make of it.
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Aug 19, 2015 10:26
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Atlas Hugged posted:I used to live in Sanxia and would go into Taoyuan and Zhongli sometimes. There are buses and trains that go between them and a taxi ride is surprisingly affordable. That whole patch of Taoyuan County and New Taipei City is accessible by scooter, though that will depend on how long you are willing to sit on a scooter at any given time. In theory, it's entirely possible to scoot from ZhongLi to downtown Taipei. I've got a buddy who lives in Sanxia and commutes into Taoyuan daily for work. Given the roads, it might be easier than taking the local buses. But yeah, generally speaking if you're not downtown you definitely want to invest in a scooter, but they're cheap so it won't be a big deal at all. What would "cheap" mean out there, in terms of apartments? Making a slightly reduced NYC network engineer's salary with some of the rental prices I see quoted out here could result in some insane savings (read: student loan paydowns).
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Aug 19, 2015 10:37
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You'll probably be able to get a one room apartment for in the 3000-4000 NT range, though it won't necessarily be nice. Adding a bedroom or two shouldn't get you over 12,000NT. It will depend on how new the building is and where exactly it's located in the New Taipei or Taoyuan area. The closer you are to a metro area or to a transit hub, the more expensive it will be. I had a buddy in Sanxia paying ~12,000 NT for a fairly nice two bedroom with a separate kitchen and a large seating area, fully furnished and I imagine Sanxia is going to be a bit pricier than Taoyuan or ZhongLi. Full disclosure those aren't my areas of expertise. And I forgot to mention, don't worry about "correct" spellings. Every road sign you see will have a different spelling, often within a city block of each other.
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Aug 19, 2015 11:25
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Atlas Hugged posted:You'll probably be able to get a one room apartment for in the 3000-4000 NT range, though it won't necessarily be nice. Adding a bedroom or two shouldn't get you over 12,000NT. It will depend on how new the building is and where exactly it's located in the New Taipei or Taoyuan area. The closer you are to a metro area or to a transit hub, the more expensive it will be. I had a buddy in Sanxia paying ~12,000 NT for a fairly nice two bedroom with a separate kitchen and a large seating area, fully furnished and I imagine Sanxia is going to be a bit pricier than Taoyuan or ZhongLi. Full disclosure those aren't my areas of expertise. Sweet thanks. And I'm thinking that the romanization inconsistency will just make me less apt to use that as a crutch, and be more reliant on hanzi, so that's kind of a good thing. Oh, how big of a scooter can you get with whatever version of the driver's license is easy to get? And is that big enough to take trips around Taiwan on? It seems like it'd be cool to go on little trips around the mountain towns and stuff that way.
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Aug 19, 2015 12:12
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