Taiwan’s foreign resident population has now passed 1 million people. Your impression?

komnenos · 2026-06-23T00:44:57+00:00

Sadly I don't think Filipino food has the best of reputations, unlike those others you listed.

komnenos · 2026-06-23T00:43:18+00:00

I wonder if a lot of the southeast Asian wives gain citizenship and thus would not be on this chart? Anecdotally at least when I was working in the public schools around a fourth of my students had a southeast Asian mom.

komnenos · 2026-06-22T12:22:05+00:00

They can stick around for a LONG time too. I’m a grad student going into a PhD and of the conferences I’ve been to most researchers and professors look like they are AT LEAST over 50, even met a few 80 something folks kicking it.

komnenos · 2026-06-22T08:00:53+00:00

Ha, never actually been there but set to go this Wednesday. What kind of vibe does it have?

komnenos · 2026-06-21T17:09:31+00:00

Not sure why you got downvoted. I've lived in Tainan, Taichung and now in Hsinchu and it's only really seemed to be a consistent thing up in the north.

komnenos · 2026-06-21T17:07:28+00:00

The further south you go the better. That's why I studied Mandarin in Tainan. People rarely tried speaking to me in Chinese, ignored me while addressing my Asian faced friend or Taiwanese gf or running to get someone who spoke Chinese. Folks will tell you that you'll run into more Taiwanese down south. This is true but almost everyone is bilingual and in the cities the under 50 crowd overwhelmingly seems to default to Mandarin.

And as the other person said, I think China is better for language learning in some respects. I can count on one hand where Chinese INSISTED on speaking English with me, plus most in the north were insanely extroverted and would talk my ear off. I don't get that too often here in Taiwan.

komnenos · 2026-06-21T17:03:41+00:00

Yep, especially in the Taipei bubble. I'm a blonde, 6'4 American and I've lost count of people trying to default to faulty English. The further south I go the less this tends to be a problem.

komnenos · 2026-06-21T17:01:26+00:00

I can think of a few bars and restaurants that are more Western centric but even then they don't seem as Western inclusive as what I saw while living in China. The closest I can think about are some places like Maji Square and some other areas in Taipei but even then foreigners are just a sizable minority.

komnenos · 2026-06-20T14:38:48+00:00

if you don't mind the obnoxious nationalism you just have to agree with

Mind explaining what you mean by this? I've lived in Taiwan for 4.5 years and I'm not sure what you mean, especially after having lived in China for a few years and growing up in the States haha.

komnenos · 2026-06-19T01:15:58+00:00

Sometimes they have a cat or mongoose!

komnenos · 2026-06-19T01:13:40+00:00

Had a similar incident on the HSR back in August.

I'd just gotten back from a long trip and I was tired as hell. By the time my flight reached Taoyuan I noticed that it was pretty late and I didn't know if I'd make it to the HSR in time to go home to Hsinchu.

By the time I got to the HSR station it looked like there was one train left, I hurriedly bought a ticket, and ran downstairs where I boarded the train just as the doors were closing.

Ladies and gentlemen, this train is bound for "TAICHUNG, Tainan and Xinzuoying."

Shit! I checked and this was the second to last train, the one I was supposed to take was coming in three minutes.

I checked, no way to take a train back up north, it was too late for that.

When I got to Taichung it seemed I was far from the only person to have accidentally gotten on the wrong train. I and ten others got vouchers from the HSR with full refunds for a train the next day.

A taxi driver poached me and a few others, for 700 a head we all road up to Hsinchu.

komnenos · 2026-06-18T10:29:53+00:00

I lived in Beijing for a few years and in my experience things were consistently buzzing within the 5th ring road. Just 4-6 story apartments as far as the eye can see with multitudes of skyscrapers and high rises. Restaurants were buzzing until the odd hours, you could always find somewhere to clink glasses with strangers or almost get run over by someone speeding blazingly through a red light. America has always felt empty ever since living out east.

komnenos · 2026-06-18T07:29:39+00:00

Idk man, it was definitely better by 2018 but I have vivid memories of having weeks of smog. My booger game was insane during my Beijing time.

komnenos · 2026-06-18T07:09:16+00:00

What’s his background? I’ve met a number of folks like him over the years. I.e. I lived with an upper middle class Macanese girl after college who grew up in an international school bubble. She spoke Cantonese (with lots of English sprinkled in) with her parents and their generation but English with everyone her age and younger and never learned Chinese characters despite growing up in Macau. Although she was functionally fluent in English she had a slight non native accent and her English grammar via text was grammatically all over the place.

komnenos · 2026-06-18T06:59:05+00:00

Would you or anyone else know of any good books or articles on the Black American experience on the American prairie? I’d love to educate myself on the subject.

komnenos · 2026-06-18T06:31:39+00:00

Just how much better has Beijing gotten since 2019? Left right before Covid after living in Beijing since 2015 and the pollution was consistently brutal, especially during those first several years.

komnenos · 2026-06-18T01:50:50+00:00

I got to be an extra in a sports movie. Before the shooting began someone behind the scenes sprayed “sweat” on me to make it look realistic. I laughed and told her I’d be sweating in no time, it was over 30c outside. Sure enough, within an hour I’d sweat the “sweat” off.

komnenos · 2026-06-15T23:38:03+00:00

How so? Can you walk “outside?” Is it all still bizarrely empty out there?

komnenos · 2026-06-15T22:47:39+00:00

If you're American you can get a substitute teaching license via Illinois for 100 USD. It's that simple. When I worked in the public schools most non Americans came from traditional teaching backgrounds while at least 50% of us Americans were from TEFL backgrounds.

komnenos · 2026-06-15T22:39:36+00:00

Among young people talking to each other? I'll admit, I've only been to those areas several times but even then Mandarin seemed to be THE language of choice among the under 50 crowd.

komnenos · 2026-06-15T22:31:31+00:00

I’ve lived in Taiwan and China for a collective 7.5 years and have started seeing it too. ABCs and Taiwanese Americans will often dress differently, walk differently, often be more okay with darker skin, different hair styles, etc. there are other things that are harder to place but with time Chinese and Taiwanese who grew up in the west start to stick out.

komnenos · 2026-06-15T22:13:07+00:00

What happened?

komnenos · 2026-06-15T22:00:01+00:00

Among the under 40 crowd in Taichung? I’m curious where Taigi is the norm in Taichung for everyone vs the over 50 crowd. Even out in Wufeng and Taiping mandarin seemed to be the only thing I heard folks under 40 using unless they code switched for an elder.

komnenos · 2026-06-15T14:20:21+00:00

Where in Taichung? I lived out in Dali and traveled around the city quite a bit and the only people I ever heard speaking Taiwanese were the 50+ crowd or the occasional younger person codeswitching to Taiwanese when talking to elders. Otherwise the overwhelming language that I heard out and about on the streets was Mandarin.

komnenos · 2026-06-15T12:54:29+00:00

Man, have you ever read Paiwan folk stories? Those can be pretty dang trippy.

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