Mar 11, 2025

The question wasn’t for s----s… I have some time off and ended up in Taiwan. Been here the last week n a half. AMA.

 

Mar 14, 2025

I’m sure it’s all anecdotal, but everyone has been very kind. The language barrier is high (my Mandarin is effectively non-existent), but people try to go out of *their* comfort zone and speak the little English they know to me, as opposed to the other way around…which is kinda wild to me because I’m genuinely a proponent of requiring myself to learn some level of the local language prior to visiting somewhere and I believe that that should be the international expectation …this trip happened so quickly that I was only able to learn a few key phrases while in-transit, so I’ve shamefully broken my own rule. Regardless, they’re meeting me on their own territory, as opposed to the other way around…which is very kind.

Crime doesn’t appear to exist (obviously, that’s not true, but I haven’t even seen a glimmer). A couple examples: nobody locks up their bikes. People leave the keys in their mopeds (a *very* popular mode of transportation here). I was walking down a riverside in Kaohsiung and there were 2 bikes just off to the side; one of them had an iPhone mounted near the handlebars…with music actively playing out of it….and there was legit NOBODY within sight of the thing. No worries of theft.

it’s been a solid experience.