Five Years in Taiwan

It has been five years since I moved to Taiwan. In the beginning, time felt distorted, as if years had passed when in reality it had only been months. Now time feels distorted in a different way. The last three years have passed quickly, blending together until they feel like almost nothing at all. There have been many happy and interesting moments, but those are not what stay with me. What stands out most are the periods of struggle and discomfort.

I’m not sure what I expected living abroad to be like. I guess prior to the move I only focused on vague ideas of an exciting adventure and a perfect context to improve my language skills, but neglected to think about what everyday life would actually feel like.

Daily Life

The first two years in Taiwan were plagued by Covid restrictions that made any sort of social life seem like a pipe dream. There were no activities being hosted and seemingly no way to meet any new people besides at work, but my coworkers were mostly in different stages in life than I was, married with families. I later discovered that even young people in Taiwan usually still live with their parents and generally stay home to eat dinner, with little need for other social activity, making it difficult to develop a social circle without having gone to school here or having family here.

My daily life generally involved going to work from 08:00 to 16:00, Monday to Friday, working hours that many Taiwanese people said they were jealous of. The downside was that I often felt at a loss for what to do after work, since any people I knew worked until much later, and there were not many places to go near where I lived besides the gym and swimming pool. Because of this, during the years that I lived in Daxi, I developed a consistent routine of exercising nearly every day – cycling when the weather was good, and using the gym or swimming pool when it wasn’t. The structure helped stabilize my mental health and counterbalanced my frequent beer consumption during periods of boredom.

After moving to Qingpu, the environment changed. There was less natural scenery and more man-made development. There were fewer options for exercise, and the surrounding area felt flat and uninspiring. I tried to compensate by running nearly every day, but eventually developed a stress fracture, and during recovery developed plantar fasciitis, which persists to this day.

However, my work life in Qingpu has been a welcome change from what I experienced in Daxi. In Daxi I worked at an elementary school and thought the children were fun and cute, but I found it a bit mind-numbing and uninspiring to teach such simple content. In Qingpu I teach older students and had the opportunity to teach subjects I enjoy such as scouts (similar to boy/girl scout skills) and art. Teaching older students requires deeper, more thorough content, which has been a welcome challenge, even though I am much busier. I also very much enjoy interacting with older kids because their mindset and worldview are much more complex than those of small children, and they are more receptive to logic.

At my old school, I was also the only foreign teacher and did not have any fixed co-teacher to collaborate with on curriculum design. Now my school has four foreign teachers and I work together with the same local teachers for many classes, allowing more discussion, collaboration, and growth.

The reality of daily life in Taiwan was something I hadn’t anticipated. I am normally good at keeping myself occupied with my own interests and hobbies. But in Taiwan, the lack of social support left me preoccupied with meeting people and unable to focus on what I actually wanted to do, including improving my Chinese.

Learning Chinese

One reason for my move to Taiwan was that I could already speak Mandarin Chinese at a fairly advanced level and found it difficult to create an environment for language improvement in the US, without considerable effort such as watching only Chinese-language content or reading Chinese books, and forcing others to speak Chinese with me even when it would be easier for them to use English. I thought that in Taiwan I would be so motivated to improve my Chinese and that every day after work I’d spend time watching content in Chinese, studying vocabulary, reading, etc. The reality was far from this.

After arriving in Taiwan I soon found myself extremely exhausted every day due to cultural differences, lack of familiar and comforting things that I was used to back home, and the necessity to constantly use a foreign language at the same time. The result was that aside from speaking Chinese every day, I did no additional language study and almost never watched/read anything in Chinese (also partially because I find most of the stories that I’ve encountered to be not compelling or moving).

Due to my lack of social stability and subsequent habit of constantly looking for social activities to fill the hole, I got a lot of practice speaking and listening to Chinese. By my own standards, my Chinese is still not good, but some people have told me that speaking with me feels close to talking with a native speaker, so I assume that I have improved considerably during these five years. This may be one of the few clear benefits of my loneliness during these years.

Friendships and Relationships

Friendships and relationships have been the single most difficult aspect of living in Taiwan. I think that is largely because I am here working and not as a student, and also because the social norms here are not ideal for making close friendships.

I have met many friendly and kind people during these years, and gained valuable insights through conversations with them. I have hundreds of acquaintances and casual friends. I have also organized activities such as language exchanges, hikes, and art meetups. This aspect of my social life has been quite fulfilling, but I feel that being a foreigner here results in many friendships being transient in nature and rarely feeling deep or stable.

I’ve also noticed that most interactions are occasional and structured, such as planning to meet for a meal, and rarely develop into deeper friendships. Most people already have established social circles, family routines, or limited availability, which makes it difficult for connections to deepen.

As I said before, most people who are not married (and even some who are), still live with their parents and perhaps extended families. When I think back to when I lived with my parents, I recall having little need for other social activities because I already always had people around. I can only assume that this is part of the reason why it is difficult to meet people who are free and motivated to go out and socialize. Although part of the reason may also be that Taiwan is largely homogenous and foreigners are generally viewed as being outsiders, making it more difficult to feel any sort of closeness with people.

In the workplace, it seems quite rare for coworkers to socialize in evenings or on weekends. At my first school in Daxi, I maybe had dinner with a group of coworkers twice in 3.5 years, and besides that, I never socialized with anyone from work, even though I sometimes invited people to do things. People have their families and friends from school who never seem to be far away given the tiny size of Taiwan. Most people also seem to keep a clear separation between work people and friends. If you didn’t grow up or go to school here, it can feel hard to find a way in. As a result, many of us end up only socializing with other foreigners and having few, if any, local friends.

Another thing I noticed is that it is not really normal to chat with anyone you don’t know for no reason. The exception, apparently, being that anyone who is curious or wants to practice English has free rein with any foreigners in the vicinity. The result of this dynamic is that I am constantly interacted with by people who want to ask me the same generic questions that I’ve answered thousands of times, while my attempts to initiate conversation are often met with awkwardness. Many interactions revolve around the same familiar questions about being a foreigner, which quickly become repetitive, while attempts to initiate more natural conversations often feel awkward or out of place. I often feel like people view me as a curiosity and not as a real person who they can actually get to know.

One particular challenge I’ve noticed when making friends is that many people rely heavily on smartphones and digital stimulation, often using them to fill any moment of inactivity. Everywhere I go, almost everyone is staring at a smartphone, watching videos, reels, or Netflix to avoid sitting and doing nothing. Considering mindless smartphone usage is something I actively avoid and find to be highly problematic, this created a disconnect for me. It is difficult to connect with people whose lifestyles and priorities differ significantly from my own.

I often wonder if people would still want to just go sit around at home after work if smartphones, TV, and internet disappeared overnight.

Wandering and Environment

If you read my post Welcome to Daxi, you know that I have a great fondness for Daxi, and wish my circumstances had not forced me to move. My lifestyle in Daxi was quite relaxing and I enjoyed my routine of constantly exercising and going to the same places most weeks, interacting with familiar people in shops, at the gym, or at the pool, and seeing the beautiful scenery every day.

Although I was one of very few Western people living in Daxi, I somehow felt a greater sense of belonging there than I do now. The people in Daxi, and other countryside areas of Taiwan, are much more warm and down-to-earth than people who live in cities. I always felt a sense of relaxation when interacting with random people in Daxi, but do not feel the same in Qingpu or when I go visit Taipei. In Daxi, I also discovered the joy of wandering.

Public transport in Daxi is quite inconvenient – buses only go to certain well-trafficked areas, so your options are limited if you don’t have a motorcycle or scooter. I got my scooter after about 7 months living in Taiwan, and it was a life-changing purchase. Despite the difficulties I had socially, I found a kind of freedom in being able to get around quickly and easily with no planning. Not only that, but riding a scooter through the countryside in good weather has a way of making you forget yourself and melt into your surroundings.

Having a scooter allowed me to travel through unfamiliar areas, get lost, and have unexpected adventures. Living in Daxi was especially suited for this type of exploration since it is full of mountains, small roads, and old abandoned buildings. In my post The Glowing Rectangle of Fragmentation, I described one specific experience I had where I left my phone at home and took a day trip by scooter to meet my friend and explore. That was one of the deepest experiences of being connected to the present moment that I’ve had recently, but these experiences were much more common when living in Daxi.

Even though I’ve struggled to find meaningful social connections, wandering has made me feel connected to the world and to myself. Ironically, during times when I feel lonely and disconnected, ditching my phone and going into a rural area is normally a pretty good remedy.

Attention and Lifestyle

One of the most significant ways that living in Taiwan has changed me was in how I relate to attention. I have noticed both in myself and others how easily attention is fragmented and the side effects this can have on life and mental health. In the US, I often went out without bringing my phone, meditated nearly every day, left my phone in the car, and spent most of my free time reading (physical) books. Although much of that focus on mindfulness was in response to stress from work and lack of social support when living in Hawaii, I found it much easier to accomplish than it is here.

I think this is partially due to being influenced by those around me – people in Taiwan use smartphones and the internet extensively, often at any time. I usually prefer to sit quietly and do nothing on public transport or while waiting, but over time I noticed that I was often the only person not looking at a phone. I feel that being surrounded by people who use their phones all the time subtly weakens my resolve to not use my phone.

When everyone around you is doing the same thing, it becomes easier to justify slipping into it yourself. Due to the tendency to fall into these patterns, living in Taiwan has made it quite difficult for me to even sit and read a book without distraction, or even sit and do nothing for relaxation purposes as I used to often do.

This is something I have increasingly tried to resist, but Taiwan’s society seems to be heavily built around smartphones. Most restaurants require ordering through QR codes, reporting issues on the High Speed Rail is done via QR code, and reservations are often made online rather than by phone. I also had to download an app for my scooter. It is difficult to find social activities without social media, and most communication now happens through apps.

My best moments in Taiwan were all those when I was in the moment and not online. In contrast, the worst moments were when I was sitting around at home using my phone.

My life in Taiwan can be characterized by a massive tension between two ways of living. One is a life of distraction, restlessness, and a constant search for entertainment. The other is slow, intentional, and focused on being present in whatever I am doing, even when alone.

Perhaps this is a personal tension and has nothing to do with Taiwan, but the situation here has magnified the issue and forced me to reevaluate my life and myself. It has shown me very clearly that the number one determiner of the quality of my experience is depth of attention.

Looking back on these five years, I don’t think of Taiwan as just a place where I lived, but also a place that stripped away all sense of comfort and forced me to confront aspects of myself that I would normally avoid. The loneliness, instability, and frustration were real and difficult, but it was only by going through them rather than avoiding them that I have been able to see more clearly what actually matters, and how easily attention can be lost in the noise of modern life.

Conclusions

I have been asked many times why I have stayed in Taiwan for so long despite the difficulties. I don’t have a simple answer. Taiwan is, in many ways, a good place to live, or I would not have stayed here for five years. At the same time, these years have been some of the most difficult and destabilizing of my life.

When I moved here, I did not have a clear plan. I was driven more by curiosity and optimism than by long-term thinking. After five years, that perspective has changed. At some point, it may no longer make sense to stay, especially as I think more seriously about stability and the kind of life I want to build.

For now, I can only continue as I have been, living intentionally and making adjustments as needed. With enough space and time, the path forward will likely become clearer.