The Taiwan Employment Gold Card program and understanding Taiwanese mentality.

In this post, I would like to talk a little bit more about the Taiwan Employment Gold Card program and whether you should apply for it or not! Please note that this is a new program and details are subject to change. Therefore, it is always best to find the most up to date information as possible .We are currently July 6th 2021. Furthermore, if I make any mistakes, please let me know. I am not involved with the government or the wonderful people at the Gold Card office.

First things first: a quick summary of the Taiwan Employment Gold Card program. Simply put, it is a program to attract international talent. The goal is to boost Taiwan's international image. I suggest you read my introductory blog post for a little bit more info, and I eventually hope to talk more about Taiwan's international image in future posts.

This program basically allows recipients to live and freely work in Taiwan. Basically, you have the same privileges as an actual citizen minus voting rights and things like that. You will be eligible for the National Health Insurance program (NHI). The program lasts up to three years, and that's what I got. 

Otherwise, apparently, foreigner work visas are generally very strict. The main advantage of the Gold Card is that you don't have any of the restrictions that other visas may have, it's made to be as convenient a visa as possible. You can apply under different categories but when you start living in Taiwan, you can choose to work at a convenience store if somehow you wanted to!

Be sure to check out all the useful relevant websites.

Here is the actual Gold Card website. From what I understand the people at the Gold Card office are a small team that act as an intermediary between applicants and the actual government. Therefore, the people at the GC office are not the ones who will decide whether you get the card or not. They work with the government but ultimately the actual government folks will be the ones making a decision on your case. This is important to note, because the people at the GC office are very progressive and cosmopolitan people and the government people are government people. Haha. At the moment, a lot of people in government come from a typical east Asian conservative mindset. That's not a good thing at all: red tape and bureaucracy are a cornerstone of Taiwanese culture; not just in the government, but in general society. I do hope things will change sooner than later.

Basically, you may be the most qualified person to get a Gold Card, and Taiwan can benefit tremendously from your expertise but because of stupid technicalities you may not be successful in your application. The people at the GC office are very aware of this problem and are doing their best to convince the higher ups to be a bit more open-minded and rational.

Since I have a lot more free time than usual, I actually went and had a meeting with the people at the GC office. Like I said, they're wonderful people with the hearts in the right place.

I basically explained to them Taiwan's biggest problem when it comes to "talent": Taiwan needs talent more than the talents themselves need Taiwan. It doesn't have to be foreign talent; even local talents should be considered national treasures. Unfortunately, due to the general mindset of Taiwanese society, even local talents don't get the recognition they deserve, and there's even a brain drain, where local talents will go and seek their fortune elsewhere.

This is highly problematic. If Taiwan wants to boost its international image, it needs to do all it can to attract talents and keep them here. It is unfortunately not doing the best job and it is deeply tied to the general mindset of the society, and not just the government.

As much as I love Taiwan and as much as I want to help Taiwan, I have to be as honest as possible. Here's the truth: there's no need for any successful person to ever come and live in Taiwan. More often than not, people come to Taiwan for these three typical reasons: 

-Partner is Taiwanese

-Wants to learn Mandarin Chinese and would prefer to do it in Taiwan for whatever personal reasons.

-Their family is originally from Taiwan (my case) or some kind of ties to Taiwan: simple pure love after having traveled here at some point, for instance.

People also come to Taiwan to teach English, but I am talking about established professionals with lucrative careers or resumes (I'm not badmouthing English teachers either); people who can really make a difference in Taiwan in terms of international image by bringing their skills and sharing their knowledge.  Again, this is not limited to foreigners.

As a musician, I've come to realize that it is very easy to become famous in Taiwan. Fame doesn't necessarily mean financial success, however. You can be an average musician in the USA or Europe or whatever country with a strong arts scene (such as Japan or Korea), and when you arrive in Taiwan, you are upgraded to number one, and many people will settle for this. Fair enough, to each their own, but one thing that I love about being an artist is the constant struggle of trying to better myself. Unfortunately, complacency is a huge thing here, and once you've seemingly "made it" in Taiwan, it is very easy to just continue along that path. I will talk about this maybe in another blog post, but essentially, the spirit of competitiveness here is very low compared to other countries. I don't like competition myself, but I like being inspired by my colleagues and feeling I need to work harder because everyone else is working extremely hard. 

There is a term that is widely used in Taiwan to describe the work mentality here : 差不多 cha4 bu4 duo1. This basically "kinda there" , or "good enough". Basically, you achieve a level of 60% and you are immensely rewarded for just barely passing, and you are now considered one of the top dogs of your industry. No need to get better. Worse yet is sometimes people achieve a level of 40% and are considered high level. 40% means someone is not a complete hack, but has a lot to to work on before being even considered employable in any industry that actually values skill. This is the effect of Dunning-Kruger unfortunately. It is rampant in Taiwan.

There are reasons why this culture exists, and again it would be best to talk about this another time, but the fact of the matter is that at the moment, this is highly prevalent in many industries in Taiwan. There are certainly local people who reach an extremely high level, but many of them don't get recognized because they don't play "fame" game. The fame game, the way one carries themselves with confidence will play a big role in how people perceive you. Unfortunately, or fortunately, some of the top local talents are extremely low key but as a result, don't get the recognition they deserve. A lot of things are about appearance here.

Wages are generally very low in Taiwan as well. This is one of the big problems I see here, and there's a tremendous wage gap between those who are living well and those who are barely scraping by. Of course, one would probably be tempted to say that it's the same everywhere which could be true but basically, the low wage issue is such that there's no motivation to do any better, which contributes a lot to the 差不多 culture.

With all this deeply ingrained in the Taiwanese mindset, why would anyone successful in their home country want to move everything to Taiwan except for the reasons listed above?

The Gold Card office is very aware of this reality.

But I don't want this post to be all negative. Let's talk about positives. When I describe the general mentality here, we have to always understand that there are exceptions, and often these exceptions are my personal source of sanity here, and the reason why I keep coming back to Taiwan, and feel committed to do whatever part I can to help out. For instance, my friend Vincent Tsai and his organization that runs the festival that I am involved in every year (I talk about in my introductory post). People like him are doing work out of pure passion and developing Taiwan's cultural scene. He focuses on niche cultural events that most big organizations wouldn't even bother to care about. People like him are necessary for the true development of Taiwan, and when I think of my love of Taiwan, I think of people like him.

There are many who really trying to do great things, and things have been developing very well albeit very slowly. I see changes every few years, and it's going in the right direction. Even the education system is going through a revolution.

In other words, things are actually going in the right direction, and I hope that it continues at an accelerated rate.

During the course of the pandemic, the Gold Card program exploded because for just a little over a year and a half, Taiwan was one of the few places on earth that had no Covid-19. People flocked to Taiwan to live a "normal" life. However, in May of 2021, something went wrong, and for the first time, the island had to go through what the rest of the world went through an entire year ago! Suddenly many people started to leave.

So this was one of the other reasons why people came to Taiwan. If the key attraction is that there was no Covid-19, what will happen when the rest of the world had sorted its Covid-19 issues? Precisely what happened in the past few weeks; everyone decided to leave Taiwan because it could no longer offer anything.

Is this selfish? Yes it certainly is, and I certainly brought that issue up with the GC office people. Some people came here not caring one bit about Taiwan and just wanted to milk the island for whatever it got until it ran dry, and so they did. How unfair that they were awarded the Gold Card and legitimate talents were denied one due to stupid technicalities?

There are also people who came to Taiwan without knowing anything  about it other than that there was a Gold Card program. Unfortunately the culture shock that they experienced have turned them off completely and they are impatiently waiting to leave. This is also unfortunate. Before being to quick to judge such people, I would try to see things from their perspective (even though I don't 100% agree with their negative thoughts about Taiwan). 

Imagine being a highly skilled person looking for the next adventure, and someone offered you the Gold Card. Remember what I said earlier? Highly skilled people have much more to offer to Taiwan (foreign and local alike) than Taiwan at the moment could ever offer them. So you pack your bags and show up not knowing anything about Taiwan. Now, of course, I think you should try to do much research as possible before going on an adventure like this  (and this is one of my goals with this blog). The fact of the matter is that during the pandemic, when the rest of the world was shut down, Taiwan definitely was enticing. 

Then you encounter all the extremely conservative and bureaucratic issues within general day to day life once you arrive, you realize just how true my statement is: you have more to offer Taiwan than Taiwan can offer you. Someone is getting ripped off if you think about it from a purely transactional perspective (and some people do think this way). Only a genuine level for Taiwan is what would keep you here, and that is my case. 

From the perspective of the person who dislikes Taiwan for all these reasons, it's not easy for me to give counter examples beyond just loving Taiwan for the sake of loving it. Taiwan will therefore just be a temporary pit stop once they realize there's nothing of value for them here.

Now there are certain counter arguments that should be made. The first being that while people will very likely experience a certain degree of culture shock, one should be very aware that one is potentially encountering a completely different culture in more ways than one. For starters, language issues: one should accept that it's not for the locals to be able to speak English or whatever other language, but for you to get started on the basics as soon as possible. There are many things that are for foreigners to get used to. However, this can definitely be a fine line, because there are certain things that even some locals completely dislike and should be spoken against. There is racial discrimination in Taiwan. This is an issue deserving of its own post but how people are treated can sometimes be determined  by where one is from. There is also glorification of certain nationalities/ethnicities based purely on stereotypes.

Remember that we are talking about the Gold Card program here, and the Gold Program's purpose, really, is to develop  and strengthen Taiwan's international image by developing all the key sectors (science, economy, arts/culture, etc.). From this perspective, it is definitely true that more should be done to ensure people are likely to stay.

On the other hand, more should also be done to reject applications that come to only take advantage of Taiwan. There's room for improvement for sure and the GC office is well aware of all this.

I want to end this on a much more positive note and develop why I continuously choose to come here. Again, my friend Vincent Tsai and people like him give me hope for the future of Taiwan. Learning about Taiwanese history and learning more about my family history (read the introductory post if you haven't yet) are also reasons for me wanting to come every year. It's a genuine love for Taiwan despite all its flaws that brings me here every year. 

Remember, every society has its pros and cons. You weigh the differences and check the marks that are important to you.

Beyond a genuine love for Taiwan, here are other reasons why I come here:

As long as you are willing to live somewhat like a local (very important point!), Taiwan is very affordable. Of course, this very much depends on where you actually come from. Admittedly, the Canadian dollar was much stronger when I first started coming to Taiwan over 10 years ago, and things have gotten more expensive, but it still is very affordable. In the capital city of Taipei, rent can start as cheap as a few hundred dollars US a month (living with roommates). Of course, if you are highly skilled and have a bit of money saved up, you'd probably want an upgrade from something that cheap. From 800$ US (all included) to 2000$ US (all included), you get quite the significant upgrade. On the cheaper end would be a studio apartment in one of the hot spots Taipei to an apartment with multiple rooms. Keep in mind however, that one should be looking at things from the perspective of a local. What that means is that Taipei is densely populated so real estate tend to be smaller than American and/or Canadian homes. Then again, in many major European cities, apartments are on the smaller end as well. Of course, if you want to live outside the capital, it gets even cheaper. Again an entire blog post about this can be made at some point.

On the point of living like a local, if you are willing to eat local foods, full meals that would fill the average person up can be as cheap as 3$ US. I tend to eat a lot so those portions don't usually work for me hehe. I usually pay up to 12$ for a meal that will satisfy me. Keep in mind that's considered enough food for 2-3 people. Yes I eat that much. I've rarely met anyone who could eat as much as me. Don't judge me! Now, of course, if you're expecting the food that you eat back home in Germany, and you happen to find an authentic German restaurant, be obviously prepared to pay for that. Don't expect Taiwan to have what you had back home. 

As I get older, I feel more stress in my muscles, and I regularly go to the local massage places. There's a thing for visually disabled people to work in massage places, and the rates are so affordable that I go a few times a week. 7$ US for 20 minutes! Back home in Canada, most of the time, the minimum is to book an appointment for one hour, and it would start around 70$ USD! Getting regular massages helps me a lot and my health is generally a whole lot better in Taiwan than it was back home.

I find my phone plan to be fairly cheap as well. I have fast unlimited internet but not unlimited voice chat, which is a not an issue for me, and all this for significantly cheaper than what I had in Canada. In Canada, I had unlimited voice chat but not unlimited internet. These days, I text friends, and if we had to call, we use one of the apps.

Taiwan doesn't have a huge diverse list of restaurants, but for me, there is enough diversity to not make me go crazy , though I certainly miss a lot of things elsewhere. Now you have to keep in mind that when we enter this territory, we start to pay a bit more money and indeed the prices start to become comparable to many major western cities. Look at it from this perspective though, in Montreal, if I wanted to eat dumplings, I'd pay quite a bit for it, but in Taiwan, for 20 fried dumplings, I pay roughly 4$ US. Remember that 20 dumplings is usually for two people!

Tastes are obviously subjective, but for me, there are more than enough good American style restaurants in Taipei, good Italian restaurants (make sure they're run by Italians or someone who studied well with an actual Italian chef), obviously lots of higher end Asian restaurants, lots of Japanese restaurants, and I really like the Indian restaurants here too. What do I miss? I miss Greek food, Portuguese roast chicken, middle eastern food, and more specifically Syrian food. Oh, how I really miss those!

If you're into biking or hiking, I haven't done a lot of it, and can't say I'm an expert but I've done a little bit of it and I find it quite enjoyable. Even in the capital, there are numerous fun bike paths. For nature, and things like that, there are certainly places to explore! There are beaches. I'm not a connoisseur of all this so I can't really comment much more than that.

Weather: between the months of October and April, it is rarely too hot, and it rarely feels cold to me. Keep in mind, I'm  from the east coast of Canada. It can sometimes rain a lot, it's hit or miss, but one thing I certainly do not miss is the extreme cold of winters in Montreal, and being snowed in. Obviously if you're big into winter sports, then you wouldn't like it here haha. It starts getting extremely hot from May until about September, but surprisingly, in 2020, I didn't feel it was as bad as I thought it would be and right now in July of 2021, I'm not complaining at all. I obviously would not want to do activities during the day, but for walking 5-10 minutes under the heat is actually OK for me. At home, we have ACs but I try not to use too much. I bought an electric fan, and for me, it was good enough. I may only turn at the peak moments of the day, but I've even gone entire days without turning it on. I sleep with just the fan and it works well.

Language: I want to get better at speaking Mandarin, and obviously this is a good place to do it. I don't go to school to learn it though maybe I should. I learned it on the streets. As I mentioned in my introductory post, I started learning it in 2014, and I learned it with friends. Once again I want to plug my friend Jenny's JL Mandarin School. It's thanks to her that I even started, and she helped me get started. I noticed her talent for teaching and encouraged her to create her own business. I will be making posts about learning languages, but basically living here for the past year, and being forced to communicate in Mandarin has done wonders for me! If you want to be immersed in a Mandarin speaking community and enjoy wanting to use social media and talk shit about local politicians without getting "disappeared", then Taiwan is probably the place to be.

One bigger reason for me to stay here is that I don't have to earn money in Taiwan, I earn my money internationally, and therefore don't have to deal with the very low wages that are common here. If you're in a similar situation or you're going to be working a job that will likely be lucrative enough and outside of the typical Taiwanese pay scheme, then it can be good too. If on the other hand, you are actively looking for a job and find that the salary is nowhere near what you had back home, then you have to consider if it matters that much to you. For instance, to be honest, my dream place to live in is Japan, and to live in Japan, I would be willing to earn less than I usually earn just so long as I can live with relative comfort and security.

That's one of the big things for me: security. OK, people drive like maniacs here, but I'm talking about petty thefts. These kinds of crimes happen everywhere in the world, but I'd say significantly less so in Taiwan compared to Canada. In Canada, I'm often paranoid about break-ins and thieves stealing my phone or laptop when I'm distracted for an instant. It's even worse in Paris!!! In Taiwan, it is very rare. Of course, it can happen and I know that it has happened to some people, but relatively speaking, it's rare. I'm far less paranoid about such things here. It is a huge thing, and really one of the reasons why I chose to come here. In Canada, I worry about theft insurance. In Taiwan, I don't even have to care about that.

Transportation: Every city in Taiwan is different and I live in Taipei. Nonetheless, I feel Taiwan is doing a good job constantly improvising its public transportation system. I've seen the MRT (the subway) evolved in Taipei since the early days! Kaoshiung and Taichung (two of the other major cities in Taiwan) are also starting to develop their public transportation system. It is very efficient and, in my personal opinion, user friendly. Tokyo has a good system too but it can get confusing with all the different public transportation companies working together.

Last but not least in my list of reasons for liking Taiwan, I personally find Taiwan's health care system better than Canada's. Apparently Taiwan is famous for its health care service. Even without insurance, it is very affordable. Before I got the Gold Card and therefore the Health Care card, I must have paid about roughly 80$ US to have my wisdom teeth removed, and no it wasn't Dr. Nick Riviera's Basement Dental Clinic. I had small surgery to remove a cyst as well and without insurance, it was all very affordable.

Just like any place on this planet, there is no one single universal place for everyone. For me, my ideal place is Japan because it checks all the boxes that matter to me. The same reason why I continue to have attachments to Montreal and Taiwan; they check the right boxes as well, and often different ones.

Perhaps in yet another post, I can compare the cities I frequently travel to! But the point of this post is to try to give you a neutral perspective on Taiwan and whether you should apply for the Gold Card and come here or not.

As a final reminder, just because you apply for the Gold Card and get it, does not mean you have to come here. You can always leave if you don't like it.

One final important thing I want to say is that some people have suggested that the "elites" (Gold Card holders) should be on a mission to "colonize" Taiwan with their expertise. It's a strange choice of words, and maybe I'm nitpicking on semantics, but I want to be clear that no one is better than anyone because they come from somewhere else. I specifically highlighted the importance of local talents as well for this very reason. It would certainly be great if highly skilled people could share their knowledge irrespective of where they're from, but it shouldn't be forced on anyone. With proper dialogue, people need to be convinced why this knowledge would be good for them. Again, I remind you about the importance placed on stereotypes here, so people need to be convinced about certain things that they cannot understand because the way they were educated was completely different. Likewise, there are some aspects of the way people are educated here that other cultures in the west, for instance, can certainly benefit from! Because we are specifically talking about Taiwan here, I talked about some of the widely known but rarely openly talked about negative aspects, but if one talked about the USA, Canada, Japan, France, etc. one could easily do the same and list all that's wrong. It is not about X culture being superior to Y but about X and Y working together to fix each other's shortcomings and develop each other's strengths. That is my idealistic vision any way...

I wrote all this in one shot, and will probably make a number of edits as I read and reread it!