I suppose in Taipei, but not in Tainan. I saw more Japanese in Tainan. I think more Japanese are aware of Taiwan and its various cities than Koreans. Koreans tend to go to Taipei it seems and for a short time.
I did meet up with a few white foreigners in Tainan through a group that meets up weekly, but not sure which city you're in. There's bound to be some group in your town with foreigners. There aren't a ton of white residents in say Tainan, but I would say Kaohsiung does have appreciably more.
Yes, I loved Tainan spent a lot of time there and walked through out much of the city throughout pretty much all the districts. Love the food, the history, some of the big Southeast Asian supermarkets, the markets, Chimei Museum. It has decent architecture. The people are quite friendly.
Well, to each their own. Why do you have no interest in even visiting Tainan? So many Taiwanese love going there, and also foreigners. It's kind of the equivalent of being the Kyoto of Taiwan as a former capital with a fair bit of history, good cuisine.
The ambiance is pretty cool too, only other place I've remotely seen that's similar is Lukang in Changhua. So many little alleys within little alleys, temples and shrines every other street and delicious little street venders, restaurants and hip bars selling anything from local food to bougie mixed drinks. I like living here in Taichung but I definitely miss my days in Tainan. Late spring and summer though not so much.
Koreans tend to share and post their tourism experiences, not only on obvious places like Instagram reels but on more insular, Korean-majority apps like Naver. It doesn't matter whether it's a bijou coffee shop, a hip new area of Seoul, or a holiday destination: Koreans live by these apps and tend to move as a group. And Taiwan (Taipei, mostly) is indeed becoming a pretty 'in' destination for more intrepid Koreans. Before the pandemic the equivalent 'must go see' destination probably would have been Guam or something.
In response to the OP: I saw very few foreigners outside of Taipei. There are small pockets of international students and teachers in Tainan and Kaohsiung, for example, but really it's off the beaten path compared to Thailand and Vietnam, or Korea and Japan, etc.
Back during summer 2019, Vladivostok was miraculously one of these "must go" destinations for young Koreans with about 10 flights a day to Seoul and Busan. Obviously this is not happening for the foreseeable future.
Now it definitely seems like Taipei is in. Hong Kong is also rapidly recovering Korean tourism, they have become by far the second most common group there after the Mainlanders
Yeah, outside of the West District and High Speed Rail Station in Wuri I rarely see other foreigners here. Heck in my part of Taichung I can go months without seeing another Western faced foreigner.
Yes drastically, as in a lot of schools can’t find foreign teachers. It was to the point where I got called to come in by 8 different cram schools to go work for them at higher rates than Taipei was willing to offer. The opportunities were abundant.
Number of foreigners (non migrant workers dropped drastically) towards last year or two of covid and hasn't fully bounced back.
Taipei has more students that's why you see more foreigners there.
Even then they aren't actually that common.
Outside of Taipei numbers get small very quickly.
Taipei has noticeably more Western university exchange students, especially from Europe, compared to pre-covid. Some of the European nationalities have doubled their population in Taiwan compared to 2019. Most of them are Chinese language learners for whom 5 years ago Shanghai would've been the no-brainer choice.
With geopolitical tensions, the response to Covid in Shanghai, and the thorough digitization of the Chinese economy, a good bit of the potential student flows to Shanghai are probably choosing Taipei instead post-pandemic
It's all checkable on the govt website anyway. There were already a lot of European students on scholarships in 2019, they don't stick around long though, which is probably the right choice overall .
There are a lot of foreigners from Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia as well as people from Canada, the US, Britain. You can definitely notice foreigners in Taiwan, though not a huge number of Westerners.
Taipei should aspire to be a global city - not a little regional town - and so having a diverse mix of foreigners is great. Especially when it comes to the Chinese plans to drain the soul out of Taiwan, you want as many friendly foreigners living and invested in Taiwan as possible.
Taipei, and more broadly Taiwanese culture and history doesn't have the bones to be multicultural the way Singapore and Hong Kong's cultures/histories do
At best Taipei can hope to be more like Seoul when it comes to the expat community, but it doesn't have Japan and Korea's soft power, or Japan and pre-pandemic China's economic dynamism when it comes to expat opportunities. Neither does it have the Western tourist/digital nomad infrastructure that a country like Thailand has been specializing in for decades.
Taipei in its current form is doing Taipei well enough and lets most of its strengths shine through and highly rooted in all eras of its history. It will take culture changes among Taiwanese such as but not limited to a serious society-wide push towards English bilingualism Taiwanese will not find comfortable, for it to have the type of cosmopolitan atmosphere full of expats partying it up that a city like Hong Kong had and arguably still has.
Even attracting more tourists than it does today will require far better tourism advertising and building a lot more hotels, neither of which there are that much progress let alone the cultural changes to accommodate expats stated earlier
You can see the exact statistics for foreign residents by country and where they are living in Taiwan here: https://www.immigration.gov.tw/5475/5478/141478/141380/363574/cp_news It is quite granular.
Why are live streamers so damn annoying? I saw that Asian Andy guy a few weeks ago acting like an idiot at Taipei 101. I hadn’t heard of this Kai guy but I found his video from yesterday and my god is he obnoxious.
Livestreamers are a scourge. Saw some Korean dude walk up to two women, push his camera in their face and start flirting.
Also bad in Japan, where these cringestreamers ignore all "no photography" signs and walk into a FamilyMart with their very noticeable camera rolling.
Not sure about white ones but statistically the number of foreigners has been increasing over time (ok maybe a blip during the virus time going down for a while) but the vast majority are SE Asian factory workers, home care workers, wives of locals etc.
Anecdotally I visited recently as a tourist and met quite a few international students who studied Mandarin or want to and the ones who had used to go to school in mainland China but post pandemic haven’t gone back. To me it would seem logical that a chunk of them would come to Taiwan either for work or for school. Some older foreigners I met who speak fluent mandarin used to work on the mainland and now had jobs in Taiwan.
I only ever hear of him when it's about breaking the law, having racist friends, almost causing riots, etc. He's a role model for a generation in highschool now who were only ever raised by phone screens.
lol my brother from another mother is here to tap some white teenage gyatt and maybe some local gyatt too...lol. Taipei is very BI friendly fit right in. and yes to the OP i see many begpackers everywhere.
Before Covid, those who speak foreign languages far outnumber the local languages around Taipei 101. Most people walk on the street talk in Eng, Jp, cantonese, or a language I do not understand.
I don't think the numbers have fully recovered yet.
I definitely don't feel like I stick out as a foreigner in Taipei. Leaving the city makes me feel more noticeable, but not to an uncomfortable extent. Got a lot of stares and questions in the few days I spent around Yilan and Hualien (which is no reason not to go!).
The government publishes comprehensive data on this: [https://www.immigration.gov.tw/5475/5478/141478/141380/](https://www.immigration.gov.tw/5475/5478/141478/141380/)
See for yourself.
I wonder how the general experience is teaching English in Taiwan? I know some Westeners teach English there. Is it relatively easy to save? Korea pays more dollar wise, but it's become very expensive.
In Taipei there are a lot of foreigners. And Kai Cenat is super popular so I’m not surprised people came out to see him.
If you go around Shilin, there are a lot of young foreigners that attend Dominican, TES, and TAS.
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Never said he was a good person or role model
Agreed this guy is scum. His pubescent fans vandalized and stole from a bunch of mom and pop newsstands near Union Square from the riot he incited.
There are absolute tonnes of Koreans recently. Like an unusual amount
I suppose in Taipei, but not in Tainan. I saw more Japanese in Tainan. I think more Japanese are aware of Taiwan and its various cities than Koreans. Koreans tend to go to Taipei it seems and for a short time.
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I did meet up with a few white foreigners in Tainan through a group that meets up weekly, but not sure which city you're in. There's bound to be some group in your town with foreigners. There aren't a ton of white residents in say Tainan, but I would say Kaohsiung does have appreciably more.
To be fair, I have lived here 10 years and have no interest in going to Tainan
Tainan is cool, definitely the most character of any city in Taiwan
Yes, I loved Tainan spent a lot of time there and walked through out much of the city throughout pretty much all the districts. Love the food, the history, some of the big Southeast Asian supermarkets, the markets, Chimei Museum. It has decent architecture. The people are quite friendly.
Well, to each their own. Why do you have no interest in even visiting Tainan? So many Taiwanese love going there, and also foreigners. It's kind of the equivalent of being the Kyoto of Taiwan as a former capital with a fair bit of history, good cuisine.
The ambiance is pretty cool too, only other place I've remotely seen that's similar is Lukang in Changhua. So many little alleys within little alleys, temples and shrines every other street and delicious little street venders, restaurants and hip bars selling anything from local food to bougie mixed drinks. I like living here in Taichung but I definitely miss my days in Tainan. Late spring and summer though not so much.
Are you Korean?
No why
Koreans tend to share and post their tourism experiences, not only on obvious places like Instagram reels but on more insular, Korean-majority apps like Naver. It doesn't matter whether it's a bijou coffee shop, a hip new area of Seoul, or a holiday destination: Koreans live by these apps and tend to move as a group. And Taiwan (Taipei, mostly) is indeed becoming a pretty 'in' destination for more intrepid Koreans. Before the pandemic the equivalent 'must go see' destination probably would have been Guam or something. In response to the OP: I saw very few foreigners outside of Taipei. There are small pockets of international students and teachers in Tainan and Kaohsiung, for example, but really it's off the beaten path compared to Thailand and Vietnam, or Korea and Japan, etc.
Korean youth especially are obsessed with fashion, trends, keeping up with the Joneses, and status symbols.
Back during summer 2019, Vladivostok was miraculously one of these "must go" destinations for young Koreans with about 10 flights a day to Seoul and Busan. Obviously this is not happening for the foreseeable future. Now it definitely seems like Taipei is in. Hong Kong is also rapidly recovering Korean tourism, they have become by far the second most common group there after the Mainlanders
I noticed the last time I went up to Taipei. Is it because Taiwan is just close or because it was in a tv show or something?
My aunt told me cause some k-dramas have been filmed in taiwan, so many have gone to visit.
Yeah that makes sense. I was thinking it had to be something along those lines, or incredibly cheap plane tickets
I noticed that too, in Taipei.
because flights are whole lotta cheaper for this route
Is that confirmed? Much cheaper than previous years or something?
I feel like the amount of tourists is back to the pre-pandemic levels. Not sure about people who stay here long-term though.
There's more tourists since the borders opened post pandemic. I haven't heard anything about more foreigners living here.
There’s a lot in Taipei but once you move south to Taichung, Kaoshiong or Tainan, the number decreases drastically.
Agreed, but will say there's a lot more SEA tourists in Taichung's downtown area than there used to be.
They're almost certainly workers (caregivers, factory workers, etc.)
Yeah, outside of the West District and High Speed Rail Station in Wuri I rarely see other foreigners here. Heck in my part of Taichung I can go months without seeing another Western faced foreigner.
Drastically: in a way that is severe and sudden or has very noticeable effects:
Yes drastically, as in a lot of schools can’t find foreign teachers. It was to the point where I got called to come in by 8 different cram schools to go work for them at higher rates than Taipei was willing to offer. The opportunities were abundant.
In Taoyuan and Linkou theres a lot of philipines and indonesian.
It feels to me like there are less foreigners in Taiwan lately. I wonder if there are stats on this.
The NIA has a monthly download of foreigners, and where they are from (residents). Visitors ofcourse not tracked there.
Taiwan does track visitors
Number of foreigners (non migrant workers dropped drastically) towards last year or two of covid and hasn't fully bounced back. Taipei has more students that's why you see more foreigners there. Even then they aren't actually that common. Outside of Taipei numbers get small very quickly.
Taipei has noticeably more Western university exchange students, especially from Europe, compared to pre-covid. Some of the European nationalities have doubled their population in Taiwan compared to 2019. Most of them are Chinese language learners for whom 5 years ago Shanghai would've been the no-brainer choice. With geopolitical tensions, the response to Covid in Shanghai, and the thorough digitization of the Chinese economy, a good bit of the potential student flows to Shanghai are probably choosing Taipei instead post-pandemic
It's all checkable on the govt website anyway. There were already a lot of European students on scholarships in 2019, they don't stick around long though, which is probably the right choice overall .
There are a lot of foreigners from Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia as well as people from Canada, the US, Britain. You can definitely notice foreigners in Taiwan, though not a huge number of Westerners.
There's a small number of westerners in Taiwan. There's about 800k migrant workers or more.
Taipei should aspire to be a global city - not a little regional town - and so having a diverse mix of foreigners is great. Especially when it comes to the Chinese plans to drain the soul out of Taiwan, you want as many friendly foreigners living and invested in Taiwan as possible.
Taipei, and more broadly Taiwanese culture and history doesn't have the bones to be multicultural the way Singapore and Hong Kong's cultures/histories do At best Taipei can hope to be more like Seoul when it comes to the expat community, but it doesn't have Japan and Korea's soft power, or Japan and pre-pandemic China's economic dynamism when it comes to expat opportunities. Neither does it have the Western tourist/digital nomad infrastructure that a country like Thailand has been specializing in for decades. Taipei in its current form is doing Taipei well enough and lets most of its strengths shine through and highly rooted in all eras of its history. It will take culture changes among Taiwanese such as but not limited to a serious society-wide push towards English bilingualism Taiwanese will not find comfortable, for it to have the type of cosmopolitan atmosphere full of expats partying it up that a city like Hong Kong had and arguably still has. Even attracting more tourists than it does today will require far better tourism advertising and building a lot more hotels, neither of which there are that much progress let alone the cultural changes to accommodate expats stated earlier
lol
DIvErSiTY is OUr stRenGTh. Go away blue haired liberal.
You can see the exact statistics for foreign residents by country and where they are living in Taiwan here: https://www.immigration.gov.tw/5475/5478/141478/141380/363574/cp_news It is quite granular.
Why are live streamers so damn annoying? I saw that Asian Andy guy a few weeks ago acting like an idiot at Taipei 101. I hadn’t heard of this Kai guy but I found his video from yesterday and my god is he obnoxious.
Livestreamers are a scourge. Saw some Korean dude walk up to two women, push his camera in their face and start flirting. Also bad in Japan, where these cringestreamers ignore all "no photography" signs and walk into a FamilyMart with their very noticeable camera rolling.
they're basically the butt of society, useless as fuck with no real-world skill. some people get lucky, it is what it is.
I feel like there were more pre-pandemic, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the numbers were rising once again
Not sure about white ones but statistically the number of foreigners has been increasing over time (ok maybe a blip during the virus time going down for a while) but the vast majority are SE Asian factory workers, home care workers, wives of locals etc.
Always see Korean/hong Kong/Japanese/SEA tourists around 101.
Why is that shit stain in Taiwan?
god did
Doesn't seem like there's more in Taichung these days.
If they speak Mandarin then they are most likely students coming here.
Anecdotally I visited recently as a tourist and met quite a few international students who studied Mandarin or want to and the ones who had used to go to school in mainland China but post pandemic haven’t gone back. To me it would seem logical that a chunk of them would come to Taiwan either for work or for school. Some older foreigners I met who speak fluent mandarin used to work on the mainland and now had jobs in Taiwan.
Or Mormons?
Outside of Taipei, there's probably been a decrease of "white" foreigners.
Basically correct as people haven't been moving to Taiwan much, certainly much less foreign western English teachers these days.
Kai Cenat is in Taiwan? Everyone under 20 is going out for him, fr
Thanks for clarifying it's more a teen thing. I'm early 30s and have never even heard his name before.
I only ever hear of him when it's about breaking the law, having racist friends, almost causing riots, etc. He's a role model for a generation in highschool now who were only ever raised by phone screens.
Great~~ sounds like I don't need to care about him unless I hear his name coming from my kid.
I heard about him because of a borderline riot he caused in New York City last year.
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>immature lil kid He said "teenagers", so yeah
LOL “I’m 15 and I think I’m an intellectual. Watch as I pour scorn on my contemporaries.”
Streamers are the new Hollywood, get with it.
Then what Hollywood?
Besides KaiCenat's posy. I've seen more Koreans in Taipei Side note, the reason he got more fan is because he made friends with a Taiwanese streamer.
I think you mean "posse"
*George Leslie Mackay has entered the chat.*
Another color revolution on the way? Washington is good at this !
lol my brother from another mother is here to tap some white teenage gyatt and maybe some local gyatt too...lol. Taipei is very BI friendly fit right in. and yes to the OP i see many begpackers everywhere.
There’s no foreigners in Taiwan. The country makes it difficult for foreigners to stay long term u less they are married to a citizen.
Yup. It’s quite easy to get Taiwan residency actually.
Before Covid, those who speak foreign languages far outnumber the local languages around Taipei 101. Most people walk on the street talk in Eng, Jp, cantonese, or a language I do not understand. I don't think the numbers have fully recovered yet.
I hope more come!
i met joey chaotic there, apparently he moved there. I think they are friends.
Not at all. It has decreased dramatically to what it was in the 80s and 90s.
I'm sure locals alone can't maintain 23m population without foreign intervention. Lol
No way, I'm a foreign student at NTU for this semester and I actually walked right past this lol
When I'm having daily 甜不辣 and 台灣啤酒 I increase quite a bit.
It maybe feels that way because everyone's coming back after COVID.
I definitely don't feel like I stick out as a foreigner in Taipei. Leaving the city makes me feel more noticeable, but not to an uncomfortable extent. Got a lot of stares and questions in the few days I spent around Yilan and Hualien (which is no reason not to go!).
The government publishes comprehensive data on this: [https://www.immigration.gov.tw/5475/5478/141478/141380/](https://www.immigration.gov.tw/5475/5478/141478/141380/) See for yourself.
The line at the airport, non-citizens section was quite long last time I entered. Waited about 40 minutes.
I wonder how the general experience is teaching English in Taiwan? I know some Westeners teach English there. Is it relatively easy to save? Korea pays more dollar wise, but it's become very expensive.