An askreddit question, “Just how different is mainlander and Taiwanese people’s lives?”
The top reply is, “I don’t have any statistics. Just happened upon this question and I’m answering from personal experience. I was born a very average Taiwanese person and have lived for 4 years in Beijing and 6 years in Shenzhen.
The difference in lifestyle is huge.
1. The most immediate impression is that the Taiwanese internet services aren’t as good as mainland’s. Why? Just from a population point of view, it’s not really necessary. Taiwan is such a small place, everything is so densely packed together, that real life stores are still super convenient. In Taibei, within a kilometre of my place, there’s six 7-11s or other convenience stores, where I can pay my bills, pay my phone subscription, and get cash. Industries only really develop when there’s an actual demand for it. If there’s any substitute at all, then it takes a lot longer for any industry to really take off. It’s the same for the internet.
And there’s a big difference in what people seek in life. If you’re a single otaku, you probably think online services are great, since you don’t have to leave the house. But if you have a family, you’re probably looking for an excuse to walk your kid around the block, put a bit of colour in your day.
Like during covid, in Shenzhen, the only place I could really go was department stores. Tourist spots were closed all the time, things were so expensive I couldn’t afford anything, and I didn’t want to just wander aimlessly. Going out for a little errand was actually crucial to my mental health. It seems like these days, there’s no point in stepping foot out of my door except to do covid tests.
2. In Taiwan, there’s a ton of hospitals and clinics, and it’s super convenient and cheap (unless you have something super wrong with you). In the mainland, it takes half a day to address anything. And with covid around, you basically just have to figure out how to recover on your own.
In Taiwan, if you’re a licensed doctor, you can open a little clinic wherever. So usually, within 1 km of the average residence, there’s like three clinics. If you just have a little bit of a cold or something, you can ride your scooter over, get checked out, pick up medicine, and leave all within 30 minutes (unless the doctor is super well known and actually has a line). Most of the clinics serve paediatrics, gynaecology, and eye doctors and otolaryngologists, and other common problems.
It’s different from local community clinics in the mainland, because they’re a lot more densely packed, with a lot more people, and they’re allowed to prescribe more medicine. Anyone who’s been to a community clinic knows what I’m talking about—the only thing you can get done there is getting vaccines.
It’s a double edged sword too, of course. Since it’s so convenient, people go all the time to get medicine for minor issues. And they end up taking so many pills that they build up resistance. My family is this way. Whenever I had the least amount of discomfort as a kid, my parents would take me to a clinic and get me pills. It got to the point that for my first autumn in Beijing in 2013, literally nothing worked for me anymore, and I just had to work through it on my own. Then, after living in the mainland for a long time, not taking medicine or going to the hospital for minor issues, my resistance disappeared and my immune system got better. Now I only get sick about twice a year, for 3 days at a time.
But giving birth in Shenzhen was a goddamn ordeal. It’s a long story, so I don’t want to get into it.
I remember I actually got made fun of once. One winter in Beijing, I got a stiff neck waking up. So I went to the hospital to get muscle relaxants (they’ll give you a shot in Taiwan and fix it in 3 minutes), and the nurse looked at me with contempt and was all like, “We don’t have that here. If you want to fix a stiff neck, go get a massage.”
You know why Joe Chen [Taiwanese actress] doesn’t know about digestion medicine? Because if she doesn’t feel well, she can just take 20 minutes and go to a clinic and get proper medicine. Why would she buy health supplements? (This gets into another issue too, I’ll talk about it later).
3. From the point of view of small business, so long as you’re willing to get into it, Taiwan is super stable.
This goes back to a classic problem that’s been talked about a lot: Taiwanese streets look the same today as they did ten years ago. It’s not just the streets. The auntie below my building selling breakfast onigiri has worked for so long that she’s become a grandma now. Three decades, she woke up early every morning to sell her onigiri. She bought two houses and a Mercedes with her onigiri money. I ate at the breakfast store in the nearby mall from when I was in primary school to when I’m working. For three decades, they steadily made money.
It’s completely different from my shock arriving in Beijing. In a certain alley in Sanlitun [neighbourhood in Beijing], all the shops would change every 3 months.
Of course, this just means that mainland China is growing faster than Taiwan. Taiwan is grinding to a stop. But at least as a small business owner, you’re in a very stable position.
4. When it comes to consumption, taxes are low, so we get a lot of imported goods.
I’ve never paid attention to whether digestive supplements are available in Taiwan. But if you’re talking about digestion issues, the first thing that comes to my mine is Japan’s digestive medicine, Jianwei San. There’s Japanese goods all over the place in Japan. Ten years ago, I’d still have to ask people to bring things back for me from Japan. Now, there’s a ton of stores and almost no import tax, so there’s no problem getting what I want locally.
I’ve got to complain, though, Muji in Japan, and Muji in Taiwan, and Muji in China have completely different price tags. I swear the price doubles from Japan to Taiwan, and doubles again in China.
As for other aspects, culture, language, habits and stuff, I can’t get to everything, so guess this is it for now.
Comments say, “Reading this kind of articles makes me feel uncomfortable. We need to unite sooner rather than later, start educating these people every day starting with raising the flag in the morning.”
“What effort she must’ve gone to, to stretch so hard to find these reasons. Does she not know that there’s a fast clinic in every hospital? And you can get prescription medicine on pharmacies online, and get it delivered to your house? You don’t have to spend 20 minutes going to a clinic to get medicine at all.”
“Can you get American pork and beef full of ractopamine?”
“Yesterday, as school let out, my kiddo went with her classmate to buy some food at the cafeteria. My kiddo bought a little cake and an ice cream, but after the lunch lady scanned her card, she only gave my kiddo a cake, and insisted that she never paid for an ice cream.
My kiddo was super confused. She saw on the cash register screen that she paid for an ice cream. Her classmate also saw it. But the lunch lady insisted that she didn’t pay for it. My kiddo got so mad, she cried.
She called me, and I told her to calm down, that it’s not that big a deal, and I’ll look up her lunch account.
It takes 24 hours for a receipt to show up on my app for what she spent her lunch money on. I looked it up, and clear as day, she paid for both a cake and an ice cream. I sent the screenshot of the payments to her.
Today, for lunch, my angry daughter took her classmate and charged back into the cafeteria, and showed her receipt. But the lunch lady still wouldn’t admit to it. She said, “Either way, one of you didn’t pay yesterday.” Her classmate immediately pulled up her own receipt. She also paid for an ice cream. At this point, the lunch lady was still being stubborn, saying she still needs to investigating, telling the girls to come back after school.
So after school, my kiddo went to the cafeteria again, and finally got the ice cream she insisted upon.
As she happily ate her ice cream, her classmate went on the offensive. She asked the lunch lady, “Auntie, you said that [so-and-so] didn’t swipe her card yesterday. We told you to look it up and you wouldn’t. Did you really think we’d lie over a 17 RMB ice cream?”
The lunch lady said, “I’m just trying to do my job. This is a problem with the cash register. I even went to my supervisor’s computer to look it up just for you guys.”
The classmate snorted in derision. “First you say she didn’t scan her card. Then you said I didn’t scan my card. And now you’re saying it’s something wrong with the machine. Either way, you’re innocent, right? You can’t look it up on your register? You can only check on your supervisor’s computer? I don’t believe that bullshit. I think you just don’t want to admit you made a mistake. You’re bullying us because we’re young, so you’re just making us run around for no reason.”
The lunch lady was still trying to fool them, being all like, “Nah, that’s not it at all.”
The little girl got mad. “If you continue to have this attitude, I’m going to have my dad file a complaint tomorrow, and you can stop working here.”
That’s when the lunch lady started panicking. Supposedly, she ended up giving the classmate a free ice cream too. And the classmate only let it go because of the favour.
My daughter was absolutely awed. Came home and told me all about how awesome it was, that it was possible to do something like this.
This classmate is from a family with a lot of connections. The daughter they’ve raised is really badass indeed. By comparison, my daughter is still too naive.”
Comments say, “Why are there such terrible people in the world? Are they just like that, or are they venting their frustrations at life at other people? Can’t we all just be normal human beings?”
“This lunch lady was totally just bullying kids.”
“I think there’s something deeply wrong with this lunch lady. The money on the lunch card doesn’t go to her personal account. Why would she put the kids through so much trouble for it? When you meet shitty lunch ladies like this, you’ve gotta file a complaint.”
A compilation of excellent comebacks to annoying family members:
“My grandma was paralysed and my mom had to take care of her. And my MIL kept talking about how her MIL died super young, and she never had to take care of her. I really dislike how she was commenting on my family, so I replied, “Hope I’m as lucky as you are.” She completely froze.”
“My MIL said in front of my husband, “You’re the only stranger in this room.” And I told her, “I’m still first inheritor when he dies though.” Everyone’s face went dark lol.”
“I mentioned weaning my kid to my husband’s aunt, and she said, “Women grow these things to feed kids. If you’re not gonna feed kids, why bother having boobs?” Without even thinking about it, I went, “Your son’s in his twenties. Why are you still holding onto yours? Go cut them off.” Wow, her face got dark.”
“My relative kept commenting on how I wasn’t getting married, always criticising me for being too picky in front of other people, especially when there’s a lot of guests over during the holidays. She just wouldn’t leave me alone, so I shot back, “What’s the point of getting married so young? So I can get divorced twice like your son?” My mom ran after me to beat me, so I ran away. But I’m still pretty sure my mom deliberately let me get away.”
“Around here, after people get their marriage license, they start calling their in-laws mom and dad. My husband and I just got our license, we haven’t had our wedding yet, and my in-laws didn’t say anything about it. But my husband’s uncle starting snarking at me, “I don’t know why you’re not changing how you address your in-laws yet. Did you not get enough money yet?” And I was like, “Yeah, give me another 200K and I’ll call you dad.””
“My daughter was 17 months and can only say a couple of simple words. Had a 60-something relative who was trying to teach her a super long sentence, and she couldn’t get it. So the relative was like, “What a useless kid. She’s so big and she still can’t talk.” She said this twice. So I replied, “It’s pretty normal for her to not know how to talk when she’s only just turned one. Some people are in their sixties and still don’t know how to talk like normal human beings.”
“My MIL said that my generation are all lazy. Her generation was hardworking and honest. And I was like, “Why don’t have get your son to marry someone from your generation, then?””
“My MIL said that if I don’t have a son, no one will remember me when I’m daed. I told her that she should just be satisfied that her son will remember her after she dies. After all, she’s not gonna live long enough to see me dead.”
“Just saw the news about the middle schooler suicide in Wenzhou. I feel really bad for the mother, and I feel really bad for the kid. I saw the passerby’s video of them fighting on the street. It was just after school, and the mom was hysterically screaming at her kid on the street.
To quote her words, “I got divorced at 28 and stayed single for ten years for your sake, you ungrateful bastard!” And then the kid went home and jumped off a building.
I’ve read once that, “If you’re managing a household, taking care of kids, but feeling frustrated and anxious and often cry for no reason and feel resentful towards everyone in your life, then it’s certainly because you lack money or love. It might sound materialistic, but it’s the truth.”
Your kid has no relation at all to whether or not you remarried, and whether or not you found happiness in your intimate relationships. Stop taking out your hate and anger towards your ex-husband on your kid. If she’s screaming like this in the street, then I’m sure it’s something she goes on and on about at home too. A kid in the middle of puberty might be hard to communicate with, but everyone experiences this phase. The worst thing for a kiddo is to hear that their parents’ life suck because of them.”
Comments say, “My mom says shit like this all the time too, and she’s already in her sixties. Even though she’s a perfectly successful and wealthy career woman. She’s gotten to the point of yelling at her siblings now. She’s too neurotic, she needs too much emotional support, and no one can ever satisfy her.”
“No one can PUA me. I don’t care. I’ll go on doing what I’m doing. Let’s see who gives up first.”
“The fundamental issue is that everyone’s life is hard. No one is happy. Nobody knows what happiness feels like. So they can’t give their family or their kids or their spouses happiness either. We’ll all being swept away by the currents of time.”
A blogger shows a fan submission he got, “Hello, I’m from a middle-class family, with a 15 million RMB house in Putuo District [in Shanghai]. We bought it when I was still in primary school, at 1.2 million. When I was in university, I got a friend from a small town in the north. She’s pretty good looking, 170cm, 57kg, nice squeeze. Her parents both work full time. They don’t have much money at all.
When we started talking about marriage, she knew my family was pretty well off, so she started off with some big demands. She wants to put her name on my family’s big house. It currently only has my parents and my name on it. And she wants 380K for her bride price, plus another 410K for wedding costs. My parents want me to break it off.
But I’m not sure I want to. I’ve been using her for over a year now. We’re a great match in a lot of aspects. If I dump her, she’ll end up getting used by someone else, and I just can’t accept that. What can I do?”
The blogger replies, “It’s true what they say, it doesn’t hurt to sell off your ancestor’s property. Don’t turn a 2800 RMB deal into something that bankrupts your family. It’s not easy for your parents scrounging up what little assets you have.”
Comments say, “At the end of physics is maths. At the end of relationships, it’s still all maths.”
“It’s time for the dad to step up. Hurry up and go to a VIP room in a KTV, and get a line of girls from 1 to 10. The son here just lacks context. It’s time to widen his eyes to the world. Remember to save number six for me.”
“I suggest this girl look at your pinned post: When you’ve been through everything, you’ll find that no matter how well you plan your life, it doesn’t matter in front of fate. If you’re meant to have it, you’re meant to have it. If you’re not, there’s no point in holding onto it. Stop demanding to add your name to things.”
I haven’t quite mastered converting between RMB and USD. What’s the comparable cost of a 410K RMB wedding?
What does "nice squeeze" mean?