Tag Archives: 台灣

What do you do if you lose something in a taxi cab in Taiwan?

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Solomon203, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The general sense of security you feel in Taiwan can lead to you being a little careless with your possessions, expecting them to miraculously reappear before your eyes with little to no effort on your behalf. While this sometimes does happen, what do you do if it doesn’t?

Given that I’m no stranger to misplacing things, I’ve created a short guide below.

Losing stuff in taxi cabs

Do you know the registration/license plate number of the cab?

→ No.
Walk into your local police station (or one in the area near where you got into or out of the taxi) and tell them what you’ve lost and give them an approximate time frame for when you got into or out of the taxi and where (“Yes, officer, it was between 11pm and 5am somewhere in the Greater Taipei area.”)

– TOP TIP: if you were too drunk to remember clearly, use Google maps to track your movements and check whether you paid by EasyCard (learn how to use your phone as your Easycard here) and there should be a time stamp by the transaction.

They have a CCTV system that can access footage from most cameras across the city, so you can scroll through the footage (the bits highlighted in red indicate movement detected) quickly until you spot yourself embarking or disembarking from the taxi, and you should be able to spot the license number. With the license number in hand, you can safely change your answer to yes.

TOP TIP
If you’re visiting a police station near where you got out of the taxi, it’s quite likely that the driver of the cab has already handed it in by the time you reach the police station (presumably rather hungover and disheveled). So be sure to ask the police officer at reception to check if it’s already been handed in (they might not have been on shift at that point).

→ Yes.
Depending on where you are in the country, call one of the numbers below to get in touch with the either the city government police team or the governing authority for taxis and give them the registration/license plate number and they should get in touch with the driver on your behalf:

Taipei City
臺北市政府警察局交通警察大隊：02-2311-6409、02-2375-2100
臺北市政府交通局：02-2725-6888
臺北市公共運輸處：02-2759-2677

Taoyuan Airport
桃園機場計程車：03-398-5558

Taichung City
臺中市政府交通局：04-2228-9111
交通部公路總局臺中區監理所：04-2691-3464

Tainan City
臺南市政府交通局：06-295-3221

Kaohsiung City
高雄市政府交通局：07-222-6816

If you’re unsuccessful in the above endeavors, you can also contact the police broadcasting station, which will broadcast what you’ve lost to all taxi drivers. The lost and found number in Taipei is 02-2388-0066 and you can find the numbers for other regions of Taiwan here. The Taipei branch also has a website and office, where taxi drivers will sometimes drop off items.


ROC Patriotism Now A Broader Church?

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I found this Ministry of National Defense poster in the run up to the 7th National Senior High School Honor Guard Competition at Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall (Liberty Square) kind of interesting, in that it incorporates some Japanese in the form of a pun.

The main slogan on the sign reads:

愛國儀級棒

Patriotism is the best!

This is a bit of word play on the Japanese term いちばん（一番） meaning “the best” or “number one”. This is normally transliterated into Mandarin as 「一級棒」, but in the sign, the 「一」 (yī/one) has been substituted for the 「儀」（yí/ceremonial) of “Honor Guard” （儀隊）.

I know I have a penchant for over-interpreting, and this is likely an attempt (alongside the manga-esque figures on the poster) at appealing to manga-loving Taiwanese teens, BUT… this does seem pretty layered.

The ROC Armed Forces have a traditional association with the 外省/waisheng (post-1949 Chinese immigrant population), who often exhibit anti-Japanese sentiment (see previous blog post here). This is because the army had fought the Japanese in China prior to fleeing to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-Shek (a memorial to whom is actually facing this sign). Perhaps then the younger generations within the Ministry of National Defense and the ROC Army are less hung up on these issues and are appealing to a broader church? (This is the over-interpreting part).

Incidentally, the memorial has been subject to inter-party squabbles for quite some time. The square was originally called Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, but in 2007, amid objections from KMT Mayor Hau Lung-pin (郝龍斌) and ex-mayor and then presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), the inscription on the iconic arches was changed from 「大中至正」(a classical Chinese reference which contains 「中正」, one of the many names taken by Chiang Kai-shek) to 「自由廣場」. However, as the KMT were still in control of the Taipei City Government at the time, the MRT and the general public continue to refer to it as Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. The name of the hall itself was also changed briefly from 2007-2009 to “National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall” before changing back. The current Mayor of Taipei, Wayne Chiang （蔣萬安） is believed to be the great-grandson of Chiang Kai-shek, so this thorny tale is sure to continue into the future.

Passive Aggressive Notes: Being insincere through font size in Chinese!

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Found this beautifully-crafted note in one of the toilets at the Red House (紅樓), part of its power is that it’s actually stuck on the door in a way that seals the door shut:

本廁間又再 再 再 再 再次 因馬桶被丟入異物造成堵塞，請至本廁間使用的有緣人多加留意，勿將 衛生紙、濕紙巾、保險套、內褲、絲襪、垃圾袋、牙線、棉花棒、口紅、筆及所有不是尿及屎的個人隨身物品不小心丟入馬桶喔！

感謝體恤打掃婆婆的辛勞

本廁間修繕待料中 預計6/22修繕

This cubicle has been blocked again, again, again, again and again, due to inappropriate things being thrown into the toilet bowl. Can those special people that are drawn to use this toilet be more careful and not accidentally dispose of any personal item that’s not piss or shit into the toilet bowl, including toilet paper, wet wipes, condoms, underwear, stockings, trash bags, dental floss, cotton buds, lip stick and pens!

Thanks for understanding how hard our cleaning ladies are working.

This cubicle is under renovation until June 22

The font size seems to underline the sarcastic tone of the note and the combination of a polite register along with vulgar language. To be fair, that toilet seems to attract a lot of strange people.

The Eternal Question: To Mask or not to Mask!

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If you’ve been outside of Taiwan anytime in the past year, you’ll notice a substantial difference in masking practices. In the US and the UK, I rarely saw anyone in a mask, but in Taiwan, the mask industry is still going strong. As I was walking back home one day, however, I spotted this random sticker on a lamppost, suggesting someone is not happy with the lasting fetish with face masking in Taiwan:

It reads:

「口罩臉
不好看
打扮病夫
很詭異」

“A masked face
is not attractive
Dressing up like a sick old lady
is very weird”

To be fair, for the past couple of months, it feels like the entire city of Taipei has had a cough or a cold and do you really care whether other people wear masks or not?

What do you think? Time to expose our chins to the gods?


ABOMINATIONS! Adulterated Chinese characters in the wild!

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Just as in English advertising you’ll see some letters substituted with images, the same happens in Chinese, and you’ll often see parts of characters replaced. I’ve captured a few examples below, but let me know if you spot any yourself!

In what we’ll call questionable taste. A kid with an open mouth takes the place of the 「口」 component of 「吃」 in this sign (and yes, 吃 has most if not all of the connotations of the word “eat” in English). It reads 「吃我 早午餐」 (Eat Me – Brunch).

This congee shop has creatively substituted the central 「米」 component of 「粥」 for a stack of steaming bowls of congee.

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Chess in Taiwan: Brian Tseng and playing for Team Taiwan

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Although I dabbled in my youth, I’m pretty much a post-Queen’s Gambit chess player. I’ve really gotten into it over the past few years, although I’m still at around 1000 ELO (Daily), so just thought I’d provide a bit of info on the scene in Taiwan and some useful vocab in Mandarin.

via GIPHY

Most of my interactions have been online, but there are some meet-ups in Taipei, also happy to play over-the-board with anyone in and around Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall over lunch times.

If you want to play for Taiwan, you can join Team Taiwan on Chess.com (you can only play for one country at a time, but they’re flexible about the flag displayed in your profile). Also, feel free to add me and play me.

Although Xiangqi (象棋) is more popular here, there is a growing community of chess players too, including stand-up comic, presenter and podcaster Brian Tseng. He’s yet to disclose his Chess.com username, but he’s mentioned chess a good few times in his podcast, particularly in the King’s Gambit (王翼棄兵) episode, where he talks about applying the lessons of chess to everyday life.

You can find some cool stickers on Instagram, by searching for “rvdtor.”

You can also follow the progress of World Chess Champion Ding Liren (丁立人) on Weibo, although he seems to be playing less these days. And check out this Taichung-based chess YouTuber!

Chess Vocab:

西洋棋 xī​yáng​qí chess
棋盤 qí​pán chess board
一盤棋 yī​pánqí​ a game of chess
下棋 xià​qí to play chess
下一步棋 xià​yī​bùqí to make a chess move
隻 zhī measure word for piece
國王 guó​wáng king
皇后 huáng​hòu queen
主教 zhǔ​jiào bishop
馬 / 小馬 / 騎士 ​mǎ / xiǎomǎ / qí​shì knight
城堡 chéng​bǎo rook/castle
斜線 xié​xiàn diagonals (measure word: 條 tiáo)
兵 / 小兵 bīng / xiǎobīng pawn
黑格 hēigé black square
白格 báigé white square
黑 / 白格主教 hēi / báigé zhǔ​jiào black / white-square bishop
吃 / 敲 chī / qiāo to take (a piece)
翻騎士 fānqí​shì to move a knight

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‘Marry My Dead Body’ Film Review – Be gay! Just no sex please, we’re Taiwanese!

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I’m late to the game, but I finally watched Marry My Dead Body (《關於我和鬼變成家人的那件事》, literally “Concerning me becoming family with a ghost”) on Netflix over the weekend (available with English subs). The film did have its moments although not all of the jokes landed to me.

The name in Chinese follows a pattern of using overly wordy titles that started more or less with another film You are the Apple of my Eye  (《那些年，我們一起追的女孩》, literally, “Those years, and those girls we chased together”). This formula is a little played out now in popular culture, however, and I think they could have gone with something a little snappier. There’s also a euphemistic tone to the Chinese title, as the marriage part is not stated overtly, referred to just as “becoming family.” The English title, although a little inaccurate in terms of spirit versus corpse, has a touch of humour to it in its echo of the phrase “over my dead body,” so I’d say the English title works quite well, as it reflects the enmity between the two main characters at the outset in typical rom-com fashion.

The film is largely well-meaning in its message: essentially that stereotypes and discrimination are a result of ignorance, and that, once homophobic people interact in a meaningful way with gay people, they begin to see them as human.

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UPDATED I have an APRC, when am I getting the NT$6,000 tax rebate?

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You might have heard quite a lot of talk about permanent residents and citizens of Taiwan getting an NT$6,000 tax rebate a while back, one of the last things outgoing Premier Su Tseng-chang did before he left office.

Ehhhh… that was back in January, when does the money come in?

The website went live for registration for direct deposits to bank account Wednesday, March 22 at 8 am for those whose IDs end in a zero or a one; those whose IDs end in a two or three on Thursday, March 23 at 8 am; those whose IDs end in a four and five on Friday, March 24; six and seven on Saturday, March 25; and eight and nine on Sunday, March 26. After that, you can register regardless of your ID number. The ATM and Post Office options are also now available.

Click 登記入帳 to register to get the money directly deposited to your bank. You’ll need to fill in your ARC no., the 12 digit number on your NHI card and your bank and bank account number.

So… how do I get my grubby little hands on it? (Updated March 16, 2023)

As you may or may not know, as opposed to the stimulus vouchers issued previously, this time they are issuing cash directly. According to Minister Audrey Tang, there are three main ways to collect your tax rebate (there are two other categories for special categories including remote areas, but not super important for the majority of us):

  1. Straight to your bank account – you can log into the online system with your NHI card and will have the option to have the money deposited directly into your bank account.
  2. Withdrawing the cash direct from an ATM – you can go to an ATM at one of 12 appointed banks and enter your NHI card number and ID number to allow you to withdraw the cash immediately. (Prepare for some hiccups for APRC holders with this option in my estimation).
  3. Post office counter service – for those who are fans of queueing, you can also get the cash at a post office with your ID/APRC and NHI card. If you’re a real queue aficionado and want to eat up at least a few hours, you can try to get it on the first day or target an area of Taipei with a higher concentration of senior citizens. Alternatively, you can go with option 1 and then queue up for a distinctly average beef noodle restaurant instead.

UPDATE (March 29, 2023):

You can check if you successfully registered using the tool below:

When you click “查詢登記結果” (Check the results of registration), you’ll be prompted to enter your ARC number and the 12 digits on the front of your NHI card. And if you were successful it should give you a message like this:

“Registration complete, the money will enter your account soon.”

Need Some Charge on the Run – Convenience Stores Now Offer Power Bank Rentals in Taiwan

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You can now borrow a power bank at any 7-11 and leave it back at any other branch. The rental fee is NT$12 per hour, with a 24-hour max charge of NT$36 and a 72-hour maximum rental period. They will hold NT$300 on your card until you return it. If you want to cancel a transaction, you can also return it within 10 minutes without charge. You can check out a list of participating stores here! Wireless and wired charging are both available for Android and Apple.

First, check to see if the Ibon machine at the 7-11 you’re at has any power banks inserted at the bottom. If not, they might all have been rented, or it might not be a participating store. If you do see power banks, you can follow the steps below to rent:


Step 1: At the Ibon Machine main menu, hit 「生活服務」 (everyday services)

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How Do I Swap my UK Driving License for a Local One in Taiwan?

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I recently applied to swap my UK license for a Taiwanese license, under the mutual driver license agreement signed by Taiwan and the UK.

As I’m from Belfast, I thought that I’d have some difficulty swapping my license under the UK-Taiwan license exchange program. I did have to do some extra explaining but was able to swap successfully.

The initial announcement of the scheme when the memorandum of understanding was signed specified that Northern Irish licenses were excluded, but when the scheme launched in January of this year, no such exclusion was mentioned in the description of the scheme. I messaged the British Office, and they said they had no idea and told me to ask the Taiwanese Motor Vehicle Office. They were a bit more helpful and said that the agreement specified that it was the entire UK (which, of course, includes Northern Ireland).

If you’re from any part of the UK except for Northern Ireland, you can use the gov.uk system to create a check code for your license (used by the British Office to verify your license). If you’re from Northern Ireland, your license number won’t fit, however, and you have to use the NI direct system to create a check code (you have to create an account and apply to upload info on your license, but it’s reasonably simple). I created my check code (to be used within 21 days of creation) and printed out the docs.

I set off to the Taipei Motor Vehicles Office (臺北市區監理所) in Songshan District (about 10 minutes walk from Nanjing Sanmin MRT Station), but you can go to any office. When you arrive, you will have to proceed to the 2nd floor and hit the ticket machine for driver’s licenses.

Checklist:

  • Passport
  • ARC valid for at least six months
  • UK driver’s license
  • Check code
  • 2 x Driver License (1 inch) photographs (there is a photo booth at the office)
  • NIA Certificate of Entry and Exit dates (Note: I didn’t bring this and they didn’t ask, but it’s listed by the British Office – link below)

You can apply for the NIA Certificate here or in person.

The staff didn’t know what to do with the NI Direct check code, as they’d only been instructed to use the gov.uk system. So the woman came out and discussed it with me and I told her that Northern Ireland has a different agency and a different system and she said she would check with the British Office and get back to me.

You don’t have to hand in your health check until you are contacted and your check code has been authenticated, but it’s quite convenient to do it the same day at the nearby Po Jengh Hospital (博仁綜合醫院). While you’re handing in your license info and check code, you can ask for the following form to do your health check:

Go to the main door of the hospital and tell the security guard that you want to do a driver license health check (駕照體檢/jiàzhào tǐjiǎn). He’ll stamp your hand with a blue “P” and tell you to go into an alley and go in a side entrance on the left. This is the special entrance for health checks. You take the elevator up and then take a ticket and wait for the various checks (it took me around 20-30 mins). Remember to take NT$300 in cash to pay for the health check. They check your hearing and sight and a few other basic checks. After you pay, you have to take the health check certificate back down to the main lobby of the hospital to get stamped (you don’t have to take a number, there should be a lady sitting to the left who deals with your form).

You don’t have to hand the health certificate in that day and can just wait for the office to contact you. They were pretty quick for me, I did it on the Friday before the 228 bridge weekend and got notified it was authenticated on the following Tuesday. I went back to the Motor Vehicle Office with my passport, ARC, my driver’s license, the health check and driver license photos (these have to be the same as the one you put on your health check form.

When you go back to the office, specify that it’s your second visit and they’ll go looking for your info. Then after a bit of staring at your ARC, passport and license (approx. 15 mins) they’ll hand you your Taiwanese license and take away your UK license (you can get this back if you return to the UK and return the Taiwanese license to the DVLA).

And you can hit the road!