The TW Fido app (Android or IPhone) allows you to use your phone to verify your identity online when dealing with government agencies. To use the app you must first apply for an Alien Citizen Digital Certificate (instructions here).
First of all, go to the FIDO website. Then click 註冊／綁定 (Register/Validate device):
You’ll be prompted to enter your ID/ARC number and your pin (you should set this after you activate your card), with your card inserted into a card reader (learn to install a card reader here):
Then you press 送出 (send) and you’ll come to the next screen which asks you to check some details and enter your email and phone number:
Next, a QR code will appear, which you’ll have a limited amount of time to scan with your app. When you click 註冊／綁定 (Register/Validate App) on your phone, a QR code scanner should appear, and you can scan your computer screen. Then you’ll be asked if you want to use your phone’s fingerprint/face-recognition capabilities to verify your identity when you use the app. I clicked 是 (yes):
Then there’s one final screen where you need to complete the process (完成） and you’re ready to go:
Whether you’re straight, gay, or something in between, knowing your HIV status is important so that we can all work towards reducing HIV infections in Taiwan and around the world. Given the stigma that is still attached to this disease, the government has launched a system for ordering HIV self-testing kits which can be delivered to convenience stores across Taiwan.
The steps are pretty simple. First visit this website (a page of the CDC website):
If you want to pay in cash, you can choose the option on the left for $245NT, and for people who register with their website, they offer vouchers.
As supplies are limited, you can get one per month. If you get tested elsewhere, leave these for people who are unlikely to get tested elsewhere or are in high-risk groups.
You’ll be prompted to enter your phone number (手機號碼) and choose a 7-11, FamilyMart or OK Mart branch near you (Click 選擇門市 and remember to turn off your popup blocker):
After you confirm, you’ll be asked to fill in a questionnaire:
Then it asks you where you lived before the age of 18 and you’re done, you just have to confirm the order a few times.
You’ll receive an order number via email and you can check the status of your order by entering your phone number, order number and email address.
How to use the test:
Here’s a quick video on how you go about using the test kit:
(My favourite line is “Don’t drink the liquid in the test-tube” by the way.)
If you don’t manage to register while stocks last, there are plenty of ways to get tested in Taiwan, whether anonymously or not, including visiting Gisneyland on the second floor of Honglou in Ximen (Facebook page here), using a vending machine (spotted throughout the city) or visiting a hospital.
There is also free anonymous testing (blood tests – takes a week or two to get the results) held around Taipei as follows:
These timetables are updated every month, you can find them here.
The most commonly occurring locations have been listed below:
Gay Health Center (同志健康中心), 5F, No. 100 Kunming Street, Wanhua District, Taipei (臺北市萬華區昆明街100號5樓) Note: This option is by appointment only
Mudan (紅樓(牡丹))(bar at the Red House drinking area in Ximen)
Soi 13 1 No. 13 Minsheng East Road Sect 1, Zhongshan Dist. Taipei (1, No. 13號民生東路一段中山區台北市104)
XL Club 4F, No. 10 Minzu East Road, Zhongshan Dist. Taipei (4樓, No. 10號民族東路中山區台北市10491)
Taipei Men Center (城男舊事心驛站) 3F, No. 5, Alley 199, Dunhua North Road, Songshan Dist. Taipei (105台北市松山區敦化北路199巷5號 3樓)
Han Sauna (漢士三溫暖) 8F, No. 70 Xining South Road, Wanhua Dist. Taipei (108台北市萬華區西寧南路70號8 樓)
Note: 「人力調度，篩檢暫停」 means that due to personnel adjustments, screening is suspended.
If the result turns out positive, there are several avenues to pursue treatment. Dr. Stephane Ku (顧文瑋) does consultations at Taipei Veterans General Hospital on Wednesday evenings (感染科), where you can get tested, explore the possibility of going on prep or get treatment.
If your partner is living with HIV, you may also qualify for a new government PREP program, which allows 30 pills per month for the female spouses/partners of people living with HIV and 20 pills per 3 months for the male spouses/partners under 35 years old of people living with HIV.
I guess I’m missing queues at the Immigration Office after getting an APRC or am super motivated to find things to do other than the long-term project I’m supposed to be working on, but I went and applied for an Alien Citizen Digital Certificate on April 24. I plan on documenting the “journey” here:
Don’t be fooled by the heading by the way, you can apply online after you go in person to the immigration office with your ARC/APRC, so not technically all online.
The ID can be used for filing taxes (although you can also file taxes without it) and for various government websites and systems, giving you access to information and allowing you to apply for things online. For Taiwanese people it also means they can apply for bank accounts and credit cards online, but I’m not sure that applies to foreigners, but we’ll see. The cost of the card is NT$275 and it lasts for 5 years (subject to your ARC being valid).
April 24: Today was pretty simple, brought my ARC (no photocopies required) to the National Immigration Agency (the ground floor in Taipei where you go to apply for your ARC) and then wrote down my phone number and email address and gave it to the lady (after fielding a quizzical look from her), who then made me sign a form and then gave me a sheet of paper with the following information on it:
The key bit of information is the 用戶代碼 (username) which you’ll need to log in to the site. She said to wait for the letter to go through, so I’ll give it a few days. It says on the website one working day, so we’ll see.
You have to pay within 15 days through the system or you will have to apply again. If you make changes to your ARC (including the number) you have to apply again.
April 27 Update
I paid for the card last night on the website. If you have trouble accessing the website, make sure to delete the www. from the address bar.
Click ‘Application Progress’ on the left side and you’ll be prompted to enter your ARC number and your 用戶代碼 (username). If it’s been approved, it should give you the option to pay by credit card. And then it will link to a page where you enter your credit card information. Once that’s done you’ll just have to fill in/confirm more details, like postal address and phone number. Then press save.
April 29 Update:
When I looked up the website today it said it was in the mail and they even provided the parcel number, so that I can track it on the Post Office website:
May 5 Update:
The card finally arrived (it went to my home address, so had to wait for three unsuccessful deliveries before I could go pick it up):
So here it is:
The various security/design elements are listed in the letter it comes with:
Now to unlock it:
If you’re using Microsoft, you need at least Microsoft Windows XP Sp3, a card reader (learn to install one here) and then download and install the HiCOS digital certificate management tool at this website (you have to restart your computer so prepare for that).
So, this bit was a little complicated, and I ended up having to ring them to activate my card…. BUT hypothetically, the next step you take is to navigate to this website, where you can activate your card (the pin is supposed to be your year and month of birth in the format YYYYMM), although it says in the letter you only need your subscriber code (which is on the printed piece of paper you got at immigration. If you have trouble accessing the website, insert your card first and then try opening it. If you still have trouble try opening the link in another tab, and if you still have trouble use IE explorer.
Once you’ve activated your card, you can change the pin at this website. You just need the subscriber code and your card reader.
Then you’re all set.
To use the government’s FIDO app to use your phone to verify your identity, see this post.
I recently attended a conference in Taipei at which the CEO of parking app 「停車大聲公」 (ParkingLotApp) Roland Yu (余致緯) described his company’s transition from a mobile-based valet parking application to an app that provides information to drivers on cheap and convenient parking spots near their destination where they can park themselves, allowing them to pre-book times and check availability. It was an interesting question and answer session and I’ll go into it in more depth in the IP Observer later this month.
What interested me in terms of language, however, was that although his app bears the word 「停車」 (ting2che1), meaning “to park”, Ronald kept using the word “pa車” during his speech.
During his brief introduction to his business, he mentioned that he’d written an article online detailing his company’s transition. On inspection of this, I found that he’s used the term 「泊車」, which although looks temptingly like 「怕」 is pronounced “bo2che1”. So why was he pronouncing it “pa”?
The receipt lottery in Taiwan – whereby you can win varying amounts of money if the invoice number of your receipt matches certain numbers announced every two months – is great. However, I firmly believe that many of my winning NT$10 million receipts have been victim to my washing machine, to sun damage or to falling down the back of the sofa until they’re out of date. There’s also the minor hassle of going through receipts for everything you’ve bought in the past two months receipt by receipt with the risk that you’ll not actually have won anything.
UPDATE – There’s also a special prize reserved for virtual receipts of NT$500!
E-Receipts vs Traditional Receipts
There’s nothing you can do about the older receipts – the ones that change colour every two months, like the one below. You just have to check them every two months with that dwindling sense of dread that you haven’t won anything again and you’ve just wasted an hour of your life.
The receipts issued by convenience stores, chain stores and an increasing number of other retailers that have two QR codes on the bottom, however, you can do something about.
I had quite a good time at the December 10 rally in support of the gay marriage bill. While I was gearing up to head home, however, I saw this (rather cheeky) attempt at hijacking the rally by an organization lobbying for the rights of scooter and motorcycle drivers on the road. They were riffing on the slogan from the “Diverse Families” draft bill — a previous and more wide-reaching proposal that had included gay marriage that had failed to gain approval — 「多元成家」 (Diverse Families) and swapped out the 「成家」 meaning “to form families” for 「回家」, meaning “to go home”. So the altered slogan reads “return home by diverse means”. Maybe they were just showing their support for the cause, and racking up some publicity on the side, anyway, you’ve got to respect a pun at the end of the day.
This time it’s a reader contribution. My former co-worker snapped this poem on the MRT and sent it to me. The poem was written by Chuang Tsu-huang (莊祖煌 pinyin: Zhuang Zuhuang) who goes under the pen-name Bai Ling (白靈). He was born in Taipei’s Wanhua District in 1951 to a family from Fujian in China. After studying chemistry in Taiwan and teaching for a while, he went to the US to study a master’s at the Stevens Institute of Technology. He is currently a professor at National Taipei University of Technology and at one time took part in a grassroots poetry collective, including a period as the editor of a grassroots poetry publication. He has won a plethora of prizes for his poetry.
不如歌 Better a Song
平靜的無，不如抓狂的有
Better a manic something over a tranquil nothing
坐等升溫的露珠，不如捲熱而逃的淚水
Better a tear bubbled up in heat over a dewdrop awaiting the warmth
猛射亂放的箭矢，不如挺出紅心的箭靶
Better to land the bullseye than to loose an arrow in haste
養鴿子三千，不如擁老鷹一隻
Better a single eagle than to raise three thousand doves
被吻，不如被啄
Better to be pecked, than to be kissed
So by now everyone’s quite likely seen the photo below of Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Su Chen-ching (蘇震清) choking Kuomintang (KMT) legislator Chen Yi-min (陳宜民) over the latter’s attempt to disrupt the DPP’s passing of a holiday bill. The bill is an altered version of a KMT bill that the DPP had opposed while in opposition. The KMT reportedly has little opposition to the bill itself, but were objecting to what they see as DPP partisan hypocrisy in trying to pass a bill they had previously opposed and in passing the bill without allowing any time for debate. The KMT are not necessarily opposed to the practice of passing a bill without debate, but are rather a little miffed that the DPP is doing this despite praising and visiting students taking part in the Student Sunflower Movement, who were protesting the very same method of passing bills when the KMT was trying to pass a cross-strait trade-in-services act in 2014. Despite more publicity being given to the photo below, the KMT reportedly stuck the proverbial boot into a few DPP legislators too, but less conspicuously.
Anyway, this post is not primarily concerned with politics, but rather with a Taiwanese phrase used by former New Party legislator Li Sheng-feng (李勝峰) when commentating on the scuffle on TVBS’s political chat show ‘The Situation Room’:
Nothing good or auspicious is said when people are cursing at each other; people hate themselves for not being able to hit each other harder in a fight.
I originally thought that this was a mixture of two phrases in Taiwanese:
1. 「相罵無好話相打無揀位」sio-mēbôhó-ōe, sio-phahbôkéngūiwhich means “It’s easy to say awful things when arguing and to underestimate your strength in a fight”.
2. 「相罵恨無聲，相拍恨無力」sio-mēhīnbô-siaⁿ , sio-phahhīnbô-la̍twhich means “When in an argument, you hate yourself for not being able to shout them down louder, and in a fight you’ll hate yourself for not being able to hit them harder”, or, you’ll always try and find a way to bring the other person down.
But my (very gracious) Taiwanese friend called his mother in the south and she said that the phrase that the guy says on the TV program does actually exist and that it is the same as the meaning of No. 2 listed above. But she also pointed out that people in southern Taiwan say “hūn” instead of “hīn”.
Feel free to share your opinion or any similar phrases you have in the comments section.
Last week I saw taxis besieging the Executive Yuan (between Shandao Temple and Taipei Main MRT) over the government’s failure to crackdown on Uber quickly enough. Taxi drivers were protesting because of Uber’s refusal to be subject to taxi regulations inTaiwan and it’s refusal to clarify its tax status. My colleagues at work had a related discussion last week over whether existing (over?) regulation is stranglingdisruptors in the interest of maintaining the status quo. While there were a wide range of opinions as to whether Uber is, in fact, bringing anything new to the Taiwanese industry as a disruptor or whether it’s just trying to dodge consumer protection regulations and tax, the conversation can be extended beyond Uber to the financial sector and further afield. Some of my colleagues thought the government was being too cautious when it comes to providing legislative flexibility to innovative industry disruptors while others thought existing legislation was just common-sense protection for industry players and consumers? The government announced that they are going to launch “diversified” taxis, but it’ll be interesting how the story develops beyond just the Uber issue.
About a week prior to the taxi protest, I was passing by the front of the Executive Yuan when I saw this protest placard, along with a single protester. It reads:
政府無能， [When] the government is inept,
百姓受窮， the ordinary people are forced to live in poverty;
竊盜私地， Stealing private land
罪大惡極， is an extremely pernicious crime.
天理難容。 [which] the heavens cannot tolerate.
哀！ Woe!
I’m not sure if it was a specific grievance as I didn’t stop to chat, but maybe someone can help me out in the comments section.
I saw the banner below outside my friend’s housing development when she invited me for a barbecue/pool party there (near Qizhang MRT – opposite Carrefour):
Common facilities (of a residential complex) are illegal buildings, the residents have been lied to
From what I’ve gleaned from the internet, this is a controversy over certain common areas of a residential complex which were built without planning permission by the developers. The city government then demolished or plans to demolish these areas and the residents are protesting because they were sold their apartments under false terms.
If you’ve seen any disgruntled looking peeps holding signs let me know in the comments section!
I thought that the recent trademark dispute between Taiwanese tea brands 「茶裏王」 (King of Tea) and 「阿里王 Ali One」 that resolved in favour of the former was interesting because two characters 「里」 and 「裏」 have been seen by the Taiwan Intellectual Property Court as the same character.
「茶裏王」 was launched in the early 2000s by Tainan-based international food conglomerate Uni-President Enterprises Corporation, while 「阿里王 Ali One」 was launched in 2014 by a woman called Huang Yi-zhen (黃逸蓁).
The name 「茶裏王」 translates to “King of Teas” because the 「裏」, a common variant of the character 「裡」, means “among” or “in” – so it’s literal meaning is “among teas a king”. 「阿里王」 however, just uses 「里」 as a phonetic particle as part of 「阿里」which alludes to 「阿里山」 (Alishan National Scenic Area) – which itself is a transliteration of the Tsou (鄒) aboriginal name for the area “Jarissang”. In fact, although 「里」 means “in” in simplified Chinese, in which it is used in place of 「裡」 and 「裏」, in traditional Chinese, it is only used as a unit of measurement (approx 500m) and for an administrative unit under township (neighborhood/village). Each district in Taipei has an individual li, as shown in the street sign below:
While the 「王」 in 「茶裏王」 means “King”, the 「王」 in 「阿里王 Ali One」 appears primarily to be a transliteration of the English word “one”, hence the product’s English name. A similar example is the 「旺」 in 「旺旺集團」, which is anglicized using the English word “want”, to give you the Want Want Holdings Group – the company at the center of the media monopoly protests in Taiwan and my former employer. However, there’s also a sense that the 「阿里王 Ali One」 trademark is also playing off the use of the word 「王」 as both a transliteration and for its literal meaning as “king”, i.e. King of Ali (referencing Alishan, an important tea-growing area in Taiwan). So the case for the third character is not as strong as that for the second, in my unqualified view.
The Intellectual Property Court found that the trademarks “茶裏王” (King of Tea) and “阿里王 Ali One” are both used to market tea products, and that the second character in each is “里” while the third characters in each are both “王” (King), so they are very similar for consumers. In addition because the “茶裏王” trademark has been in use for a long time and is very well-known. because of this, “茶裏王” should have greater protection, so Uni-President Enterprises Corporation won the case today, and the Taiwan Intellectual Property Bureau rescinds the trademark granted for “阿里王Ali One”, although the case is still subject to appeal.
The 「茶裏王」 bottles have recently been featuring thought-for-the-day style “profundities” (note the use of speech marks) such as the one below, which I thought was particularly apt to go with this post:
I thought that the recent trademark dispute between Taiwanese tea brands 「茶裏王」 (King of Tea) and 「阿里王 Ali One」 that resolved in favour of the former was interesting because two characters 「里」 and 「裏」 have been seen by the Taiwan Intellectual Property Court as the same character.
