Anthony finds that the positives of living in Taiwan far outweigh the negatives, no wonder it has been his home for so many years now. Living in a suburb of Tapei, he and his wife own and run an English buxiban. In addition, Anthony is part of a company that caters to the international community there. There is certainly more to Taiwan than meets the eye, and Anthony shows us a bit of that in his interview.

Anthony van Dyck

-Where were you born?
I was born in Winkler, Manitoba, Canada, but grew up in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

-In which country and city are you living now?
I live in Lotus Hill, a gated community located outside Xizhi City, which is a bedroom suburb of Taipei City, Taiwan.

-Are you living alone or with your family?
I live with my wife Vanessa, our five-month old daughter Trudi, and Gustav, our Chocolate Labrador Retriever.

-How long have you been living in Taiwan?
I've lived in Lotus Hill for 5 years and in Taiwan for 16 years.

-What is your age?
I'm 39 years old.

-When did you come up with the idea of living in Taiwan?
Initially, I wanted to live in and travel around Asia. I had a cousin doing business in Kaohsiung in the south of Taiwan, so I came to visit him. I liked Taiwan so much that I stayed for four years before returning to university. My original plan had been to stay for a year at the most.

-Was it hard to get a visa or a working permit?
In the early days (late 80s and early 90s), it was almost impossible. Things were a little more standardized when I returned to Taiwan in 1995, after an absence of a couple years. At that point it was very easy to get a work permit and Alien Residence Certificate.

-Was it difficult for you to get medical insurance before you went there or when you first arrived?
It’s a good idea to arrange temporary insurance until one’s ARC is confirmed – once that occurs, it is mandatory for one’s employer to arrange coverage in the national health insurance programme.

-How do you make your living in Taiwan? Do you have any type of income generated?
I worked at a variety of buxibans from 1989 to 1992. When I returned to Taiwan in 1995 I found a great job working for a business English training company run by a Brit. I was aware of the job opening because of an ad in the newspaper, and applied the next day. It was a great job in many ways, and I stayed there for eight years. It wasn't until after I got married that I started to think of other options. My wife and I decided to open our own English buxiban, or cram school, for kids in elementary and junior high school.

In addition to our school, I am also one of three partners in Forumosa Partner Group. Our websites Forumosa.com, Taiwanted.com, garagesale.com.tw, and our magazine, Taiwanease are aimed at making life a little smoother/easier for the international community in Taiwan.

-Do you speak Taiwanese and do you think it's important to speak the local language?
I speak Mandarin fairly well, and have a smattering of Taiwanese that I can use to good effect on occasion. It’s very important to learn a local language. While I don’t believe that foreigners can ever be fully assimilated into Taiwan, I think that learning Mandarin or Taiwanese will make everything here much easier.

-Do you miss home and family sometimes?
I miss the fresh air, and quietness of Canada sometimes, but I know that if I were to move back to Canada, there would be a million things I would miss about Taiwan. I try to spend some time in Taiwan’s beautiful mountains each year camping. My dog likes to join me when I go swimming below pristine waterfalls.

-Do you have other plans for the future?
I’d like to spend more time travelling each year. My wife and I are in the process of organizing trips for our students to go to summer camp in Canada. I’d like to build up my buxiban business, of course. And my passion for the international community in Taiwan continues unabated through the websites Forumosa.com and Taiwanted.com, as well as the newest addition to the Forumosa family, Taiwanease magazine. Together with my esteemed partners, Gus Adapon and Malcolm Higgins, I’d like to see these sites grow even further. There’s still a lot of unrealized potential there!

-What about housing, have you bought, or are you renting a home? How much do you pay for it?
We rent, and because we live 25 minutes outside the city, we don’t pay very much – about $21,000 for our three-bedroom apartment. Our apartment is modern and our community has wonderful facilities, so we’re very happy here. I’d say that after maintenance fees, health club memberships, parking fees, utilities, etc. are paid, it costs us approximately 33,000 per month for a fairly comfortable/western standard of living. We could probably live cheaper, but things like swimming pools, basement parking, and grassy areas with professional landscaping do wonders to make one’s life less stressful.

-What is the cost of living in Taiwan?
That’s hard to say. I’ve lived on $35,000NT a month at times in the past, but that was sharing an apartment with friends, and being very careful with my money. If you’re by yourself, you can live on a budget. If you’re here with a family, it’s better if you spend a little more and increase your quality of life. I would put $75,000NT/month as a bottom line to comfortably sustain a couple or a family of three in Taipei City, but again it depends on what kind of lifestyle one chooses to maintain.

-What do you think about the Taiwanese people?
Taiwanese people are for the most part great, and my personal experiences with Taiwanese people have been almost uniformly positive. They’re hospitable, friendly, and almost always willing to help a foreigner in need.

-What are the positive and negative aspects of living in Taiwan?
Taiwan sometimes feels like a bit of a backwater compared to China, the awkward cousin on growth hormones just across the Taiwan Strait, but this is deceptive. Taiwan is also improving at a very fast pace, and the quality of life here is much better than in Shanghai or Beijing.

-Do you have any tips for our readers about living in Taiwan?
Learn Mandarin, make as many local friends as you can, and if you’re a confident person with good traffic sense, get a scooter and a good helmet. The cities and the countryside will open up to you in a way that is impossible to experience by public transportation. If you have doubts about your ability to handle a scooter in heavy traffic, it’s probably best for you to stick to public transportation! ;-)

-Do you have any favorite Web sites or blogs about Taiwan?
I think the three most useful sites are the ones I’m involved with, www.forumosa.com, www.taiwanted.com, and www.taiwanease.com. Forumosa is Taiwan’s biggest, most active, discussion forum and also a terrific offline community network. Any questions about traveling or living in Taiwan, teaching English, or studying Chinese, can most certainly be answered there, and coming to one of our regularly scheduled Forumosa Happy Hours is a great way to develop an instant network of friends in Taiwan. Taiwanted.com is Taiwan’s best free classified site, and Taiwanease.com is the online site of Taiwanease magazine, the only magazine that provides informed perspectives on life in Taiwan. Keep an eye on Taiwanease.com, as it’s currently in development, and should soon be a fantastic resource to the international community in Taiwan, and the international community interested in Taiwan.

Additionally, there are a great number of fantastic bloggers out there. One of the most notable is Michael Turton, author of The View from Taiwan. Any Taiwan blogs worthy of mention will surely be linked to by him – he doesn’t miss much!