Funnily enough they've now all left, to mainland China!

In short, it's cheap as hellllllll. Rent was like 270/month, food and fun was nothing, life is so so so good in Taiwan. I stress regularly about Chinese bluster regarding Taiwan, it is an incredible country I really believe is chock full of opportunity.

My journey to become a software engineer started there. Now that I've snuck my way into frontend, it's my goal as I get more experienced and senior to eventually move back there and start remote contracting or start my own business there. I'm still convinced I could get the best engineers in Taiwan to work for me by just paying them 50k flat out (they make like 20-30/year and are expected to work 9am-9pm, sometimes weekends, arbitrarily) and giving them reasonable (to an American) benefits.

[1](http://ablate.blogspot.tw/2014/05/what-does-it-cost-to-live-...)

Found this comment which I am going to blindly trust. ;) So, for reference, the HTC salaries were in the range of 50-70k NTD/month.

"90% of people working in Taipei make from 22-68k a month. College grads often make 22k a month out of College and those with a Master Degree start at 30,000NT a month. They spend about 5 years to make 40k a month. An Engineer might make 50k-75k a month. The only reason the Average is skewed to 70k is because Taipei has millionaires and billionaires that skew these numbers. It in NO WAY represents what the everyday working Taiwanese or Foreigner generally makes.

TAIPEI WAGES

Min Wage 18,000

Factory Work 18,000-20,000

Typical Office Worker 22,000-40,000

Nurse 30,000-40,000

Taxi Driver 60,000-70,000

Flight Attendant 50,000-60,000?

Foreign English Teacher 55,000-70,000

Engineer 50,000-70,000

Doctor 150,000-400,000

Foreigner Specialist with Foreign Income---150,000-300,000"

Anyway this is just hearsay of course, before anybody would believe any of this I would say let's get the census in or something.

Or is Taipei that expensive?

edit: saw the comment bellow