Why do foreigners find it so difficult to leave Taiwan?

Hello everybody, welcome back to the channel. My name is Alan. This is My Life in Taiwan. And welcome to Fongjia Night Market and welcome to Prozzie. Welcome to me. Welcome to you. Oh, I don't think that's... is that Englishly good? We are going back to old school Life in Taiwan style videos. Walk and talk with me and Prozzie. We've just finished filming a video on his channel. What was it? The five nastiest foods. I can't say that because it's offensive. I don't know what I'm entitled yet. Weird food we tried here at Fongjia Night Market. It was a lot of fun. Yeah, we tried five of the scariest looking Taiwanese foods to foreigners. That's a good title. And we had fun. Yeah. So I thought while we're here, we're going to just have a walk back to the market. And we're going to talk a little bit about why we stay in Taiwan. What keeps us here. The title of the video is probably going to be something really clickbaity. Why foreigners love Taiwan so much. You've been had. But it's true. There's some reasons why people stay here. Some reasons why people can't leave here. And we're going to have a bit of a chat about it as we walk through the night market. Enjoying the scenery and the atmosphere. And like I said, I've made a few videos recently with a bit more... Pizazz? Production quality, but now you're back filming with me. Time to bring it down to earth. Back to the streets. So, shall we do it? Let's stop talking about it. Start doing it. Let's start doing it. I guess the first question would be to ask you. How long did you plan to come to Taiwan for? And how long have you been here? And when do you plan on leaving? I never planned like how long I was going to be here for. I just was going to move here, see how it went. And as far as when I'm leaving is right now. I guess there's one thing I want to say first before we get into the discussion. Is that at the moment, these past few weeks or months. I'm really struggling to find a reason for what the hell am I doing here? Like I've got a beautiful family back in England. I've got a son in South Africa. And I'm just, I think I'm having a midlife crisis in a foreign country alone. Single, because every relationship I get into keeps exploding. So that's the reason why I came up with this topic. Something to talk about as we walk through the market is. Right. What the hell are we doing here? What makes us stay here? I think it's a good topic. And it's something I think that a lot of foreigners go through periodically. I think if you ask any of our friends, Lucas, Wes, Andre, whatever. I think they periodically sit down at home on their sofa after days of work. And just like be like, what? Yeah. What the hell am I doing? Like exactly what you just said. Yeah. Because there is a lot that you're missing back home. But there is something I think that is keeping us here. I think the point that needs to be made is. How much of it is Taiwan and how much of it is us that's keeping us here? Yeah. Another big thing I want to talk about is. The difference between foreign guys and foreign girls. I feel like the girls that come here for one year or two years. They leave after their one or two years. Yeah. But for some reason the guys have this kind of. I wonder what their reason could be. I mean, is it that obvious? Yeah, definitely. I mean, I can understand why women leave. I get it. It's lonely. It sucks. It's hard to find a suitable partner. Yeah. Well, that's and that's just to really keep it on topic. That's one reason that most people stay here. Is because they find a partner, they get married, they have a family. And they build a life here. Yeah. So I've got several friends that I've been friends with for the whole 12, 13 years I've been here. And that's what they do. They have a family. They have a really stable like career in teaching. Like high school teachers or university professors. And they just find that they make their life here comfortable. So for those guys, there's no question about why they do it. But for me, I don't have that. For your video, can I try chicken samosa? Yeah, why not? We're in the night market. Samosa break. Hello, can I get a chicken samosa, please? Windy. I think another reason that people stay here in my situation. Where you don't have a family, you don't have a really stable career. Yeah. Is out of pure 100% laziness and comfortability. Life is difficult for a lot of people around the world. But living in Taiwan as a foreigner is just so easy. And the Taiwanese people enable us. They enable us to be lazy. We don't have to speak that perfect Chinese. We don't have to adapt our culture too much. But ultimately, it's just so freaking easy here. And I make so many excuses why I don't live in South Africa. I can't. Well, I can't live in South Africa. There's going to be people in the comment section that say, you have a son, get your ass to South Africa and make it work. I literally cannot. I cannot get a visa. I cannot get a job. If I did get a job, it would be working in a restaurant for the equivalent of like 10 or 12,000 NT a month. I get it that like, as a dad, the son, my son needs me in his life. But also at what price? He has to go to a... Well, he couldn't afford to go to school. He couldn't even afford to pay health insurance. He couldn't afford to pay for his rugby, his cricket. So Taiwan enables me to earn money, a decent salary, more than I would earn in the UK or South Africa. But you don't make a salary here. But I make more money than I would if I was working. If you were a YouTuber in South Africa, you'd make less money. Not enough money to pay the rent. Right. People don't care about me making videos in South Africa. I understand what you're saying. And I can agree to an extent. I think that it is relatively easy here because of just how forgiving it is compared to living in other countries, I think. But... Forgiving is a good word. You need to be very careful not to make too many excuses and absolve yourself of the responsibility of trying to fit in, of trying to learn the language, of trying to be a part of society. And I think that it's very easy for foreigners. I'm not saying it's right. But I think it's easy for foreigners to just sort of be lazy, like you said, and fall by the wayside and not really take part in society because they don't need to, because the Taiwanese people around them in their lives will do that for them simply because it's easier. So instead of learning the language and going to a restaurant and ordering something or ordering something online and reading a menu or paying bills or doing taxes, I mean, these things are very difficult to learn in another language, like, you know, especially if it's like something that's about money. It's way easier just to get a Taiwanese person to help you do it. And it seems like a one-off thing, right? But then when you're constantly doing it, you're just sort of left outside of society. And it is an excuse. I think that you need to be careful with that and not do away with the responsibility that you have. It's easy if you want it to be. But I think that if you really put the effort into it, I can see a lot of doors opening up here. Yeah. I think that what's keeping you here, just to speak for you, is that there is a lot more opportunity here to make something of yourself, right? Like, you're a foreigner and you have this, like, other look on things that other people are interested in. Whereas if you were just like a British YouTuber in England, you'd look like a bit of a twat. Like, if you walked into a pub with this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? But you were saying earlier that you think a lot of foreigners stay in Taiwan temporarily as a stepping stone. What was that point you were trying to make before? I think a lot of people see Taiwan as a stepping stone or something to graduate from. It seems like there's a ceiling as to the success that they can hit here in Taiwan. I'm not saying that in every case. Obviously not everyone's like that. But I do think there are a few foreigners who come to Taiwan, they're kind of like, ah, there's more out there. And then they, like, they'll go somewhere else. There's a bunch of YouTubers that have done that. I won't mention them by name because I'm not going to, I'm not trying to say that that's what they tried to do, that they sort of gave up Taiwan. Most Taiwan YouTubers that have left Taiwan miss it dearly. Yeah. But I do think a lot of people don't see it necessarily as a long-term place to make business and a lot of money when it comes to, I think, education or the entertainment or marketing industry that we're in. However, if you're in something like trade or business or engineering, I think there is some long-term viability here. That's what I've got in our faith. Now, I'm going to turn 40 next year. Now, when you get to 30, you think that you're getting older. You think that that's a big number. But actually, I think 40 is the time where it's like, oh, ----. You're going to get old now. You're actually going to get old. You're not just feeling old. You are going to get old. And this is something me and Prozzie talked about in the podcast. We did a video all about growing old in Taiwan and our biggest fears. And it's something now that I have to think about. I have to think about, okay, I'm building up a savings. Is that enough going to be enough for me to retire, for me to look after Williams University? Maybe not. If I get sick, if I get seriously sick and need to spend a lot of money on health care for myself or just palliative care, for example, why am I doing that in Taiwan? Why am I choosing to do that here when England would be a much more comfortable place for me to do it? Well, that's what we're trying to answer this question. Why do we stay in Taiwan? What's keeping us here? Yeah, and that's where now I've come to a crossroads where I'm like... It's easy, but it also comes with the consequences of being... Massive consequences. Of just not being... Now, I will say, though, compared to other places I've lived, it is a lot easier to settle down and retire here than it would be in other places. Do you think so? Retire here? Does it mean you're allowed to buy a house? Oh, okay. You mean compared to other foreign countries? Yeah. I guess so. Because, I mean, you've worked here the last 12, 13 years. You haven't been paying into like a retirement pension fund or anything, right? I did have it in my teaching job, but I mean, when I left that job, I guess it just goes away. I don't know. I've never asked. That's the kind of... I think that's the part about getting old that's so scary, is all of these things that accumulate as you get older. Retirement funds, taxes, all that kind of stuff. You don't think about it because you think, oh, well, one day someone's going to call me and be like, oh, you've got to do the... And you're like, oh, okay. And then once you get old, you realize, actually, holy ----, I have no idea where all that money... Yeah. I have no idea where it's going. I would be interested to know from your audience if they would even consider growing old in another country other than their own. Because I think that when you're young, you think that traveling, going to other countries is so romantic to go experience a new language and new cuisines and new cultures and new ways of doing things and looking at life. But the older you get, you start to realize, man, your life was set up in a place so that you could live and die there. And you know how to deal with stuff. You just ran away from that. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, exactly. You know exactly how to deal with things. You know exactly, you know, the world is awfully familiar. And you just did away with it. Yeah. All that familiarity, all the way. The older you get as well, it doesn't matter where you live, the less anxiety you have about new experiences. When you're younger, if you think that things that aren't a big deal are a bigger deal than they really are. And the older you get, it's just kind of like, I don't have to get too excited over this or I don't have to be too worried about this. I know what's going to happen. And I think that you do away with that when you move to another country. I think it's just something interesting to think about. I wanted to ask your audience about it. That's definitely true. Like, I'm now starting to think like, is it, is this the best place for me to grow old and die? Tick tock, Alan. Tick tock. It's literally the tock is clicking, the tock is ticking. Anyway, I think we're going to wrap it up for here. Don't forget this video is sponsored by the Alan and Prozzie podcast. So if you've made it to this far in the video, you obviously like listening to me and Prozzie talking about certain topics. Yeah. So the podcast is for you. Definitely go check it out. There's a link in the description in the top comment down below. But yeah, this has been fun. This has been nice to have a good old fashion style walk and talk. The old chin wag. I'm looking forward to the comment section of criticizing us for talking absolute waffle, which is what we like to do the best. But I think that your point is a really good one. If you like this type of conversation, but even longer. Yeah. The podcast is exactly that. We'll go to some local restaurant, enjoy some food and just chat about life and everything and everything and stuff we can't even talk about on this channel. Yeah. On our channels. And I think this video that we've done here is the closest thing to the podcast that you're ever going to get. Yeah, for sure. But usually the podcast is over an hour. Oh, well over. Yeah. So link in the description below. Yeah. It is windy. I'm sorry if there's been much wind noise, but time to say goodbye. As for now and as always, I'll see you next time. Bye.