All You Want To Know About Taiwan

Have you thought of traveling to Taiwan and you are not sure of Taiwan culture, food and where to visit? You come to the right channel as I will write down most of the information, which may interest you to visit to Taiwan!

Languages

Majority of Taiwanese speak Chinese ethnic languages like Mandarin 普通話/華語, Tai Yu 台話 (Min Nan Yu 閩南語or also known as Hokieen福建語) and Hakka 客家語. English is not commonly used in Taiwan as most of them could not understand or could not speak fluently. Although English is taught once the students enter elementary school.

Most of the signboard and menu are written in Traditional Chinese Character but English are written in Public Transport, Restaurants, most shopping mall and places of interest.

Cultural in Taiwan

When you reach Taiwan, you will be cultural shock! You are not allowed to throw tissue paper, toilet paper or anything into the toilet bowl. You need to throw it into the waste paper basket or thrash bin.

Most of the Taiwanese are courtesy and friendly. They queue for train at the platform and letting passengers to alight first before boarding the train. They stand at the right side of the escalator so that passengers who are rushing can walk on the left side.

When you are boarding the train at night, please note that you are not allowed to step into Women night zone cabin area as there are protection zone for women. You might be charge or sue for sexual disturbing from the local law.

Taiwanese are environment free. When you visited most of the shop in Taiwan, the shop keeper (7-Eleven, Shopping mall and others) will not issue you plastic bag. You cannot find thrash bin within 100m away. You need to carry your rubbish till you can find one thrash bin, which is perhaps 500m- 1000m away.

If you are throwing your rubbish into thrash bin, please note that you need to throw it to the correct bin. As their thrash bin will catalogue into difference types of rubbish.

Please note that certain hand sign are offences to the local and you might be charge from the local law. For example showing middle finger.

Touting

Most of the popular places or crowded areas in Taiwan, you are often been approached from aggressive touting services (This is bad). I advice you that not to offer their services as it will cost much compare to the government public transport. Or maybe you can ignore them or tell them you do not need the services. (They will keep on pressuring and following you)

Food

For Muslim friends, please note that most of the Taiwan Provinces food here are not Halah Certified. Even the fast food chain like McDonald's, KFC and many others fast food outlets are not Halah Certified.

If you see this sign written in Chinese Character (清真), which mean this food chain are selling Halah Food. You can visit to this website to see all the food chains which is 清真 (Halah Certified).

http://www.cmainroc.org.tw/cetacean/front/bin/ptlist.phtml?Category=140873 or through this website,

http://www.taipeimosque.org.tw/index.php?categoryid=10

Praying

Majority of Taiwanese are Buddhist and Taoist. You can find temples everywhere. But, there are people who are Catholic, Christian and Islam as well.

For Catholic friends, please visit to this website (which is written in Chinese) to find out the locational of the churches in Taiwan. http://www.catholic.org.tw/catholic/index.php

For Christian friends, please visit to this website (which is written in Chinese and English) to find out the locational of the churches in Taiwan. http://across.co.nz/TawainChurch.html and,

http://www.ccea.org.tw/missionworld//functioncode/publish/articleshow.asp?sn=799&type=0#W_Taiwan%27s%20Expatriat%20Ministries

For Muslim friends, please note that not all the Taiwan Provinces have mosque. Please check this website to see if there is a mosque which you intend to visit/travel.

http://www.taipeimosque.org.tw/index.php?categoryid=12

Health


Before traveling to Taiwan, please consult with your doctor if you are suitable to travel if you are unwell. Please consult your doctor for flu injection before traveling as you might not want to get sick while you are in Taiwan! (Strongly recommend you to have flu jab!! For your own good!)

Travel

To travel to Taiwan from Singapore in budget and yet Free and Easy, JETSTAR Asia and TIGER AIRWAYS (Coming soon) are offering their flights to Taipei directly. About 4 hours and 40 minutes flight. The cost for 2 ways flight from SIN-TPE is about SGD$520 for 2 ways (As of September 2010) includes taxes and fuel.

Or, you can choose Airasia where you need to get flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and transit to Taipei. The cost for 1 way flight from SIN-KUL is about SGD$59 (As of September 2010) includes taxes and fuel.

When you reach Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. You need to transit the flight to Taipei. The cost for 2 ways flight from KUL-TPE is about MYR914 (SGD$406) for 2 ways (As of September 2010) includes taxes and fuel.

After you departing back to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, you need to transit the flight back to Singapore. The cost for 1 way flight from KUL-SIN is about MYR85 (SGD$38) (As of September 2010) includes taxes and fuel.

Total cost would be SGD$59 + SGD$406 + SGD$38 = SGD$503.

Before you are reaching Taiwan, please fill out the arrival card (consists 2 pages) and pass it to the custom officer and remember to get it back the other page as you need it when you are departure from Taiwan!

Exchange Rate

As of September, the currency exchange rate is SGD$1= NTD$23 and for Malaysian, the currency exchange rate is MYR1 = NTD$10.20