One the things people ask me quite often how are people in that country. So I thought let’s start a series of articles: People of… This first article will be of people in Taiwan. I have lived in Taiwan for half a year, studied on a university in Taipei and learned a lot of the Taiwanese people.
Cultural Dimensions
A good start to know how people in a country are, is to look at the score of the country on Hofstede’s dimensions. Taiwanese people are in comparison with the Netherlands a bit more competitive. You will see this in their school program where children will be ranked with one another. Even during exam time your place will be based on your previous score. So the smartest children will sit in the front and the lowest score children on the back.
Taiwan is a very collective country, this hiking trip was with more than 50 people.
Taiwan is also a very collective country. People will always do stuff in a group, and they will not do a lot of activities on their own. People will remember other people’s preferences so that they can take care of it the next time. A friend told me that when she went out with a group of Taiwanese strangers, whenever she needed something they were able to accompany her and help her. Her Taiwanese friends also remembered after the first time that she doesn’t eat any meat and will keep this in consideration when they were going out for dinner.
3 Characteristics of Taiwanese people
The most most most important thing for Taiwanese people is with no doubt food. The social activity for Taiwanese people, no matter the age, is going out with each other for food. I remembered that when I went to a certain place for a great hiking trip, Taiwanese people immediately recommended me what to eat at that place. They all know which place is famous for which food. However they lack to know all other beautiful stuff to do.
The most most most important thing for Taiwanese people is with no doubt food.
Besides eating food there is another famous social activity for Taiwanese people. This is a love it or hate it activity, but a lot of people love KTV (or in other words karaoke). And of course this will be combined with eating food at the KTV. Sing your night along with the most famous Chinese songs. This is quite difficult if you don’t read Chinese. Even if you walk in parks, near a temple or in mountains you will see elderly coming together to sing some KTV. Besides that people also love to go to an arcade.
In the arcade
The last thing I didn’t know about Taiwanese people but that my Taiwanese friend told me is that Taiwanese are very influential. For example she went to a place to have some food because it was mentioned on the internet. There was a huge queue in front of the restaurant, even that we knew that the food wouldn’t be probably that delicious as other places around this area. My parents still wanted to eat at this place. According to her one of the reasons for this is that Taiwan is a very small country and information goes fast. Besides that they surf a lot on Chinese website that keeps them quite restricted to only one type of opinion.
Random village but especially those pineapple cakes are famous.
Amazing people
My experience with Taiwanese people is great! They are lovely and have some amazing food. It is nice to do stuff with them and let them discover for example hiking trips that they would never discover on their own. I still have some amazing friends over there and I would love to visit them soon.
