Things I Love About Taiwan #1: Convenience
The “Things I Hate About Taiwan” posts (#1, #2) have generated quite a lot of vitriol in the comments section, so I’m going to balance some of it out with a positive post about Taiwan.
After living in Taiwan for more than seven years, it has become apparent to me that one of the main drivers of public and private decision-making in Taiwan is convenience. Convenience dominates in almost all parts of life here, and is probably best represented by that all-night friend: your local 7-11 store.
The open-all-day-everyday 7-11 chain has a ubiquitous presence in Taiwan, allowing you to complete the following tasks (this is not exhaustive, feel free to add more in the comments):
- Buy cold food, hot food, cigarettes, alcohol, batteries, groceries, coffee, tea, condoms, toiletries, HSR tickets, computer games, electronics, magazines, books
- Pay bills, parking tickets, other government fees (like auto insurance)
- Pick-up and send packages (with some e-commerce providers, you can select your local 7-11 as a delivery point for you to pick things up later – this is especially useful when you don’t live in a gated community with a front desk)
- Print documents, photos
- Fax documents
- Use the internet
- Use an ATM
Whenever I visit Australia or America, I feel the bitter pangs of estrangement from my local 7 (Taiwanese just use the English word “seven” to refer to a 7-11 store). If you live in Taipei, you are rarely more than a 5-minute walk from a 7 or other convenience store.
Other Examples of Convenience in Taiwan
Public health is a great example of how convenience is implemented well in Taiwan. When you go to a public hospital here, you can see a specialist, have a test or an an x-ray, go back to that specialist where she’ll bring the results up on her computer, have a diagnosis, pay and then pick up your medication in a single afternoon. Contrast that with Australia, where you’d have to go to an x-ray provider (likely to be a car ride away and on another day), then go pick up the x-ray yourself and bring it back to the specialist on another day, then go somewhere else to pick up your medication. You’d have to pay the bills separately, as well.
Public transport is also very well implemented in Taipei. The 悠游卡 (you1 you2 ka3, public transport payment card) is a fantastic example of an efficient, scalable payment platform. Starting with the MRT system, the plastic, rechargeable card, which you swipe when entering and exiting a station, was later expanded to include the bus system. Now, the 悠游卡 can be used to pay for things at 7-11 and to pay for rides on special tourist attractions (like the ferries that go between Danshui and Bali). The Melbourne train system pales in comparison with its paper-ticket-based platform. Even though you can use the Metro tickets on trains and trams, you need to keep a paper ticket in good shape, even if you have an expensive long-term ticket (disclaimer: this may have changed in the last few years). In addition, in Melbourne you are punished if you don’t have the correct ticket or if you don’t have enough for the trip. In Taiwan (and in Korea and Japan), you can just pay the difference at the destination stop before you exit through the turnstiles.
Convenience Gone Wrong
Sometimes the penchant for convenience plays out badly, and nowhere worse than on the roads here. If one stood at an intersection and observed for only 5 minutes, they would be witness to:
- Red-light running
- Turning across 1 or more lanes
- Illegal u-turns
- Jay-walking where an overhead walkway was available
I’ve had a whole post on traffic behavior brewing in my mind, so I won’t get into it, but the point is that Taiwanese value convenience so much that it even supersedes safety of oneself and others. So, instead of going around the block because they missed that turn, they will just turn across traffic to make it, endangering everybody who has the right of way (another concept which is flat-out ignored by Taiwanese drivers).
Taipei is the most convenient place I’ve ever lived. It’s a small metropolis where almost everything is available within a 15-minute drive. Widely-used public services are designed with convenience in mind and the benefits are obvious when compared with Australia. That said, when taken to the extreme, especially in individual behavior, it can be annoying or downright dangerous.
Categorised as: Taiwan, Things I Love About Taiwan
we are so spoiled here in Asia, be it in Taipei,Tokyo or Shanghai, even the supposedly spread out metropolis Beijin is way more convenient than most western cities.