Taoyuan Nights

News just in: Taiwanese inflation hits 6% (officially, of course - in the real world outside of politics, it’s far worse). Higher inflation means that lenders require higher interest rates to compensate them for the devaluation of the money they are lending - or they simply don’t lend. And higher interest rates mean… more problems […]

Someone once said, history never repeats, but it does rhyme.
Here is what happened in Tokyo and Hong Kong when their property prices zoomed in the way that Taipei’s have. I believe that in ‘house-price-relative-to-earnings’ terms, Taipei has recently exceeded the heights of these graphs.
So, dear reader, I show you a possible - indeed, […]

Let’s first take a look at the Taiwanese Government’s website about investing in Taiwan.
“Taiwan’s housing prices will rise 5-10% annually through 2010 at least, according to construction company and real estate brokerage executives speaking at a “real estate summit meeting” sponsored by the Taiwanese real estate magazine Zhu Zhan in early November. Some even […]

Scott Sommers has trapped Taiwan’s bloggers on his blog. Now, it’s up to you to rescue them. Bravely find them on the page using your mouse, then lead the bloggers of Taiwan to freedom via the Escape Zone!

Click here to begin!

(Apologies, Scott… it was too tempting)

The Taipei Times refers to housing troubles in the north of Taiwan…
Finally, it seems like we’re there. The number of house sales is continuing to collapse (minus 15% taipei, minus 30% taichung in just one month) at what should be one of the best times of year for sales in most cultures. In other words, […]

My mum came to Taiwan for 2 weeks recently to visit me and see a little of the island.
She had a great time - all my friends were really nice to her, and helped me to show her some cool places. I saw a few new places myself, too..

Mum, Leila, Ethan, and their children, shopping […]

I wrote a post about how it seems that the desire for friendship, purely for the sake of friendship itself, sometimes seems to be considered shameful in Taiwanese society. Instead, it feels like you must have some ‘justification’ for seeking contact with other people - research, language exchange, employment or whatever. Dating seems to be […]

This can be found near Chihkan Fort, Tainan…

Don’t worry, this blog is still alive, and so am I.
However, I have an illness that has meant I’ve been spending a little time in hospital, and getting plenty of rest. I’ll post more as the doctors find out more about the illness. I can say though that the preliminary results are reasonably encouraging, […]

ETFs - Exchange Traded Funds - are something that I’ve suggested to all my friends, as a wonderful way to invest money in the stockmarket without having to learn much about shares, and without being screwed over by typical mutual fund charges.
An ETF is just a form of index tracking fund, that can be […]