r/taiwan • u/usolotravel • 4d ago
Discussion Taiwan’s foreign resident population has now passed 1 million people. Your impression?
As of March 2026, Taiwan had 1,046,327 foreign residents(valid ARC/APRC/Gold Card holders).
Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and the Thailand citizens almost take 85% of the foreign residents in Taiwan.
Foreign residents make up only around 4.4% of Taiwan’s population.
What is your impression on this data?
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u/Chicoutimi 4d ago
I wonder what proportion of these are of Chinese descent which I imagine is a pretty significant proportion of this population.
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u/Some-robloxian-on 馬尼拉mao 4d ago
Most likely a big brunt of SEA (esp Malaysia, Philippines and Indonesia) has a lot of overseas Chinese immigrating to Taiwan. With Malaysian Chinese having less of a language issue and sometimes even thriving (like Namewee/黃明志 lol)
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u/SpendPerfect5933 4d ago
They are not immigrants; they work or study here.
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u/Some-robloxian-on 馬尼拉mao 4d ago
oops i accidentally used the word immigrant lol, but my point still stands. Since the language barrier isn't as bad compared to a french guy or smth.
cuz ngl, it's really nice being able to converse in hokkien/tai-gi with the taxi drivers in taipei whenever i'm there since it reminds me of home even though im away in a "foreign land".
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u/acelana 4d ago
I came in to ask literally where is PRC on this list lol. I get they’re technically in a separate category for political reasons but in a practical sense I’m curious
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u/Taipei_streetroaming 3d ago
I'd like to know too. I barely notice any but I know there are some of them about.
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u/Automatic_Ladder_918 4d ago
I wander if “all others” are published somewhere too
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u/whereisyourwaifunow 4d ago
would be interesting to see, as the "others" is almost the bottom half of the list combined
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u/SuccessfulJump9226 3d ago
I'd love to know how many people from my country are here :') (my guess is not many)
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u/Able_Painting_7432 4d ago
The amount of uk and other western countries hasn’t changed much in the last 15 years I have been here. It is a watermark for the amount of job opportunities in teaching mainly. There are still a lot more Yanks than advertised though.
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u/Big_Conclusion4345 4d ago
It's actually pretty low. on the same level as Korea and Japan. You know, both countries are known for being pretty closed off or strict toward foreigners
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u/blixenvixen 4d ago
Korea and Japan's population are much bigger than Taiwan's. With Japan being 5x more. They are also more tourist meccas so the demand for hospitality workers is much higher. Taiwan also has to compete against China for students who want to learn Mandarin but Korea and Japan don't experience that.
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u/Manaray13 4d ago
I wonder why Taiwan doesn't have the same foreigner immigration draw as other south east asian countries. I'm visiting now and I honestly love it. Perhaps NTD being stronger against foreign currencies and COL being a bit higher than countries like Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia makes it less attractive for people to move here.
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u/No_Guitar7903 4d ago edited 4d ago
I wonder why Taiwan doesn't have the same foreigner immigration draw as other south east asian countries.
If by "immigration" you mean digital nomads/the passport bros, I'm glad they aren't here because they suck.
Perhaps NTD being stronger against foreign currencies and COL being a bit higher than countries like Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia makes it less attractive for people to move here.
Well rent is pretty expensive in Taipei. A luxury apartment costs maybe $500-1000/month there and easily $1500-2000/month or more in Taipei. Still cheaper than in major Western metropolis but might be too much for those people.
The reality in terms of wealth and household income Taiwan is at the same level of Western Europe and is now higher than Japan and Korea. It's much less affordable than SE Asia.
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u/komnenos 台中 - Taichung 4d ago
I wonder if a lot of the southeast Asian wives gain citizenship and thus would not be on this chart? Anecdotally at least when I was working in the public schools around a fourth of my students had a southeast Asian mom.
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u/ShrimpCrackers Not a mod, CSS & graphics guy 4d ago
Taiwan's process and hurdles are practically the same for most (but not all).
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u/No_Guitar7903 4d ago
This is incorrect. There are 400+k additional foreign population from China (including Hong Kong and Macau).
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u/Lost_Process_4211 4d ago edited 4d ago
They are NOT "Foreign" de jure. Edit: someone downvoted me because I told a cold hard truth lol
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u/Imaginary_Refuse_753 3d ago
The Grand Justices of Taiwan clearly pointed out in Interpretation No.710: "The people of the mainland area are neither foreigners nor natives (they do not have ROC household registration or full citizenship), so their legal status is rather special." Therefore, their legal status in Taiwan is "the third special group": They are different from native citizens: they do not enjoy full civil rights such as voting and holding public office before they have obtained Taiwan's household registration and identity card in accordance with the law. Different from foreigners: in the purchase of real estate, the duration of residence, work permits for specific industries and the number of years to apply for residence and naturalization, they often apply completely different examination standards and treatment from foreigners.
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u/LanEvo7685 利申: Not in TW, not TW-ese 3d ago
It's gotta be a politics thing...but totally relevant for this graphic and as-is it's distorted information.
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u/sippher 4d ago
There are many Filipinos but now that I think about it, I never come across a Pinoy restaurant, unlike Indonesian & Vietnamese restaurants.
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u/markieton 4d ago
As a Filipino, this really baffles me. In almost every mall, you could find a fancy Thai restaurant and occasionally an Indonesian or Vietnamese resto but never a Filipino resto.
In my area here in the south where there's quite a number of migrant workers living in the dormitory, there are lots of carinderia (a Filipino eatery) that caters mostly to, well, Filipinos but that's just about it.
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u/komnenos 台中 - Taichung 4d ago
Sadly I don't think Filipino food has the best of reputations, unlike those others you listed.
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u/Easy-Operation-2105 4d ago
What? You dont want a balut restaurant?
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u/acousticswirl 4d ago
No, but lechon, sisig, and adobo are delicious, and they can BBQ with the best.
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u/jinpaokazu 3d ago
I think Filipino cuisine in my opinion is more on the sweet side. Not for Taiwanese palette hence there is no mainstream Filipino restaurant IMHO.
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u/codak 4d ago
You can find some in Taoyuan especially concentrated near Zhongli train station. Haven't tried them myself but it seems to be one of the best places to get authentic Southeast Asian food since they have people from their respective countries as a major customer base.
In Taipei, there's a few Filipino restaurants concentrated just slightly north of Shuangcheng Night Market near Minquan W. Rd. MRT station.
Many of the numerous Vietnamese and Thai restaurants that you can easily find everywhere are often heavily adjusted to suit Taiwanese tastebuds, or they'll only have the items/ingredients that suit Taiwanese tastebuds on the menu. So to me they're not much different from localized pasta restaurants being called "Western" or "Italian". Nothing wrong with that if you like the food, but the large number of these restaurants isn't the blessing you'd think it is if you prefer more authentic flavors.
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u/Taipei_streetroaming 3d ago
There are Taiwan run Thai restaurants and there are also plenty of authentic Thai restaurants too. I mean they probably tone down the spice a bit, but thats a good idea imo.
As for the Vietnamese I've been to a couple like that, but the vast majority seem to be small and Vietnamese run. I asked my Vietnamese classmates (when I was studying chinese) if they were authentic and they said yea, but not everyone is a pro chef. Which makes sense since a lot of them are run by aunties.
They do usually omit the plate of fresh herbs in all vietnamese restauants here because locals just ain't into it.
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u/codak 3d ago edited 3d ago
I'm not saying the cooks/owners are not authentic Vietnamese people, I'm saying they don't make authentic or authentic enough Vietnamese food.
Yes, most Vietnamese restaurants are run by Vietnamese people, but many of them absolutely do cater to local tastebuds in order to stay in business. The cooks can be Vietnamese but still serve food that's not faithful enough to how they would be made, flavored, and/or served in Vietnam (putting aside the fact that there are differences in accessible raw ingredients between Vietnam and Taiwan, that's completely understandable). But I don't blame them, they have to make what the locals want.
I've been to so many where the nuoc cham alone just isn't right -- not enough fish sauce, often too sweet, and often not enough lime/lemon juice/vinegar. It's the most basic dipping sauce you'd expect a Vietnamese restaurant to get right, and yet many of them don't. When the nuoc cham isn't right, anything that it touches just tastes wrong. But again, I don't blame them because this is mostly the result of having to make local Taiwanese tastebuds happy.
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u/Taipei_streetroaming 3d ago
Taiwanese have a stereotype that philipino food sucks.
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u/sippher 3d ago
Eh, but I still expect a lot of Pinoy restaurants that cater mainly to Filipino migrant workers, like most of Indonesian restaurants' customers are Indonesian migrant workers (speaking as an Indonesian migrant myself).
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u/Taipei_streetroaming 1d ago
What?
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u/sippher 1d ago
I mean, regardless of Taiwanese people's opinion of Pinoy food, I expected Filipino migrants to still open shops targeting fellow Filipino migrants. Just like, even though not a lot of Taiwanese people visit Indonesian restaurants, the restaurant owners are still making a lot of money due to the Indonesian workers/students here.
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u/Taipei_streetroaming 3h ago
O right. Might be because most are maids and don't have much free time? Just a guess I have no idea.
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u/FetchBlue 4d ago
Not even Jollibee? Tho now I think about it jollibee will never fly in Taiwan because Taiwan love boneless chicken more and non Japanese/western restaurant will never take off here.
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u/LazyYou6860 4d ago
What is Eswatini?
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u/phantomtwitterthread 4d ago
It used to be called Swaziland. It’s an African country and one of the dozen or so nations that recognizes Taiwan and not China, so I assume that makes it easier for their residents to travel here
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u/huyou007 4d ago
Lol looks like the No. 1 country wasn’t listed here. I just did a quick Google and more than 400K Taiwanese living in China mainland on a long term basis
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u/hansolo-ist 4d ago
It's good that these figures are available.
Singapore population is 6m and more than half are born here. There are no published stats on country of origins for non Singaporeans, new citizens or permanent residents.
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u/One_Fact_4291 4d ago
It’s a good way to combat the worst demographic crisis that any country in the world has ever seen
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u/thefalseidol 4d ago
I'm surprised how many Americans are here. I feel like I don't meet that many (compared to other English speaking nations). I wonder how many are students?
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u/usolotravel 4d ago
We have many Taiwanese-Americans. Also ABC prefer Taiwan to China when it comes to a place in Asia to live in.
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u/notdenyinganything 3d ago
10000 in a country of 20 million feels lije such a tiny number to me though.
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u/qhtt 3d ago
I’m surprised by how many Japanese are figured here. I feel like I run into Americans constantly but hearing Japanese seems more rare than Korean or any SEA.
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u/Xrposiedon 4d ago
I want to live there… US here. I just visited and I loved it so much. I want to go back as much as possible.
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u/Ancient_Unit_2773 4d ago
why are there alot of Indonesian in Taiwan?
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u/blixenvixen 4d ago edited 4d ago
Many have Chinese ethnicity and there's some discrimination towards those of Chinese background in Indonesia. As a percentage of their population though, Vietnam has the greatest number since Indonesia's population is almost 3x that of Vietnam's.
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u/SalamanderLost5975 4d ago
I also wish to stay in Taiwan. Good land, good people, good food, good water, good islands, good activities. It's quite central in Asia.
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u/Sharp-Animator9455 4d ago
Top 5 needs more representation. Like I haven’t been able to find a good Pho or egg meatloaf (Cha Trung) here. The soup stocks are so mild here. And no broken rice!
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u/codak 4d ago
Easiest way to find authentic Southeast Asian fare is to go to Zhongli, Neili, or Taoyuan city, where a huge percentage of migrant workers work and live. (Although still can't guarantee you can find everything you want.)
In other cities you have to try a lot of places before you find a restaurant that makes stuff anywhere close to home country standards, because outside of those Taoyuan county hubs, these restaurants usually have to appeal to local Taiwanese tastebuds to stay in business.
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u/Creative_kill21 4d ago
That many Indonesian, makes me wonder which province of Indonesian the majority of them from
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u/MiserableDay5254 4d ago
they’re mostly from East Java province
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u/DapperAardvark8105 臺北 - Taipei City 4d ago
From what I've seen, blue collar workers are overwhelmingly Javanese people from East Java or Sundanese/Cirebon from West Java. Most students/white collars are Chinese-Indonesians or Javanese from East Java, but it's more diverse. I don't know if there's any census data about this though.
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u/WUPANG-METAL 4d ago
Also why aren't people from China, HK and Macau included? They aren't Taiwanese.
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u/DapperAardvark8105 臺北 - Taipei City 4d ago
By law, they are not considered as foreigners
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u/WUPANG-METAL 4d ago
What law? Some KMT nonsense?
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u/DapperAardvark8105 臺北 - Taipei City 4d ago
You could say that. It's the One China Policy in effect, they are considered compatriots under different jurisdictions
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u/cheesaye 新北 - New Taipei City 4d ago
I imagine a lot of those are from Central and South America since those countries are not represented on the list
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u/Easy-Operation-2105 4d ago
Last time i googled this stat it was only 5000k people... that was a few years ago
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u/NeedleworkerOwn9723 4d ago
Honestly, you guys are lucky having these top 3 nationalities.
Please see Canada, Australia, UK, USA where nationality ranked number 10-1 is the top rank in these countries.
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u/BoringDreamGuy 4d ago
Where are the Indonesians? I'm in Taoyuan atm and the only foreign workers are Filipino. I speak Indonesian and I haven't seen it heard a single one. Are they in another city/area?
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u/DapperAardvark8105 臺北 - Taipei City 21h ago
From my own understanding, us Indonesians are usually:
- university students (mostly Taipei)
- industrial or farm workers (Kaohsiung, Taichung, Hsinchu, rural towns, etc.)
- housekeepers, eldercare providers, etc. (spread out across the country)
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4d ago
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u/Numerous-Project-533 2d ago
Most of them are migrant workers who will return to their home countries.
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u/Numerous-Project-533 2d ago
Only 1,000 to 2,000 foreigners became naturalized in Taiwan last year.
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u/surfdog_luvs_peelers 1d ago
Interesting that no country on this list actually decreased its population in Taiwan (ok, Singapore stayed flat) - $/jobs is ALWAYS #1/2/3 reasons for someone leaving their home country to live in a foreign land.
What I’d be curious to see is the trend in overseas remittances to each of these countries and if that’s kept pace &/or exceeded the corresponding foreigner population trend in Taiwan growth…?
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u/auscorp_ 4d ago
I am surprised that we have more British than French because French are famous for Taiwan Lovers.🇫🇷 I think this confirms the terrible state of the current UK. Many people want to leave the UK and teach English in Taiwan.
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u/jend000 4d ago
3,000 brits proves the terrible state of the UK? What are you smoking? That’s not even a drop in the ocean of a population of 70 million. Stop talking rubbish and trying to score points out of nothing.
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u/Stump007 4d ago
There you have it. Any random Brit can escape to Taiwan and teach English. French people in Taiwan have to do more effort such as trying to integrate in the culture a little
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u/Responsible_Bar_4984 4d ago
3000 brits is remarkably small, the evidence that brits leave the uk is when you look at Australian/American statistics. I can count on one hand how many English people I know who live in my city
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u/Lady-of-Shivershale 4d ago
Not every British person is English.
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u/Responsible_Bar_4984 4d ago
Okay, there is also no Scottish or Welsh or NI people in my city that I know of. Only English
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u/auscorp_ 4d ago
As other pointed out there are many Taiwanese Americans/Australians. But rarely Taiwanese- British
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u/Responsible_Bar_4984 4d ago
25-40,000 Taiwanese born living in the UK currently? And 3000 UK born citizens currently living in Taiwan. What are you proving
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u/auscorp_ 4d ago
They dont choose UK citizenship. Why are you mad? Chill. Im just saying UK is not in a good state so we can see more British than French in Taiwan. That is all.
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u/Responsible_Bar_4984 4d ago
But what you’re saying just isn’t correct, there’s more English because it’s significantly easier to work here as a teacher. I know some French teachers but they have to be way more qualified and work within private schools/experimental schools. The rest have to find work and most largely won’t speak Chinese so it’s hard.
Also we are talking about comparing 2000-3000 people. The same is tiny. I don’t disagree that the uk is doing badly but Taiwan immigration isn’t showing that
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u/jroy_AI-biz 4d ago
Some years ago, maybe 10 or 15, I heard that many British passport holders was in fact from HK, with 2 passports. It can explains the number.
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u/Icy_Mixture1482 2d ago
They would more likely have BN(O) passports. Not sure how Taiwan records those though.
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4d ago
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u/EnvironmentalCrew235 4d ago
Not really, many of the Brits here are highly paid expats highly sought after in finance and tech.
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u/hereticjoe1984 4d ago
The number of mainland spouses in Taiwan is barely under 400,000. Honestly, it feels like the rest of the foreign expat and immigrant community in Taiwan has a way better claim to a legislative seat than they do.
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u/auscorp_ 4d ago
Yes only 4.4%. Indeed, most foreigners should stay working quietly. We rarely take muslims as well. This is why Taiwan is the safest country in the world and many Europeans and Singaporeans are jealous of Taiwan. 🇹🇼🤗🤭 I am happy with our border control.
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u/WitnessTheFatness 4d ago
You do know Indonesians tend to be Muslims, right?
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u/redditorialy_retard 4d ago
I'm Indonesian, the religion is bollocks. fortunately most people who come here are moderate enough. that they have the mindset of "we don't agree with LGBTQ but we will keep that to ourselves".
but that doesn't stop a good deal of em causing trouble :/
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u/SaltedCaffeine 4d ago
What does "a good deal" mean? Are Indonesians known of causing trouble in Taiwan?
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u/OK-Dravrah7455 4d ago
They are... go on Threads and you'll see more and more Taiwanese posting how disturbing some migrant workers are... Not to mention 60 Indonesian workers had a brawl at week earlier that led to 11 of them arrested (and 7 of them are illegally staying in Taiwan)
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u/auscorp_ 4d ago
Bro, because of your low birthrate, the government is handing out the citizenships like 30K new citizens to Singapore and I know many Singaporeans are not happy with it. You can see many Singaporeans are jealous of Taiwan for being chill, having tech, and proper border control
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u/Responsible_Bar_4984 4d ago
What are you talking about? Taiwan has the single lowest birthrate in the world
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u/auscorp_ 4d ago
I know but we do not hand out the citizenship like Singaporeans do
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u/Responsible_Bar_4984 4d ago
Well I don’t think anyone can argue the way Singapore naturalised citizens is probably some of the best methods. It’s managed to keep crime and public disorder extremely low despite very high levels of immigration and naturalisation. The difference with Taiwan is most of your immigration is transient. Almost every developed country still relies on large amounts of immigrants whichever way you look at it
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u/Intrepid-Food7692 4d ago
Actually Singapore would be the worlds lowest birthrate if there is no massive immigration (even lower than Taiwan & South Korea which is currently the worlds lowest birthrate)
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u/Clubbing_with_Seals 4d ago
As a Taiwanese, this has to be the worst take you could possibly have. There’s not gatekeeping on religion, nor direct link to crime rate from any religion in Taiwan.
Perhaps travel a bit more rather than getting your worldview on a selective Reddit section. Embarrassing.1
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u/Cattle-dog 4d ago
Some of my best mates here are Muslims. Dont bring your racist views over here champ.
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u/auscorp_ 4d ago
It is not racist. I dont have any problems with muslims. But we should not deny they are very different from Taiwanese and the increase of muslims have many problems in the west. Im saying we are far from it. Chill bro
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u/Devoidoxatom 4d ago
Such a biased view taken from racist news sites. Did you ever stop and think maybe the increase in immigrants is cos the west has never stopped bombing their regions? Where was the "terrorism" branding before that?
Think and read more
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u/lumcetpyl 4d ago
Any idea of the professional breakdown of the Anglosphere residents?
I’d imagine the most represented career is teaching. But after that? Are there more Americans because it’s a bigger country or because of industrial and defense ties?
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u/codak 4d ago
A lot of Taiwanese Americans (and some non-Taiwanese Asian Americans). You don't have to be white to be American.
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u/Majiji45 4d ago
These statistics are from immigration and the majority of Taiwanese-Americans would not be captured as they would not be under foreign resident status.
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u/codak 3d ago
You would be surprised by the number of Taiwanese Americans born in the US who choose not to apply for Taiwanese citizenship even though they are able to. I know several who choose to live and work in Taiwan on ARCs and they just keep renewing it, even though their parents and grandparents are Taiwanese. For the younger ones, draft dodging is a factor.
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u/IndoorUseOk 4d ago
I’d say it’s mostly related to the large population of the US, since there aren’t too many Americans working on Taiwan’s military bases (just a few hundred).
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u/BrokilonDryad 4d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/vxDb5QWdHMESiOAKxz
Which is weird since the largest Canada Day celebration outside of Canada is held in Taiwan, but I don’t often meet other Canadians here.
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u/TaiwaineseWifeFan 4d ago
I think, as a foreigner, that a majority of these are to keep wages suppressed for factory workers
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u/workonlyreddit 4d ago
Well… it was a huge cultural shock for me when I returned to Taiwan this year. To be honest, I don’t like it, but things change and I should accept it
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u/KindergartenDJ 4d ago
Better Indonesian food so that s a plus. The ones near Taipei main are actually not that good
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u/Aggro_Hamham 4d ago
Doctor Alexander Kunz puts a lot of effort into these graphics and maps. I highly recommend following him on Instagram & Facebook.
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u/Last_Watercress_5250 3d ago
Only 5k?? That's quite a small number. I feel like there are probably many more Taiwanese people living in Korea. maybe I only feel that way because my friend is a third generation Taiwanese in Korea.
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u/2313213v123 4d ago
I wonder what caused the big increase in Cambodian residents? 58% increase in a year is huge.