Living
The week before the holiday
Next Friday is Mid-Autumn. Monday is Teacher’s Day. This is the week you do the clinic, book the train, buy the fruit, and answer the balcony text.
4 min read · Sep 18
Back issues
Archive
Every Friday letter, and every story we have published. New issues land here the week after they go out.
8 letters · 48 stories
- Alishan
- Baseball
- Civic life
- East coast
- Festivals
- Food
- HSR
- Health
- History
- Kinmen
- Mid-Autumn
- NHI
- Night markets
- Outdoors
- Payslips
- Schools
- Tainan
- Taipei
- Tea
- The Strait
- Transport
- Trash night
- Travel
- Typhoon
- Weather
- Work
- Yangmingshan
- autumn
- business
- clubs
- confucius
- culture
- danshui
- expats
- exports
- festival
- health tokens
- holiday
- holidays
- insurance
- jazz
- labor
- living
- marriage
- music
- national day
- rail
- taichung
- taitung
- taiwan
- tamsui
- taoyuan
- teachers day
- tech
- thsr
- wages
- youbike
The letters
No. 07 · This week · Friday, October 16, 2026
Memory Prices Climb Again as AI Keeps the Foundries Busy
Nanya Technology posts an 85.7 percent margin and says the shortage is not over.
6 stories · Read the letter
No. 06 · Friday, October 9, 2026
Health tokens open October 1 for NHI adults redeem from December
Checkups, cancer screenings, and flu shots earn points worth NT$1 each in principle. Foreign nationals on NHI are included. Redemption starts December 1 after a 1,000-token minimum.
5 stories · Read the letter
No. 05 · Friday, October 2, 2026
Northeasterlies arrive as Taipei’s heat streak breaks
After days of 36-degree warnings, seasonal winds should drop highs and bring showers north of Taoyuan from Thursday into the weekend.
6 stories · Read the letter
No. 04 · Friday, September 25, 2026
The clubs that already exist here
Scouts, Rotary, Lions and Toastmasters all run in Taiwan. You can walk into a meeting next week.
6 stories · Read the letter
No. 03 · Friday, September 18, 2026
The week before the holiday
Next Friday is Mid-Autumn. Monday is Teacher’s Day. This is the week you do the clinic, book the train, buy the fruit, and answer the balcony text.
6 stories · Read the letter
No. 02 · Friday, September 11, 2026
The license you brought with you
Good evening from Taipei. The card in your wallet is not a Taiwanese license, and thirty days is shorter than it sounds. This letter is the boring version of that, plus YouBike, a cheap night of baseball, silvergrass instead of the Arena, a bank account once you have an ARC, and a walk to Chikan Tower for the week Guo Huaiyi came at the Dutch.
6 stories · Read the letter
No. 01 · Friday, September 4, 2026
Balconies, alerts, and the first cool evenings
Good evening from Taipei. The basin is still holding the summer, but the light drops earlier on the river now. Mid-Autumn is three weeks away — the first time many of this year’s arrivals will be invited onto someone else’s balcony. This letter is for that week, and for the quieter ones around it.
6 stories · Read the letter
Pilot · Friday, August 28, 2026
Heat, the HSR, and a cloudy mountain
This was the trial run: a short Friday note to see whether a letter from Taiwan, in English, was something people would actually open. The basin was still in high summer. We wrote about the thunderstorm, the train, and the mountain at the top of the city.
6 stories · Read the letter
All stories
Living notes, travel, culture, and the rest — not only the ones that made a Friday letter.
How to be here
Living
Living
The license you brought with you
The card in your wallet is not a Taiwanese license. Thirty days, an IDP, and a motor-vehicle office: the boring version, which is the useful one.
4 min read · Sep 11
Living
Two New YouBike Docks Open in Shilin and Wanhua
Taipei added stations on Zhongshan North Road and in Xizang Road last Friday; the system is still adding docks.
2 min read · Oct 16
Living
The Double Ten weekend starts on Friday
A substitute holiday, two fireworks, and a city that mostly stays open.
2 min read · Oct 9
Living
Health tokens open October 1 for NHI adults — redeem from December
Checkups, cancer screenings, and flu shots earn points worth NT$1 each in principle. Foreign nationals on National Health Insurance are included.
2 min read · Oct 9
Living
YouBike’s October 1 rules close the free-ride loop
Taipei now blocks same-station re-borrows for 15 minutes and bills rides on a running clock, after riders gamed the first-30-minutes-free window.
2 min read · Oct 2
Living
Northeasterlies arrive as Taipei’s heat streak breaks
After days of 36-degree warnings, seasonal winds should drop highs and bring showers north of Taoyuan from Thursday into the weekend.
2 min read · Oct 2
Living
Stay in the city and watch the moon
Mid-Autumn is Friday. The moon should clear. The highways will not. Treat this as a local weekend, not a road trip.
2 min read · Sep 24
Living
The clubs that already exist here
Scouts, Rotary, Lions and Toastmasters all run in Taiwan. You can walk into a meeting next week.
2 min read · Sep 24
Living
A clinic before Thursday
The four-day weekend is not when you want a throat. Neighborhood clinics close. The big hospitals run a holiday list. Go now.
3 min read · Sep 18
Living
YouBike or an e-moped: the first-year transport argument
The honest answer depends on the hill, the rain, and whether you will actually take the test.
4 min read · Sep 11
Living
What the typhoon alerts actually mean
A yellow, orange, or red from the Central Weather Administration is not a vibe. It is a set of decisions about work, schools, and whether you should still go to Costco.
5 min read · Sep 4
Living
The Friday trash ritual
Taipei does not have a chute. It has a truck, a song, and a set of bags you can only buy at certain counters. Get this wrong once and you will not forget it.
4 min read · Sep 3
Living
English-friendly clinics, without flying to Hong Kong
Taipei has a real medical system. You do not need a medical tourist corridor. You need an NHI card, a number ticket, and a short list.
4 min read · Aug 31
After hours
Culture
Culture
Mid-Autumn for people who just got here
Friday, September 25 is a holiday. The interesting part is the three weeks before it: pomelos in the supermarket, a balcony invitation, and the question of what you are supposed to bring.
4 min read · Sep 4
Culture
Civic Square Turns Into a Jazz Stage for Ten Nights
Taichung’s free outdoor festival opens Friday with local big bands and imported trios through the 25th.
2 min read · Oct 16
Culture
Beef noodle weekend at the Flora Expo grounds
The city festival runs Friday through Sunday, with bowls you can actually eat.
2 min read · Oct 9
Culture
Jazz festival’s 20th year closes at Taipei Music Center
Three nights of main-stage sets, October 9–11, end a citywide run that started in early September at docks, parks, and club rooms.
2 min read · Oct 2
Culture
Jazz until October, then the park fills up
The Taipei Jazz Festival is still on through 11 October. The shopping-district carnival takes Expo Park for the long weekend.
2 min read · Sep 24
Culture
Say yes to the balcony
The invitation will be casual, late, and easy to decline. Don’t. Fruit, something that can sit on tile, and showing up is the whole custom.
3 min read · Sep 18
Culture
Where to watch baseball this month
CPBL nights are one of the cheapest good evenings in the country. Pick a park, learn the last MRT, and stay for the losing innings.
4 min read · Sep 11
Culture
The 3pm thunderstorm as a civic institution
It is not a canceled afternoon. It is a pause. Learn to stand under the arcade like everyone else.
3 min read · Sep 3
Culture
The night market after you live here
Tourists line up for the famous stall. Residents have a second map: the stall that is good on Tuesdays, the one that closed, the one that moved two streets over.
3 min read · Sep 2
Off the basin
Travel
Travel
Lala Mountain Earns Taiwan’s First Urban Night Sky Place
DarkSky International recognizes the Taoyuan ridge after the city shielded more than 400 streetlights.
2 min read · Oct 16
Travel
Getting to the Taitung fireworks without a same-day miracle
The national show is on the east coast Saturday night. The trains fill before the fuse.
2 min read · Oct 9
Travel
Book the National Day rail window before the cars fill
THSR treats October 8–12 as a holiday movement. Mid-Autumn already set a one-day record; the next long weekend is nine days away.
2 min read · Oct 2
Travel
Do not drive to Hehuanshan on Friday
The four-day break piles cars onto the usual mountain roads. Rail is the only trip that still has spare capacity, and only if you already hold a seat.
2 min read · Sep 24
Travel
Do not go east on the 24th
The TRA to Yilan and Hualien on Thursday night is a punishment, not a holiday. Book the HSR now, or wait until October.
4 min read · Sep 18
Travel
Silvergrass, not the Arena
IVE has Taipei Arena through Sunday. If you do not have a ticket, Qingtiangang just came into season, and Yingge is doing the other kind of weekend.
3 min read · Sep 11
Travel
A weekend on the northeast coast, without Jiufen
The old street will still be there in November. This Saturday, take the train to Ruifang and keep going until the Pacific is louder than the tour groups.
4 min read · Sep 4
Travel
After the heat: when to book Alishan
The tea terraces are at their most photogenic in the mist, which is also when the trains sell out. September is the hinge.
3 min read · Sep 2
Travel
The HSR as a habit, not a holiday
Tainan for dinner and back is a real evening if you book the right train. Treating the west coast as far is a Taipei superstition.
3 min read · Aug 30
Travel
Yangmingshan when the city is too much
You do not need a clear view of the north coast. You need a bus, a trail, and an hour in the silvergrass.
3 min read · Aug 29
Work
Business
Business
Memory Prices Climb Again as AI Keeps the Foundries Busy
Nanya Technology posts an 85.7 percent margin and says the shortage is not over.
2 min read · Oct 16
Business
Machinery Exports Rise for the Twentieth Month
Electronic equipment shipments jumped 61 percent as AI server orders keep the machine shops busy.
2 min read · Oct 16
Business
Labor premiums hit the legal ceiling as the minimum wage rises
Ordinary labor-insurance rates go to 13 percent in 2027. A separate wage decision lifts the monthly floor to NT$30,900 and nudges NHI copays.
2 min read · Oct 2
Business
The long weekend the shops actually close
Friday through Monday is a statutory break. Pay, opening hours and last trains change. Check before you assume a weekday errand still works.
2 min read · Sep 24
Business
The mooncake box on the desk
It will arrive on Wednesday. You do not have to eat it. You do have to know what it is for.
3 min read · Sep 18
Business
A bank account once you have an ARC
Passport, ARC, and a morning. Some branches still want a chop. The post office is not glamorous, and it works.
4 min read · Sep 11
Business
How to read a Taiwanese payslip
Labor insurance, NHI, the pension contribution with the slightly too-long name — the deductions are less mysterious than they look in the first month.
5 min read · Sep 1
This week in Taiwan History
History
History
The Association That Opened in a Girls’ School
On 17 October 1921 the Taiwanese Cultural Association held its founding meeting in Dadaocheng.
2 min read · Oct 16
History
The bomb on the day before the uprising
October 9, 1911, is why October 10 became the holiday. Taiwan was not in that room.
2 min read · Oct 9
History
On this week: the French landing that failed at Tamsui
Eight October 1884, six days from this Friday, Qing troops drove 600 French marines back to their boats at the river mouth.
2 min read · Oct 2
History
Why Teachers’ Day is 28 September
The date is Confucius’s birthday on the official calendar, fixed in Taiwan in 1952. This year it also makes the Mid-Autumn weekend four days long.
2 min read · Sep 24
History
21 September 1999 — the night they still call 921
Monday is twenty-seven years later. It is why people still ask how old a building is, and why some of us keep a bag by the door.
4 min read · Sep 18
History
September 7–11, 1652 — Guo Huaiyi’s week
This Friday, 374 years ago, Chinese farmers with bamboo spears met Dutch muskets outside present-day Tainan. Fort Provintia is an afternoon walk now. It was a bamboo palisade then.
4 min read · Sep 11
History
September 3, 1954 — the first shells on Kinmen
Seventy-two years ago yesterday the First Taiwan Strait Crisis began. Kinmen is a county you can fly to for lunch. It was also, for an afternoon, the center of the Cold War.
4 min read · Sep 4
History
August 23, 1958 — the week they still call 823
Five days before this letter, in 1958, the guns opened on Kinmen. The odd-even shelling that followed is why a museum on the island still treats earplugs as a joke with a date on it.
4 min read · Aug 28