China is money-driven and it's a bit mercenary and it's a bit, you know, you're below me and I'm up here and kuai dien.

Taiwan just feels really civilized and very comfortable.

Do you mind introducing yourself?

My name's Alan McIver. I'm from Edinburgh, Scotland.

I've been in Taiwan for 15 years now.

I have quite a few jobs. I write articles for Commonwealth and I'm a headhunter and I teach at Haida and I am an angel investor, so I invest in startups.

Did you ever think that you would be involved in stuff like this in the beginning?

I didn't really want to teach English at all. I just wanted to have fun in Asia.

I wanted to be a professional rock star.

I came to Taiwan, I formed a band here, playing music festivals all over, we're touring and then I realized about 27 that I needed to do something else and I panicked.

I had done really well academically as a kid, got straight A's, applied to study law at Cambridge University and then I had taught English for four years and I was like, what have I done with my career?

I felt like going from English teacher to corporate job in Taiwan was almost impossible.

I don't know if that was correct.

Like you could apply for 100 jobs a week and they would all look at your CV and think, oh, taught English for four years, like no.

Do you think that's because of certain stereotypes people have of English teachers?

Yes, I do. I think that Taiwan is a very conservative culture in the sense that they're not creative outside the box thinkers.

So most HR and most companies want someone who's done the exact same job in a different company.

And so we moved to Shanghai and after two months, I got a job in a headhunting company.

I feel the big difference between China and Taiwan is that in China, they're willing to take a risk.

So hiring somebody like me was easier for them because they're like, oh, I see some potential here, let's give it a go.

And I started going to sales meetings when they had foreign clients.

I would charm the German guy.

They would do the expertise thing and then I would charm again and then we'd leave.

And they're like, oh my goodness, this YGORN is really useful.

God, I want Alan in every meeting because it's so much easier for me to do small talk.

And also I can really help with some of the lost in translation stuff.

Bit of a, they started to really use me for my full potential.

So I started being able to hire for our company, chaperone, foreign counterparts.

I was in charge of our events and I would be very much the face of the company in a lot of cases.

And it was such a good experience for the company as well that before I left, we'd hired 20 foreigners.

So I was the first foreigner.

And after that, they're like, this totally works.

Let's hire a bunch of them.

Some are good, some are bad, whatever.

But it's just the same as hiring local colleagues.

We can make them do different things.

And I meet a lot of foreigners in Taiwan who hate China because China is the political adversary of Taiwan.

And having lived there and spent time there, I really like China.

I had a great time there.

I prefer Taiwan.

It's a much nicer place to live.

A lot of Taiwanese people have this impression that China is very bad, very authoritarian.

But at the same time, 2 million Taiwanese people work there.

Yeah.

What's up with that?

Do you know what?

I have opinions about the authoritarian control as well.

Because when I was there, China felt lawless.

Yeah?

So you never see police anywhere.

People seem to be doing whatever they want, wherever they want.

I saw people spit on the street a lot.

I saw a granny pee in front of me in the street.

They're always letting their kids pee on the street.

This is in Shanghai?

Yeah.

I mean, I'll give you another example.

We went to the zoo in Shanghai.

We saw this bear.

And everyone crowded around us throwing things at the bear.

And there was a monkey enclosure.

And this Chinese guy got a bunch of water into his mouth.

And I spat it at the monkey.

It's like, what's going on?

I went to a supermarket once in China.

And it was a Tesco, so British supermarket.

And then I came outside.

And there's a guy who has a carpet.

And one of the things he's selling is a chopped off tiger's arm.

And I'm not talking about the bones.

I'm talking about a full tiger arm.

Also, we were watching TV one day.

And there was a massive explosion.

And a car had just blown up.

And I think the main difference between Taiwan and China is it's a bit money-driven.

And it's a bit mercenary.

And it's a bit, you know, you're below me.

And I'm up here in Kuaidian.

And if you're in a restaurant in Taiwan, you would slowly try and get the waitresses or the waiters' eyes.

Can you give me a menu?

If you're in China, you shout at the waitress.

Waitress!

And these are really nice Chinese people.

And they're still shouting at waitresses.

So China was really cool.

And it was great.

And I enjoyed it.

But it's just a bit more Wild West.

Taiwan just feels really civilized and very comfortable.

As an employer, why would I want to hire a foreigner that's a lot more expensive than, like, maybe a Taiwanese person that lived in the States for a long time, speaks a lot of good English?

Most jobs do go to those people.

They are better candidates.

Westernized Taiwanese, they dominate the market.

They're the ones getting all the good jobs.

The foreigners are very much niche hires.

And so they are the price that the companies are willing to pay.

Come to Taiwan, you get a gold card.

You look for jobs.

And you say, well, my salary in San Francisco was 200k.

Most companies here are going to say,

OK, got it.

We're going to offer you 85.

Who would take that?

I know, mate.

I can tell you the people that have a massive pull factor.

Things like my girlfriend's Taiwanese.

Exactly.

Can you explain that to people, though, that living here is way cheaper and you don't need insurance and the rent is a lot less?

Yeah, they do.

But it still feels like a real stab.

What are the other pull factors of working in Taiwan besides I have a Taiwanese girlfriend?

Taiwan has almost no crime.

Taiwan is beautiful.

The food is great.

The people are friendly.

It's good gender equality there.

It's comfortable for gay people.

So the pull factors are mostly from that, as opposed to, oh, it's great to work in Taiwan because Taiwan is not a great place to work for a foreign expat if you're comparing it to Shanghai, Tokyo, Bangkok, Vietnam, Singapore.

Really, pretty much anywhere else.

In terms of pay or just the way you're treated?

In terms of job opportunities, salaries, chance for promotion, business attitudes.

Then why did you stay?

I just really love it here.

Also, I've done well here.

If you can be one of the exceptions, you know, milk it.

Why not?

Do the, you know.

You get best of both worlds.

Exactly.

There's a handful of foreigners here who have had really good careers.

They came up kind of like you as teachers.

Yeah.

I mean, these are foreigners who are really integrated.

Foreigners who speak really good Chinese, it's a massive advantage.

Just makes your local colleagues like you a lot more.

I find what happens in Taiwan a lot is that they're really nervous to speak to a foreigner and then they figure out you speak Chinese and then they speak English to you really well.

Yeah, exactly.

Because in their head, they're like, oh, it's fine.

But if you only speak English, it makes them really nervous.

The ideal situation is when your colleagues stop seeing you as, you know, woman the Waigoren or woman the Laowai.

And they just see you as another colleague.

And I've had to earn that respect in every single job I've been in.

And it's not easy.

Let's say a client emails you in Chinese and it's a new colleague.

And they're like, ha ha ha, the foreigner.

And they emailed the foreigner in Chinese.

And they think, oh, I must be so fish out of water.

I can feel this email.

I can reply.

No problem at all.

They can send me a contract in Mandarin.

We can have a business meeting in Mandarin.

No problem.

But they feel like, oh, the foreigner won't be able to do.

No, the foreigner can do that, actually.

I feel really like Taiwan is my home now.

I consider myself Scottish and Taiwanese.

These days, and I'm really happy about this,

I have a lot of conversations with taxi drivers where they'll say, wow, your Chinese is really good.

How long have you been here?

Or do you have a Taiwanese wife?

Do you have any kids?

And then after a while, they start laughing.

And they're like, wow, you really are Taiwanese.

And these kind of blue-collar taxi drivers are meeting this Uyghur and thinking, wow.

Like, he's one of us.

Like, he's really one of us.

It's nice.

I like that.

I get seen as a bit of an insider-outsider.

I think I know the culture well enough to be seen as an insider.

But I still have the foreigner perspective.

For example, I can write articles criticizing the business culture here.

And people seem to be like, we agree.

Whereas I have Taiwanese HR friends who said, I could never write what you write.

Yeah, you can get away with it.

I could never do it.

Have you heard of the term in Chinese, nu xin?

It's like the slave mentality.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Do you think that's accurate to Taiwanese workplaces?

I think a lot of Taiwanese, they work too hard.

They have the boss is God mentality here as well, where they always work overtime.

If their boss asks them to do anything, they do it.

They don't disagree with things in meetings.

They don't speak up.

They don't ask for promotions or salary raises or to be moved to a different country.

It's very passive.

It's like, oh, yes, boss.

Yes, boss.

Yes, boss.

And also, I feel like a lot of Taiwanese, they don't value their own work-life balance.

You should have a life outside work.

It's important to your happiness.

You shouldn't just be, oh, I work and then I show she.

That's not a good life.

Yeah.

Do you feel like that is actually an asset for a foreigner to come here and start a startup?

Because they can get access to this giant labor pool of people that are very agreeable.

I don't know why more foreign companies don't set up headquarters, Asia headquarters in Taiwan.

You have great workforce.

All the expats that come here to manage Taiwan, they love it.

You know, it's cheap, highly educated, highly skilled.

The tax is not that high here.

Do you think that has to do with cross-strait relations and the political instability?

I hope not.

I think that there's probably some truth in there, although it's not something that I hear companies talk about.

In my opinion, the reason Taiwan is not seen as more of a potential regional headquarters is because Taiwan's terrible with marketing itself.

Taiwan is good at manufacturing.

They're bad at marketing.

Tell me a successful Taiwanese brand that has successfully gone overseas and HTC, you could argue, in 2012, 2013 was smashing it.

Giant, you could argue, yeah.

Taiwan is just such a hidden gem.

A lot of people around the world, they don't know about Taiwan.

They don't know how amazing it is.

Taiwan is a great little place and it should be discovered by more Western companies.