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Why Is Taiwan So Rich?
History scope
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyf0D8kUdF0
130 years ago Taiwan was poor while the West Was Rich today Taiwan is just as
rich as the West how did Taiwan go from a poor region of China to becoming one of the richest countries in the
world chapter 1 Chinese Taiwan Taiwan was conquered by China in
1683 when China conquers a new region they try to convert the local people into more Chinese people similar to what
they are doing today in tibat for example Chinese were sent to Taiwan they would marry Taiwanese women and together
they would have Chinese babies these Chinese babies grow up marry more Taiwanese people and create even more
Chinese babies until Taiwan became Chinese and being part of China meant
that Taiwan receiv received Chinese infrastructure canals Terraces and roads were built in order to turn Taiwan into
China's sugar and tea Factory but when the Europeans and North Americans created factories with
machines China was left behind China had a lot of people and it was easier to hire more workers than it was to build
machines and over time those machines became more productive than workers suddenly the mighty Chinese Empire was
surpassed by the British Empire the French Empire or the Japanese empire and
in 1895 Japan went to war with China and in this war Japan conquered Taiwan this
was Japan's first colony Taiwan would be an experiment before they create a colonial Empire but Japanese
colonization was very different from European colonization as you might remember from my video on the
transatlantic slave trade the Europeans use colonies mostly for resources such as gold sugar or cotton the colonies
themselves were usually not allowed to set up their own factories the goal was to make those colonies reliant on
manufactured goods from the Homeland so they wouldn't Rebel but Japan wanted to do things differently Japan wanted to
turn Taiwan into an extension of the Homeland itself and that man that the Chinese people living in Taiwan now had
to become Japanese and that meant an industrialized economy and so in 1895
Taiwan began their development from a poor region to a wealthy region the Empire of Japan had two big
problems the first was that because they were industrializing they needed more resources in order to get those
resources they decided to take them from other people while Taiwan did not have a lot of resources by today's standards it
was enough for a country early in developments such as Japan the second big problem Japan faced was that they
couldn't produce enough food for all their people since Japan industrialized its people became healthier healthier
people live longer and when a country's people live longer they keep making babies and then the population of that
country increases but Japan didn't have a lot of Farmland so it wanted to use Taiwan as a food producer to feed the
Japanese people luckily for Japan Taiwan was already a Sugar Factory so Japan
decided to improve upon on the agriculture that already existed they built new irrigation systems introduced
new and better crops and they constructed railroads to transport all these Goods under Japanese rule Taiwan
would remain a largely agricultural economy but a relatively industrialized
agricultural economy by the 1930s over half of all the food grown on Taiwan was
exported to other parts of the Japanese empire and as a result the Taiwanese people had more money and because of all
this new food Taiwanese people had a better diet thus increasing their overall
health and a healthy worker is a productive worker so the next thing Japan focused on was creating sewer
systems sanitation and health care services next was education all these new systems needed skilled workers to
operate them so they set up primary schools high schools and universities to teach Taiwan about the latest
Technologies so they could use that knowledge to develop Taiwan further education mainly focused on medicine
engineering and science Taiwan soon got electricity and Japan started building
factories on the islands such as for cheap textiles and chemicals and when the Japanese empire expanded Taiwan got
more customers and with more customers they could grow their industry and what is important here is that the wealth
created by these factories didn't just go to the Japanese the local Taiwanese
were encouraged to participate in this new industrial economy from the Japanese perspective if the poor Taiwanese people
became wealthy Japanese people then they had a more productive economy and throughout the time it was Japanese
Colony about 60% of the industrialization was in the hands of Taiwanese people themselves from an
economic perspective Taiwan was doing well and by the 1930s Taiwan had become the second richest region in East Asia
After Japan itself its economy was growing at around 2% per year which isn't a lot in today's world but for the
early 20th century the this was huge though that said Taiwan was of course still a colony and they suffered various
crimes against humanity and when Japan joined World War II Taiwan would get more factories to support the war effort
but in the end Japan lost the War Chapter 2
Independence as part of Japan's defeat it was forced to hand over their colonies back to their original owners
in the case of Taiwan this meant the island was handed over to China when the Chinese government first arrived on
Taiwan they had basically no idea how to run the island the Chinese bureaucrats
had no experience running an economy as advanced as Taiwan and remember that Japan's education in Taiwan mainly
focused on science so when the Japanese left there was almost nobody left who knew anything about politics and after
the war all the Japanese officials went back home to Japan if you're curious as to why you need people with a high level
of educ a to run a country look at what happened in Taiwan after World War II as a result various important industries
began to fail in Taiwan without Japanese Machinery Taiwan couldn't grow enough food without Japanese loans people
didn't have money to start new businesses and without Japanese doctors they couldn't even run vital Medical
Services in short Taiwan had become reliant on Japan and now that it was independent it needed to train its own
people to replace the Japanese and everything became worse in 1948
because in 1948 the Chinese government lost the civil war against Communists mainland China would become communist
China and Taiwan would become the Republic of China or rooc for short as a
result of this loss Taiwan couldn't even rely on support from mainland China anymore and soon the Communists would
try to cross the sea and Conquer The Island as well and so the goal of the government became survival somehow
Taiwan had to find a way to survive a war against China and Taiwan found two solutions the first was to Ally itself
with capitalist nations in their struggle against communism and so they received military support from the USA
but most importantly for this video they received money from the USA money which
Taiwan desperately needed the second solution was to make Taiwan economically powerful you see even though China had
millions of people to fight a war Taiwan had much better technology and if Taiwan could develop a powerful industry then
it would be able to produce enough we weapons to prevent a Chinese Invasion after all if Taiwan had tanks jet
fighters and warships then China could never beat them with an army of mainly foot soldiers so that leaves the question how
could Taiwan get rich they looked at what they had available to them Taiwan has deposits of coal Limestone marble
Dolomite and natural gas but it does not have a lot of it the only thing Taiwan had a lot of was farmland and so the
first thing they did was on producing more food and for that they needed to train people how to run a large
Agriculture and so they sent people to other countries to learn how to farm they took back all the Farmland owned by
large Japanese companies and handed them to Taiwanese citizens and they limited how much land a single person was
allowed to own the goal of this strategy was to encourage competition you see when a couple of companies own all the
Farmland they don't have a lot of competition because they only have a couple of large competitors and when you
just have a couple of competitors then it's best to not innovate too much because if you start innovating then
your competitor starts innovating too and if your competitor starts innovating then they might do it better than you
and then you might go bankrupt so it's best to stay safe and don't do too much
Innovation and just make easy money but if you have thousands of small farms then you will have to compete with every
other Farm out there and when you have so many competitors there will always be someone trying to innovate so if one
farmer for example buys a tractor then they can produce a lot more food other
Farmers see this and will buy their own tractor as a result the entire industry is innovating if you want to see a
modern example of this look at the shipping industry there are a lot of innovations that they can adopt that
will make shipping via the ocean more efficient for example using big data you can create an algorithm which predicts
when an engine pot will be broken or not if you repair it early the engine will last a lot longer this technique is
already being used in trains trucks and airplanes but the shipping industry is just now starting to get around to it
why did they not innovate because the shipping industry is dominated by just three players and they only began
adopting these techniques when the governments told them to reduce their CO2 emissions not because of
competition chapter three an independent
economy by the early 1950s Taiwan already had enough food food for itself
and started exporting to other countries again but it's very difficult to get rich just off of selling food after all
the computer I use to write this script on costs more than all the food I eat in a year so selling one high-tech product
is worth more than hundreds of food items so taiwan's goal became to produce
more advanced products which were more profitable but what industries to invest in luckily Taiwan already had some
development under Japanese rule they had good agriculture cheap textile Industries and the simple chemical
industry these are all good Industries to have but they won't help you to grow your economy after all if you start
eating twice as much you don't become twice as productive in fact quite the opposite will happen so producing more
food won't help to grow your economy Beyond just selling food but there are a lot of basic industries that will help
you create new Industries one of these are basic chemicals which Taiwan already
had these chem chicals can be used for anything such as cleaning agents industrial processes or fertilizer
Taiwan was growing a lot of food and if you want to grow even more food you need fertilizer so Taiwan created a new
company with a super unique name Taiwan fertilizer in 1946 as a result taiwan's
agriculture started growing even faster but if you've ever looked at Taiwanese people you will know that they are quite
skinny so most of that food was exported abroad Tai one had a cheap textile industry but cheap textiles are cheap
while expensive textiles are expensive but more expensive textiles require
certain types of chemicals so they once again use their existing chemical industry to upgrade their textile
industry and lastly Taiwan had a Light Industry creating simple products and
they created new factories making more complex items such as appliances like toasters and cattles after World War II
A lot of people were looking to buy these households items to make life easier meaning they had lots of
customers many of these large companies were owned by the government they would have to turn a profit but they were
controlled by the state however Taiwan encouraged people to set up their own smaller businesses which would buy from
these government-owned large businesses for example someone starts a small farm they need fertilizer so their small
privately owned company buys fertilizer from a large state-owned company and there were thousands of these small
businesses buying from one large business by controlling the company that everybody buys from the company could
steer the economy into the direction they wanted it to go while allowing people to start their own businesses
this type of economic system is called State capitalism but all these new Industries
needed new workers luckily for Taiwan they had two advantages the First Advantage is that they lost the Chinese
Civil War as a result around 1 5 million people fled from China to Taiwan and
these 1.5 million people needed a job so they started working in these new Industries the second Advantage was that
Taiwan was very fertile when they started using fertilizer and modern Technologies they needed a lot less
people to work on a farm for decades the amount of farmers in a population dropped from 56% in 1952 to just 5.1% in
2009 and as Taiwan industrialized it had a steady supply of new workers coming
from the countryside moving into the cities looking for work while at the same time the total amount of workers
doubled between 1950 and 1970 but to set up factories you don't
just need people you need smart people educated people but the Taiwanese had
relied on Japan for education so they would send students all over the world to learn at the best universities when
they came back they set up new businesses help run the government and work in schools and to make sure as many
people as possible actually went to school they set up scholarships for poor people to get educated because a person
who is born into a poor family will likely remain poor as an adult no matter how hard a person might try it's usually
impossible for them to improve their income if they were not given the tools to do so early in life and so by
providing poor people with education you will increase future tax revenue and you decrease the cost of poverty such as a
lower crime rate basically investing money into poor people so they stop being poor is one of the best
investments a government can make chapter four upgrading the
economy by the 1960s taiwan's economy was growing its population was
increasing and its level of Education was improving and when your economy does well have lots of new people and they
are all quite well educated then you are able to to upgrade your economy to more high-tech products and that is what
Taiwan did but what high-tech products should they focus on well they were already producing appliances and
appliances are a type of electronics so the government decided to invest in more complex Electronics such as radio
electric components or machine parts all these new businesses and electronics
needed steel so taian invested in a steel mill and steel is used in almost everything your computer has a steel
frame ships have a steel Hall and buildings have a steel Foundation meaning that with access to more steel
Taiwan could produce more industry and those Electronics need Plastics and to
make Plastics you need to refine oil so they built an oil refinery in the 1970s
Taiwan had a lot of small oil fields and used that steel to make oil rigs and
when you turn oil into Plastics there are a lot of waste materials these waste materials can be turned into
petrochemicals and you need petrochemicals for almost anything from paint to synthetic
clothing and it just so happened that Taiwan had a textile industry a textile
industry which could produce higher quality clothes using Plastics and petrochemicals these products were more
valuable thus making more profit and thus essentially upgrading their economy
once again using a giant state-owned company to create smaller private companies but there was one problem
Taiwan didn't know how to do any of this and so they asked foreigners to help them developed regions such as Western
Europe North America and Japan had much higher salaries with higher salaries
comes higher cost and with higher cost comes higher prices Taiwan however had
much lower salaries so Taiwanese products were usually cheaper and by now
Taiwan had developed enough that it was possible to build modern Industries on the island and so companies either set
up a new Factory or move the current factory to Taiwan the government helped
this process Along by handing out cheap loans to companies who wanted to upgrade their factories these factories were
then protected from competition by putting extra taxes on foreign products that way even if your Taiwanese product
was more expensive to produce it would still be cheaper for consumers because it didn't have an extra tax these
companies would then grow because they could be sure they always had customers in Taiwan and once they became as
efficient as foreign Industries they would begin selling to other countries because Taiwanese wages were lower they
would eventually outcompete Western companies with lower prices at that point some of those Western companies
start going bankrupt because they simply can't lower their prices even further because of higher wages as a result
Taiwan would have less competition and sell to even more people around the world and this was a strategy that would
be repeated over and over and over over again with every new major industry Taiwan
created this would have two major advantages the first is that by producing more products themselves they
didn't have to spend this much money importing goods from abroad and the second is that while Taiwan now produced
a lot of low and medium Tech products they didn't have any high-tech Industries like computers by selling
more valuable products they had more money left over to buy these high-tech products they needed from other
countries during the 1960s Taiwan moved away from agriculture towards industry
and the average growth rate reached 9% per year in the 1960s to over 10% in the
1970s and as a result in the' 70s Taiwan had a healthy economy growing at a rapid
speed and if they wanted to keep that growth Taiwan would have to export more products Taiwan had the industry but not
the infrastructure and so first they upgraded their rail system electric trains were better than Co or diesel
trains then they built a freeway allowing trucks and cars to travel anywhere a train could not in order to
actually export these Goods Taiwan built one airport and two sea ports but a port
needs ships and ships need steel so Taiwan built a shipyard and an extra steel mill they built an oil refinery
because you need oil for almost anything and lastly Taiwan constructed a nuclear power plant because uranium is
relatively easy to get and so switching to nule nuclear power meant the country had to import a lot less energy like oil
and gas and of course all these new Industries required new machines a lot
of new machines so many machines that Taiwan decided to build their own machines and thus Taiwan created a heavy
industry creating the machines that create everything else and the island is
perfect for exporting this Machinery you see Heavy industry is heavy and it's
difficult to transport heavy things but because taiwwan is a small island it meant that almost everywhere you are you
are close to the Sea and once you put heavy things on a ship you can transport it almost anywhere for a very low cost
exporting heavy industry became so easy that it accounted for a third of the total exports in 1981 and 82% in
2011 by the end of the 197s Taiwan no longer relied on forign 8 it had become
so rich that it could stand on its own it now had enough production that it could buy all the goods from abroad that
it needed or just produce it themselves chapter
5 liberalization all these new Industries
needed new workers but in the 1980s this became a problem for Taiwan up until
this point Taiwan got new workers for their factories from the countryside as agriculture became more efficient fewer
people were needed to grow food and so people moved from Farm work to factory work but by the 1980s most people had
already moved into the cities and the new workers from the countryside started to run out as a result Taiwan had a very
low unemployment and this is a problem to show you why low unemployment is bad
let's have a look at history scope as a business in 2022 I decided to hire more
people to make more videos eventually I found two amazing animators a researcher
and an audio editor and as a result in 2023 we created seven videos compared to
just four in 2022 and we're planning to do a total of 10 videos in 2024 but I
was only able to hire them because they were looking for a job if they already had a job somewhere else I wouldn't have
been able to expand history scope and we would still be making three to four videos per year but thanks to
unemployment I was able to expand history scope and because history scope expanded we earned more money and
because we earned more money the Dutch economy has grown taiwan's unemployment had been
between 2 to 4% for most of its history as an independent country however in the 1980s it ran out of workers and
unemployment began reaching 0% so if you wanted to expand your business or start
a new one then you had almost nobody to hire but if your business requires at
least two people then you can't do it so if Taiwan wanted to create newer and
more advanced Industries it would somehow have to find new workers and luckily for Taiwan it found
two solutions to this problem the first solution was automation if your company buys machines to do the work of humans
then you have to hire fewer humans as a result those humans get fired and if
your economy is well organized they will quickly find a new job at a new company the second solution was to Simply close
down less efficient older Industries because in the 1980s China opened their
economy to the outside world and allowed foreigners to set up factories in China Chinese labor was cheaper than Taiwanese
labor and its people much less educated so a lot of companies which hired low-skilled labor moved their factories
from Taiwan to China so the old Industries such as basic chemicals cheap textiles and appliances moved out of the
country and all those workers now had to look for new jobs while Taiwan was an expensive country for cheap clothing it
was a cheap country for expensive components and so countries like Japan were looking for a cheap place to make
computer parts for Japanese computers after all if you already used to make radio components it's not that much more
difficult to make computer components and so those people who had lost their old jobs found new jobs in more advanced
Industries these jobs generally had higher salaries so in the end most people were better off and as a result
Taiwan once again upgraded their economy to more technologically advanced products in the 1980s machinery and
electrical Goods became the dominant Industries in Taiwan and by 1993 taian
would produce half of all monitors motherboards and image scanners in the
world but if you want companies to invest in your country and buy your products those companies want to make
sure that your country is stable for most of taiwan's History it was a dictatorship with riged elections but
dictatorships are famous for being unstable countries so in order for Taiwan to keep being an attractive place
for foreign businesses and to appease their own people the government started a large anti-corruption campaign
citizens were allowed to access government documents high ranking officials and even the president's own
relatives were put in prison and new political parties were allowed to join the government and as part of this
process the government decided to sell most of the state-owned companies to private citizens the government hoped
that if companies are still focused on making profit there is less corruption than when a government controls a
company chapter six
computerization Taiwan in the 1990s faced two new major issues the first
issue is that Taiwan had been stirring the economy by owning some of the largest businesses on the island if you
sell those companies you have no control over them anymore and how are you going to steer the economy without that
control the second issue was that in the 1990s Taiwan had almost caught up with
developed countries up until the '90s Taiwan could simply copy the things that worked in rich countries but when Taiwan
caught up they had nothing left to copy anymore and they now had to discover on their own what was the best way
forward and these two issues could be solved with one solution company
alliances companies would be forced to work together to invent a new product which none of them could make on their
own a good example of this is the Taiwan new power PC Consortium established in
1993 they included various computer companies both from Taiwan as well as abroad Taiwan had already been producing
computer parts such as motherboards microchips and computer screens but it did not have its own fully assembled PC
that it could sell so this group was given the task of creating a PC that was able to compete with the computers
created in Japan Europe and North America 2 years later they completed that task all the companies that had
worked together in the alliance received a patent to this product and they were all allowed to start selling them and
improve upon this design the first Taiwanese made computer would be the foundation for future research some
companies focused on faster processes some on better computer storage others on better graphic cards each company
would focus on improving a different part of the computer until by the 21st century they were each selling
completely different types of computers or computer components with so many different computers the companies had
lots of competition between them which in turn forced them to invent even more Advanced Computers this strategy of
company alliances creating a standard product which each company could improve upon was so incredibly successful that
by the 2020s Taiwan had Advanced so much in the field of computers that it's able
to create the most advanced computer chips in the world this strategy was repeated over
and over and over again in Taiwan it became so popular that special science Parks were created where experts could
come together to create the products of the future and while countries like South Korea China or the USA have large
companies like Samsung tensent or IBM which do this type of research taiwwan on the other hand has a lot of companies
working together and improving upon the designs they made together this allows people to share more knowledge and as
rule of acquisition number 74 clearly states knowledge equals profit the more knowledge you have the more profit you
can make so when multiple large companies work together they generally gain more knowledge than if one giant
company does all the research on their own and so Taiwan is able to compete with countries with much larger
economies than its own by simply being Smarter with how they organize their
economy to give a few examples of this in 2011 Taiwan became the number one
supplier of motherboards notebook computers tablet computers personal navig ation devices electric wheelchairs
and mobility scooters but in order to sell so many products to so many countries you need
to have good relationships with foreigners but until the 1990s Taiwanese people were simply not allowed to leave
the country the government feared that the people who were educated would move to a much richer country and get a
better paying job there they also fear that if people live in a free country and come back to Taiwan they might want
those freedoms in their own country so the government put restrictions on who was allowed to leave the country but by
the 1990s Taiwan was no longer a poor country and its elections were becoming free there simply wasn't much reason for
a Taiwanese person to flee the country anymore and in the '90s they traveled all over the world going where no
Taiwanese was allowed to go before some went as tourists some as workers and some went as students but most of them
eventually come back to Taiwan and they bring all the knowledge and experience they got from foreign countries back
home and because Taiwan relies heavily on small and medium Enterprises a lot of people would start their own companies
using that foreign knowledge and foreign ways of doing business these Taiwanese companies that were created using
foreign knowledge were incredibly popular with foreign customers to give you an example let's
say you become an adult in Taiwan and decide to study in Italy after 4 years of living among Italians you have
adopted some Italian mannerisms you have learned Italian culture you have watched my video on Italian unification and you
have learned how Italians do business then they go back to Taiwan and decide to start their own company unfortunately
you have a lot of competition so you need to find something unique you can do to stand out and one of these things you
know well are Italians so you decide to start selling Taiwanese products to Italian customers using all your
knowledge about Italy to make your products as appealing to Italians as possible now imagine thousands of people
returning to Taiwan every year from all over the world in other countries this would be an
advantage but not that big of an advantage to show you why let's look at a similar country South Korea a few
years ago I made a video about the modern history of Korea in it I talked about Koreans undergoing the same
process they go abroad learn new things come home and use that knowledge in Korean businesses a good example of this
is South Korean media such as K-pop and kramas they are incredibly popular and
were created by people using knowledge and experience from Hollywood to create music and movies that appeal to Western
audiences but in a country like South Korea the economy relies a lot more on large companies like Samsung and a large
company simply isn't flexible enough to make their products designed specifically for each market Samsung
makes products that can sell to anyone all over the world they don't produce a robot vacuum cleaner specifically
designed to appeal to Muslim customers for example but Taiwan is different Taiwan
has lots of small and medium businesses instead of giant companies and the smaller your business is the more you
have to focus on specific customers that's because a large company has a lot more resources than you to give an
example let's say I would start my dream job of making sweet sweet delicious
chocolate if my chocolate looks very similar to a Twix then I am never going to be able to compete with them they
simply have too many resources for me to even get close to level of quality but if I made a highly specific snack
designed specifically to appeal to one group of people then I will be able to compete a lot better after all Twix
isn't going to change their whole formula just because I took a few customers away from them and this same
process has happened in Taiwan except Taiwan relies on small and medium Enterprises meaning they have a lot more
of these types of companies selling highly specific products to a specific Market Market this strategy made
taiwan's economy incredibly flexible because imagine organically grown chocolate became popular all of a sudden
a large company would have to change all their machines and all their factories to make a slightly different formula but
if I bake them at my own home then changing the formula is easy so while large companies can make products at a
lower price small businesses can easily change and by focusing an economy around
such small businesses Taiwan has created an incredibly flexible economy that can easily adapt to Major crises the 1997
Asian financial crisis the 2008 Great Recession and the 2020 pandemic were a
lot less bad for Taiwan than they were for other countries going through the same crisis so if you do business with Taiwan
you can be assured that no matter how bad the crisis gets Taiwan will always be a good place to do business as a
result anyone in the world wants to be taiwan's business partner and thus Taiwan has more
customers chapter 7 doing the same different
things Taiwan never has enough customers their economy relies on export meaning
their economy can only grow if more foreigners buy Taiwanese Goods but Taiwan needed more export more money
more customers so in the 21st century Taiwan would adopt two new
strategies the first strategy is trade agreements Taiwan in the 21st century produces some of the best computer
products in the world while also having a lot of small businesses specifically targeting certain countries in order to
improve this trade countries can sign a trade agreement in this agreement they usually lower taxes on goods from that
country or make the rules regarding trade with that particular country a lot easier and the easier it is to trade the
easier it is to find new customers the second solution was to Simply make new customers Taiwan in the
21st century was once again looking to upgrade their industry and this time towards the high-tech products we know
and love today such as microchips once again Taiwan needed more workers and once again Taiwan decided to close down
old Industries and move those workers into newer and more profitable Industries but this time those companies
would not go to China because in the 21st century China openly talked about conquering Taiwan by moving Taiwanese
factories to China they would only help their enemy to grow stronger so Taiwan instead looked at other countries and
right next to them were a bunch of poor countries who wanted to get rich just like Taiwan had done countries like
Vietnam the Philippines and Indonesia opened Taiwanese factories and the workers in these countries demand lower
wages and as a result a product made in Indonesia is almost always cheaper than the same product made in Taiwan and just
as Taiwan used to make electronic parts and sell them to places like Japan to turn into finished products in the 21st
century was southeast Asia which made electronic parts to sell them to Taiwan
such as for example Vietnam making hard drives and then in the end Taiwan turns them into finish products such as
computers and sells them across the world but those Vietnamese Philippine
and Indonesian workers now had a job in a factory which earned them more money than most other jobs in their countries
and when people earn more money they spend more money they might to pick a random example decide to buy a computer
a computer with computer chips made in Taiwan and as a result Taiwan now has extra customers while also having lower
prices and in the future I can assure you that this trend will continue because this is what Taiwan has been
doing for almost a century now Taiwan develops an industry and invests in its own future when the country is ready it
upgrades that industry eventually Taiwan runs out of customers and decide to close down old Industries and simply
move them to other countries while Taiwan focuses on newer and more advanced Industries a process that
Taiwan has perfected over the last 80 years the strategy worked so well that between 1952 and 2011 Taiwanese workers
have become a lot more productive going from producing just around $213 us worth
of goods per year to over $20,000 worth of products in 2011 while
the overall economy Rose from just 1.7 billion to 466 billion and so Taiwan had
finally become a rich country and poor countries today often look at Taiwan to see how they can improve their own
economy and this is why Taiwan is so rich if you enjoyed this video then
please leave a like it really helps to show this video to more people and leave a comment discussing this topic or let
us know other subjects you'd like us to cover we're always looking for new videos so let us know and of course
subscribe if you want to see more history videos we upload almost every month now this was Avery from history
scope thank you for watching
I honestly cannot think of a better
place in the world than Taiwan it's this
paying it forward Society of do the
right thing being a Taiwanese person you
are now part of that
[Laughter]
Society
YouTube
Love
change
something
system strategy
manager
quit
when you become tan you have to jump
through a lot of Hoops right one of
those parts also then is like renouncing
your citizenship etc etc and then you
have to pass a test and everybody says
it's a language test it's not a language
test it's a Language and Cultural test
the questions pertain to the
constitution of Taiwan the law
Aboriginal rights FAA Flora geography of
Taiwan national holidays the problem is
once you sit down to do the test the
person that you work with my officer was
officer young he switches his language
they go from talking regularly to very
formal legal Chinese that was a big
surprise I didn't expect that I said are
you going to talk like this the whole
time said yes and I was like oh so
I only made two mistakes the one is
related to
The Chance what was the other question
you got wrong I obsessed so much about
learning cuz I was freaking myself out
cuz I I didn't know what the how the
test was going to be conducted I learned
all the questions that would be asked
but I just didn't know how to say them
all in Chinese and one of the words is
this household registration office and
so when I got there I sat down and I
quickly looked at my notes before I sat
I repeated that over and over I had this
sick sense he was going to ask me this
question first shock was he he switched
to formal Chinese that threw me off and
then he's like write your name in
Chinese of course you have to write your
name in Chinese yeah I can't do that I
did not think of that at all I can read
my Chinese I can type my Chinese I
haven't written my name in Chinese in 10
years and that completely threw me off
then I started shaking and freaking out
and then the first question is where do
you take this test what's the name of
this office and I just said no and he's
like what do you mean no and I was like
I'm completely thrown off by writing the
name and you speaking this formal
Chinese and I know it's this office but
the fact that I could even speak two
words in Chinese was at that point a
miracle but then I relaxed and I was
like okay hang on and then I got a
question right and another question
right another question right another I
was like hang on a second I know these
questions and he knows that I know these
questions cool they're so generous in
that way they want you to pass I'm not
sure if they want you to pass my
accountant and all the staff in her
office failed the test all Taiwanese
they all looked at the questions of the
test and they all said they would not
pass it I think it's a very good thing
if we look at immigration across the
world we don't want to get in that
situation so the test has to be a little
bit hard I think the level of difficulty
that it takes to become Taiwanese kind
of speaks to we need to be careful about
like who we let in what do you think
foreigners bring to the table when they
become Taiwanese diversity is always a
good thing as long as the people that
become part of that Society actually
become part of that Society we need to
keep moving forward the path is probably
paved a lot better if we have influence
from other cultures as well I think
people are acutely aware that I am from
different culture but for them it's a
wonderful thing having this Outlet of
having a different way of thinking and a
different ideas and bringing something
different to the table is interesting
just as they are to me there's
interesting things that I might not know
or I've been told and now I'm going to
try this and you know the obsessive
compulsive thing of like having you
drink hot water and eat this kind of
fruit and plums and all this kind of
stuff like there might be Merit in those
remedies at the end of the day it's a
caring thing as well right like another
lady I invited them to my house I live
in a a non-religious environment and a
bunch of alcohol for them it's it's an
interesting way and they think that that
is sort of a foreign way of living but I
have to explain this is my way of living
and then there was an interesting part
where they looked at my bed and they
liked my bedding and I just very Blas
said yeah it's 300 thread I really love
it and they were like what can you write
it down I'm going to go get it and so
she went and bought a th thread this is
something that people didn't think about
and you bringing this different aspect
to it it's nice when you can do that as
well I'm always the one saying oh do you
know a plumber do you know this do you
know that and so when I get a questions
of like oh what was the name of that
cheese that you bought or do you know
this painter or do you know musician or
whatever when I get asked for favors
from my friends then it's like it's
amazing you're part of the community
it's not only about reaping the benefits
you also have to be part of the problems
like we're negotiating with the
government to lease this park I've now
become the person who's mostly doing
that negotiation because I've befriended
the
denong
for explain
politics
situation
Facebook
loud for show off show off to the
police but
become maybe it's harder for other
foreigners to accept do you kind of run
into that with them yes that's funny
that you asked that I again had a
conversation at 3:00 in the morning
about politics which again I regret it
was with an American person he decided
to call me a white supremist I thought
was a bit of a low blow and then at one
point he called me also a drunk which I
mean it's not far off but then he said
you think because you are Taiwanese
you're special you're not special I can
become a Taiwanese if I wanted to as
well and that pissed me off because I
sacrificed my job 800 days of my life
and yes because of that the Domino's
fell that I could rent a beautiful
Heritage House if I didn't do that I
would never end up here I would never be
in this position position I've never met
my neighbors and all the wonderful
people that I have in my life in this
moment so I believe it is Destiny but I
don't like that he told me that I could
very easily become a citizen as well but
I don't want to give up my passport well
then it's not that easy then is it it's
not if I was part of a community and
like this person gave up their former
passport it means they want to be here
if you understand that the process is
very hard then you appreciate the effort
but then again any kind of effort that
someone makes to integrate into society
I think should be rewarded Taiwanese
people who make an effort to learn
English that should be rewarded
foreigners making an effort to learn
Chinese that should be rewarded so this
is just the next step to that like you
really want to be part of a society then
take that step and become a legal
citizen what does it mean to you to be
Taiwanese what are you integrating into
it's very important to know where you
come from so for me when I was in school
we had different alarms because
sometimes there would be a fire and
sometimes someone would try to bomb the
primary school so that's how we grew up
as a woman living in South Africa I mean
a host of problems to come that right
and I don't even know if that's South
Africa alone I think that's many places
in the world where we've lost track of
our humanity and we allow for evil to
persist and I think in Taiwan there is a
safety and a comfort that comes from
living here for everyone especially for
women not to mention a country where the
government works probably better than
most other places we have a democracy
probably better than most places we have
Healthcare definitely better than most
places we have a Social and pension
structure also better than most places
there's very little about Taiwan not to
like I'm not saying Taiwan is squeaky
clean I'm sure we we have a lot of
domestic violence I believe women are
still not paying equal to men in Taiwan
but with regards to your personal
well-being I honestly cannot think of a
better place in the world than Taiwan
and then we haven't even spoken about
the people of Taiwan right living in
Taiwan it's difficult to become part of
a community because you do stand out but
Taiwanese people just take you in like a
kitten you you don't have to be rich or
famous or pretty or young or old or
anything they will just take you in it's
amazing like me moving out to toan not
knowing anyone within a year I am more
part of a community here than I've ever
been in my life anywhere in the world
ever my neighbors like if I have a
problem I go to them they fix my
problems magically it's this paying it
forward Society of do the right thing
being a Taiwanese person you are now
part of that Society so I make an effort
to try to do the right thing I make an
effort to impress my friends that I am
part of that Society I do drink too much
and I am quite ridiculous but I go out
of my way to help other people so for
example in toan I don't have a lot of
time between running a business drinking
and sleeping but when I do have time I
go to the local T bean and I translate a
menu for them because this town is such
a beautiful town but it's so cut off
from tourists because there's no English
air so I'm slowly trying to help people
to translate menus and I've made a
little tourist map I give a list to
people when they get here you can go
there and when you order the breakfast
order it like this and show this or if
you want to eat the best beef noodles in
your life that's where you go so I've
created a community here for people that
own restaurants where we can hang out
together and talk about new suppliers or
whatever is involved with the service
industry I guess you could do that if
you were a foreigner as well but I feel
like I have a bit more weight in the
game because you have that card that
says you are part of the community
officially whether they want to accept
you or not you're legally part of the
community in my case they've just
accepted me I've heard a lot of
foreigners have this issue here where
it's like people are welcoming but it's
really hard to integrate there's been
like surveys done on this but you seem
to have done it like quite well no I
don't know if I'm doing it well if I'm
very lucky with the people that are that
I surround myself with I guess the
question the first question should be
what do you consider being integrated I
do not want to go to your wedding I do
not want to join the funeral of your
grandfa either in fact anything related
to anywhere where people have to sit
around and eat copious amounts of buffet
type foods and screaming and I'm
probably not going to go I think in any
culture humor is The Binding Factor so
when I'm with Taiwanese people I act the
part of being this ridiculous Foreigner
they laugh at me saying like really bad
words and then pretending like I don't
know what the meaning is of it for
example if you can bring humor to
something you're so much more quickly
accepted into it Society I'll give you
two good examples of what to me is
integration and both pertain to my
neighbor whom I've met 6 months ago and
who now I considered to be one of my
best friends she's 10 years older than
me we grew up in a completely different
Society she doesn't speak any English at
all she said to me 2 months ago this is
a Heritage House and a little cafe and
you work your ass off and you don't make
much money and blah blah blah blah blah
why did you open this place and you know
I went through the whole it's Destiny I
got the Sal blah blah blah blah blah and
you know what she said I think you were
supposed to open this house so that you
could meet us I think our paths were
supposed to cross and this is how it
happened that is so touching right last
week same woman she's here we're talking
about Chinese New Year she said oh you
going to open during Chinese New Year
I'm going to open the whole of Chinese
New Year because I'm taking all of next
week off and she said don't open on
Friday and I said Friday no I'm opening
on Friday Friday's my busiest day and
she's like no Friday's the family day
you got to come join us for eating and
being there you're being invited into
someone's life where they don't need to
do that or they don't need to say that
so for me that is integration to me
that's like what I want
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