10 Surprising Things you may not know about Taiwan

Taiwan is so much more than the Taipei 101 building and the label “Made in Taiwan”. More recently, Taiwan is deservingly getting more attention for its 220+ days without a local transmission of Covid-19. Thankfully, we’ve been able to enjoy a perfectly normal life since we got “stuck” on this island back in March 2020.

Now that we’ve been in Taiwan for more than 250 days, we’ve learned a few interesting tidbits that we felt were worth sharing. Are you ready to learn 10 surprising things you may not know about Taiwan?

1 – Taiwan is full of access to beautiful nature

From the gorgeous gorges of Taroko National Parks, to the beautiful bikeways along the east coast, the hidden natural hot springs and the unlimited number of hiking trails with stunning views, Taiwan ceases to amaze us. Some locations can be as stunning as Ubud (in Bali, Indonesia) or as relaxing as some of the beaches of Thailand. While Taiwan doesn’t have one major sight that would make it a bucket list destination, it offers dozens of worthwhile activities and places to visit. 

2 – Strollers are for dogs

This is an amusing and fun surprise in Taiwan. You will quickly come across people pushing their dogs in strollers. Can it be because the birth rate is one of the lowest in Asia? Or because you can travel with your pet in the subway as long as it is in a carrier? We don’t know for sure, but it will make for an unexpected surprise the first time you stumble upon a cute pup inside of a stroller!

3 – Ice cream truck music is for garbage

If you grew up in the US, you might get excited when you hear the ice cream truck music on a hot summer day in Taiwan as you walk down the street. Well be ready for a massive disappointment because in Taiwan, the music is actually coming from a garbage truck!

This musical scheme was an effort to eliminate odors that plague the country’s designated outdoor public trash disposal areas and has been quite efficient. When the local citizens hear the music, you see them lining up outside on the street to throw their household garbage into the back of the garbage truck. It’s a bit of a headache to dispose of your trash but it is effective in making people more thoughtful about their trash and likely reduces waste.

4 – Taiwan is home of the bubble milk tea

While milk tea was well known in Taiwan as part of the tea drinking culture, the bubble milk tea (which is basically the combination of tapioca – or boba – pearls with milk tea and served as an ice drink) came out of the creation of a food stall owner that decided to mix the tapioca balls with shaved ice and milk tea.  We made a special visit to the Chun Shui Tang shop in Taichung which is one of the shops that claims to be the original inventor of bubble milk tea.

Bubble milk tea is an iconic drink in Taiwan and has become well known around the world. Although maybe not very seriously, it was even proposed to appear on the cover of the country’s passport.

5 – Umbrellas are not just for the rain

While Taiwan has a decent amount of rain, we’ve been using our umbrellas more to protect us from the sun while hiking in the summer. It’s quite normal to see locals using their umbrellas on a hot sunny day while walking on the street. At first it may seem odd but we’ve discovered that it’s quite effective at providing some comfort from the scorching sun.

6 – Taiwan opened the first cat cafe in the world

The first cat cafe – Kitten Coffee Garden – opened in Taiwan in 1998. Since then it has become a tourist attraction, tourists from Japan learned about it and the concept was a hit in Japan with the first Cat Cafe opening 6 years later in Osaka.  There’s no shortage of creative cafes in Taiwan, we’ve also been to a hedgehog cafe and a 2D comic book style cafe. We also know of a unicorn-themed cafe, a llama cafe and a lego cafe.

7 – Taiwan’s official title is the Republic of China (RoC)

The Republic of China (or RoC) and the People’s Republic of China (or PRC) are two parties who fought during the Chinese Civil War (which ended in 1949). Today the PRC runs mainland China and the ROC runs Taiwan.

This has been quite confusing for me for awhile, especially as it is quite common for official documents to refer to Taiwan as: “Republic of China (RoC) Taiwan”. You can imagine how troublesome it can be for Taiwanese citizens to travel with a Republic of China passport when they encounter immigration officers that don’t know the difference between Republic of China and People’s Republic of China. That is one of the main reasons why Taiwan will soon be issuing a new passport design that removes the english characters for “Republic of China” and instead will highlight “Taiwan”.

8 – Taiwan is home of the world’s largest bicycle manufacturer 

If you’ve been following our journey, you know that Taiwan has city bikes in almost all major cities and also offers great bike paths to make it quite easy to tour the entire island. It is even said that to become a real Taiwanese, you must tour the island via bike at least once! Taiwan is home to the largest bicycle manufacturer in the world, Giant. In 2017 alone, they sold 6.6 million bicycles worldwide! Mrs. Nomad Numbers was barely biking before we arrived in Taiwan just 8 months ago but with the easy access to bikes and safe bike paths, she recently did her first multi-day bike ride of 200km along the East Coast Rift Valley in 3 days. And yes, that happened to be renting Giant bikes through their very convenient around-the-island bike rental program which allows you to pick up and drop off at different city locations.

9 – Taiwan has the highest density of mountains in the world

In other words, it’s a hiker’s paradise! There are more than 256 mountain peaks above 3,000 meters and the highest is Yushan at 3,952m. It’s considered a great challenge and accomplishment amongst hiking enthusiasts to reach the top 100 peaks. We’ve been doing a ton of hiking, around 2-3 times per week for the past 8 months but have not yet managed to do any of the top 100!  So as you can see, it’s almost impossible to run out of hikes to do. We better get busy doing more hikes if we hope to finish the top 100 one day.

10 – The President is female, the former VP is an epidemiologist and the digital minister is transgender with anarchist beliefs

Now this is a super leadership combination that was able to basically eradicate Covid-19 from Taiwan and maintain zero local transmissions for the past 220+days. The three were honored as part of Wired magazines WIRED25 of people who are making things better.  We have to say, it’s been really refreshing to witness an orderly, very thoughtful and compassionate execution of Covid-19 safety rules and precautions. It has allowed us to have days where we forget about the pandemic and enjoy lively night markets, meals with friends and local travel. So many thanks to the government of Taiwan and its excellent, diverse leadership for keeping everyone safe.

Bottom line

The more time we spend in Taiwan, the more underrated we find this island to be. We continue to be amazed every time we stumble upon gems from its sights, history or culture.

So this is it for our top 10 surprising things about Taiwan. Which one surprised you the most? If you’ve been to Taiwan, was there anything else that we did not mention on this short list that surprised you?