Hal di Taiwan yang bikin Heran
*THE TRANSLATION INTO INDONESIAN IS ON PROGRESS*
To start living in other places especially when you are going to live alone with no friends you can rely on, is a big challenge. You have decided to move and there’s no turning back. When you are counting days to your departure, there will be some fears and concerns going around in your head:
“How will my life be in the new place? Will the culture difference shock me? How am I going to adapt? Are the people going to accept me? Can we communicate well? Do they speak English well? Are they afraid of foreigners?”
And so on.
In this post, I am about to share briefly things in Taiwan that made me shock, amazed, and also made me mad at the same time.
Click on the link to immediately jump to the article:
WASTE & RECYLING
unique yet a tidy waste management
To me Taiwan is a perfect example in waste management. The residents need to walk to the street where a garbage truck park. The residents have to follow the government’s trash truck working day, and each working day has a different type of waste for the trash trucks to accept. The waste are classified into 18 types as the picture below (available in Chinese Traditional, English, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, and Indonesian).
SPECIAL PLASTIC BAG
The employees of the trash truck will only allow you to throw the garbage that are in a special bag such as below. Pink plastic bag is for New Taipei City, blue plastic bag is for Taipei City, and white plastic bag for both Taipei City and New Taipei City.
RECYCLING SCHEDULE
Weekly recycling collection occurs on the following schedule:
- Solid Waste Recycling: Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday
- Flat Waste Recycling: Monday and Friday
- Others Recycling: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday
GARBAGE TRUCK TIME AND PLACE
The trucks are available in certain time and certain street. You can find the trucks whereabouts in Taipei City Government Department of Environmental Protection website – Traditional Chinese // Taipei City Government Department of Environmental Protection website – English OR use a good app that Taiwanese friends introduced to me: Taiwan Garbage Service by Kevin Wolkober (App Store) – English.
BIG AND BULKY TRASH
I had once break my chair. Since my room is so small, I’ve got no space, so I need to throw it away myself. I asked my neighbor, she’s Taiwanese, she said that the garbage truck does not accept big furniture. I asked my teacher, she said I need to make a call to the Department of Environmental Protection. Although my Chinese that day was already TOCFL B3, but still I call for the English service, which the number is 1999 (see the very bottom of this website).
The call was fantastic, the person receiving my phone was calm even with their limited English (not to disheartened him, but I noticed his English when I was talking with him and regret that I should have just used Chinese). He asked my name, phone number, and address in the purpose of making report to the Department of Environmental Protection responsible in my area (I was trying to tell him in Chinese but never once they reply me in Chinese though).
After the first call, I immediately receive a message that can see the progress of the report. In an hour, the person in charge called me (in Chinese) telling me they need me to put the chair on the 1st floor at 10 PM, therefore they can pick it up the next day before 8 AM.
I was living in the 4th floor and the 1st floor is a store, and the store closed at 12 PM. Daily at 11 PM usually they start to close up the store and if I put my broken chair there, somehow they will get confused and might call the police (our building once had a problem I guess with person living in the 3rd floor). I told one of the staff so that I can get a permission to place the broken chair until the next morning. Lucky, the young Taiwanese staff is so friendly.
The next day I woke up and at around 7.45 AM passing the main door where I put the broken chair, the chair has been picked up. Yey!
WHAT MADE ME MAD
About recycling, I usually throw recyclables such as paper, bottles, and food packaging at school. And since my house only helps throwing tissue and sanitary napkins waste, so for me, throwing general waste is really annoying. The trash truck near my street (1 minute walk) usually comes around 10:35 PM. By this time, I was already ready to sleep, I didn’t want to dirt myself after taking shower when I come back home. Actually there is another street near my area (5 minutes walk) which the truck schedule at 6 PM. But I didn’t usually come home before 6 PM.
Throwing a broken chair cost me a call or two. It’s not because I am stingy, but because I didn’t have any phone credit, I only pay for internet package. And for a phone credit, I need to buy at least NT$ 300 for my phone provider. It only cost NT$ 3 for a minute, what should I do to the rest of NT$ 290? Such a waste of money.
A LITTLE BACKGROUND OF ME
Arriving in Taiwan was a wonderful experience and leaving Taiwan will be my greatest regretted decisions I’ve ever made in 2020.
I lived in Taiwan only one and a half year (September 2019 to March 2021, but in this short period of time who knows I was learning so much about Taiwan! Contributed to my knowledge, appreciation and thanks go to my teacher, my home country friends, international friends, and Taiwanese friends.
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Read this article with a different experience at rienelim.wordpress.com it's also me but in English! :)
