This year, we haven’t been very lucky, as illnesses just seem to keep following us lately…
So, this time, everyone in the family is sick - with different symptoms and on different medications. Adrian and I had just recovered a few days ago, and now here we go again. Last time, I lost my voice... this time, it’s my hearing. Honestly, I’m not sure which is worse!
In Taiwan, even doctors work overtime.
The clinic we visited officially closes at 9 PM, but we arrived earlier and still had to wait over an hour. Another clinic nearby had already stopped accepting patients, but this one kept going.
In the end, we were done at 10:10 PM - an hour past closing time.
While this level of convenience is great, it highlights the insane overtime culture here. Taiwan has one of the highest overtime working rates in the world!
I can’t remember the last time I had dinner with my husband on a weekday. He often gets home around 8–9 PM. I’ve shifted my bedtime to after midnight just so we can have a bit of time together. I used to sleep at 10 PM, but that would mean barely crossing paths. Now, I sleep late and wake up after 6 AM to get the little one ready for school.
This lack of sleep? It probably explains why it’s so easy to get sick.
It was even worse when my husband worked at his previous job. Sometimes he wouldn’t get home until midnight or later. When they switched to shifts, it meant going to bed at 2 AM while I still had to wake up early because our child would be up in the morning. And there were even times he didn’t come home at all, arriving back only in the early hours of the next day.
With schedules like that, is it any wonder why Taiwan’s childbirth rate is dropping? The government can’t seem to figure it out, but how are people supposed to meet anyone, let alone raise a family, under these conditions?
Recently, I also came across a news article highlighting how inconvenient Taiwan is for families with children - something I’ve known for a long time. Taiwan scored below 50 for child-friendliness. Well... Sidewalks, pedestrian crossings, and other public spaces are often blocked by scooters and cars (if sidewalks even exists). Despite parents complaining about this, ironically, it’s often other parents (mostly mothers) who ignore the rules and contribute to the chaos.
I’ve completely lost faith in the police in Taiwan after witnessing, on more than one occasion, just how much they don’t seem to care. One time, I saw a car parked in the middle of a road lane, and the police simply drove past without doing anything. More recently, I saw a taxi parked in a red-line zone, right in front of a police car. Again, absolutely nothing happened.
And this isn’t just a rare occurrence - it happens every single day. I see countless people breaking traffic rules, yet almost no one gets punished for it. In the past year, I think I’ve only seen a car towed away twice. Meanwhile, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen cars parked on pedestrian crossings and other forbidden areas - probably a million!
This is a daily issue that so many people complain about, but no one seems to take any real action to change it. It’s really frustrating.
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