[Suits]

Thanks for the continued responses. All appreciated and all valuable to me.

While I would be taking a break from Beijing this winter even if I intended to return in the spring, based on on-going developments in China, I'm getting the feeling more and more that it's time to establish myself in a new country.

So, my home this winter could be either a temporary abode or the start of a new life. This summer will be a crucial time of marketing myself for the location independent services I want to offer, as the level of response will in-part determine how comfortable I am going somewhere a little more expensive (with more long term potential) or if I just continue looking for a low-cost pit stop for a couple of months so that I can pound out a lot of product development work.

I'll keep you guys updated.

[ShanghaiPlayer]

^

Just curious, what “on-going developments” are you referring to?

[Suits]

(05-25-2018 01:26 AM)ShanghaiPlayer Wrote:  

Just curious, what “on-going developments” are you referring to?

Small things that make a big impact on quality of life.

For example, here in Beijing, the subway doesn't run past 11 PM and being at the mercy of taxis and Uber/Didi is convenient when it is convenient, but sucks when there are no rides available, leaving you stranded. And traffic sucks, so travelling by car sucks whether its an available option or not for a good part of each day.

Subway is less than fun during rush hour and Beijing is so damn big that even if you travel during the lighter hours where seats are easily available, it'll take up to an hour to travel between some point inside the downtown.

So, I depend on an electric scooter to get around 10 month out of the year when it is warm enough to ride. Just read some news yesterday that next year they are introducing laws to reduce electric scooter to a 25km/hr limit, which will basically make them useless for any travel of more than a few kilometers.

Then there's the rising cost of housing, even as thousands of apartments sit empty because landlords don't want to lose face by lowering rent fees to a price-point the market will bear.

Add that to the increasing use of technology (like facial recognition) to violate the rights that people don't have, the increasing efforts to ensure that as little money as possible leaves China, and other annoying things, like all Airbnb reservations being cancelled in Beijing for over a month last year during a period of political meetings (almost left me homeless), I'm beginning to think that it's time for a place where a quality standard of living is more obtainable.

This makes Taiwan very much worth exploring.