Safety in Taiwan

Christine-
I feel very safe living in Tamsui and the Taipei area.  I have lived here for 6 years and I have never really felt threatened.  I did have two stalkers throughout my time here, but I easily found people to scare them off.  A lot of bystanders will help you if you are in a public area.  I also did engage in high-risk behaviors that would have put me at greater risk and I still came out fine.

I don't feel scared walking around at night.  However, part of that is because I spent at least four years of my life in martial arts classes, kick-boxing, and self-defense classes.  Even with the growing crime since the MRT massacre last year, I still feel safe.  If you are worried though, I say sign up for self-defense and get some mace at Carrefour.  I don't think you need them though.

Bottom line is, if you don't engage in high-risk behaviors such as taking drinks from strangers, going home alone with strangers, getting blasted at a bar, and/or going out alone, you will more than likely be fine.

All in all, Taipei is super safe.

Absolutely yes I feel very safe walking even after midnight. Living here for 17 years I can't just feel it i am actually safe. People are even helpful when something up and needed a help.

I don't think I've ever felt safer anywhere than I do in Taiwan, and I say this as a former resident of New York City.  I've lived on this beautiful island for 4.8 years and feel incredibly safe and comfortable.  While traffic is sometimes an issue, being a victim of NYC traffic prepared me for this and so I don't consider Taipei traffic an issue.  In my experience, there is virtually no crime in Taipei.  In fact, I often say that Taiwan may be the last bastion of safety left on the planet.  My only criticism is the awful pollution here.

I have lived here for 2 years and still wonder why they need police in this country!

This country has the nicest people on this planet. It's a combination of the best of Japanese and Chinese culture.

I really feel that I need to speak up.  If you watch the Taiwanese news, there is a lot of violence that happens.  Every country has it but you need to be aware that Taiwan isn't that safe the further you get into the culture.  There is a lot of child abuse, domestic abuse, and other things that don't get reported because of cultural concerns.  The longer you teach, the more you hear about them and see the results of it.  There are also murders quite often here.  A lot of them are husbands murdering wives or rejected boyfriends murdering ex-girlfriends or even the girlfriend's father.  Just a month or two ago, two young girls were murdered in an elementary school in Tamsui.  IN the school during the school day.  The crime here compared to America and most places is virtually non-existent.  However, please don't understate the risk so vastly as to say you don't understand why there are police officers.

hello guys ,,i along with my with my 2 friends are coming to taiwan,,for a short term research at national taipei universsity of technology taipei tech for about 40 -50 days.so we guys are searching for accommodation near the university . i have happy to hear from you all that its a safe place ,,so please if anyone has some accomadation facilities please  inform me as soon as possible

Safety in Taiwan, as elsewhere in the world, is dependent upon personal awareness and caution.  During my 4.8 years here, I've encountered zero episodes during which I felt unsafe.  And speaking as a New Yorker and Manhattan resident all my life that adopted a defensive posture at all times, day and night, it took me some time to realize that I didn't have to be so defensive in Taipei or anywhere else in Taiwan.  And while it's true that I've heard about episodes of domestic abuse and assaults between people that had personal contact, none of this overflowed onto the public at large.  These types of episodes relate more to Taiwan's somewhat repressive way of dealing with domestic abuse and child abuse, it's failure to address mental health issues and it's penchant for denying they exist.  So in this regard, I have seen a number of people that were obviously mentally unstable and last year there was an episode of a young man going berserk and stabbing people on the MRT train.  Overall, there are no issues of safety in Taiwan and while police do exist, they're practically invisible.  I find this amazing because in NYC there are 25,000 policemen, so sometimes it seems like there's a cop on every corner.  And yet, NYC has a lot of crime.  I still maintain that Taiwan may be the last bastion of safety left on the planet.  And as I said previously, I do have issues with the horrific pollution here and the incessant rain, mosquitoes and giant cockroaches drive me nuts.  But this is the Pacific and living here comes with concessions.  After all is said and done, the quality of life here, the affordability and the very kind, helpful people of Taiwan make this island a true Pacific paradise.