I have moved five times in the eight years I have lived in Taiwan. The first place I stayed in was a grubby one-room apartment with a grubbier bathroom that didn't have any hot water. Fortunately, I was only there for a few weeks and because it was a boiling hot summer, I didn't really need hot water. I moved from there to another one-room apartment built especially for me on the top of the school at which I was working. The problem was that the whole structure was made with corrugated iron sheets (with an ineffective insulation on the inside) and I was slow baked for the almost two years I lived there.
I moved from there when I resigned from the school, into what was by comparison a luxury dwelling - a cavernous two floor four bedroom apartment on the sixth and seventh floors of an apartment building. Problem: no hot water and no air-conditioning. In winter I boiled water in a kettle for my ablutions and in summer I boiled. I was there for six months, paying about R3000 per month for the experience, before moving into the best home I have had here so far - a five story house with everything, including hot water, air-conditioning and a washing machine (see Taiwanese Structures for further details on this house). I lived there for two years.
For the past three years, until the end of May, I lived in a three story house somewhat older than the previous house with everything. It was a dark place with very little direct sunlight, which was a blessing in summer, but often during winter it was colder inside than it was out. It certainly wasn't the grandest of homes, but had everything I needed. I would have been content to stay there if my landlord hadn't wanted to increase my rent by forty percent, which I objected to on principle and so decided to make my fifth move.
I have moved into a house on a dead-end street where everyone seems to know everyone. I had my new neighbours coming round to watch us unpack the moving truck and most of them commented on how many things I had. Admittedly, I did have over thirty boxes of things, but I didn't see anything strange in that. The majority of the boxes were kitchen stuff (mainly Pei Han's purchases) and books (all my purchases). One of my new neighbours then invited herself on a tour of my new house and afterwards declared it acceptable!
Dion Marc Delport
17 June 2007