[nwomack]

I am a 30 year old American, lived in America all my live, but have been in Taiwan for 9 months and I absolutely love it.

There's not much of a 'lower middle' class, but there's a sizable 'upper middle' class. If you can get there, you can live very very well.

There's less foreign population than in Beijing (can't comment on Shanghai, some people like it more, some people less). I still get a lot of looks if I'm not in the 'heavily foreigner populated' sections, but you get used to it eventually.

Compared to Beijing, the air is much cleaner, the food much better and diverse, and the english ability is much much better.

Biggest problems: Learning chinese is hard, hot humid summer

Having said all of that... I have no interest in living in Mainland full time. The air is too dirty, the people are too rude, and the great firewall is too annoying.