Working from home/ online whilst living in Taiwan

[Milkybar_Kid]

Hi,

Does anyone currently work from home whilst living in Taiwan? I am trying to think of the industries or areas to get into in order to work from home.

Off the top of my head I can only think of:

Translation (need language skills)
Web based business (need web skills)
Import/export (need....erm....)
Writing (Filipinos can write better English than me for a lower price)

So is anyone successfully working from home?

[PigBloodCake]

Writing (Filipinos can write better English than me for a lower price)

Can't argue about that

[cfimages]

My work base is home and that's where I do all my admin, marketing, editing etc. Of course, as a photographer, I go elsewhere to take the actual photos, but taking of photos is probably only 20% of a photographer's job.

[Super Hans]

Yes, but even if you go elsewhere to take photos, you're still technically working from home.

[golf]

My wife-to-be has a travel agency business in Moscow. She is moving to Taiwan soon and arranging deputy staff in Moscow office. She tries to get inquiries from internet and talk to customers via Skype and lets the deputy staff do routine tasks such as issuing and delivering tickets to customers. Customers transfer service fees to her account directly. Or she might let the deputy staff take and deposit the money to her account I'm snot sure.

Anyway I think this way is feasible.

[Icon]

Hi,

Does anyone currently work from home whilst living in Taiwan? I am trying to think of the industries or areas to get into in order to work from home.

Off the top of my head I can only think of:

Translation (need language skills)
Web based business (need web skills)
Import/export (need....erm....)
Writing (Filipinos can write better English than me for a lower price)

So is anyone successfully working from home?

Translation - you need a lot of guanxi, or a contract with an agency works better, for steady enough work to come in to make a living.

Web based business - seems OKish, no one has hit the big bucks yet, but it is a growing medium.

Import/export - mafan de putaliao. You have to travel a lot. It is not just computer stuff, and the money ... it can get complicated. But it is a common field. Beware of local partners, backstabbing is frequent. Most trips entail visiting lovely China backwaters where factories are located, immunizations are a must.

Writing - yep, it is a very competitive field, see guanxi, agents as in translation. But I still hope for the next Hemingway to make a great novel of this wonderful island of ours. Or at least, report decently on Computex.

[tsukinodeynatsu]

I work from home as a translator. Easily make enough to make a living, but then I don't translate Chinese.

The domestic translation industry here seems to be very competitive from what I can see, but I don't partake in it.

If you spoke another language (particularly a European one) it'd probably be better to work with that one and get paid in Euros.

Import/Export would be quite easy to get into I'd imagine. Well, it would be easy enough to find the factories willing to export; how good are your contacts back home to find places looking to import? But you'd be mostly on the road with that one rather than strictly 'from home'.

Travel planning is actually a great thing to get into from home. If you can get a galileo cert and book flights yourself that's awesome, if not you can do the 'organisation' aspect - airport pick ups, hotels, tours etc. It's actually quite hard to find good information when you're travelling to Taiwan, and there are more and more travellers here. In the same vein, you might be able to set up a one-off service for newbies escaping America - $300 to $500 and you'll find them an apartment, help them open a bank account and help them go over their contracts and work permit/ARC paperwork, and get them from the airport if they need it. For the apartment thing you could probably hook up with a local studio flat (taofang) place and get them a nice room (with mattress/blankets) for three months, which should be long enough that they can decide to stay there or move on. You can toss in all sorts of extra touches that aren't difficult to do (a Yo-yo card, for example, or a pre-paid SIM) but that having it all prepared just makes leaving home that little bit less daunting, and all it costs you mostly is time.

Hell, my friend's parents pushed her into paying $5,000 for a similar service (they included plane tickets and visas and only two nights accommodation) and she didn't get anywhere NEAR that much useful help. I remember my first day here I spent running around from place to place trying to organise everything; I don't mind doing it but some people prefer it done for them.

[grandfeller]

Does anyone currently work from home whilst living in Taiwan? I am trying to think of the industries or areas to get into in order to work from home.?

My employer is in Tennesee, but I'm working from Taiwan over the summer. I do project controls in the construction and engineering industry. After working for the company for two years and getting a manager with whom I work really well, I requested to work remotely for the summer. Now I'm busting my butt to make it work out and after I go back and finish up my current project, I'll probably talk to management about working remotely on a regular basis.

[bigduke6]

Today you can do practically any business with a computer, internet connection, and a smartphone from anywhere in the world.

I am not sure what the OP did before he/she came here. Is this a possibility?

Otherwise investigate the possibilities people have raised. Just make sure you do a proper investigation into your options.

[Wai]

My brother worked out here as a software engineer for a company back in the UK for a couple of years, but he had a lot of expertise and experience in his field so his skills were in demand, it's certainly not something you could just do.