Temporary solutions: Living the convenient life

By Mia Shanley

 From our archives, Compass Magazine, September 1999.

One of the most fascinating things about the local Taiwanese economy is that its foundations are cemented in thousands of different mom-and-pop shops.
Anyone living on this island for some time knows that one of the best things about living in a Taiwan city is the convenience that the streets bring. Walk around the downtown Taipei or Taichung area and you’ll find everything you need — from contact lenses to cellular phones to a dentist’s office to a bread store. Everything.
In fact, if Taiwan’s one million small and medium enterprises were to shut down operations today, more than seven million people — or roughly 80 percent of the island’s employed workforce — would be left jobless.
The conveniences are endless. I have grown quite accustomed to this lifestyle, where if it takes me longer than ten minutes to find something, I figure it must not exist. The communities of shops which one finds throughout these cities offer a needed break from the wash of conglomerates found in western countries, America in particular. It’s refreshing to walk into a shop, which is often doubled as someone’s home, and know exactly where my money will go.
Locally owned stores are full of character and life. In Taiwan, I take my scooter to a local shop for a tune-up and I am offered tea as I wait for the owner to finish his daily Buddhist rituals. In America, I take my car to a dealer who counts my car as nothing but another number in the long line of cars the company must fix that day.
In Taiwan, there is a little bit for everybody. Bill Gates doesn’t own everything. And while the Kuomintang certainly have their fair share of the pie here, it is a party with a tremendous following, not one mysterious CEO.
What is even more fascinating about the Taiwan economy is how resilient its people are. One business fails and another springs up before the dust settles. Taiwan must have the fastest evolution of businesses in the world. The Taiwanese believe that success is right around the corner. An idea pops into their heads and they make it happen — fast. If they fail, they’ll jump on another idea. Shoes? Books? Medicine? Hello Kitty?
In many ways, the Taiwanese are able to succeed because of their short-term vision. For one, taking a new concept and transforming it into reality often happens at the snap of a finger. Look a bit deeper, and some say that the Taiwanese mindset is “temporary” in nature, meaning a lot of what is engrained in the local culture are solutions with “quick-fixes.” When the KMT fled the communists 50 years ago, they set up in Taiwan on a temporary basis. For years, they dreamed of taking back the mainland. And so, a lot of what they did was full of short-term vision. Under this theory: since life was temporary from the start, it still tends to be today. Make some money quick and get out of here. Build a city that works but doesn’t have to last a lifetime.
And what about street stalls, traveling vendors? The most temporary and mobile of all jobs is quite lucrative as well. More than half of the stalls on Taiwan’s streets bring in more than NT$1 million (US$30,770) a year, according to an investigation by the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS).
There are nearly 390,500 street vendors in Taiwan today, with an average of 1.5 working at each stall. Employment at such stalls accounts for approximately 4.2 percent of the total employment in Taiwan. The DGBAS estimated that a vendor could earn an average of NT$36,000 (US$1,108) per month, or NT$5,000 (US$154) more than an average factory worker.
One of the major reasons why Taiwan came out of the Asian economic crisis relatively unscathed was because of its mom-and-pop foundations. And while some mom-and-pop shops are probably eying Blockbuster, Costco and Starbuck’s with caution, the threat by these overbearing companies is still rather minimal. Taiwan has shown that it is just too fond of a “bigger is not better” policy.