Continuing from yesterday's post...the place where you can get the dried mangoes for less than half the price of anywhere else in Taiwan, is the place above. What is it? It's the Philippines import shop.
Actually that is short changing it. It really is the Philippines "everything" store. As it has not only import items, but you can go there to do mailing to and from the Philippines and transfer money, and a whole host of other things. With so many people from the Philippines working in Taiwan, this shop is essentially a place to make living here as easy for them as possible.
For westerners, it's a great place because it has a lot of western imports that you actually can't find anywhere else, not Carrefour, nor Costco, or any import specific shops. There are a lot of western products in the Philippines, so they are used to them, meaning this shop wants to also carry those items to make living here not so jarring.
Even better, the prices are very cheap. As mentioned yesterday you can get the dried mangoes super cheap, but pretty much everything here is cheaper than other places. The funny thing is that most Taiwanese never go here despite the super low prices and having things that are nowhere else in Taiwan. This is because most Taiwanese are....let's say they don't have the best view of anything related to the Philippines. So they think this place has nothing of value, and would rather go to a Taiwanese supermarket or drug store and pay exponentially more.
Which honestly may be a good thing. I always wonder if I should tell more people about this shop or not. On the one hand the more people that go there the more business it will have. But on the other hand this place seems like it really is there to support all those people who have made the journey over here from the Philippines. That they are more about helping people and catering to the low salaries that most migrant workers are paid. Meaning if too many Taiwanese shopped here it would be taking advantage of the situation and less things for the people who actually need it.
Regardless this place seems to be doing very well. In this area there used to be two or three of this type of place, but now there appears to only be the one. However it has remodeled and changed a lot from the cramped old shop that it used to be.
It's a shame that I don't go here more often, taking this picture was the first time I had been here in probably over four years. In my first year or two in Taiwan I used to come here very often. Not only because of the dried mangoes, but because at that time I was using prepaid phone cards for my cell phone, and this place had them super cheap. Once I got a cell phone plan (when the phone companies finally decided that foreigners can have cell phone plans), i never really came here anymore.
Then again I don't know if I'll go back. I feel that this place was of great support to me when I first was in Taiwan. But now i've moved on, and it's time for this store to be there for somebody else new, who needs it. It's truly a special place though, maybe the only store in Taiwan that can honestly say that it cares more about it's customers than their bottom line.
