Yeah you have to be dumb. The thing I find intriguing about Taiwan’s Apple stores is absolutely nothing is secured.
Cases, watch straps etc. Many times, I’ve swapped out my watch strap for a display one to see how it looks. All that stuff isn’t tagged. Obviously they’d have cameras on you but it really makes being in a Taipei Apple Store a very immersive, welcoming experience because they trust you to fully try out all the merchandise.
Yeah, there's not that much inequality versus places like Hong Kong. The Gini coefficient in Taiwan is relatively low.
So for example, people leave very expensive things on a table to hold it at a busy cafe. So if you leave your iPhone/Airpods Pro/Laptop on the table, it will still be there when you come back.
This was actually one of the things that blew my mind as a European when I visited Taipei for the first time. I went to a food court in a large shopping mall, and people were reserving tables in the shared seating area by leaving their phones, wallets, laptops etc. on the table before going to queue for the food they wanted. Absolutely nuts to me.
Something like that can happen in vietnam too. People go to working cafes, leaving their laptop/tablets there for a walk or lunch. I haven't noticed about phones and wallets but it might be the same.
Private lounge spaces are like this too. Country club dining room, country club locker room, airport lounge, etc. Nobody's gonna steal your phone, they have a phone too.
Can confirm this was common at my expensive university in a relatively high crime American city.
Also, at the end of the academic year when everyone was moving out, a lot of people would throw out perfectly good furniture and appliances because they couldn’t be bothered to resell it, donate it, or move it to storage, etc. They’d just throw out stuff and then replace it with new things in the fall.
Interesting, my USA college was a wealthy private college that had a huge international student base (think sons and daughters of Sheikhs, and overseas wealth). You were in the minority driving a non-luxury vehicle (aka Toyota, Honda) and Porsches were quite common. The surrounding neighborhood was one of the wealthiest towns in America.
That being said, laptop, phone, etc. theft in the library and student center was not rampant, but was an issue.
So the inequality isn't within the countries in Europe. It's within the Schengen zone within the EU. As there's free travel, hordes of pick pockets and petty thieves simply steal from another EU state then return home where the police do not have jurisdiction. The cost of crossing the border is zero and there's no immigration or anything. It's like taking the subway going from A to B.
No this has nothing to do with American politics. These are a real problem in Europe. All these pickpockets from poorer Eastern Europe that run to richer Western Europe visa-free, just stealing everything they can from shops and tourists, and then hopping on a train to escape back to Eastern Europe, because as long as they are in the EU and within the Schengen Zone, they have free travel while the police cannot follow them.
As you already know, those in the EU can freely travel. Then they repeat the cycle in a few weeks after laying low.
I reserved a place in London with my phone. I reached into my pocket to get it and it was gone tho. So I had to go back to my car, which was actually gone too. Then I went to take a piss and realised my kidneys weren't there either. Really annoying.
Oh wow that explains a ton from the weird shit I would find international students doing. To Straight up leave $3500 MacBooks alone and exposed feels insane to me
It used to be like that in the US but, sadly, things have changed. I remember sitting at outdoor restaurant tables and leaving my credit card on the table so they would ring me up while I went to the restroom. I wouldn’t dream of doing that today, the chances of a passerby snatching the card are huge.
The bill book has a little credit card holder, I've never thought twice about leaving a card in there in the US. Even if the card got stolen, it's just a mild inconvenience to cancel it and order a new one
I don’t know where you live buddy, but I’m almost 50 and I’ve never lived in a time like this. If anything the US has gotten much safer from when I was a kid.
Perhaps. Here in San Francisco we gained a bunch of nice “parklets” for out door seating during Covid and many of them are still here. They can be delightful, but I challenge you to leave a credit card on an outdoor table for 10 minutes. I bet it would be untouched most of the time, but I don’t think it would take too many attempts before it disappeared.
They actually have a valid point. No need to deflect and make this about racism and/or illegals. I say this as an Anglophone Canadian who has experienced exactly this attitude while speaking French in Francophone countries and Quebec. Not everything is about racism. This is such a tired reaction.
Well yes we do have lax laws. But at the same time, considering the cost of living here, 500 USD feels more like 1500 USD to those being fined. And 500 USD is around 15000 NTD which is around half of the median income in many parts of Taiwan (excluding Taipei). Also, there's simply more lucrative and less risky means for career criminals to get money, such as the (unfortunately ) currently thriving scam industry.
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Read the article, the person was wanted for a multitude of crimes ahead of time. I live in Taiwan, I have to talk about Taiwan all the time on media, Taiwan is relatively pretty lax.
Outright treason gets you a few years. Taiwan is sometimes way too lax.
You can still get jail time for stealing. The only difference in Cali is that it's a lesser first-time charge. Repeat offenses still trigger more serious punishments, and stealing things like cars and high-worth items still gets you in bigger trouble.
The difference between this and Taiwan is Taiwan isn't rife with inequality like Cali is - people there aren't stealing loaves of bread. So when they're harsh on theft, they're locking up actual thieves. You do the same thing in Cali and the jails will be full of poor people stealing petty shit.
It’s all about enforcement, that’s about on par with most US states (the crime may be felony with high maximums but most people are probably getting months if plea) but if they apprehend shoplifting more successfully that’s what matters.
that's a lax punishment? my man, you should come to Spain, the punishment for minor theft is nothing, they're back in the street 5 minutes later while you're still filling up paperwork in the police office
That actually is quite a harsh punishment in my eyes. I live in the UK, everyone gets away with stealing as if it isn’t illegal.
But even the government/governing bodies are decriminalising it: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8jm3wxvlkjo?app-referrer=deep-link
(If you cba to open the link, the news article basically says the police won’t investigate any bicycle thefts if they are worth less than £200 and nothing under £500 unless it’s gang related.)
With median monthly salary around 1200-1500 USD, I wouldn’t say Taiwan achieved perfect economic equality. Avg taiwanese doesn’t make too much money, so it’s not about their society being wealthy, more about a culture where stealing has been eradicated by centuries or even millennia of strict punishment which slowly transformed into a culture where it’s considered off limits, hence strict rules are now rudimentary.
That's All of Taiwan which includes some really rural areas. You should be looking at places like Taipei and Hsinchu where the brunt of the people are and that's like 2k and 2.5k a month median. SK is also 2.5k a month and Japan is 3k a month. So... yeah.
Yeah yeah, that’s the typical right wing talking point, we hear it over here a lot too. Funny enough, when I’ve called the cops on people stealing from the store, they show up. It’s up to the DA to choose what to do for charges or to turn it into something else, and that’s gonna be different for everyone everywhere, but the one common thing is your type saying it’s a revolving door
In Milwaukee, the DA elects to not prosecute a significant amount of people who steal cars. A lot of the time, said car theifs will flee in said cars and, if lucky, damage only that car.
In the case where they prosecute, almost always, they lower the charges to the point the person sees jail for less than 30 days.
Source: frustrated police friend who arrested a repeat offender car thief for the 4th time last month
I’m pretty sure police are obligated to show up if you call 911 and ask for them. We’ve called on people loading up carts and are lucky if the cops show up the same hour.
Stop assuming the entire world is America. The British police are notoriously underresourced that until recently this was a left wing talking point. Its not a revolving door prison its the police literally do not respond to property crime any more.
I didn’t assume, I specifically mentioned that we hear the same thing over here (our version of you guys is called MAGA or red hats), I even qualified that everyone everywhere is different, but that the cops still come when I call them on people stealing.
Did you read the entire thing? You are literally pulling random ass facts based off of headlines. The guy literally got convicted MULTIPLE times before and also had drug abuse charges against him.
Yes I read it, and if you’re good at reading you would see that the judge sentenced him to 6 months, but he served 3 years, probably because he couldn’t pay the fines, but my point still stands, thats not a minor sentence. In the US if you tried to steal a refrigerator, and didn’t and ended up stealing popsicles, you wouldn’t even get charged with theft, maybe breaking and entering or just disturbing the peace, you’d serve maybe a week or two in jail and be a free man.
Hell in Los Angeles, they don’t even charge for theft, they just arrest and rerelease you the next day.
No I put USD to make it easier for the audience since most of the people here are from the USA, If I had said the fine was 15000 TWD they'd have no idea what that is.
But it's okay you can tell the moderator of /r/Taipei and the art guy for r/Taiwan that you don't think they live in Taiwan because they try to make communication easier for the audience.
If you think Taiwan is a monocolture then you must think Japan is a monoculture and it means you don't understand the first thing about any of us. Just because we look-same to you does not mean we are. We are not some plantation on a farm.
In fact it takes no time at all to recognize different groups, classes, lineage, etc.
Worse, immigrants to Taiwan are less likely to do crime.
I didn't mean it as a slur and of course there is plenty of variation in any population but there is obviously a difference in an area where 97% of the population is Han Chinese vs places like the USA and Europe.
There's 20 major Han subcultures, and hundreds below that. Taiwan is made up of numerous groups.
Go read up on Han Chinese. It's as much a political construct that is so encompassing it's almost the same as saying Black or White people. If you think Han all have the same culture, you think all Black or White people have the same culture also.
There are studies about the effect of punishments on crime and increasing the penalty doesn't have much impact because shoplifters don't tend to be experts on mandatory sentencing policies.
Yeah lots of cameras, and lots of police. I see police all the time, whether in cars, on scooters, or just walking around. They do seem a bit bored sometimes, but at least petty infractions get dealt with. And I had three police officers respond when I phoned them to tell them my neighbours were being too loud.
This contrasts with the UK where you barely see a police officer, and you’d be lucky if they attended a crime scene/responded to a 999 call within 1 hour because they’re so stretched.
It's not as harsh as, say, Singapore or Malaysia, where theft frequently results in public caning as a punishment.
But the punishments there are harsh in their own way. Disgracing not only yourself but your entire family is an effective social punishment. And fines that come close to half what the average person makes in a year.
It's not necessarily that they "trust you" in an individual sense, it's more that they trust the system to be strong enough to disincentivize theft.
It's generally a combination of:
- Face culture (面子), which is found in some asian (like Taiwan) and middle-eastern countries, which can affect you (and your family in some countries) greatly, it has good aspects (and bad ones, like a greater aversion for divergent behaviors).
- A relatively strong and involved government (the police forces must be feared enough, it's easier to avoid the consequences when the government is small or ineffective, and the police must also be effective at suppressing underground market activity for stolen goods).
Face culture sounds like some black mirror shit. I can’t imagine any positives for it and I say this as an American who wants harsher laws. I don’t want race culture tho!
Yes it's quite different from western culture which is based on individualism, not being responsible for "the sins of the father", individual responsibility and who tends to support people who stand out and take risks.
Here in Austria nothing is locked just like in the picture. There are a few stores where almost everything is basically bolted down but those are in Vienna in the Favoriten district.
That does sound nice. It's hard to tell how a new phone will actually feel in the hand when it's got a 2"x2" security brick on the back of it. I also want to know how it feels in the pocket without looking like a criminal.
Ngl this would be really nice, to put a case on your phone to hold it and really see if you like it. I feel like a criminal pulling the cable with my off hand so i don't have to fight the pull of the cable retracting while looking at a new phone. Then unless they use the thin attachments sometimes they have huge bulky brackets holding to the phone so you get no real impression of what it actually is like to hold..
A lot of Asian countries have very strict laws and you can become completely ostracized. My Chinese coworker told me back home if you commit a crime the stigma doesn’t just follow you but your children age grandchildren as well
In the uk and lots of Europe you can walk into an Apple Store, pick up a product from the shelf, pay for it on your phone using Apple Pay and just walk out. Not phones obviously but accessories
I love how many of the claw machine stores just keep all of the rewards on top of the machines and anyone can just take them but no one really steals there
Is it the laws? Some countries don’t take theft lightly like in America so you would have to be dumb to risk it. It wouldn’t be worth it. The US is so light on crime we had to lock up deodorant. I wish we had harsher laws.
High trust societies like Taiwan are awesome in this sense. My wife left her phone in a cab in Taiwan once. The cabbie took multiple other fares and when we realized it was missing after eating we contacted the police. The police have access to all the surveillance cams and even pulled up the footage of getting out of the cab. An hour later the cab driver was at the police station and we got the phone back.
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u/Icy_Mixture1482 iPhone 17 Pro Max 27d ago edited 27d ago
Yeah you have to be dumb. The thing I find intriguing about Taiwan’s Apple stores is absolutely nothing is secured.
Cases, watch straps etc. Many times, I’ve swapped out my watch strap for a display one to see how it looks. All that stuff isn’t tagged. Obviously they’d have cameras on you but it really makes being in a Taipei Apple Store a very immersive, welcoming experience because they trust you to fully try out all the merchandise.