Surfing Waves

Hey
I'm on a surf trip in Taiwan during November and the Philipines during December and into January, looking for a sofa to stay on and locals to surf with.
Cheers
Luke

I would really check out two things, firstly 99.99% of Taiwanese do not surf and I'm not sure how they would culturally receive a sofa surfer.
Also the family structure is very tight and the living areas are apartments and most in cities
The Philippines even less so as the lower economic scale of most of the surf areas sofa surf would be a mean way of staying.
The home stay rates outside resort /surf camps is very cheap and just to share by paying your way is the way to go!
Trying to be cheaper than cheap, when our relative income is wealthy compared to theirs is a way to create bad karma very quickly.

Also consider in an emerging surf culture like Taiwan, the manners and behaviours you bring will influence how emerging surfers learn to behave.
Think a little more about how you want to go about your trip, there are great advantages about engaging well in both destinations.

Personally, I wouldn't step foot in the Philippines right now. The country has a lunatic for a leader and people are being gunned down in the streets based on hearsay about drug dealing. I definitely wouldn't want to be hanging out with people I didn't know in that country. One bad rumor about that foreign guy and you could be in for much more than you bargained for. Just a heads up.

jaffa1949 wrote:I would really check out two things, firstly 99.99% of Taiwanese do not surf and I'm not sure how they would culturally receive a sofa surfer.
Also the family structure is very tight and the living areas are apartments and most in cities

The home stay rates outside resort /surf camps is very cheap and just to share by paying your way is the way to go!
Trying to be cheaper than cheap, when our relative income is wealthy compared to theirs is a way to create bad karma very quickly.

Also consider in an emerging surf culture like Taiwan, the manners and behaviours you bring will influence how emerging surfers learn to behave.

That's not entirely correct. I would say 99.99% of Taiwanese claims that they can surf and loving surfing as they have tried it once 5 years ago on a wavestorm board.

You're right about the housing, we don't let strangers into our house nor is couch surfing popular. Life isn't easy for the local as the salary is low and housing price is sky high. The house price in the city is equivalent to a developed country and yet the salary is third world.

The surf culture in Taiwan is already hopeless. Like the post that wkkk made about Japanese. People from the city drive hours just to get to the spot. They don't care about surf etiquette, they just want to catch waves. I've been away from Taiwan for two years now, they are calling the surfers that learnt how to surf in the last two years the new generation. Because the new generation doesn't have any surfing manner or rules nor do they respect any of the older generations. The older generations have either stopped surfing, move to other spots or other countries.

Also you do have to be careful of the local gangs. Don't get in their way or expect proper beating. Especially if you go to the best spot in Taitung and you're white. They are not very friendly. Don't argue with them when they drop you on purpose.