Thanks to Taiwanese people his business can survive!

Okay, yes, hello everybody, welcome back to the channel. My name is Alan, this is My Life in Taiwan, and today we've got an extra special guest. This is Damien. Hi everybody, thank you, thank you, thank you. Nice to be here. Nice to meet you too. We are here at the Museum of Illusions in Tide Junction Centre. Closed today, so I think we can, we can take off the masks I think. Ordinarily in level two, anywhere in a public building, you should have your masks on of course, but as this is a day where the museum is closed, we're going to go mask free just to be a bit more open. But I'm here to talk to Damien about what it's like to be a foreigner running a business in Taiwan, especially during these testing times, and just have a bit of a catch up. And of course, I'll be having a look around the museum as we go, and showing you some of the interesting, very, very特別 exhibits. Thank you very much. Very interesting place. But first, how about you introduce yourself, give us a little background of who you are, how long you've been in Taiwan. Okay, well my name is Damien. I'm from England, Blackpool, sunny Blackpool in England. I've been here now, getting on for 20 years. I'm married with one son. Okay, Taiwanese. Taiwanese wife, yeah. A little bit about the museum, like it's such an interesting place, and it's something I've never seen before in Taiwan. So where did the idea come from? How did it start? Right, well my wife and my son, we all went on holiday together to Slovenia. I saw the advert for this place in Slovenia, so I thought I'd give it a go. Museum Volusions, sounds great. Went there with the family, had a great time. And then as we were walking around, we're like, this place would look great in Taiwan, you know, they've got people taking photos, all that. So when I got back to England, I checked out the website, and it turns out that you can have your own museum. Okay, so it's like a franchise? Yeah, kind of like a franchise, yeah. What's the first step in opening a museum of illusions in Taiwan? Do you have lots of paperwork to go through? Well, I mean, when we first did it, we thought the hard part would be just getting in touch with the franchise and sorting that out. That turned out to be relatively easy. Before you do that, you also have to have a registered company in Taiwan. So you have to go through all the paperwork for that. And then obviously, if you're going to have a registered company, you need the bank account, blah, blah, blah. You need to do all that stuff. My recommendation is, if you're going to do that, get yourself a good lawyer first, and an accountant. Right, but can that all be in your name, or is it easier to go through Taiwanese? Taiwanese, definitely. Yeah, it's all in her name. Okay, so how about someone like me, for example, if I wanted to start a business, I don't have a Taiwanese wife, I don't have a Taiwanese business partner, what would you recommend? How am I going to do that? Go get married to hot Taiwanese rich. Really? You think it's... No, well, I mean, we never tried it the other way, but we were told if you want to do it that way, you can, but it's a lot longer. It takes a lot more time, a lot more paperwork. Right. Yeah. So what other things are involved? Is there like fire routes and fire escapes, this kind of... Well, before you do that, to go back, first you have to get the building. Yeah. So once you've got the building, you have to make sure that the building's in the right area. Yeah. Because there's certain codes you have to follow. There's residential, is it a restaurant, is it a museum? They all have different zones, you have to find that out. That's why I say you need to get yourself a good lawyer, and then a good accountant, and an architect, because you can get tripped up quite easily. Yeah. That was all done, and you got through all that paperwork. When did you open? I can't remember the exact date, April 19th or something. Last year? Last year, yeah. But we started looking... We got the building in September, but then we had to redo the whole thing, because originally this was a 7-Eleven, and then it was a Jewelers. So there's a lot of changes we had to make, and that took a while. Yeah. So as well as all of the paperwork and the headache of that, you've got like a big financial commitment, right? There's a lot of money invested in it. And then September through till April, that's like just as COVID was kicking off in the rest of the world. Yeah. You must have felt so good in Taiwan when it was kind of avoided us. Well, at first we were scared, and then we were like, well, we open, or we don't open. If we open, we might get lucky, or nobody knows what's going to happen, right? Because it was just like, is it going to hit? Is it going to hit? So we're like, okay, we open, and we got lucky. But still, it did affect numbers quite a lot. Yeah. I know a few friends have got restaurants. Even last year, there was definitely a market drop in local tourism and that kind of thing. Yeah. How did 2020 feel for you? Was it like a constant pressure? Yes. Yeah. What kind of feelings and emotions are you going through? Why, why, why didn't we open later? Why didn't we? So you feel like you've opened too early? Yes. Yes, definitely. Because the worst part was from April to about, so the summertime is when the things start to get good again. So that period of time, not a great time to be open. A lot of people weren't coming, but I think if we'd open a little bit later, it might've been a better idea. Oh, okay. So that was last year, but you're still here? Yeah. Yeah. Well, the summer was great and moving down to September was fine. Yeah. And then it's March this year. We went into level three lockdown. Yeah. That was a blow. Completely had to close everything. Yeah. Well, the thing is we had a lot of bookings for the summer. Yeah. A lot. And then one day it was announced and then boom, phone never stops ringing people. Oh, we're cancelling, cancelling. So what kind of bookings were they? For the summer holidays, school bookings, coaches. All gone. All gone in one day. One day it was out. But that must be tens, hundreds of thousands of dollars of business. Yeah. Just gone. Yeah. Now, personally, I think the most I've ever lost is like, maybe you lose a thousand NT out of my wallet or you lose like an iPhone, maybe like, and it affects me drastically. That must've been like a really dark time. Yeah. Well, we'll get the violin now. I really want to explore that because everybody thinks that foreigners in Taiwan live this really easy, stress-free life. Yeah. I used to. We drink all the time and we teach for four hours a day. But there are foreigners here like yourself that like are battling through really tough times in business. And of course the Taiwanese people are in the same boat. Totally. I just feel like it would be great for the viewers to understand exactly what kind of pressures that puts on you as a dad, a businessman, a husband, you know, like you've got all of those things to worry about. So. Well, I was lucky in one respect that I didn't give my job up. You kept your teaching job? I kept my teaching job. Yeah. Because my wife basically does a lot of the other stuff. Okay. So we're lucky in that respect. So we still had an income. Okay. Well, that's keeps your head above water, right? Yeah. But still. Yeah. So how did you cope with that? Does it, does it put a stress on every part of your life? Are you worried about it all the time? Or do you have a coping mechanism like where you can. Right. I'm going to sound a bit cheesy now, but I just, I just think about it could be so much worse. Okay. Yeah. It could be like, you know, we could be, it could be a different country where we really got hit, you know, a year and a half out. We wouldn't have lasted that. Or it could be, you know, could lose the business totally or not have any money to start with. So yeah. Well, I have to say that the Taiwan, the people have been amazing as far as this virus goes, you know, like in other countries, the mass have been coming off or people have been obedient. And I think like a lot of like Westerners, especially like the North Americans, they look, look down on the mask. And now we had what two months of level three lockdown because of that situation. So yes, it's massively affected your business and many others, but fingers crossed. I think that that sort of obedience is maybe the wrong word to use, but that intelligence of following the rules in order to protect ourselves and those around us, hopefully means that you can get back to a more normal level of custom, I would say. Yeah. I think so. Yeah. I mean, we have a lot more rules to follow now. I think the government rule is two hours and then you have to clean, but we do an hour and a half. It gives us more time because there's a lot of cleaning to be done. So we do, we do like an hour and a half and then do half an hour cleaning and then open again. And then you have to log all of that. You have to... Yes. All that's logged. Before we used to have a lot of employees, they come around and they demonstrate, but because of the risks, we can't do that. We keep a minimum staff on at the moment. We still have the thing on the phone, like you can check your line. And if you, you go at one exhibit and then online, it will tell you about the exhibit. One thing I'll ask you is what kind of person do you think is suited to coming here? Anyone. I mean, the younger crowd likes to take the photographs. Yeah. I mean, that's good for, you know, Instagram. Well, yeah, it's an Instagram generation. I love my Instagram as much as anyone and I've got some great photos. So feel free to go check out my Instagram, Life in Taiwan 2017. It's really, to be cheesy, fun for all the family. Fun for all the family. You've got it in one. Yeah. It's really interesting. And it's air conditioned. Oh, it's cool right. The perfect Taiwanese tour attraction is air conditioning and interesting. So I definitely recommend anybody looking for something to do. Now that we've gone back to level two, we, we can get out and explore this interesting country with places such as the Museum of Illusions. So I'll put all the details down below. You've got an Instagram page too. We have Instagram and Facebook. Yeah. So by all means, follow that, check it out and make a booking. Is there a limit on the number of people you're allowed inside? I believe it's 50 at one time, but we rarely get that many at the moment. It's a big place. There's lots to explore. It's not like just one floor. There's three stories and dozens of different illusions that you can come and explore and take photos with. But I'm happy to see that you're opening up again. It's really good to see a foreigner that's not just following the regular path and is doing something to bring a different world to Taiwanese people. I think Taiwanese people can get very pigeonholed into what they like. They only have certain things they like to do. And especially like the coach and bus tours that you mentioned, they tend to go to the same kind of places all the time. So it's great that you give them like a different place, a different option of somewhere to go. So whether you're a school teacher, just your family, or even an individual looking for something to do, I would highly recommend coming down and taking some photos and saying hello to Damien. He's got Amber and Michelle working here. Super interesting place, super helpful people. So by all means, get in touch. I'm going to have a look around. One of my friends has just arrived, but I think it's time to say goodbye. Thanks for being on the channel. Cheers, Alan. Are you nervous? A little bit. You did well. Really good. Thanks for watching, guys. Hope you like this kind of content. If you've got anything to add, if you've been to the Museum of Illusions before, then let me know down below. Only good things. Yeah. No, I just delete any negative comments. Oh, yeah. I'll say what you want, then. I don't mind. I've got full control of that. Yeah, I think it's time to say goodbye. So as always, I'll see you next time. Bye-bye.