Writing on signs in Taiwan
Chinese characters, no kana
Taiwan writes in Traditional Chinese: dense, complex characters with no rounded Japanese kana and no Korean circles.
- Characters like 臺, 灣 and 門 keep their full, many-stroke forms.
- Shop signs often run top to bottom on narrow vertical boards.
- No の or ン anywhere: that rules out Japan.
13 photos, grouped by the clue they show.
Key clue Shop sign 6
Key clue Street sign 7
Taiwan: what its writing looks like
Taiwan writes in Traditional Chinese, the older, full form of Chinese characters. Characters like 臺, 灣 and 門 keep all their strokes, so the text looks dense.
Shop signs are often long vertical boards stacked down the front of a building, with big red, yellow or white characters.
Traditional characters are used across Taiwan. Hong Kong and Macau use them too, while mainland China uses simplified ones.
Look-alikes: how to tell them apart
Taiwan vs 
Japan
South Korea
Japan uses many of the same characters, but mixes in rounded kana like の. Korea writes in Hangul with circles.
Questions about the writing in Taiwan
Does Taiwan use simplified Chinese?
No. Taiwan uses traditional characters, which have more strokes than the simplified ones used in mainland China.
How can I tell Taiwanese signs from Japanese ones?
Look for kana. Japanese text has small rounded letters like の or し between the characters; Taiwanese text does not.