My View: Can we replicate the Taiwan Miracle in Arizona at the TSMC factory?

When I was a little girl, I visited my grandmother’s house with my mother. After getting off our 30-minute bus ride, we went straight to the textile factory where my grandma and aunts worked. It was the same factory where my mother had worked since she was 10 years old until she married my father. 

In another one of my childhood memories, my cousin who worked in the import-export business gave us several Christmas ornaments marked “Made in Taiwan” for the U.S. market. They had magical and sophisticated designs of light and sound, but nothing we could afford. 

Taiwan has always been a place where we made things for the United States. Back then, it was textiles and toys; today it's semiconductors.

In the early 1990s, I came to the U.S. with two suitcases to study library science. Like half of my classmates at the National Taiwan University, I was continuing my graduate studies abroad, hoping to learn from the best in the field as my college professors had done. Only by a twist of fate, I stayed and embarked on a career working in American libraries. I often jokingly labeled myself as “Made in Taiwan” like the textiles and ornaments. 

However, my approach to working long hours did not win me friends in the office. It didn’t seem to be an issue when I was paid hourly as a junior librarian. It only became a problem when I was promoted to be a salaried employee. 

One year, at the encouragement of my supervisor, I signed up for a paper-making class at ASU (she was happy to see me spend less time at work). A few years later, I changed jobs due to burnout, but in 2019 and 2020, I went back to working as a librarian full-time while running my own business as a real estate broker. I only quit the library because Covid-19 shut down all the public spaces. 

My priority: Juggling different priorities in life

It is true that I work like a Taiwanese. I may or may not be as skilled as some of my American colleagues or classmates, but I can always study and work harder to excel. I don’t believe in work-life balance. Instead, we juggle different priorities in life. Being a single mother and immigrant, I worked to survive. Only later, when survival was no longer a question, did I learn to relax a bit. I did not know how much the way I work is because I am Taiwanese until I read the news of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s (TSMC) experience in setting up manufacturing in Arizona.

There are doubts about TSMC’s ability to succeed in the United States. An American engineer friend told me about the brutal schedule she experienced working in Taiwan. “That’s normal,” I replied. I often like to explain how gastronomy is a national sport for the Taiwanese people because we have no time for other pastimes.  

Taiwan, a small island with limited resources, knows how to maximize its human capital. When lower-skilled manufacturing was moved to countries like China and Vietnam, we stepped up to high-tech manufacturing and produced Taiwan’s Economic Miracle. We can always study and work harder than anyone else.

It will be interesting to see how things work out for TSMC and for Arizona. How are we going to gain a competitive edge and keep “Made in Arizona” profitable? Maybe that’s too tall of an order and we should just aspire to becoming productive eventually. Still, it's a cultural shock for both sides. TSMC will need patience. Instead of building two fabrication plants a year as they did in Taiwan, it may take three years to get one up and running here. The return on investment may not be realized for some time, if time is a currency we can afford.

Back home, we have a saying: “Ru xiang sui su.” Which means, “When entering a village, follow the customs there,” or as you say in English, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” 

Over the last 20 years, I have taken advantage of time away from the office to explore the beauty of living in Arizona and my own creative side. These days, I am learning to fly f ish. Despite our cultural differences, I hope the TSMC opportunities brought to Arizonans will inspire us to do our best work and our Taiwanese expats will learn to enjoy the Wild West by making time to play.

This article was originally published in the Phoenix Business Journal on 9/13/2023. All rights reserved. https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2023/09/13/replicate-taiwan miracle-arizona.html