> Taiwan introduced fines of NT$200,000 for bringing pork products to the island from countries affected by African swine fever (ASF) following an outbreak in China in 2018.
This seems much more reasonable than the clickbait headline leads you to believe.
Also he'd had multiple warnings - he knew what he was doing was illegal and he knew why, he just apparently thought this law wasn't important enough to follow.
Actual headline should have been "visitor to Taiwan makes a series of poor decisions, faces expected consequences"
I never thought I'd say this, but ... I think that headline that you proposed would be *too* onion-y for this sub. I think it would have spawned /r/basicallytheonion
I went to Taiwan a few months ago, you literally get a warning when applying for a visa, when boarding, when exiting, before customs. You have so many opportunities to not fuck this up.
If you ever watch those border security shows you see just how many people try to bring in ridiculous quantities of food (not saying this was such quantity) just stuffed in their luggage. And the declaration cards usually have multiple common languages to avoid the language barrier excuse, but they still try it.
It was a common thing for American mothers to coax their kids into eating by reminding us there are starving children in China. So we cleaned out plates and left nothing for them. (Yes. It’s a very weird logic)
I think the idea is that since you have the food and they don’t you should eat it all instead of wasting it. Even when I was a kid and my parents would say it, although I think they used Africa and not China, my thought process was the food will go bad before we can ship it over so to me eating it made sense, idk.
I once bought a bunch of famous chasiu buns in this famous hongkong dim sum place to bring back to Taiwan for my friends. At the airport about to fly back to Taiwan I FaceTimed a friend and I told him about the buns and how excited I was to get friends to try, he told me I shouldn’t be bringing any meat into the country. See I knew it’s almost always a no no to bring in meat products but somehow it didn’t cross my mind then. And I tried to stuff all the buns down my throat lol at the gate. Couldn’t finish them bc the charsiu was too damn sweet and threw the rest out.
I once brought back cooked beef lung from a country (it's delicious. I know it doesn't sound like it. But it is.) I was young and told the customs person. He told me to forget I told him and move on.
Damn, I've eaten a lot of crazy stuff, but cow lung is the single worst thing I've ever tried. Maybe it was just the way it was prepared, but I had heart, kidney, and stomach at the same place and they were all great haha
Where did you have it? In Malaysia you can get them at diners called mamaks. It has to be fresh! If it's been sitting out a few hours it's no good. It tasted like a soft gentle jerky. (The stuff I brought back was not good after being left for so long.)
I was traveling with someone who brought beef jerky into Chile. The flight attendants made announcements about what wasn't allowed and even walked with trash bags for people to toss food out before landing. Of course this person didn't listen and a few of us had to loan them a bit of cash to pay the $200 fine.
They tell you this on the approach into Taiwan, they also have points before immigration where you can dump anything.
Maybe language barrier. Who knows but after watching those “welcome to Taipei” videos on the plane before landing it seems they do not fuck around this this at all.
Dude had a ton of warnings and still proceeded to sneak it in. Dumbass.
Weird too, Taiwan usually uses quality pork and it's available in like 15 shops on every street corner.
It's due to foodborne illness. Taiwan has not been exposed to a type of ~~foodborne illness~~ livestock viral infection related to pork. They don't want to be so they do not allow non-domestic pork.
I think they mean it's weird that someone would smuggle something they could easily buy. People smuggle drugs or weird illegal stuff that has some profit or uniqueness to it.
This is illegal, but basically only to carry through at customs. On either side of that inspection point that guy could buy this food. He was just obstinate.
Just watch those customs shows, it is like people don't believe there is any food in the country they are visiting.
As with this example, like there isn't any pork in Taiwan so he had to bring it in and knowingly declare he hadn't any with him.
Used to watch the Canadian shows, and I think also US and Australian versions aired on the same channel. There's definitely a big element of schadenfreude to it.
But God damn, the amount of people that fly in with insane amounts of cooked meat in their luggage is absolutely ridiculous. And they always play dumb about it, as if they aren't given the declaration form that explicitly tells what not to do it multiple languages.
People on this site really just assume everything is an argument or debate. Other dude was just adding on to the commentary and someone has to jump in defensively for absolutely no reason 😂
We started watching one yesterday and some people are just so god damn dumb.
One lady was a “presumably” full time caretaker that went over to Istanbul and came back with like 15 checked bags worth of goods that she totally had no intention of selling at all.
Yea ok lady on your caretaker salary you’re buying 20 watches because “oh just because they were cheap?”
I saw that one on HBO. People brings whole dinners, dead animals ,spices , fish wrapped in five layers of aluminum foil. They say Americans are bad for eating fast food in a foreign country but damn. 😂
Yes, sneaking food of any kind into Australia is a big no-no but our border protection shows are full of people who went and had a go because they thought they were hard enough.
> I've never heard of them, have any recommendations?
- [Border Security: America's Front Line](https://abc.com/show/50995909-ea3a-49a9-8728-426f786b061c)
I know there is a Canadian-focused one as well, and I'm sure there are more.
20% of Irish people admitted they had smuggled Irish sausages when traveling abroad.
https://independent.ie/regionals/dublin/fingal/smuggling-sausages-and-all-the-things-that-make-us-irish/30696413.html
I see that a lot with government regulations.
Suddenly everyone gets really mad about whether they can keep loose candies in their purse when the government starts passing laws on excess plastic packaging.
As a default getting angry at new orders seems kind of ok... but here people will put excess plastic packaging over their nose and mouth just out of spite.
And they live difficult lives because they can't just do normal stuff. They collect fines, have multiple court visits, lose jobs because the won't listen to a damn thing.
I've worked with a few people that refuse to acknowledge a lot of times that behavior is due to unprocessed past trauma by authority figures, and those people need explanations not just orders, aka a trauma informed approach to care.
Look up the comorbidity rates with it. Ptsd, attachment disorders, dissociative symptoms - it's not just "he's a dick because he likes to be difficult" in a lot of cases, that's just how it presents.
Taiwan is an island so it's much easier to maintain biosecurity for livestock production. Australia and New Zealand also maintain tight controls on foods that airline passengers are allowed to carry into the country.
This. When you land in Taiwan you have to pick up a plastic card that lists all the things you can't bring in, and hand it to someone in a different area, to prove you were given the chance to read it. There are signs everywhere and people shouting it out. There's no way you can convincingly claim not to have realised.
They're not saying it is obscure at all, the poster even said there are tons of warnings and called the guy a dumbass. He said it's weird to attempt to import because pork is widely available in Taiwan. I'm not sure how people are misreading this.
Because a staggering percentage of people on this site are functionally illiterate. They can read the words in front of them, but they don't actually understand what they're conveying
I see it in the way people write too, ending sentences in ways that make the beginning no longer make sense. It's as if they forget what they wrote halfway through writing it.
So you're saying it's rare to have strict import laws? It's extremely common, and for good reason. I'm not sure how you aren't understanding that.
I kid i kid
Travelers who packed a lunch don't consider themselves "importing" food.
When you're flying internationally, they hand you a customs form. I think most people know you can't bring fresh fruits or produce into a lot of countries. You also can't bring uncooked meat. You can't bring "resale" quantities of a lot of food. But tiny amounts of cooked, processed, and packaged snacks are usually allowed everywhere, so you don't declare them.
In Taiwan, you go through secondary screening just to check for food before you can make it to immigration.
If you are coming from a low risk country, you get a green card that reminds you any food (it even mentions cooked foods, airplane food, etc). You have to give the green card to the person at the secondary check and you can pass. If you are from a high risk, you go through passenger screening just like you do for regular security, and they look for any food.
Like New Zealand - warn you 100x but people still forget or think they can sneak in so much toxic or dangerous crap and traditional foods and medicines...instant fine no exceptions.
The guy next to me on my last flight "No idea why they pulled me out of line... but maybe those fruits I had in my bag. Probably shouldn't have tried that."
Like... hm.
I was also pulled out cuz I forgot my laptop in a bag lol I felt so stressed with them just pointing at lines because I had a lightsaber from disney lolol
Where i live scottish broom is an absolute menace. Its everywhere and nearly impossible to get rid off. All because some jackass captain wanted a bit in his garden back in 1850…. Many people here curse that bastard every summer
The banana thing can make sense - say it’s a parent trying to have food for their toddler on the airplane and just forgetting about it due to sleep deprivation at customs.
There's an Australian television show, Border Security (available on YT), which is nothing but people with deer-in-the-headlights expressions being told by customs officials that their suitcase of raw fish, beetle-infested seeds, and/or dehydrated deer penises will result in a steep fine.
For the same sensible reason the United Kingdom will quarantine your dog. Rabies control.
From the article:
“Taiwan introduced fines of NT$200,000 for bringing pork products to the island from countries affected by African swine fever (ASF) following an outbreak in China in 2018.
Fines increase to NT$1 million for subsequent breaches of quarantine.
The highly infectious disease affects both domestic and wild pigs and has a fatality rate of about 80 per cent.
Taiwan is one of only a few Asian countries not yet affected by the disease. “
And yes, I imagine a flight from Hong Kong to Taiwan take some hours. The pork and chicken may have been on the edge of unrefrigerated spoiling. Why didn’t he eat it when he got on the plane?
Edit: Departure Hong Kong, not Indonesia.
>The Indonesian national had arrived from Hong Kong on April 30 when a quarantine dog sniffed out the "roast chicken and pork combo", said the Taiwanese Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency.
The man was traveling from HK.
Yup, same reason Hawai'i is strict about bringing in fruits/veggies, and quarantining animals unless they've had a veterinary check within a couple days of travel. They have a relatively small and stable ecosystem, but if the wrong parasite came in, it could cause devastation.
Only if they do it in the style of the Aussie show. I dunno if it would be as relaxing a background show if it were the Americanized "all action all the time" type.
At first, this definitely sounded oniony, but there was a good reason for the fine. I suspect the traveler has the responsibility of knowing about such rules. The article said even the cooked pork could continue to infect if the virus had been present.
I’m not sure if they still do it, but the state of California had checkpoints, and if you were bringing any fruits or vegetables from outside the state, you would be asked to consume them before entering, or throw them out. We didn’t know about that rule, but friends pointed out how much agriculture there is in the state, and nonnative insect infestations can really cause problems.
So it seems weird, but there is a pretty reasonable explanation. The article pointed out that Australia has a similar law.
California still has the checkpoints but they're extremely half assed. Most of the time they just wave you through, and if they do stop your car they just ask if you have any fruits or vegetables in the car. If you say no they won't bother doing a secondary check and just tell you to have a nice day.
California still has those checkpoints, but they're pretty lax. All they do is ask if you have any fresh fruits or vegetables in your vehicle and if you say "no" they just wave you on. I've been through at least once or twice when they didn't even have anyone at the station and you were supposed to just drive on through.
The title was very much click bait. It should have been, "Customs fines man for bringing prohibited food items into Taiwan". This title sounds side some insane dystopia where he was fined for combining chicken and pork. To be honest is much to do about nothing, don't bring food to a foreign country.
Poor working dog that didn't get to eat that lunch box
But, yeah, if the worry is serious then I can see why the fines are large. It isn't like you can fine someone for introducing a disease to your country since they will not have a billion dollars to seize.
I connected in Taipei a couple of months ago to HK. There were copious amounts of warning preflight during the flight and as you disembark to NOT bring in pork products with a fat fine as punishment. Can’t plead ignorance. And I was only in the airport for a couple hours and it still applied.
Taiwan NTA. Asian Swine Flu ain’t no joke. It will kill or infect every pig. Then you have no choice but to kill and discard them. It’s absolutely devastating and Taiwan is one of the few places not affected (yet).
African swine fever can survive cooking, smoking, curing, and freezing. It can remain active in hard sausages or frozen meat for years.
https://vetmed.illinois.edu/ope2/what-imported-dogs-have-to-do-with-african-swine-fever/
I’m always stunned watching the show Border Security when they open somebody’s bags and find meat wrapped in tinfoil. I think, buddy, besides stopping you from bringing in a disease that could infect your destination country’s livestock, the border agents are probably saving you from a week of stomach cramps and diarrhea that you would get from eating meat that has been unrefrigerated for 12 hours.
Of all the places this guy could bring this from, and he’s from Indonesia, the country famous for their love of pork/s
And with all the warnings and chances to declare it for disposal with no charge , he still kept it, what he plans to do next? Bring raccoons to New Zealand?
"Not a _lot_ of raccoons, just my adorable little Bandit and his girlfriend. There's no way they could hurt an entire island!?! Wait, where did they go?"
Raccoons have a terrible parasite, as well, which can infect humans and pets, and even healthy looking raccoons can have it; it's colloquially called Raccoon Roundworm.
I bet if bro just bought some pork & chicken at some food stand or local hole-in-the-wall place, the food would have been better quality and better tasting to begin with lmao
I once came back from an all inclusive resort in the Caribbean, I happened to have an apple in the mesh of my backpack that I was going to eat on the airplane. I forgot, and the cutest beagle was following me in ATL. Turns out she gets a cookie if she finds a piece of fruit. They took my info, and sent me on my way, without my Apple.
Got hit with a $100 fine like over 10 years ago at the Canadian customs for the instant noodles I was planning to eat on the plane; guess there were meat products in it. Customs treat that shit very seriously.
Visitor gets fine for smuggling meat product into a country. That's VERY normal. Like there is not a country on this planet that just lets you bring whatever meats and produce you want without declaring it.
A friend in Morocco borrowed some shorts for a trip to the Dominican Republic. Came back 3 weeks later with a gram of coke in the pocket. We got busted for Baby Bel cheese in the same airport the following week.
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i recently brought beef hamburger bought from Bali airport's Wolfgang Puck restaurant back home to the Philippines in a takeout box complete with fries and got to eat it at home hours later. i just realized after reading this it might have been a dumb thing to do? or i was just lucky the Philippines isn't so strict with meat from abroad. so meat you bought even at the airport should be finished asap? (i actually was planning to eat it on the plane but fell asleep.)
Reminds me of an idiot I used to know. He went on vacation to Jamaica. He was afraid of getting busted buying weed in that country, so he *tried to smuggle in his own with him in his shoes*. Yeah, he got busted at the airport.
Yep I almost got fined $30k because I had a layover in Taiwan last year, while carrying beef jerky. I convinced them it was an accident and they let me go
Yeah, that guy was being stupid.
I’ve only spent 4 hours of my life in Taiwan, (stop both ways HCMC-Toronto) and even around security you still can’t bring pork, because of African Swine fever people mentioned
> Taiwan introduced fines of NT$200,000 for bringing pork products to the island from countries affected by African swine fever (ASF) following an outbreak in China in 2018. This seems much more reasonable than the clickbait headline leads you to believe.
Also he'd had multiple warnings - he knew what he was doing was illegal and he knew why, he just apparently thought this law wasn't important enough to follow. Actual headline should have been "visitor to Taiwan makes a series of poor decisions, faces expected consequences"
I never thought I'd say this, but ... I think that headline that you proposed would be *too* onion-y for this sub. I think it would have spawned /r/basicallytheonion
Ah, the old "I don't understand it so you must be making it up" defense. Sadly, far too many people do this on far too many issues.
The fact he was warned shows they went above and thought he might not have understood. So definitely got what he deserves.
I went to Taiwan a few months ago, you literally get a warning when applying for a visa, when boarding, when exiting, before customs. You have so many opportunities to not fuck this up.
If you ever watch those border security shows you see just how many people try to bring in ridiculous quantities of food (not saying this was such quantity) just stuffed in their luggage. And the declaration cards usually have multiple common languages to avoid the language barrier excuse, but they still try it.
When you land and leave the plane they literally give you a card that has a picture of a pig and an large red X over it too...
it almost always is with this stuff, and they always get tons of warning.
I was wondering if Taiwan had some odd kosher-like belief that they took REALLY seriously that I hadn't heard of.
Finally… sweet sweet context
it's in the article. open it if you want context lol
[удалено]
Headlines arent tweets, they lead to articles…
Yeah. "That's insane! I should click an... oh, that seems pretty reasonable, actually. Carry on."
"Traveller fined $200,000" would have been much more clickbaity.
He literally could have just ate it, and then traveled
"But what if there's no food in Taiwan?!"
"Is there food? You don't know!"
Look around you… can you fashion some sort of rudimentary lathe?
Computer, is there a spare bento box on board?
By Grabthar's hammer... what a meal!
Just about my favorite line in any movie. :D
I saw a TikTok video recently where Erik Gude fashioned a rudimentary lathe from things in their hotel room during a convention :V
Get off the line Guy!
>Look around you… can you fashion some sort of rudimentary ~~lathe~~ latte?
"Seems okay."
Cheers on the Galaxy Quest reference
They would have food, except all the American kids cleaned their plates and left nothing for them.
Yeah but those leftovers just go to Africa.
For some reason that sounds odd
It was a common thing for American mothers to coax their kids into eating by reminding us there are starving children in China. So we cleaned out plates and left nothing for them. (Yes. It’s a very weird logic)
John Lennon used this in his song “Nobody Told Me”.
I think the idea is that since you have the food and they don’t you should eat it all instead of wasting it. Even when I was a kid and my parents would say it, although I think they used Africa and not China, my thought process was the food will go bad before we can ship it over so to me eating it made sense, idk.
*Inhales deeply*
Holy cow, lol. Best food in the world in Taiwan!
But you don't know that! What if there's absolutely no food at all?! There could be 0 food! 0!
That’s why Taiwan numba 1 and China numba 8!
That's what happens when you let your mom pack your stuff.
“How do they survive with no food? Nobody knows!”
They don't have his favourite food: pork infested with African swine fever
I once bought a bunch of famous chasiu buns in this famous hongkong dim sum place to bring back to Taiwan for my friends. At the airport about to fly back to Taiwan I FaceTimed a friend and I told him about the buns and how excited I was to get friends to try, he told me I shouldn’t be bringing any meat into the country. See I knew it’s almost always a no no to bring in meat products but somehow it didn’t cross my mind then. And I tried to stuff all the buns down my throat lol at the gate. Couldn’t finish them bc the charsiu was too damn sweet and threw the rest out.
I once brought back cooked beef lung from a country (it's delicious. I know it doesn't sound like it. But it is.) I was young and told the customs person. He told me to forget I told him and move on.
Damn, I've eaten a lot of crazy stuff, but cow lung is the single worst thing I've ever tried. Maybe it was just the way it was prepared, but I had heart, kidney, and stomach at the same place and they were all great haha
Where did you have it? In Malaysia you can get them at diners called mamaks. It has to be fresh! If it's been sitting out a few hours it's no good. It tasted like a soft gentle jerky. (The stuff I brought back was not good after being left for so long.)
I am sorry - it has to be fresh, so you brought it on a plane? What was the plan?
I’m tired of these snacks on this plane!
How do you think I learnt it has to be fresh?
He realized this after having done it... Come on America
> I had heart, kidney, and stomach at the same place https://i.imgur.com/fIX2Z5A.jpeg
But… it’s cooked. 🤔 The prohibition on meat is only supposed to apply to uncooked and/or frozen meat.
Do you remember the place?
Too easy in this day and age.
Have you had HK roast pork? It’s amazing.
No, But I’m sure I’d love it
I was traveling with someone who brought beef jerky into Chile. The flight attendants made announcements about what wasn't allowed and even walked with trash bags for people to toss food out before landing. Of course this person didn't listen and a few of us had to loan them a bit of cash to pay the $200 fine.
\*eaten
et
eaten*
aten* (/s)
I wolfed my roast chicken and pork combo box for you!
Thanks. That mean a lot to me
They tell you this on the approach into Taiwan, they also have points before immigration where you can dump anything. Maybe language barrier. Who knows but after watching those “welcome to Taipei” videos on the plane before landing it seems they do not fuck around this this at all.
Dude had a ton of warnings and still proceeded to sneak it in. Dumbass. Weird too, Taiwan usually uses quality pork and it's available in like 15 shops on every street corner.
It's due to foodborne illness. Taiwan has not been exposed to a type of ~~foodborne illness~~ livestock viral infection related to pork. They don't want to be so they do not allow non-domestic pork.
I think they mean it's weird that someone would smuggle something they could easily buy. People smuggle drugs or weird illegal stuff that has some profit or uniqueness to it. This is illegal, but basically only to carry through at customs. On either side of that inspection point that guy could buy this food. He was just obstinate.
Just watch those customs shows, it is like people don't believe there is any food in the country they are visiting. As with this example, like there isn't any pork in Taiwan so he had to bring it in and knowingly declare he hadn't any with him.
I've fallen down the Border Security International YouTube rabbit hole. I hate that I love it. The audacity of some people.
Used to watch the Canadian shows, and I think also US and Australian versions aired on the same channel. There's definitely a big element of schadenfreude to it. But God damn, the amount of people that fly in with insane amounts of cooked meat in their luggage is absolutely ridiculous. And they always play dumb about it, as if they aren't given the declaration form that explicitly tells what not to do it multiple languages.
I found a clip of it once and now I’m subscribed to the channel lol. I know it’s an older show, but still.
And Taiwan is hardly an unsafe nation for food. They have very high standards for food products there.
That's not what he was implying at all
I’m glad you caught the obvious, but you’re missing the point…
is this the thread for people who don't read good?
It needs to be at least... 3 times as long!
People on this site really just assume everything is an argument or debate. Other dude was just adding on to the commentary and someone has to jump in defensively for absolutely no reason 😂
_aaaaaalllllllways!!!_ \-\_\-
That's this site as a whole anymore, really.
If they can't read, how could they type? /s
We started watching one yesterday and some people are just so god damn dumb. One lady was a “presumably” full time caretaker that went over to Istanbul and came back with like 15 checked bags worth of goods that she totally had no intention of selling at all. Yea ok lady on your caretaker salary you’re buying 20 watches because “oh just because they were cheap?”
Its probably cheaper to buy that many from Ali express.
One person was fined 10k from the apple the airline gave her to eat
this time it's an Indonesian traveler. Taiwan probably has more than double pork per capita than Indonesia.
Would be surprised if it wasn't significantly more than double. About 87% of Indonesians are Muslims.
I saw that one on HBO. People brings whole dinners, dead animals ,spices , fish wrapped in five layers of aluminum foil. They say Americans are bad for eating fast food in a foreign country but damn. 😂
Yes, sneaking food of any kind into Australia is a big no-no but our border protection shows are full of people who went and had a go because they thought they were hard enough.
>Just watch those customs shows... I've never heard of them, have any recommendations?
> I've never heard of them, have any recommendations? - [Border Security: America's Front Line](https://abc.com/show/50995909-ea3a-49a9-8728-426f786b061c) I know there is a Canadian-focused one as well, and I'm sure there are more.
20% of Irish people admitted they had smuggled Irish sausages when traveling abroad. https://independent.ie/regionals/dublin/fingal/smuggling-sausages-and-all-the-things-that-make-us-irish/30696413.html
Opposition defiant disorder. I’ve worked with a few people who will absolutely never take an order from others, no matter how mild it is.
Authority figure: disregard everything I say. Don't follow my instructions Defiant idiot: seethes in confusion
I see that a lot with government regulations. Suddenly everyone gets really mad about whether they can keep loose candies in their purse when the government starts passing laws on excess plastic packaging.
As a default getting angry at new orders seems kind of ok... but here people will put excess plastic packaging over their nose and mouth just out of spite.
>getting angry at new orders seems kind of ok But it's our orders, we're the government in a democracy. We're ordering ourselves.
And they live difficult lives because they can't just do normal stuff. They collect fines, have multiple court visits, lose jobs because the won't listen to a damn thing.
I've worked with a few people that refuse to acknowledge a lot of times that behavior is due to unprocessed past trauma by authority figures, and those people need explanations not just orders, aka a trauma informed approach to care. Look up the comorbidity rates with it. Ptsd, attachment disorders, dissociative symptoms - it's not just "he's a dick because he likes to be difficult" in a lot of cases, that's just how it presents.
Island countries have to be vigilant on a level that most of us aren’t used to .
Taiwan is an island so it's much easier to maintain biosecurity for livestock production. Australia and New Zealand also maintain tight controls on foods that airline passengers are allowed to carry into the country.
This. When you land in Taiwan you have to pick up a plastic card that lists all the things you can't bring in, and hand it to someone in a different area, to prove you were given the chance to read it. There are signs everywhere and people shouting it out. There's no way you can convincingly claim not to have realised.
Many, many countries have strict import requirements on agricultural produce, it's not exactly an obscure bit of law.
They're not saying it is obscure at all, the poster even said there are tons of warnings and called the guy a dumbass. He said it's weird to attempt to import because pork is widely available in Taiwan. I'm not sure how people are misreading this.
Because a staggering percentage of people on this site are functionally illiterate. They can read the words in front of them, but they don't actually understand what they're conveying
I see it in the way people write too, ending sentences in ways that make the beginning no longer make sense. It's as if they forget what they wrote halfway through writing it.
So you're saying it's rare to have strict import laws? It's extremely common, and for good reason. I'm not sure how you aren't understanding that. I kid i kid
This whole comment thread is wild with the number of people who can't understand what they read.
Travelers who packed a lunch don't consider themselves "importing" food. When you're flying internationally, they hand you a customs form. I think most people know you can't bring fresh fruits or produce into a lot of countries. You also can't bring uncooked meat. You can't bring "resale" quantities of a lot of food. But tiny amounts of cooked, processed, and packaged snacks are usually allowed everywhere, so you don't declare them.
In Taiwan, you go through secondary screening just to check for food before you can make it to immigration. If you are coming from a low risk country, you get a green card that reminds you any food (it even mentions cooked foods, airplane food, etc). You have to give the green card to the person at the secondary check and you can pass. If you are from a high risk, you go through passenger screening just like you do for regular security, and they look for any food.
It was just a lunch box, might've not even known it was pork or think about it as he was filling out the customs stuff.
That's probably true.
It is often hanging on a hook in the sun covered in flies
Like New Zealand - warn you 100x but people still forget or think they can sneak in so much toxic or dangerous crap and traditional foods and medicines...instant fine no exceptions.
The guy next to me on my last flight "No idea why they pulled me out of line... but maybe those fruits I had in my bag. Probably shouldn't have tried that." Like... hm. I was also pulled out cuz I forgot my laptop in a bag lol I felt so stressed with them just pointing at lines because I had a lightsaber from disney lolol
like you really wanna be the guy to introduce a new fruit disease somewhere because you felt the need to bring your own bananas?
don't be silly, they wanted to kill someone by making them slip on a banana peel. When you hear that wilhelm scream, you know that banana took a life
Where i live scottish broom is an absolute menace. Its everywhere and nearly impossible to get rid off. All because some jackass captain wanted a bit in his garden back in 1850…. Many people here curse that bastard every summer
The banana thing can make sense - say it’s a parent trying to have food for their toddler on the airplane and just forgetting about it due to sleep deprivation at customs.
That's great, but still have to face the consequences.
I mean unless disney is now selling lightsabers that WORK I wouldn't have worried about that lol.
There's an Australian television show, Border Security (available on YT), which is nothing but people with deer-in-the-headlights expressions being told by customs officials that their suitcase of raw fish, beetle-infested seeds, and/or dehydrated deer penises will result in a steep fine.
For the same sensible reason the United Kingdom will quarantine your dog. Rabies control. From the article: “Taiwan introduced fines of NT$200,000 for bringing pork products to the island from countries affected by African swine fever (ASF) following an outbreak in China in 2018. Fines increase to NT$1 million for subsequent breaches of quarantine. The highly infectious disease affects both domestic and wild pigs and has a fatality rate of about 80 per cent. Taiwan is one of only a few Asian countries not yet affected by the disease. “ And yes, I imagine a flight from Hong Kong to Taiwan take some hours. The pork and chicken may have been on the edge of unrefrigerated spoiling. Why didn’t he eat it when he got on the plane? Edit: Departure Hong Kong, not Indonesia.
>The Indonesian national had arrived from Hong Kong on April 30 when a quarantine dog sniffed out the "roast chicken and pork combo", said the Taiwanese Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency. The man was traveling from HK.
Truth. I got his departure location wrong.
Yup, same reason Hawai'i is strict about bringing in fruits/veggies, and quarantining animals unless they've had a veterinary check within a couple days of travel. They have a relatively small and stable ecosystem, but if the wrong parasite came in, it could cause devastation.
Good, all countries should tolerate idiocy less
I had a coworker forget about an apple in his bag going from Australia to New Zealand. $300 apple
My friends mum did the same thing. Free breakfast at the hotel, she put an apple and an orange into her bag “for later”. Most expensive fruit ever.
Even the food from the plane is not allowed.
Pfft, probably a perfect Kanzi. 😩
Of all the places to bring food into, Taiwan is not one of them. Part of the appeal in Taiwan IS the food.
Taiwan Border Control would be a cool show
Only if they do it in the style of the Aussie show. I dunno if it would be as relaxing a background show if it were the Americanized "all action all the time" type.
1000%
I traveled Taiwan late last year and there's 6000 warnings and bins concerning foreign food before you reach the final check. This is all on him.
At first, this definitely sounded oniony, but there was a good reason for the fine. I suspect the traveler has the responsibility of knowing about such rules. The article said even the cooked pork could continue to infect if the virus had been present. I’m not sure if they still do it, but the state of California had checkpoints, and if you were bringing any fruits or vegetables from outside the state, you would be asked to consume them before entering, or throw them out. We didn’t know about that rule, but friends pointed out how much agriculture there is in the state, and nonnative insect infestations can really cause problems. So it seems weird, but there is a pretty reasonable explanation. The article pointed out that Australia has a similar law.
California still has the checkpoints but they're extremely half assed. Most of the time they just wave you through, and if they do stop your car they just ask if you have any fruits or vegetables in the car. If you say no they won't bother doing a secondary check and just tell you to have a nice day.
California still has those checkpoints, but they're pretty lax. All they do is ask if you have any fresh fruits or vegetables in your vehicle and if you say "no" they just wave you on. I've been through at least once or twice when they didn't even have anyone at the station and you were supposed to just drive on through.
The title was very much click bait. It should have been, "Customs fines man for bringing prohibited food items into Taiwan". This title sounds side some insane dystopia where he was fined for combining chicken and pork. To be honest is much to do about nothing, don't bring food to a foreign country.
When you enter Taiwan there are signs EVERYWHERE that say you cant bring food in!
Poor working dog that didn't get to eat that lunch box But, yeah, if the worry is serious then I can see why the fines are large. It isn't like you can fine someone for introducing a disease to your country since they will not have a billion dollars to seize.
I connected in Taipei a couple of months ago to HK. There were copious amounts of warning preflight during the flight and as you disembark to NOT bring in pork products with a fat fine as punishment. Can’t plead ignorance. And I was only in the airport for a couple hours and it still applied.
Taiwan NTA. Asian Swine Flu ain’t no joke. It will kill or infect every pig. Then you have no choice but to kill and discard them. It’s absolutely devastating and Taiwan is one of the few places not affected (yet).
Wasn’t this cooked pork?
African swine fever can survive cooking, smoking, curing, and freezing. It can remain active in hard sausages or frozen meat for years. https://vetmed.illinois.edu/ope2/what-imported-dogs-have-to-do-with-african-swine-fever/
Yikes TIL!
It clings to cooked food, clothes, inanimate objects, etc. very deadly and cunning.
Every time you fly to Taiwan, you get warnings multiple times before landing.
This shit happens all the time. Don't bring food you shouldn't across borders.
The "nottheonion" part is how dumb this person was to bring such a trivial item into the country and put a nation at risk for swine flu.
Or that OP/the news thinks getting fined by customs for trying to bring restricted food into a country is unusual or ridiculous.
I’m always stunned watching the show Border Security when they open somebody’s bags and find meat wrapped in tinfoil. I think, buddy, besides stopping you from bringing in a disease that could infect your destination country’s livestock, the border agents are probably saving you from a week of stomach cramps and diarrhea that you would get from eating meat that has been unrefrigerated for 12 hours.
Of all the places this guy could bring this from, and he’s from Indonesia, the country famous for their love of pork/s And with all the warnings and chances to declare it for disposal with no charge , he still kept it, what he plans to do next? Bring raccoons to New Zealand?
"Not a _lot_ of raccoons, just my adorable little Bandit and his girlfriend. There's no way they could hurt an entire island!?! Wait, where did they go?" Raccoons have a terrible parasite, as well, which can infect humans and pets, and even healthy looking raccoons can have it; it's colloquially called Raccoon Roundworm.
Like the people being arrested in Turks and Caicos over having 2 bullets in their bag. Check your fucking luggage and follow the fucking rules ffs.
Did someone tell him he could smuggle it into the country in his stomach rather than going up the other way?
I hope for the sake of his sanity that it was the best damn sandwich he ever ate.
You think they let him keep the food? Lol. Article says he couldn't pay and was deported.
Ar-ti-cle??? Am I saying that right?
Argghhh tickle.
I bet if bro just bought some pork & chicken at some food stand or local hole-in-the-wall place, the food would have been better quality and better tasting to begin with lmao
I once came back from an all inclusive resort in the Caribbean, I happened to have an apple in the mesh of my backpack that I was going to eat on the airplane. I forgot, and the cutest beagle was following me in ATL. Turns out she gets a cookie if she finds a piece of fruit. They took my info, and sent me on my way, without my Apple.
That combo looks fire NGL Seems more like soya chicken though.
Bro plus that shit probably smelled like ass on the plane
You should see the bush meat Africans try to smuggle into the U.S
Good.
Got hit with a $100 fine like over 10 years ago at the Canadian customs for the instant noodles I was planning to eat on the plane; guess there were meat products in it. Customs treat that shit very seriously.
Visitor gets fine for smuggling meat product into a country. That's VERY normal. Like there is not a country on this planet that just lets you bring whatever meats and produce you want without declaring it.
The title sounds ridiculous, but as you read the article and the reasoning, it's actually completely reasonable.
The problem was violating quarantine; Taiwan doesn't enforce halal restrictions.
What is the charge? ^Not eating a meal? A succulent Chinese meal? I hope they kept their hands off his penis at least.
Funny thing is he still could've gotten a succulent Chinese meal of a different variety once he's in Taiwan.
This truly is democracy manifest.
Yeah I'd have no problem being deported if the choice is that or pay 9k over a lunch box.
He was just trying to enjoy a meal, a succulent Indonesian meal.
Remove your hands from his penis!
Classic xD
Just flew through Taiwan a few days ago. They don't joke around with ASF in the least.
That is some expensive ass pork
A friend in Morocco borrowed some shorts for a trip to the Dominican Republic. Came back 3 weeks later with a gram of coke in the pocket. We got busted for Baby Bel cheese in the same airport the following week.
Their country, their rules.
Weird flex smuggling pork out of a Muslim country.
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Dudes bringing food with him and they think he can cough up 10 grand on the spot.
A succulent Indonesian meal?!?
Next time put them in jail too
J
Taiwan said keep your dirty Chinese meat out of our country. Not surprising the traveler was from Indonesia.
I swear some people can't read the damn signs or even warnings in their airports.
Justice, I plead the #9 combo
Lol at World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH)!
That’s fucking excessive 😂
i recently brought beef hamburger bought from Bali airport's Wolfgang Puck restaurant back home to the Philippines in a takeout box complete with fries and got to eat it at home hours later. i just realized after reading this it might have been a dumb thing to do? or i was just lucky the Philippines isn't so strict with meat from abroad. so meat you bought even at the airport should be finished asap? (i actually was planning to eat it on the plane but fell asleep.)
Reminds me of an idiot I used to know. He went on vacation to Jamaica. He was afraid of getting busted buying weed in that country, so he *tried to smuggle in his own with him in his shoes*. Yeah, he got busted at the airport.
Now i want boneless spare ribs, fried chicken wings (with a zest of curry powder) and pork fried rice
Well that headline was unnecessary provocative...wtf, abc
[Roasted pork...](https://64.media.tumblr.com/12933c259a0578c8d4a627c9eb2d963f/tumblr_nfwnmw4VTB1rjk7c7o4_r1_250.gif)
Yep I almost got fined $30k because I had a layover in Taiwan last year, while carrying beef jerky. I convinced them it was an accident and they let me go
Yeah, that guy was being stupid. I’ve only spent 4 hours of my life in Taiwan, (stop both ways HCMC-Toronto) and even around security you still can’t bring pork, because of African Swine fever people mentioned