My career teaching English in Taiwan may be over on September 25th. That's because the 25th is the draw date for the Taiwanese shopping receipt lottery and I have about 100 chances to win! It doesn't matter if you buy a new fridge or a bottle of water, every purchase in Taiwan earns you a chance to win- the above picture is of the receipts I collected after only 2 weeks and I didn't really buy much of anything!
Why? In an effort to get business owners to keep things on the books (AKA pay their taxes), the government came up with the receipt lottery. The theory is that with millions in winnings on the line customers would start demanding receipts and merchants would wind up with all their income on the books. And it works- when I buy something I stand there until I get my receipt. I want my chance to win! Each receipt has a unique 8-digit number and you can win various amounts of money by matching 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8 of the numbers.
Are these the lucky numbers? If you notice a sudden stop to our blogging after the 25th, you can draw your own conclusions!
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