A two-year addiction to claw machines has landed a man in Changhua County’s Tianjhong Township (田中) with a NT$150,000 monthly salary repairing the games.
Two years ago, Wu Wei-en (巫維恩), 20, was helping his older sister move into a building in Tainan when he noticed a claw machine outlet on the first floor.
Deciding to try his luck, he won a robot vacuum cleaner that retails for about NT$300 after having fed NT$3,000 into the machines.
Photo: Yen Hung-chun, Taipei Times
Wu said that from that moment he became addicted to claw machines.
It was as if he had become “possessed,” he said.
Every day, he would follow experts’ advice on the Internet and then play at different stores, he said.
Soon, he was spending all of his salary and savings on the game, said Wu, who was earning NT$35,000 a month as a solar panel repairman at the time.
In his first year as a claw machine player, he found himself in debt, he said.
He traveled across the nation to play claw machines, at one point spending NT$7,000 to NT$8,000 a day, he said.
His parents urged him to stop, but he did not listen, Wu said, adding that he ended up borrowing money from family and friends to cover expenses.
However, after a year, he became an expert player, and was skilled enough to win enough items to pay down his debts, he said.
The speed of the claw and the rhythm of its swing all help determine a player’s chances of winning a prize, he said.
Winning a prize comes down to “whether or not you understand this machine’s personality,” Wu said, adding that he typically can determine whether a machine is “worth playing” after 40 to 50 tries.
Today, he has about NT$500,000 of prizes — including high-value electronics — that he sells online when he needs money, he said.
About six months ago, Wu met the owner of a chain of claw machine outlets who was impressed by his skills and hired him as a repairman.
Now, Wu earns NT$150,000 a month tuning and repairing claw machines.
He never thought that working with claw machines could be his career, Wu said.
When he was addicted to the game, he had to “beg for food,” and now the game is his livelihood, he said.
A Taiwanese woman on Sunday was injured by a small piece of masonry that fell from the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican during a visit to the church. The tourist, identified as Hsu Yun-chen (許芸禎), was struck on the forehead while she and her tour group were near Michelangelo’s sculpture Pieta. Hsu was rushed to a hospital, the group’s guide to the church, Fu Jing, said yesterday. Hsu was found not to have serious injuries and was able to continue her tour as scheduled, Fu added. Mathew Lee (李世明), Taiwan’s recently retired ambassador to the Holy See, said he met
A BETRAYAL? It is none of the ministry’s business if those entertainers love China, but ‘you cannot agree to wipe out your own country,’ the MAC minister said Taiwanese entertainers in China would have their Taiwanese citizenship revoked if they are holding Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. Several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑) and Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), earlier this month on their Weibo (微博) accounts shared a picture saying that Taiwan would be “returned” to China, with tags such as “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Adhere to the ‘one China’ principle.” The MAC would investigate whether those Taiwanese entertainers have Chinese IDs and added that it would revoke their Taiwanese citizenship if they did, Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper
The Chinese wife of a Taiwanese, surnamed Liu (劉), who openly advocated for China’s use of force against Taiwan, would be forcibly deported according to the law if she has not left Taiwan by Friday, National Immigration Agency (NIA) officials said yesterday. Liu, an influencer better known by her online channel name Yaya in Taiwan (亞亞在台灣), obtained permanent residency via marriage to a Taiwanese. She has been reported for allegedly repeatedly espousing pro-unification comments on her YouTube and TikTok channels, including comments supporting China’s unification with Taiwan by force and the Chinese government’s stance that “Taiwan is an inseparable part of China.” Liu
FATE UNKNOWN: The owner of the dog could face a fine of up to NT$150,000 and the animal could be euthanized if he cannot show that he can effectively supervise it A pit bull terrier has been confiscated by authorities after it yesterday morning bit a motorcyclist in Taipei, following footage of the same dog in a similar attack going viral online earlier this month. When the owner, surnamed Hsu (徐), stopped at a red light on Daan District’s (大安) Wolong Street at 8am, the dog, named “Lucky,” allegedly rolled down the automatic window of the pickup truck they were riding in, leapt out of the rear passenger window and attacked a motorcyclist behind them, Taipei’s Daan District Police Precinct said. The dog clamped down on the man’s leg and only let go
RSS