[Antonio]

Assuming you are in Australia asking these questions to your local visa office.

Below is the advice we give to our teachers heading to Taiwan. They haven't had any problems doing it this way.

VISA OFFICE. Go to your local Taipei Trade or Cultural Office with your flight ticket, passport photos, passport and bank statement in hand. Apply for a 60-day multiple-entry visitor visa. The reason for the multiple-entry versus the single-entry is that you may want to go out of the country on a short holiday during your stay in Taiwan. If you have a single-entry visa and decide to go to the Philippines or Thailand, you will have to go to Hong Kong for a visa application run to be able to get back into Taiwan.

If they can't give you a multiple-entry visitor visa, just get a single entry visitor visa. If the visitor visa they give you is non-extendable visa, it's ok. You can still have it converted to an extendable visa when you are in Taiwan.

It is essential that you get a visa. Do not just fly into Taiwan and get a visa at the airport. That kind of visa is called a landing visa and it's totally non-extendable and can't be converted to an extendable visa/work visa.

In your visa application, indicate the purpose of travel is TOURISM. This will make the visa application move faster. Never tell them you're coming to Taiwan to work. This may sound strange, but if you try to apply for a work visa in your home country, it takes months of waiting and running around having documents translated, notarized and stuff. If you come to Taiwan with a regular visa, the process to get a work visa takes around 2 months and you can start working even if the work visa hasn't come out yet.