In Kenting (southern Taiwan), if you want a native English speaker to guide you and take care of getting you equipped, etc., you should arrange things in advance by contacting either the guy at
www.taiwandive.com - Kenting - Green Island - Orchid Island - XiaoLiuChiuor the guy at
Shellback Diver There's at least one other native English speaker in Kenting who's an instructor but I don't have his contact info. You can find his card (his name's John something) at the Surf Shack in Hengchun town in Kenting if you don't want to arrange things in advance, or if the other two guys' schedules are already booked for when you'll want to go diving.
If you're with someone who can speak Chinese, you can take care of your own needs through Dive New World, in central Kenting town,
http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/dive_new_world or
dive_new_world@yahoo.com.tw or through Long Jing Dive Resort,
http://www.longjing.com.tw or
boss@longjing.com.tw Both Long Jing and New World have cheap dive hostels (around NT$400 per night per diver per bed) if your budget is a concern. They'll both rent you all of the requisite kit, and a vehicle to get to the shore diving sites, for a fair price. There's yet another decent dive center/hostel a few hundred meters behind the Houbihu harbor but I don't have their contact info and I can't recall the name.
Nice shore diving sites in Kenting include the Flower Garden (sorry, I don't know the Chinese name), the Pillbox (Hejie), and a handful of others (e.g., the power plant outlet (Qu Shui Kou) is OK). Some sites which lack good coral reefs sometimes offer other interesting and less common marine life (e.g., I've seen frogfish at Shan Hai -- find the submgered line near the mouth of the little harbor and follow it out to the bommies). There's a decent dive site map on the wall at Long Jing, although it's not really detailed enough for you to easily find all the entry/exit points by yourself if you've never dived those sites before. Andy's website (taiwandive) also has descriptions of a lot of the Kenting dive sites but no map to get you to them on your own. In any event, although a lot of these sites offer fairly easy diving, getting in and out over the rocks in crashing surf can be dangerous, so my $0.02 is that you'd do best by diving these sites with a guide who knows them, rather than just trying your luck on your own.
After you dive in Taiwan, please post a trip report and tell us about your dives.