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Wednesday, August 20, 2014

The ever changing social and economical fabric

The rural parts of Taiwan is as non-international as one can imagine. You will hardly see any foreigner and if/when a foreigner walks on the streets of rural Taiwan, he/she will be met with strange eyes of people seeing things that they rare get to see.

Well that's changed in a very different way.

Back in the days, my grandparents' little town are just filled with two types of people. Old folks who were born and raised locally as well as young kids who's parents are too busy working in the cities. The old folks have been thrifty all their lives and it's become more of a habit than a practice. Therefore, there wasn't a whole lot of consumerism happening in town. Most of the stores in town service broken products more than selling new ones.

Most of the old folks, being thrifty, do not eat out, so it's quite a dead end business if you open a restaurant here. Needless to say, opening a western style breakfast place is tough. That's what it used to be, not anymore.

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Nope, this isn't in a western country. It's also not in Taipei or the big cities. It's in my grandparents' town's breakfast shop.

You see, when the young moves out of town and when there's no one else left to work in the local factories, they hire foreign labors. Thailand, Vietnam etc, and these folks have very few places to go during their spare time. They make money, not much, but always need some form of entertainment. Other than the occasional trip to the city, the most convenient place to hang out will be in the little town. The once old folk dominated economy is not taken over by foreign workers, and to get their business, you've to do something about the menus. English becomes the money-making language.

It's simply hilarious that when we talk about learning, we always try to find motivations and there's no motivation stronger than the need to make money!

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