Common denominator

Day four of this week-long-blogathon and I’m feeling the fatigue/writer’s block. There are a couple of topics that I really want to write about but somehow it’s after midnight and I just don’t think I have the energy to do them justice. Instead, here are a collection of things I’ve written while hanging out at some of my favorite 7-11’s that have been strung together…

 

Wait – I know some of you my dear readers might be thinking – this convenience store thing is truly getting to be too much! Not only have I ranted about how they are actually everywhere, and how they are actually useful for everything (from printing to fresh coffee to paying bills to hot food) but I actually just loiter around there? Yes. Often.

 

People ebb and flow through convenience stores, sometimes stopping for a while to sit at the café tables. I’ve taken to doing the same, originally just to mimic those around me, but now simply because it is just a good place to sit and do some working, thinking and observing. It’s not the traditional feeling of Taiwan, but it’s every bit an important part of living in Taiwan today. Even pop culture features convenience stores as simply an aspect of life (see 我可能不會愛你, where the protagonists have plenty of heart-touching moments while working overtime together in a 7-11). When I’ve spent time with my Taiwanese friends or family, it seems like we always end up with a stop at 7-11. Convenience stores come up as an example in class to talk about daily living situations. They are a phenomenon that absolutely cannot be overlooked in modern Taiwanese culture.

 

I can’t help but think about how today’s generation of Taiwanese children are going to grow up entirely immersed in this phenomenon. I know I would have loved these 7-11’s as a child – somehow each of them is exactly the same – same brands, same cheerful ding-dong singing when someone activates the door sensor. Yet each has a slightly different set up – as most of them have taken over previously existing spaces and the layout is simply what made the most sense. Some of them have large seating areas – outside, inside or both. Maybe there is only a single table outside on the slanted sidewalk that is often crowded by mopeds and there is only a thin counter of space by the window with a few stools to sit. Some have no loitering space at all – buy your coffee, your tea egg, your gift box, your toilet paper, your sanitary pads, your magazines, your 關東煮 and move on.

 

Still, the best stores are the ones that have space to loiter. I love to see how hanging out at a 7-11 or a 全家 serves as a common denominator. Every kind of Taiwanese person seems to end up sitting in a convenience store at some point, from business men negotiating contracts to high school students still wearing their uniforms pouring over manga to the middle-aged couple that I watched playing a game together on a tablet.  Oblivious to the rest of the flow of food traffic in and out of the store, they huddled close, laughing and murmuring in hushed tones. Somehow the two of them cultivated all the intimacy of a cozy room in the midst of the bright fluorescent lights; she alternated between hunching close to the screen, and gently resting her head on his shoulder. Yet achieving intimacy within a convenience store is actually simple enough. I had the pleasure of befriending a bakery owner in Taipei (a story to be elaborated on), and often would drink a beer or two with him at the closest 全家. Of course he was friends with the manager and many of the staff: it seemed to be his nightly ritual to drink a Heineken or two and shoot the shit with whoever was around. It was homey enough.

 

And since moving to Tainan, I’ve started to become a regular at a couple of stores of my own. Sometimes there’s just a lot of studying to be done, and the best way to mix it up is to do it in a 7-11. I might pause to eavesdrop on the family drama happening at the next table over or to watch a particularly basketball-shaped child wander through the store. The roundness of his moped helmet only emphasized the pudginess of his cheeks, just as the insulated vest he wore puffed up his girth. His backpack straps had slipped off his shoulders to hang on his elbows, dropping the bag to his butt, further transforming his shape from a precariously balanced upright human to a little trundling creature. He shuffled between different displays that were taller than he – first the coin-automated toy dispenser, then the special offer of toys nestled by the hard liquors. Was he waiting for the moped driver to go to the bathroom? Was he collecting a prize from a hard day of studying and obedience? But my reverie trailed away after he finally he selected the greatest object of his desires and disappeared between the aisles, leaving me to vaguely observe the flux of other people and continue studying…

 

 

 

ps. While procrastinating writing today, I spent a few minutes digging around in my archives. Turns out that I wrote some interesting things last year (or at least I think so). Just in case you haven’t read enough of my thoughts recently and you missed those older entries…

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