It is 3am in France, and I would kill for a midnight snack. My fridge and shelves are empty, supermarkets are closed. At night, almost every shop is closed except McDonald’s.
The only thing left to do is to try to fall asleep and wait until tomorrow when the shops open again.
Things are different in Taiwan. Convenience stores are everywhere. This is quite life changing. Do you want something to eat? No matter the time, you can find something. You have just cut yourself and need a bandage? You would find it there. Need to print your train tickets? I can basically access everything no matter what time it is.
Before coming to Taiwan, I already knew about convenience stores. In fact, convenience stores, particularly 7-Eleven, are famous back in France. Almost every teenager has stumbled on influencers traveling to Japan or South Korea and reviewing the convenience stores’ items at least once. Most of the time, you would see them trying out new drinks, rice triangles, instant noodles, ice cream and so on. Convenience stores are considered really advanced and cool in France.
Naturally, I was very excited when I entered the first 7-Eleven I saw in Kaohsiung. I could not believe I was finally experiencing what I had seen through social media. I even recorded bits of the store and sent it to my friends. What really struck me was the variety of drinks and their packaging. Back in France, packaging is not as sophisticated as it is here. The products here look so cute that it makes you want to buy them. This cuteness to appeal to customers is one of the biggest cultural differences I encountered so far. On top of that, every other product was appealing to me since it was relatively cheaper than in France.
I had just moved into a new room, so I bought a lot of essentials from a 7-Eleven. I could not help but think of how convenient that store was.
Now that I have been here for a few months, my opinion about convenience stores has evolved. Of course, I still find them really convenient, but I came down to earth and realized that they are in fact more expensive than regular supermarkets. However, that does not stop me from going there at least once a day. This made me realize that convenience stores make me want to consume much more. Indeed, they are open 24/7 and are rarely more than 10 minutes away by foot, even less with a motorbike. How tempting.
The other day, I came back quite late from my practice at the skatepark. I was really thirsty and my friends and I wanted to pass by the 7-Eleven near our house to buy some snacks. Even though I could have waited only five minutes more to get to our home and drink water for free, I decided to buy a water bottle at the store. This story might sound futile, but it made me realize how convenience stores enhance tendencies of consumerism. Now that everything can be acquired fast, I do not take the time to actually ask myself if what I want is really necessary or not.
Convenience stores are indeed very convenient for the day-to-day, but definitely push people to consume more. The products that they sell are not of very good quality either, but it is that way so that they can be accessible to everyone. Not having that kind of shop in France definitely pushes me to be more organized when I do grocery shopping. However, even after coming to that conclusion, I know I would not help but miss them once I am back in France.
Lucia Caneque Bueno is a French exchange student in the Department of International Affairs at Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages.
There is much evidence that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is sending soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and is learning lessons for a future war against Taiwan. Until now, the CCP has claimed that they have not sent PLA personnel to support Russian aggression. On 18 April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinskiy announced that the CCP is supplying war supplies such as gunpowder, artillery, and weapons subcomponents to Russia. When Zelinskiy announced on 9 April that the Ukrainian Army had captured two Chinese nationals fighting with Russians on the front line with details
Within Taiwan’s education system exists a long-standing and deep-rooted culture of falsification. In the past month, a large number of “ghost signatures” — signatures using the names of deceased people — appeared on recall petitions submitted by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) against Democratic Progressive Party legislators Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) and Wu Pei-yi (吳沛憶). An investigation revealed a high degree of overlap between the deceased signatories and the KMT’s membership roster. It also showed that documents had been forged. However, that culture of cheating and fabrication did not just appear out of thin air — it is linked to the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), joined by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), held a protest on Saturday on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei. They were essentially standing for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which is anxious about the mass recall campaign against KMT legislators. President William Lai (賴清德) said that if the opposition parties truly wanted to fight dictatorship, they should do so in Tiananmen Square — and at the very least, refrain from groveling to Chinese officials during their visits to China, alluding to meetings between KMT members and Chinese authorities. Now that China has been defined as a foreign hostile force,
On April 19, former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) gave a public speech, his first in about 17 years. During the address at the Ketagalan Institute in Taipei, Chen’s words were vague and his tone was sour. He said that democracy should not be used as an echo chamber for a single politician, that people must be tolerant of other views, that the president should not act as a dictator and that the judiciary should not get involved in politics. He then went on to say that others with different opinions should not be criticized as “XX fellow travelers,” in reference to
RSS