My Fulbright Year in Taiwan

When you need to get out of the sticky heat, where do you go? A coffee shop, of course. That’s where you can pay $2.50 for a tiny cup of coffee, but get free WiFi, A/C, and no one will care if you sit there all day. This is something that is commonplace in the US nowadays, but it’s something that I was enjoying in Taiwan back in the 1980s (minus the WiFi, of course).

I was talking about this with my mother-in-law this morning. She sais that she saw a mother and her child in a coffee shop one day. The mother was drinking coffee and doing paperwork for her job, and her child was eating a snack and doing his homework. My mother-in-law thought it was so strange that someone could actually get work done in that kind of environment. I told her that many people, especially college kids, find that they get more work done in a coffee shop than in their own room or even in the library. When they are in a quiet room with no distractions, they actually find it harder to concentrate.

In response to this, my mother-in-law gave me her famous sideways look that says, “I understand the words coming out of your mouth, but I think you’re out of your mind.” I find that when I try to explain my world to her, I often get look.