A friend of mine just went on vacation to Taiwan for a few weeks. He said these are what Taiwanese talk about besides food:
- Travel
- Career Advancement
- Population Decline
- Japan
I’m surprised rent and mortgage weren’t on the list.
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rent and mortgage are so much yesterday’s news.
the youngsters nowadays just care about the current moment in time, selfies of them eating in ridiculously priced (and bad quality) restaurants.
The two constants appear to be travel and Japan, which are generally related.
My Taiwanese wife just went to Tokyo with her mom and said it is so cheap there, especially cool clothing.
Korean soap operas are very popular .
Food is always a biggie.
Interesting to get outsiders perspective. Talking about making money is always a big one here, young and old (go into a coffeeshop and eavesdrop their conversations).
In order to advance the cause of science, I will tell you everything I hear Taiwan people talk about today. I now proceed to have breakfast with my wife…
…and she’s busy looking at her phone messages. I kiss her, she tells me I smell good. Detecting the sound of the steamer, I ask her what she’s making. She says mantou. Then it’s back to her phone.
Riveting stuff, I’m sure. I’ll keep you informed.
UPDATE: Misc. romantic banter. She asks me a question about the US Congress (after reading some news article about it), then we talk about boxing. I do the laundry, she goes to the market. At some point we’ll probably discuss our plans for Mothers Day.
UPDATE 2: New topic: which of my old clothes to throw out. I’m going to go buy milk.
UPDATE 3: Over dinner (with my parents-in-law and brother-in-law), steady discussion about the food, and also about what dishes to cook during the weekend. Also discussion about the whereabouts and activities of various relatives. These topics are related, since several relatives will visit for Mothers Day. Someone proposed that the TV be turned off (it was tuned to a travel program about China). Normally they leave it on.
UPDATE 4: My sister-in-law rings the bell, and returns some magazines (Tian Xia, a newsweekly) that she apparently borrowed from my wife. She also asks me to deliver an old printer to their mother / my mother-in-law to be recycled. (My mother-in-law is one of those recycling ladies. She lives two blocks away, the sister-in-law across the street.) I do so. My wife is there. She laments the fact that such an expensive item would so soon be destined for the recycling truck. I observe that this is a defining quality of our age. She sends me back to go collect our own recycling.
I neglected to mention that my sister-in-law and I also discussed a certain neighborhood dog who had been let out and was sniffing her / pissing on our potted plants.
UPDATE 5: After calling my mother, the Mrs. and I discussed my family, and our plans to visit them during the summer. She also sent me to the sister-in-law’s house to see if her refrigerator had room for some of the vegetables she bought, that wouldn’t fit in ours.
I’m going to go to bed now. I hope this has been helpful.
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I’ll tell you what they don’t talk about: four English teams in two European finals…not a word about that. #itsascandal
I think European soccer finals with teams from the same country should be disallowed (#boring), let’s talk about THAT. 
Stock market is a thing too. They “gambled” a lot there, I saw old the time young people and old people watching the stock in the phone, so I supposed they like day trade.
and I hear my girlfriend talking about stock with their friend many times.
Korean drama is another one.
I hyped place too eat or drink
Japanese things are cheap? How does that make any sense?
It is weird; in my office everyone always goes to Japan every time they go abroad. Unless it’s a honeymoon in which case they go to Europe.
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A lot of consumer goods are cheaper in Japan than they are in Taiwan. Consumers here are getting reamed.
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general ribbing of one another
politics
marriages
kids
exercise
sports
games
Japanese comics
movies
that’s pretty much conversations I have at work anyway.
Honeymoons in my wife’s family: one sibling-in-law stayed in Taiwan, two went to New Zealand, my nephew went to Iceland, and we went to India.
I think you’ll find that New Zealand is actually in Europe, right next to Austria…
You must be thinking of Old Zeeland, right next to Belgium. But did you know that Formosa and Armenia are both in South America?
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Every other person who comes back from Japan has a pair of Dyson vacuum cleaners and every tour group does a daily visit to Japanese drug stores.
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It’s a fairly recent thing with the cheap yen and the low cost flights . Japan is very popular with western tourists and Chinese as well.
Wait, New Zeeland is real?
I thought Tolkien made it up
Also, do Taiwanese talk about the Chinese threat a lot?
Some talk about the welcoming party for when they come.
they do whenever the topic of Terry Gou arises or that of the KMT Kaohsiung mayor
ZZZzzzzz…