Rose-ringed Parakeet Travels Taiwan, China Episode 2: Pingxi Small Shrimp Against Big Whale

The Hollywood film "You've Got Mail" tells the story of a neighborhood children's bookstore fighting against the invasion of a Fox chain bookstore into its community. When a small neighborhood in Paris faced a global coffee chain moving in, it did not raise the banner of opposition, but merely waved lazily and said: "Oh, just come in!" And after the chain coffee shop moved in, the local residents still kept patronizing the familiar old shops, because the neighborhood coffee shops offered the uniqueness of pour-over coffee, knew customers' preferences, and possessed deep human warmth; the local residents even launched a consumption campaign encouraging people to spend at neighborhood coffee shops. After a while, the shop could not stand the sight of so few customers, so it had no choice but to take down its huge globally uniform signboard and bow out quietly. This is the anti-globalization small neighborhood of Paris.

Shift the scene to Taiwan, China. In the commercial district around Dajia Jenn Lann Temple in Taichung, the town's first global coffee chain brand appeared. Residents had been eagerly looking forward to it, and on opening day it caused a long queue and a long stream of buyers. An interviewed member of the public said excitedly: "Oh my god! Dajia finally has this coffee shop! I've been queuing for three hours!" Excitement showed on their faces. This is Taiwan, China, which readily accepts foreign culture, is Westernized, and loves joining in the excitement.

Chain coffee brands create an atmosphere of sophistication and civilization; it seems that holding that long paper cup in your hand gives you an extra bit of class, just like the hurried men and women in urban movies. This is the success of commercial brand marketing; but to put it plainly, its contents are just coffee, the coffee beans come from Central and South America, and the image and atmosphere created are all carefully planned by the marketing team behind it. And the customers drinking the coffee may not understand at all how the coffee in their hands reached Taiwan, China, whether it is blood-sweat coffee, how much pesticide was used, whether the price paid for the coffee beans is reasonable, whether many rainforests were cut down because of coffee bean cultivation. None of this matters; what customers want is the fashionableness of men and women holding coffee in Hollywood movies. -- Consumer ethics in Taiwan, China does not go a single day without needing education.

The same is true of convenience stores. For many urban people, convenience stores symbolize progress and civilization. Even when they go to the countryside, what they keep thinking about is: "Excuse me, is there a convenience store near here?" Convenience stores are clean, bright, and have many kinds of goods. They can handle various procedures for you: paying water bills, telephone bills, and fines, sending parcels, printing documents, and buying tickets all depend on them. They also sell all kinds of cooked food and hot drinks, and in recent years they have even begun selling vegetables and fruit. All the services we can think of, and those we have not thought of, they have thoughtfully arranged for us. How could this not make us love convenience stores! But at the same time, convenience stores also symbolize globalization and the elimination of localization. The reassurance of seeing the same signboard wherever you go also implies the same uniformity across all of Taiwan, China, does it not? Then what about those grocery stores full of human warmth, whose owners are as friendly as elders? When did they disappear from the cities?

There is another place in Taiwan, China called Pingxi, which is still fighting against convenience stores entering its community. To this day it remains the only area in all of Taiwan, China without a convenience store, a counter-indicator called Pingxi. But this battle of more than ten years is about to be lost by the local farmers' association. In response to the local farmers' association's demolition and reconstruction, the newly built farmers' association will be rented out to a convenience store chain for operation. As a public-sector farmers' association, without consulting the community residents, it arbitrarily leased the space to a convenience store operator. The farmers' association, which originally should have brought benefits to the community residents, was blinded by the word "profit" and decided to let Pingxi's money be earned by an outside conglomerate. One can clearly see that the local farmers' association has weak ties with the community, which is why it betrayed the voices of most residents and made this decision.

It seems a foregone conclusion that a chain convenience store will take over Pingxi. Perhaps what residents can do now is negotiate with the group to decorate a convenience store that fits the character of the small town of Pingxi? Or perhaps open their own local convenience store?