Always Open

There is an elephant in the room. I’ve danced around this issue many times, but now it’s time to confront it head on. Convenience stores run this country. Hardly an exaggeration. In fact, a Government of Canada website states that Taiwan has the highest concentration of convenience stores in the world. At the end of 2005, there were 8,709 chain-owned convenience stores in the country, which is about four stores per square kilometer. About 46 per cent of the stores are 7-Elevens, and 21 per cent are FamilyMarts. So it’s safe to say that 7-Eleven is the king of the jungle over here.

Almost any problem can be solved with a trip to the convenience store. They sell junk food and drinks like a regular store, but they also have frozen meals, hot food on a stick, cold noodle salads, fruit, coffee, baked goods, and booze. Some stores even have spaces to sit down and eat. Then there’s the REAL convenience – the ability to pay your bills. I go to a convenience store to pay every bill. I pay my rent through the ATM, and I take all my other bills to the clerk who simply scans them and tells me the total. I have a pay-as-you-go phone, so I pick up my phone cards there too. Most stores have a photocopier/scanner, and some FamilyMarts have a machine for buying tickets to events. Really. And you can do all of this 24-hours a day every day. Even on typhoon days.

Seven-Eleven and FamilyMart are the most popular, and the quirkiest, convenience stores. Sev has a cartoon mascot. It’s a little beige dog with the 7-Eleven colours in a rainbow on its head. Most locations will sell merchandise with this dog on it, whether it be a facecloth, notepad, eraser, T-shirt, or watch. Some of the merchandise helps you find out this dog’s back story, and who his friends are. FamilyMart’s quirk is that every time the door opens, a lengthy electronic chime is played. By lengthy I mean that it’s longer than three seconds. I guess it’s supposed to make you feel special by having a song played just for your arrival, but I don’t know how the employees endure it.

For a while, I was not excited about the convenience stores. Shopping in a 7-Eleven made me feel like such a xenophobic foreigner. But I now realize that it really is a part of the local culture, and not just a system set up to baby foreigners. I thought the local stores were imitations of American convenience stores, but they are really something else. Something custom designed for life in Taiwan.

Sources:
http://www.ats.agr.gc.ca/asia/4319_e.htm
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2006/02/14/2003293007