Obviously, this won't apply to everyone, but foremost in my mind right now, on the short list of things that totally suck about living as an expatriate in Taiwan, is that when I choose to visit family in America, I have to spend something like 30 hours of travel time. As a tightwad, the expense relative to Taiwanese income is eye-watering, think two months salary for national average income. But worse, much worse, is the 30 hours. There are few miseries as unique as 30 hours in steerage on an airplane, with a couple of hours spent in traffic at each end, and two mad scrambles to make connections in between. This trip was peppered with turbulence on the transcontinental leg, and incredibly boring strangers jabbering at each other in English on the intercontinental leg. I'm not criticizing them for being boring. I am boring too, and by the stricktest of definitions, I could also be catagorized as yuppie scum. At least I have to decency not to spew word-diarrhea all over the next two nearest rows of other passengers. I hope I haven't permanently lost my ability to ignore conversations going on around me.
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