Not Star Trek Generations.
Last questions from March!
How well do the generations blend? Is there as much as a youth/senior divide as America has? Do they have old folks homes there? Or do generations live in/live together?
This is probably the toughest one because I’m not part of a multi-generational Taiwanese family, so I can only speak from the experiences of some of my friends and what I see around my neighborhood.
A friend in Taipei is an unmarried young professional woman in her early 30s. She lives with her parents, who are in their 70s, and also her grandmother, who is in her 90s. There is nothing abnormal about this. In fact, when I tell people that I live in Taipei but my parents live down south, they are a little horrified that I’d be so far away from my parents and alone in this big city. When I tell them about Gene, they’re placated, but still sad for me that I have to be so far away from my family.
My exercise teacher is a 63 year old grandmother. One of her daughters still lives with her, while the other lives in another city because of work. Both granddaughters – a high schooler and an early elementary schooler, children of the divorced daughter living elsewhere, live with their grandmother. Her own mother lives in an old folks home a few hours drive away in the city my teacher grew up in. She’s one of the younger siblings in the family, so her brothers and sisters take more care of their mother than she does.
One of the professors with a Fulbright here this year chose to live in a retirement community, since he and his wife fit into that demographic. It seemed like they loved their time there and found it filled with interesting people and fun activities.
My neighborhood is fairly intergenerational. A lot of grandparents taking care of young children while parents are off at work. Grandpas with babies strapped to their chests out on early evening strolls.
There are a couple of little neighborhood old folks’ social spaces set up by the city government. It’s basically a living room – couches, a TV, a small stove and hot water boiler – for the retirees to spend time with their friends in.

I’m not sure about the divide between youth and seniors. Certainly, they occupy more of the same space than they might in the US (although that’s a shaky assertion on my part), but I don’t know about the level of communication occurring within the shared space.
You ought to hear my exercise teacher complain about her teenage granddaughter’s hair. “It’s always in her eyes! She’s hiding that cute face behind it and she just sulks all the time!”
Some things, I believe, are universal.