A Grandmother’s New World
Taipei City, Taiwan,Sun Apr 12 2026
When the Taiwanese grandma turned eighty, a brief fainting spell made her uneasy. A simple low‑blood‑pressure check by the doctor was all that was needed, but her family still felt it wise to keep an old iPhone handy.
She had never learned to read, so learning the four‑digit lock took a full week. The next day a young cousin returned from kindergarten with a fascination for Minecraft videos and decided to help her out. He installed YouTube on the phone, and soon a stream of short romance clips filled her feed.
Her taste turned out to be for 30‑second, low‑budget stories that made her laugh. A housekeeper who falls in love with her boss, a college student entangled with a BDSM friend, and a bullied high‑school girl who turns out to be royalty—all of them appeared in rapid succession.
The phone’s influence seeped into her daily routine. The small shop she and her husband ran since 1975 saw fewer customers, as she chose long breakfasts accompanied by endless scrolling. Even a visit from a neighbor with gossip was interrupted within minutes as she checked her screen again and again.
Every visit from a writer in New York revealed a shrinking attention span. Meals that once featured stories about city life were now silent, with the phone’s glow dominating the table. A fleeting blush appeared when she shared a clumsy romance plot, revealing something deeper than mere entertainment.
It became clear that these videos were more than silly tales; they offered a glimpse into a life she never had—a chance to experience youth, fashion, and romance. She grew up during wartime in Taiwan, helping with fishing catches at fifteen, marrying a local boy, and raising six children. She moved from village to Taipei, selling jerky and pork floss.
Education and teenage adventures were beyond her reach, so the phone became a portal to an imagined past. A visit to demonstrate voice dictation showed her attempt to speak into Siri, but the thick dialect proved too much for the AI. The moment felt like a shared understanding of her longing.
