You know those things that nobody really wants yet somehow have become gift standards? Well, you are looking at the Taiwanese version of that. These are little pineapple cakes (like pineapple fig newtons) which are gifts given to people you don't know very well. Basically if a gift means thinking about the person and what they want or need, than this gift means "i have no idea about this person so i'll just get them this."
If you're a foreigner, I hope you like pineapple, cause you are going to get this a lot. It's also the thing that most Taiwanese will give when they go abroad or meet foreign business clients. The idea being that they can say it's a special thing that represents Taiwan.
But of course like most gifts of this ilk, people don't really like them. That's not to say they are bad, they just aren't something that people will go out of their way to eat. Usually when you get some as a gift, you end up trying to pawn them off onto friends, so you don't have to eat them all.
Good for this shop though. Somehow this company was able to convince people that something they don't particularly like should be bought and given to other people. Quite remarkable. We could all learn a lot from their ingenuity.
