Taiwan doesn't have any sitcoms. Comedy here mainly consists of talk shows where people either on purpose or inadvertently say something funny.
However western shows and movies are quite popular. And perhaps I mentioned before that sitcoms about a close group of friends are extremely popular here. Many Taiwanese seem to envy that closeness as friends here can't be so close. A common comment is "I feel like all the characters are my friends too." I sometimes forget how relatively new some types of shows and movies are in Taiwan, meaning they have a much greater affect on people. I'm too jaded from growing up with TV to ever feel anything from a show. I kind of envy the affect shows can have on them.
Anyway about half a decade ago "Friends" was the big show. With many english schools selling the dvds, telling students that it's a good way to practice your English. But that show has been quickly forgotten as Taiwan is always a country of new things, and the question of what is your "favorite show" is always answered with what people are currently watching and not something from the past. So the new "close friends" sitcom of choice is "How I Met Your Mother."
I generally try to encourage people to watch better shows, but it can be tough. You can't just throw them into the deep end, you have to suggest a show that has some elements of the show they currently enjoy. So I sometimes recommend "Seinfeld" to those people who want a show about a group of friends. For the most part people are enjoying it, but the trick is you have to start them mid series, and then once the see some of those episodes they can go back to the beginning.
But the interesting coming out of all this is that those people who like Seinfeld, have become fascinated by stand up comedy. They usually go on to try and find more stand up comedy to watch. Since there is no such thing as stand up in Asia, it's quite unfathomable to many people here that there are people whose job is just stand up and tell jokes to strangers, but once they see some videos for themselves, they become hooked. So I guess look out for my other career as a comedy club owner.
The picture is of a happy occurrence in my gift package from my parents. They used some newspaper as padding, and I was happy to see the comics section. Especially since my love affair with reading in hot baths started as a child reading the big color sunday comic strips. Needless to say that Taiwanese newspapers don't have comic strips, then again Taiwanese newspapers don't necessarily have news either, but that's a story for another day.
