Many of us have gotten into arguments with family members because of a generation gap. Maybe your parents didn’t understand why you were obsessed with heavy metal music, or maybe you wished your children would stop using their phones so much during dinner. Here in Taipei, some kids put together a book to help communicate with their elders better.
In Taiwan, where many three-generation families live under the same roof, the generation gap can be pretty wide.
She says, her grandparents see things differently than they do. 00:13-00:17 And she says they don’t like it when they get rowdy or hyperactive.
An elementary school in Taipei worked with a picture book illustrator with hopes to bring the kids closer to their loving grandparents who seemed to disapprove of so much their grandchildren did.
The students spent a year interviewing their grandparents and later drew pictures of the most common misunderstandings they run into at home. Illustrator Cheng Shu-fen said she collected the drawings through a workshop with the children, added her own style to the drawings and compiled them into a picture book.
At the book launch event, students performed skits based on the drawings.
Titled “Please Listen to Me,” the book includes 29 personal stories that came from the children’s interviews, and is an attempt to ask grandparents to hear the children out and have a heart-to-heart before scolding them first.