Whole families in undershirts and nightgowns laugh over miniature cups of tea. Packs of mopeds zip by, some stacked precariously with parents and small children.
Elderly couples pad past in their slippers.
It's after midnight on a weekday in July, yet the streets of this working-class city just south of Taipei are bustling as if by daylight. Members of the Chang family share a pizza dinner in their Campbell home. Jenny and John Chang, cousins from America, blink at the sights and sounds of their birthplace, suddenly realizing how far they are from the Santa Clara Valley where they grew up. As they follow their grandfather to a restaurant to eat xiao ye , a midnight snack, the steamy air swirls around them. Cool,'' he says, as if that's the only word to accommodate his awe.