Those first things are hard to remember now (that was half a lifetime ago). And I later had another long stay in Taiwan, followed by another return here to the States, so I'm especially vague now about where "home" is and what is "normal." But in general the United States idea about children being "independent" from parents and parents not actively providing for them seems quite strange to me now--even though my oldest son, still younger than I was when I first traveled to Taiwan, is arguably more genuinely self-sufficient than I ever was up to that age.