Commerce continues even in the midst of tragedy. It is, after all, one of the ways people can process the world around them: integrating it into their daily lives and rituals. So we get ads for chemicals of cockroach destruction. There’s a Taiwanese company making rice crackers that you can use to act out the conflict. Parodic products, too, like meals of mass destruction.
Of course, the world continues in ways that have nothing to do with the war, as well. It’s all very Auden and Breughel really. While allying with the US against North Korea, South Korea is still pursuing a WTO ruling against the US on tarrifs. Editorials in Taiwan use any opportunity to proclaim the Chinese government as despotic and awful, which is probably pretty accurate. Pioneers of technology and commerce die and are euologized.
Secretly Ironic 
