Despite seven years of handling customers at the bar, Yang is shy and self-effacing, punctuating his speech with a frequent, embarrassed laugh. Tonight, he speaks English, which he learned while getting a degree in tourism at Oxford College, a private school north of Taipei. The years of serving many Western customers have left him well versed in American slang. Regular foreign patrons know him as "Henry."
The Farmhouse is empty and tidy at this early hour, but the years of good business have left the comfortable wood-floored rooms with the permanent smell of cigarette smoke. Within the hour, the place will begin filling up with patrons; by midnight it is usually so crowded that it is difficult to move from room to room. The pub is located in the heart of "Pub Alley, " aka "the Combat Zone," a narrow lane lined with about two dozen pubs that originally catered to U.S. military men. Today, the Farmhouse attracts a diverse crowd: the upstairs features a live band playing mostly Western hits, while the downstairs offers a room for pool and darts on one side of the staircase and a disco, which Yang oversees, on the other.
As he talks, Yang finishes his nightly set-up procedures, putting out clean ashtrays, filling chests behind the bar with ice, and checking in deliveries of beer and liquor. He has to speak loudly to be heard over the American pop hits playing over the speaker system. Already, the bass is so heavy that the floor vibrates.
When I was a student, I worked for the Ritz Hotel [in Taipei] for almost a year. Then, before my army service [all Taiwan men spend two years in the military], I had a chance to work here. Then after the army, I came back here.
At the Ritz, I worked in room service. The room service manager, he taught me some skills, gave me a sheet of cocktail recipes. Also I have formal training from the Ritz. Actually I don't have a certificate for tending bar but, you know, lots of people aren't certified [for their occupations] in Taiwan. Most people. I learned to make basic drinks, not complicated ones. Some cocktails, I learned from foreigners. Most local people, they don't drink cocktails. They just come to hear the band, that's it.
There's no special reason why I started tending bar. It was just to get a job. I just had an interview with the bosses, Michael and Debbie. That was so many years ago—seven years ago.
Before, I worked upstairs [in the main bar]. After four years, I had a chance to run my own business. I opened my own bar, but it failed so I came back. (Laughs, embarrassed.) You heard about that? It was a very bad location, over on the corner [of the same lane], so the business was not good. It was called Henry's Bar. I tried for only one year. Then I came back, two years ago already.
Here in this area, at the Farmhouse, they have a very good business. Actually the bartenders don't need special skills because people just come. They have very nice business.
I start work [at the trading company] at ten-thirty in the morning and work till five. Then I come here from seven till two-thirty. Actually I don't get tired. I'm more practical than before. I'm married. We have a happy home. I have a daughter, she's five years old. [A delivery man carrying a case of beer calls out to him. Yang stops talking and dashes to the far end of the bar to open the back room door.] I must support my family. I lost pretty big money when I ran that business. (Laughs.) My wife works in the accounting department of a trading company. At night, she takes care of my daughter.
Actually this [tending bar] is not my interest. I just had a chance to get this job. At my age—I'm thirty-four years old—I can't change my job (laughs) unless I am the boss again. So I must do this.
Open my own place again? No, never! (Shudders and waves the back of his hand in front of his face, a gesture meaning "No.") I'm scared of that. I told you before, I'm a very simple person. Some people say I don't have any drive.
When I worked upstairs, I knew a lot of foreigners, I had a lot of friends. I know the drinks of different people. They didn't need to tell me, "I want this kind of drink." I just made it for them. People, guests, are very happy when the bartender knows their name, knows their interests, knows what they want. The main thing is: respect. Just respect the guests.
Sometimes, maybe three or four times, when I worked upstairs, I had to handle drunk people. At that time, I was still young. I get in a bad mood when people get drunk. They bother the girls. We might have a dispute and even a fight. But some people after fighting, they'll come back the next day to apologize. Some people, they just go.
This area [downstairs] is quieter. Down here, there is only one person (behind the bar). I need a partner, a helper, but the company is still looking.
I don't have any goals. I'm just a simple man. I just want my family to be happy. Maybe I don't have enough time to get rich. My parents are getting old. I come from the countryside, from Changhua [southern Taiwan]. People say that people from the country are honest, religious. I think I'm that kind of boy. (Laughs.) My father is an architect. My mother is a housewife.
Maybe when I'm forty years old, I'll quit tending bar and just keep one job. I like the daytime job because it's a normal job. Tending bar is a night job—it's abnormal for most people.
What if my daughter wanted to be a bartender? I would teach her. Maybe we would run a small bar together. Not this style. This style is too complicated. In Taiwan, it's difficult to run this kind of bar. And there are so many pubs. [A group of Taiwan businessmen in suits enter. One is obviously treating the others, and invites them all to sit down. Yang motions for a waitress, who had just arrived a minute or two ago, to take their order.] Customers are different now, there are more local young people, more young students. Anyway, it's good, because this is a big market.
—interview by Laurie Underwood