"Taipei is not a magnificent city. Photographers have a difficult time finding an angle that will make Taipei look magnificent." And yet, and yet...
Shu Kuo-chih was born in Taipei in 1952. His published works include Life Notebook, his appointments diary for 1977 with an 80,000 word appendix of some 500 brief biographies of famous contemporary figures in the fields of art, literature, music, and theater; and Thoughts on Reading Jing Yung. (Jing Yung is a highly-praised writer of Chinese chivalry novels.)
A slightly longer version of Life in Taipei was originally published in the China Times in four parts, and then translated by Michelle Min-chia Wu for the summer 1997 issue of the literary quarterly The Chinese Pen.
Extreme Freedom and Chaos...
Taipei. How can one describe Taipei? Standing on the back porch looking out, one stares straight into the window of a neighbor, guarded with anti-theft iron bars. Glimpses of real life in Taipei drift through one's vision, waft after waft. Ventilators roar in kitchens, sucking in the smoke and grease from sizzling woks, and two meters away, underpants hung out on bamboo poles flap in the breeze. The sound and fury of life roar here, with garlic and scallions exploding with pungency amidst the loud ranting of a mother scolding her child. Standing on the back porch, one knows for sure where one is--yes, this is Taipei.
Taipei. How can one describe Taipei? One must venture out and walk downstairs. The stairway walls of apartment complexes are spray-painted with advertisements that read: Do you need your toilet fixed? Do you need to track down a leak in your house? Do you need your water tank cleaned? Are you moving?
Walking in the narrow alleys, one sees flowerpots, broken chairs, iron chains, and other junk taking up valuable parking space--people claiming their territory to prevent other cars from parking in "their" space. The garage doors post warning signs, "Private garage, stay out, or else watch out for flat tires." Fliers are inserted under the windshield wipers of parked cars, and the tires are almost always stained with dog piss. In Taipei City, every inch of space is exploited, used to the hilt.
Lanes and alleys form a special landscape in Taipei. They used to be integral to the lifestyle of Taipei citizens. The sidewalks in Taipei are paved with thousands and millions of red tiles; pedestrians often have to play hopscotch on the tiles, skipping two steps to the right and three steps to the left to avoid stepping on loose tiles that would splatter muddy water all over one's shoes.
Taipei. How does one describe Taipei? Might as well start with the storefront arcades open to the sidewalk. This is an important architectural feature commonly found in Taipei, a unique architectural design that shelters pedestrians and shoppers from the frequent rain and the scorching sun. Today, the passageways are jam-packed with parked motorcycles. Empty aluminium cans are left standing on public telephones.
The telephones installed in the arcades have become private gathering places for teenagers. Riding on their motorbikes, they arrive at the telephones with a whoosh, and return their beeper messages with their engines still running, just like cowboys on horseback. Sometimes when they stop to make phone calls, they squat down on their haunches and end up occupying the line for a very long time.
Taipei. How can one describe Taipei? Teenagers like to squat down on the ground when they make calls on the public phone, and policemen like to get together in groups of three to five to drink tea as if they had all the time in the world to indulge in this activity. For a while, taxi drivers went wild over pol itical talk shows on the radio, especially programs that invited listeners to call-in.
Clerks at convenience stores habitually hold thousand-dollar bills against the light to check for authenticity. You wonder who taught them. You also notice that over the past few years, banks have started to transport cash in armored vehicles.
On the second and sixteenth days of the lunar month, altars laden with food and candles are set up by the stores on sidewalks along the street, and massive amounts of paper money are burned as offerings to deities and wandering spirits. The bonfires light up Taipei at this time of the month, creating quite a spectacular sight.
Almost all the little restaurants use disposable chopsticks. Millions of bamboo chopsticks are discarded and dumped into landfills in Taipei each day!
Gas stations that have closed for the day are often filled with parked taxis. The drivers fetch their cabs the first thing in the morning before the gas stations open for the day.
Many people wear Buddhist beads on their wrists.
Taipei. How can one describe Taipei? It is both large and small. The distance from Kuenming Street on the west side to the World Trade Center on the east side is but five or six kilometers. Sometimes it takes more than one hour to drive that distance. The distance from Tienmu in the north to Kungkuan in the south is a little more than ten kilometers, yet a midnight taxi ride from north to south can take only seven minutes. Taipei City, a city full of wonders.
Modern commercial buildings line the streets. They stand tall and proud, one vying with the other. Yet, in the neighborhood around the corner, one finds little temples and shrines on the first, second, or even third floor of the apartment building next door. Taipei. It belongs to the people.
Outsiders looking at Taipei might regard it as one of the ugliest cities in the world. It is a modern city lacking in harmony, elegant buildings, places of historical interest, and greenery. Its air is filled with suspended particles and there is noise pollution everywhere. The people in this city, however, do not walk at a very rapid pace. There are no homeless vagabonds on the streets of this city. Nor are there bag ladies. There are no slums or crime-infested neighborhoods. It is not a beautiful city, but its residents are not unattractive.
Since the external environment is coated with dust, people tend to keep their homes sparkling clean. Shoes are removed before entering the house. But there is no hysteria for cleanliness either. Some people do wear masks over their noses and mouths, but not many. There are stray dogs everywhere in the city, but its citizens have not taken such a dislike of the dogs as to exterminate them. The face of the city is crowded and messy, but very few people suffer from nervous breakdowns.
The dollar bills taken out of the pockets of Taipei residents might not be as crisp and fresh as those taken out of Japanese pockets, but they are definitely a f ar cry from the crumpled dirty bills taken out of the pockets of their compatriots in mainland China. Compared with other cities of the world, Taipei's public transport system leaves much to be desired, but its residents have so far put up with it and managed to reach their destinations without too many complaints.
The number of locksmiths in Taipei is unrivaled (do Taipei citizens often lose their keys?); the number of wedding boutiques and photo studios is also astonishing (have Taipei citizens all decided to tie the knot? Or do they just like to flip through their wedding pictures from time to time to remind themselves what they looked like as bride and groom?); clinics, especially dental clinics, abound (are Taipei citizens prone to minor afflictions and toothaches?); and the number of name-chop engraving shops is also unparalleled (do Taipei citizens have to prove their identity all the time?).
The residents of Taipei use the cleanest and softest tissue paper in the world to wipe their ass es. No one in Taipei uses recycled tissue paper for personal hygiene.
Taipei is full of people with leisure, but they don't necessarily idle around. Even though many people do not go to work, unemployment is not a problem in Taipei. Few companies lay people off. The retired old men in the city can easily seek employment as concierges at apartment complexes if they wish. Old ladies can always find bamboo shoots and pick sweet potato leaves to sell at roadside stalls.
Of all the large cities in the world, Taipei probably has the least graffiti. This is very strange. It's not that the government has spent a fortune removing graffiti. People in Taipei just haven't bothered to spray-paint graffiti in the first place. Taipei residents do not have a strong urge to express themselves on public property. One rarely comes across toilet literature in Taipei.
The residents in Taipei do not live in a garden city, nor is Taipei a city surrounded by woods, water, or beautiful scenery. Town squares do not dot the city of Taipei. Nevertheless, Taipei residents live and work with gusto. A glimpse of a mulberry flower glistening with raindrops can make their hearts tremble with joy.
Sounds and Smells
Taipei residents may not be in love with the crashing brakes of city buses, the running engine of motorcycles, the flush of the toilet downstairs, the peddler selling his goods by shouting through a loudspeaker, recorded messages saying welcome and bye-bye whenever people pass through the electronic doors of convenience stores, the crunching sound of iron doors at closing time, the blaring conversation of diners seated at the next table who seem to be busily engaged on their cellular phones, the pitter-patter of water splattering from the balcony upstairs when one's neighbor is watering the plants, the earsplitting music blasting from the radio of taxi cabs, the alarms that keep going off in night markets, the roaring sound of airplanes taking off and landing at the airport downtown, the omnipr esent saxophone music of Kenny G in coffee shops and teahouses...but they don't seem to mind. Taipei residents take it all in.
Now let me talk about smells. Passing by restaurants, one is always bombarded with the smell of grease. In theaters, one can smell the smoky flavor of fried chicken being consumed by someone seated nearby. Outside the theater, one is greeted by the smoke and fumes coming from the fried chicken peddler's cauldron full of simmering oil.
The doors of video game arcades slide open and shut, open and shut, letting out strong gusts of cold air-conditioner air blended with the stale smell of cigarettes.
Diving into a taxi cab, one's nostrils are often flooded with the strong smell of garlic, indicative of the fact that the driver has just had his meal.
Taipei is home to millions of tightly sealed households, millions of jars of scent and smell. You open the door, step in, close the door, and are enveloped in the familiar smell. Every one closes their doors to preserve the smells that are a part of Taipei.
Please don't say that it is uncivilized for the residents of Taipei to be so accommodating. You must know that it is human nature to appreciate peace and quiet. But before the peace and quiet arrive, Taipei residents do not over exert themselves by worrying. The people of Taipei are very practical.
What is Taipei like in the eyes of a sophisticated outsider? Pictures of naked women are printed on betel nut packages and cigarette lighters. Mercedes Benz luxury sedans and BMWs whizz down roads that are scarred with bumps and holes. Flimsy sheds are built on the rooftops of high-rise buildings. The buildings are built with state-of-the-art glass and cement, but the sheds are built of asbestos tiles or brownish corrugated iron sheets. Hawkers peddling their goods flee the moment the police arrive, but once they've left, the hawkers are back again. Hostels that serve as temporary love nests can be found everywhere. The neon lights of recreational centers a nd saunas blaze into the night, and video game arcades with gambling facilities open one after the other. The sophisticated outsider need only take one look at Taipei, and he should be able to speculate what sort of a city it is. He should also be able to sense that there is a great mystery that keeps Taipei in motion.
Addicted to Taipei
Why do Taipei residents stay in Taipei and not leave?
They stay because for breakfast they have a choice of soybean milk to wash down baked biscuits and crispy fried dough, rice porridge and pickled vegetables, or noodles with fishball soup. In the evening, there are night markets to stroll through, snacks to feast on whenever and wherever one feels like grabbing a bite, karaoke parlors where one can sing to one's heart's delight, and the wild abandon of being able to get drunk with friends and have a ball.
They stay for the mahjong.
They stay for the betel nuts.
Teenagers can go joy riding on their motorbikes. Garbage trucks an d taxis drive through red lights. In parks, the elderly can walk barefoot on pathways paved with cobblestones for therapeutic foot massages. Peddlers of car-wash services can always find a water faucet by the road to get into business. Legislators and council members can make their voices heard and even wave their fists and send their cups flying at government assemblies and council meetings.
Why do Taipei residents stay in Taipei? They stay for the greetings and chats with neighbors living in the same lanes and alleys. One can have the travel agency do all the legwork when applying for a visa, have a canister of gas delivered up five flights of stairs with a single telephone call, and order three or four box lunches and have them delivered to your office.
Every now and then you can take off with your friends to a Zen monastery to meditate for seven days.
In Taipei, especially in recent years, you can meet a perfect stranger in a restaurant and launch into a heated conversation about politics. Early in the morning, two old men can meet in the park and start exchanging their ideas on what they think about the New Party. They become so engrossed that they forget to practice traditional Chinese shadow boxing. Artists and writers can meet from day to night and night to day in saloons. Teenagers can indulge in video games and clink the night away at pachinko parlors. One can call friends up at any time of the day to set up dates and appointments without having to worry about invading their privacy.
One can get really up close to people and not worry about loneliness, alienation, isolation, and unbearable distance.
Or have people just become addicted to the pandemonium, noise, strife, murkiness, and motion simply because they have put up with it for so many years and can no longer do without it all?
So, Taipei is a city of the people. In this city, people emphasize mutual reciprocity. One is required to share one's resources with others in this city, otherwise no one benefits .
Mutual reciprocity takes precedence over the law.
Taipei Dining
If there is only one thing that makes it impossible for Taipei residents to live anywhere else, it must be the food. It is always easy to grab a bite in Taipei--you can eat anything anywhere at anytime and with no fuss. Restaurants welcome people of all classes, and none require patrons to wear suit and tie. Even world-class restaurants do not require patrons to make reservations six months in advance, as is the case in New York and Paris. That sounds ridiculous to Taipei residents, because in their opinion, one shouldn't fuss over eating well. It is a fact of life.
What do Taipei residents eat? They can snack on tempura, rice noodle soup, fried stinky tofu, and even plain noodles and rice with minimal garnishing. They eat box lunches. Yes, they can dine on simple fare, and they appreciate their food. Students studying overseas salivate when they think of the flavor of rice produced in east Taiwan, the sliced eggs cooked in soy sauce that leave a lingering taste in one's mouth, the chewiness of tempeh and deep-fried ribs, and the crispiness of pickled radish. Such a lunch box tastes good even when it is no longer piping hot.
Taipei residents can dine at world-class restaurants on simple but delicious delicacies such as steamed buns, shrimp fried rice, hot and sour soup, and rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves. Taipei residents can also sit at roadside stalls for noodles, boiled vegetables, and plates of liver slices and other roasted entrails.
What matters to the people of Taipei is what enters their mouth, and they do not pay much attention to presentation.
One look at a traditional Chinese market and one will realize that Taipei residents have not given up the joys of eating, despite their busy work schedules and lack of free time to spend at home. The wide selection of fruits and vegetables reflects the prosperity of the island. At the market, Chinese returning from Europe or the United States see vegetables that they have forgotten existed, for example Chinese mahogany, winter bamboo sprouts, lotus roots, shepherd's purse, water chestnuts, not to mention exotic plants such as bergamot, burdock, and Chinese yam.
Old-timers in Taipei can be very picky when it comes to food. They live to eat, and they eat to compensate for the unpleasant experiences that come from living in Taipei for years.
Taiwan used to be a hotbed of hepatitis. The residents of Taipei have also been alerted to the dangers of air pollution, acid rain, pesticides on farm produce, and water pollution. Their repentance is reflected in their diet.
Monosodium glutamate was the first to go. Households have greatly cut down the use of MSG in cooking. None of my friends uses MSG now.
They have also embraced health food. Quite a few people in Taipei eat only natural and whole foods as well as foods that can fight cancer. Many people grow their own bean sprouts, alfalfa sprouts, and wheat grass, and make their own yogurt. Vegetarian restaurants have come of age.
A City of Go-Getters, Capital of Money
Taipei is not a magnificent city. Photographers have a difficult time finding an angle that will make Taipei look magnificent. The scenery of Taipei has made its impact on the vision of Taipei residents. School pupils do not use their eyes to take in the scenery; they use their eyes to read, watch television, and stare into the screens of video games. Many are bespectacled.
Taipei is a work town, not a fun town.
The appearance of Taipei has been molded by the circulation and application of money.
The average Taipei citizen makes NT$20-30,000 a month, yet can still find ways to purchase a housing unit costing up to NT$4 or 5 million. This is definitely one of the many Taipei mysteries. It is interesting as well as essential.
Government officials and civil representatives are required to make their total assets known, and many own land. May I have your attention please, I said, "Land!" Taiwan is a very tiny island, yet they manage to find land to claim as their own!
Taipei, the capital of money.
Taipei residents seem to have a pressing need to use the phone. There are 280,000 mobile telephones in Taipei, one per ten persons. There are 380,000 pagers. It costs only NT$1 to make a domestic phone call on the public phone. That is less than 4 cents in US currency, five marks in German currency, three cents in terms of Hong Kong dollars, and less than four Japanese yen. For the cost of a bus ride you can make twelve local phone calls.
There are 16,000 public phones, which translates into one per 200 persons. Making a call is very convenient. If one phone booth is occupied, you can borrow the coin phone at a nearby restaurant.
The people of Taipei live in information, not reality.
Traveling in Taipei
Where can one visit in Taipei? No singular spot in Taipei can stand alone as a tourist attraction.
To see Taipei, one must bring little details into the picture.
The lanes and alleys are where people live from day to day. That's where years and years of memories are accumulated.
Strolling along Wenchou Street, I came across a couplet that said,"Thinking of my homeland three thousand miles across the sea, I have lived here on borrowed time for fifty years." This spring, a new couplet was put up, "I've laughed at the world and been accused of being too proud, how can I stand up to the ways of the world that tear hearts asunder." Very interesting. Without going into the writer's intention behind the words, just knowing that there are couplets posted on doorways in alleys like this is enough, and reading them is a joy.
The old lanes and alleys contain quaint old things that are very interesting. Apart from the Japanese houses scattered here and there, some gardens have tropical breadfruit trees with giant trunks and huge leaves. If you want to find out what an old Taipei neighborhood looks like, just take a look at the big tree near Number 17, Chinchiang Street. If you want to find out how narrow the streets and roads were many years ago, take a look at Tungan Street where it intersects with Roosevelt Road. It is barely wide enough for two people to pass shoulder to shoulder.
To glimpse the second-hand bookshops of yore, just visit the few remaining ones on Kuling Street, and try to visualize both sides of the street lined with bookshops during its heyday.
If you want to know what the Western-style mansions with gardens looked like, visit the section of Kuangchou Street that is close to Poai Road.
To this day, no decent guidebook of Taipei has been written. To this day, no documentary film that records the complete development of Taipei has been made. Strictly speaking, we have been without a map of Taipei for four or five decades. The closest thing that we have to a map is a directory of streets and roads. Yet, Taipei citizens have found a way to maneuver around in the lanes and alleys of the city without the guidance of a map.
Why isn't there a good map of Taipei? Is it for security purposes? Anti-theft purposes? Or to conceal poverty and ugliness from public view? I don't know. Are there no cartographers equipped with the skills to sketch a map of Taipei? Don't Taipei citizens have a need for a detailed map of Taipei? I don't know.
Anyway, old-timers in Taipei depend on their memories as they find their ways around Taipei's districts, sections, lanes, and alleys. They do not follow maps. But what are the postmen to do? What about pizza delivery boys? What are the policemen to do when someone dials for emergency assistance?
The lack of a map has created another advantage: giving rise to more hidden corners in Taipei.
The Changing Face of Taipei
Taipei's history. A very interesting issue.
Traces of history are often difficult to detect in Taipei. Taipei residents seem to be rewriting history all the time. Taipei was among the first cities in the world to discard the phonograph.
A black-and-white movie was made in the late sixties entitled Goodbye Taipei. The dialogue was all in Taiwanese. The Taipei portrayed in the movie resembled a city rebuilt after the devastation of war, with new apartment blocks standing bleakly on stretches of yellow earth and gray cement. The scenes look very much like the architecture portrayed in Italian films during the new realism period. But that was a scene from 1969. Was Taipei so backward then?
You must know that Taipei originated from wilderness. Forty years ago, it was a village filled with irrigation channels, rice paddies, duck muck, croaking frogs, overgrown weeds, and bamboo forests. But at the same time, it was also a city in which you could hop on a bus and arrive at a theater twenty-five minutes later to see French director Robert Bresson's art film, The Man Escaped.
Taipei residents are, on the one hand, sophisticated urbanites, and on the other hand, country bumpkins, since Taipei was a "country city" or "urban country."
In the span of forty years, Taipei residents have seen countless changes and rebirths. As compared with Europeans living in historical cities who have witnessed no changes for a hundred or even two hundred years, how lucky the people in Taipei are!
The people of Taipei reclaim land. Rivers, ducts, and ponds have been transformed into land. Just imagine, almost every old winding road in Taipei used to be a waterway. Old winding roads followed the natural curves of the waterway, and were not mapped out by design.
You might not believe that Taipei used to be a city surrounded by water. But it was, and not that long ago, just thirty years.
Taipei has been changing all the time.
At first, the cockroaches in Taipei were large. But in the past decade, more and more tiny cockroaches have appeared. They might have come to Taipei via freight carriers. Anyway, this is just an interesting fact to note. Taipei is filled with imported goods.
More and more Filipina maids are seen at marketplaces. Construction workers, English teachers, people at pubs and discos, and even guitar-players busking in pedestrian subways are people of different ethnic origins.
The young people are tall and hefty. They tend to be taller than their counterparts in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Vietnam. I was on the bus once at the time when students get off from class. Ten or twenty junior high school students boarded the bus at once, and the light in the bus was suddenly blocked.
Taipei has been changing all the time.
In recent years, more and more nymphets can be spotted in Taipei. Young girls band together and form gangs. They address each other by nicknames, punctuate their conversations with exclamation marks, carry designer backpacks, puff on menthols, wear black clothes and boots, and roam the streets of the fashionable East District late into the night.
At the intersection of Linsen South Road and Roosevelt Road, there is a strange Taipei phenomenon. A big tree punctures two stories of a house and continues its upward growth. The phenomenon has been around for decades. Twenty years ago, newspapers reported the phenomenon. In our conversations, we say, "That's the tree, that's the tree." But we never give it much thought. That is, did the tree come first, or was the house built around it? Or was there originally some distance between the tree and the house, and later the tree grew into the house and became an inseparable part of it? The interesting thing is, why wasn't the tree chopped down? In such a situation, Taipei residents would usually keep the house instead of the tree.
This is a strange Taipei phenomenon. It is a symbol of Taipei. The life of the tree, how it came to be, and whether it is legal or not to have a tree puncture a building are not important at all. The important thing is that it exists, and it has existed for decades.
One day while I was walking o n the streets, someone handed me a flier. It was instructions on how to survive a nuclear catastrophe. The last instruction on the list read: "When driving away from the city, please remember to look back at the city behind you, because this will be your last look at Taipei City."
Actually, I often look back at the city behind me. Every time I look back, some imperceptible change has taken place.
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Copyright (c) 1996 by Shu Kuo-chih. Abridged and reprinted with the permission of The Chinese Pen.