It's the same old story: the young go out and have fun, while the older generation shake their heads. Perhaps nowhere has the concept of fun changed so much as it has within the last fifty years in Taiwan.
On December 31, 1999, the people of Taiwan came together to gulp down the last in a century of drinks, dance the last of a century of dances, and look back on what were likely the most dramatic fifty-odd years in Taiwan's history. While every generation likes to think that it lived in the most important and historical time of its culture, the Taiwanese of the 20th century have a strong claim indeed to say that theirs was a pivotal era. The period of Japanese occupation was one of rapid industrialization, but most records of that time seem to indicate relatively conservative and constant values. In the half -century since the land was returned to Chinese hands, however, lifestyles have changed completely.
In the last five decades, Taiwan has gone from being an interesting mix of East Asian cultures to a truly international meeting place for residents from around the globe. New forms of mass media, from television to the Internet, have exposed people here to novel ways of enjoying themselves, while the nation's newfound wealth has provided the means to try these new pleasures. From KTVs (the Japanese invented karaoke, but Taiwan "perfected" it with KTV) to Western dance clubs, Taiwan now has a new world of entertainment from which to choose. Likewise, problems once unknown here, such as drugs and teen drinking, have begun to surface.
At the center of it all is Taipei, the lively city of almost three million which now boasts hundreds of bars, restaurants and nightclubs, and even a city-government sponsored program to offer Internet access to all its residents. By examining a cross section of the capital's citizens, a clearer picture of Taiwan's changing leisure life begins to emerge.
Fifty years ago, nightlife in Taipei was a pretty sedate affair. "At that time there wasn't much to do here. We liked to do home crafts like cloth-weaving and making clothes for fun," recalls Wang Hsiu-ying, who is now seventy-eight. Wang grew up in the former mainland Chinese capital of Nanking during the turbulent early years of the Republic of China. When she moved to Taiwan with her husband at the end of World War II, she found life in Taipei a little dull. "My husband was an air force pilot, so sometimes we took trips back to the mainland," she says. "Of course that ended in 1949 [when the communists seized control there]."
For those less fortunate in their choice of spouse, a night out in the Taipei of the 1940s and 1950s involved little more than a trip to a neighbor's house or a walk in the park. Certainly, Wang is quick to add, the island's youth did not dance the evenings away as is the case today. "When we were young, we didn't have any money. Parents saved everything they had for their children's education instead of giving it to their kids to go out and play," she says, adding that this more traditional way of childraising is probably better from a societal viewpoint. "Kids today drink too much, and they really don't behave well," she adds.
Eugene Yeh, a sixty-eight-year-old retired Tourism Board official, paints a similarly rustic picture of midcentury Taipei: "We would go to the movies sometimes, but we didn't have bars and such. We also didn't have clubs where you could go to dance with your girlfriend. At that time, dance halls weren't for young people. They were very expensive, and most of the customers were forty or older." Yeh sees money as the key difference between his youth and the youth of today. Back then, he explains, there were almost no part-time jobs offering high school and college students a chance to make money, except perhaps for an occasional stint as a private tutor. As a result, Yeh and his friends were pushed toward less expensive activities, such as swimming in a nearby lake or going for an occasional hike. "Young people today have it better," he says. "They have a bigger variety of things to do, and since they can earn their own money, they can choose anything they like."
The real change seems to have come in the 1960s and 1970s, a time when Kent and Lisa Liu came of age. With the country now beginning to prosper, Taipei's young people turned to more urban pastimes. In Lisa's case, this meant student parties and more frequent trips to the movie theaters than Yeh's generation knew. Kent enjoyed a similar lifestyle, adding that long sessions at the mahjong table served as the centerpiece of many a teenager's evening.
While such activities may seem tame in comparison to the club-hopping nights of today's youth, they certainly appeared wild in the eyes of Kent's parents. "When I was young, my father and mother thought my behavior wasn't right. Of course, now I find myself criticizing the behavior of young people. I guess in the end, it's the same today as it was when we were younger. The technology has changed, but the leisure aspect is the same."
But if the sixties and seventies marked the letting loose of teenage cravings for excitement, it was certainly on a much less extravagant scale, as Lisa notes: "Younger people today have a more convenient life. They try to earn more money, but at the same time spend it frivolously and don't save it. I mean, we certainly didn't have credit cards when we were that young." She adds that while teenage parties had become more fashionable, lifestyles were still conservative in some respects--many of her and Kent's "nights out," for example, were spent with his parents.
Certainly, their social lives were not as freewheeling as that of eighteen-year-old Hung Wei-chieh who, though he lives in Keelung, spends as much time as he can enjoying the lure of Taipei's night life. "My parents don't mind if I go out, but I still need to tell them when I plan to come home," he says. "Once I didn't come home until the next morning, but my parents just said not to make a habit of it."
Hung says he spends some of his free time going to McDonald's restaurants to meet girls. That accomplished, he likes to take his dates to KTVs or even just strolling around Taipei's downtown. "I don't really like bars that much, though. Some guys my age do, but that's just not what I'm into."
The new youth of Taiwan may have a freer hand in deciding how to spend their evenings, but with that freedom come risks. Some members of the older generations see young people today as irresponsible pleasure-seekers, blindly rushing after drugs, alcohol, and sex. Others see the proliferation of Western-style entertainment as the cause of these new, "Western-style" social problems. Either way, the dark side of Taiwan's night life is a reality impossible to ignore.
"Clubgoers almost never used drugs ten years ago, but now it seems that out of ten people I meet on any given night, at least five are probably high," claims Jimmy Chen, a DJ at one of Taipei's most popular dance clubs and the head of the club's international relations department. While Chen says he sees the drug problem as none of his business, he does feel that the situation is worsening. At the root of the dilemma is the ease with which drugs can now be purchased. Although the club he works at has a strict anti-drug policy, Chen notes that it is impossible to stop customers from abusing substances outside the premises.
As for the casual sex usually associated with the nightclub lifestyle, Chen says this too is on the rise--although he considers it a much less serious problem. "I see people having more one-night stands than before, now that the Taiwanese are becoming more open-minded. In fact, I really don't think everybody in Taiwan is as conservative as they would like to make foreigners believe. If people here act repressed, it's only because they have passions they don't want to flaunt so obviously."
Victor Cheng, an art designer at a major record label who moonlights as a Taipei disc jockey, agrees that drugs and sex have become a not-so-rare feature of the local club scene. Cheng sees these issues as linked to the ever increasing Western influence on the island's young, but also argues that the problem may not be quite as big as it seems. "Westerners aren't to blame, but the whole thing--dance music, clubbing--it all comes from Western culture," he maintains. "That doesn't mean I think Taiwan is going to hell. The US hasn't exactly gone to hell, and neither has Britain."
In fact, Cheng goes on to say that since these social problems have already surfaced in the West, Taiwan now has a chance to learn from mistakes made in other countries. He notes that some of the former drug-users he has met say they see more and more substance abusers making the switch back to a cleaner lifestyle.
Just as illegal drugs may be a pressing concern, so too is rising alcohol consumption among the young. Taiwanese teens definitely drink more than their counterparts did twenty years ago, although the problem seems to have stabilized, according to Michelle Wang, the owner of a Taipei pub. Wang, whose own two children are in elementary school, says that teen drinking seems to have subsided somewhat in the past couple years since the city implemented a curfew prohibiting those under eighteen from being out on the street after midnight. Nonetheless, she adds that all barkeepers are still required to keep an eye out for minors who try to sneak in.
Wang believes that while part of the problem stems from the looser policies of today's parents, much of it is tied to the overall pace of change in Taiwan. "Life has been improving too quickly, especially during the last five or six years," she says. "I think when all these things are absorbed and the culture becomes a little more steady, things will get better." She also feels that younger partygoers deserve some trust that, just like responsible adults, they are capable of managing themselves when they go out. "If you come to my bar, it doesn't mean you have to order alcohol," she points out. "If you really respect yourself, you're not going to let other people push you into drinking." As for her own children, Wang says she will have no problem letting them out into the night once they come of age, but adds that she will still pay attention to what time they come home.
Perhaps the only way to offer the youth of Taiwan the freedom to police themselves in this new world of diverse diversions is through education. Entrepreneur Wu Yuh-sheng, whose work brings her into constant contact with foreign people and places, considers the teaching of self-discipline as the key to controlling these problems. "Children here face a lot of pressures from society, and if they aren't taught by parents or teachers to deal with these pressures in a safe way, then they're likely to seek out easy fixes," she says. "Education is very important for solving these problems. From what I've seen in the West, where drug-use and juvenile delinquency are even bigger problems than they are in Taiwan, education is the only answer that really seems to work."
She adds that the teens of fifteen years ago were no angels either, but the ones who grew up to lead healthy, successful lives, always had a parent or teacher to help guide the way.
Like it or not, Taiwan has opened itself to the world, and the accompanying changes in lifestyles cannot be undone. While the young of the 1940s and 1950s were content to stay home and make their own entertainment, today's Taiwanese--both young and old--demand faster-paced nights to follow their stress-filled days. And since the clock cannot be turned back, issues linked to the new nighttime routine of clubs and pubs must be addressed.
Whether through curfews, stricter parenting, or stronger education, measures will be needed to insure that the country can avoid these modern problems while still enjoying modern benefits. Of course, times keep changing, and the future shape of the island's nightlife cannot be predicted. While parents may be shocked by what their children do today, those same children will no doubt be shocked in turn when they have their own kids. So the advice to visitors is clear: Next time you go out to a bar or club or KTV in early 21st century Taiwan, take a good look, because twenty years from now it won't be a bit the same.
M.A. Chetwynd is a freelance writer based in Taipei.
Copyright (c) 2000 by M.A. Chetwynd.