TAIPEI

If there is one place in Asia that I really felt the mystique of the continent, and began to understand the differences of culture which divide us in the west from these people inextricably - it was in Taipei. Yes, the capital is a haven for technological gadgets, and there's a 7-11 or even two on every block in the downtown area - but that just adds to the absolute postmodernity of the city. This is 21st century Asia, but not slick and polished like Tokyo - this is more Bladerunneresque. The mold still grows on the bottom of the pipes here.
The city is a patchwork of contrasts - there is the computer swap meet, packed with nerdy Taiwanese guys playing the latest Street Fighter ripoff and people watching them play it, packing the narrow hallways so tight that you can't even hope to get through; there are the giant glitzy department stores, with floors and floors of clothes in every size except one that would fit a western guy(or anything that fits my fashion sense either); there are the classic Chinese noodle shanties in the middle-class parts of town, near the overpasses of the roads.
And then there are the markets. My co-workers go on and on about the markets and shopping in Hong Kong and Bangkok, but I found the markets in Taipei to be the most fascinating so far.
The Shi-lin night market takes up about five city blocks, and as soon as you get off the subway station three blocks from the actual market you are engulfed in a sea of people heading for or leaving the market. You can only hope to move through markets at a snail's pace - and there are great deals on leather, cheap imitation designer clothes, strange foods, and jade as well.
The real experience of Taipei was the night markets - Shi-lin was amazing for its popularity; and there are several other markets around town. One that always get a good deal of press is 'Snake Alley', where some sick folks will cut open a snake in front of an audience, show everyone its beating heart, then cut an artery and pour the blood into a glass, and dare someone to drink it. Well, isn't that just nice. Maybe a few years ago this market would have been interesting - when all of the guys would get drunk, head down to this seedy part of town, and dare each other to drink the snake's blood. It's still essentially a market that feeds off the red-light district of its area - it's the only market where you'll see porn videos on sale, and there's a few questionable hotels tucked away in the alleys if you're into that.




Other sights around Taipei are the Chiang Kai Shek memorial, a very elaborate park in the centre of the city, the Sun-Yat-Sen memorial, and of course the National Museum. You can hardly say you've seen Chinese art until you've visited the National Museum, the largest of its kind in the world and the fourth largest collection of artifacts in the world period. I have a bone to pick with the way they organize their displays, though - with such a large amount of work, I think they could diversify their exhibits a bit more. The entire floor of jade vessels(about 500 of them, all lined up all around the room, all about the same size, height varying by only about 1") got quite boring. If you're into ceramics, studying the history of the medium is best done here - you won't find such a large collection of ceramic sculptures anywhere else in the world.

But Taipei has a mystique which is difficult to describe, and harder to explain - it's just a big, sprawling, Asian city - but the Taiwanese have adamantly held onto their cultural roots, so what Taipei ends up becoming is a giant, sprawling Asian city which still has its essence based in the ancient practices of Chinese lore. And I believe that is what makes Taipei such a fascinating place. Ignore the people who say that it stinks, it's crowded, and it's dirty - it's like that everywhere over there. Seeing Taipei is seeing the bridge between the modern and the ancient, and maybe if you spend enough time there, you may find out that the two are actually benefiting each other.


-December 1998







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